Teensy/Arduino timer simulator
I built a simulator for the 16-bit timer in the Teensy++/Arduino microcontroller in the hopes that people (e.g. fellow students of SOEN 422) might find it useful. Keep in mind that it’s a work in progress and has some bugs. A Simple and Interactive Explanation of the Teensy’s 16-bit timer (Timer1).
The Maeslant Kering: BOS development
I came across this paper (found via Lambda the Ultimate) on the development of BOS, the control system for The Maeslant Kering, which is “the movable dam which has to protect Rotterdam from floodings while, at (almost) the same time, not restricting ship traffic to the port of Rotterdam”. The development team used formal methods [...]
Thoughts on the Quorum paper
Recently on the “It Will Never Work In Theory” blog Greg Wilson blogged about a paper by Andreas Stefik, Susanna Siebert, Melissa Stefik, and Kim Slattery on “An Empirical Comparison of the Accuracy Rates of Novices using the Quorum, Perl, and Randomo Programming Languages” (pdf). The paper compares Perl, a popular programming language, to two [...]
Check out my talk at D4D Boston 2011!
In July I went to D4D Boston 2011, a Drupal conference with a focus on design. Even so, I was given the chance to do my talk on Drupal 7′s Field API. To my surprise, I had an audience of around fifty to talk to (or it at least felt like fifty). The talk was [...]
A giant nursery
If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self some advice, the main thing I’d tell him would be to stick his head up and look around. I didn’t really grasp it at the time, but the whole world we lived in was as fake as a Twinkie. Not just school, but [...]
Using my coffee addiction to become addicted to boring stuff
Cafe Myriade, the best coffee you can find in Montreal, has always been a special treat for me. Such a treat, in fact, that I will do any unpleasant task with vigor if I allow myself to have a cup of Myriade in exchange. I discovered the effectiveness of this trick when I brought a [...]
Concordia SOEN prerequisites made easy
At Concordia, if you want to figure out the order in which you have to take your software engineering courses, you have to go to the calendar and read through a million pages of text, jumping back and forth between the lists of core courses and the descriptions of those courses, where it tells you [...]
Teamwork!
This semester is turning out to be busy. I’ve got five classes, none of which are easily ignored, along with a co-op work term I’m trying hard to get employed for. I’m not letting the stress get to me, though, so I’ve attained this zen-like state of busy-yet-happy. If I can maintain this through the [...]
CUSEC 2011 thoughts
CUSEC 2011 was my second time at the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference. I felt less lost this time around, and it was a good time. We saw some good talks, spoke to some cool people, and skipped a lot of class. Some highlights (my top 3): Drew Conway spoke about terrorism and drug networks, [...]