urwhatu

Autoconf Macro for libarchive

Tim Kientzle's excellent libarchive just works. On lots of platforms. And it has the right license. Thanks, dude. Here's an autoconf macro for your stone soup.

st_lib_archive.m4

Technorati Tags: Programming, autoconf

htonl, ntohl: where are you?

One of the most irritating things about cross-platform programming is that so many of the differences between systems are utterly pointless. Witness the header files you have to include to get the standard network-byte-order to host-byte-order functions into your library:

Solaris:

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <inttypes.h>

Linux:

#include <netinet/in.h>

Mac OS X:

#include <arpa/inet.h>

OpenBSD:

#include <sys/types.h>

FreeBSD:

#include <arpa/inet.h>

or

#include <netinet/in.h>

How stupid is that? netinet/in.h looks like it almost might work, but in reality there are many supporting functions that cause all hell to break loose if you don't use these particular sets of include files. Once the lack of a long long network/host byte conversion routine gets thrown in, it's easier just to roll your own, which is what I ended up doing a few months ago for one of the libraries I work on.

Technorati Tags: Programming, Splunk

Caltrain Peevishness

Since I started biking to the Caltrain depot everyday, I've become aware of a group of people who regularly grab the best (and often, the only) available seats on the bike car. And they're not one-timing. There's a guy in his mid-forties, half-bald, the kind of guy who looks at you over the bifocals perched on his hawkish nose...you know who I'm talking about, right? At peak traffic (the 5pm-ish baby bullet), I see this guy get on the bike car (the second time I've seen him do this), and take one of eight seats that are available for cyclists. I glare at him, then indicate my rolled-up right side pant leg. He looks back and then averts his eyes into a paperback. Thirty seconds later, one of the conductors walks by and says "folks, if you're not a cyclist, please don't use these seats." We exchange glances again. There are clearly written signs everywhere that explain why it's important - bicyclists have to stay in the car with their bikes. There are bicyclists standing on this particular car. There are only 5 bikes, but all eight seats are taken. There are two extremely overweight, well dressed girls who are also obviously not cyclists. I need to spend some time thinking about how to make life maximally uncomfortable for these people.

Technorati Tags: Caltrain, San Francisco

Why Baby Stuff is White

Been learning a lot about living with babies lately. You ever wonder why all baby stuff is white? We had no idea until we tried to put Yuna into the fancier (and much more expensive) of the two bassinets that we have. It has a striped, brightly colored bumper (for all you non-parents out there, it's a little cushion thing that goes around the inside of the bassinet to keep baby from bumping into the hard parts of the bassinet). Natsuko got this particular bumper because she doesn't want pastels to be overdone in our house. So we tried to put Yuna down in this thing and, as usual, when you lay her down, she briefly opens her eyes to check out her surroundings, making sure she's safe -- when she sees this bumper, she feels like she needs to escape from her swaddling cloth.

Lesson: buy calming colors for very young infants.

Technorati Tags: Yuna

NextCaltrain Widget

Best ever widget for bay area train commuters: NextCaltrain.

Technorati Tags: Caltrain, San Francisco

First Correspondence

The Social Security Administration shows a little lightheartedness by being the first entity to send a letter personally addressed to Yuna.

Technorati Tags: Yuna

Yuna

Yuna Felice Stechert was born at 5:16 AM, Saturday April 1st, after about 8 hours of labor. She weighed 6 pounds 9 ounces (2890 grams) and was 58 centimeters long. Mommy Natsuko is finally starting to feel a little better after a very tough night (and subsequent week). It is amazing how quickly time flies by now.

Technorati Tags: Stechert