Monthly Archives: December 2009

Happy New Year

Posted on December 31, 2009 by MXH

I just wanted to wish you a happy new year. Thank you for taking the time to stop by and read what I write. This site is tiny by the standards of the Internet, but that just means each reader … Continue reading →

Posted in Jack Handy | Comments Off

The Prince: Chapter 18

Posted on December 30, 2009 by MXH

Today we look at the eighteenth chapter of Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince“. This chapter discusses “In What Way Princes Must Keep Faith”, and concludes the dastardly tetralogy of chapters on which, in my opinion, the popular conception of N.M. is … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Club | Tagged | Comments Off

The Prince: Chapter 17

Posted on December 29, 2009 by MXH

Today we look at the seventeenth chapter of Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince“. This chapter is “Of Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether It Is Better to Be Loved or Feared”, and, if you know N.M. by reputation (or have been following … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Club | Tagged | Comments Off

Welterweights

Posted on December 28, 2009 by MXH

Since the Floyd Mayweather/Manny Pacquiao fight seems to have run up on the rocks at the moment, let me seize this opportunity to issue a modest proposal: Paul Williams (who says he can still make 147) vs. the winner of … Continue reading →

Posted in Boxing | Comments Off

Deep Copying (Built-In)

Posted on December 27, 2009 by MXH

I’d previously presented some code that made deep copies of plists. I recently discovered that this code is superfluous, due to the CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy method. You can invoke this function with a call such as this: testData = CFPropertyListCreateDeepCopy(kCFAllocatorDefault, [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:path], … Continue reading →

Posted in iPhone | Comments Off

The Prince: Chapter 16

Posted on December 26, 2009 by MXH

Today we look at the sixteenth chapter of Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince“. This chapter is “Of Liberality and Niggardliness”. It is an interesting chapter which argues that a prince who is generous with his (people’s) money will ultimately earn their … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Club | Tagged | Comments Off

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2009 by MXH

s = ‘s = %s; print s %% repr(s)’; print s % repr(s) (Put it in a file, e.g. ps.py, then run python ps.py | python | python | python | python | python | python | python | python … Continue reading →

Posted in Python | Comments Off

C99 Arrays

Posted on December 24, 2009 by MXH

Today, I learned that a cool “new” C feature had snuck up on me. This was added in C99, and it has apparently been integrated into Objective-C (where I stumbled across it) as well. Briefly, this sort of thing is … Continue reading →

Posted in iPhone | Comments Off

The Prince: Chapter 15

Posted on December 23, 2009 by MXH

Today we look at the fifteenth chapter of Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince“. This chapter is “Of the Things for Which Men, and Especially Princes, Are Praised or Blamed”, and is perhaps the most stereotypically “Machiavellian” of the book. It’s still … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Club | Tagged | Comments Off

The Prince: Chapter 14

Posted on December 22, 2009 by MXH

Today we look at the fourteenth chapter of Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince“. This chapter discusses “The Duties of a Prince with Regard to the Militia”, and in it N.M. argues that making war is the essence of being a prince; … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Club | Tagged | Comments Off