Technical Writing

Toccata & Fugue in the Key of Blockchain

January 20, 2018
Technical Writing

The origins of the underlying data structure has everything to do with ensuring a document or set of documents can be proved published in a particular form at a certain time. In this context, a document could be an image, audio file, movie, or other computer file. This is incredibly general and adaptable to many different circumstances.

Does Blockchain Generate Trust?

January 16, 2018
Technical Writing

Generating trust from nothing is one of the first major feats blockchain is hyped to do, but blockchain itself doesn’t generate trust out of nothing. It actually derives from the system in which blockchain is used. A blockchain is actually just a chain of blocks of data having a particular structure which ensures its self-integrity, it can only be used to guarantee the data written to the chain was done so in a certain way. Multiple blockchains can be created with the same data up to a certain point — in fact, Bitcoin does this all the time in the mining process and the fork stays around until a majority of nodes choose the fork which grows longest.

Bitcoin is An Energy Hog -- and its value seems tied to that fact

December 27, 2017
Technical Writing

The price of bitcoin from around 2015 until mid-October 2017, tracks with the price of electricity in China. From August and October, it correlates with the average US cost of energy. In November, it goes on a space walk to a new energy level. By the start of December, it moves with the average cost of electricity in NYC.

The Hypothetical Future of Space Communications

November 28, 2017
Technical Writing

Imagine being on Mars, giving a presentation at a conference on Earth with real time audio and video (or VR even). All it might possibly require is a sufficient amount of planning to store separated entangled photon pairs in both locations and proper timing of a signal to initiate the protocol a suitable time before the presentation. This means we’d still experience a delay, but it would only happen before the stream starts — like a sort of quantum buffering. Of course, this is my imagination running wild. Science will still have see if it’s even possible.

Towards a portable solar/wind replacement for gas generators

October 13, 2017
Technical Writing

This is a general overview of how to design a solar power system, preferably a portable one. This takes a look at the power density disparities between gas powered generators and solar power systems. It also provides an overview of energy requirements for a few common tools, appliances, and home health needs. It then guides the reader through the calculations and decisions needed in order to build a proper solar power system.

What to Look for in PHP 5.4.0

December 17, 2011
Technical Writing

PHP 5.4.0 will arrive soon. The PHP team is working to bring to some very nice presents to PHP developers. In the previous release of 5.3.0 they had added a few language changes. This version is no different. Some of the other changes include the ability to use DTrace for watching PHP apps in BSD variants (there is a loadable kernel module for Linux folks). This release features many speed and security improvements along with some phasing out of older language features (Y2K compliance is no longer optional). The mysql extensions for ext/mysql, mysqli, and pdo now use the MySql native driver (mysqlnd). This release also improves support for multibyte strings.

The State of Functional Programming in PHP 5.3.x

June 24, 2011
Technical Writing

A few weeks ago, I started looking into the possibility of functional programming in PHP. I stumbled across the capability of defining anonymous functions — starting with PHP 5.3.0. These can be used to define closures with bound variables and also for partial application or currying. Higher order functions can also be defined.

Documentation for gRaphael: g.line.js

February 21, 2011
Technical Writing

gRaphael provides an easy way of creating charts through JavaScript. Unfortunately, many people have complained about how poorly it is documented. In the interest of seeing more good looking charts on websites, I decided to go through the code and post documentation here.