andymatuschak.org: archive

It’s starting!

Also, four targets already. So much infrastructure to do so little!

You know, I pretty much dropped off the face of the planet in September. I was doing all this great Cocoa development stuff, writing all these articles, getting my name out in the bloggoblag, and so on.

And then Caltech attacked.

I actually did escape my first year at Caltech happy and bitterness-free (this is rare!), but these last few weeks of summer are the only free time I’m going to have for a very long time, so I’m feeling vaguely like a man trying desperately to complete a huge list of tasks before an appointed execution date.

It’s not all stress, though! I spent last week lying on the beach of a gorgeous, peaceful island. The only photos I have are old, as my camera decided to self-destruct on arrival, but you can click the first to see a few more.

Caltech has the highest density of bitter, cynical people I’ve ever seen, but I’ve got a lot going on to keep me relaxed. Between trips to the gorgeous beaches of California, I joined Caltech’s a cappella group to get my music fix. I became a member of Blacker Hovse, one of Caltech’s frat-like dormitories. A lot of interesting things seem to always be happening in Blacker. And, most contributing to my sanity, I have an absolutely amazing girlfriend.

So that’s pretty much what’s going on with me. I’ve acquired quite a lot of great stories from a year at Caltech—if I find time, maybe I’ll share a few.

I don’t know if you have heard it. There’s a certain rumble moving through the air—a tremor shivering across the earth. Oh, yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for a major update to Sparkle, the shiniest solution to the most boring problem ever!

Planning has been underway for the last few weeks in the Conspiratory; please join in and make suggestions. These are the final weeks of vacation before school begins: my summer research has ended, but classes haven’t started yet. That means this is the only window of opportunity for coding I’m going to have for the forseeable future!

Stay tuned—I’ll keep you informed of my progress.

It’s a strange irony: Cocoa makes writing feature-filled apps so easy, but it’s really quite hard to pick up how to use it! You might start with the Currency Converter or some other basic tutorial, but it’s very difficult to get the big picture; where do you go from there? None of the printed books currently available will ground you in the more recent parts of Cocoa that make it really unique.

Print this article out and fold it up along the dotted lines. If you do it just right, this text will become a tiny flashlight in a dark forest of dangerously obsolete literature.

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