kchodorow

Innards of Tar

I’ve been working with tar files a lot lately and I haven’t been able to find a good example of what a tar file looks like, byte-by-byte. The specification is the best reference I’ve found for how tar files are structured, but it isn’t exactly friendly. Here’s an interactive breakdown of what tar files lookContinue reading “Innards of Tar”

TEALS – Teaching CS on your way to work, part 2

If you’re in NYC and thinking about volunteering, there is another TEALS information session tonight. After my last post on TEALS, Dan Goldin generously offered to answer some questions about his experience teaching students in Kentucky (remotely from NYC). What class are you teaching? What are they learning now? I’m currently teaching AP Computer ScienceContinue reading “TEALS – Teaching CS on your way to work, part 2”

Mestre Boneco’s Training Sequences

I’ve been doing capoeira for about a year now. It’s very fun and a great martial art for geeks (singing! dancing! friendly people!). I really recommend it if you’re trying to get into shape or build strength/flexibility. Different capoeira schools use different sequences of moves, and I’ve never been able to find the ones myContinue reading “Mestre Boneco’s Training Sequences”

TEALS – Teaching CS on your way to work

Last night, I went to an information session about TEALS, a volunteer program where software engineers teach CS to high school students on their way to work. Basically, the schools schedule the CS class for first period so that the engineers can make it into work by 9:30. There are four programmer volunteers per classContinue reading “TEALS – Teaching CS on your way to work”

Hello, Digital Ocean!

I recently switched this blog to using Digital Ocean for hosting, so please let me know if you notice anything broken. On a side note, Digital Ocean is amazing and I highly recommend it to anyone who needs web hosting. You know how Github makes working with Git repos so pleasant? Digital Ocean does theContinue reading “Hello, Digital Ocean!”

Makin’ Mazes

After my previous post on the subtleties of CSS subpixel rendering, Andrew pointed out that readers might be more interested in how to dynamically generate mazes. It sounded crazy, but here we are. First of all, if you’re interested in this stuff, there’s a great slideshow on maze generation here and more resources on theContinue reading “Makin’ Mazes”

Update Your Feeds

Some RSS housekeeping: If you haven’t subscribed, subscribe over RSS or email! If you subscribed within the last couple of years, thank you and you don’t need to do anything. If you subscribed more than three years ago, please make sure you’re subscribed to kchodorow.com, not snailinaturtleneck.com. This site has been permanently redirecting to kchodorow.comContinue reading “Update Your Feeds”

Fixing CSS antialiasing on Chrome

I’ve been working on creating mazes with LimeJs and I ran into a problem: As you can see, this maze looks like it was rendered by a dying printer: there are horizontal white lines all over the place. I was going crazy trying to track down the cause: the squares were perfectly sized/placed and theContinue reading “Fixing CSS antialiasing on Chrome”

Glupdate

After getting Google Glass, I started wearing it around. Every day I’ve worn it, someone has asked me about it. A waiter even asked to try it on (which I let him, not like he was going to run off). Only guys have asked me about it, but that might be because guys tend toContinue reading “Glupdate”

Game Jam Resource List

The best programming thing I found in 2013 was game jams. They are so much fun, a great way to get better at programming, and stretch my artistic chops. They also really makes you focus on finishing the game, which (for me) is the hardest part. There are downsides: jams take up the entire weekendContinue reading “Game Jam Resource List”