I saw this question on the iOSProgramming topic in reddit:

I’ve seen a number of different ways to access the NSManagedObjectContext when working with Core Data, but I was wondering if there are any downsides to the way I’ve been doing it. Basically, I stick a computed variable in the AppDelegate, and grab it when I need it… Please let me know if you see any flaws… If not, feel free to use it!

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My robot hobby is picking up steam. After going through the Python examples that came with the GoPiGo, I got inspired by some embedded Erlang videos on YouTube and decided to see if I could control the GoPiGo with Elixir. After watching Elixir Sips, I learned of a project called Elixir/Ale, an Elixir library for embedded programming. With Elixir/Ale, you can talk to the GPIO ports on the Raspberry Pi and some common hardware bus protocols: I2C and SPI. I2C is used by the GoPiGo board, so Elixir/Ale looked like what I needed. So I looked up some Elixir docs, typed mix new exgopigo, and started coding. The result is ExGoPiGo. All it lets you do right now is turn on and off the robot’s two front LEDs, but it does that by writing to the I2c bus. Controlling the motor and such shouldn’t be too hard.

I’ve been getting into robots lately. For a long time I was searching for the perfect robot kit to use with my Arduino. Then I decided I’d rather use my Raspberry Pi to control my robots so I could use better programming languages like Clojure, Elixir, Scala, Ruby, etc. So I was looking around for the perfect Raspberry Pi robot kit.

For Christmas, my parents gave me the OWI Robotic Arm Edge. For the longest time, I didn’t like it. I wanted a moving robot and something I could program.  

The Problem

Last week, I had to implement sticky footers in a table view. Sticky footers are where the footer comes at the end of all the table contents, but if the contents are such that the scrollable content height of the table view is less than the height of the view, the footer will still appear at the bottom of the view.

A non-sticky footer

You’ve probably noticed that my blog has changed again. I’ve moved back to Wordpress from Octopress. I could never find a plugin for Octopress that did image captions right. I spent way too much time on it and just decided to use something that just worked. I looked at a lot of static blogging engines and they all had their issues.

With Wordpress, I have to use the web based editor, but it works and their is a lot of plugins and support behind it. I have better things to spend my time on. To make things better, I think I’ll try Desk. I’ve also installed the Markdown plugin, so I can continue to use it.

A while back I wrote a blog post and entered it in a contest for App: The Human Story. I came in second, and for that I was awarded a custom app token from Matic. It finally came last week and here it is:

My app token

Now, I finally have a sign for my office.

There is a Kickstarter project that was started recently for a film titled App: The Human Story. It “is the story of the cultural phenomenon that touches all our lives.” It is about the people who make apps. Many of them are people I follow on blogs, and listen to on podcasts, and look up to. I simply had to back the project, and I did. The producers of the film, on their blog, have asked that others involved in apps write about their own stories. This is my story.

If you haven’t noticed, my weblog has a new design and new content. I have switched from WordPress to Octopress and have used a new theme. So far, I like it. It’s nice to be able to use Markdown instead of some slow web tool to write my posts.

My old blog was mostly political commentary and I’ve decided to remove that. Some of my most popular posts were the posts about my sabbatical that I took in the summer of 2002. Those, I have preserved and ported over to the new system. I enjoyed reading them myself. You can find them in the Sabbatical category.

Today is officially the last day of my sabbatical. Friday was my birthday and Monday is the day to begin anew. I had hoped that my sabbatical would bring spectacular changes to my world, but it did not. However I still think it was a good thing. It gave me a lot of time to reflect on what I want to do with my life and it helped me come to peace with how things are. I believe I’ve grown spiritually and am more at peace with myself. I am increasingly interested in Zen Buddhism, which seems to suit me particularly well.

Wednesday, August 14th, 2002

Wednesday morning I got back in the Jeep and started my trip home. My plan was to stay the night in Lubbock, then Albuquerque for a day with my folks and then back home. I got to Lubbock in the afternoon, but Patricia and Robert weren’t there. Instead, I was greeted by their 16 year old daughter, Christine. On my previous visit, Christine had been in Vietnam, where she had been for the last 6 weeks. Her parents had told me a lot about her as most parents do. Patricia had described her as “16 going on 25”.