Atlanta, GA (ATL) Austin, TX (AUS) $89

Atlanta, GA (ATL) Boston, MA (BOS) $89

Atlanta, GA (ATL) Charleston, SC (CHS) $69

Atlanta, GA (ATL) Melbourne, FL (MLB) $69

Atlanta, GA (ATL) Ontario, CA (ONT) $119

Delta Specials for February.

Weekly Web Fare Specials from Delta for weekend and last-minute getaways

# Detailed seat map graphics.
# In-depth seat specific comments denoting seats with limited recline, reduced legroom, mis-aligned windows.
# Color-coding to help identify superior and substandard seats.
# In-seat power port locations.
# Galley, lavatory, Exit Row and closet locations.

The other day I needed to know if a particular exit row seat on a Delta 757-200 was any good. This site tells you. Nice. Delta has seat diagrams on the check-in screen, and on the web, but they don't show bulkheads, etc.

In this case, row 19 on a DL 757-200 had 5 feet of leg room. NICE.

Welcome to SeatGuru! Your Guide to Airplane Seats and In-flight Amenities

I spent six months coding it. I spent three weeks integrating it.

It works. It actually works. And its really, really cool. Cooler than I thought, even.

I can't believe it works. I mean, I can but... wow. It works. Not in the lab. Not on my notebook. It works in the field, where its supposed to, on real data.

And there's nothing like it out there.

It works. It really, actually works.

Flowcharts and the Law

I've found that effective use of charts in communicating the law tend to be focused on process, rather than actual code. For instance, there is an excellent flowchart by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that maps out the process of the American Criminal Justice System. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/flowchart.htm

As to teaching the law, Ian Iredale has done some interesting work on this using .RTF (Rich Text Format) flowcharts with hyperlinks. He has some examples from Australian law, including the Law of Contract, Intellectual Property, Tax Equations, and the Legal Paradigm at http:// www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v9n3/iredale93nf.html

-- Russell Jurney (email), September 11, 2005

There seem to be two ways of looking at the law (and many other topics, for that matter).

One way of looking at it is as a continuing evolutionary process. So for example, to understand the laws around airline safety and immigration in the United States, you have to put it in the context of the security situation around that time - terrorism, reform of the intelligence services, and so on -. Landmark udicial decisions are also likely to have a big influence on current practice and on the code itself.

This is a great way to look at things if you work in social policy, or if you need to have a broad understanding of the legal situation without understanding the nitty-gritty. However, it won't tell you much about what you should do if you actually want to engage with the law - it's not a 'how-to' manual.

The other way of looking at it is in terms of an understanding of how it actually functions on a daily basis - what form you should fill in, what sort of action you should take, what appeals are open to you, and so on.

This is a good way to look at things if your purpose is to be directly engaged in operating the system, because it will guide you as to what your next action should be in most cases.

Of course, a really good specialist will know the system both ways. They know the context, but they also know the specifics of how to work the system. By combining these two types of knowledge, they will find innovative ways of using (and possibly abusing) the system.

Showing the 'bridge' between these two types of knowledge is the most challenging and interesting issue.

-- Antoin O Lachtnain (email), September 11, 2005

I think the key to briding the gap between these two kinds of knowledge is to get lawyers working on systems that base themselves on a visual representation of process that is sufficiently plastic to allow the expression of alternate strategies, the embedding of expert knowledge, etc. In time, through annotation, a system representing both kinds of knowledge will be born.

Ask E.T.: Teaching Legislation

Chameleon is a unique stock icon set for the web that features simple, friendly, universal shapes designed and hand-crafted by SimpleBits. Each set (available in four styles) contains 70 royalty-free icons (preview the full set), each weighing in at a standard 16x16 size (perfect for favicons) in GIF format. Chameleon is unique in its ability to change color, allowing you to custom match the set to your own site's color palette. Choose either a pre-selected six-pack of standard colors, or create your own set(s) using the background color of your choice. Choose a style to get started!

PRETTY ICONS

Chameleon: color-changing icon sets from SimpleBits

And programmers, as I quote Larry Constantine in my book, programmers are programmers because they like to code -- given a choice between learning someone else's code and just sitting down and writing their own, they will always do the latter. And the programmer who says, it will be faster for me to write it, rather than to learn it, is usually correct. Except that what he will write, most likely, is something that will work but will not have its rough edges worked out, will not have the benefits of a piece of software that has actually been used for a few years, where the bugs have been found and the users have given feedback and have helped you figure out where the problems are. So what they will often be handing you at the end of that I-can-do-it-faster-myself thing is something that works, but that is kind of a mess in certain ways. Whereas the thing that you were going to pull off the shelf, maybe it will take the programmers a while to learn it, but once they learn it enough to hook it up to this project you are creating, what they are hooking up will probably have a lot fewer problems.

Software is hard | Salon Books

In 1976, her writing, which she said was often fueled by “truly impressive amounts of beer,” landed her a job at The New York Times. She cut an unusual figure in The Times newsroom, wearing blue jeans, going barefoot and bringing in her dog, whose name was an expletive.

Language Log: Molly Ivins

Chris Jurney
Senior Programmer, THQ
Chris is a Senior Programmer at Kaos Studios in New York where he is working on AI for Frontlines: Fuel of War. Prior to Kaos, he worked at Relic Entertainment, where he was responsible for pathfinding and AI on the award-winning RTS, Company of Heroes. Before entering the games industry at Relic, Chris spent 5 years in Atlanta working on slot machines and military weapon simulators. He graduated from Georgia Tech with a BS in Computer Science. Chris maintains active membership in the furry community, organizing a monthly event in Philadelphia as Slidey the penguin.

At one point everyone was sure my brother was smarter than me. I was the 'creative one.' Well, I still am that. But I'm smarter than that fuck. Except my maths are weak. Gotta work on my maths.

WARNING: Lunesta does not cause sleep, but blog-walking.

Chris Jurney: Game Developers Conference 2007

Feb. 3, 2007 | One way to look at Salon co-founder Scott Rosenberg's new book, "Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software," is as an attempt to tell the story of a specific software development project -- the effort by industry legend Mitch Kapor and a band of ace programmers to create Chandler, a kind of turbo-powered personal information management program that would dazzle users with its ability to enhance their productivity.

Software is hard | Salon Books

I wants to go.

SIGGRAPH 2007 | The 34th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques