Mitchell N. Charity

mncharity@vendian.org

Some local pages:

Education

Some printable paper rulers
How Big Are Things?
How Big Are Things? Cube
A Solar System Scale Model Meta Page
Fermi Questions
A View from the Back of the Envelope
Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps - by Kees Boeke
Some other pages:
Angle Cards - A "business card" for measuring angle and distance
and A chart for measuring angle and distance to targets
Getting to know the Joule (J), an energy unit
Your enormous surface area...
Where is China? It is down over there...
Round Earth, Tilted People
The Monty Hall Problem - a state-space explanation
An Exponential Notation Meta Page
Make A 10 Centimeter Cube

Software Engineering

Inline.pm Notes - "it's not just scripting glue, it's dynamic code generation"
  An Illustration of Perl Objects with C APIs
  An Optimization Anecdote about PyInline
The Year in Scripting Languages (2002)
Using Inline::CPP with wxPerl
A Combined Table of Contents for Several Programming Languages
Source files which work with perl, python, and ruby , and tcl, C, C++
Inline::SWIG
Software engineering - our maze of twisty passages, glowing bright
Principles of Computer System MisDesign - some notes
Patched version of Paul Moore's FFI [...for perl]
Some other pages:
a BtYacc patch page
Some C Language miscellanea , C Language - Grammars (both old and crufty)
(Perlman's 1998 thesis)
(LCS TR list mirror) (trying to help google around an unfortunate robots.txt)

Misc

What color are the stars? and What color is a blackbody?
How big is Afghanistan? - An example of map comparison.
How big is Iraq? - An example of map comparison.
Making globes of the planets
Year 1740 Treasurer's Account (Town of Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay Colony)
US Frequency Allocation Chart - a printable tiled version

A few other "current" projects:

Education:

Software Engineering: And falling down the infinite todo list into oblivion: Some other (rather old) links:
ACE yardstrips - disposable paper rulers
Musings - miscellaneous, mostly old
An old homepage.

From the preface of John Scott Russell's (engineer and naval architect) massive "The Modern System of Naval Architecture", 1865 (135+ years ago)...
We the passing generation have had to grope our way out of the dark slowly and painfully, with trial and error. But what has to be pardoned to us can no longer be pardoned to our successors, to whom we bequeath the costly knowledge and painful experiences that have cost us so dear, but which we have gladly earned, and now painstakingly contribute for their instruction, and the advancement of their future...
(John Scott Russell, from the preface of "The Modern System of Naval Architecture", 1865. Quoted in Henry Petroski's "John Scott Russell", Engineering column of American Scientist, v86/1998Jan-Feb, p21)

Mitchell N Charity <mncharity@vendian.org>

Notes:

Doables:
 Add more current projects.
 Characterize other activities?  Self?
 Mention "rat in pane", a gui comment.
  It seems obvious, but google/dogpile don't list it.

History:
 2004-Feb-19  Added tcl/C/C++ multifile.
 2004-Feb-17  Added "Combined ToC".
 2004-Feb-17  A bit of organizing and dusting.
 2003-Nov-30  Added "Getting to know the Joule", direct link to tr list.
 2003-Nov-17  Added, and then removed, a page on a now-fixed specrend bug.
 2003-Sep-01  Added plpyrb source hack.
 2003-Aug-11  Added FFI patch.
 2003-Jul-08  Added Perlman's thesis.
 2003-Mar-21  Cloned afghan_map to create iraq_map.  Quick hack.
 2003-Feb-04  Re-added `Exp.Not. Meta'.  Seems to have been dropped over the years.
 2003-Jan-16  Added `Year in Scripting..'.
 2002-Sep-30  Added `Inline::SWIG'.  Changed email address.  Trimmed active list.
 2002-Sep-23  Added `Inline/wxPerl' post.
 2002-Sep-07  Added `rulers'.  Bumped FermiQ's to Active, given recent work.
 2002-Jul-23  Added `Make A 10 Centimeter Cube'.  `Exp Meta' off active list.
 2002-Jun-23  Added `interactive F=ma'.  Downgraded `language proselytization'.
              Missed spring astronomy day.
 2002-Apr-11  Pulled over old TIAC homepage as site goes away.
 2002-Mar-12  A light edit.  Gasp.  "Under construction" moved to end.
              After almost five years.  Yipes.
              Fiddled with so-called "current projects" list.  Sigh.
 2002-Mar-05  Added Inline page.
 2001-Dec-08  Reflected title change of 1740 page.
 2001-Nov-16  Added planet globes.
 2001-Nov-05  Added a sketch of some current projects.
 2001-Oct-21  Added `Freq Alloc Chrt'.
 2001-Oct-05  Added `Afghan map'.
 2001-Aug-14  Added `Angle Cards' and `chart'.
 2001-Jul-19  Added Russell quote.
 2001-Jul-09  Added `A BtYacc patch page'.
 2001-Jun-04  Added `What color is a blackbody?' and `are stars?'.
 2001-Feb-16  Added `How Big Are Things?'.
 2000-May-31  Added `yardstrips'.
 2000-May-27  Added `Treasurer's Acct'.
 1999.Mar.23  Added `Some C Language miscellanea'.
 1999.Jan.26  Added `C Language - Grammars'.
 1998.Oct.15  Added `Monty Hall Problem'.
              Upsized Musings.  Removed times from History.
 1998.Sep.22  Added `maze of twisty passages'.
 1998.Jul.08  Reshuffled links.
 1998.Jun.06  Added Cosmic View.
 1998.Mar.15  Relocated some http://www.tiac.net/users/mcharity/ pages to here.
 1998.Feb.25  Added China is down over there....
 1997.Dec.23  Added MisDesign.
 1997.Aug.18  Added link to an old homepage.
 1997.Jul.12  Added link to An Exponential Notation Meta Page.
 1997.May.29  Scooter just picked up.  Ah well.  So added note.

Time slips by:
 2004-Feb-17 - It seems people are now reading this page (not just spiders).
 So it's been dusted a bit... after almost 7 years.  And the following removed. :)

     Under construction.
     AltaVista's "scooter" just picked up this page (29 May 97), so some comment is in order.
     I do not have a current personal home page.
     This is the closest approximation. I plan to fleshed it out at some point.
     Hasn't happened yet (1998.Jul.08).  Still (2001-Feb-16).