Learning Perl, 3rd Edition by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix
I found the characters in this book one-dimensional, the plot
non-existent, the writing jarring.
But I did learn Perl, so there’s that.
Book Log – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
An enjoyable, though short, read. I’m only mildy worried that I was right
there with the narrator when he went off on his tangents. There is a
section in the book where the (autistic) narrator wants to a mathematical
proof into the book, but his teacher advises him that people don’t want to
read mathematical proofs and I thought “Well, I do.” Thankfully,
he put it in the appendix.
Reading this made me think that a cool novel would be where an autistic or
otherwise unreliable narrator is solving a crime and gets it wrong, yet
the reader perceives the real solution. There is some of this in this
book, but I think it could be interesting as a full concept. Somewhat
like watching Memento, in a way.
Enough of this fiction nonsense. I’ve got to go finish learning some Perl.
Foolish Future
New
Year’s 2016: How’d We Get Here?
Amusing Excerpts:
Now that we’re coming to the end of the first year of President Obama’s
administration, for the first time in a number of years, there is a fair
amount of hopefulness regarding the economy…
Think back to 2007. Do you remember the neighborhood upon neighborhood
of unsold newly built homes on the far reaches of many of America’s growth
cities? Remember the jokes that one of the purposes the Pacific Ocean
serves is as a boundary so that Atlanta and Washington would have to stop
growing west?
2005 Book Log In Review
The annual Round up…
Virtually a toss up between Math and Theater…
You scored as Mathematics. You should be a Math major! Like Pythagoras, you are analytical, rational, and when are always ready to tackle the problem head-on!
What is your Perfect Major? |
Happy Newtonmas! and De-evolution
I’m really terribly excited about Newtonmas or Gravmas. I had never heard of it until I looked up Christmas on Wikipedia.
Newton’s birthday is December 25 (though if you adjust the calendar to the current Gregorian, it’s actually January 4… but hey, Jesus wasn’t born on December 25 either…).
The Newtonmas tree is an apple tree (because of the apple that led him to gravitational theory), and presents are supposed to be gifts of Knowledge, like books or DVDs, as long as it contributes to intellectual development.
Everybody sing! Iiiiiiisaac Newton’s coming to town! Iiiiiisaac Newton’s coming to town!…
—
The De-evolution of The Answer to “What Happened To Your Hand?”
Telling 1: “I was pulling a water glass off the shelf when it slipped and fell. Instinctively, I reached to catch it right as it hit the countertop, but instead rammed my hand into a huge glass shard. Put a big gash in my hand from between the index finger and thumb all the way around my thumb. Blood everywhere. Pretty nasty.”
Telling 23: “I dropped a glass and cut my hand trying to catch it.”
Telling 43: “Nothing.”
it seems…
…everyone in the world has sliced their hand on a broken water glass at
one point or another.
Most Amusing Ancestral Names
The most amusing names from our ancestry:
Hercules Del Nero (Stacey)
Jemima Smallwood Cawood (Ryan)
25% Crucifixion (or) A Left Handed Christmas
a while back i posted about words you can type with one hand… i believe it was decided to call them qwerds.
here are some left handed qwerds:
erase start red great fart greet qwerd aware
i only bring it up because this afternoon as i was thinking how nice it was to have an afternoon with nothing to do, i dropped a glass. as it fell i grabbed for it, and the glass, my hand, and the counter all collided at an unfortunate time. a huge gush of blood and a pile of gauze later, i was in the emergency room with a huge deep cut going from where the thumb and index finger meet across the palm to the side of the thumb.
and when i say deep, i mean deep. the triage nurse, er nurse and doctor were all light-hearted banter until they actually looked at the cut… and the mood changed to quiet awe. “wow… that’s a really deep cut,” they each said.
“i like to be thorough,” i replied each time.
the doctor was very concerned until he could verify i had not sliced a tendon. apparently the angle of the cut was just right to avoid it.
after four hours and a very uncomfortable procedure involving 12 stitches, the nurse was cleaning me up and giving me instructions not to use the hand until the followup on monday (ordinarily, they would just have me back to cut the stitches out in 10-12 days, but as they kept telling me, it is a very deep cut).
Nurse: so what do you do for a living?
me: i am an engineer.
nurse: oh. well, not this week you aren’t.
so, i’m learning to do things left-handed. did you know that it is possible to lather and rinse your left armpit with your left hand in a pinch? also, i did not know that handedness applied to brushing your teeth.
there are many other side stories to this which slow typing prevents me from chronicling, but one tidbit was my doctor used to be a computer programmer but got out of it because he was being pushed into management. i’m not sure quite what to make of that. i’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader1.
i guess those leaves are going to stay in my gutter for another week. i’m all broken up about it.
1 also a qwerd.
Happy Esperanto Literature Day!
Felicxa Esperanto Literaturo Tago!