Sue your developer

Chocolate truffle tart for Erin

2009-07-10T11:45:00.007-04:00

Credit goes to Lucy Waverman for the idea in a Globe & Mail food column.

I brought this evil dessert along to the rowing club pot-luck supper yesterday. It's the single simplest and most impressive uncooked dessert that I know. The basis is ganoche which is heated cream with chocolate whipped in.

For 7 inch pan:

10 oz dark chocolate
1 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp liqueur (optional)
2 tsp grated zest of orange/lemon (optional)
1 cup cookie crumbs or nuts (e.g. ground almonds)
2 oz - half stick - butter
Decoration.

Prep time: about half hour plus time to set in fridge - 2-4 hours.

Use a 7 inch spring form cake pan to allow the dessert to be removed easily (but you can make this in any container as long as you line the pan with silicone paper or something like that). This dessert is very sticky at room temperature, but handles well once frozen. If you are taking it to a party you can cut it up when frozen and either serve frozen or thawed.

Method:
Make a crust with your favorite cookie crumbs mixed with melted butter (1 cups crumbs to half stick of butter). Or use half ground almonds instead of the cookie crumbs. Mix the crumbs and the melted butter and press into the bottom of the pan.

Heat cream to just about boiling. Remove from heat break the chocolate into pieces and addto the cream to melt. Stir well until smooth. Sir in the zest and liqueur. Pour over the crust. Leave to set in the fridge. Remove from pan and decorate as you like.

Stored well wrapped in a freezer, seems to keep well for 6-10 months. I find that if I make several at one time and keep them for special occasions it saves on mess and work.

Decoration suggestions.
I find taking the cake out of the pan painting it with orange marmalade and then sticking on sliced almonds looks nice. Add a few curls of chocolate or dried apricots or frozen raspberries...
At room temperature you can shape the dessert, so even if you have an accident, drop it off the plate onto the kitchen counter like we did on one memorable occasion, it can be repaired. Orange slices, mandarin segments, whipped cream...

Variations:

You can build up layers of different flavoured ganoche, once the first has set. Adding a can of sweetened or unsweetened chestnut purée to the ganoche makes a nice contrasting colour. Or use different chocolates; better quality chocolate is expensive but worth it; milk or white chocolate can look stunning as layers.
If you are covering the cake with nuts then just pour on the different layers and allow to set. Gently swirl them if you ar not covering the with nuts so that the swirls show a nice effect.
Different fruit toppings or swirl in something like gently crushed raspberries from Dentz farm. M-mm!
Different liqueurs: orange is great. There's a really nice inexpensive orange flavoured drink from the LCBO called Monsard Orange & Brandy. This won't break your budget at $24, and it's nice to drink as well. Forget that over-priced French stuff...although remember "Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.*"

Depending on the depth of the pan you can make this tart as deep as you like. Hmm...a deep tart...sounds like we could craft some kind of joke around that as well.

* - Stolen joke alert!

Jerk to inflate

2009-06-21T16:49:00.003-04:00

Over the years we have acquired several inflatable PFDs all branded as "Sospenders".

The first 2, bought in 1995, included life harnesses and are auto-inflate. They have a water soluble "pill" which will allow a spring loaded pin to pierce the CO2 capsule and inflate the life jacket, hopefully, in the case where one plunges, unconscious, over the side. They are also suitable for non-swimmers because one doesn't have to have ones wits about one for the things to inflate.

The other 2 PFDs we bought in about 2000 are so-called manual inflation models. These are lighter (no built in harness, so no heavy stainless steel rings and clips) and they have to be inflated by pulling a handle. They are nicer to wear just for a quick run in the dinghy or on a calm day.

When we bought the PFDs we bought about 3 sets of spare gas bottles and retention plastic clips to prevent the handles from being pulled accidentally - you have to pull quite hard: the handle at the end of the cord says "JERK TO INFLATE", which for pathetic reasons I find hilarious.

The thing we noticed at the time we bought the second set was that the design of the inflators had changed and the plastic clips we had for the old ones are not the same for the new ones...same idea, but about 3 mm different in size.

So far so good. In 2001 we had one of the automatic PFDs serviced by Sporting Lives Inc. - a friend had tried out the inflation of the device (at my suggestion) and had pulled the cord off when it didn't inflate. Totally my fault - I had unscrewed the gas bottle to prevent accidental inflation, and had forgotten to rearm it properly. Must be the drinking.

So the inflator was broken and the servicing company had replaced it and serviced the jacket for $40 US including shipping, which I consider to be reasonable.

We have used all the PFDs sporadically for the last few years, but have always taken care of them. Check them regularly and inflate & repack them annually.

We then bought a new boat in 2009 - on board was a non-automatic PFD identical to the ones we already had. It had no gas bottle or plastic retaining clip. So we started the search for our spares (somewhere in the basement) unsuccessfully. No worries, we thought...the product says "Sospenders by West Marine" on it. We'll just hie ourselves to the nearest West Marine and get the bits.

Not so fast, boater...West Marine no longer carry the compatible retaining clips for the brand of inflators that is in all these PFDs. The company that built the PFDs (and serviced them) used other suppliers' inflators and is no longer in business, having been bought out by Stearns in 2005.

Hours of fruitless searching for these tiny plastic clips on the web later...f*ck it, I thought, the only purpose of these clips is to add a bit of impedence to the pull cord so that the thing doesn't go off accidentally when one is moving around. I have experimented with a piece of stiff stainless wire formed into a clip and it works very nicely. I think we can save ourselves a lot of fooling around and just use this for the ones that don't have plastic clips, or to re-arm them in future if we use the PFDs in earnest (which destroys the plastic clips).

So, a pair of needle-nosed pliers (Leatherman Wave, always in my pocket) and some stiffish 1mm thick stainless wire. Cut the wire to 2.5 cm, shape a curl in each end and put the ends of the wire in the holes replacing the clip. About 10 mins of experimenting, including trying the destructive test of pulling the handle and voilà! It is, in my eyes, a better design than the plastic clips, can be created by anyone, anywhere and reduces dependence on the manufacturers whims, design changes etc.

Of course the current generation of inflators has a tiny plastic peg in a hole, that will require some thinking to reproduce...if we ever get one of those.

One interesting thing: the professional servicing of these $150-$300 units seems to be non-existent now. I can't find anyone in North America who does this. Dozens of companies do this in the UK and Autralia, for example. Perhaps there is no market for this here. Perhaps in the UK, people are less ready to throw out an expensive item and take safety seriously so they have them serviced. Perhaps it's fear of litigation in NA...plenty of insurance companies will sue anyone they can think of if someone they insure is damaged by a defective PFD.

(We even heard of a Canadian marine surveyor who killed himself to save his family assets because he was being sued by a US insurance company. He had the misfortune to survey a boat that subsequently sank, killing a woman. However, I digress.)

Personally, having knowingly modified a PFD, I am willing to take the risk upon myself. So sue me :-)

Santa's helper - confession time

2009-02-17T11:45:00.003-05:00

My conscience is troubling me - I fancy myself a rationalist, but in December I took part in the swindling of a little girl (aged 6). She'll hate me when she grows up I know. What can I do? I was begged by her lovely mother to help out:

Santa Claus
North Pole
H0H 0H0
Canada
24 December 2008

A Special Message from Santa

My Dearest Elizabeth,

I have thought long and deeply about the gift you want so much: a poodle. Not just any poodle, but a black poodle. I know that you have tried your best all this year and that you have been a very, very, good girl. Your mommy and daddy say you are a wonderful daughter!

Elizabeth, I am truly sorry, but Santa cannot give pets to anyone! My job is to give toys to good girls and boys - but a dog is not a toy! A dog it is a living, breathing animal that requires a lot of time, money, hard work and constant care and exercise.

Every Christmas there are dogs and cats given to children by their parents. Sometimes the children cannot care for them and the poor puppies and kittens have to go to the Animal Shelter: homeless! It makes them very, very sad!

If the time comes and your parents think that it is right for you and your family to have a pet, then you can talk to them about it. Until then you must be patient.

If you want to keep Santa's magic, please keep this message a secret from everyone except your mommy and daddy. Let me know what you think about it, you can write to me anytime, not just at Christmas.

I will be sure to bring you a special gift instead!

Give your little brother a hug from me!

With much love,

Santa.

National Do Not Call Disaster

2009-02-15T23:12:00.005-05:00

For quite a while this thing has been bubbling under- the fact that the CRTC has sold the National Do Not Call list to a bunch of unscrupulous, possibly criminal elements.

On or around Oct 1, 2008, in my usual got-to-be-first geeky way, I added a couple of cell-phone numbers (Don's and mine) to this list, as soon as it opened for business. The transaction was completely on-line...add number, then another number. I also added another friend's home phone number. The security was so lax I could add any number I wanted. In retrospect I should have added the numbers of the CRTC privacy point person but we can't all be prescient.

Everything was fine for a couple of months. Then this story came from the CBC. People were receiving more calls on their phones than before. The CRTC said that it was "under investigation."

Then in January 2009, this report from Yahoo news Canada - the CRTC basically admitting that they had sold the list, the do-not call list, repeatedly, for $50 to telemarketers. It could then be downloaded.

Now as we all know, telemarketers are honest, decent types, who really don't want to bother you at suppertime.* Clearly they didn't really have a use for this list (of people they shouldn't call, right?) so perhaps through the magic of the internet, the list was, possibly a little bit sort of, passed on and downloaded by a person in the United States. Nothing technically illegal is done.

One doesn't need to be Inspector Maigret to work out what happens next, and what happens next is entirely legal in the strict sense of the word. Don and I start getting automated calls from machines in the United States. Every day. We have never, ever got nuisance calls before. We only use these phone to call one another (very rarely handing out the numbers to anyone). These calls warn us of dire happenings because our car warranty is running out or some such guff. That this phone spam is automated is even more annoying (as we cannot ask to be taken off the calling list and they cannot pretend to do so).

Some research shows that these calls come from the most shady side of the outbound telemarketing world, probably run by organized crime. So Canadians who previously had anonymous cell-phone numbers are now being targeted by this traffic. Uurgh.

I suppose it's only fair. For many years, boiler rooms run out of Canada were targetting U.S. citizens for stock purchasing scams. It took a lot of cross-jurisdictional wrangling to get that stopped effectively.

So I got fed up and wrote to my Member of Parliament:

To Mr Guy Lauzon, House of Commons,

A question of privacy

Dear Mr Lauzon,

Late last year when the National Do No Call List was started, I registered some cell phone numbers, although I had practically never had any unwanted calls on these numbers. Perhaps one in 6 months.

This was clearly a huge mistake! And I am very upset about this.

We have since started receiving daily calls to our cell phones from numbers from numbers with area codes in the United States. These are automated calls, mostly from numbers that are reported to be part of some kind of phone scam e.g. involving expired car warranties (949 256 9179).

I feel that the CRTC, the organization that set up this registration scheme has been dreadfully mismanaged.
Somehow they have allowed my cell-phone numbers to be given to unscrupulous persons (probably organized
criminals).

In addition, when I actually put my numbers on the system using a computer, there was no security
- I put several numbers on, and one for a friend. (I think that this mistake has since been remedied,
but it clearly exposes how poor the implementation of this scheme was).

When I answer these calls, I get to pay for the connection. If I don't answer calls, then I may miss
something very important. I feel that my only recourse is to get another cell-phone number for my phone,
which will leave me paying additional costs and be a serious inconvenience.

If this had been a commercial company and not a federal government agency, I would probably try to
get the transfer fee back from them or some compensation, but I probably don't have that option.

I find this very frustrating and a serious betrayal of my privacy to be exposed like this.

What can be done about this?

Sincerely,

Susan Welsh.

cc. vieprivee@req.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca, privacy@req.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca
(email addresses for the CRTC and Do Not Call list privacy staff)

Perhaps something will come of this. Perhaps pigs will fly.

* IMO telemarketers are pond-slime, second only to email spammers in their evil ways and deserve to be eliminated (see previous spam-related entries). That's right...I'm a pacifist - but we're only talking about eliminating pond-slime so no harm done.

Spam quarterly review - penis enlargement resurgent!

2009-01-23T15:02:00.006-05:00

Once more into the breach...I do this as a public service, so you don't need to worry about the slimy things caught in your spam filter.

The big story, as always, is penis enlargement spam. It's rampantly ballooned in the last quarter! Drugs are down and fake watches are up. There are more new categories than I have seen in one review before. Overall volume is down. This may reflect some serious recent spam-killing actions, metaphorical and actual.

The current profile looks like this:

19% Posh watches practically being given away. This is up from 12% from last quarter.
19% Discount pharmaceuticals, including offers of drug trials for viagra and queries about having "heartaches." (Headaches, heartburn or lovelorn? Perhaps all three). Dramatic decline from 56%.
11% Penis enhancements and help for your (always female) partner. More than doubled in size! That's more like it!
10% Why do you need Adobe software? (Because I'm a pathetic web programmer...) Cheap "genuine" software, with reference to financial crisis as excuse for piracy, presumably. Avast! New category, shipmates! I think MS and Adobe better cut their prices dramatically ;-)
9% We ship worldwide: Hot deals/Member services/Status accessories and attributes/eBay/Payment accepted/Safety information. Unimaginative. C'mon guys you can do better than this!
4% Appeals to update your firewall, O.S. etc. Also a new category. Also lame.
4% Diets endorsed by Oprah...you'd have thought that wouldn't be a recommendation worth having, but I guess she's tried a few. Up from 1% last quarter.
3% Your check is (still) waiting (is that Czech or cheque?) and other bogus sales confirmations. Also up from 1% last time.
3% Dating sites, with transparently lewd come-ons...eew!
2% Activate your Internet TV/Watch movies on your PC. New category.
2% Gambling - who put the bling in gambling? Perhaps no-one, it's down from 6% last time.
1% This is why you are fat. What little me? I've always been told I was robust! New.
1% Appeals to laziness (Why work? Why get out of bed?) Why indeed. New.
1% From "Doctor" Berry; "Clearance: Save up to 75%.-Choose Real Taste™" (which is a Pizza Pizza slogan). Clearance pizza as a cheap medication? Yay! New.
1% Unspecified financial help to fix what ails ya. Well this isn't the flood of financial crisis help offers that I predicted but it's up.

Someone asked why I bother. It's interesting. It only takes 5 minutes. There are only about 10 categories every time. Seeing the patterns, shows that mostly the originators are few, somewhat stupid, and trying to appeal to the more stupid or at least to non fluent English-speaking people. Specifically those who think that wearing a fake Rolex will make women like them and that someone is going to give them health, money, fame and entertainment while they lie on the couch, eating crap.

Hmm...sounds OK, doesn't it?

Chrome - update after 2 months of use

2008-11-09T21:36:00.007-05:00

I downloaded Chrome in a silly fan-boy-like frenzy the first day the beta came out. I must say the product has actually exceeded my expectations. It's delightful to use.

1. It gets out of the way. Very unobtrusive. I really don't notice the browser, I just use it. Searching on the same bar as the URL has just become natural for me.

2. I like the "quick dial" thing they copied from Opera - when you open a new tab without a URL the 9 most commonly browsed pages come up in a 3x3 pattern as thumbnails. The visual cues really make this a fast way to select your fave pages.

3. It's refreshingly honest when something doesn't work. For example, when a plug-in dies, it says "The following plug-in has crashed..."

4. The Gmail integration is very nice indeed.

5. Some interesting stats tools are built in. Plus an easter egg.

I have basically given up on IE, except for testing. Firefox: I like the addons (Firebug, Wizz RSS viewer) so I still use it daily. However, Chrome is what I use most often for generic browsing.

Flash and Subversion backups: Batch file to copy files excluding certain files

2008-10-28T13:50:00.003-04:00

One thing about Flash (or any non-text binary type files) and Subversion, if you check your flas and swfs into a subversion library that is regularly backed up, for example nightly, you will soon be using a huge amount of space.

So the inestimable James (who's price is above that of rubies) found that our main code SVN library was not being backed up ...eek!

When he turned on backups in a reasonable schedule, well, we were checking in flas and swf several times in a day and these copies were all being stored in SVN as binary blobs or something, leading to a huge volume of backup files.

Our solution: Create a new SVN library just for Flash code, and don't bother backing it up except once per month. When we have code completed for the daily build we just drop swfs into the code build folder SVN. When we have significant code changes (finish an app, get ready for the weekly QA build) we drop everything from our new SVN into the traditional place.

To help this, we have this little batch file to copy from the new SVN to the old one:

@ECHO OFF

ECHO.

rem put the ".svn" string and the filename excludefile.txt into the file of things to be ignored

echo ".svn" > excludefile.txt

echo excludefile.txt >> excludefile.txt

rem copy all files in all subdirectories, excluding those with .svn in the path

XCOPY /S /E /EXCLUDE:excludefile.txt "C:\projects\binaryDoc\studentui"

"C:\projects\current\trunk\autoskill\academy\modules\ui\app\src\web\studentui" /Y

rem remove the excludefile

del excludefile.txt

ECHO.

Credit to this board.

What's next?

2008-10-27T22:42:00.005-04:00

I swore I wouldn't put any political stuff here but there comes a point.
What happened to rational discourse? Reasoned debate? Issues?

All we have now is the hate-filled public arena with blood'n'sawdust on the floor and circling hyenas.

...and they complain that there is a campaign of hate against one candidate. Here's another:

It's a Sarah Palin blow up sex-doll. I mean, I think she's unsuitable as a VP, but it's not my call. Lots of folly of that kind in the past...Dan Quayle, for example. However, we don't create a sex doll of Dan Quayle do we? (God I hope not).

This is the kind of ad hominen-plus-extras that women in public life have to handle. Sure I disagreed with Margaret Thatcher and hated her policies, but the idea that people would make a rapeable image of someone like this is terrible and terrifying. And before any of you tell me it's just a joke: I say "Drop dead."

Some Americans have always been good at demonizing individuals, as if that somehow takes the hard work out of foreign relations or politics. I distinctly remember my first visit to a U.S. gun shop (not what you think, I bought a pen-knife). The owner had posters in the form of rifle targets of Colonel Ghadafi the Libyan dictator on the wall. I exclaimed about this and he thought I was complimenting him on his taste. He said: "If only I could get my hands on some of that (expletive) Noriega*, I'd make a fortune!"

Then it was Saddam Hussein, now it's Osama bin Laden.

And on the domestic political side it was Nixon. Carter. And getting nastier, Obama. And Palin. I haven't made a study of this, it's just the things I see as a frequent visitor who lives a half kilometre from the U.S.

It's so easy. Black hats, white hats. Us, them. They hate us because we're good. Why do they hate us? God loves us. We're the best country in the world. I am right. You are wrong and I'll do you an injury because I hate you. God hates you.

Sorry monkeys. At best God doesn't exist. Although perhaps on current evidence I'd say the chances are that she does and she's a Trickster or possibly a cat.

* - Manuel Noriega then the leader of Panama, shortly before the U.S. invasion. I seem to think he's out of prison now.

Sorry but he still sucks

2008-10-27T22:25:00.004-04:00

My oppo sent me this: Neal Stephenson lecture on Sf as a literary genre

So my response is:
OK, well he isn't stupid. And most of what he says is sort-of truthy, at least worthy of an argument. Now you started it; since I spent 38:45 listening to his talk, you're gonna get the full 5 minutes.

He's very centred in his time and place, don't you think? I mean we were just talking about Fred Hoyle and John Wyndham (and there are loads of others*, not just Brits) who were very smart, wrote well and published compelling, yes, literature, 45+ years ago. (Not to mention Jules Verne or H.G. Wells).

Just because he didn't know about a bunch of stuff, it doesn't exist? It's like knowing the Rolling Stones and then realizing they were ripping off a bunch of poor black people.

My main beef with Quicksilver is that it is badly written, or badly edited (it's hard to tell the diff), predictable and was obviously written as a potboiler. It led me basically nowhere (except perhaps to set the scene attempting to force me to buy the next door-step of a book). It is appallingly Ameri-centric (the Crypto-thing is more so, according to Don). I would argue that even Heinlein was more honest in his idea porn. The protagonist as the super-hero is exactly what Quicksilver has. At the end of it I didn't care if the character lived or died, which is a good measure of how involved I was.

However, like I said before, he does have a few nice turns of phrase ("idea porn" being one of them, guilty, compelling pleasures of what might be, right?) I just wish he hadn't become so vastly popular before he became a better writer. If you say his earlier books are good, then I might give it a try.

If you haven't read the Da Vinci Code, you should before you slag it. It's crap but it is popular for a reason and it is quite well-written**.

And I have read one Hairy Potter book and seen one movie. No more, but I now know what I'm bleating about.

Now come back when you're ready for the full half-hour.

S.

* All probably contemporary with Heinlein, far better writers and more typical of the best sf writing of the time:

Samuel R. Delaney,
Doris Lessing,
Harry Harrison (well perhaps not exactly contemporary, but I like it)
Philip K. Dick,
J.G. Ballard,
Ursula K. Le Guin,
Issac Asimov,
Brian Aldiss,
Ray Bradbury.

p.s. “This is not the age of reason, this is the age of flummery, and the day of the devious approach. Reason’s gone into the backrooms where it works to devise means by which people can be induced to emote in the desired direction."
John Wyndham

** Update: OK, I lied. But it WAS a dark and stormy night!

Penis enlargement is still drooping off

2008-10-27T17:36:00.007-04:00

Time for my quarterly review of the world o' spam, from the worms eye-view anyway.

It is my sad duty to report that the comfortable world of P.E. spam has dropped into the single percentage digits in my in-box. Sad but true. Those mellifluous phrases lovingly crafted to set my heart a flutter ("love cannon", fer sure) are being drowned out by mechanistic appeals to buy chemicals on-line with names that have too many x's and z's in them.

There was one little prick of light in the darkness, dear readers: "Get a magic wand to satisfy your lady!" Isn't that nice? Will surely warm the cockles of your kidneys...

Anyhoo, back to the harsh realites of spam watching.

We have now got a profile like this:
56% - Pharma spam*
12% - Posh watch replicas
10% - Girls hot 4 u**
6% - Gambling
4% - P.E. (Oh, how the mighty are fallen! Don't worry dear, these things happen.)
4% - Diplomas granted without study (excluding M.A. Oxon)
2% - Puzzling discount offers, including "exclisive atches" erm...oh...watches? Silly me.
1% - Lame attempts to mimic internet sales confirmations
1% - Peculiar courses: a very promising new category ***
1% - Diet drugs: also promising new category
1% - Twitter spam****

* - does include a lot of Viagra-type stuff, but not nearly so poetic as good old P.E.

** - this is just silly; "I am beautiful girl, I am charming blue-eyed blonde brunette..." WTF, which bit is blonde and which is brunette, m'dear? (Er...perhaps, on second thoughts I'd rather not know). And why are you so hot for an ol' trout like me? I'm not even bi, sweetie.

*** - Ah, for future reference, you saw it here first. A "Christian college network" (sic) offering courses under the banner "Christian careers are right around the corner, learn on-line..." Somehow it seems unethical to offer no-study courses to Christians, poor dears. However, the meek don't get much so perhaps it is nice after all, purely as an example of loser-chic-appeal. Unfortunately the profile, addresses etc. are identical to the offers of "Insurance for Less" and "Culinary Universities" not to mention "Plasma TV Testing Center". So presumably if I were a halfwit, I'd like to let them to give me a plasma TV for free as well.

**** - sigh, I should never have signed up, twit, but this was from a person called blondesHot4u so it's not entirely a waste.

On second thoughts another prediction...we should see increasing spam in the next while to do with the mortgage crisis, bankruptcy, stock market decline and property capital losses, apart for the normal sub-one-percent perennial "make money fast" category. After all spam is nothing if not topical.

One final tip to the P.E. fellas. Chin up chaps. Just buckle down, straighten up and fly right. Increase your visibility, improve your productivity and the world will be your oyster...or should that be clam?

ActionScript 2; replace string any number of times

2008-10-15T22:32:00.005-04:00

The cheeseparing number of useful String class methods released by Adobe leaves something for the programmer to do. Here is a replace function that will replace a substring within another string any number of times. It starts at the first occurrence.



  // replace findThis string from stringIn with replaceWith, repeat number of times
  //repeat must be >=1, anything else it will do 1 repeat anyway
 // if the string doesn't occur nothing will happen

  public static function replaceString(stringIn:String, findThis:String, replaceWith:String, repeat:Number):String {

    var stringOut:String = '';
    var tempArr:Array;
    tempArr = stringIn.split(findThis); //spilt the string into an array based on the occurrences of the target string
    stringOut = tempArr[0]; //get the first split item
    for (var i=1;i < tempArr.length;i++){
        if (i < repeat+1){
            stringOut = stringOut + replaceWith + tempArr[i];// replace the next occurrence and add the next split item
        }
        else {
            stringOut = stringOut + findThis + tempArr[i];// restore the rest of the string as it was
        }
    }
    trace("String in: " + stringIn + " String out: " + stringOut);
    return stringOut;
  }

Book Review - A Liar's Autobiography by Graham Chapman

2008-09-27T15:54:00.006-04:00

A review on the jacket blurb promises this to be "An intercoursingly good book...". While interesting and worth reading, it really isn't really all that good. I remembered it more affectionately than I think of it now. Perhaps I have better intercourse now than the Evening Standard had then.

I read this way back in 1980/1 and have just re-read it again. Unfortunately I find the lasting impression now is just one of sadness. Chapman's life up to that time was a total mess and he spent most of his time drinking hard and creating havoc for friends and family.

There is, thankfully, a lot of silliness to elevate the rather lame narrative but I found myself reacting from the point of view of friends, family and bystanders - is there anything positive about this behaviour?

The brilliant writers he worked with (apart from the Python team) included Marty Feldman, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer. They evoke a memorable time when mainstream British humour was disrupted by a new generation raised on the Goons. However the constant interruptions by shrill excerpts from "Biggles Flies Undone**" by Capt. W.E. Johns do rather spoil the contemplative mood of the book. Quite a lot of the better bits appear to have been ghost-written by Douglas Adams - the style is unmistakable.

Not a must-read for Pythonistas, but a could-read-with-a-wistful-thought-for-what-this-man-might-have-been-if-he-hadn't-been-so-intercoursed-up. Although that may be the reason he was funny.

As always, it's the song not the singer. He left a brilliant body of work and great friends who loved him.

** - stolen joke alert!

Penis enlargement down to 5%

2008-07-29T11:22:00.003-04:00

My spam is down yet again. Thanks gmail! Only 18 messages in 5 days.

Must be the spammer who died in a murder-suicide recently. Bastard...couldn't just kill himself had to do a number on his wife and child as well...

So PE is down to 5% - well I guess if you want it bigger you either know by now that you need to be in the hands of a professional (or at least an enthusiastic amateur) or forget it. The feedback on this kind of traffic must be zero.

The new and rising entrant (10%) is a warning about FaceBook being infiltrated by the FBI. Oh...I'm going to have an attack of the vapors...who would have thought it?

That old reliable source about replica watches...frankly if Chanel makes watches, I not only don't care, but wouldn't get a genuine one if it was free, much less a fake. I already own too much stuff I don't need...

The pharma spam is the other main contestant. Hmm...now if they were tempting me with drugs I actually use...

We also have another category that is coming up - alleged porn websites with depictions of celebrity tarts and 'hot' videos. Tired.

What I want is more interesting spam. After all, if you're going to enslave my machine and make all my correspondents hate me, the least you can do is not insult my intelligence.

FWIW, this guy is my hero: http://ikillspammers.blogspot.com/

Ray Davies @ Bluesfest

2008-07-22T13:25:00.006-04:00

Ray Davies appeared at Bluesfest July 11 2008. We went...for an old geezer* he can still rock.

Apart from the huge irony of him singing I'm not like anybody else and getting an entire crowd of thousands to sing along (with gusto, lol!) it was a really good performance.

Here he is doing a nice version of Sunny Afternoon, more or less unplugged:

Compare with this, from way back in the Dawn of Time (1966):

* Pot: "You're black!"
Kettle: You too!

Richard Thompson @ Bluesfest

2008-07-06T15:13:00.012-04:00

Saturday July 5th - went to the Ottawa Bluesfest at Lebreton Flats outside the Canadian War Museum. Great site and an intercoursingly well-organized festival (in spite of the huge crowds).

The main reason we went was to see Richard Thompson. We also made a point of seeing Michael Burt (da bloos...reel niiice), Luke Doucet (kind of rock, very good), Angelique Kudjo (African dance music - amazing...I'm still jiggling!), Lucinda Williams (oh, she was crap...sorry but she should not have been there, couldn't stand it for more than the first couple of songs, not my cup of alt-c*ntry). We accidentally saw the Kruger Brothers (very nice bluegrass trio, strings only).

So after baling on Lucinda Williams (bleh!) we went to sit in front of the so-called Roots stage to wait for RT. A beautiful spot, with the river behind the stage and the sun going down over the water. The grassy hill formed by the roof of the War Museum rising up to form the auditorium..perfect weather. There were relatively few people to see him; about 500-600, compared to thousands at the folk festival four years ago or so. I guess the kind of people who go to a mainstream sort-of-blues festival will mostly want to see Steely Dan or the Zappa kid, who were headlining on other stages. All the more to our benefit, we were about 30 feet from the stage...purrfect!

Thompson's show was the best I have ever seen or heard him. Fortunately CBC radio will be putting the concert up on their website soon and broadcasting it on Aug 4th (I think). If you haven't heard his music, it may be an acquired taste for the bitter, sordid, LGW-side* of life. I know that after about 3-4 songs a number of people decided to leave and try their luck with the masses listening to Steely Dan. Too bad for them...

Richard Thompson is one of the best guitarists and singer-songwriters around**. Tonight he performed with just one guitar, dressed in his trademark black beret with gold star. He performed many new songs and many old songs with new interpretations - he wasn't just trying to make them sound like they used to in the studio many years ago. The crescent moon was going down in the sky behind the stage. Incidentally the last time we saw RT, at the Ottawa Folk Festival about 4-5 years ago, the crescent moon was sinking behind the stage then as well...)

The only downside was the immense noise coming from Zappa fils on another stage. It may have made RT play louder though - he said that a number of times.

Among the songs I remember that he performed:
From Mock Tudor (1999):
Bathsheba Smiles (ah now...that's sad) started with this one...spectacular
Cooksferry Queen (well not LGW, but strange love anyway)
Crawl Back (under my stone) (audience participation on this one)

From Rumour and Sigh (1991):
1952 Vincent Black Lightning (which is apparently the most-requested song ever on NPR, a folk song about dysfunctional youth, and a highwayman who happens to ride a motorcycle). This time he did some great new (to me) guitar work.
I feel so good (more dysfunctional youth, true crime and social commentary - "They put me in jail for my deviant ways...2 years, 7 months and 16 days...")
I misunderstood (more LGW)

From Across a Crowded Room (1985):
She twists the knife again (LGW to the max...aargh!)

From Daring Adventures (1986):
Valerie (LGW)

From I Want to see the Bright Lights Tonight (1974):
Down where the Drunkards Roll (life gone wrong...)

From Shoot Out the Lights (1982):
Shoot out the lights (Oh yes, more LGW)
Walking on a wire (goes without saying...)

Fom The Old Kit Bag (2003):
I'll Tag Along (more dysfunctional youth)

Not on any album I know about:
Got the hots for the smarts (comic ditty about preferring intelligence over beauty - "Are there any smart women in the audience?" "Yeah!!" "I mean really smart??" "YEAH!!" - "I want a girl who...thinks charm's a particle..." More audience participation.)

A couple of songs from his most recent album Sweet Warrior:
Dad's gonna kill me (about the Iraq war)
Sunset Song.

That's all I can remember until the recording is posted...

* - June Tabor used to joke that her music was pretty well always about LGW: "Love gone wrong".

**Apparently his guitar style is original and much-imitated. Something about the way he holds his er...pick...? Perhaps it's the tight jeans...

Where there is no shower

2008-06-29T11:23:00.006-04:00

Funny thing, I often almost feel like not giving away the secret that many North Americans haven't discovered about getting clean where there is no shower. I mostly resist it 'cos nobody likes a smartipants. However, I have been asked by some younger sailing women so here goes.

When water is restricted, whether you're sailing, camping, or just in the office after a lunchtime run and there is no shower available it's a simple matter to have a refreshing washdown of the body with the old-fashioned simple tools:

a towel,
washcloth (I like the gant de toilette mitt-type),
soap,
bottle or jug of cleanish* cold or hot water (about 1 litre - 2 pints - will do) or water tap,
small container, empty bucket, jug or bowl (or washbasin),
if the floor is dirty, a plastic sheet (or bin bag) about the same size as your bath towel

Most washrooms in North America have a disabled cubicle, which is ideal for this performance because it has most elbow room, but any private space will do. The average aircraft or train loo is perfect.

In addition, you can do this in a more public place, like a campsite or a beach without removing all your clothes at the same time, although people might look at you funny.

Lay down the towel on top of the plastic sheet. Take off your clothes and step on the towel. Put half the water in the bucket. Wetting the washcloth and wringing it out in the bucket, wipe yourself all over rubbing vigorously. This gets most of the dirt off (although not the grease nor all the smell). You might have to get fancy to reach the middle of your back by holding your washcloth at both ends, or asking for the assistance of a friend.

Wet the washcloth again from the "dirty water" and lather the cloth up with a little soap. Rub the cloth over the smelly parts first, then over the rest of your body. Wring it out and wet it again with fresh water. Wipe the soap off yourself.

You are done! You are clean, almost dry, feel refreshed and once you have practiced a bit, you can do this with very little water, so that the 2 litres daily allowance that the BFH** captain has allotted will be enough to have a wash every day or so.

And because your bath towel is not that wet it just needs airing out. The washcloth is a lot easier to hang up to dry.

When you're sailing in the tropics, this technique is infinitely preferable to being in the hot humid bowels of the boat trying to juggle the shower and slowly melting in the steamy heat and humidity of the head compartment. You can do your first washdown and soaping with salt water (or take a swim).

Hair washing is a different exercise. If you have really short hair the above technique will be enough. Long hair needs about 2 pints (a litre) more water and a larger bowl or bucket to lean over. It is best done seated (or kneeling on your towel) leaning forward over the bowl. Pour about a pint (500 ml) of water over the back of your head so that it runs into the bowl. Scoop the water up and do it several times so that your hair is moist. Then rub some shampoo into your hair. Use only a very little shampoo - about a teaspoon or 5 ml - less than half of the recommended amount of normal stuff. (Some people swear by using shampoo*** for both body and hair washing as it saves backpack space - there are concentrated types in tube form).

You do not need to get a lather in your hair - if you do, you are using too much shampoo - the lather represents "unused" detergent that is foaming up and you will need to use extra water to wash it out. Just rub shampoo all over the hair and leave it on for a minute or so. Then start by wringing out your hair and pouring water from the bowl over your head repeatedly until the shampoo feels gone. Wring out your hair the best you can, then run a dry washcloth over it to get it as dry as possible. Comb it through and let it air dry.

Some women (and increasingly men) have a routine of using hair conditioner after shampoo. This is fine, but once again use less than half of what you normally use and rinse repeatedly using only a half litre of water. Or try using a tiny amount on a comb and combing it through your hair without washing it off. Or try going without once in a while.

* you can use river or lake water if you are camping, or non-potable water like that from plane or train washroom taps.
**Bastard from Hell: you know who you are, Bligh-woman!
*** Stolen joke alert! Best to use shampoo, the real stuff stinks.

Firefox 3: nice job guys!

2008-06-21T17:26:00.007-04:00

A couple of days ago, at the insistence of the lovely Janice (her son Mike Shaver is a chief thingy at Mozilla) I downloaded Firefox 3. I don't normally do stuff like this on release day, but what the heck - if it broke something I have other machines to use. Actually nine of my add-ons stopped working, including the JavaScript debugger (aargh!) but today I see that the update for that was automagically installed, so I wasn't without it for long enough to matter.

In all, things went smoothly and it has a few nice features (although the upgrade went so well that I didn't notice them at first) including a silly Easter egg that I found amusing as a sci-fi fan: type "about:robots" in the address bar...Gort!

I've been using Firefox for a long time (the first on my block to use it). It has really set the standard for browsers, has lot of great features that I just expect to work now. And the addons! Well, you can get anything you want...

Because I do web development I still use a number of other browsers for testing; IE, Safari, Opera on as many platforms as I can find. I do have Netscape Navigator 9, but that's strictly a nostalgia trip now. (Remember Mozaic, folks?)

IE* - well aren't you the tedious one to program for? Talk about working with the undead. Die you b*astard! However we have to test on it...people like my 78-year old mother use it because it was pre-installed. But then again, she thinks Yahoo has a search engine.

Safari (for Windows) - very pretty (all those brightly coloured glassy bead-like buttons and bars), adherent to standards, occasionally slow and buggy (the latest release I downloaded 3.1.1 fixed a bunch of broken stuff, including crashing within 20 seconds of login to Facebook, lol). Frustrating when it takes over and ignores input when one is typing into the browser bar. Hey who's in charge here? Very different look and feel. And very pushy of Apple products and services. No, I don't want to download iTunes, cheeky! The Help looks likes it's using WinHelp or some such, it's ugly and doesn't appear to be integrated in the browser.

Opera - nice crisp feel, very easy to use, some pretty features...the speed dial thing is interesting. I like the thumbnail views of the pages opened in the tabs. It has a nice kiosk mode that we found useful to lock students into their training. They did have a browser for the Nokia hand-held N770, but for some reason (probably Nokia's fault) they had to completely reimplement when they went to the N800. So some stuff that had been working was a bit buggy.

There are some other nice browsers on Linux but in my world we only test on Windows and Mac right now.

* no, I'm not including a link to this d*g, rough!

Better protection makes happy workers

2008-06-13T20:59:00.008-04:00

The task: grinding out the rotted balsa core under the cockpit of a glass fibre boat. This is the underside of the top of the flotation chamber and is a small cavity about 1x1 metre (3x3 feet) and about half a metre (20 inches) deep. A hole had been cut big enough to get head and shoulders in from the top. Flotation foam removed. Power tools and lights required...

One of the absolute joys of a boater's life is getting all togged up to do boat work. Painting, grinding, cutting, any kind of power tools require dressing up with ear defenders, goggles, breathing mask. These things are hell to wear for a day's work, especially when it hot (hah...it's merely 31 Celsius today - about 88 F). The goggles steam up, everything gets slippery with sweat and it's really horrible. Vision is really very bad, meaning that the work is slower and quality is lower. The time that I can comfortably work in this before a break is about an hour, but it's an ordeal, and I'd feel persecuted if I had to wear this for more than 3 sessions in a day. Total cost of this gear is about $60-100 depending on the quality of the respirator. You always want a really good respirator...

Now we have bought a Triton one-piece system. It is wonderful. It combines eye, breathing, and hearing protection with a hardhat and a hood. Fresh filtered air is pumped in to the top of the head from a fan in the rechargeable battery pack strapped to the waist. It keeps the user fairly cool. Hearing protection is integral attached to the sides of the hat. Very effective and comfortable. They flip up if not needed. The face plate is polycarbonate and gives great visibility. It too flips up if required. It does not steam up even when you get sweaty.The breathing protection doesn't squeeze the face or touch it at all.
Another benefit is that particles of grinding dust or crap do not end up in the hair or stuck to the skin. And the hat will save your head from bumping, always a good thing. It is a little larger than the other outfit, but a lot easier to keep on (straps don't get tangled etc.)
The hood and air tube can be removed if working on something noisy but not dust generating (vacuuming?)
It does cost a lot more, about $220, but I could work in this for 3-4 hours at a time, for a couple of sessions per day. I feel safer and more comfortable and less reluctant to start work.

Buy your good woman good safety gear and you'll get more work out of her!

This sporting life

2008-06-09T23:25:00.004-04:00

From the writing of Tim Davis comes this quote:

Sport is a pantomime of war, and even during peacetime, we beg its stresses back into our lives. Buying mortgages in the padded cell of Western consumer culture has turned us all into what I call horrorists. Terrorists enact violence on the lives of others; horrorists fill their own lives with ritualized violence: slasher films, roller coasters, video games, 24-hour news, sport.

I threw away my television 15 years ago...too much of everything except thinking: sport pretending to be significant; advertising copy purporting to be news; lies; mind control; insanity; compelling, crappy dramas; bad acting; worse acting; and horror.

One major horror is the feeling after watching a movie/show that your anchor has come adrift - you have taken in a different way of thinking about something, and it's wrong or corrupt. A siren call, a temptation. It's like getting a worm in the ear. It's too much for the immune system to take. I don't watch TV and I am selective about films because I don't trust myself.

I stopped taking part in competitive sports about the same time. I was sailing a dinghy across a lake when a slightly larger sailing boat was approaching on a collision course. Technically he was the give-way boat, however a woman's enraged voice shouted: "Fuck off we're racing!" Although they didn't recognize me, these were people I worked with. I thought about the times that I had been in a sporting event and played really hard to win. "Not pretty," was my conclusion.

There are plenty of other things to do with my time. Some of them give me hope I can be a better person.

Does it matter whether you hate your . . . self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music...

Robinson Jeffers

Sufficiently advanced technology 2

2008-06-01T13:13:00.013-04:00

I am impressed with the advances in relatively cheap cameras, the software to use and manipulate images and the ease with which a total noob like me can make pictures that are really quite pleasing.

I asked someone recently, "What is left for the professional photographer to do?"

The story goes like this: when I was young (about 100 years ago) most families owned cameras and would take "snaps". There was then the process of taking the sealed film container to the "chemist's" for processing and printing (for some reason, many pharmacists seemed to do photographic processing, probably to do with inhaling dangerous chemicals.) Then one waited, singing: "Someday my prints will come!"* The pictures were good quality although expensive. There were also camera shops where you could get more expensive processing and better film, if you were interested. When colour film and processing came along, the price increase was so large that many people resisted the change for a surprisingly long time.

There were many professional photographers. From the guys who would stand around at seaside resorts taking quick shots of passing holidaymakers, to the wedding album specialists, all the way to the professional photographic artists. There must have been many, many corner store-type processing labs and darkrooms. Mostly this was because the equipment was expensive and the training to use it properly was not that easy. If you were a serious enthusiast (like my forgettable first husband), you could buy the tanks, solutions, washing lines, enlargers etc. and do a reasonable job, but it took a long time to get good at it and it was tedious. Not for people like me who are into instant gratification.

When I was a teenager there came the mail-order photo "lab" - you sent your film away, and in 2-3 weeks colour prints came back and, they gave you a free replacement film! This impressed so many people so much that they didn't notice that the processing quality was low, the printing was poor and the results pretty awful. What mattered was that it was cheap, half the price of the alternative. 35 years later the pictures have turned a funny orangey colour, when 60 year-old black and white shots are unchanged. The processing and printing was largely automatic and centralized - the equipment was hugely expensive.

The corner store labs died. Some photographic stores went upscale, most closed down. When automatic processing machines became cheaper, some stores bought them and continued working, however the hyper-marchés (big box stores) now built photo labs in their premises. There was still residual send-away processing from small shops in small towns, but the war of technology had reached the clipper-ship of film: I take my film to a person who inserts it in a machine and a few minutes later out come the prints. My prints will come a lot faster these days...ahem.*

The professional photographers were now the wedding and portrait guys, news photographers, and the artists. Considerable training was still required to guarantee results - you had to capture the shot right there and know that it would work.

Then came digital cameras. Film has largely died. Most people have moved to using lightweight, forgiving and cheap cameras, putting the pictures on a computer and printing them only if really needed. The machines are doing the work now. It takes next to no knowledge or training to understand how to use one, especially in the context where many people have some computer access. And you see the results immediately. If it doesn't work, you do it again. A gifted amateur can do a very decent job of taking wedding photos or portraits. A professional will do better, but not so much that one is actually needed. The barrier to entry in this field is much lower. I suspect that most of this kind of photographer had better have a second source of income.

News photographers are probably the next to feel the pinch. When the camera-phone becomes ubiquitous, the price paid for that unique shot is going to be lower, especially when the shot can be cleaned up using software. Completely apart from the threat that comes from decline of print media.

Most artists have probably always struggled. The technology may lower the bar to the actual making of images and software manipulation does make it a lot easier to implement a vision, but the vision is still unique. We will get many more gifted photographic artists as a result. Competition will make it harder for anyone to become a full-time artist, but the ones that make it will probably be better.

Update - Some interesting photographic artists (no particular order):

* Stolen joke alert!

R.I.P. Jake Thackray

2008-05-30T13:13:00.006-04:00

Sad to say he came to a sorry end. I used to go and see this guy when I was a kid. Wonderful dry black humour. I think he translated this song himself.

Also some of my friends think this one is misogynistic. Too bad; it is hilarious, and we should all be prepared to examine ourselves...

Putting your heart into it

2008-05-30T10:16:00.006-04:00

It's been said that Life is like a sewer; you largely get out of it what you put into it. However you can be seriously messed up by other people.

There was a time, long ago, when I participated in a big way on Usenet newsgroups - only to be driven out by the volume of spam, trolls and flaming nasties. This happens. The teenage males (of all ages and several sexes) that do this kind of thing are getting their jollies by the net equivalent of graffitti and muggings.

Now there's the world of blogs. Nasty things happen to, basically, good people; Kathy Sierra is the one that springs to mind. Threatening such a fine human being is wrong, and deeply stupid.

Then we have stuff like this dumb-as-a-post attack on the credibility of Jeff Attwood.

I may disagree with some things Jeff writes but he's always worth reading. It's thought-provoking stuff. Only very occasionally MEGO. Judging by his writing, he's a smart, thoughtful person with opinions on a variety of subjects. I like the phrase strong opinions, weakly held. Generalists are to be encouraged in this world of narrow-minded specialists.

I do admire his courage in exposing himself to criticism. That's what happens to popular blogs. I don't care if he's right or wrong, I can judge that for myself. What matters is that he has something to say. I do care when carping and non-constructive criticism try to discourage genuine debate.

The basis of the attack seemed to be that "someone was wrong on the Internet", and that Jeff had said that he didn't think that learning the C language was necessary. In my opinion it actually doesn't matter if one "learns C" or not. Since I graduated in 1980 I have never "learned" a programming language systematically - it's all been learning by doing and learning by example then discovering the more esoteric stuff. Most of my collection of several hundred books about programming have only been partly read by me. Sometimes skimmed through, sometimes dropped after 100 pages.

(And, incidentally, when did the freaking programming books get to be 700-900 pages instead of a couple of hundred? About 5-10 years ago. My bookshelves are groaning with paper...switching to a tablet device and electronic books might work...it's showing promise so far. Anyhoo, authors are too ready to write immense tomes which really should be a long technical article or blogpost. Where the heck are the editors? I have been buying used books for a while now and encourage others to do the same (ABE books can get almost anything) - in the hope that in some small way it discourages the longer format - silly, I know. A small book giving the essentials backed up with a website containing the long examples and downloadable stuff would be so much better.)

It is arguable that I am a better maintenance programmer because I do not study a language deeply before working in it. This is now called "refactoring" and has become respectable again. I can certainly grok code as fast or faster than anyone I know. I think that I can pick up at least a superficial grasp of new tools, languages and techniques quickly because I am not plugged deeply into the massive amount of library code that most languages develop over time. At least enough to know whether I want to go further. That is not to say that it isn't painful sometimes (I have had some struggles especially with the more organic mutations of, say, ActionScript. I mean why does it have to have four ways of doing the same thing? lol, it's almost as if it was a human language!)

There is a role for the generic "programmer" as a smart person with an idea, or who is open to the ideas of others, or even more importantly, finds an idea and popularizes it.

Programming is ultimately about communication and ideas, isn't it? We are communicating with the machine and to those that follow us. And most great programmers are not sheep who just follow one path. They are usually people who have multiple other interests - such as gaming, sailing, music, mathematics, physics, psychology, art, athletics - and as such, real people bring insight into the largely hermetic world of the coder.

I have lived in the world of software long enough to know lame when I see it. And the self-declared iconoclast who derides the credibility of someone who puts his heart into his writing... well, get over it fella. You can earn your own credibility with your own work. Life is not a zero-sum game.

Total Perspective Vortex

2008-05-19T04:17:00.006-04:00

In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams uses the Total Perspective Vortex as a impossible plot device*. Well, here's one for free and here's one you can buy.
And here's another one which is apparently a free download:

* (Stolen joke alert!) Actually not impossible, just very, very improbable.

Hanami

2008-05-18T11:04:00.008-04:00

Get the picnic hamper out!Ottawa has the most beautiful plantation of ornamental cherry blossoms in an almost neglected corner: adjacent to the Lincoln Fields bus transit station. It is a repeated surprise that, every year, we are the only people to have a hanami picnic in that location. Occasional Japanese stop by, smile and take a picture, but no other parties under the blossoms. We are surprised that the trees are not officially celebrated as they are in other places.

This year we took our picnic lunch there when the weather was perfect; warm and sunny but with a strong wind from an approaching cold front (a storm came later in the day). Petals were falling like a pink blizzard. Cardinals and red-wing blackbirds singing amongst the branches. Incredible.

This was taken at Bonnie's funeral home at the end of my street, not on the picnic!

Update: 2009-04-24 Bonnie has just had this tree pollarded. It will die. Damn her.

Memorable lines

2008-05-17T10:27:00.004-04:00

On American Idol: "The Eurovision Song Contest comes to the Americas"

"Entertain me when I'm drunk, educate me when I'm sober."

"Panic is what happens when you fall off the cliff of procrastination."

"Code control is what distinguishes men from beasts."

Book title: "The Constant Shopper"

"Any sufficiently advanced programmer... will use the shell."

"Bash is your friend."

"If you don't believe in compromise, you'll always be naive."

"Ideologues are naive by definition: 'You're either for me or against me'. The algorithm is simple: if one disagrees then one is defined as unenlightened or evil. If one resists enlightenment then one must be evil."

"Cats don't have owners, they have staff."