Month: August 2005

This is more than likely the best way to read an entire file into a given variable $code all in one go:

Notice that by localizing the input record separator $/ variable within the brackets, unwanted side-effects are avoided.

Of course, if one is more prone to power slurping, then the module Perl6::Slurp offers a much more advanced interface, but one will just have to be patient and wait awhile.

The amazing thing was that although my face was being peppered by (about) three million bugs poised and hovering directly in front of me and my speeding bicycle, not a single little creature flew into my right or into my left eye. What are the chances of that happening in a perfectly honest universe?

The triple play to which I am referring has nothing at all to do with baseball. For the sake of clarity, here is simple recipe you can follow in order to create this interesting challenge.

Having a root canal done without a local anesthetic like novocaine is definitely not my idea of passing an enjoyable Sunday afternoon. This is my free day of uneventfulness, meant for fun and relaxation, not for going to the dentist of all places.

Somehow I managed to upgrade my blog this evening to the latest version of Movable Type 3.2 and it went fairly smoothly.

I am pretty pleased with the results, so I can go to bed now and watch television.

Since the very beginning I have been an avid fan of this fine publishing platform for personal blogs, and I have followed its development closely up to and including the fine product it has become today.

Notice any changes and/or improvements to this blog?

This is kind of weird.

"Then again, almost every maintainability issue is, by itself, marginal. It's only collectively that subtleties, clevernesses, and esoterica begin to sabotage comprehensibility. And it's only collectively that obviousness, straightforwardness, and conformity to standards can help to enhance it. Every samll choice when coding contributes in one direction or the other."

Taken from Perl Best Practices, Damian Conway (p. 165).

In otherwords, when it comes to good old down-to-earth programming, let's not be too clever and just stick to the point. The well-defined point that is.

Here's an interesting and very efficient way to transform each list element, returning the list of those modified copies:

That is of course if you are willing to use the not-so well known List::MoreUtils CPAN module.

Give it a go.

Slowly but surely broadband Internet is becoming cheaper and faster. Take for instance ADSL which in Europe is becoming very popular at the moment. This is no different from other Internet technologies in that it is improving in leaps and bounds.

This afternoon I somehow mustered up enough courage to go on a run after too many weeks of idle nothingness.

True geeks (like me) spend their weekend evenings trying to redesign one's weblog over and over again. Getting down to the nitty-gritty cascaded style sheets and perfecting the presentation with more challenging tweaks. Just one more, and then another. Always trying to make things better.

"Hello sir," or "madam" if it was a woman, "I am a homeless person, I am HIV-seropositive, I have nothing to eat, can you please part with some small change for a needy person?"

We are just a bunch of birds without wings thinking that we can fly and not having the common sense to admit to ourselves that indeed there are certain limitations that keep us where we belong.

These limitations include: gravitation, the human body, (the lack of enough) air friction and worst but not least common sense.

This entry has been inspired by an interesting book I recently finished.

Having been born and raised on peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, I have come to the conclusion that the infamous PB&J is by far the most ideal and tasty sandwich of all time.

By consuming no less than fifteen thousand of them (assuming I have had at least one a day since my second birthday or thereabouts), this can be proven beyond a resaonable doubt. In fact, it would easily be the 'ideal sandwich' if and only if it did not make one's hands so sticky afterwards.

This is due to the inherent gooey characteristics of oozing jelly combined with a voracious biting style and an overly sloppy chewing technique.

The first day back to work went well and it felt pretty good to be in familiar territory once again: the wonderful world of challenging and unforgiving internet technology.

Since I need yet another day to recover from my vacation before re-entering the real world, I have decided to tag on an extra free day to my original two week leave period. Not that it was really necessary, but I just needed a fairly convincing argument is all.

Tomorrow means back to work again after an amazingly fun and relaxing time frolicking down south.

When I finally make my way back to work, I will notice that some things have changed, other things may seem to have changed, while the rest of the things have not changed at all.

After having spent a wonderful two weeks in Vias Plage, getting the sun and having the fun and relaxing time we deserved, we decided to go for it in one go, driving no less than thirteen hundred kilometers back home in fifteen hours. What a long haul that was.

Our campsite was 50 meters from the sea, and at night (as long as the drunken party-goers weren't too loud and they wandered far away enough from us) we could gently fall asleep to the soothing sound of the waves brushing back and forth across the beach front.

Now it's back to the real world with renewed energy and fresh thoughts that have never existed before.