There I was meandering through the center of Amsterdam, when after taking a side street and then bustling my way over the bridge across the Amstel River almost reaching the first corner before the stoplight, I happened to spot an interesting sidewalk tile upon which the following words were inscribed:
I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream,
You could have been anyone to me.
Before that moment you touched my lips
That perfect feeling when time just slips
Away between us on our foggy trip.
Neil Young - Like a Hurricane
This is a truly amazing discovery for me.
As it turns out, it is possible to debug Perl threads, forked processes as well as CGI programs. You can even debug modules which have been preloaded, inspect object-oriented Perl stuff and even verify user-defined regular expressions on the fly.
Just to think of all those late night debugging episodes doing it my boring way when I could have saved hours and hours (if not days) by doing it the right Perl way.
To think that I was so naive as to believe I knew most there was to know about Perl.
This fine book (Pro Perl Debugging) has turned out to be a real eye-opener for me.
While not for the light-hearted, any true Perl person worth his or her weight in salt will definitely have to read this book, which I recommend highly.
For the first time in a long time I have this gut-feeling that things will in the end turn out for the better.
I look forward to next week during which what was once the case will be repeated and my outlook will be a very positive one.
The telephone will ring and it will be time to go.
Can't wait.
This is about the reoccurring case of the missing sweets.
The round plastic container that was only yesterday completely filled with candies has disappeared again. No one will admit to having anything to do with this mysterious disappearance. Look each person squarely in the eyes and through good long practice there is not the slightest giveaway flinch of quilt.
Youthful masters at crime, unusually clever deception, the pile of sweets have vanished into thin air in a flash and no one knows (or wants to show that he or she knows) what happened to these wonderful treats.
If you are also looking around for an interesting challenge in life the chances are pretty good that you will find it here, not there.
Good luck and hang in there, me too.
This is all kind of weird when you think about it logically.
Of course, it might be better not to think logically any more, at least much less logically than one is used to nowadays.
The only problem with that approach would be that in order to retain some sense of sanity, everyone would have to decrease their logicalities at the same moment and in the same way.
Otherwise all of us would not be running in sync anymore.
Was that ever the case anyway, e.g. what's the danger then?
All of that freezing cold weather from Siberia is blowing this way, meaning that the temperature is dropping drastically.
You go to bed and the night sky is so clear that a million stars are visible up there in no man's land, and when you wake up the next morning a slab of ice has formed on the surface of the canals and other waterways.
Thanks alot you guys in Russia.
In case you're wondering, 'strenge vorst' is Dutch for 'severe freeze.'
If your class needs a destructor, it probably needs a copy destructor and an assignment operator too. In other words, you can look at it this way:
T::T()
T::~T()
T::T(const T&)
T::operator=(const T&)
In the long run it is probably a better idea to make it a habit always to include all of these for a given class, just in case.
Presenting a counter-proposal for the sake of prolonging an unnecessary argument is more often than not meant as nothing more than a psychological ploy to distract, confuse and weaken the opponent.
While having no factual basis supporting it, the so-called ploy is only charged with emotional unwillingness. History has proven that even such a lack of real cause can bring wars that kill thousands if not millions of people.
Who said that mankind has developed in order to communicate rather than to destroy?
The newspaper article says that "Vrijwel iedereen ziet koopkracht stijgen."
Finally after all these years it seems that the infamous EURO is finally catching on.
However I still wonder what is it with the economy these days that makes things change so unpredictably?
When you think that you have nearly arrived at your destination, stop for a couple minutes and look around.
What is it that you see?
More than likely it is not what you expected, but you will continue to the end no matter how slight this last obstacle in your path may appear.
They said at the beginning that it would not be easy, that one should not take things lightly, as if it didn't matter when it really did.
Whatever you do, do NOT turn back.
We are not quite sure why not, why this innate desire to make it all the way has been drilled into our minds, but we listen anyway. Not only do we listen, but we do it as well.
The couple minutes have passed, so please continue.
(No matter what)
The elderly parking lot attendant wasn't in a good mood.
Neither was Sam Bierstock. It was around 1 a.m., and Bierstock, a Delray Beach , Fla, eye doctor, business consultant, corporate speaker and musician, was bone tired after appearing at an event. He pulled up in his car, and the parking attendant began to speak. "I took two bullets for this country and look what I'm doing," he said bitterly.
At first, Bierstock didn't know what to say to the World War II veteran. But he rolled down his window and told the man, "Really, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you." Then the old soldier began to cry. "That really got to me," Bierstock says.
Children have terrific insight. More often than not their innocent souls provide us adults with many words of wisdom to which we should try to listen better.
They are the future leaders of the world, but unfortunately they end up growing up and becoming just like the rest of us.
Sorry about that.
At first glance, getting smothered to death at the Hajj might not seem a very fulfilling way of ending one's life.
That is exactly what happened today to more than three hundred pilgrims during the so-called symbolic stoning ritual.
There was panic and then a surge of the crowd and then an overpowering stampede of wishful worshippers all wanting to be at the same holy place at the same time.
The final moments in emotional turmoil swiftly going under in a heightened spiritual awareness...
(And then that's it)
Dear KG,
We received your contribution of $25.00 to Radio Paradise.
Thank you so much for your support of the station - we definitely appreciate it!
Our best...
Rebecca & Bill
When you think about it logically, it really isn't that impressive an idea at all.
As if the Greeks had come up with some earth-shattering philosophical insight which once and for all determined the course of western civilization.
Here's the idea, quite simple actually. Everything in the universe is made up of material objects called atoms which are indivisible units of matter, the smallest possible dots of what is.
I'm not impressed.
What it all boils down to is this. Every given object can be divided into smaller and smaller pieces indefinitely or not. If not then we reach a logical limit, otherwise there is no known speck of matter which cannot be further sliced in two.
It is or it is not. Flip a coin, roll the dice, or use another less random more emotional means of deciding for yourself. It's one or the other. The final decision is no less than a choice between two limits.
For all we know, some other Greek type of philosopher person could have been born a century earlier who could have just as easily decided the other way around. And then what?
There is no smallest physical object which cannot be further split into two smaller objects. And then again and then again ad infinitum.
Everything in the known universe is infinitely divisible, so there we have it.
In some future entry I will cover the non-physical aspects of reality for which a whole other set of natural laws apply.
I am beginning to look like a reborn hippie, so I will have to go to the local barber and get all of my golden locks chopped off leaving just enough hair on top of my translucent dome so that I don't end up looking too bald.
When I called up to make an appointment, the soothing female voice on the other side asked me the name of the girl I preferred.
I couldn't remember her name, but I said that I knew what she looked like (she had long blond hair, average face, some makeup and not too thin).
"What does she look like then?"
I didn't want to say that she was that one, so I hesitated slightly thinking how I could describe her best without being perceived as rude.
"Does she have black hair?"
"No, she has long blond hair, and ..."
"Oh then you mean ... then?"
Yes, that's the one.
Although 99.999% availability sounds quite impressive, one wonders if such a high number is good enough. Let's make a simple calculation and find out.
This simple excercise is based on a critical network component that is expected to provide year-round service without a single glitch. Even the slightest hick in service becomes costly, as we shall see.
Every single second that this particular system is down means a revenue loss of 500 messages per second times netto ten dollar cents a message which equals 50 dollars per second.
Further, in a single year there are 60 x 60 x 24 x 365 equals 31,536,000 seconds. Take 0.00001% of that total and you get: 315 seconds.
Damages for this slight glitch are: 315 x 50 equals $15,750.
Of course this calculation is based merely on an average, but if we have bad luck and it is happening to a multi-node system during a critical traffic peak, or even worse when these messages are responsible for business transactions involving thousands of dollars per request, then the losses are going to be quite significant.
Direct revenue losses are caused by the inability to process messages, but there are also indirect costs: immediate costs meaning for example tons of extra calls to customer support etc, and long-term costs being a seriously blemished brand-name due to this negative publicity and more.
Now the same question again: is this acceptable? If not, then what are we going to do about it?
I guess we could either raise this availability by: improving the technology or mobilizing available resource to offer efficient and immediate support to ease the pain.
Best of all would be a healthy balance of the two depending on the type of organization involved.
Good luck, keep your fingers crossed, and be prepared.
So how the heck did I somehow manage to get the newest release Komodo 3.5 Pro installed and up and running under my FreeBSD 6.0 system?
Much sweating and cussing and struggling into the wee hours of the night, but I did it and that is all that counts.
By the way, to save you tons of extra time, please take note that the following linux compatable packages are required:
If you have any other questions do not hesitate to place them here.
So how on earth do you even attempt to explain what recursion is to someone who just can't get it?
The first time I struggled with this concept, I just had to accept it as is. By groping around endlessly in the dark, I just hoped that if I used it often enough I would figure it out some day.
Believe it or not that day did come. All of a sudden the last piece of the puzzle fell nicely in place and it all made perfect sense.
Truly elegant, that is if you can figure it out.
This masterpiece collection should prove to be an excellent read.
The other day while sitting in the car and listening to the BBC Radio, I just happened to hear an interesting interview with some author named Philip Pullman.
I became so interested in his philosophical ideas and beliefs that I had to order the book immediately. Can you believe that before that I had never heard of this person?
The massive volume arrived yesterday from good old Amazon.co.uk, and I have already lost myself in its many many pages.
Still young inside.
Boy it sure is hard for me to believe that Sabien is already fourteen years old.
But she is.
This afternoon in order to celebrate she and her girlfriends will head on over to the bowling alley.
No need for me to come along (and just embarrass her).
As if nearly all of a random infinity of knowledge can be pressed inside of a single mind, but why give up?
There is just too many interesting things to keep on learning and learning.
Just a 'few' of my computer books.
Another property of friendships is that they are not transitive: The friend of a friend is not considered to be a friend unless explicitly specified.
This is very similar to real life you could say, not just part of some abstract reasoning behind some computer programming language.
Multiple inheritance is a whole other ballgame which should only be attempted after a period of meditation and other mental exercises.
References:
- Friendship and inheritance.
- Accelerated C++.
In order to find out which blog entries of mine have the most comments so far, this is the SQL query that can be used:
SELECT mt_comment.comment_entry_id, COUNT(*) AS cnt FROM mt_comment WHERE mt_comment.comment_visible=1 GROUP BY mt_comment.comment_entry_id ORDER BY cnt DESC LIMIT 25;
As you can see over there on the righthand margin under the 'Most comments' section, I have enumerated the top twenty five.
Have a look and tell me what you think.
Hey, have a really great, fun and relaxing two thousand and six!
Rumor has it that this time around at least many interesting and challenging events are bound to come our way.
So go for it.
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