Month: February 2006

bsdtalk Talking about the BSD family of free operating systems.

This is a really good place to find interesting interviews, lessons, whatever about bsd-related information.

Be sure to check it out.

Wouldn't it be funny if ten years from now scientists discovered that it was actually bad for your health to sport too much?

People in droves ending up in the hospital with enlarged hearts, jostled retinas resulting in blindness, aggravated spleens causing yellow skin, increased chance of brain bleedings, premature Alzheimers, etc.

This would be an ironic twist of events, similar to the days when smoking was actually recommended by doctors.

Look what happened with that.

Hey, did you know that there was a Javascript extension to the Template-Toolkit?

That's exactly what Jemplate does, and it does it quite elegantly I must admit.

This CPAN module is definately worth looking into, just for fun at least. For more information you might want to check out the article Jemplate - A Template Toolkit for Javascript.

Closer inspection of the code reveals that this is nothing more than a quick switch Template::Directive sleight of hand, that's all really.

You might also want to consider using OpenThought - Web Application Environment which doesn't require page reloads.

Not so sure if I will ever use it, but it is interesting to know about anyway.

Unlike the special constructs which make creating references to anonymous hashes and arrays as easy as pie, there is unfortunately no easy-and-quick way in Perl to create so-called nameless scalars. Kind of a bummer.

Can this be viewed as a serious shortcoming of Perl? Could be or not.

Well there is still hope. Instead you will have to do something like the following:

Now it is up to us Perl folks to figure out what this actaully means and how one should go about using it effectively (or not).

Borrowed from one of my favorite Perl books which is called 'Perl Best Practices' by Damian Conway.

There was that crazy guy again, this time wandering down the other side of the street, his crooked body slanted to the left, ten steps, and then to the right, ten steps, repeat cycle.

He looked in worse shape than usual, and I was really tempted to escort him back home. But he didn't have a real home, his simple abode was in a room at the end of the street at the home for the mentally disabled.

Sometimes he mumbles at me, other times he just waves. After all these years we have become distant friends who recognize each other when our paths intersect.

He one the one side of the road and me on the other.

Every couple years or so, I go to the doctor to clean out my ears from the excess wax which has collected over time and started to obstruct my hearing. What did you say?!

Hey wait a minute, is it really Valentine's today?

Oops.

Don't forget that money isn't the whole story. In the end, you bring yourself (mind as well as body) along even if it is a new and challenging job. The attitude and inner-satisfaction is what it's all about.

This morning I decided to bike into town in order to buy new shoelaces. Two shoes lay around busted and unusable for many weeks because I kept postponing the journey over and over again.

So why then do I need to go all the way into town to do that when there is a shopping mall right around the corner?

There's this special shoe repair shop near the market, a tiny little counter on the side of this building really, run by the nicest oriental person you've ever met. For all my shoe-related problems (new soles, loose threads, shoe polish, shoelaces, etc) I always go there for the fantastic and personal service he gives me.

Two pair of shoelaces, one black and one brown and both seventy-five centimeters long, and the oriental guy has the widest thankful gleeful look in his eyes as if I had just purchased a 10-carat diamond ring from him.

That was my fun and relaxing adventure for the Saturday.

Last week Thursday, I flew over for the day to this place called Saltaire in West Yorkshire, and I was completely amazed how beautiful it is there.

Remembering all those things I had learned in school about the Industrial Revolution in England, I had been afraid it would turn out to be a dark and gloomy place, old sooty buildings, the air polluted with me gasping and coughing.

Boy was I wrong.

Lots of clean, neatly structured buildings, a quaint river, green rolling hills and lots of trees, the sky crystal clear and fantastically blue.

Queen of Light took her bow, And then she turned to go,
The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom, And walked the night alone.

- Led Zeppelin, The Battle of Evermore

For those of you needing daily inspiration once in awhile, you might want to check out the DailyOM web site.

One of my favorite articles is Needless Fear.

(Thanks alot for the link, Kathleen).

More often than not even the most structured, logical arguments based on obvious facts which are according to you impossible to refute, are not enough.

The emotional, political and personal elements cannot be ignored. This is the other half of the discussion which is so often under-estimated or even completely ignored.

Since humans are not machines nor are they 'really' logically-thinking beings, the good old ergo sum arguments are not very effective in the long term.

Each and every decision is by definition emotional. Even if the chances are a million to one and any efforts beyond say ten minutes seem to be futile, we the human beings believe so much in ourselves and the world around us, that we might even keep on going for a long time, despite obvious impossible-looking obstacles.

The funny thing is that quite often what at first seemed impossible becomes probable, and with a tad extra perseverance and positive thinking, happens before you realize it.

In that way life is pleasantly unpredictable and worth living, as always.

Could it really be that my little girl is growing up much more quickly than I ever realized?

At seventeen years she has already become a young woman, almost but not quite ready to tackle the real world outside.

Now is the time to appreciate her as much as possible while I can, before she decides to jump ship and swim away.

The popularity of Kiffin Rockwell never seems to wane, even after all these years.

I still get messages regularly from kind folks having one thing or another to do with this fine American hero. Here's one I just happened to receive about five minutes ago:

I've sent a message before, but here's my webpage: www.valiantvolunteers.com. See and order my novel there. Kiffin was one of my favorite characters.

Thanks alot Terry.

Kiffin by plane.

So why the heck would you or anyone else ever want to define a virtual destructor? Have a look at the following code:

Note here that the body of the virtual destructor is empty. What gives?

When you think about it more closely, you cannot help but realize that this is necessary. Whenever a pointer to the Blah class is used to delete an object that might actually be a derived-class object, then be careful, e.g. a virtual destructor is required unless you enjoy blowing up your program in unpredictable ways.

Since this destructor is inherited by the derived classes there is no need to redefine this destructor in the derived classes.