the practical paper-clip

Posted on Monday, 2004 September 20 by Anton

Microsoft Forger Assistant (cited by Aaron Sherber)

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watching Hitchcock

Posted on Sunday, 2004 September 19 by Anton

Saw two excellent Hitchcock pictures this week: Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954) — each of which concerns a tennis champion with an inconvenient wife.
In the latter, Grace Kelly’s accent is sometimes plummier than her character; I wonder whether she modelled it in part on Joan Greenwood (Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Suit, The Importance of Being Earnest).

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if (oldbit == true) { if (newbit == true) { /* DO NOT DO ANYTHING */ } . . .

Posted on Sunday, 2004 September 19 by Anton

The Daily WTF showcases badly written code. (Cited by Ned Batchelder, who found it from Bob Congdon.)

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the law is an ass

Posted on Sunday, 2004 September 19 by Anton

Looking up the Constitution of the State of California for a discussion on secession, I noticed this doubly odd provision (article 3 section 2):

The boundaries of the State are those stated in the Constitution of 1849 as modified pursuant to statute. Sacramento is the capital of California.

Why incorporate a superseded law by reference rather than explicitly? And why put in the constitution something that is subject to alteration by ordinary statute?

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1337 unix skilz

Posted on Sunday, 2004 September 19 by Anton

I’ve just written my first cron job, to sort my Mozilla bookmarks by last access (since Moz won’t do it properly). Seems to work. Woohoo!

I learned just enough from the Llama Book to do it crudely, but not enough to do it quite the way I’d like to.
(Later: rewrote it more to my liking in Python.)

In other news, summer is suddenly over: after a series of heatwaves, this morning it’s intermittent heavy rain.

Posted in California, me!me!me! | Leave a comment

advancing smartly to the rear

Posted on Friday, 2004 September 17 by Anton

AlterNet: DrugReporter: Dressing Up Failure

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use the technology, Luke!

Posted on Wednesday, 2004 September 15 by Anton

In Angel episode 4:8 “Habeas Corpses”, there’s a long scene where Our Heroes have to fight off a horde of zombies with nothing but their fists. It’s twice as tricky as it might be, because one hand is busy holding a sword or axe.

I guess it’s expensive to film multiple decapitations.

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