May 17, 2003
First and Second Law
Song of the Day is First and Second Law off the At the Drop of Another Hat album by Flanders and Swann:
The First law of Thermodynamics:
Heat is work and work is heat
Very Good.
The Second law of Thermodynamics:
Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body
Heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter
You can try it if you like but you'd far better not-a
'Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-a
'Cos the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler
Oo-glay? Eh-mipto!
And if anyone out there knows the origin of the expression "Oo-glay? Eh-mipto!", please contact me. Click where it says "Tell me", on the left. No, your left.
public static void main, public
public static void main,
public static void main,
public static void main,
and typo was his name-o!
I hate Java. It was completely obvious that Java was a huge pile of dog poo the moment they showed the Java version of "Hello, world!":
In Python, the entire program isclass HelloWorld {
public static void main (String args[]) {
System.out.println("Hello World!");
}
}
Which is why I program in Python rather than Java.print "Hello, World!"
If you need to interface with Java stuff, you need to take a look at Jython. It's Python, with all the requisite Python goodness, but it is written in, runs on, works with, and compiles to Java. And like all the good things in life that don't cost anything, it's free!
Sitemeter
Useful Web Thingy of the Day is Sitemeter. It tracks how many people are visiting your site and where they came from. And it's free. Scroll allll the way down to the bottom to see. I put it on the left originally, under the Blogger icon, but it's too big and screwed up my formatting. No matter, it works fine wherever it is.
Friday Fishwrap
Blog of the Day is Friday Fishwrap:
I don't know why these made me laugh so hard.. I think it was the possum.This refers, of course, to Teen Girl Squad over at HomeStarRunner.
Note that the obligatory adorable kittens have all found good homes, so you're too late!
Shiny Happy Disk Drives
Well, it's happened: Hard disks have broken through the historically significant* $2/GB barrier. The drive in question is a 120GB Maxtor, now retailing for $219. Last week it was $249; two weeks ago it was $269. That's pretty rapid deflation even for a product that's seen price per unit fall by a factor of 5000 since 1990.
So the only question is: How many? The sooner I get rid of the rest of those poxy Deathstars the better.
*I just made that up.
Update: The same supplier has Opteron processors and motherboards. A bit pricy for the home user, but dirt cheap if you need a 64-bit dual-processor server.
Deathstalker vs. Harry Potter
Dire as it was, Deathstalker and the Complete Lack of Plot was only slightly more boring than Harry Potter and the Extremely Slow-Moving Story, which somehow managed to score a 7.3 on IMDB. Now there's a movie that could do with a MiSTing. If you should feel the urge to watch either one, a few minutes of The Princess Bride is the recommended treatment.
May cause excessive quotations. Do not operate machinery if effected.