why i deleted my twitter account

From gapingvoid:

The Ethics of Elfland

As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.

It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by a majority of the people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.

-- G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)

The March of Progress

Funny but sad, too - especially if one happened to be programming in those intermediate years. From Cay Horstmann:

1980: C 
	printf("%10.2f", x);
1988: C++
	cout << setw(10) << setprecision(2) << showpoint << x;
1996: Java
	java.text.NumberFormat formatter = java.text.NumberFormat.getNumberInstance(); 
	formatter.setMinimumFractionDigits(2); 
	formatter.setMaximumFractionDigits(2); 
	String s = formatter.format(x); 
	for (int i = s.length(); i < 10; i++) {
		System.out.print(' '); 
		System.out.print(s);
	}
2004: Java
	System.out.printf("%10.2f", x);

Hofstadter’s rule

As documented in "Five steps to enlightened expectations" on TechRepublic:

Everything takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter’s rule into account.

Duty Calls

From xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe:

Ah, so true. So true!

Free Screen Cleaner

From LOL: The Life of Leo ... too cute!

Snow in Toronto

The horror ... the horror...

Off the Rails?

And here I thought some of the tech companies I've worked for had, ahem, issues ... but wow! ... if this on-going rant by Zed Shaw is any indication, I'm really, really glad I didn't pursue my interest in Ruby on Rails a couple of years ago.

How TV Affects Your Brain Chemistry

Link to Dr Mercola's article Groucho Marx: "Television is very educational. Whenever someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read a book."

Dancin' Doughboy

And on the lighter side of things, you can now design your very own dance for the Pillsbury Doughboy: Dancin' Doughboy