The difference between learning a language by reading a tutorial, and impatiently diving into it by just looking up a couple of command descriptions in a reference and glancing at some machine-generated code:

( Read more... )

"G'night! Drive safe!" "Safely! It's 'Drive safely'!" "But it's an idiom; 'Drive safe' is an idiom ..." "I know, but it's an idiom that drives me batty.
Forsake the idiom!" [*pout*] "Okay, fine: idiom forsook." [*glare*] "Argh!!!" [*grin*]

They say that it is good to learn at least one new thing each day. Yesterday I learned that rush hour traffic exists (on I95 and the Capitol Beltway) on Saturdays. (Non, je ne comprends pas ... [how do you say 'either'?])

Today I learned that if you screw up badly enough, you can get ( Read more... )

This just showed up in my mailbox, un-credited. [Edit: It took asking Google three different ways and then Googling additional clues as they turned up in a sort of breadcrumb-trail, but I think it's by Andy Borowitz (the original has one extra "in other news" paragraph at the end), a slight reworking of what he posted for last year's SotU.] My ( Read more... )

Hmm. Something I heard on television tonight needs to go in a quote-of-the-day for 2009-01-02. (It will both amuse me and scare me a little if any of y'all can figure out the reference from just those two clues.)

For the past couple of hours, I have had a song stuck in my head ( Read more... )

I should not be awake now. [I started writing this at 4:30.] I've documented my recent data ( Read more... )

"The Mediterranean is also commonly confused with a vagina because of their many similar characteristics, listed as follows:

• hot
• wet
• small opening at one end one must squeeze through
• entry is easier if you placate the power just above the opening
• all the way in is a place that has birthed entire races

"Most statisticians agree, however, that things in paintings are only 12% more likely to exist than things that aren't in paintings, and things in Renaissance era literature are actually 26% less likely to exist, [...]" -- from the Uncyclopedia article, "Weapons that don't exist but should" (under the heading, "Feather of Death")

polykleitos wrote (and yes, this is how far behind I am on my LJ reading): "When you see this, post something original, in your own words, that isn't a quote from anywhere. Please." Therefore ...

Though no thing be new beneath the sun,
I did not quote these lines from anyone.
If any other hath spoken similarly
I blame it all on synchronicity.

I guess ( Read more... )