Archives for January 2008
One thing I love about Ruby (vs php)
The case (aka switch in other languages) control structure in Ruby is great. The first when clause that evaluates true is the only one executed.
Compare to PHP’s switch, which lets execution fall-through to every passing case until it finds a break. That’s just wrong. It’s so counter-intuitive. Sure, a veteran PHP [...]
Blue-Ringed Octopus
My sister is a TA for a Carleton study abroad program in Australia right now, and she just clued me in to their program blog. It’s full of gorgeous underwater pictures, like the blue-ringed octopus:
Or, as I like to call it, the blue-ringed octopus of death. It uses a type of neurotoxin called [...]
Bush and the Tolstoy Syndrome
That is a clip from A Charge to Keep, Bush the younger’s favorite painting because he believes it reflects pioneering ideals — he sees a man forging on into the wilderness, blazing a trail for all to follow. The reality is somewhat different. That Harper’s article goes on to explain that Bush has “Tolstoy [...]
Volubilis
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volubilis, originally uploaded by bantic.
Someone named John wrote me the other day to ask permission to use this pic of Volubilis on his myspace page. Cool.
Public Art in St. Petersburg
Ji, whom I collaborated with on the interactive version of the Bubble Project, and with whom I am currently working on another, unreleased project, was in Russia recently for a public art project. He has some interesting posts up on this Public Art Russia blog.
Hatred in America
Talking Points Memo posted a video of Bill Moyers explaining Hillary’s LBJ quote from a while back. It’s worth watching if you haven’t seen it, although it seems the flap has mostly died down now. At the 1:33 mark there’s a photo from the fifties of some teenagers holding a sign that I’m not [...]
Bobby Fischer, dead at 64
Bobby Fischer died today. What an interesting iconoclast.
A related side note: For the past week, Choire Sicha (pronunciation mp3), formerly of Gawker, has been guest-blogging for kottke.org all this week. Jason did this before, and both times I’ve found it interesting how the particular interests of the guest blogger take the blog [...]
Kerfuffle only has one L
I always, always thought it was kerfLuffle. Huh. Thanks, A Word a Day, today I am one letter smarter than yesterday.
Melbourne, Distilled
When I was studying abroad in Melb’n I remember walking down Lonsdale street once when a passing, slightly drunk-looking Melburnian greeted with me an effusive, “G’day mate.” I wanly said, “Hi,” and he confidently replied, “Yeah, not bad,” as he strode past me. That experience has always seemed uniquely Australian to me, and [...]
St John 2006-2007
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St John 2006-2007, originally uploaded by bantic.
Here’s my “life poster” from my family’s holiday travels in ‘06 and ‘07. Click through to see the whole slideshow.
