Log -- David Chess

log (2002/05/10 to 2002/05/16)

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Now playing:
Wednesday, May 15, 2002
Here are the top phrases searched:
- 3 for "iris chacon"
- 2 for "helen"
- 2 for "naked women"
- 2 for "sex"
- 1 for "278"

From Boing Boing, amazing online copies of numerous classic works of literature, including "Tom Swift And His Aerial Warship or The Naval Terror of the Seas".
Today's Geek Philosophy: Some thoughts about SOAP versus REST on Security, and the related On the use of HTTP as a Substrate. Or, why people should stop wrapping lots of random gorp inside innocent little HTTP calls.
Now we'll get all meta again.
Readers thought about nine times six in various ways. For some reason we got many similar answers, viz:
54
54
54
fifty-four
fifty-four
54

as well as:
42
0x42
NOT 0x42; 42(base 14). (Sigh)
equals forty-two. At least according to Arthur Dent's subconscious.
42

and along the same general lines:
8 times five, or fight!
nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine
No, I don't remember.
666666666
if six was nine, 81
sqrt 2196

More generally:
.pfr
The Internet is full, go home.
pulled out a pair of pliers and pulled a bullet out of my chest
[link]
Way too much hair to be human.
I just remembered an old technique: add the digits. Keep andding the digits. If you finally get 9, then the number is divisible by 9

(High Plains Drifter)
Perhaps not surprisingly, only one reader submitted what is, strictly speaking, the correct answer:
Sixteen, the number of holes in the universe

A segueing reader notes that nine times six
is 10 shy of what I'll be when I'm older, losing my hair (not so many years from now...) PS: We saw McCartney in San Jose on April 3: fantabulous!!

A (perhaps nother) reader also had a good time at (a different instance of) that concert.
And finally, an update on how certain customs are observed in Latin America. Or perhaps a Lunatic Asylum:
Outdoor fucking season here in L.A. runs from Jan 2 to Dec 20. We take a respectful break for the holidays.

That's all for today; I've spent many hours listening to the same talks as Steve and Ian, and my brain is really really tired...
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
So I was going to draw this sort of serene-looking bald guy that I sometimes draw, but it turned out that as usual I can't really draw with the mouse, so I played around idly with the curve tool in Paint for awhile, and I noticed that I had made this sort of appealing little scrawl. So here it is.
Monday, May 13, 2002
So all sortsa stuff going on. The rant about the CBDTPA has been widely linked, but I'm too lazy at the moment to show you where. The poll about default assage is getting lots and lots of votes (everyone's an expert?), and an interesting diversity of views, but I'm too lazy to digest them and make sepia pie charts and present them to you.
Do we sense a trend here?
(Today's only bit of actual webloggage is our Acronym Expansion o' the Day: Consume, But Don't Try Programming Anything.)
I'm reading this Effective Java book, and it's kind of amusing. Among the main lessons in the first few chapters are:

Constructors are lousy; use static "newInstance()" methods instead,

Finalizers are lousy; avoid them in essentially all cases,

The Serializable interface has serious problems; use it rarely,

The Cloneable interface is essentially unusable; avoid it,

Inheritance is messy and dangerous; use composition instead,

Abstract classes are usually a poor idea; use interfaces instead.

Speaking of sensing trends...

White elephant, or wise investment?
Lots of stuff going on, busy running about and typing and reading email. Which isn't to say that I haven't also been obsessively doing virtual commodity arbitrage on NeoPets (man, I hope someone buys this Golden Shoyru Helmet soon; it cost me over 10K, but I think I overestimated the demand). And writing random Perl hacks.
Today's random Perl hack was MungProxy.pl, a rudimentary HTTP proxy that lets the user (i.e. me) intercept HTTP requests on their way out of the browser, and responses on the way back, and edit them before they actually take effect. So, for instance, if some page is unreadable because of an obnoxious background or other markup obscenities, I can just fire up the proxy, reload the page, intercept the response, edit out the responsible tags, and see a readable version of the page. Similarly if there's some page where a form doesn't work because of some typo or browser-specific frob, there's some chance that I can make it work by intercepting the form submission on the way out to the server, and hand-repairing it to fit.
Brilliant, eh? Terrible user interface, and a bit of a pain to bring up, so I won't be using it for casual on the fly page-improvement, but it might be useful now and then.
Hm, how hard would a Java version be?

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earlier entries

older log newer log reply about archive search home words site news talking place linkwatcher Now playing:	Wednesday, May 15, 2002 Here are the top phrases searched: - 3 for "iris chacon" - 2 for "helen" - 2 for "naked women" - 2 for "sex" - 1 for "278" From Boing Boing, amazing online copies of numerous classic works of literature, including "Tom Swift And His Aerial Warship or The Naval Terror of the Seas". Today's Geek Philosophy: Some thoughts about SOAP versus REST on Security, and the related On the use of HTTP as a Substrate. Or, why people should stop wrapping lots of random gorp inside innocent little HTTP calls. Now we'll get all meta again. Readers thought about nine times six in various ways. For some reason we got many similar answers, viz: 54 54 54 fifty-four fifty-four 54 as well as: 42 0x42 NOT 0x42; 42(base 14). (Sigh) equals forty-two. At least according to Arthur Dent's subconscious. 42 and along the same general lines: 8 times five, or fight! nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine No, I don't remember. 666666666 if six was nine, 81 sqrt 2196 More generally: .pfr The Internet is full, go home. pulled out a pair of pliers and pulled a bullet out of my chest [link] Way too much hair to be human. I just remembered an old technique: add the digits. Keep andding the digits. If you finally get 9, then the number is divisible by 9 (High Plains Drifter) Perhaps not surprisingly, only one reader submitted what is, strictly speaking, the correct answer: Sixteen, the number of holes in the universe A segueing reader notes that nine times six is 10 shy of what I'll be when I'm older, losing my hair (not so many years from now...) PS: We saw McCartney in San Jose on April 3: fantabulous!! A (perhaps nother) reader also had a good time at (a different instance of) that concert. And finally, an update on how certain customs are observed in Latin America. Or perhaps a Lunatic Asylum: Outdoor fucking season here in L.A. runs from Jan 2 to Dec 20. We take a respectful break for the holidays. That's all for today; I've spent many hours listening to the same talks as Steve and Ian, and my brain is really really tired... Tuesday, May 14, 2002 Monday, May 13, 2002 So all sortsa stuff going on. The rant about the CBDTPA has been widely linked, but I'm too lazy at the moment to show you where. The poll about default assage is getting lots and lots of votes (everyone's an expert?), and an interesting diversity of views, but I'm too lazy to digest them and make sepia pie charts and present them to you. Do we sense a trend here? (Today's only bit of actual webloggage is our Acronym Expansion o' the Day: Consume, But Don't Try Programming Anything.) I'm reading this Effective Java book, and it's kind of amusing. Among the main lessons in the first few chapters are: Constructors are lousy; use static "newInstance()" methods instead, Finalizers are lousy; avoid them in essentially all cases, The Serializable interface has serious problems; use it rarely, The Cloneable interface is essentially unusable; avoid it, Inheritance is messy and dangerous; use composition instead, Abstract classes are usually a poor idea; use interfaces instead. Speaking of sensing trends...
	Lots of stuff going on, busy running about and typing and reading email. Which isn't to say that I haven't also been obsessively doing virtual commodity arbitrage on NeoPets (man, I hope someone buys this Golden Shoyru Helmet soon; it cost me over 10K, but I think I overestimated the demand). And writing random Perl hacks. Today's random Perl hack was MungProxy.pl, a rudimentary HTTP proxy that lets the user (i.e. me) intercept HTTP requests on their way out of the browser, and responses on the way back, and edit them before they actually take effect. So, for instance, if some page is unreadable because of an obnoxious background or other markup obscenities, I can just fire up the proxy, reload the page, intercept the response, edit out the responsible tags, and see a readable version of the page. Similarly if there's some page where a form doesn't work because of some typo or browser-specific frob, there's some chance that I can make it work by intercepting the form submission on the way out to the server, and hand-repairing it to fit. Brilliant, eh? Terrible user interface, and a bit of a pain to bring up, so I won't be using it for casual on the fly page-improvement, but it might be useful now and then. Hm, how hard would a Java version be?
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