kasia in a nutshell

Something that always annoyed me in bc, the ever-handy calculator language present on all unix systems.. all I can ask is why? Why? WHY?

[lyra:~] kasia% bc
bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'. 
2+2
4

(interrupt) use quit to exit.

quit

[lyra:~] kasia% 

In case it's not self-evident, bc traps ^c and spouts out that stupid message..

(Yes, I know it has nothing to do with Java, but I use my Java category for all programming-related crap)

Posted by kasia at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Is there some secret cabal composed of VW Beetle owners whose secret sign is to stick fake flowers behind the steering column? I believe I've seen about 30 examples of this in the last couple of years and every single one was a new beetle..

Posted by kasia at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

As evidenced in Information Week a few days ago where Aaron Ricadelo (whoever he is) gushed all about ajax and php being the newest and greatest:

Scripting languages such as Ajax and PHP are challenging Java and making it easier to quickly develop and prototype Web-services app

How embarrassing for him.. ajax is not a scripting language and XML consumption is hardly specific to PHP, hence, ajax technology can be used with any server-side language. Seriously, do some research, don't just regurgitate press releases.

I wonder how many middle managers read that and sent out "We gotta get us some of that ajax-php technology!" emails without realizing they might already be using it with Java or .net.

Posted by kasia at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Evidently, nearly a year later, I am still adjusting. Drove to work today just to discover the parking lot empty and building devoid of any life. I wonder if I'm the only one who didn't realize today is a holiday?

Posted by kasia at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Either that or sometimes it just doesn't work.. from bad-ideas-in-our-code selection of the day:

Static constant to represent the SQL string "COUNT(*)".. which in itself while silly (not like we need to centralize that in case the sql changes) isn't necessarily a "what the hell" type of thing.. but when you add that the same class file, written by the same programmer, hard codes the number of results returned by a query.. well, that makes you wonder about their brain patterns, doesn't it?

Posted by kasia at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A Whole Foods just opened near me (yay, fresh organic produce at a lower price than withered organic produce at local not-so-super-market) and tomorrow a Trader Joe's is opening nearby... and to top it all I discovered Trinity College has a pretty nice movie theater that plays interesting movies and is only about a 15 minute drive.

Suddenly it's starting to feel like I live in a liberal state or something.

As more people buy organic and healthier foods, more health food stores become viable (as of tomorrow we'll have three stores around here that specialize in organic/health food products, only a year and a half ago we had none), organic foods should become cheaper and ever more people ought to buy them.. which means stores like Stop&Shop and Shaws ought to watch themselves.. their organic produce really stinks in quality and is more expensive than Whole Foods. Yay for tasty fruits and veggies!

Posted by kasia at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Some time in the next millions of years

Man, I hate fear mongering in the news..

Posted by kasia at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)