Once again, and customarily around November, we settle down to the slow, tragic crawl of our favorite NFL football team and the realization that the Minnesota Vikings will probably not qualify for the playoffs this year either. And so, traditionally about the time when grinning pumpkins pop into the windows and kiddies run around yelling [...]
Monthly Archives: October 2006
October 31, 2006
17:51
17:51
October 24, 2006
17:30
17:30
0xc0000005
This has been my nemesis of lately. Error 0xc0000005 means that there’s an Access Violation in the code; namely, some part of the program tried to access a memory location that was invalid. It means, usually, a construction fault within the program. Except, in this case, when the environment you’re working with is so faulty [...]
October 24, 2006
14:23
14:23
Perks of Working for a Software Company
Free soda. :) I’ll be going for the Coke and Fanta. I hope my dentist doesn’t see this.
October 24, 2006
14:01
14:01
Does Everything Happen in Waves?
Maybe everything happens in waves? Waves are central to the foundation of the universe. The quantum wave-particle dualism means that all matter, every single atomic particle, behaves like a wave. I was out walking one day about a year ago when I looked at the ground and saw – it had just been raining – [...]
October 20, 2006
15:43
15:43
Willie McBride
Along with my recent interest in Irish folk music, which I’m sure has nothing to do with Miss Northern Ireland, I’ve found a song called Willie McBride. Ah the sun now it shines on these green fields of France, The warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance, And look how the sun shines from [...]
October 13, 2006
18:53
18:53
Unix: Shooting Yourself in the Foot
I stumbled across this little gem today. If from a page of how to shoot yourself in the foot in any programming language. It was full of how to shoot yourself in the foot in Visual Basic, Prolog, C++, and many others. But this one was the best. UNIX: % ls foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c [...]
October 9, 2006
17:31
17:31
The Story of the Task and the Young Engineer
Once upon a time, a Task was given to a young engineer. The engineer was delighted to start working upon it, since this was his first big task to do within the big system he was working with. “It’s not a funny task”, cautioned the Master Programmer to the young engineer. Nevertheless, the engineer sat [...]
October 6, 2006
16:36
16:36
Stored Procedures and the HMD First Law
I don’t know if there is a good way and a bad way of using Stored Procedures. My experience with them so far has been pretty limited. I’m sure that there are wonders that can be achieved with them. At least they should be pretty efficient at cutting down data transfers between server and client, [...]
October 4, 2006
16:05
16:05
Panic: When DailyWTF Hits Home
There’s a site I love which is called www.thedailywtf.com [UPDATED]. It is full of real-world examples of code, which at some point or other has caused programmers maintaining that code to exclaim various colorful phrases forbidden to younger ears; code written so poorly that jaws are dropped, coffee mugs crash on the floor, little children [...]
October 4, 2006
09:24
09:24
Spoils of Cannibalism
Our fish tank has already shed its first victim. Who knew that the peaceful, tranquil aquarium that glimmers so beautifully in our hallway, actually is a wild, bizarre deathtrap where those fish who aren’t fast and furious become lunch for those who are? It is a relentless hierarchy of fish. Between those who eat, and [...]
October 2, 2006
14:32
14:32
More on Miss World
My three favorites of them all were… well, of course, as already mentioned, Miss North Ireland. But Miss Iceland and Miss Belgium really made an impression as well. Miss North Ireland Miss Iceland Miss Belgium And, also, a picture of Catherine Milligan performing in the talent contest, winning it with a “haunting interpretation of the [...]
October 2, 2006
11:47
11:47
Great Books: Programming .NET Security
Programming .NET Security (available from O’Reilly, Amazon) is a great book which everyone should read. It is possibly one of the best books introducing you to defense-in-depth in .NET runtime environments, assemblies, and classes. It goes into Role-Based Security, Code Access Security and how to practically implement it, as well as providing a very good [...]
October 1, 2006
20:36
20:36
Miss World 2006
Pathetic, I know. But I actually ended up watching Miss World 2006 on TV today. I have a channel package on the digital cable called Eight Favorites, where you get to pick and choose eight different channels you want to subscribe to, beyond the national channels available to every household. These include CNN, CNBC, Discovery [...]