Month: July 2002

“Why I Hate Advocacy”

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I’ve recently discovered the article “Why I Hate Advocacy” by Mark-Jason Dominus. The article is hosted at Perl.com, but it’s really just about language advocacy in general.

Considering that the guy is obviously a Perl guru, he’s remarkably objective to languages in general — he appears to be a strong believer in the “use the best tool for the job” approach.

You can be ‘unfair’ to a person, and you can hurt their [sic] feelings, even if you tell only the truth. But Pascal is a programming language, not a person. It has no feelings to hurt. Criticizing Pascal’s type system is like complaining that your hammer has a scratched face. There is no use getting upset about it. You just have to get a new hammer or make do. Saying that the criticism is unfair to the hammer, for whatever reason, is just silly. [...]

Anyone watch The Mole?

Ashley Bischoff5 Comments

Hey, does anyone watch The Mole 2 on ABC?

For those not aware, the game features 14 players that complete challenges, adding money to the pot. However, one of the players is “the mole” who is working against the team, trying to sabotage the challenges. And, at the end of each weekly show, the players have to take a quiz to test their knowledge on who’s the mole — and, the player that gets the least questions right about the mole is ejected from the game. Of course, the last player standing at the end of the series wins the pot.

I have my own theories about who the mole is, but it’s more fun to have a conversation with two people ;).

Autocross Video

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

Last week, I mentioned that I had some video from my last autocross, but no place to serve it (since my web host only allows for 300 MB trasfer/month).

However, Jason was gracious enough to host the videos on his box, and they’re now available in DivX format. In case you don’t have DivX, I’d recommend the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack, a software bundle with just about all the audio & video players you might need.

There’re two versions of the file, a high-quality version (63 MB) and a lower-quality version (55 MB). Both are the same length and are made up of two separate runs at the autocross. And, both are unaltered; no sound effects have been added.

Update 2005-08-13: I've changed web hosts and the files are hosted locally now.

New In Flames Album

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

As mentioned in Century Media’s monthly newsletter, In Flames is coming out with a new album “Reroute To Remain” on September 3rd. As In Flames is my second-favorite band, I’m so excited about this! (Nevermore is first, for those curious, due to their spectacular “Dreaming Neon Black” album.)

And, just for Josh, I’ll pass along that the Century Media newsletter also mentioned that Meshuggah has completed their new disc Nothing.

Midway through their Ozzfest venture, Nothing will crash onto the scene. Fans attending Ozzfest can pre-order the disc for 5 bucks at the FYE booth. Not only will that reserve a copy of Nothing, but those that pre-order will also receive a free Nothing booklet right then to have the band autograph at one of the many signings held everyday on Ozzfest. What a deal!

Nothing will be released on August 6th.

Chocolate Decadence

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

When my parents came to visit over the weekend, they brought along some “chocolate decadence” cake for my birthday. And, I think that chocolate decadence may be my new favorite cake :).

Legend has it that the original recipe called for only one tablespoons of flour and a full pound of chocolate. And, the modern recipe is probably not far from that ;). Ooh, it’s so chocolate-y and delicious — it actually appears to have more chocolate density than a fudge brownie, if you can believe that.

I had pondered typing the query “chocolate decadence nutrition information” into Google, but I don’t think I even want to know ;).