October 2004

28Oct2004

Ruby Performance

I love the Ruby language. I have doubts about the ability of its interpreter, though, after it was a factor of fifty slower at parsing XML than Java.

28Oct2004

Warney

Watching Warne play cricket, though, you get the impression that the reason he lacks wit and focus off the field is because he's saving it for the game. Warne approaches every delivery utterly convinced that it is going to defeat the batsman.

19Oct2004

Kill Your Television

It may just be me, but every time I come across a reference to John Kerry (or any other politician "flip-flopping", all I can think of is that episode of The Simpsons when Sideshow Bob ran for mayor.

15Oct2004

No Swap for You!

So I turned off swap. And everything seems to be running pretty smoothly. There are still bursts of IO as the database does something complicated, but in general, the box is back to barely working up a sweat.

10Oct2004

Close to a Legend

I was ten feet away from Brian May kicking some serious ass on guitar. Loud cries of "We are not worthy" were heard from the crowd.

07Oct2004

Abu Ghraib

It was my brother Ayad. He was bleeding from his legs, knees and forehead. I told my sister: 'Find out if he's still breathing.' She said: 'No. Nothing.' I started crying. The next day they took away his body."