The Microsoft bid to acquire Yahoo! is the latest desperate move from a dinosaur to avoid extinction. Actually, the only thing keeping that dinosaur alive right now is its cash, because it is plain to see that Microsoft just doesn't "get" the Web. It drove Hotmail to the ground years ago, it created a single sign-on system that everybody hates, and I don't think Live.com is much better than MSN.com - even the name is as bland.

I am lucky to find "Genesis", a French documentary about the natural history of the Earth, on TPS Star tonight. Google takes me instantly to the schedule page of the TPS Star channel, informing me: Genesis Film documentaire de Claude Nuridsany et Marie Pérennou. 2004. Thanks globalization for the poor.

The Earth starts with molten lava.

As the fire burns out, steam comes out.

The steam is redistributed on the lava as rain, covering the earth and cooling it.

As the volume of steam gets redistributed as oceans, seas, rivers and lakes, the weather cycle is initiated.

When you're coding a function, start with the return statement and work the logic backward to reach the inputs. Since we're more concerned with the function's output, this reversal does shift the focus on getting the result required instead of starting off far away, at the input level.

- I'll only believe it when I see it, said the skeptic.
- Me too, and that's why I imagine it, replied the believer.

The title gives it away really. It is the paradigm of dialectics (of which I have only a faint idea) to the study and theory of systems (of which I am trying to learn the rudiments).

Le magicien découvrit une formule très importante. Il la confia à son apprenti qui, plus ambitieux que lui, chercha immédiatement à en tirer profit. Il alla directement aux seigneurs des environs.

Le meilleur acheteur se révéla avoir des vélléités impériales et il lui demanda de construire une arme qui userait de cette formule. Ce que l'apprenti executa allègrement et avec beaucoup d'ingénuité, au grand détriment du voisinage.

Le magicien reçut les honneurs dûs au génie de sa formule.

Randomness is a measure of our ignorance.

A man walks in a little bookstore and buys sophisticated books that deal with philosophical and scientific topics. At the counter, the young clerk comments:
- A little light reading huh.
- Yeah, just some bathroom reading, replies the man matter of factly, trying to be funnier in the shortest sentence.
- Wow, you must be full of shit then!