Ganked from LJ

November 12, 2005 by paul
Filed under: Uncategorized

An assortment of things I’ve seen on LiveJournal recently that I’ve been hanging on to, meaning to post about them:

There’s a rumour (semi-confirmed by Rolling Stone) that Peter Gabriel may finally be interested in a Genesis reunion. “The odds [of a Genesis reunion] are better now than before,” Gabriel tells Rolling Stone. When pushed to definitely say if the group is reuniting, Gabriel remains coy: “I wouldn’t put money on it . . . yet.”

Fingers crossed, it will happen soon. I’ve seen The Musical Box recreate “Selling England By The Pound” and we’ve got tickets to see them do “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” next month, but it would be great to see the original line-up perform them … unless tickets are ridiculously expensive.
Geek Quote of the Day from Thursday:

There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses.

[Bjarne Stroustrup]

I taught myself C at school (must have been ~1982) and really liked it; before that I’d used BASIC, logo/noddy (basic structured language for controlling a “turtle”) and Pascal. I still think C beats newer “trendy” languages like Visual Basic … but then beating yourself with a 2×4 beats Visual Basic!
Also from the “ubergeeks” community, yesterday’s Geek Quote of the Day from Robert Heinlein:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher an animal, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Hmm, well, let’s see: never tried, yes (if playing Risk is any indication), a small one – probably, maybe – I can navigate so what more is there to it?, doubt it, nope, yes, probably, no, not something I want to find out, oh yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, it’s a menu of maybe three things but yes, not since school, and hopefully another one I won’t have to find out.
This week’s Friday Five:
1. What is your favorite noise to hear?
  Standing beside the track when a Formula One car goes by at full speed
2. If you could live in any era of time, what would you choose and why?
  I couldn’t part with my creature comforts, so I guess it’s now … or maybe the future, as long as I get my own robot and jetpack!
3. You just found $50 while cleaning your house. Where do you decide to spend it?
  Right now, I’d put it towards replacing my boots and winter coat – I’m going to need them soon. Bring on the snow!
4. What magazines to you subscribe to/read on a normal basis?
  Techie mags.
5. If you could witness any event in history, but not change anything about it, what would you choose and why?
  There’s just too many, but I think the most intriguing one is the Big Bang. Reserve me a seat at the Restaurant At The (other) End Of The Universe so I can see how it all started.