Crickets Chirping

I might share The Onion’s harsh feelings towards our outgoing commander-in-chief, but this series of articles is strange:

• Spider Eggs Hatch In Bush’s Brain
• Single-Engine Cessna Crashes Into Bush
• Bush’s Eyelid Accidentally Nailed To Wall
• Bush Dragged Behind Presidential Motorcade For 26 Blocks

I guess it’s funny, but it’s schadenfreude without a punchline, and that feels more like a satirical voodoo doll than a joke.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I’ve started a new blog, dashdashverbose, where I will be putting my geekier code-related entries from now on.

I’m splitting the CS geekery off because I get one consistent piece of feedback from people who actually offer feedback on this blog: “It’s interesting except for the technical posts- I don’t get those so I just scroll past ‘em.”

The name “dashdashverbose” comes from a command line option used by unix-like applications: “- -verbose” usually tells the app to spit out as much information about what it’s doing as it can. The output is typically a firehose of technical details that only a few people care about.

Kinda like my geekier posts :)

The inaugural –verbose entry is about how to run MapReduce with JavaScript.

[Second in a series]

Summary

An idiot who goes by the adopted name Tom Castro is befriended by a black man in Australia named Ebenezer Bogle. Bogle is some kind of genius, but he is haunted by the fear of being hit by a car so he has trouble crossing streets.

Castro ad Bogle read in the paper about this english guy Roger Charles Tichborne who disappeared with a sinking ship. The article says Tichborne’s mother is convinced that her son was not on the ship and is still alive.

Bogle devises a plan to have Castro pose as the lost Tichborne. They travel to the London to present themselves to Tichborne’s mother. Castro looks nothing like Tichborne, and doesn’t even speak French, as Tichborne did fluently. The mother believes Castro to be her son regardless, but the rest of the family objects.

Creditors who are owed money insist that Castro is Tichborne, helping to build Bogle’s case.

Bogle gets hit by a car.

Without Bogle masterminding the charade, Castro is caught and convicted.

Commentary

When I see a “Lost Dog” sign I want to do this:

• Write the phone number down and wait a year.
• Call to verify that they still haven’t found the dog.
• Go to the animal shelter and find a dog that closely resembles the one in the photo.
• Train it to go by the name of the lost dog.
• “Return” it.