I'm in the process of reading this, and even though I haven't finished yet, it has already proven itself as a "must read" as a great overview of the issue of static versus dynamic typing.

Angle Brackets and Curly Braces
Programming with "Duh" Typing
by Bill Venners
July 6, 2007

    Summary
    To what extent does the productivity of dynamic languages come from the lack of typed variables versus the reduction in "finger typing" required when you don't have to declare the types? The technique of type inferencing in static languages may shed new light on this old debate.

Over the years here at Artima we've had a number of debates and discussions about static versus dynamic typing. Here are a few:

    * Are Dynamic Languages Going to Replace Static Languages?, discussion of a weblog post by Robert C. Martin.
    * Typing: Strong vs. Weak, Static vs. Dynamic, discussion of a weblog post by Aahz.
    * Strong versus Weak Typing, discussion of an interview with Python's creator Guido van Rossum.
    * Implicit versus Explicit Dynamic Typing, discussion of a weblog post by Christopher Diggins.
    * To type or not to type, discussion of a weblog post by Jim Waldo,
    * Use the Best Tool for the Job, discussion of a short article by a younger me.

Eric's Movie Database is a free program that you can use to put all your movie titles into a database. I've been playing around with it for a few hours and I'm quite happy with it. It's definitely good enough for my needs.

It doesn't matter if they are DVD or some compressed container format, EMDB is suitable for just about anything related to movies. It's simple to use: Just click on Add, enter the title of the movie, hit enter or click the Search IMDB button, and it does the rest for you.

It has a nice HTML template setup, although the default template is rather crude and needs some kind of tags to allow you to use tables and tweak image height & width for covers (if these tags exist, I am not yet aware of them). It's export feature is also very nice, letting you decide exactly what information you want to put in the text file. The covers feature seems to add the cover sideways when you add it manually, but there's a fix for this by un-checking "Automatically rotate images when needed" in the options dialog. A feature to open the cover by clicking on the preview would be welcome also as the thumbnails are very small.

It seems to be portable too. Don't ask me if it's stealth or green or whatever, but I do know you can move the directory around and the program runs fine wherever it's placed. Overall though, I'm very impressed with this little program. Send the author a donation and he'll even put your name at the top! I'll let the screenshots tell you the rest.

Jeff Attwood of Coding Horror fame, references some game post-mortums in his blog today.  If you are a programmer interested in game development (or just development in general) and you've never read any of these, they are absolutely fascinating reading, and are packed with valuable lessons in how things can go wrong on a large project.

All the postmortems are worthwhile, and you'll surely recognize a lot of the pitfalls and triumphs they describe. Even if you don't care a whit about gaming, it's instructive to read game development postmortems because game development is such a pressure cooker. It's incredibly challenging software engineering, with unclear goals (eg, "fun") under intense deadlines. Every project pathology you're likely to see on your software project has probably already materialized on one or more of these games.

http://gamasutra.com...splay.php?category=5

German government just passed a law today that makes OWNING any such "hacker tool" which aim is to "commit a crime" illegal.
I just can't take it anymore.

Read up here to get a feeling how "being German" is getting worse and worse by the minute:

[...]
If you own any hacker tool which "aim is to commit a crime"...

    * nmap
    * metasploit
    * any penetration testing tool in general
    * port scanners
    * network analyzers? (hopefully not those too)

... you're signing up for one year in jail or a hefty fine.
That reads OWNING, not using, it's just OWNING.
[...]

Long version here:
http://nrrd.de/dasbuch/hadez/now_theyve_done_it_just_owning_hacker_tools_illegal_germany

Please speard the word and DIGG IT http://digg.com/poli...rmany_jail_time_fine
It's no fun anymore. We're getting screwed big time.

Funny cartoon music video for geeks - watch godzilla fight batman and more.
Very catchy and fun song and cartoon. 

note: contains violence perhaps not suitable for young children

http://www.albinobla...flash/showdown#start

Snailware is software for snails. Snails are older slower PC's that can't run the latest and greatest because of hardware or operating system limitations.

I have started a blog targeted at the owners of older PC's, that for their own reasons choose to still run them. I will be presenting articles related to software that will run on these computers and some of the software issues that their owners may face.

Everything I write about will be tested on my own ancient Pentium I, Windows ME machine. I will try where possible to present the newest versions of everything I write about.

Even if you don't own an old snail, this may be of interest to you, as the software I write about should run blazingly fast on a newer computer.

I would like to eventually add more writers that own older machines. I think a team of writers with snails could really make this blog into something special that could be an asset to the world of computing, for both developers and PC owners.

If this blog has a future, we could be looking at writing about software that will run on P4's with XP, within the next few years. Today's latest & greatest is tomorrow's snail.

http://snailware.blogspot.com