In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

— Douglas Adams

As life goes by, it seems more and more important to know what time it is. Your bus comes at this time, your flight leaves at this time and your meeting across town is at this time. In theory, the better you know the time, the better you are at being on time, right? I wish!

Besides the practical aspects of knowing the time, I always thought it was cool to see the row of clocks behind the reception desk of big companies in the movies. Now I found a way to add that to my blog! World Time Server.com allows you to create a snipit of code and then insert it on your site that displays an analog clock in the colour scheme, size, and time zone of your choosing. I think it’s cool. Here’s my little gallery of world times:

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot; others transform a yellow spot into the sun.

— Pabloe Picasso

I was looking up ACSII art on Wikipedia the other day and I came across this, which is too funny to pass up. Who says stickmen can’t dance? Here’s the Macarena!

o o o o o <o <o> o> o .|. \|. \|/ // X \ | <| <|> /\ >\ /< >\ /< >\ /< >\ /<

Too funny!

In something that reminds me of the movie Catch Me If You Can, I came across this website that generates Fake ID’s. Over the last week, the site has improved already, so there might be more features on the way. At the end of last week, it would give you:

Every so often you come across something really cool on the internet. Today, that cool thing was a little program that generates ASCII art.

It’s interesting how much Harry Potter — the fictional wizard boy that every kid has read about and made J.K. Rowling an instant millionaire — has become so much of our culture. This is well illustrated by a quote from the latest book my sister, also a Harry Potter fan, picked up. This book, also well known, is Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”.

I’ve read this before, but I would have to say this passage of scripture is among my favourites.

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

— Isaiah 54:10, 17

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

— Albert Einstein

With new technology, comes new concerns. In the case of electronic mail, it is that of spam. At least when we get junk mail at home, we can quickly sort through it and drop it into the recycle bin. The fact that you have to pay someone to print and deliver the flyers does serve to deter companies from filling up everyone’s mailbox with non-addressed mail. Spam, on the other hand, can be sent for almost free. I guess they must make some sales out of it, or you would think that they would have given up on the tactics long ago. But where do they get email addresses to spam? Unlike delivering flyers, where you can just walk down the street, you have to actually know someone’s email address.

The time-old adage is that “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” Most of what we see day-to-day would confirm that. On paper, you use a ruler, sometimes called a “straight edge,” to connect two dots. In a field, it’s easy to apply the same principle and cut straight across. But then why do the network maps for the airlines always have those funny looking arcs? What happened to those straight lines?

Ever wonder what your public IP Address is? Well, check it out at www.myipaddress.com.