Daniel E. Markle's Blog

While browsing the web earlier in the week I read about a new album done byWilliam Shatner. CalledHas Been, I have been quite surprisedby the mix of subtle jokes, outright ridiculousness, and heartfelt feeling inthis album. I normally listen to songs and ignore the lyrics, just listeningto the flow of the song; but with this album, the stories suck me in and I actuallywant to listen and understand the lyrics.These stories range from the simple that are rather typical for songs butwith a humourous twist, to complicated ones with double meaning and deeper thoughts.Examples include a song that merrily declares "You Are Going to Die" and a songyelling about evil things like leaf blowers and student drivers. It has been along time since I have had such fun just listening to music.

Recently on Slashdot there have been many discussions on the death of programming. The main focus of these discussions seem to be improved graphical tools for programming and how they will render programmers obsolete. I agree that improved graphical tools allow end users tosolve some problems themselves. However this argument completely ignores, as many who do programming will notice, that programming often involves abstract concepts that are not easily expressed in a graphical form.

I am tired of my old black page design, the graphics were dated, the colorswere hard on the eyes, and with fall here I decided it would be nice to havea fall theme to match. Enjoy.