Bill de h?ra's post on the language's he's used in the past year contains the provocative thought "...some people are looking at things like HTTP and Ant and CSS and wondering whether they are really programming languages....[T]hey are either replacing or reducing the raw coding I used …

Tim Bray compares Frameworks (Source: Still done seeking). I largely agree with Tim Bray's analysis, particularly the point that all major web frameworks will scale sufficiently and that, in the long run, maintainability is likely to be the most important factor in the attractiveness of a framework.

By that token …

Off Tonga, a volcanic island has emerged from the depths. How cool must that be to see?

 Alan Zeichick explains why if you must get a new passport, you should invest in a lead foil billfold.

::: {.hreview} A Board Game That Adults Can Play {#a-board-game-that-adults-can-play .summary}

11/9/2006

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::: {.item .fn} Puerto Rico :::

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Visiting friends gave me the opportunity to coerce a try of Puerto Rico, a very well-reviewed board game. Unlike most people who review board …

I'm really not upset. It's the price I pay to work out of my house in Hawaii. I normally keep West Coast hours, and just a week ago, during Daylight Savings Time, I would have been checking my emails and drinking coffee at 6. So please feel free to call …

I don't do a lot of database work, I believe in rendering unto the DBA that which is the DBA's. But ya got's to pay the bills, so I've been doing some refactoring work on a database. While flirting with RedGate's SQL Dependency Tracker, I finally figured out how to …

This is probably obvious, but my life has been eased since I've created a OneNote section called "Product Keys" and used it to store serial numbers and keys.

Joel Spolsky briefly explains this very common security defect. Because my last name (O'Brien) contains an apostrophe, I'm particularly conscious of how common is this vulnerability.

This has been around for a month, but I wanted to lament that Microsoft has cancelled their plans to hold next year's major conferences in New Orleans. New Orleans is one of my favorite cities (and is a great place to ~~get really drunk~~ hold a conference) and certainly needs …