I'm not sure why links couldn't be written to do JavaScript. I'm sure that it would be possible to take something like WebKit or Gecko and just make a links-style front-end for it. JavaScript just means it can manipulate the DOM, not that it has graphics. It would make the browser a lot slower...
I agree: colour is an interesting philosophical topic. Obviously, there is a distinction between words and colours. x 'is blue' only if x is blue. Feel free to hop on the Tarski-Davidson-slingshot merry-go-round over that. There are possible worlds where the word 'red' means green, but not...
Got an e-mail notification saying signerror asked how I know that the { rand } proc gives a uniformly random permutation? Answer: I know it doesn't. It's not very random at all, and if it were for anything other than picking six lottery numbers, you'd want to use something that was. This post on...
I've never understood it. The public, through the government, pay the salaries of academics and give out research grant money. Then the product of that research gets locked away from the public. I mean, imagine if we spent millions of tax money building a museum or gallery like the Smithsonian...
If you can avoid PHP, do. It's a monstrous but occasionally useful language. Perl always looked like a bit like Scientology: normal people avoid it, there are a ton of horror stories, and a few rock stars who think it's awesome. Python and Ruby it is then.
I love Ruby a lot. Do a lot of work in...