Tue 2008-07-15 
Birdsfoot Trefoil (Lotus conrniculatus). Full classification:
Photo taken in Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2008-07-13.
Sun 2008-07-13 
Great Willow Herb (Epilobium hirsutum). Full clssification:
Photo taken beside the large lake, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2008-07-13.
Mon 2008-07-07 Instructions to a child, from Lamentations of the Father by Ian Frazier:
Bite not, lest you be cast into quiet time. Neither drink of your own bath water, nor of bath water of any kind; nor rub your feet on bread, even if it be in the package; nor rub yourself against cars, nor against any building; nor eat sand.
Leave the cat alone, for what has the cat done, that you should so afflict it with tape? And hum not that humming in your nose as I read, nor stand between the light and the book. Indeed, you will drive me to madness. Nor forget what I said about the tape.
(Via Scott Rosenberg' Wordyard.)
Sat 2008-07-05 I just came across this quotation attributed to Pablo Picasso:
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
This is so extraordinarily silly that I can only assume that Pablo never actually used a computer. Otherwise he would have discovered that the questions they pose far outnumber any answers they give.
Sat 2008-07-05 The story is of how Edsger Dijkstra and Jaap Zonneveld agreed to stop shaving until they had completed the implementation of X-1 Algol compiler is well documented. However, their underlying reason for doing so is not quite as well known. Here Dijkstra himself explains it in a letter addressed to Maarten van Emden:
We were to implement with five of us: Aad van Wijngaarden, Jaap Zonneveld, Joke Feringa, Freek Barning, and myself. Feringa and Barning left quite soon. Van Wijngaarden did not contribute — on the contrary! — but pretended otherwise to the outside world. I had been warned by Bram Loopstra and Carel Scholten [hardware designers formerly at the Mathematical Centre] that the little chief was not adverse to showing off other peoples’ work as his own. I was not in the mood to let that happen to me. At that time Jaap, van W. and I were clean-shaven; Jaap had a moustache. To make clear that the two of us were doing the work, Jaap and I decided not to shave until the implementation worked, being convinced that van W. would not follow us in this. In this way we made it clear who was responsible for the Algol compiler. Thus it happened; that was around Pentecost [a European holiday six weeks after Easter]. In August the system worked. Jaap got rid of his moustache and beard soon after; I retained them.
So the beards were their way of making sure that their boss didn't cheat them out of the credit for writing the the compiler!
For those who are interested, a description and listing of the Dijkstra-Zonnefeld compiler can be found here: F.E.J. Kruseman Aretz, The Dijkstra–Zonneveld ALGOL 60 compiler for the Electrologica X1, Note SEN-N0301 June 30, 2003
