A life in words

  • Eighties Heritage Month

    Paris makes more than the law, it makes the fashion —Victor Hugo in Les Miserables, vol. 3 chapter XI Would it be accurate to say that prior to the 20th century, very few people had the luxury of worrying about fashion? The impression I get when I read an old novel is that back in…

  • Learning C++

    I’€™m taking (actually, retaking) Computer Science 240 right now. So I’€™m learning C++. This is someting I’€™ve always wanted to do. I was maybe 10 years old when we got Turbo C++. My dad was the only one who knew how to use it, but still, I had fun playing with the “Heap Walker”€ program.…

  • I Cast Mine Pod at Thee!

    Lately I’€™ve been listening to the UbuntuOS podcast about the Ubuntu Linux distro. It’€™s a good show, for sure, though there’€™s a bit too much down time where the guys are just sitting there saying, “Yeah… uh… so linux is pretty cool, yeah….” It really does remind me of my conversations with my brother, but…

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech … Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the right of another: and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know. … A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their freedom of speech. … Freedom of speech is ever the symptom, as well as the effect of a good government. … Guilt only dreads liberty of speech, which drags it out of its lurking holes, and exposes its deformity and horror to daylight.Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood no. 8, 1722 (orthography and spelling modernized)