Habeas Corpus Restored at Guantanamo

posted by pfunk on 2008-06-12 11:28:51

Finally, the Supreme Court has ruled that even "enemy combatants" being held at Guantanamo have a right to contest their detainment in civilian courts.

You see, this is exactly the kind of situation for which Habeas Corpus exists.

BBC article - Supreme Court ruling cripples Guantanamo trials

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Ruby and Duck Typing

posted by pfunk on 2008-06-04 08:55:29

Poking around with Ruby (the programming language). One of the first things I noticed is that it's a weakly typed language. While that's true, it's a little more interesting than that.

This method of not caring about the actual type of a variable, just relying on what methods it supports is known as “Duck Typing”, as in “if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”. The benefit of this is that it doesn’t unnecessarily restrict the types of variables that are supported. If someone comes up with a new kind of list class, as long as it implements the join method with the same semantics as other lists, everything will work as planned.

from Ruby in Twenty Minutes

So at runtime you can check an object to see if it supports certain methods (e.g. sort, or [for] each, or join) and perform actions based on that. I find it to be neat. Of course you have to remember to check for these things, but it seems Ruby code is adaptable in a good way.

Not far enough into it yet, but this seems to trim some of the fat out of using Interfaces (a la Java) for many cases.

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I'm sure it's happened to you

posted by pfunk on 2008-05-27 18:16:21

So I was on the road, explaining the complex plane (as used in the Mandelbrot set) to my girlfriend. I was so involved that I didn't notice I had entered a small town (cruise still set to 65, town is 45). Got pulled over.

Didn't get a ticket, but I was too nervous to tell the cop the truth -- I was so excited about math that I missed the 55 sign.

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Nicholls Graduation

posted by pfunk on 2008-05-15 10:10:18

I'm heading to the motherland to see my brother graduate from nursing school at Nicholls.

If you're around this weekend, give me a holla.

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Moar

posted by pfunk on 2008-05-13 01:47:51

Settling in at Auburn. This place is coo'.

I got a job! The library thing. My start date is June 2. I'm excited. Time to buy new candy jars.

I want a ukulele. If I own a "serious" instrument I feel bad about not mastering it. With a ukulele I can just play silly songs. I have Jam Sessions for the DS, I should try some joco songs on it.

WoW is good. Point to any game that gives me the same thrill as downing a new raid boss with 24 of my friends. We are 5/6 SSC, 2/4 TK now. My dorf has the mad plums. Yes I have several spreadsheets. Yes they contain formulas and rankings for every relevant item stat in the game. No you cannot see them.

There's this girl I like. She's hot. She found me first, so nyah.

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