A correction

In the recent Bravissimo! post, I included a little snippet of code that looked like this:

if(navigator.appName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer")
{
   httpReq.onreadystatechange = handleAjaxResponse;
}
else
{
   httpReq.onreadystatechange = handleAjaxResponse();
}

Today I discovered (by dint of my usual error-and-trial thrashings) that not only is the browser-check a waste of CPU cycles, but that the httpReq.onreadystatechange = handleAjaxResponse(); code causes Firefox to skip everything after the first onreadystatechange event. Which makes no flippin' sense whatsoever and lowers my opinion of JavaScript even further.

To get around that, I'd included a cheesy workaround in the handleAjaxResponse() function that had it calling itself every second or so to check for the onreadystate's value, plus the value of a global variable or two that prevented it from being locked in an endless loop if the page wasn't found or something else went kerflooey.

But my earlier rant about calling a function (and thus expecting parentheses) stands. It's a function call, not a variable reference, d---it. You can argue GB Shaw's "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" all you like, but computers expect predictability. And so should the programmers who try to make them do their bidding.

w00t!

A message on the answering machine told us that the friend who's been tussling with cancer since last year is in officially in remission: Friend: 1, Cancer: 0. I try to keep it in perspective, knowing that it's Round 1, and she'll be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life. No actual organs or other bits removed, but the price--in the coin of scarring and hospitalization and outright misery--was dear enough.

All the same, it's victory enough for me here on the sidelines. I can't begin to imagine what it's like for the survivor in question. And I hope I never have to.

In other life-accomplishments, Mom has achieved her 63rd birthday--all the more remarkable for what her brat-children put her through. And that's just the stuff she found out about... ;-)

Battery rechargers

I'm rebuilding a Windows XP workstation, triaging the hard drive content before wiping it. In the process, I found something I wrote going on three years ago. A friend had used the phrase "recharge my spiritual batteries," which prompted me to consider what things do that for me. At the time, the list--in no particular order--consisted of:

• To learn something new and worth knowing
• To fall asleep and/or wake up in Dearest's arms
• To create something from scratch, or even completely ex nihilo
  
• To earn the trust of someone or something gentle
• To touch history
• To fight a worthwhile battle, win or lose
• To experience art created with both skill and passion.
• To have a wide space of quiet time in which to think, dream and reflect
• To do something good for someone and slip away before they realize that it's been done or who did it
• To behold Nature's "bijoux": Spiderwebs, seashells, sheets of wild honeycomb, baby finches, etc.
  

None of that's much changed, two-years-and-change since. Although now I find myself more appreciative of friendship--and working a little more diligently to cultivate the perennials rather than indiscriminately sow flashy annuals. (Hokey metaphor, that, but you get the idea.)

Things that make you go "Urrrghff???"

A friend I've known since I was 17 has been part-sized at work: Downgraded from full-blown engineer to lab flunkie. (It was either that or unemployment--it subsidizes the search for the new job, if nothing else...) He's taken it well enough, for a museum-quality Type A raised with a 1950s American Dream work ethic. Better than I would have thought, truth be told.

But I'm starting to feel like an informal therapist--a cross between a counselor and the local bartender. Which is really wierding me out, because I've never had the impression that he's looked to me for anything practical, ever. In our twenties, he mistook me for a representative sample of females our age--thereby to peek into the collective head of my gender. But for many years I've had the impression of being somewhat looked down upon by him. Had it not been for the fact that he's been one of Dearest's friends--for even longer than I've known him--I would have discouraged the relationship years and years ago. In all fairness, the sense of deprecation has more or less evaporated in recent times: These days I'm usually not interrupted when I talk, for instance.

But on an almost subliminal level, I'm feeling ever-so-slightly used by this counselor/cheerleader role. As far as I know, Dearest doesn't get the blow-by-blow accounts of the job search and the sharper edges that corporate life holds for non-management. Not that I'll stop commiserating or encouraging or anything--I do actually like the guy. But I can't help but wonder how things will change after he's back where he thinks he deserves to be in the corporate world.

'Doffing my chapeau

To my alpha-troublemakers at The Onion: Iraq War Memorial Planners Forced to Revise Length Again. I truly envy anyone who can be that funny when that angry.

Wading in the Rubicon

Gack: I just authorized the expenditure of roughly a week's net income on a set of graphics for my forthcoming foray into indie software development. Which commits me to this crazy scheme in a way that a hundred bucks for domain hosting doesn't. I'm not gambling half so much as Caesar, but it still makes me slightly queasy.

37Signals' blog this morning has a bunch of General Patton quotes and the opening "pep-talk" clip from Francis Ford Coppola's oeuvre. Which I would have taken as an propitious omen, except I'd already given the green-light to the graphic artist. But, in a sense, the General is right. Holding our position is not an option: "L'audace! L'audace! Toujours l'audace!"

Hey, if you can't take inspiration from quoting George C. Scott quoting George S. Patton quoting Frederick the Great, where are you going to find it, really? [insert sarcastic eyeroll]