Al Ha VeDa על הא ודא

Friday, October 04, 2002

Posted 9:38 AM by Simon (0) comments

It bugs me

It's interesting to read that Microsoft has hit upon the idea of “adding an option for customers to go to a Website where they can learn more about and even fix the errors they report.” Perhaps we should sell them a license for Bugzilla.

In the same article, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is quoted as saying, “About 20 per cent of the bugs cause 80 per cent of all errors, and &ndash this is stunning to me – one per cent of bugs cause half of all errors.” Personally I find that self-evident rather than stunning, but what do I know?

Posted 9:27 AM by Simon (1) comments

It was good for me. Was it good for you?

How about that? Yesterday's pathetic plea for attention was answered, and I lost my link virginity.

Thursday, October 03, 2002

Posted 11:03 AM by Simon (0) comments

Matras, anyone?

Life is so hard. How will I ever be famous if even people who acknowledge me don't link to me?

That article was interesting to read. I always thought that it would be obvious to anyone that the Hebrew numbering system is so straightforward that a child can master it, but for someone looking at the rules from the outside, without knowing the language or the culture, it somehow starts to seem “insanely complicated”.

The whole issue of complexity and simplicity is full of oddities. Even bearing in mind what I said above about looking at things from the outside, it seems to me obvious and objectively true that the Roman alphabet is beautifully simple while the Roman numbering system is ludicrously unwieldy; and that the Hindi numbering system in all its variants has the simplicity of genius while Devanagari script (which I am just trying to learn) is a nightmare of complex rules and special cases.