Every Sperm is Sacred, Marriage and the Church, Internal Personas

Every Sperm is Sacred

I've always thought the Monty Python sketch "Every Sperm is Sacred" was taking things too far. That was until I watched a BBC series about Sex and the Church and it makes sense why things have developed as they have. In Old Testament times, the Jews needed to increase their population. They also believed that the whole child was contained within the sperm, and that the woman only provided an incubator. No wonder they didn't want to waste those potential children!

Marriage and the Church

For the first thousand years of the Church, marriage was purely a civic concern and the Church kept away from it. When the first marriages were conducted by the Church, they were conducted in the porch of the Church and only after the couple were married did they move inside. This wasn't very practical and eventually it was moved inside.

Internal Personas

We all have multiple internal personas which are the way we see ourselves in different situations. We try to be consistent according to these personas. If we don't see ourselves in a particular way, then we won't do something. However, we may do small things which are only slightly outside our persona. When we do these small things we adjust our persona to stay consistent. This means that something that we previously would not have done because it was not consistent with our persona then becomes consistent with it. I guess that's why small steps work in moving us from one habit or behaviour to another.

Helicopters in Vietnam, TypeScript and Generics, Type Definition Files in TypeScript

Helicopters in the Vietnam War

At the end of the Vietnam War, unneeded helicopters were pushed overboard so that the ships would have more room to take rescued troops.

TypeScript and Generics

You can use generics in TypeScript. They're code templates. They're re-useable and flexible. You can use them instead of using the type `any`. The type is supplied when it is used and thus type checking can be enforced for the particular type supplied and wherever that particular thing is used elsewhere in the code.

Type Definition Files

There are type definition files available at the site Definitely Typed for most of the major JavaScript libraries so that you can check whether you are using the library correctly at compile time.

Shoes on the Bank of the Danube, iframes, The Fold

Shoes on the Bank of the Danube

Today I read about the sculpture of shoes on the bank of the Danube in Budapest, where 70 years ago Jews were forced to take off their shoes before being shot so they fell into the Danube which carried their bodies away. The article The Shoes on the Danube Promenade – Commemoration of the Tragedy goes into more detail.

iframes

When you use an iframe on a page, it can access things on the page. However if the content on the iframe is from a different server, security protocols kick in and the iframe no longer has access to the rest of the page.

The Fold

Where is the fold? The website I am the fold measures the window height of all visitors to the site showing a large range of sizes. Gave me something to think about concerning designing for the fold, when it's not at all clear where it might be.

The Blink Tag, Asterisk, Caduceus

1. The Origin of the <blink> Tag

Back in the late '90s, I remember coming across the blink tag. It was horrible. Flash flash flash all over the place. Yuck. Well, today I found out how it came about in a Friday night discussion at a bar. The next morning, it had already been implemented in the UNIX version of Netscape! It spread to the Windows and Mac versions and was release with no fanfair. People found out and sadly the web became full of flashy nastiness!

2. Etymology of Asterisk

The word "asterisk" comes Late Latin asteriscus and Greek asteriskos which means little star. Compare with astro- for words related to the stars.

3. Caduceus

I learnt today that this symbol:

is called the caduceus, which comes from the Greek for herald's staff. It was carried by Hermes, the messenger of the gods.