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People don't realize it, but most number start with one. It's called Benford's Law. People expect things to be more "random" than they really are.

Checkout the x-fry/x-bender headers: echo -e "HEAD / HTTP/1.1\nHost: slashdot.org\n\n" | netcat slashdot.org 80

http://www.rexswain.com/cgi-bin/httpview.cgi?URL=http://slashdot.org&REQ=HEAD

HTTP/1.1 200 OK(CR)(LF)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:36:49 GMT(CR)(LF)
Server: Apache/1.3.41 (Unix) mod_perl/1.31-rc4(CR)(LF)
SLASH_LOG_DATA: shtml(CR)(LF)
X-Powered-By: Slash 2.005001236(CR)(LF)
X-Fry: Robots don't go to heaven.(CR)(LF)
Cache-Control: private(CR)(LF)
Pragma: private(CR)(LF)
Connection: close(CR)(LF)
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1(CR)(LF)
(CR)(LF)

if you refresh it changes

X-Bender: Fathero!(CR)(LF)
X-Bender: Shooting DNA at each other to make babies. I find it offensive!(CR)(LF)
X-Bender: nogoodlawsprotectingtheinnocent--(CR)(LF)
X-Bender: Alright! Closure!(CR)(LF)

So true... honestly when I first started my research I discovered that many previous researchers (who had given me access to their data) had unreliable data (due to one reason or another). The data I had initally started running tests on I had to totally scrap for new data which proved to be the most dificult task of all my research (I was infact working with bankrupt company data which is always hard to get clean hands on). I lucked out and found what many researchers would claim the nervana of data sources in my field through much work and promisses to tripple check or add to prominant researchers data. I think discovery of good trustworthy data was the longest process of all. And in the end was not getting results fast enough, and funding was saddly pulled despite publications and good results shown quickly after. I like the saying "Junk in Junk out" and never wanted to produce more junk.

** On an interesting note, there are tests to run to see if data has been made up. Such as Benford's Lawor a more User friendly review of Benford's law. Or Zipf's Law.

But hey, as the joke goes, 97% of statistics are made up on the spot anyway so guess the data doesn't really matter.

Perl becomes so much more fun when you have tens of thousands of one-glyph variable names. Heck, there's probably some one-line-wonder OS written in Chinese, just waiting for us to find it.

Have a look at the APL programming language (APL = A Programming Language). And you need a keyboard marked out with the key symbols.

Check out the website, www.rexswain.com. I've used it for its nice HTTP viewer and other web development stuff, but it has some useful-looking (I wouldn't know honestly) REXX info, pointers, and custom REXX tools.

I still dunno why I'd learn REXX, but if my name was Rex, I'd definitely learn it just for kicks.

Check out the website, www.rexswain.com. I've used it for its nice HTTP viewer and other web development stuff, but it has some useful-looking (I wouldn't know honestly) REXX info, pointers, and custom REXX tools.

I still dunno why I'd learn REXX, but if my name was Rex, I'd definitely learn it just for kicks.

The slashdot headers contain lines from bender and fry. go and see for yourself http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html

In a way, checking on a site's html-headers is the same as glancing at the fry-cook's hands to see if they're dirty-- a guy with clean hands can still sneeze on your burger, but it's still a little peace-of-mind.