recursion

Thank the lord! I finally figured out how to get Subversion to ignore whitespace.

svn diff has no "-w" option, but you can use a specified diff command:

svn di src/com/foobar/File.java --diff-cmd diff -x "-u -b"

Screw spam filtering. That's old hat. Who's going to step up to the plate and write bayesian filtering for idiots? A mailing list that I'm on (which shall remain nameless) is crawling with morons who don't do the vaguest search of the archives or FAQs. Argh.

Lost for Words: The Use and Abuse of the English Language by John Humphreys sounds interesting. Humphreys is a UK journalist who takes aim at politicians like Bush and Blair who use mindless repitition of canned phrases to drive their point home and avoid using verbs whenever possible to avoid accountability:

Humphrys notes Blair's apparent fear of verbs and mocks his speeches, which are peppered with verbless phrases like "new challenges, new ideas," or "for our young people, a brighter future" and "the age of achievement, at home and abroad".

I've never seen politican-speak so ably distilled. For a better English!

Reuters story via Boing Boing.