A Starbucks has opened at Thomson Plaza!!

Not only that it’s a really cool al fresco Starbucks.

????????

Finally Thomson Plaza has been revitalised! After falling into dilapidation, it is now a hip, happening place full of life. No more a ulu, desolate, arid desert land… like Ang Mo Kio.

For those not in the light, Valve has just released, or rather pre-released the long awaited Team Fortress 2. And those who know Valve will also know of their Steam online distribution system.

Basically it’s like a way to bypass the publishers and push the content directly to the consumers, thereby cutting costs and inconveniences.

But people like me like to have something physical to buy, and a box makes for nicer collection than something virtual. My guess is the reason why people still buy DVDs and CDs rather than download from i-tunes.

Anyway, the choice is between 1) pre-ordering online and get to participate in the beta. Which means play the game now. and 2) pre-ordering the retail version, pay $10 more, get a nice mouse pad and wait until the game is officially released.

So with friends poisoning me on the mailing list with updates on their games, I finally ended the deliberation and went to buy the retail version. And here it is.

Now to wait for Oct 11.

Parse error: syntax

error, unexpected ;, expecting T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM

At first glance I just noted the line number and took a look there. Seeing nothing unusual I went to read the error message.

(Yes we actually try to understand error messages because they really help in your debugging.)

It was then I got a shock. What in the world is a “T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM“??!! Heck I can’t even pronounce it.

My first thought is that my PHP complier screwed up but then I decided the Google will hold the answer.

So copying and pasting almost the whole of the error message into Google, it was discovered that T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM is actually Hebrew for “::”, the double colon token.

Further probing showed that

T - stands for Token
PAAMAYIM - means double
NEKUDOTAYIM - means dots, or colon

in Hebrew.

I first thought that the programmers a having some humour but it turns out PHP was written by Israelis. Probably started development in their native tongue, it’s more likely they just missed this in translation.

A quick look at http://www.php.net/manual/en/tokens.php shows that even though an alias T_DOUBLE_COLON has been assigned, this phrase is embedded in PHP history.

How amusing.

In fact I’ve watched enough “Seconds from disaster” type of documentaries on Discovery and Nat Geog to know that people have perished needlessly if only they knew what to do in a disaster.

So instead of mass mailing everybody, which I know will put me on some of your blacklist, I’ll post the link to the lengthy article here for friends and others to read. So don’t say I didn’t do my part informing you. =P

HOTELS COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH…
by Retired Captain RH Kauffman, Los Angeles County Fire Department
http://www.pprune.org/pub/tech/hotelfire.html.