Happy birthday, d0rk.org.

The Superest

Open up this file in your favorite editor: C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\google\appengine\tools\dev_appserver.py

Search for this code block: (line 2369)

regex = os.path.join(re.escape(regex), '(.*)')
path = os.path.join(path, '\\1')

Replace it with these lines:

# urls should always have forward slashes
regex = re.escape(regex) + '/(.*)'
# be careful turning paths into regex strings
path = re.escape(path + os.sep) + '\\1'

The current offering is only a preview, which was limited to 10,000 users.  I didn’t read about it until this morning, so I missed the preview window by a long shot.  If you try to sign up now you can have them notify you when a spot is open.

They have a SDK available to write and test applications locally.  It has a stand-alone webserver so you can have a development environment similar to what you’ll see when you upload your application to Google.  Speaking of uploading, the SDK contains the tools to upload your code to Google.  The configuration is done with YAML files.  You set your application’s name, version, runtime, and the version of the App Engine API you’d like to go against.

Though they claim the underlying framework is runtime agnostic, the only currently available runtime is Python.  They’ve got the full core language and a neutered version of its standard libraries.  They’ve even made Django available in their hosted environment.

This seems like it will be a pretty cool option for future web applications.  The scaling and redundancy is what interests me the most.  Not to mention the cost: free.

Q: How often should you beat your handicap?

A: Not often. In fact, you should average about three shots higher than your handicap.

For example, if you have a course handicap of 16, and the Course Rating is 71.2, you should average 90, not 87. The USGA Handicap System is based on 96 percent of the best 10 differentials (corrected for Course and Slope ratings) of your last 20 rounds. More than half of your scores should be within three strokes of three over your handicap (87 to 93 in this example). Most golfers beat their handicap (86 or better in this example) only 20 percent of the time and beat it by three strokes one out of every 20 rounds.

For a person with a course handicap of 16 to break 80 (beat his handicap by eight strokes), the odds are 1,138 to 1. To do it twice, it would take the average golfer more than 700 years. In other words, it ain’t happening.

Source: Golf Digest, May 2008

Does anybody actually like Bill Clinton’s wife? I think her idea of “progressive” is the new way of saying “socialist”. She just seems way too calculating and focus-group oriented to actually be a likable person. Who knows what her actual convictions are (if she has any)?

And John McCain? The dude is 71. He’ll be 72 by the time the election rolls around. I don’t care if a guy with a very similar name can kick a F-35’s ass in hand-to-aircraft combat. McCain needs to throw in the towel here. Yippie-kay-yay …

I think this election cycle will prove just how useless these endorsements are.