The Dark Balloon

A weblog by Hao Lian.
A terrible secret guarded by golems.
A note that thanks you for being born, all those years ago.

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Most unique.

If set to TRUE, uniqid() will add additional entropy (using the combined linear congruential generator) at the end of the return value, which should make the results more unique.

“uniqid,” PHP documentation

It’s a weird clause. Adding additional entropy already has a highly specific, mathematical meaning, none of which is conveyed by something more unique. In fact, that would probably confuse the people who are not vaguely aware of entropy and cryptography. If it’s set to false, is it less unique? Will it somehow duplicate itself? Existential crisis, existential crisis, et cetera. All well. Without PHP, the English language would just sit there, unmolested by grammatical atrocities like these.

[(2008 June 6) • • • .]

Recent comments (Ethane, General announcement.) • (HAO, Jammies.) • (Tim, Jammies.) • (Prashanth, Wedding.) • (Hao, Hands.).

Recent posts (10/06, The myth and the man.) • (09/13, 2011 Sep 13.) • (08/21, Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.) • (08/21, Failing beautifully.) • (08/18, Shameless.).

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Perls.

Would you like to changes your singular nouns to plural? You can do that and much much more, in Perl (via). Note the authors have struggled with people over octopuses and viruses. Clearly they have yet to meet real grammar nazi-quibblers.

[(2008 January 21, 3!) • • .]