a life of coding

Engaging is an adjective that is often used as a non-functional requirement. New systems should be "engaging". m-w.com defines engage to mean:

5a : to hold the attention of : ENGROSS <her work engages her completely>
5b : to induce to participate <engaged the shy boy in conversation>

While I suspect people originally used engage as 5b, these days it seems to be applied as 5a. So, as a non-functional requirement, engaging means the product should be "of note", or "interesting". I should hope that if one is to undertake a project, it should be assumed that it will be "of note", and hopefully make it to the high standard of "interesting". Otherwise, junk it and start looking at more fruitful prospects.

To summerize, non-functional requirements of "engaging" receive a 5 out of 5 on my bullshitometer.

I keep forgetting to write this down - A slashdot article about a Korean Bi-Pedal robot. There's a video on the page that shows how dexterous this little guy is. Don't be fooled by the first minute or so, they're downplaying its capabilities.

A good font has a great effect on writing code. First, don't bother with one that isn't monospaced. Second, it should be simple (probably sans-serif). Third, it should be tight, so you don't waste screen real estate. My favorites are Monaco (a standard Mac font), and fixed 6x13 (a standard X11 font). In general, I have never been a fan of Windows fonts. They all seem the same, and none of them are particularly appealing. My recommendation is to fill up your Windows\Fonts folder with conversions from other operating systems.

Some Mac fonts, available as TrueType.
Another blogger, looking for good coding fonts