#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Hello, world!\n";

No, that wasn't my first Perl script. I've actually written somewhat longer scripts, and modified other people's scripts regularly, but I don't have a sufficient understanding of the language to write longer scripts from scratch yet. So by way of a belated New Year's resolution, I recently picked up Programming Perl (a.k.a. the Camel book) to learn it from the ground up. There are perhaps better books to learn the language from, but since I'm already somewhat familiar with Perl (and have plenty of experience in other languages like C, Ada and Shell), I figure I'll be fine, and having the definitive reference on the language around is more useful in the long run anyway. My goal for embarking on this endeavour is to eventually add some new database-driven features to this site (which means dusting off my old SQL knowledge as well), and while it may take a while before you'll see the first results, it is a fun learning experience already.

Link of the Day: Welcome to the White House - WWW.WHITEHOUSE.ORG. Not to be confused with... exactly. Thanks SurlyBitch.
Story of the Day: Pet lizards feast on owner's corpse. Not for overly sensitive stomachs. Thanks rand029 and the many others that sent this in.
Wild Science: Future Tech: Really Special Forces. Thanks JTMauney.
Weird Science: Goat Milk Carries Spider Silk in Canada Experiment. Thanks Nicole.