short takes (links)

A few links that have been accumulating:

The last survivor of the Christmas 1914 truce has died (from madfilkentist). If you don't know the story of this truce, follow the link. John McCutcheon captured its essence in the song "Christmas in the Trenches", one of my favorites.

Fannish speech patterns (from ommkarja).

How to outsmart automated phone systems (from dyanearden). Most of these I knew (and have used), but the warning about cell phones is new to me. And when I get annoyed with these systems I almost always try "0" and "#"; at worst it repeats the current menu.

How to write unmaintainable code (from anastasiav).