Okay, explaining a joke definitely ruins it (especially if it wasn’t a particularly good one in the first place), but I need a second test post to make sure the date ordering system works. So, without further ado, the rationale behind the name of this blog:
Theorem: The phrase console.blog() exhibits comedic value.
Proof: In Javascript, the DOM method console.log() (predictably) writes a message to the console. This is sort of like writing to stdout in C with printf(). “Log” happens to be both visually and auditorily (is that a word?) similar to “blog.” Actually, Wikipedia reliably informs me that “blog” is simply the truncated form of “weblog,” itself the conjoined form of “web” and “log.” The phrase console.blog() thus makes reference to a well-known Javascript method while clearly indicating that the subject is a blog; in fact, we can prove the stronger conjecture that this reference is pertinent to the subject matter of the blog (i.e. computers). The formal name for such a reference is a “pun of the worst kind.” Thus, we have shown the jocular nature of the title of the blog containing this post, concluding the proof.
Historical note: the phrase console.blog("salve, munde!") was the title of my junior English blog. This is yet another pun on the ubiquitous "hello world" introductory program, except with a Latin twist. The proof of its hilarity is left as an exercise for the reader.
Bonus points: can you determine the pattern to the dates for the three “pseudo-posts” (the first three to show up on the index page)?
Update: The prize has been claimed by Rishi Salwi, who correctly deduced that the dates were all birthdays of famous computer scientists (specifically, Alonzo Church, Claude Shannon, and Donald Knuth). Church was known for inventing the lambda calculus, a theoretical expression for computation; Shannon was the father of information theory; Knuth designed TeX and wrote The Art of Computer Programming. As his prize, Rishi Salwi will receive an original Dr. Agrawal star, straight from one of my Algebra II quizzes.