posts brought to you by the category “plastic”
Das eez kaput! Sometime around 2002 I spaced the entire database
table that mapped individual entries to categories. Such is life.
What follows is a random sampling of entries that were associated
with the category. Over time, the entries will be updated and then it
will be even more confusing. Wander around, though, it's still a fun
way to find stuff.
Simon Wistow : Python::Serialise::Pickle.pm
You could always dump the data structure out as YAML in Python and
then read it back in with YAML in Perl.
Randal Schwartz : "People moan at Perl's syntax, and then they
embrace XSL. Go figure!"
Dan Rinzel : Hacking Movable Type with WWW::Mechanize
Me : strip_unix_comments 1.0 (bloxsom plugin)
With truths like these, who needs lies?
In war, it's appropriate for the media to serve as watchdogs, but
you should not walk into a situation being a skeptic,
he says in an interview. Reporters shouldn't be digging for dirt or
even independently probing for facts, in his view. If something bad
happens, it's the military's job to investigate, Long says, not the
media's.
Our job is to provide the truth and provide context.
He fires up his stogie. He puffs.
The truth will set you free.
Meanwhile Ben Hammersley, in a fit of poetic license,
Me : links-to-unordered-list.xsl 1.0
Ed is dead!
Michael Kinsey : Deliver Us From Evil
If the subjective basis for terrorists hating America is off
limits for consideration, that would seem to leave the objective
basis: Is it something we did, or didn't do, to them or theirs? But
this violates the ancient conservative taboo (c. 1984, styling by
Jeane Kirkpatrick) against "blaming America first." So, check and
mate: Terrorism is evil, evil, evil—gosh, it's evil—and
there's nothing else to discuss.
Bill Turner : Baby boomer tableware
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : muppet
Mild insult to the mildly dippy. Usually reserved for
someone doing something without calling upon common sense in the
process.
ex. "And then the man from the RAC told me my car was not
working because I'd run out of petrol." "You muppet!"
Gen Kanai : "For to us, pho is life, love and all things that
matter."
www.spamradio.com
Dan Brickley : RDF for mail filtering - FOAF whitelists
"Other folk have been using whitelist based
filtering, which is based on the idea that you keep a 'whitelist' of
known email addresses, and filter unknown senders into a folder for
occasional scrutiny. After a some bad spam weather, I decided to try
combining this technique with content-based filtering, so that genuine
messages from unknown addresses would also be separated from the most
obvious spam. This document is mostly about the use of RDF to exchange
whitelist data, so that we minimise false positives in whitelist based
filtering."
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : philish
Used to describe something that bothers you to no end and
makes you wish you had a gun to shoot them.
ex. That guy we saw yesterday--Lyphen?--what a philish
turd! I wish he just dropped dead on the spot! Not only was he rude,
but he also smelled awful!
Me : Net::Google.pm 0.2
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : fussass
pronounced as fuss-arse. means that someone is
particularly fussy in their behaviours and work habits.
ex. Cathy is a fussass, because she likes to maintain a
high standard of work.
Two days ago : the eighth day of Not Winter
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : nescience
Nescience \Nes"cience\, n. [L. nescientia, fr. nesciens, p.
pr. of nescire not to know; ne not + scire to know.] Want of knowledge;
ignorance; agnosticism. God fetched it about for me, in that absence
and nescience of mine. --Bp. Hall.
web1913
nescience n : ignorance (especially of orthodox beliefs)
[syn: {ignorantness}, {unknowing}, {unknowingness}]
wn
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : hole of
pluto
Middle of nowhere.
ex. She moved to the hole of Pluto. I don't even think
they deliver mail where she moved.
The Perl Review 0.0
Isabel Álvarez and Brent Kilbourn : Mapping the Information Society
Literature
"In spite of the infancy of the Information
Society phenomenon, a large literature has emerged in recent years that
discusses its nature. Not surprisingly, the literature does not present a
uniform view; rather, there are differences of opinion as to the nature
and significance of the Information Society. We argue that the literature
constitutes an educational problem for those teaching and learning about
this complex territory. The discussion visits the complexity by
constructing a comprehensive map that charts 1) topics, 2) perspectives,
and 3) root metaphors."
The Connection : Language and the Internet
I'm going to try and suspend my disbelief
I've been wating patiently for someone else to say it
Nigel Witters : Apache::Emulator.pm
"I work in a firm that uses Netscape as its
front-line webserver, but I prefer to code my Perl using mod_perl rather
than CGI. I also have an account on an internal Apache server running
mod_perl, but I don't have admin rights to restart the webserver while
I'm developing code [nor am I allowed to run my own copy of Apache]. I
also like to develop web applications that *will* run on a CGI platform,
but will run *very fast* on a mod_perl platform. The solution? Emulate
mod_perl within the CGI environment. It's slower than traditional CGI,
but you can develop for both platforms and deploy to mod_perl once your
code is finished."
Eric Meyer : CSS2 Reference Sidebar [for Mozilla]
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is chimera
| source : web1913 | Chimera \Chime"ra\, n.; pl.
{Chimeras}. [L. chimaera a chimera (in sense 1), Gr. ? a she-goat, a
chimera, fr. ? he-goat; cf. Icel. qymbr a yearling ewe.] 1. (Myth.) A
monster represented as vomiting flames, and as having the head of a lion,
the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon. ``Dire chimeras and
enchanted isles.'' --Milton. 2. A vain, foolish, or incongruous fancy, or
creature of the imagination; as, the chimera of an author. --Burke. |
source : wn | Chimera n 1: (Greek mythology) fire-breathing she-monster
with a lion's head and a goat's body and a serpent's tail; daughter of
Typhon [syn: {Chimera}, {Chimaera}] 2: a grotesque product of the
imagination [syn: {chimaera}] | source : foldoc | Chimera A modular, {X
Window System}-based {World-Wide Web} {browser} for {Unix}. Chimera uses
the {Athena} {widget} set so {Motif} is not needed. Chimera supports
forms, inline images, {TERM}, {SOCKS}, {proxy server}s, {Gopher}, {FTP},
{HTTP} and local file accesses. Chimera can be extended using external
programs. New {protocol}s can easily be added and alternate image formats
can be used for inline images (e.g. {PostScript}). Version 1.60 is
available for {(ftp://ftp.cs.unlv.edu/pub/chimera)}. {Home
(http://www.unlv.edu/chimera/)} Chimera runs on {Sun} {SPARC} {SunOS}
4.1.x, {IBM} {RS/6000} {AIX} 3.2.5, {Linux} 1.1.x. It should run on
anything with {X11}R[3-6], {imake} and a {C} compiler. (1994-11-08)
Dirk-Willem van Gulik : mod_auth_jabber
Brendan Scott : Copyright in a Frictionless World: Toward a
Rhetoric of Responsibility
"In this paper, the author reviews the history
and application of copyright and concludes that, although promoted as
being in the interests of authors, it is designed in such a way as to be
primarily a right which benefits distributors and publishers. The author
identifies a number of difficulties faced by distributors and publishers
in enforcing their rights in an age where the various sources of
"friction" which once limited infringement are being constantly reduced.
In particular, in the emerging frictionless world the typical targets of
the holder of a copyright monopoly (distributors pirating for profit) are
being overtaken by a new breed of target (individuals with a cost
reduction motive) and it is uneconomical for a holder of a copyright
monopoly to pursue this new breed. The author argues that recent
extensions to copyright monopolies add little to the illegality of the
infringing acts nor any stigma to the performance of those acts. Instead,
they exacerbate one of the main causes of infringement - consumer
cynicism as to the benefits to society of the copyright monopoly. The
author argues further that, rather than driving further cynicism through
more expansive rhetoric relating to rights, holders of a copyright
monopoly should instead seek to mollify consumer sentiment and encourage
compliance by emphasizing a rhetoric of responsibility in the exercise of
those rights."
The Friends of Poor People see no truck in protesting.
What the hell is an Amero-Canadian?
"[O]ur lives stretched before us along paths as
uncertain as the uncharted Canadian land mass that capped the
Amerocentric television weather maps of our youth."
So, apparently, while I've been busy geeking out,
83% of Canadians have a uniform fetish.
Rohit Khare and Adam Rifkin : The Origin of (Document) Species
"Whereas the first explanation implies a passive
Web that accommodates all document formats equally, the second argues
that the medium itself favors evolution from information capture towards
knowledge representation. The key is that the Web can be leveraged
reflexively to capture a document's structure and semantics -- that any
community can define its own ontology, or adopt, extend, and combine
others. In this context, we argue that the emergence of XML-based formats
does not merely represent a slew of new competitors, but an ecosystem of
interdependent document species."
developerWorks : An Introduction to RDF
"Many proclaim that RDF is really the XML's
killer app, and with good reason. Despite all this, RDF remains somewhat
obscure. This is mainly because at its core RDF is very abstract, very
dry, and very academic. With this article I hope to illustrate why RDF is
very important to anyone interested in XML."
"I can't wait"
There is still a god.
Jonathan Kay : Caste of characters
"But it is not so much Homer's choice of words as
his manner of speaking them that is instructive. Though Homer is dumb in
any language, France's dub community decided the star of the show
shouldn't speak in anything less than standard French. "There is a
levelling effect," says Éric Plourde, a French-Canadian linguist who
wrote his master's thesis on the translation of The Simpsons. "The French
brought the pronunciation of almost all the characters to more or less
the same plane." The uniform quality of the language, he argues,
"reflects a belief in the uniqueness and irreducible character of the
French identity" - in other words, the French are secure enough to insist
that even a dolt can, and should, speak proper French. This approach,
Plourde says, betrays an "imperialist" attitude towards language animated
by the nation's colony-holding past."
Sightings :
The Main Archeological Project :
1
&
2
&
3
.
Guy Gilbert
"Isolée dans son geste, la Sûreté du Québec a
pris sur elle-même de résoudre la question sociale qui se posait à Oka,
une confrontation entre autochtones et une municipalité, une situation
juridique complexe, un dossier d'un cadre historique de plus de 250 ans.
À elle seule, la Sûreté du Québec ne disposait pas de tout l'éclairage
nécessaire pour une décision sage en de telles circonstances. Seule
aurait pu suppléer à une telle carence une réflexion collégiale et
polyvalente."
Yesterday was rough
I peeled on my bicycle, stepped on a rusty nail,
spilled wine at a party, cleaned up everyone else's broken beer bottles
and wrestled with demons to the soul-crushing sounds of the 80's. I
peeled when I lost control on my bike and started riding the curb.
Normally when you ride the curb it's an opportunity to collect yourself
and ease back on to the road; I just fell over. I poked my foot after the
rusty nail got lodged in the foam of my sneaker just waiting for me to
stomp stomp stomp on the shovel I was using to turn over old and hardened
soil. Not entirely clear on when I had my last tetanus shot, I learned
alot about the bacteria it protects against when I discovered my doctor's
phone number is no longer in service. The wine part wasn't so bad as much
as it was a Jack Tripper moment. Fortunately, no one in the crowd I
travel with has wall to wall carpeting (remind me to tell you about the
Yuppie Fortress where I slept on the floor for eight months) so the
damage was easily fixed with a napkin or two but gave me enough time to
think about falling off my bike again. Picking up after every one was
more a function of being around and knowing where the broom was. Of
course, in my mind I heard the deafening chorus of "Jack Tripper Jack
Tripper" as I walked past the people who didn't know me but only ever saw
me with a dustpan full of glass. And the last part? That's all you're
gonna hear about it, though I will take the opportunity to point out that
the 80's still suck.
The mountain is green again
and, for all intents and purposes, the Habs are
playing the Nordiques. Some days there is still a god.
I'm not allowed to tell you about it
but it involves hot dogs.
The Unbearable Lightness of White Space
So, I made my way back to
Ed's
Weblog
this morning. I had read his comments regarding the necessity of
standards
the other day, but I wanted to read them again before I told my story.
Mine is definitely in the Left-Field Department, but it does demonstrate
why standards are a Good Thing. For what feels like the last 8-billion
years, I have been testing a powerful open source shopping cart system.
The code that drives the tools is robust and elegant (despite the fact
that there are *no* comments...grrrrr) but the html templates it ships
with are nasty. There is no other word. They are machine generated,
impossible to read and make liberal use of the dreaded font tag. I
decided the Right Thing To Do was clean up the templates, and I did. Any
guesses on what happened next? The images vanished. Poof! The reason they
disappeared was simple : I like white space. I prefer to write
img src = "foo.jpg"
rather than
img src="bar.gif"
because I find it easier to read. Unfortunately, the propeller-heads
decided that the former would fail a pattern-match when the templates are
rendered. So now I know and, frankly, I feel worse for the knowledge.
Granted, this has more to do with the software I am using than any
particular web standard. The point is that if we all had the same
definitive reference we would find new and, more importantly, better ways
to waste our time. Just ask anyone who's ever tried to write cross-bowser
DHTML. Anyway, the whole reason I started the story with Ed is that, when
I arrived first link on his site was to something called
White
Space Bugs in Browsers
. see also
Edd Dumbill
: XML, Standards and You
.
81 games of hope
is what my friend Jason said, sometime during the
third period. The Habs played their last game of the regular season last
night, and lost to Ottawa. We're out of the playoffs and it's been
snowing ever since. I think it's the city crying.
James C. Bennett pushes all the right buttons
images of the Empire where the sun never sets, of
the Internet where the money flows like water and a fear of the unknown
to create the idea of an English Network Commonwealth.
The Just Watch Me website
"It was hard to grow up under the elegant,
enigmatic and eccentric Pierre Trudeau. The man was just so dominant. In
Just Watch Me, we meet eight people from across the country - Anglo and
Franco, separatist and federalist, idealist and realist - whose personal
and national dreams are intertwined." The film is being broadcast this
evening on
CBC television
at 20h00 EST, and there are real video clips on the website. I heard an
interview with the director this morning who opined the following : "If
people had known the bi-lingualism project was about sex, they would have
studied it alot harder."
John Udell : Can XML Simplify Auto-Grabbing Web Mail?
William Safire
"Look at yourself, dear reader. Are you a
narrowband person, cribbed, cabin'd and confined in a strait gate -- or
are you the sort whose mind ranges far out over the amber waves of corn?
By rejecting the 'verie euill thoughts of the wicked,' you, too, can
mega-merge yourself into a broadband person."
The Bendypig speaks
"You will never see a Moon like this again, even
if the world does not end seven days later."
David Keirsey
"There is some social bias toward expressiveness
in American social life, but Reserved persons have no reason to feel that
there is anything wrong with them, and should be sure to provide
adequately for their legitimate desire for quiet time to themselves."
Well, that's a relief since I managed to score a perfect 10 for
reservedness and a 0 for expressiveness on the
Keirsey
Character Sorter
. via
nubbin
Meanwhile, in Ottawa
Doom as a tool for system administration
"The application is very touchy and development
is hindered by guys with shotguns killing my shell windows." And here we
were, all believing that the <a href =
"http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html">visual
representation of cyberspace</a> was going to be nothing
but Neuromancer-esque squares and triangles. via <a href =
"http://www.scripting.com">scripting news</a>
Danny Goodman : Getting Ready for the W3C DOM
Boston Globe : Hurricane Cams
Meanwhile, if I have to leave the basement I'll
point the basementboy camera
out the
window
.
Bored?
Karl-Erik Tallmo : Knowledge-on-Demand
"Can knowledge be switched on and off - and can
it be stored outside of our heads?"
Clive Thompson : The Attack of the Incredible Grading Machine
"The theory behind the method is this: For any
given essay, good content is a function of using certain words in the
vicinity of certain other words, and that accomplishment can be expressed
numerically." Fascinating. The claim is that it is optimized for
short-essay answers, but how long will that last? What happens, then,
when you feed it a paper by someone who decides to challenge accepted
notions, expand the area of discussion or just outright aims to prove an
idea to be wrong wrong wrong? Galileo, anyone?
FEMA : Today in Disaster History
Hunter S. Thompson : He Was a Crook
"I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon
for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with
him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better
person for it."
Robert at bump.net
(or <a href =
"http://www.dalai-lama.com/">dalai-lama.com</a>,
depending on what your referrer logs tell you ;-) has some nice things to
say about abhb, and the <a href =
"http://aaronland.net/#sitemap">aaronland
sitemap</a>. That said, credit should go to those who
deserve it : the fancy dhtml code is courtesy of Eric Bosrup's <a
href = "http://www.bosrup.com/web/overlib">OverLIB javascript
library</a> and the pointer that said code contains a
"tracking agent" comes by way of <a href =
"http://discuss.userland.com/msgReader$8401">Keith
Devens</a>. Thanks to one and all!
L.A. Times on the Tree People
"Now they want the trees they plant and the
houses they retrofit to be part of a total system--what they call a
"sustainable watershed." The bottom line: a city that functions as its
own ecosystem, dramatically reducing flooding, drought and pollution. "
mmmmm....
tree-planting
.
Hour on CBC Radio-3
"What will guide this youth-oriented programming?
Is it going to be family values, urban stuff or little-kid stuff?" asks
Ed. "No one has answered any of these questions."
Since we're on the subject
be sure and check out G.H.Hovagimyan's
Barbie Meets Richard Serra
, an obvious precursor to the cutting-edge neo-montage work of
Alien Ice
Picktures
(whose entire body of work is conceivably now owned and copyrighted by
Yahoo.)
MacWeek on Photoshop 5.5
Call me bitter if you want, but I can't help but
feel Adobe is just trying to raise capital to finish PS6. There was never
any question that people would pay whatever it cost for multiple undos in
PS5 when it was released, so where was the impetus to add web features
when they can just call them an "upgrade" a year later? Grrrrr. via
scripting news
.
The Unbearable Lightness of Pool
wtf?
-
dude, where's my car
This document uses
CSS
kung-fu and a small amount of JavaScript for rendering its
contents. Efforts have been made to separate the form from the
content so if you are viewing this in a text-based browser it
shouldn't be an issue.
On the other hand it may look funny if you are viewing it in a
browser with incomplete
CSS
and/or JavaScript implementations. Internet Explorer 6 comes to
mind.
It's not that I don't love you. However, my time is limited and
I no longer feel very good about spending it working around any one
browser's inconsistencies with little, or no, confidence that they
will ever be fixed or otherwise made more inconsistent at some
later date.
On the other hand, if something is down-right
unreadable
please let me know and I will endeavour to fix it.
-
yes, we have no bananas
This page may not validate. It's not that I don't care, it's
just that I'm not aware of it yet. Part of the reason that I
rewrote the entire back-end for managing this site is that the old
stuff made it too easy for these kinds of mistakes to slip through
the cracks.
See also :
W3C::LogValidator.pm
-
it's the software, stupid
Use the source, Luke.
