posts brought to you by the category “talking heads”
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.
Bob DuCharme : Writing Your Own Functions in XSLT 2.0
If DSSSL is XSLT's parent, that makes Scheme its grandparent and LISP its great-grandparent. Between XSLT's xsl:function element and its idea of node sequences, I realized that I could implement the classic car and cdr functions that return either the first item or the remainder of a list, respectively. LISP does stand for "LISt Processing," after all, and not "Lots of Irritating Silly Parentheses".
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You know, IMP is a very good webmail client.
But you really have to wonder
what kind of ass-backwards rationale made the developers
decide that CSS data should be stored, and configured, as a
PHP associative array
. I'm trying really hard not to see this as somehow
representative of PHP itself but the language just bugs my
ass in so many ways and I see crap like this in so many
well-meaning PHP thingies that my resolve is
wavering...
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Me : XML::SAXDriver::NYTimes.pm 0.3
Fussed with the formatting for
the pubdates to make them ISO-something-or-other
compliant.
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A rose is a rose, except when you call it XHTML
For a variety of reasons, I've
started baking all the web pages for a few sites. Any bells
and whistles are just that; all the really important stuff
is right there in the source file on the assumption that
sooner or later the magic server tools will bork out. This
means that things like copyright notices need to be updated
by 'hand'. I knew this when I started and today I sat down
to write a little tool to do the heavy lifting for me. This
is, after all, the magic lala-land we call XML/XHTML,
right? I am generally a SAX-guy but decided this was a good
opportunity to introduce myself to the DOM-ishness of
XML::LibXML. You know, something simple like :
my $parser = XML::LibXML->new();
my $doc = $parser->parse_html_file("/path/to/file");
my ($span) = $doc->findnodes("/xpath/to/span/with/curyear");
# I happen to know that the first child
# is a text node containing the year
my $oldyear = $span->firstChild();
$oldyear->replaceNode(XML::LibXML::Text->new("2003"));
# Write changes to disk
Simple, right? Keen observers will have already noticed
that I had to read in the document using the
parse_html_file
method. If your root element says "html", regardless of
whether or not the DOCTYPE says XHTML, it is seemingly
impossible to parse a document using the standard
parse_*
methods. Which means that by the time you get around to
writing your DOM to disk you cant do things
like...drumroll...include an XML declaration. And if you
decide to simply write the declaration out by hand, don't
bother trying to call any of the encoding methods. Maybe
there is some deeper magic I have yet to learn but all I
was able to do was make the Perl interpreter dump core.
Still with me? Okay, so we're going to write the
declaration by hand and just assume we know what we're
dealing with when it comes to encodings. Now remember the
bit about being in an HTML context? Logically, the thing to
do is follow the docs, call the
toStringHTML
method and hope for the best. The best in this case is a
terrible journey back to 1998 because all the singletons in
the well-formed documents you've laboured over are suddenly
left open and dangling. And don't bother throwing caution
to wind and just calling
toString
, not if you use the clever C-style comments hack to hide
the <![CDATA[]]> blocks so that your XHTML
can valid and be understood by a web browser. Who the fuck
knows why, but libxml will turn in to this :
<![CDATA[ /* <![CDATA[ */ @import url(some.css) /* ]]> */ ]]>Oh yeah, and it will include an XML declaration for you. So long as you dont mind that it doesn't specify the encoding. Ugh.
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Me : Eatdrinkfeelgood 1.1
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Witness, the dogs of weblogging.
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Hey, the Peter Pan spotlight is 40!
For those of you not from
Montreal, that's four decades of providing acid heads with
a point of reference and reassurance.
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The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : fettle
Fettle \Fet"tle\, n. The act of fettling. [Prov. Eng.] --Wright. {In fine fettle}, in good spirits. web1913
fettle n : a state of fitness and good health; "in fine fettle" wn
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The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : fridge
Same as brick: an outlandishly large cell phone. Used mainly by European teenagers.
ex. My mom bought me a new phone. It was a fridge. Embarrassing.see also : fridge dict-ified
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The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : blandishment
Blandishment \Blan"dish*ment\, n. [Cf. OF. blandissement.] The act of blandishing; a word or act expressive of affection or kindness, and tending to win the heart; soft words and artful caresses; cajolery; allurement. Cowering low with blandishment. --Milton. Attacked by royal smiles, by female blandishments. --Macaulay. web1913
blandishment n 1: flattery intended to persuade [syn: {cajolery}, {palaver}] 2: the act of urging by means of teasing or flattery [syn: {wheedling}] wn
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The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : cheese
To be happy and not worry.
ex. Don't cry. Life is short, so just be cheese.see also : cheese dict-ified
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The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : celerity
Celerity \Ce*ler"i*ty\, n. [L. celeritas, from celer swiftm speedy: sf. F. c['e]l['e]rit['e].] Rapidity of motion; quickness; swiftness. Time, with all its celerity, moves slowly to him whose whole employment is to watch its flight. --Johnson. web1913
celerity n : a rate that is rapid [syn: {quickness}, {rapidity}] wn
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A follow-up to yesterday's thoughts about the iPod :
How cool would it be if someone
wrote a
text to
MP3
application/extension for the MacOS, that exported its
functionality via the services framework? I don't know that
I'd actually want to listen to my email on the way to work
but it would be a pretty sweet for long documents and with
news aggregators.
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The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : redoubt
Redoubt \Re*doubt"\ (r?*dout"), n. [F. redoute, fem., It. ridotto, LL. reductus, literally, a retreat, from L. reductus drawn back, retired, p. p. of reducere to lead or draw back; cf. F. r['e]duit, also fr. LL. reductus. See {Reduce}, and cf. {Reduct}, {R['e]duit}, {Ridotto}.] (Fort.) (a) A small, and usually a roughly constructed, fort or outwork of varying shape, commonly erected for a temporary purpose, and without flanking defenses, -- used esp. in fortifying tops of hills and passes, and positions in hostile territory. (b) In permanent works, an outwork placed within another outwork. See F and i in Illust. of {Ravelin}. [Written also {redout}.] web1913
redoubt n : a stronghold [syn: {sconce}] wn
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N.Y. Times : Consuming Rituals of the Suburban Tribe
"I see. For you, soap and stress are
connected in some way."
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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is languid
| source : web1913 | Languid
\Lan"guid\, a. [L. languidus, fr. languere to be faint or
languid: cf. F. languide. See {Languish}.] 1. Drooping or
flagging from exhaustion; indisposed to exertion; without
animation; weak; weary; heavy; dull. `` Languid, powerless
limbs. '' --Armstrong. Fire their languid souls with Cato's
virtue. --Addison. 2. Slow in progress; tardy. `` No motion
so swift or languid.'' --Bentley. 3. Promoting or indicating
weakness or heaviness; as, a languid day. Feebly she laugheth
in the languid moon. --Keats. Their idleness, aimless and
languid airs. --W. Black. Syn: Feeble; weak; faint; sickly;
pining; exhausted; weary; listless; heavy; dull; heartless.
-- {Lan"guid*ly}, adv. -- {Lan"guid*ness}, n. | source : wn |
languid adj : lacking spirit or liveliness; "a lackadaisical
attempt"; "a languid mood"; "a languid wave of the hand"; "a
hot languorous afternoon" [syn: {dreamy}, {lackadaisical},
{languorous}]
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Dan Brickley : RDF Hacking, Understanding the Striped RDF/XML Syntax
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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is extemporaneous
| source : web1913 | Extemporaneous
\Ex*tem`po*ra"ne*ous\, a. [See {Extempore}.] Composed,
performed, or uttered on the spur of the moment, or without
previous study; unpremeditated; off-hand; extempore;
extemporary; as, an extemporaneous address or production. --
{Ex*tem`po*ra"ne*ous*ly}, adv. --
{Ex*tem`po*ra"ne*ous*ness},n. | source : wn | extemporaneous
adj : with little or no preparation or forethought; "his
ad-lib comments showed poor judgment"; "an extemporaneous
piano recital"; "an extemporary lecture"; "an extempore
skit"; "offhand excuses"; "trying to sound offhanded and
reassuring"; "an off-the-cuff toast"; "a few unrehearsed
comments" [syn: {ad-lib}, {extemporary}, {extempore},
{offhand}, {offhanded}, {off-the-cuff}, {unrehearsed}]
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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is dulcet
| source : web1913 | Dulcet
\Dul"cet\, a. [OF. doucet, dim. of dous sweet, F. doux, L.
dulcis; akin to Gr. ? . Cf. {Doucet}.] 1. Sweet to the taste;
luscious. [Obs.] She tempers dulcet creams. --Milton. 2.
Sweet to the ear; melodious; harmonious. Their dainty lays
and dulcet melody. --Spenser. | source : wn | dulcet adj 1:
extremely pleasant in a gentle way; "the most dulcet swimming
on the most beautiful and remote beaches" 2: pleasing to the
ear; "the dulcet tones of the cello" [syn: {honeyed},
{mellifluous}, {mellisonant}, {sweet}]
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Michael Ignatieff : "Yes, we are a community bound together by rules of civility and reflection,
but we do not start from the same
history. The truths that a grieving part of this community
holds as self-evident are not self-evident to the others
whose eyes are dry. We must talk about the most painful
things, and we must not fear the sting of truth. There is
nothing consoling about this process, but it is what the
discipline of learning requires."
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It's like clockwork.
You walk out the door, in
Montreal, on September 1st and the chill is in the air and
it no longer smells like summer. Amazing.
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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is arrant
| source : web1913 | Arrant
\Ar"rant\, a. [OE. erraunt, errant, errand, equiv. to E.
errant wandering, which was first applied to vagabonds, as an
errant rogue, an errant thief, and hence passed gradually
into its present and worse sense. See {Errant}.] Notoriously
or pre["e]minently bad; thorough or downright, in a bad
sense; shameless; unmitigated; as, an arrant rogue or coward.
I discover an arrant laziness in my soul. --Fuller. 2.
Thorough or downright, in a good sense. [Obs.] An arrant
honest woman. --Burton. | source : wn | arrant adj : without
qualification; used informally as (often pejorative)
intensifiers; "an arrant fool"; "a complete coward"; "a
consummate fool"; "a double-dyed villain"; "gross
negligence"; "a perfect idiot"; "pure folly"; "what a sodding
mess"; "stark staring mad"; "a thoroughgoing villain"; "utter
nonsense" [syn: {arrant(a)}, {complete(a)}, {consummate(a)},
{double-dyed(a)}, {everlasting(a)}, {gross(a)}, {perfect(a)},
{pure(a)}, {sodding(a)}, {stark(a)}, {staring(a)},
{thoroughgoing(a)}, {utter(a)}]
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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is gadabout
| source : web1913 | Gadabout
\Gad"a*bout`\, n. A gadder [Colloq.] | source : wn | gadabout
n : a restless seeker after amusement or social companionship
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Søren Roug proposes an event module for RSS 1.0
"Imagine, that you have a calendar on
your website. Imagine then that this calendar can be set up
to automatically grab announcements of events from the
O'Reilly events website - letting know when the next
Perl/Open Source conference is - or the next IRC chat with
Tim - or the release schedule for a new book. This is what
the event module will provide."
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From the "Sharp as a Chocolate Chip Cookie" department :
I have been forced into the
understanding that the only place work and rest meet is where
one stops and the other begins.
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Object by Design : XSLT by Example
"These pages ... shift the focus
toward the nitty-gritty details of writing XSLT stylesheets."
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Kalvis Apsitis : Specification of an RDF Crawler
"[An RDF Crawler] is a tool which
downloads interconnected fragments of RDF from the Internet
and builds a knowledge base from this data. At every phase of
RDF crawling we maintain a list of URIs to be retrieved as
well as URI filtering conditions (e.g. depth, URI syntax),
which we observe as we iteratively download resources
containing RDF."
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Tina Mion : Virtual Election
"Tina and her friends held elaborate
ceremonies every Sunday to select one card from the
Presidential bridge deck. Mion then created an original
painting of the figure represented on the card, maintaining
the card's face value and suit. The paintings were created
using a wide variety of styles and mediums inspired by the
personalities and periods in which the figures lived." see
also :
Morning Edition on Mion's portraits of U.S. first ladies
.
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The Conway Channel : It may say "yawnoC namiaD" on my door,
but that don't mean I'm always
backward. Before he could open his yap, I let him have it:
"What's your beef, tough guy?", I spat. He was a New
Zealander, so I knew he was more likely on the lamb. He
chewed on the question like it was some proteinaceous
metaphor. Then he drawled: "I gotta bone to pick with you,
Conway!". He swung my other chair round backwards and
straddled it. My estimation of him went up a notch: my other
chair's a La-Z-Boy. "It's about yer website," he grunted.
"It's hurting my cones!".
Although, there is no mention of
it on the
yapc
site itself, Damian Conway's
calendar
indicates he will be in Montreal in June for this year's
YAPC::America::North conference. Woohoo!
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Pierre Dittgen : PalmLib
"is a set of functions that allow you
to convert text or HTML documents into 3COM PalmPilot
documents. PalmLib is written in PHP3 and can be used to
provide on-the-fly document generation on Web sites."
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Dr. Mary T. Baker : "None of these suits will ultimately survive.
In 500 years, there will be the Mona
Lisa. But there will not be an Apollo spacesuit."
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This day has been Chrétienized
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Cool Uses for Perl : 250 badges in 10 minutes!
Rest assured gentle reader,
that there is no shortage of
crazy John Woo-style digital action taking place behind the
scenes
here are at aaronland. On the other hand, you'll have to
"visualize a blogcentric affiliate industry enriching avid
contributors with 15% commissions" somewhere else. Alas, I
guess the end is nigh again...
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Sean Boran : All About SSH
NY Times : Welcome to the Internet, the First Global Colony
"If the United States government had
tried to come up with a scheme to spread its brand of
capitalism and its emphasis on political liberalism around
the world, it couldn't have invented a better model than the
Internet."
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As It Happens interviews the little red-haired girl
real evil g2
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The new Words and Pictures website is online!
"Founded in 1990 the Words &
Pictures Museum of Fine Sequential Art opened its doors to
the public in October of 1992, dedicated solely to the
preservation, interpretation and exhibition of contemporary
comic book artwork." The old brick and mortar site is gone,
but there is still a
comprehensive QTVR tour of the building
.
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Garry Trudeau
"While the public at large regards
'Peanuts' as a cherished part of our shared popular culture,
cartoonists also see it as an irreplaceable source of purpose
and pride, our gold standard for work that is both
illuminating and aesthetically sublime. We can hardly imagine
its absence." via
robot
wisdom
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I had no idea that
1 in 5 Swedes likes to stroke their computer
. I wonder what Microsoft will do with that information.
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In memory
Genevieve Bergeron, Helene Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Maria Klucznick Widajewicz, Maryse Laganiere, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michele Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte.
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Today is Armistice Day
marking the end of The Great War.
Todays reading list includes : Barbara Tuchman's
The Proud Tower
, Dalton Trumbo's
Johnny Got His Gun
, Jane Urquhart's
The Underpainter
, William Shirer's
The Third Republic
, Christopher Isherwood's
Berlin Stories
and John McCrae's
In
Flander's Fields
. If nothing else, please take a moment to remember those who
fought and died in the trenches. World War I set the stage
for almost everything to come this century and it is sad and
terrifying how quickly we forget.
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NY Times on the Child Online Protection Act hearings
"[Judge Leonard I. Garth] said the
law still left open the possibility that the standards of the
most socially traditional communities in the United States --
conservative residents of Utah, for example -- would 'be the
ceiling for the rest of us.' "
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Bill Clennett
"Puis, j'ai convoqué la GRC et la presse locale à un restaurant. En recevant le chèque, j'ai mentionné que j'étais pour le retourner à Jean Chrétien à ma façon. J'ai pris le chèque, je suis allé au journal Le Droit, j'ai endossé le chèque et j'ai demandé à acheter 560 $ de publicité pour notre groupe! La publicité intitulée "On est déjà pris à la gorge, ce qu'il nous faut, c'est des emplois." Je préférais perdre les 560 $. Je dirais même que ce sont les meilleurs 560 $ que j'aie jamais perdus de ma vie!"
Mr. Clennett and Prime Minister
Jean Chretien are seen here celebrating the 30th
anniversary of the Canadian flag :
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WaSP : An Open Letter to Microsoft
"We've written a letter (right)
outlining our position. The more of you who send it to
Microsoft, the bigger the dent we can make in their reticence
to commit to full standards compliance, and the likelier we
are to have fully standards-compliant browsers in this
lifetime."
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Globe & Mail on "green bullets"
"The U.S. Army has developed an
environmentally friendly bullet -- one that will still maim
and kill, but not poison the environment by spreading lead, a
dangerous heavy metal." What do you think: Is the glass
half-empty or half-full?
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It's Bastille Day
Yes, it took them a while to get it
right (the No-fun police took over and decided that women
weren't really equal after all) and the guillotine was
invented in the name of charity. You should still read
La
Declaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen
.
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Ontario judge bans spam for breach of Netiquette
Michael Geist, a law professor at the
University of Ottawa, said the legal ruling is troubling
because it attempts to define Netiquette and use it as a
legal principle. "If you export this decision into a
different context, this provides an open opportunity for
people to get out of contracts that they might not get out of
otherwise," he said. "If I send out content that someone
finds objectionable, is that breach of Netiquette?"
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It's Canada Day :
which means it's Garbage-picking Day
in Montreal. Most of the city rents, and about an
overwhelming majority of the leases start on July 1st. To
celebrate moving day, the Montreal Mirror has a special
feature on
houses
you won't be moving in to
.
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Philip Gourevitch
"The best reason I have come up with
for looking closely into Rwanda's stories is that ignoring
them makes me even more uncomfortable about existence and my
place in it."