posts brought to you by the category “reference”
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.
This was the day that I started thinking, longingly, about
snow.
Colosseo, Roma, August 2003
Excerpted : And then a rock came flying through the window.
August 26, 2003
Montreal
I got in the car and started driving at 06H30 this morning.
<snip />
I told her I would get up early and fetch her around 07H30 which,
notwithstanding the traffic on the way back in to town, would give me a
couple hours to work before I took her to the airport.
You can see where this all going, can't you?
Everyone said that it only takes about 45 minutes to get to Lachute from
Montreal. And it does. And it did. On the way back. After I threw the
directions that she'd been given in the back seat and simply trusted the
map.
The lesson here is clearly : always check directions against a map. Had
I done that earlier I might have noticed that there are two route 148s
in Quebec (separated by many kilometers), that route 139 doesn't exist,
that the turn off to route 158 isn't actually marked and that route 158
is in fact a very short country road with the second route 148 at one
end and a major provincial highway that leads straight into downtown
Montreal at the other.
I pulled up the driveway at 09H00.
But we made it back eventually. I had baked cookies for her to take up
for the rest of the week and there were still some left which helped
ease the aggravation on the way back.
And then, on my way back from the airport, a rock came flying through
the driver's side window while I was driving 110km on the 20 Eastbound,
ricocheting off my head.
I can't find the rock (which I can only guess came off the big truck
with the tarp that I was passing) and all I have to show for the adventure
is a bump on my head. Otherwise I appear to be fine.
A bit dazed, maybe, but it's hard to know how dazed I already was when I
was struck. I'm just glad I didn't have to figure out how to cross three
lanes of traffic with a face full of blood.
$> dict obfuscated
Joan Starr : "To the uninitiated, the development of a metadata
standard might appear to be a passionless occupation."
Nichola Bouges : "I wrote a very basic SyncML server in PHP."
Matt Biddulph : "Most popular entries" sidebar
Fun hacks like this make me wish that MT had a license that
allowed distribution of modifications to its core. Although the
plugin interface is flexible, it's a dead-end in the long run without
the ability to dig in and change things under the skin.
Silver Donald Cameron : "Codswallop. And that's being
diplomatic."
Yours is the only country that has ever invaded ours, and it would
do so again in a wink if it thought its interests here were seriously
threatened.
Michael Schilli : Net::Amazon.pm
Net::Amazon provides an object-oriented interface to amazon.com's
SOAP and XML/HTTP interfaces. This way it's possible to create
applications using Amazon's vast amount of data via a functional
interface, without having to worry about the underlying communication
mechanism.
Joseph J. Esposito : The Processed Book
This is painful to behold for someone who prayed earnestly that
Isabel Archer would not return to Osmond, but words are symbols and
are ideally suited for the manipulations of the symbolic logic of
computers. The processed book takes Isabel Archer and shows her to be
the collection of words that she is. She then can be processed.
Me : XML::SAXDriver::vCard.pm 0.05
Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!
Ars Technica : Essential Home Wireless Security Practices
Simon Willison : "I've put together an XML-RPC proxy for the [W3C
Validator]."
Tatsuhiko Miyagawa : Template::Plugin::HTML::Template.pm
Daniel Yacob : Convert::Braille.pm
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : immure
Immure \Im*mure"\, n. A wall; an inclosure. [Obs.] --Shak.
web1913
immure v : lock up in jail [syn: {imprison}, {incarcerate},
{lag}, {put behind bars}, {jail}, {jug}, {gaol}, {put away}, {remand}]
wn
Never mind the "weblog as journalism" meme,
Norman Walsh : DocBook Wiki
Ben Hammersley : Content Syndication with XML and RSS
"My aim is for the book to cover most of the
xml-ish syndication standards, but to concentrate on RSS0.9x and RSS1.0.
... Meanwhile, and over the next few months, I would very much appreciate
hearing from anyone with ideas/issues/bugbears/preoccupations/fetishes or
any other interest whatsoever in RSS. Are there any issues you feel need
strong wording? Any common errors you'd like to see highlighted? Any
interesting uses of RSS that you'd like to see in such a book? Any future
developments that you would like to get into a book coming out in 6
months or so?"
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : lissom
Lissom \Lis"som\, Lissome \Lis"some\ (l[i^]s"s[u^]m), a.
[For lithesome.] 1. Limber; supple; flexible; lithe; lithesome.
Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand. --Tennyson. 2. Light; nimble;
active. --Halliwell. -- {Lis"some*ness}, n.
web1913
lissom adj : gracefully slender; moving and bending with
ease [syn: {lissome}, {lithe}, {lithesome}, {slender}, {supple},
{svelte}, {sylphlike}]
wn
XML::Comma
"is an information management platform. Comma
speeds the development of content-heavy applications, and was designed to
solve some of the problems that make managing extremely large web sites
so expensive, difficult and tedious."
Me : Net::Google.pm 0.1
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : demagogue
Demagogue \Dem"a*gogue\ (?; 115), n. [Gr. dhmagwgo`s a
popular leader; commonly in a bad sense, a leader of the mob; dh^mos
the people + 'agwgo`s leading, fr. 'a`gein to lead; akin to E. act: cf.
F. d['e]magogue.] A leader of the rabble; one who attempts to control
the multitude by specious or deceitful arts; an unprincipled and
factious mob orator or political leader.
web1913
demagogue n : an orator who appeals to the passions and
prejudices of his audience [syn: {demagog}, {rabble-rouser}]
wn
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : vunrable
When one could not be bothered to pronounce the word
"vulnerable."
ex. That cow's vunrable with no weapons to protect
herself from the wolves. Give her a bow and arrow.
Create your own memepool post.
Jos Boumans : CPAN PLUS
"Being a novice to the Perl community and eager
for a challenging project to sink my teeth into, I offered to patch
CPAN.pm so that CPANTS could automatically build modules and test them. I
imagined this would be a simple role."
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : farrago
Farrago \Far*ra"go\, n. [L. farrago, -aginis, mixed fodder
for cattle, mash, medley, fr. far a sort of grain. See {Farina}.] A
mass composed of various materials confusedly mixed; a medley; a
mixture. A confounded farrago of doubts, fears, hopes, wishes, and all
the flimsy furniture of a country miss's brain. --Sheridan.
web1913
farrago n : a motley assortment of things [syn: {odds and
ends}, {oddments}, {melange}, {ragbag}, {hodgepodge}, {mingle-mangle},
{hotchpotch}, {omnium-gatherum}]
wn
Everytime you masturbate...
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : cavalcade
Cavalcade \Cav"al*cade`\, n. [F. cavalcade, fr. It.
cavalcata, fr. cavalcare to go on horseback, fr. LL. caballicare, fr.
L. caballus an inferior horse, Gr. ?. Cf. {Cavalier}, {Cavalry}.] A
procession of persons on horseback; a formal, pompous march of horsemen
by way of parade. He brought back war-worn cavalcade to the city.
--Prescott.
web1913
cavalcade n : a procession of people traveling on horseback
wn
Rick Olson : commonWeblogAPI.root
Me : Weblogs, Theory and Practice 1.1
Skwonk
"is an application that will listen to your
Ethernet interface for traffic. All traffic. Like a traffic monitor.
Difference is, Skwonk plays specific sounds for the type of packets that
go flying by. For example, if a TCP packet for port 80 goes flying by the
network to another Mac, Skwonk can blurt out a belch, or hoot like an
owl, etc."
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is malapropism
| source : web1913 | Malapropism
\Mal"a*prop*ism\, n. [From Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Sheridan's
drama, `` The Rivals,'' who makes amusing blunders in her use of words.
See {Malapropos}.] A grotesque misuse of a word; a word so used. | source
: wn | malapropism n : the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion
with one that sounds similar [syn: {malaprop}]
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is demur
| source : web1913 | Demur \De*mur"\, v. i. [imp.
& p. p. {Demurred}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Demurring}.] [OF. demurer,
demorer, demourer, to linger, stay, F. demeurer, fr. L. demorari; de- +
morari to delay, tarry, stay, mora delay; prob. originally, time for
thinking, reflection, and akin to memor mindful. See {Memory}.] 1. To
linger; to stay; to tarry. [Obs.] Yet durst not demur nor abide upon the
camp. --Nicols. 2. To delay; to pause; to suspend proceedings or judgment
in view of a doubt or difficulty; to hesitate; to put off the
determination or conclusion of an affair. Upon this rub, the English
embassadors thought fit to demur. --Hayward. 3. To scruple or object; to
take exception; as, I demur to that statement. 4. (Law) To interpose a
demurrer. See {Demurrer}, 2. | source : web1913 | Demur \De*mur"\, v. t.
1. To suspend judgment concerning; to doubt of or hesitate about. [Obs.]
The latter I demur, for in their looks Much reason, and in their actions,
oft appears. --Milton. 2. To cause delay to; to put off. [Obs.] He
demands a fee, And then demurs me with a vain delay. --Quarles. | source
: web1913 | Demur \De*mur"\, n. [OF. demor, demore, stay, delay. See
{Demur}, v. i.] Stop; pause; hesitation as to proceeding; suspense of
decision or action; scruple. All my demurs but double his attacks; At
last he whispers, ``Do; and we go snacks.'' --Pope. | source : wn | demur
n : (law) a formal objection to an opponent's pleadings [syn: {demurral},
{demurrer}] v : take exception to [syn: {except}]
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is lubricious
| source : wn | lubricious adj 1: having a smooth
or slippery quality; "the skin of cephalopods is thin and lubricious" 2:
characterized by lust; "eluding the lubricious embraces of her employer";
"her sensuous grace roused his lustful nature"; "prurient literature";
"prurient thoughts"; "a salacious rooster of a little man" [syn:
{lustful}, {prurient}, {salacious}]
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is hubris
| source : wn | hubris n : overbearing pride or
presumption
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is cajole
| source : web1913 | Cajole \Ca*jole"\, v. i.
[imp. & p. p. {Cajoled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Cajoling}.] [F.
cajoler, orig., to chatter like a bird in a cage, to sing; hence, to
amuse with idle talk, to flatter, from the source of OF. goale, jaiole,
F. ge[^o]le, dim. of cage a cage. See {Cage}, {Jail}.] To deceive with
flattery or fair words; to wheedle. I am not about to cajole or flatter
you into a reception of my views. --F. W. Robertson. Syn: To flatter;
wheedle; delude; coax; entrap. | source : wn | cajole v : influence or
urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering; "He palavered her into
going along" [syn: {wheedle}, {palaver}, {blarney}, {coax}, {sweet-talk},
{inveigle}] | source : foldoc | CAJOLE <language> (Chris And John's
Own LanguagE) A {dataflow} language developed by Chris Hankin
<clh@doc.ic.ac.uk> and John Sharp at {Westfield College}. ["The
Data Flow Programming Language CAJOLE: An Informal Introduction", C.L.
Hankin et al, SIGPLAN Notices 16(7):35-44 (Jul 1981)]. (1994-11-08)
Me : Blogger::Manila.pm 0.1
Doug Tidwell : Extending XSLT to Encrypt XML on the Fly
James Spahr : NewsFeedsPalm
"is a very simple tool for Radio Userland. It
publishes your Userland On the Desktop content to a website that is ideal
for Avantgo Channels. It basically puts Userland On the Desktop on your
Palm."
Idealx : xdb_ldap
"is a module connecting Jabber to an LDAP
directory. Currently, it handles support for authentication and VCard
namespaces but can be easily extended to other namespaces. Communications
between Jabber and LDAP can be encrypted via SSL."
Richard Martineau : "Malheureusement, ce sont justement les écrits
de ce vieux monsieur nostalgique
qui font autorité ŕ l'extérieur du Québec. Des
textes sur l'importance de s'ouvrir au monde, écrits par un homme qui ne
pouvait męme pas comprendre la langue de ses voisins."
This American Life : Kid Logic
This morning, on the way back from the bagel store,
perl-abook
"is a collection of perl library modules which
provide a unified interface for accessing addressbook entries stored in
various types of databases."
The JavaScript Email Encoder
"enables you to encode your e-mail address with
Character Entities, a hexadecimal code to produce the 256 ISO characters.
... This coded e-mail address can be read with almost any browser and
doesn't require any JavaScript or Java. Just replace all instances of
your e-mail address on your pages with the code, and you won't have to
worry about spam lists."
This Morning : Babes in Boyland
"CBC Radio's technology reporter, Julie Ireton,
has been exploring the world of women in technology."
Notwithstanding everything else that's happening in Quebec
city,
Simon Fell : MS Word 2 SOAP
Ron Bickers : DocBook Document
"is a [Zope] ZClass that provides rendering of
Docbook documents."
Michel Rodiguez : Processing XML efficiently with Perl and
XML::Twig
W.J. Gilmore : PHP and the Sablotron Processor
Lawrence Lessig : Free Code, Free Culture
Steve Spicklemire : Zope SWF Output Object
"Zwiff uses two existing products to bring on the
fly swf output to Zope. Zwiff is a subclass of PythonMethod so that it
works just like a Python Method... but it adds a new "module" (zwiff_mod)
that contains all the functionality of "ming", a swf output library..."
John McCrae : In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Overheard : "Michael Dukakis said that if Ralph Nader really did
cost Al Gore the election,
he would go out and strangle him with his own
hands which is interesting since he wasn't sure what he would do if
someone raped and murdered his wife."
BugTraq : Arbitrary file disclosure through PHP file upload
Lincoln Stein : IO::Interface.pm
"adds methods to IO::Socket objects that allows
them to be used to retrieve and change information about the network
interfaces on your system. In addition to the object-oriented access
methods, you can use a function-oriented style." ifconfig -a, be gone!
Thomas Scoville
"Later, I reflected, maybe the problem is that
the Turing Test just isn't so relevant anymore. Perhaps it's just a
charming theoretical anachronism, an artifact of a distant time ... in
which computers themselves were mostly theoretical. In this new
millennium of wireless communications and ubiquitous computing, maybe the
big challenge isn't for a computer to simulate a human. Maybe the real
challenge is for people to prove they aren't machines."
Congratulations go to Macromedia
for making Shockwave 8 the most annoying plug-in
install/upgrade to date. That's quite an accomplishment after years of
Real * installs. What is especially annoying is that this comes from the
same company that pulled off the elegant and invisible Flash plug-in
upgrade. What gives? Later that same day, our hero was heard to mutter "I
think I hate Lingo almost as much as I hate JavaScript..."
This one is for the people with the teeny weeny webcam
thumbnails
small .... big ... .small .... big ..... mmmmm.
If you're in to that sort of thing
Since returning to Montreal
Post-traumatic meta
Removed table bound meta information for the time
being. Hopefully that will speed up rendering times. Like I still needed
more reasons to start painting again...
Ian McCoy on the Canadian backpack
"In any nation, citizens are instilled with a
sense of pride, but we so often forget that pride is numbered among the
seven deadly sins. We are quick to recognize its excess in other
nationalities. But we are loathe to admit to patriotism in its Canadian
form: smugness." Too true but
sometimes it's just so hard not to be.
(via
fairvue
central
)
Jim Fulton : Introduction to the Zope ODB
Joseph Heller 1923-1999
bgcolor=mouse
I am a total sucker for this kind of stuff. Super
cool! via
evhead
Maybe Mr. Nice Guy would be happier
NY Times : E-mail, E-commerce and Now E-buildings
"It's starting with the technologies -- who can
offer better reception or faster, cheaper speeds," he said. "Later, the
competition may focus on content" -- who can provide better-quality,
lower-cost information; who has the smarter, more thoroughly wired
"information concierge." For a complete discussion, see William
Mitchell's
City
of Bits : Space, place & the Infobahn
.
Jean Paré : A trap for journalists
"The issue raises grave questions for young
apprentice journalists to ponder. Should journalists attend executions?
Should they visit concentration or extermination camps, in Kosovo or
elsewhere? Should they do so only by stealth, or even if invited?...This
was legal, of course, but if torture were legal, would reporters attend
the session to describe it on TV at supper time?"
The Street Performer Protocol and Digital Copyrights
We introduce the Street Performer Protocol, an
electronic-commerce mechanism to facilitate the private financing of
public works. Using this protocol, people would place donations in
escrow, to be released to an author in the event that the promised work
be put in the public domain. This protocol has the potential to fund
alternative or "marginal" works.
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.
