posts brought to you by the category “style before
comfort”
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.
Bill, that's a terrible analogy.
Separated at birth : Aaron Startup Cope
Bloogle : "We will not be implementing or supporting the Blogger
API 2.0."
I went to the Commerce and Design expo on Friday afternoon
Nichola Bouges : "I wrote a very basic SyncML server in PHP."
Simon Batistoni : Generating websites with
Template::Toolkit::XML::LibXML
Dave Winer : "I can include directories maintained by other
people..."
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : bastard
hat
An invisible device that has an overall negative effect
on the wearer, turning her into a bastard.
ex. "What's the matter with them today?" "Dunno, they
must be wearing the Bastard Hat."
The New York Times has a recipe for limoncello
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : brio
brio n : quality of being active or spirited or vigorous
[syn: {animation}, {spiritedness}]
wn
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : ebullient
Ebullient \E*bul"lient\, a. [L. ebulliens, -entis, p. pr.
of ebullire to boil up, bubble up; e out, from + bullire to boil. See
1st {Boil}.] Boiling up or over; hence, manifesting exhilaration or
excitement, as of feeling; effervescing. ``Ebullient with subtlety.''
--De Quincey. The ebullient enthusiasm of the French. --Carlyle.
web1913
ebullient adj : joyously unrestrained [syn: {exuberant},
{high-spirited}]
wn
Me : Blogger.pm 0.6.2
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is discrete
| source : web1913 | Discrete \Dis*crete"\, a.
[L. discretus, p. p. of discernere. See {Discreet}.] 1. Separate;
distinct; disjunct. --Sir M. Hale. 2. Disjunctive; containing a
disjunctive or discretive clause; as, ``I resign my life, but not my
honor,'' is a discrete proposition. 3. (Bot.) Separate; not coalescent;
-- said of things usually coalescent. {Discrete movement}. See {Concrete
movement of the voice}, under {Concrete}, a. {Discrete proportion},
proportion where the ratio of the means is different from that of either
couplet; as, 3:6::8:16, 3 bearing the same proportion to 6 as 8 does to
16. But 3 is not to 6 as 6 to 8. It is thus opposed to continued or
{continual proportion}; as, 3:6::12:24. {Discrete quantity}, that which
must be divided into units, as number, and is opposed to {continued
quantity}, as duration, or extension. | source : web1913 | Discrete
\Dis*crete"\, v. t. To separate. [Obs.] --Sir T. Browne. | source : wn |
discrete adj : constituting a separate entity or part; "a government with
three discrete divisions"; "on two distinct occasions" [syn: {distinct}]
Russell Letson : Taxonomies Put Content in Context
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is abed
| source : web1913 | Abed \A*bed"\, adv. [Pref.
a- in, on + bed.] 1. In bed, or on the bed. Not to be abed after
midnight. --Shak. 2. To childbed (in the phrase ``brought abed,'' that
is, delivered of a child). --Shak. | source : wn | abed adv : in bed
Notes from the "Art Is Your Friend" department : Paging Dr.
Brute
Matt Sergeant : Just for Damians
What does Aaron think about it, today?
Dear Apple : "There are a lot of us perl programmers out here
who'd love to bring our applications to Mac OS X.
Rumor has it that Apple can bridge Perl to Cocoa, much like the Java to
Cocoa bridge, and were that to become available to us, we'd find it
enormously useful. We realize that adding it as a "supported API" would
be a big deal, so we won't even ask for that (although it obviously would
be cool). If you could somehow donate the Perl code you have for this to
the community, then we already have a group of talented people who'll be
happy to maintain it. Mac OS X already has very good Perl support and
with a Cocoa to Perl bridge there would be no end of cool applications
for X we would make."
Rober Wright : The Problem With Retaliation
"Yesterday someone asked me to discuss terrorism
in game-theoretic terms, and I realized that, in this case, you almost
can't. Game theory assumes that all players are amenable to positive and
negative reinforcement. When you're dealing with people who don't mind
death—who in a sense even welcome it—your arsenal of negative
reinforcement shrinks considerably."
Perlmonks : Restoring deleted files under Linux
I was asked for my read on something called skyBuilders
I don't know. There's a lot of buzzword bingo obfuscating what may
actually be a good idea. I will simply cut to the chase...
I find the premise questionable : your data is safe with us but
not with them. We will be advertisement driven but we don't expect
them to want to mine all the data passing through our system.
I find the implementation dubious : super whiz-bang javascript
<--> server communications appear to be all the rage these days
but I have yet to see why. The only real distributed javascript
"applications" I've seen are syndicated moreover.com newsfeeds which
do, in fact, deliver the news but at a cost of rendering a machine
completely useless in the process. JavaScript may have grown up some
over the years, but it certainly isn't anything that I want to write
"on top" of.
As an "Internet developer", I am shocked that the only "open
source" code available is all NT/Access based. I am further annoyed
that, in order to (maybe, hopefully) see documentation, or examples,
of any consequence I have to go throught YA register process. I
concede that I may be alone on this last one, but I don't really
think so.
As someone who might be interested in the issues they are claiming
to be tackling, there is a distressing lack of information on their
website. It might even lead someone to think that their appreciation
of the subject is limited to the idea that privacy is a "growth
market".
Finally, as someone who occasionally thinks about how to describe
and convey ideas, I think that they need to put a little more effort
into presenting their message.
Rich Robinson : DigitaScript, A Scripting Language for Digital
Cameras
"Although DigitaScript can set simple camera
parameters such as shutter speed and flash settings, it can also manage
databases of information, tell photographers which picture to take next,
build web pages, extend the user interface, and communicate with external
devices such as barcode readers. It does this with simple text files that
are no more difficult to understand than HTML. And it does everything
right inside the camera."
John Roth : "Whenever Canada loses one of its talented people there
should be an exit interview.
We should find out why our talent leaves and what
needs to be done. If exit interviews work for industry, they can also
work for a country. I don't think Ottawa fully realizes the extent to
which Canada's talent is under attack. The fact is we have already lost
too many of Canada's brightest across many industry sectors, especially
high-tech. We have suffered the loss of almost an entire generation.
We'll miss their creativity, their leadership, the job opportunities
their triumphs would have created for countless other Canadians, and the
wealth they could have created for other Canadians."
There is a bug in the display mechanism for the archives
I may not get to fixing it
today
, but the links are still valid.
Ultimus : 150 Essential Features of Workflow Automation
Webreview : Using CSS2 to Layout HTML Pages for Print
On the off chance you've got a browser that
supports CSS2...
M.J. Milloy
"This ignorance is profound, and stretches from
popular music, to television, to literature, to movies - Quebec culture
is a vast terra incognita to the Canadian mind, so foreign that Canadians
don't even notice their ignorance. How else to explain why no eyebrows
are raised when two English-language, Toronto-based newspapers are
fighting over the title of "Canada's National Newspaper"? Last time I
checked, they weren't published in French, and no one was readng them in
Abitibi." But, whatthefuck, who needs culture when you've got
the Aquibus, Peel Pub, Holy Joe's and strip clubs
, right? I can tell you that Disneyland with sex is the real reason I
moved back to Montreal, but then real Disneysex would be even better,
wouldn't it? (via
mikel
)
Amazing but true!
Julian Dibbell : After Babelfish
"Suppose that the unhinged flights of Babelfish
at its nuttiest are in some sense very much what Shakespeare is about --
or at least what translations of Shakespeare ought to be about. Suppose,
that is, that Walter Benjamin in fact had something very much like
Babelfish in mind when he wrote that translation has but one true task:
to catch a fleeting glimpse for us of that "higher and purer" language of
which all languages, after Babel, are mere fragments."
Gimp Savvy : Copyright Free Photo Archive
"To improve the archive's usefulness, full
indexing of the images is planned. However, this job would be taxing for
a single person, and would probably produce only mediocre results.
Consequently, the solution is to provide an interactive environment
allowing the community to participate in the labelling of archive
images."
Jeff Covey : Negotiating for Nerds
"Here is the number one piece of advice I have
for negotiating: SHUT UP! Sales people do this all the time. Ask a
leading question and then let it hang. Let the other person get nervous
and fill the space with a number or a suggestion. You never know what
you'll get using this technique, but I guarantee you won't get less. Ask
leading questions and then SHUT UP!"
Morning Becomes Eclectic : Mint Royale
Dan Brian : Lingua::Wordnet
"impersonates the basic Wordnet API functions for
searching and retrieving data, as well as adding, editing, and deleting
synsets. Lingua::Wordnet::Analysis brings the interface up a level,
allowing commands like "is 'yellow' an attribute of any 'birds'", and
taking care of the recursive analysis." Looks like
my prayers
have been answered, but what is a
synset
? see also :
WordNet::Query
Rob O'Daniel
"I worry about some 15 year old kid with too much
spare time on his hands hacking into my sedan. Given that so much of
today's automotive engine is controlled by computers (which will almost
certainly continue to be even more prevalent) and I'll have an always-on
(when I'm driving) Internet connection with my new car, I can imagine
some very unpleasant possibilities."
The U-Hell Website
Let me put it this way: ferry boat, U-Haul truck,
key that won't open door. Still getting settled.
Greg Wilson has been thinking about scripting languages
"Second, I want to see a VHLL defined by an XML
DTD ... if a program's source is defined using <method>,
<parameter>, and <block> tags, then individual
programmers can choose whatever superficial appearance they want. Three
different programmers, for example, could view nesting using indentation
(Python), curly braces (Perl), or parenthesized prefix notation (Scheme).
I believe this would be as big an innovation in practical programming as
applets were, and probably more useful."
A Citizen's Guide to the WTO
If you're looking for something to do
As It Happens on the goodness of nose-blowing
Everything you know is wrong. real audio (starts
19:40)
Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt
"Sometimes we have to remove the navel and find a
new spot for it." Not for the squeamish. shockwave.
BBC : Txt msging: Th shp of thngs 2 cm?
"Do u spk txt? The chncs r, if u dnt, u wll b4
lng. 2 jdge by ads 4 mob fns, txt msging hs ct pples imagntn, cos thyre
all pshng it lk crzy. 1 sys u can snd pix, anthr sys u cn snd msgs to 15m
pple in UK alne."
David McFarlane : A few tips on the care, feeding and shooing-away
of artists
"Those 'I always keep a notebook beside the bed
for my dreams' types. Those 'the creative process is a mystery I don't
like to tamper with' types. They can all take a long walk off a short
pier, as far as I'm concerned, and maybe they wouldn't mind taking a few
'absolutely riveted' critics with them." A little shrill perhaps, but not
far from the truth.
Globe and Mail : You'll get your money, right after this
message
"The marketing options on these things are
limitless, because you're at a store and you're going to have cash in
your hand," said Bill Duncan ... "It's dead time, anyway -- it's not like
you're going to do anything during that period." Maybe it's time to send
Bill to re-education camp.
Wired on the Anti-Weblog
Pork the one you love
Do optometrists in other cities do these kinds of
things?
Spider Robinson : Stop Listening to the Future People
"The technoweenies honestly believe what you
want, and will pay a fortune to acquire, is a home in which every single
thing you own behaves as reliably as your Web browser does."
Quebec anglos : 'Divided we stand'
"Listening to them, you'd think we are completely
repressed, undergoing some sort of ethnic cleansing," he said. "They
don't listen to young anglophones. The average young anglophone is not
bothered if the sign that says '3 per cent discount' is written in either
language. It's all the same for us."
I've taken two Star Wars Personality Tests now
In the first I ranked
Yoda
, the second
Obi Wan Kenobi
"No, not the brash, young Jedi currently on screen, but Alec Guiness'
wise hermit of the Classic Trilogy." Indeed. I think I'll have to put
that one on my resume. (I quoted Darth Vader on my
application to art school.
)
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.
