posts brought to you by the category “lifestyle
porn”
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.
One and a thousand nights
The morning after #1
Loup de mer, Montréal, September
2003
Sam Tregar : Class::XPath.pm
[A]dds XPath-style matching to your object trees.
www.taxomita.com
Are you smoking crack, or something?
Me : sql-abstract-_recurse_where-order-by.diff
Leigh L. Klotz Jr. : blogrouter
[M]ail-based Blogger.com blog client, with sample code
for detaching images (not yet incorporated into the
blogrouter).
The Connection : Glenn Gould and the Quest for
Perfection
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is :
esurient
Esurient \E*su"ri*ent\, n. One who is hungry or
greedy. [R.] An insatiable esurient after riches. --Wood.
web1913
esurient adj 1: extremely hungry; "they were
tired and famished for food and sleep"; "a ravenous boy";
"the family was starved and ragged"; "fell into the
esurient embrance of a predatory enemy" [syn: {famished},
{ravenous}, {sharp-set}, {starved}] 2: (often followed by
`for') ardently or excessively desirous; "avid for
adventure"; "an avid ambition to succeed"; "fierce
devouring affection"; "the esurient eyes of an avid
curiosity"; "greedy for fame" [syn: {avid}, {devouring(a)},
{greedy}] 3: devouring or craving food in great quantities;
"edacious vultures"; "a rapacious appetite"; "ravenous as
wolves"; "voracious sharks" [syn: {edacious}, {rapacious},
{ravening}, {ravenous}, {voracious}, {wolfish}]
wn
Matt Haughey : "Dead tree printing is also mired in old
thinking,
that of contracts and paychecks and
witholding stories until specific launch dates. It goes
against every fiber of the average weblogger's
personality..."
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is :
wooza
Weird loser--used jokingly around
friends.
ex. Stop being a wooza. When you stick cheeze
up your nose I fear for your furure.
My prediction is that the Google API will spawn a bunch
of child services.
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is :
pellucid
Pellucid \Pel*lu"cid\, a. [L. pellucidus; per
(see {Per-}) + lucidus clear, bright: cf. F. pellucide.]
Transparent; clear; limpid; translucent; not opaque.
``Pellucid crystal.'' --Dr. H. More. ``Pellucid streams.''
--Wordsworth.
web1913
pellucid adj 1: transmitting light; able to be
seen through with clarity; "the cold crystalline water of
melted snow"; "crystal clear skies"; "could see the sand on
the bottom of the limpid pool"; "lucid air"; "a pellucid
brook"; "transparent cristal" [syn: {crystalline}, {crystal
clear}, {limpid}, {lucid}, {transparent}] 2: (of language)
transparently clear; easily understandable; "writes in a
limpid style"; "lucid directions"; "a luculent oration"-
Robert Burton; "pellucid prose"; "a crystal clear
explanation"; "a perspicuous argument" [syn: {limpid},
{lucid}, {luculent}, {crystal clear}, {perspicuous}]
wn
Me : An interesting project would be to write a MT
object driver to read and write wblgml....
Robin Berjon : Search CPAN Mozilla sidebar
French Intellectuals to be Deployed in Afghanistan to
Convince Taliban of Non-Existence of God
"There they will drink coffee and
talk animatedly about the absurd nature of life and man´s
lonely isolation in the universe. They will be accompanied by
a number of heartbreakingly beautiful girlfriends who will
further spread dismay by sticking their tongues in the
philosophers´ ears every five minutes and looking remote and
unattainable to everyone else."
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is :
susurration
Susurration \Su`sur*ra"tion\, n. [L.
susurratio, fr. susurrare to whisper: cf. F. susurration.]
A whispering; a soft murmur. ``Soft susurrations of the
trees.'' --Howell.
web1913
Radio Crankypants #6-8
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is
tatterdemalion
| source : web1913 | Tatterdemalion
\Tat`ter*de*mal"ion\, n. [Tatter + OF. desmaillier to break
the meshes of, to tear: cf. OF. maillon long clothes,
swadding clothes, F. maillot. See {Tatter}, and {Mail}
armor.] A ragged fellow; a ragamuffin. --L'Estrange. | source
: wn | tatterdemalion n : a dirty shabbily clothed urchin
[syn: {ragamuffin}]
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is
dictum
| source : web1913 | Dictum
\Dic"tum\, n.; pl. L. {Dicta}, E. {Dictums}. [L., neuter of
dictus, p. p. of dicere to say. See {Diction}, and cf.
{Ditto}.] 1. An authoritative statement; a dogmatic saying;
an apothegm. A class of critical dicta everywhere current.
--M. Arnold. 2. (Law) (a) A judicial opinion expressed by
judges on points that do not necessarily arise in the case,
and are not involved in it. (b) (French Law) The report of a
judgment made by one of the judges who has given it.
--Bouvier. (c) An arbitrament or award. | source : wn |
dictum n 1: an authoritative declaration [syn:
{pronouncement}, {say-so}] 2: an opinion voiced by a judge on
a point of law not directly bearing on the case in question
and therefore not binding [syn: {obiter dictum}]
The nice people from the band Ozomatli
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is
homily
| source : web1913 | Homily
\Hom"i*ly\, n.; pl. {Homilies}. [LL. homilia, Gr. ?
communion, assembly, converse, sermon, fr. ? an assembly, fr.
? same; cf. ? together, and ? crowd, cf. ? to press: cf. F.
hom['e]lie. See {Same}.] 1. A discourse or sermon read or
pronounced to an audience; a serious discourse. --Shak. 2. A
serious or tedious exhortation in private on some moral
point, or on the conduct of life. As I have heard my father
Deal out in his long homilies. --Byron. {Book of Homilies}. A
collection of authorized, printed sermons, to be read by
ministers in churches, esp. one issued in the time of Edward
VI., and a second, issued in the reign of Elizabeth; -- both
books being certified to contain a ``godly and wholesome
doctrine.'' | source : wn | homily n : a sermon on a moral or
religious topic [syn: {preachment}]
IBM : Web Services Flow Language 1.0
David Helder : DiaWebLog
"is an interface between IRC and a
web log. The DiaWebLog consists of items. An item consists of
a title, url, and comments. Items are posted and edited by
member of the IRC channel by interacting with the
DiaWebLogBot."
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is
aegis
| source : web1913 | AEgis
\[AE]"gis\, n. [L. aegis, fr. Gr. ? a goat skin, a shield, ?
goat, or fr. ? to rush.] A shield or protective armor; --
applied in mythology to the shield of Jupiter which he gave
to Minerva. Also fig.: A shield; a protection. | source : wn
| aegis n 1: kindly endorsement and guidance; "the tournament
was held under the auspices of the city council" [syn:
{auspices}, {protection}] 2: armor plate that protects the
chest; the front part of a cuirass [syn: {breastplate},
{egis}] | source : foldoc | AEGIS <operating system> A
{Unix} variant that was used on {Apollo} {workstations}
before Apollo was bought by {Hewlett Packard}. AEGIS has some
advantages over standard {BSD} or {System V} Unix. It
includes faster file access and a richer command set; there
are commands to find out which {process} is running on a
particular node, which process is locking a particular file,
etc. (1997-02-25) | source : foldoc | Aegis <programming,
tool> A {CASE} tool for project change management, from
the {GNU} project. (1995-03-27) | source : vera | AEGIS
Advanced Electronic Guidance and Instrumentation System
Lingua Franca : Marxist Literary Critics Are Following
Me!
"How Philip K. Dick betrayed his
academic admirers to the FBI."
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is
teetotaler
| source : web1913 | Teetotaler
\Tee*to"tal*er\, n. One pledged to entire abstinence from all
intoxicating drinks. | source : wn | teetotaler n : a total
abstainer [syn: {teetotaller}, {teetotalist}] | source :
devils | TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink,
sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is
politic
| source : web1913 | Politic
\Pol`i*tic\, n. A politician. [Archaic] --Bacon. Swiftly the
politic goes; is it dark? he borrows a lantern; Slowly the
statesman and sure, guiding his feet by the stars. --Lowell.
| source : web1913 | Politic \Pol"i*tic\, a. [L. politicus
political, Gr. ? belonging to the citizens or to the state,
fr.? citizen: cf. F. politique. See {Police}, and cf.
{ePolitical}.] 1. Of or pertaining to polity, or civil
government; political; as, the body politic. See under
{Body}. He with his people made all but one politic body.
--Sir P. Sidney. 2. Pertaining to, or promoting, a policy,
especially a national policy; well-devised; adapted to its
end, whether right or wrong; -- said of things; as, a politic
treaty. ``Enrich'd with politic grave counsel.'' --Shak. 3.
Sagacious in promoting a policy; ingenious in devising and
advancing a system of management; devoted to a scheme or
system rather than to a principle; hence, in a good sense,
wise; prudent; sagacious; and in a bad sense, artful;
unscrupulous; cunning; -- said of persons. Politic with my
friend, smooth with mine enemy. --Shak. Syn: Wise; prudent;
sagacious; discreet; provident; wary; artful; cunning. |
source : wn | politic adj 1: marked by artful prudence,
expedience, and shrewdness; "it is neither polite nor politic
to get into other people's quarrels"; "a politic decision";
"a politic manager"; "a politic old scoundrel"; "a shrewd and
politic reply" [ant: {impolitic}] 2: smoothly agreeable and
courteous with a degree of sophistication; "he was too
politic to quarrel with so important a personage"; "the
hostess averted a confrontation between two guests with a
diplomatic change of subject"; "the manager pacified the
customer with a smooth apology for the error"; "affable,
suave, moderate men...smugly convinced of their
respectability" Ezra Pound [syn: {smooth}, {suave}]
Pyrex Body Art
"Pyrex brand glass has recently
become a notable contender in the race to fill newly enlarged
holes."
On buggy-rolling : "When your nose is less than 10 cm
from the ground, at 60 or 70 km/h,
the speed sensation is boosted.
pedestrian are giant! 17 time higher. Dogs are monster.
Pavement are crevasses. if the floor is bumpy, you are shaked
in every sens, you must be full concentrated on your
trajectory, seem to touch the floor every five meters."
Eric Howeler : Paranoid Chic, The Aethestics of
Surveillance
"Our visible and invisible world is
continually scanned by electronic technologies. The paranoid
state is not the exception, but the norm. Its claims of
conspiracy and persecution seem ever more justified in the
Postmodern, post-contemporary, post-millennial world. There
is a reemergence of a new kind of paranoia in fashion
photography, design and advertising: Paranoid Chic, or the
aesthetics of surveillance. ... A billboard in Times Square
epitomizes Paranoid Chic. A couple in an elevator is
oblivious to the camera. They are caught up in a slouchy
embrace. Above the image is an image of a surveillance camera
- presumably the camera that recorded the image below it -
creating a kind of surveillance diptych. Surveillance is a
given, it is everywhere. Surveillance is sexy. Big Brother is
watching, so you have to look good."
Oreillynet : IrDA HotSynching for Older Palms and
Visors
"I can toss the cradle and sync
wirelessly. And I'm not just talking about IrDA for those
lucky sods who have Palm OS 3.5 with necessary libraries
built-in. Fortunately, even if you have an older Palm or
Visor with OS 3.1, you too can impress your friends and
coworkers by HotSyncing via the IrDA port. Here's how."
Benjamin Weil : "What difference does it make if it has
been produced with a Palm of not?
I think that deeming it the 'first
serious work of art' is somewhat preposterous. I am really
suspicious of techno-driven and techno-celebrating projects
that desperately seek to be called art. Art is about ideas,
not about technology. I would therefore suggest we stop being
techno-fetishist, and getting all excited at the
gizmo-ization of a practice that is obviously more than just
gee whiz!"
The Globe and Mail : "When Stockwell Day held up a
magic-markered
sign saying "No 2-tier health care,"
decorum disappeared from the studio where political spinners
sat watching last night's debate. ... Mr. Day was breaking
the rules, and even his own advisers groaned audibly when he
produced the crudely handmade sign. He hadn't consulted with
them about the prop, and they knew immediately it was a bad
idea." It's not just his politics that bother me. The problem
with Stockwell Day is that he appears to have no appreciation
for the subtleties of life. He's like that annoying brainiac
you went to school with. The one who devoured encyclopaedia
cover to cover and thought, not only, that he knew all the
answers because of it but that it afforded him the right to
lord it over you. The one with whom it was impossible to have
any kind of intelligent or thoughtful discussion because the
idea of conversation meant only an exchange of facts and
statistics, devoid of any consideration for the other's point
of view, designed to prove the error of your thinking. That,
and he has terrible hand-writing.
Sightings : swooshy lights
I have no memory of taking this
picture.
CBC : "The M2A Swallowable Imaging Capsule
is a tiny video camera that examines
the human intestine. The capsule, which is 2.5 cm in length
and 1 cm in diameter, is swallowed and naturally excreted
about four hours later. A miniature video camera, a battery,
a tiny light and a transmitter that provides two images per
second, are all built in to the pill."
Lincoln Stein
"According to the principles of
homeopathy, you can take a small amount of a drug and dilute
it with water to such an extent that not a single molecule of
the drug is left. Even though what you now have is
essentially distilled water, it still retains the "memory" of
the drug it once contained and is effective in treating a
variety of medical conditions. The homeopathic remedy for
copyright law suggests that every byte is sacred that my
bitstream and yours aren't equivalent even though they may be
identical. This type of thinking may work in the short run,
but as the legal system tries to grapple with the increasing
fluidity of information in the Internet age, surely it will
someday fail."
Alphanumerica : JavaScript File I/O
"Currently, only basic file handling
from within Mozilla is supported. One can read from and write
to a file, as well as create a new directory. This core
feature set can be expanded upon with the help of anyone who
is interested in this project." This seems pretty cool if you
can forget that it's written in JavaScript. Meanwhile,
version 2.1 of
iCab
assigns a keyboard combination that lets you "abort running
JavaScript programs that call themselves again and again."
I pity the young children of parents who read
this...
"I tell the kids that if they're
lucky enough to win, I will take full credit, and Mr. Shapiro
will take full credit, and the principal and the district
superintendent will take credit, and the Board of Ed and the
borough president will take credit, and their parents will
take credit. And whatever is left over is theirs." And maybe
that's enough for the kids, but it is still a fucked up way
to approach your life and your relations with others.
CBC
"The federal [ Longitudinal Labour
Force File ] database that some MPs have called "Big Brother"
is being dismantled, according to Human Resources Minister
Jane Stewart."
Jed Perl : The Art of Stardom
"The market for art stars is
thriving. But what has it done for the world of art?" via
ald
It is gorgeous here today.
The kind of weather that smothers the
idea of getting any work done. Meanwhile, on the wayback from
the kitchen, I considered buying two or three boxes of
tangerines and decorating my apartment with them.
Web Reference Tutorial : CSS Floats
"If parade floats stay afloat by
virtue of being filled with hydrogen, it's a wonder people at
Microsoft and Netscape aren't tied to the ground on account
of the vacuum that exists in their heads at the point where
most people have that part of the brain that is used to
implement CSS in browsers..." Ah, the voice of reason.
Sean Boran : All About SSH
NY Times on the sounds of All Things Considered
"People are music-starved. They like
this music because it's not like music you can hear anywhere
else on the radio. We play music from all over the world, and
from all different eras." see also :
All
Songs Considered
Project Gutenbook
"is a graphical interface written in
Perl/GTK+ for downloading, browsing and reading Project
Gutenberg Etexts."
The road to Hell
William Thorsell : Beware the fallacy of the newspaper
dinosaur
He makes an interesting argument,
although it often sounds as though he is waxing poetic at the
prospect of living
20 seconds
in the future
. (Thorsell was the editor of Toronto's National Newspaper
for many years.)
I saw Three Kings tonight
When the Gulf War started, I had the
luxury of spending my days and nights painting and drawing.
The day after the bombing began I went down to the U.S.
consulate, in Montreal, to sketch the protesters chant things
like "Peace, not war" (duh) until someone spray-painted a
peace symbol on the building and the riot squad moved in. I
went home, and banged out
a series of drawings
which I photocopied and papered the city with. I don't know
if they made a difference, but atleast I felt like I had done
something in a situation where most people I knew felt
stripped of their voice and their ability to do anything.
The moped
is a popular method of transportation
among tourists on the Vineyard, much to the consternation of
people who actually live here. Over the winter, some
industrious soul had bumper stickers printed that read
"Mopeds are dangerous". They've been a big hit and you can
see them on the tail of many a car. The other day, I spotted
this
variation on
the theme
.
LA Times : Ventura Will Referee a WWF Match
"The perception is that people need
to be professional politicians and that therefore being a
politician is your entire life. Well, it's not Jesse
Ventura's entire life and I think I was elected upon the fact
that I came from being a private citizen." Profound words on
Bastille Day.
An American's Guide to Canada
I pulled this link off
an especially boring article
about how Canadians have gone from spending all their time
thinkng themselves boring to thinking themselves not boring.
Whatever. Meanwhile, the ever attentive This American Life
investigates
The
Canadians Among Us
.
That Void In Cyberspace Looks a Lot Like Kansas
"The simulation has a way of going
blank -- while underneath it lies not a void but human flesh,
raw and insistent. Much as the characters try to live in a
mental world, evidence of their organs keep poking clownishly
into the picture. "
Journée de libération du cannabis / Cannabis liberation
day
"On Saturday june 19th the Bloc-Pot
would like to invite you to participate in Québec city's
annual demonstration for the end of Marijuana prohibition."
N5 won't be backwards compatible
with it's own Document Object Model
(DOM). The good news is that it will fully support the
w3c
DOM. Maybe this will finally teach them to do it right the
first time.
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.
The sommelier and I got along fine after I told him that I had absolutely no idea whether or not it took our bottle of wine some time to but , yes, we liked it very much. We talked for a few minutes about how and where to get wines that are imported in to Québec but not sold at the SAQ and agreed that even if they are producing some decent wine in Ontario it's still hard to feel good about buying them.
The rest of the wait staff was not nearly so much fun. There seemed to be a different person for every aspect of our meal whether it was clearing the plates or bringing the bread or peddling desperately over-priced water . And they became visibly nervous when you asked them to do something that was, apparently, the domain of another waiter. I guess one of the side-effects of only being given one job is that you stand around all night waiting, with bated breath, for an opportunity to do it. I try to sympathize with situations like that but there is no getting around just how annoying it is while you're eating.
(No one thought to ask when the English had suddenly become the arbiters of quality fizzy water but by the end of the night we might have.)
I have good friends and the other night they took me to Les Chevres which only after being told many time that it was West of Parc Avenue did I figure out was in Outremont and not some tiny little spot tucked into the industrial buildings that ring the top of Mile End.
Les Chevres is supposed to be all the shit these days and they clearly went out of their way to hire designers to make it look that way. If you ignore the fact that they look a little too much like sheep you can sort of imagine the two goat silhouettes on the front window having a White Stripes album cover quality to them. Albeit Gap-ified and in delicate pastels. The kidney beans and other celular automata painted on the walls, also in passive-aggresive lime greens and bitter pinks, were kind of annoying but all the chairs had tasteful brown fun-fur! (Not a phrase I ever thought I'd say.)
The overall design is a bit heavy on the schtick, but it is otherwise a very nice and very elegant place to eat a meal. Did I mention the fun-fur?
Whenever you read about this sort of fancy, high-end restaurant, sooner or later you stumble over the word . I'm all for innovation, in principle, but I am not willing to overlook it's abuse as an all-purpose get out of jail card for the kind of intellectual navel-gazing that gave the world colour-field painting.
I'm also always suspicious of the context; namely the rarified air that people who can afford to eat at these places, on a regular basis, breath. I'm sure that avocado soup — with oranges and cilantro, no less — seems innovative in the middle of the winter but I also go to the market every week and I know that this part of North America is enjoying a recent harvesting of avocados from Mexico or California.
It was very good, as were all the appetizers. At this point it's worth pausing, before I forget, to say these three words together : parsnip; toast; good. No, really.
Ask yourself : Is there anything that warm porcini mushrooms can't do?
[big plates, small food] — this is the place-holder I left myself while drafting this piece. It sums it up nicely but always leaves me wondering : Why do people who like to spend so much money eating out eat so little?
And why do French restaurants insist on trying to make risotto? No one can deny the contribution the French have made to the art, science and all-around good times when it comes to food and the celebration thereof. But sweet Jesus, can't they just accept the fact that this is the one dish they are wholely unprepared to handle? You can dress it up in tasty, carmelized carrots but it's of dubious effort if you can't cook the bloody rice properly !
Nothing was actually bad — I mean, except the risotto. My only disappointment was the sense that it could easily have been so much better and that the people in the kitchen didn't see any point in trying too hard. That is, it all tasted a bit too much like the art of opportunity rather than the art of eating.
At this point the waiters started trying to steal our wine glasses.
One of the bonuses of living in Québec is never having to suffer the indignity of being told that the Brie de Meaux has been pre-wrapped and We may not have l'Union Syndicale Interprofessionnelle de Défense du Brie de Meaux (I kid you not) but we do at least try to give cheese the respect it properly deserves. In our case, we promptly ordered another bottle of wine and started badgering the table-monkeys for more bread.
We ordered a smattering of everything they brought to us on the cheese tray; a collection of chevres and tommes from France and Québec. The drama queen of the lot was an electric orange (some flavourless pigment which begs the question) cheese that reminded us of Parmesan in its taste and texture. Everyone else liked it but I prefered the semi-soft cheese from St. Jean.
Ask yourself: Who can you resist a sweaty goat cheese covered in ash?
In the end a good time was had by all and we sauntered out, smugly and in search of vanilla ice cream, confident that I could make a better dessert.