posts brought to you by the category “linux”
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.
The New York Times imagines a kitchen for people who don't cook.
Out of the six gadgets described, I will
tell you that only the indoor composter has any chance of lasting. But
judging by the picture and the description, it does nothing to address
the central problem with every single indoor composter ever made : they
are too small. Every night, I burn with guilt at the volume of
potential compost that I throw away and this little twerp of a
composter might be good for two meals, if that, at best. And then what?
I buy another one? Where do I put the first one for the months that it
will take for the vegetable matter to decompose? As for the ice cream
scooper, if you are really okay with the fact that you care about
dishing out perfect spheroids for dessert I would just point out that
this thing doesn't exactly look like it would take kindly to a
commercial ice cream container...
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So, I started writing something about Mark's "How I Learned to Love Being Loosey Goosey Even Though I'm a Python-weenie" RSS article earlier this morning
but stopped because, frankly, who cares?
But then I saw Mark waxing poetic about how
[I]t takes balls to write an article for XML.com demonstrating how to parse an XML-based format without an XML parser.So here goes: I sped-read (speed-readed?) the article last night because I am already pretty familiar with the state of non-validating RSS feeds, tools like SGMLParser (you can probably parse RSS with HTML::Parser, but I've never tried) and the need to actually get something done in the face of all those people who don't give a rat's ass about The Right Way to do things. What I didn't notice was the bit about not using an XML parser. Now again, I think I understand where Mark is coming from and, if I do, I agree in principle with what he's trying to do. But it just seems so half-assed to go to all the trouble of parsing poorly formed XML, treat it like XML and then not actually return the data as XML. It is, I grant you, something of a pendantic argument. There's nothing to prevent me, or someone else, from adding hooks to Mark's rssparser code to define an
as_xml
method or add the hooks that would generate SAX events which, to my
thinking, would be the most useful thing because then you can magically
just assume it's XML again, like it's supposed to be. I suppose my
problem is one about what seems like a lazy design and a lazy
interface. I can see the need for something like this; ask any Perl
programmer who has to wrap all their calls to XML::Parser in
eval
blocks because it adheres to the XML spec and actually
die
s when it encounters a problem. It just seems so...inelegant. Your
mileage may vary.
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Ben Trott : mtlfo.pl
Given either a URL or an entry ID (see below), mltfo.pl first builds a list of TrackBack pings for that entry. It then follows those pings back to the site from which they were sent and finds the TrackBack embedded RDF. From this RDF it looks for the MT category name in dc:subject. It then searches for the site's RSS file, trying first to use auto-discovery, then starting back at the base URI and looking for index.rdf at each path segment (for example, http://www.foo.com/index.rdf, http://www.foo.com/bar/index.rdf, etc). It then fetches the RSS feed and scans that for items in the same category as the original item.
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Just when you think there are no more Mirror Project pictures left to take...
Everyone knows that as soon as this thing is released
the race will be on to see who gets a weblogging
"package" out the door first, right? After that, will come the RSS
aggregator package. Tool-makers would do well to
stake their claims
indeed. In other news, I am slowly working on a set of command-line tools
to deal with addresses, mail archives and weblogging all of which are
mapped together in interesting ways. Once I get the basics working I will
release the code under the banner of either
your mileage may vary
or
software that I think sucks less than yours does
.
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Philip Kennicott : Fragile Memory
It's a distinction -- nationalism vs. patriotism -- worth remembering. The country, it seems, is preparing for war at a significant moment in the formation of cultural memory about Sept. 11: Private grief is beginning to ease, and politicians are increasingly comfortable with drawing larger, public lessons from 9/11. The temptation to demand nationalist sentiments from people comfortable only with patriotic ones is a recurring theme in American history, and it's a temptation greatly increased in times of war.
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The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : mallet approach
"used often in school. If you are unsure of an answer, you write an incredibly long answer that covers such a wide topic, you are sure to get the question right."
ex. I used the mallet approach on a social studies paper and wrote a six page answer.
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Rael Dornfest : Blosxom 0+5i: Categories
" take a gander at the
"[computers/internet/weblogs/blosxom]" bit at the end of this post. And
there's more to it than meets the eye. Think recursion. ;-)"
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The Connection : Behold the Power of Cheese
"Medieval monks counted it among the pillars of
civilization, along with art, scholarship, and beer. In certain European
countries, the sentiment still holds. So leave it to America to spell
cheese with a 'z' and spray it from a can."
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Sightings : Scary Easter Monsters #3
refers to
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RFC 3253 : Versioning Extensions to WebDAV
refers to
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Hayley Wickenheiser : "They had our flag on the floor of their locker room
and now I want to know if they'd like us to sign
it."
I'd still to see Team Wayne win, but this is
just so much better.
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The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : discaboobliated
Being flustered or confused.
ex. Having that beautiful girl come up and talk to me left me all discaboobliated.
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The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : joust
Playful fighting or sparring.
ex. They are not really angry. They are just jousting with each other.see also : joust dict-ified
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The Connection : The Politics of Cartooning
David Rees, Ted Rall and Barbara Brandon-Croft.
see also :
The Gulf
War
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The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : defenestrate
To throw someone or something out of a window.
ex. If this computer crashes one more time, I'm defenestrating the piece of junk!
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Thomas D. Wason and David Wiley : Structured Metadata Spaces
"This paper will present the concepts of a
metadata space as it relates to cataloging and discovery. A space has
multiple dimensions; in the case of resource metadata, these are
descriptive dimensions. We will explain the needs for orthogonal
descriptive dimensions, and present a method for achieving maximally
efficient, independent dimensions using semantic structures realized in
structured metadata." (pdf)
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B. K. Oxley : Arguments.pm
"I had an epiphany to use subroutine attributes
for argument type checking, and to try and make it clean and simple to
use. It is not there yet, but I hope to get it there. If nothing else, it
is a new, fun area of Perl for me to explore."
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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is potentate
| source : web1913 | Potentate \Po"ten*tate\, n.
[LL. potentatus, fr. potentare to exercise power: cf. F. potentat. See
{Potent}, a.] One who is potent; one who possesses great power or sway; a
prince, sovereign, or monarch. The blessed and only potentate. --1 Tim.
vi. 15. Cherub and seraph, potentates and thrones. --Milton. | source :
wn | potentate n : someone who rules unconstrained by law [syn:
{dictator}]
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Canada DMCA Opponents
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is supplant
| source : web1913 | Supplant \Sup*plant"\, v. t.
[imp. & p. p. {Supplanted}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Supplanting}.] [F.
supplanter, L. supplantare to trip up one's heels, to throw down; sub
under + planta the sole of the foot, also, a sucker, slip, sprout. Cf.
{Plant}, n.] 1. To trip up. [Obs.] ``Supplanted, down he fell.''
--Milton. 2. To remove or displace by stratagem; to displace and take the
place of; to supersede; as, a rival supplants another in the favor of a
mistress or a prince. Suspecting that the courtier had supplanted the
friend. --Bp. Fell. 3. To overthrow, undermine, or force away, in order
to get a substitute in place of. You never will supplant the received
ideas of God. --Landor. Syn: To remove; displace; overpower; undermine;
overthrow; supersede. | source : wn | supplant v : take the place of
[syn: {replace}, {supersede}, {supervene upon}]
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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is louche
| source : wn | louche adj : of questionable
taste or morality; "a louche nightclub"; "a louche painting" [syn:
{shady}]
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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is martinet
| source : web1913 | Martinet \Mar"ti*net`\, n.
[So called from an officer of that name in the French army under Louis
XIV. Cf. {Martin} the bird, {Martlet}.] In military language, a strict
disciplinarian; in general, one who lays stress on a rigid adherence to
the details of discipline, or to forms and fixed methods. [Hence, the
word is commonly employed in a depreciatory sense.] | source : web1913 |
Martinet \Mar"ti*net`\, n. [F.] (Zo["o]l.) The martin. | source : wn |
martinet n : someone who demands exact conformity to rules and forms
[syn: {disciplinarian}, {moralist}]
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Marc Lindahl's Audio Product for Zope
has prompted some interesting discussion on
the merits of storing large widgets in the ZODB or on the
filesystem.
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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is undulant
| source : web1913 | Undulant \Un"du*lant\, a.
Undulating. [R.]
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Paul Hodges : Locally correcting to the secure port with mod_perl
What is carrot-sprinkled glue
and when did it "start holding families
together"?
refers to
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John Gruenenfelder : GutenPalm
"Eventually I decided that I would like to have [
a Palm based PDA ] to use as a sort of eBook clone. I had used AportisDoc
Mobile edition and noticed that (surprise!) it sucks a lot. Much of this
apparent suckiness was due to it being the free version and being
featured limited. I wasn't really looking forward to paying $30 for an
ASCII viewer for the Palm. ... Anyway, all the other viewers used the
"open" DOC format. Open only because somebody had reverse engineered it.
Aportis wasn't very forthcoming. The problem is, DOC is not very good for
storing book length texts. Well... it's not that good for storing much of
anything. It uses, from the code I've seen, a "run length encoding"
scheme to compress the text. If you know what RLE is, then you probably
know that it's not the best thing to use to compress the written word.
What it does have, however, is speed. But, I'm willing to put up with a
20 second decompression time when it means saving about 33% in space over
DOC (more the larger the text is)."
refers to
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Kip Hampton : Creating Web Utilities with XML::XPath
It says something, I think,
when
Wired
gets scooped by
The New
Yorker
on a website. I think it says the same thing that The National Post
making front-page news out of the idea that "
Winnie the Pooh is suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder, and could be prone to Tourette's syndrome, Eeyore has chronic
depression and Christopher Robin is in the midst of a gender-identity
crisis
" says, but I'm not sure.
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Jonathon Eisenzopf : RSA Encryption in Perl
"using the Crypt::RC4 module."
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Le Devoir : Un référendum fédéraliste pour changer le Canada?
"Je considère que le Québec doit forcer le jeu et
tenir un référendum fédéraliste clairement gagnant [l'équivalent d'un
coup d'État démocratique] pour obtenir, pendant qu'il en est encore
temps, une réforme qui lui permette de vivre son droit à la différence au
sein d'une fédération canadienne résolument moderne en même temps que
fidèle au refus du melting pot qui l'a vue naître."
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Thomas Linden : Note
"is a small console program written in perl,
which allows you to manage notes similar to programs like "knotes" from
commandline. Note can use different database-backends for notes-storage."
Searchable, scriptable, colour-coded and "tree" views. This is what I've
been waiting for; cool.
refers to
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Towards the end of the trip
I realized what it is about Italy, in the cities
atleast, that can be so intimidating. Everyone wears closes that are
fitted, regardless of whether they are dressing up or dressing down.
People may just be bumming around town but their t-shirts are square with
their shoulders. I'm told that there is a dark side to this "simple
elegance" but it's hard -- even if you are perfectly secure in your
self-image and don't give a lick about fashion -- not to feel like a bit
of a boob and a slob standing next to it.
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I swore I would never learn C.
I bought an
eyemodule
. Every once in a while I get niche-marketed so well that I set aside all
my bile and hatred and general misgivings of humanity to become the model
consumer; I bought one of these as soon as I heard about them. I don't
know much about the guts of the PalmOS but I do know that everything is
stored magic Palm databases. Deep down, I knew this when I bought the
camera but it was still a huge let down when I realized that I could use
network apps to talk to the Network and I could use the camera to take
pictures but there is still no easy way to make the two play together. I
want to be able to take pictures on the road and email them to others
*while* I'm on the road. It's a PDA for crying out load! Okay, so the
Palm doesn't grok JPEGs (bad) but there is no way for me to "talk" to the
cameras image database from another Palm app without
rolling my own
. If I could then I would be able to send MIME-encoded gibberish to a
mailbot and only have to munge stuff once. I'm not sure who I'm pointing
fingers at, but I want to point them at someone because I really don't
want to learn C....
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For those outside the States
wanting to listen to the
weblog
discussion
on The Connection, WBUR ( the nice people who produce the show ) has a
live Windows
media player feed
. Later that same day, they
post an archive
(real audio).
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Am I really supposed to get excited
at the prospect of
my cell phone
running JavaScript
? Toast haiku, on the other hand, is
an entirely
different story
.
Head hung in despair / Morning offering rises / I thank my
toaster
via
passerby
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Alan Herrell
"We have turned the web into an enabler for
Electronic Rapists."
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PFIR : Statement on Content Control and Ratings
"It should be interesting to see how many
automated content filters the vocabulary of this very document will
trigger... "
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The nature lover left few clues
"about his state of mind when he decided to
commune with a carnivore the size of a bus. A joint was found inside his
pile of clothes, but no admission ticket to SeaWorld. Anonymous park
workers made a surprise announcement that this was not the first time
Daniel had communed with sea mammals. Two years ago, they recall that he
jumped into the manatee tank, which is filled with warmer water and less
offensive creatures."
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Nathan Torkington : Know Thy [Perl] Module Kit
parts <a href =
"http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2377471,00.html">one</a>
and <a href =
"http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2391748,00.html">two</a>.
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Canadian World Domination Headquarters
A web-based pdf2html service
What a clever hack; I'd love to see the code! I'm
curious, though, why they've built their business around using Layers
when Netscape has said publicly that they are going to scrap them.
refers to
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XHTML 1.0 has been making the rounds
on the weblogs again. After Web Review did
a
feature on it
in July, I ran off, half-cocked, and XHTML-ed the aaronland site. I
mention this only because if you're using javascript on your site,
XHTML will
probably break it
.
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CBC : Honey is sticky alternative to antibiotics
Todd Gitlin : Disappearing Ink
"The point is to decide, while you're listening,
what matters in the presentation. And while I don't believe that most of
life consists of showing up, education does begin with that -- with
immersing yourself in the activity at hand, listening, thinking, judging,
offering active responses. A download is a poor substitute."
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Nando Times on the next-generation Virtual Hell
"They hope to develop simulators to help soldiers
learn the customs of foreign countries to prepare them for the kind of
peacekeeping missions that have taken troops on short notice to places
like Bosnia and Kosovo. For example, a soldier could take an online
course about an area's history, then enter a virtual reality where a
"guide" could lead the soldier through a town." Cute. Really cute.
This is
what it's really going to be used for.
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Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
The Ninth Judicial Court of Florida has begun
broadcasting"live" on the web (requires the evil g2 player.) Maybe if
this is a success, we can start doing live broadcasts from prisons. Maybe
if that's successful I can make millions setting up a website where
people from all over the world can "adopt a prisoner".
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FEMA : Project Impact
Feeling paranoid? Generate a map of recent or
potential disasters for your area!
refers to
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We just received some 19 inch racks that were on order
They shipped with an allen key that is as
straight as a ruler. I am missing something? Is there a use for allen
keys that aren't bent?
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Neil Leach : The Anaesthetics of Architecture
"In this culture of aesthetic consumption, this
"culture of the cocktail," meaningful discourse gives way to strategies
of seduction, and architectural design is reduced to the superficial play
of empty, seductive forms." Interestingly, many art schools art trying to
re-invent themselves these days by marketing their students as the only
ones 'visually literate' enough to make sense of it all.
Chapter one
is available as a pdf file.
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More reports of LinuxPPC 5 cd's shipping with the Autostart infection
wtf?
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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.
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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
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it's the software, stupid