posts brought to you by the category “privacy”
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.
* darobin thinks of python
MTSETUP 0.1a considered “Oh my god people, how many fucking
times do I have to say this?!”
I was then perplexed at [MovableType's] lack of any kind of
automated setup script to assist folks who might not be too
comfortable with editing even a few lines of a configuration
file.
The Connection : A Life of Letters
It would appear that another, less irate, way of posing my question
from the other day
Dean Allen : Oliver, Daily: 13 July 2003
Oh my god, someone please CueCat this thing.
www.wfmu.org
WFMU is an independent freeform radio station broadcasting at 91.1
fm in the New York City area, at 90.1 fm in the Hudson Valley, and
live on the web...
Are you smoking crack, or something?
Meanwhile Ben Hammersley, in a fit of poetic license,
Dave Winer : "I can include directories maintained by other
people..."
Eat Poop You Cat
The New York Times : a beautiful night-time photograph of Angkor
Wat
Dubya on not eating the broccoli:
I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need
to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being
the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say
something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.
Me : WebService::weblogUpdates.pm 0.34
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : evince
Evince \E*vince"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Evinced}; p.
pr. & vb. n. {Evincing}.] [L. evincere vanquish completely,
prevail, succeed in proving; e out + vincere to vanquish. See {Victor},
and cf. {Evict}.] 1. To conquer; to subdue. [Obs.] Error by his own
arms is best evinced. --Milton. 2. To show in a clear manner; to prove
beyond any reasonable doubt; to manifest; to make evident; to bring to
light; to evidence. Common sense and experience must and will evince
the truth of this. --South.
web1913
evince v : give expression to; "She showed her
disappointment" [syn: {express}, {show}]
wn
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : dubiety
Dubiety \Du*bi"e*ty\, n.; pl. {Dubieties}. [L. dubietas,
fr. dubius. See {Dubious}.] Doubtfulness; uncertainty; doubt. [R.]
--Lamb. ``The dubiety of his fate.'' --Sir W. Scott.
web1913
dubiety n : the state of being unsure of something [syn:
{doubt}, {uncertainty}, {incertitude}, {doubtfulness}, {dubiousness}]
[ant: {certainty}]
wn
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is :
derflamminloggin
This is my husband's name for those pseudo-logs that you
can burn in the fireplace.
ex. Honey, it's kind of cold out. Do you want to burn
derflamminloggin in the fireplace tonight?
Simon Waldman : "One of the prime reasons we embarked on the
competition
was to help start the debate about how a
traditional media owner such as ourselves can engage with a movement that
is in many ways the very antithesis of traditional media."
Michael Ignatieff : Nation-Building Lite
Nicholas Riley : WebDAV tool for Frontier/Radio
"allows Frontier's Website Framework and Manila
static rendering output, and Radio UserLand upstreaming via WebDAV. It
provides limited support for WebDAV as specified by RFC 2518. The PUT,
DELETE and MKCOL methods, and basic HTTP authentication only are
supported. (That means: use it on a secure network or wrap it securely)."
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is : pornobyte
a figure representing the sum total of all the world's
bandwidth and computer memory devoted to depictions of hot teens,
college girls, dripping wet cheerleaders, young hung farm boys,
certain japanese terms for which no god-fearing human would want the
translation, and exploited midgets. An exponentially expanding, vast
number.
ex. "Whoa, we've got a pornobyte of data to wade through
this weekend to get that report ready"
Two days ago : the eighth day of Not Winter
Sightings : Scary Easter Monsters #2
The random pseudodictionary.com word of the day is :
messagement
The art and practice of communicating, particularly with
email messages..
ex. Messagement in the heat of the moment is usually
regretted.
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
Paul Kennedy's Ocean Journal
The dictified dictionary.com word of the day is : seriatim
Seriatim \Se`ri*a"tim\, adv. [NL.] In regular order; one
after the other; severally.
web1913
seriatim adv : in a series; one after another
wn
Ever since I started the perlblog
O'Reilly beta chapter : Writing SOAP Web Services
"In this chapter, we demonstrate how to create,
deploy, and use SOAP web services using toolkits for Java, Perl, and
Microsoft's new .NET platform. We cover the installation, configuration,
and use of SOAP::Lite for Perl, Apache SOAP for Java, and Microsoft .NET
for C#."
Me : Outline Markup Language 1.0b1
"is an XML application for formatting data in a
hierarchical structure. The data is organized in groupings of node
elements which may contain child nodes, text elements or references to
nodes both internal and external to the document. ... This DTD is in it's
infancy so, please, be gentle."
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is predilection
| source : web1913 | Predilection
\Pre`di*lec"tion\, n. [Pref. pre- + L. dilectus, p. p. diligere to
prefer: cf. F. pr['e]dilection. See {Diligent}.] A previous liking; a
prepossession of mind in favor of something; predisposition to choose or
like; partiality. --Burke. | source : wn | predilection n 1: a
predisposition in favor of something [syn: {preference}] 2: a strong
liking; "my own preference is for good literature"; "the Irish have a
penchant for blarney"; "martinis are an acquired taste" [syn:
{preference}, {penchant}, {taste}] | source : devils | PREDILECTION, n.
The preparatory stage of disillusion.
Randal L. Schwartz : Mac OSX 10.1 - mod_perl build
instructions
"Apparently, mod_perl wants to be built static
into Apache on OSX, and yet wants to use mod_so to load any additional
thingies like Apache::Request or Apache::Template. So after many hours of
trying different combinations of things, I finally yelled out "Yippee
Skippee"..."
Me : rss-parser.js 0.1
BBC : "The US Government has bought all rights to all the pictures
of Afghanistan
and surrounding areas taken by the privately
operated Ikonos high-resolution imaging satellite. ...Under the terms of
the contract, Space Imaging, the company that operates Ikonos, will not
"sell, distribute, share or provide the imagery to any other entity"."
From the Tower of Babel department :
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is interregnum
| source : web1913 | Interregnum
\In`ter*reg"num\, n.; pl. {Interregnums}. [L., fr. inter between + regnum
dominion, reign. See {Reign}, and cf. {Interreign}.] 1. The time during
which a throne is vacant between the death or abdication of a sovereign
and the accession of his successor. 2. Any period during which, for any
cause, the executive branch of a government is suspended or interrupted.
| source : wn | interregnum n : the time between two reigns, governments,
etc. | source : devils | INTERREGNUM, n. The period during which a
monarchical country is governed by a warm spot on the cushion of the
throne. The experiment of letting the spot grow cold has commonly been
attended by most unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy persons to
make it warm again.
developerWorks : Introducing ssh-agent and keychain
The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is tremulous
| source : web1913 | Tremulous \Trem"u*lous\, a.
[L. tremulus, fr. tremere to tremble. See {Tremble}.] 1. Shaking;
shivering; quivering; as, a tremulous limb; a tremulous motion of the
hand or the lips; the tremulous leaf of the poplar. 2. Affected with fear
or timidity; trembling. The tender, tremulous Christian. --Dr. H. More.
-- {Trem"u*lous*ly}, adv. -- {Trem"u*lous*ness}, n. | source : wn |
tremulous adj : (of the voice) quivering as from weakness or fear; "the
old lady's quavering voice"; "spoke timidly in a tremulous voice" [syn:
{quavering}]
I wonder if history books suffer the Soundtrack Effect.
Ben Mulroney : "The first time I met Justin Trudeau was in
Montreal,
when his father fell ill, and we sat around one
night and talked about starting our own political party. We decided it
would span the extreme left to the extreme right. As leaders, each of us
would have a crown and a sceptre. We had it worked out so I'd run the
country from Monday to Wednesday and he'd take over from Thursday to
Sunday."
IBM : Web Services Flow Language 1.0
Apache::DnsZone.pm
"[is a mod_perl handler that] implements a web
based interface for managing zones with a nameserver running BIND. It
uses the features of RFC2136 (Dynamic Updates) to maintain the zones in a
nameserver running BIND. This means that it does not need to have
anything running on the actual nameserver other than BIND itself."
The Perl-XML kids on RSS and DTDs : "So, ignore the slashdot
idiots
is the only conclusion I can say for this. Oh,
and implement a catalog system. I know I'm going to look into doing one
for AxKit, after this debacle left AxKit.org dead in the water for a
couple of days."
Philip Greenspun talks about "Content Management"
Apparently, the B.C. CRAP and Marijuana parties are going to break
bread
in an effort
to liberate British Columbia from a socialist regime
. ... "Marijuana is a symbol for all of us who are oppressed by state
control. We're reminding Alliance members that we're not a big jump for
you, and a lot of people are responding positively."
Peter Swanson : Maus Culture
"As I survey the new landscape of adult
comics—and much as I admire the achievements of Spiegelman, Sacco,
and the rest—I nevertheless hope there is still room for comic
books about mutant vigilantes."
I wonder how hard it would be to write an Apache::ZODB module
What else can you get for ten bucks?
How about a second-hand book on computer
programming.
Quote
: "[T]he average computer user can typically only change a limited set of
options configurable via a "wizard" (a lofty word for a canned dialog),
and is dependent on expert programmers for everything else. ... We
compare mass ability to read and write software with mass literacy, and
predict equally pervasive changes to society."
Teodor Zlatanov : Debugging Perl with ease
"walks you through both the built-in Perl
debugger and CPAN's Devel::ptkdb. The Perl debugger is powerful but
frustrating to navigate. CPAN's Devel::ptkdb, on the other hand, works
wonders by simplifying code debugging and thereby saving hours of your
precious time. In his discussion Zlatanov concentrates on explaining
debugging methods and general concepts rather than looking at specific
tools." (thanks
luke
)
Eric van der Vlist : XMLtree
An "XPath-ish" PHP library for reading and
manipulating XML files. Whoo-hoo!
The release of Amaya 4.0
has demonstrated that
there is still some work to do
in making this site truly portable. Amaya ships with some very useful
features that I think all browsers should have : line numbering when you
view source, an error-log and the too cool for words
View Structure tool
.
Dieu du Ciel : Les chroniques du brasseurs
"est une série de court texte traitant de la
bière. Les chroniques ne sont pas des thèses approfondies sur une
technique ou un style, mais plutôt une série de vulgarisation, une
introduction au monde brassicole." see also :
If there's
anyone else in Montreal reading this
Edd Dumbill : Putting RDF to Work
"So began my dream of integrating all my
metadata. Somewhere there would be a large database into which my e-mail,
web browser, file system, and so on would enter metadata. I'd then be
able to, with relative ease, query the database to make connections
between data items on my computer. On top of that database, graphical
clients could be written to maintain and annotate it, and hooks written
back into the browser, file manager, and e-mail client to allow the use
of this extra information."
Alan Herrell
"We have turned the web into an enabler for
Electronic Rapists."
The Unbearable Lightness of White Space
So, I made my way back to
Ed's
Weblog
this morning. I had read his comments regarding the necessity of
standards
the other day, but I wanted to read them again before I told my story.
Mine is definitely in the Left-Field Department, but it does demonstrate
why standards are a Good Thing. For what feels like the last 8-billion
years, I have been testing a powerful open source shopping cart system.
The code that drives the tools is robust and elegant (despite the fact
that there are *no* comments...grrrrr) but the html templates it ships
with are nasty. There is no other word. They are machine generated,
impossible to read and make liberal use of the dreaded font tag. I
decided the Right Thing To Do was clean up the templates, and I did. Any
guesses on what happened next? The images vanished. Poof! The reason they
disappeared was simple : I like white space. I prefer to write
img src = "foo.jpg"
rather than
img src="bar.gif"
because I find it easier to read. Unfortunately, the propeller-heads
decided that the former would fail a pattern-match when the templates are
rendered. So now I know and, frankly, I feel worse for the knowledge.
Granted, this has more to do with the software I am using than any
particular web standard. The point is that if we all had the same
definitive reference we would find new and, more importantly, better ways
to waste our time. Just ask anyone who's ever tried to write cross-bowser
DHTML. Anyway, the whole reason I started the story with Ed is that, when
I arrived first link on his site was to something called
White
Space Bugs in Browsers
. see also
Edd Dumbill
: XML, Standards and You
.
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson
"[T]he Court concludes that Microsoft maintained
its monopoly power by anticompetitive means and attempted to monopolize
the Web browser market, both in violation of § 2. Microsoft also violated
§ 1 of the Sherman Act by unlawfully tying its Web browser to its
operating system. The facts found do not support the conclusion, however,
that the effect of Microsoft's marketing arrangements with other
companies constituted unlawful exclusive dealing under criteria
established by leading decisions under § 1."
Boston Phoenix : Annals of Confection
Dr. Barry Pless
"In spite of what Don Cherry and others like him
say, hockey can be a beautiful game without the stupid contact that puts
players at risk of catastrophic injury." Demographics aside, it is pretty
crazy to consider that 52% of all hockey-related spinal injuries occur in
*one* province. Meanwhile, when did
Wayne
Gretzky become a columnist for the National Post
?
I'll spare you the details
and just say that if it breaks, it's broken.
Slashdot
LA Times : Software Makers Aim to Dilute Consumer Rights
"There's a consensus that something needs to be
changed, said Rick Miller, a Microsoft spokesman. There is a desire, as
we work across the country, to have some uniformity in software laws."
Yeah yeah yeah. Global positioning, world markets, new competitors. It
spells greed and, frankly, it's pretty fucking dis-heartening.
Lewis MacKenzie : It's not enough to say you're sorry
"I raise this somewhat embarrassing UN
shortcoming to temper the understandable expectation that we learn from
our mistakes, a theme repeated much too often in both the Srebrenica and
Rwandan reports. These two disasters for the UN were not mistakes. They
unfolded as the result of calculated decisions by the Security Council
not to get involved in sorting out someone else's problems, where there
was no identifiable shared national self-interests within the permanent
five members, or where the risk of casualties was considered too high.
These same types of situations will happen again and again, so we might
as well get used to the guilt that accompanies our chronically inadequate
response."
Never mind the passengers
Canadian World Domination Headquarters
"This website is a half an hour later in
Newfoundland." ( thanks
judith
! )
NY Times : Silicon Valley Work Ethic Crosses the Atlantic
Is it a work ethic, or just anxiety? If all you
do is work then all you know is work; eventually, all you're good for is
work. Go figure.
The Times : Salon at the cutting edge
"Each computer is networked so that you can play
with up to six other people in the salon. Stylists have learnt to adapt
to your movements as you try to escape from alien creatures. Driving
games are ruled out, though - swaying from side-to-side may just be too
much." This has got regret written all over it.
NY Times : Two Views on How to Get Johnny to Read and Think
Put the television away. Acquire lots of books;
leave them around the house and don't censor what your kids read. My
mother couldn't find any good reason not to let me read
The World
According to Garp
when I was ten, and if I only sort of liked books before that point I was
in love with them afterwards.
DNTO : How the Internet is taking us away from work... and creating
jobs
"Right now the most interesting, interactive and
compelling parts of the web are designed for people who are really
supposed to be doing something else, something else called work."
There are three golf courses
on the Vineyard, but the guy who puts up Mr. Bill
while he's on vacation here wants to build another one (complete with six
figure membership fees.)
Things are starting to
get ugly.
The other day
Jeff sent me some kind words about the
aaronland
site (thanks!) He commented that it had a "nice anti-technology" feel to
it. I guess I can understand why, but I would like state publicly that I
am not anti-technology. Witness the bicycle. What I do have a problem
with is the idea that technology (these days it's The Network) somehow
springs springs forth from our brow, fully formed, ushering us to greater
and greater salvation. If the old saw goes: "Technology doesn't kill
people, people with technology kill people", then I want to know why so
often we let ourselves be led blindly by it and are so eager to erase the
past lest it offer some good reason to tread lightly. I do not accept
that it is without consequences we may regret, nor that simple blind
enthusiasm will see us through whatever Utopian blunder we dream up next.
NetBSD 1.4 PPC port
This is good because if the rumours of Disney
buying Apple are true, I'll be looking for a new operating system.
MickeyOS, GoOS, PocanhotOS...scary.
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.
