Page of Moss - bloglet for Thursday 15 August 2002

I learned about that module from the comments on this post at 0xDECAFBAD. The ideas in that post have got me thinking. I believe there's now a sufficiently broad toolset available that a good WikiWeblog could be implemented as glue between an existing wiki program (I'd choose Usemod) and an existing weblog program (probably MT). The advantage of this is that the two modules would be more independent, and thus could be developed separately. The wiki would be a better wiki, the weblog a better weblog. The disadvantage... well, I'll have to think about it. The integration probably couldn't be totally seamless--you'd have to keep track of two logins, for example. Also, I suspect there are some things that would be easier to do in a tightly integrated system: a single site search for wiki and weblog, display of wiki pages and weblog entries on a single page (I think this could be done, though, with an MT plugin for example), import of weblog entries into the wiki (also seems possible... MT plugin, XML-RPC to wiki), a uniform interface for both systems. I'll have to think more about this, see if one way of doing it obviously makes more sense than the other. For now, I suppose I'll keep working on my own increasingly vaporwary system. _
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07:15:32 PM, Thursday 15 August 2002

Text::WikiFormat is a Perl module to apply Wiki-style formatting to a piece of text. Double-single-quotes for italicization, WordsSmashedTogetherLikeSo for autolinking, etc. _
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06:53:24 PM, Thursday 15 August 2002

if i could be anything, i'd be a cloud _
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05:28:22 PM, Thursday 15 August 2002

We are switching from iPlanet to Apache and Tomcat. And while the transition is just the least bit bumpy, it does seem to be going well. This makes me happy. _
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03:27:01 PM, Thursday 15 August 2002

Can talking snakeheads be far off? _
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03:26:05 AM, Thursday 15 August 2002

Moss: Oh, but really the economy is in no danger, 'cause we're going to make businesses promise they're telling the truth about their accounts.
Martin: i believe bush has proposed tough new "pinky-swear" procedures. _
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05:28:41 PM, Wednesday 14 August 2002

Encryption does not prevent people from being able to read your information, it simply slows them down. The hope is that it will slow them down enough that either they won't bother, or the information will no longer be useful when they discover it. _
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05:02:22 PM, Wednesday 14 August 2002

I am behind this 100%. _
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02:55:17 AM, Wednesday 14 August 2002

I've been working on using language less carefully. _
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07:43:26 PM, Monday 12 August 2002

Eventually, I would like to be running my own email and IM clients. _
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03:33:57 PM, Monday 12 August 2002

Your shirt... _
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06:30:30 AM, Monday 12 August 2002

What I am going to have to do to get my car radio to recover after my dead battery. _
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03:59:03 AM, Monday 12 August 2002

Sweet! I am Moss number 23 on Google! _
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05:39:59 PM, Sunday 11 August 2002

How to flame a newbie. _
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05:29:07 AM, Sunday 11 August 2002

It's gonna be a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day. _
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04:07:59 AM, Saturday 10 August 2002

On the way home from work, I saw what I think may be my favorite bumper sticker ever. It said: Don't hold strong opinions about things you don't understand. _
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08:47:12 PM, Friday 9 August 2002

Basically, spatial metaphors for politics just don't work. Adding more dimensions doesn't really help. _
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02:32:36 PM, Friday 9 August 2002

This Flashcoders post explains one of the most frustrating problems we had to deal with in working on My Postcard Maker. _
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02:00:42 PM, Friday 9 August 2002

Have I discovered a new bug in bloglet, or am I just an idiot? _
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05:29:01 PM, Thursday 8 August 2002

MetaFilter comment of the day: "How can Pynchon be the po-mo poster boy? What the hell would we put on the poster? _
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05:28:24 PM, Thursday 8 August 2002

Changes in my mp3 playlist over time could probably be used to plot a fairly accurate graph of my moods. _
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04:52:39 PM, Thursday 8 August 2002

well you're in your little room
and you're working on something good
but if it's really good
you're gonna need a bigger room
and when you're in the bigger room
you might not know what to do
you might have to think of
how you got started
sitting in your little room

da da da _
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09:38:30 PM, Wednesday 7 August 2002

I haven't programmed a game in far too long. _
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02:05:10 PM, Wednesday 7 August 2002

Join the glorious Python programming revolution. _
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01:59:40 PM, Wednesday 7 August 2002

Do they honestly believe that that scary devil of a fish hasn't already found a way to become impervious to poison? _
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12:24:15 PM, Wednesday 7 August 2002

Remember Anselm's ontological argument? How stupid it was? How difficult to refute, because one just doesn't know where to begin pointing out the problems? How it seemed like it might well be the Worst Philosophical Argument Ever? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have found a worse one. _
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03:14:31 AM, Wednesday 7 August 2002

It's a $99/month dedicated server. Ooh! And just look at all those special features! It includes a 32-Bit PCI Graphics Adapter w/ 2 MB RAM!

...wait a minute... WTF? Why do I care what graphics card a computer has if I'm never even going to be in the same room as it? _
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06:53:35 PM, Tuesday 6 August 2002

Hercule Poirot vs. Indiana Jones! Bugs Bunny vs. Sauron! This MetaFilter thread just makes me happy. And I'm rather proud of my post to it. _
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05:25:48 AM, Tuesday 6 August 2002

Are you bored? Did you go to St. John's College? Do you have RealAudio? Go listen to Roberta Gable on Talk of the Nation. Her section starts about 32 minutes in, though the rest is also worth listening to. _
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08:14:49 PM, Monday 5 August 2002

Usability Expert Invents vi _
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12:47:03 PM, Monday 5 August 2002

This is a test. I want to see if the <small> tag, combined with capitals, will give me properly sized small caps. If it did, that'd be a nice coincidence. SMALL CAPS. lowercaseSMALLCAPSlowercaseSMALLCAPSlowercaseSMALLCAPS. That is all. _
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12:20:07 PM, Monday 5 August 2002

"Bad yam! He has sold me a bad yam!" _
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12:14:52 PM, Monday 5 August 2002

Presented for your consideration:
1) The Original Hacker's Dictionary, JARGON-1, from before ESR came and brought Unix into it.
2) The TMRC Dictionary. _
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03:49:11 PM, Sunday 4 August 2002

The senate is considering a bill [full text: text | pdf] that would, in effect, ban raves, as a way of keeping people from using ecstasy. I personally don't consider ecstasy a big problem--so far as I can tell, it's not significantly more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco--but even if you agree that it should be illegal, this is clearly going too far. Dancing is something we need more of, not less, and fucking with a bunch of people's harmless recreation is no way to fight drug abuse. What will they do next, try to prevent marijuana use by banning the IT industry?

Okay, but here's the important part: the Drug Policy Alliance has set up a web page where you can fax your senators to express disapproval of this bill. It's real easy to do, you can edit their form letter to make sure the nuances of your opinion are properly expressed, and it even looks up who your senators are for you. Note that it sends a fax, not an email, which means it's marginally more likely to be taken seriously, 'cause senators are silly like that. I scarcely have words to describe how utterly fast and simple it is to do this good and useful thing.

(found via Bridgie's comment on MetaFilter)

And a special note for any partisan Democrats in the audience: it's been speculated that one of Senator Biden's reasons for proposing this bill is to build support for a run in the 2004 presidential election. My current plan is to vote for a Democrat in 2004, but if Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee, I will be forced to vote third-party, probably either Green or Libertarian. This means you have a chance to make your vote count twice over! As always, you can use your vote to support your candidate of choice, but additionally, by voting against Biden in the primaries, you can help ensure that my vote will go to a Democrat. _
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04:06:44 AM, Sunday 4 August 2002

T.I.A.I.L.W.: Refactoring. _
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01:22:20 AM, Sunday 4 August 2002

"'Cause I don't care about going to school.
And I don't care about having friends.
And I don't care 'cause I'm a rock 'n' roll machine." _
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07:51:51 PM, Friday 2 August 2002

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