Page of Moss - bloglet for Wednesday 30 October 2002

A very happy birthday to Kristin. She wields a mean algorithm--may she meet with all manner of blessings in the coming year. _
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01:28:08 AM, Wednesday 30 October 2002

So I went to the anti-war demonstration in San Francisco on Saturday, hence the silence on my blog at the time. Now I've finally uploaded my pictures from it.

See also: the (horribly designed) web page of the (horribly acronymed) organization that put the thing together; other online reports from Ron Kiley, Miguel de Icaza, and Tom Tomorrow; mainstream news reports from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the BBC; independent (and variably either insane or honest) reports from the Independent Media Center (see in particular San Francisco and D.C.). _
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12:38:35 AM, Wednesday 30 October 2002

If you're using Mozilla, try turning on the Site Navigation Bar. If the web page you're viewing contains certain (entirely standard) HTML tags, it'll give you an extra toolbar with buttons for next page, previous page, contents, and other such links. There's a "Show only as needed" option, so it won't take up space when you're on sites where it doesn't apply, but on sites where it does apply it's very handy. I've added code to support this to all the m14m.net blogs (though it will appear as they update).

I believe this is only supported in Mozilla 1.1 and up, but there's a hack out there for doing it in 1.0, if anyone needs it. I'd suggest just going ahead and upgrading, but I have a higher tolerance for betas than some others do.

If you're interested in doing something like this on your own page, you can read an overview of how it works, a detailed description of the various link types supported in HTML, and a brief explanation of what link types map to what toolbar buttons. _
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08:32:37 PM, Monday 28 October 2002

jwz has prepared a Helpful Infographic. Go and be informed. _
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02:15:56 PM, Monday 28 October 2002

If you write HTML, consider taking advantage of link prefetching. _
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03:55:14 PM, Friday 25 October 2002

Blogger has been hacked. If you use Blogger, you should probably change your ftp password. _
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02:50:16 PM, Friday 25 October 2002

They've found a mummified dinosaur. In Montana.
[via tranquileye] _
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12:56:51 PM, Friday 25 October 2002

The two classic excuses: it was working when I left, and it was like that when I got here. _
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09:41:10 PM, Thursday 24 October 2002

I've raved before about how much I like The Proxomitron, an ad-filtering proxy for Windows. Well, now that I'm pretty much completely switched over to the Mac, I can't use that any more, so I thought I was going to have to give up ad-filtering. Fortunately, this MetaTalk post came along just in time, to tell me about Privoxy.

Privoxy is an ad-filtering proxy, like The Proxomitron, but it's available for Unix and MacOS X, as well as Windows, so I can use it on my Mac at work and my Linux box at home (though I should note that, sadly, there doesn't appear to be a MacOS 9 version yet). It has the same feature that made The Proxomitron such a winner: it can rewrite the html of a web page, rather than just blocking images from certain servers, so (1) it can catch things other ad-blocking proxies would miss (it can recognize ads by their sizes!) and (2) it can remove things more cleanly than other proxies.

I would strongly urge anyone who can to install one of these programs. I can hardly begin to describe how much less frustrating and annoying the web becomes when you remove most of the ads. It does take some configuring to get them set up just right, but it's worth it. (In Privoxy, I found that switching to Cautious Mode gave me pretty much the settings I wanted--but even then, you will need to read the documentation). If you're on a dialup, it's particularly worth doing--not loading those ad images has got to save you some bandwidth.

If you're on Windows, you have a choice between The Proxomitron and Privoxy. I'm not sure which I'd recommend--Privoxy seems to be a bit more powerful, and The Proxomitron is a bit more user friendly, but really they're pretty comparable. Privoxy has an entirely browser-based interface, if that matters to you one way or the other. The Proxomitron wants you to listen to Shonen Knife, and so do I. _
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07:14:15 PM, Thursday 24 October 2002

What I really need is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture evaporators. _
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04:02:27 PM, Thursday 24 October 2002

Hee hee hee! Blogging from the computer store! _
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10:16:10 PM, Wednesday 23 October 2002

This is the coolest looking computer ever. Seriously. I'm not just being hyperbolic. Go look at it.

[found via jwz's LiveJournal] _
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12:58:58 PM, Wednesday 23 October 2002

No, Moss, it is time to sleep. _
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04:14:15 AM, Wednesday 23 October 2002

And yet, somehow it does always seem to be the skill with algorithms that gets these things started. _
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02:35:23 AM, Wednesday 23 October 2002

Cheese slices will not protect you. _
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10:15:59 PM, Tuesday 22 October 2002

Okay, I'm convinced. OS X is better than Linux. And (as if there was any doubt on this point) Aqua is better than X Windows. _
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08:38:19 PM, Tuesday 22 October 2002

Y'all know that Doonesbury is doing blogging this week, right? _
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01:37:05 PM, Tuesday 22 October 2002

So, last night I made the mistake of watching Silence of the Lambs right before going to bed. Here's my dream: we're at St. John's talking about Silence of the Lambs in a study group. We take the bus into Baltimore, into a bad part of town. We sit down at a table and start discussing. Martin is there, also Cassie, possibly also Katherine, and a few others (five or six of us, altogether?) that I don't recognize. I have notes taken with a calligraphic fountain pen (which, in real life, I seem to have lost, dammit), but I don't ask all the questions I've written down, 'cause it would sound really pretentious. There's some sort of disturbance going on nearby. We're playing chess as we talk. We get hassled by the locals, and leave. Around the corner, about a block away, I worry that I've forgotten my backpack, but no, there it is, sitting on the sidewalk. I pick it up, and we go on. I wake up.

Some people have nightmares. I... I have study groups.

I swear, I really don't remember my dreams very often. _
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12:42:00 PM, Tuesday 22 October 2002

I had my first MetaFilter dream last night. Or at least, it started out as a MetaFilter dream. Somebody was making a post about how... I think it was that they were rebuilding various important buildings, at a fifth of their original size or something, in Portugal. It being in Portugal was the first thing I noticed. It wasn't Miguel posting, but I think there was an implied shoutout to Miguel. Only then it wasn't in Portugal anymore, it was in New Jersey, and then I wasn't reading a MetaFilter post at all, I was actually driving into New Jersey. For Latin lessons. And there was a booth I drove through where I was supposed to show some sort of Latin-lesson-related entry pass, but I had... uh... some other kind of pass that I showed, that was also acceptable, but then as I was driving into the actual place where these Latin lessons were supposed to happen, the guy at the gate had some kinda problem with my pass. There were two of them, actually, 'cause there was another gate I'd gone through about 50 yards back, where I hadn't had to show a pass at all, but there was a guard there, and he'd come over to help... I dunno... deal with me or whatever. So the guard at this gate, the one who'd stopped me, he wasn't explaining anything, but I asked the other guard, and he seemed willing to talk about it, only.... Well, at first, I couldn't quite make out what he was saying, but then I could, and I couldn't quite follow it, but it sounded distinctly Shakespearean, particularly in its vocabulary and in, er, the fact that it was all iambic pentametered. Indeed, it sounded like nothing so much as the ramblings of a fool or a madman from Shakespeare. But he did seem to be explaining the situation, so I thought "okay, yeah, Shakespeare, I can do this," and responded in kind. I should note that this guard was also the younger brother of a friend of mine from St. John's. Not a specific younger brother, mind you--I just got that younger-brother-of-friend vibe from him. But then another friend of mine from St. John's arrived--she was on her way to Latin lessons, of course--and she seemed to know what she was doing, so I asked her to explain what was up. Somewhere in the course of doing this, I woke up.

I don't usually remember my dreams. _
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12:29:55 PM, Monday 21 October 2002

Into the light. _
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12:21:18 AM, Sunday 20 October 2002

The Ex-Classics Web Site has a collection of books that used to be classics. But they aren't now. Funny how that happens. _
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07:58:13 PM, Friday 18 October 2002

I always enjoy languagehat's posts on MeFi; he tends to show up for the linguistics threads, and to have nice linguisty things to say in them. I didn't realize till today, though, that he has a blog. It is quite nice. You other linguistically inclined sorts should check it out. Better yet, he links to several other language blogs. (He also linked to Moira last month, which shows good sense.)

And as long as I'm recommending language blogs, you should also be reading Gail Armstrong's Open Brackets. She's a translator, so she writes about language a fair bit, and she's consistently worth reading regardless of what she's writing about.

Both these blogs have recently expanded my vocabulary in pleasingly nonstandard directions. _
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07:37:24 PM, Friday 18 October 2002

Read MetaFilter? Read this. _
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06:09:42 PM, Friday 18 October 2002

This is the definition of the day. _
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06:00:12 PM, Friday 18 October 2002

man -t command will give you the man page in PostScript. _
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07:09:24 PM, Thursday 17 October 2002

Point and Counterpoint:

YOU were educated EVIL, & too damn dumb to know about Time Cube Creation.
vs.
Only INCUNABULA can enlighten you, because only INCUNABULA dares. _
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07:08:09 PM, Thursday 17 October 2002

Kerne, I think there may now be a good reason for you to consider switching to Mozilla. (I'm pretty sure it's just in the 1.2 beta, but it's really, really nice. Makes keyboard navigation several orders of magnitude easier.) _
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04:23:30 PM, Thursday 17 October 2002

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids.

If Architects Had To Work Like Web Designers, on HTML Gone Bad.

[found via MetaFilter] _
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01:40:49 PM, Thursday 17 October 2002

"Come on, Duke, let's go do those crimes."
"Yeah. Yeah. Let's go get sushi and and not pay." _
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12:35:36 PM, Thursday 17 October 2002

Your mission for today is to find me a were-marmoset. _
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10:49:40 AM, Thursday 17 October 2002

Alex Massie's thoughts about Game Neverending apply to more than just online gaming. _
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07:59:20 PM, Wednesday 16 October 2002

Remember: parallel worlds exist. They have already been reached. A vast cover-up denies YOU all knowledge. Only INCUNABULA can enlighten you, because only INCUNABULA dares.

This is what I was thinking of. Evidently it is still around.

"Sven" recommends memorizing a lot of songs, poems and stories - and ends by saying "Memorize this book - 'cause you can't take it with you." Where is Mr.Saxon now, we wonder? _
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04:54:09 PM, Wednesday 16 October 2002

Getting ready to do the favorite songs thing... a few thoughts:
* I think I'll do 20 songs.
* It looks distinctly like my list is going to include two complete symphonies. But maybe those won't have to go on the CD. Could be kinda big.
* No order, that would be too hard.
* I don't think I'm going to worry about duplicating things on other people's lists. But I don't think it'll happen more than once or twice.
* Also not going to worry about having more than one song by the same artist.
* All time favorites, not just what I've been listening to lately. But if I haven't been listening to one of them lately, then either it's about time to listen to it again, or it probably shouldn't be on the list. _
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12:15:30 PM, Wednesday 16 October 2002

"Have you Googled her yet?"
"Willow, she's seventeen!"
"It's a search engine." _
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12:10:34 AM, Wednesday 16 October 2002

You may already have won. _
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10:54:24 PM, Tuesday 15 October 2002

I think Wobble's datastore needs to know either more about what sort of things it will be storing, so that it can be tuned for fast access and easy editing, or less, so that I can use some standard persistence system like pickle. _
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08:31:32 PM, Tuesday 15 October 2002

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