The boring rants of a lazy nerd

Sunday, February 29, 2004

Current affairs - Gay "marriage"

It took me some time to see what all the fuss was about in the US. Well, I'm more liberal than most conservatives I know, but I'm still a conservative, and I generally agree with OSC.

Friday, February 27, 2004

Welcome to "Testing, Testing..." - the web application!

Those of you fortunate enough to be using a current browser (Gecko or WinIE6) can see publishing dates of news feeds for some sites I've linked to in my bookmarks. If you know of a site I've linked to that has a news feed you can't see there - tell me, and I'll add it (MovableType users - you're supposed to be smart enough to figure it out yourselves. Blogger users - enable ATOM in your settings. LJ users - I haven't got a clue. ETA: LJ has atom feeds too).

This news aggregation capability (well, actually, it doesn't do anything with the news items themselves, just their publishing date, but that's irrelevant) came at a very high cost of your trully's sweat, blood and tears - use it wisely.

Secure browser users (I mean Gecko-based Firefox, Mozilla & Netscape): you must enable Codebase Principals for the feature to work. This allows the browser to ask you if you want to let my script perform some tasks through your browser. Yes, it doesn't make your browser accept insecure scripts, it just makes it ask the user whether you want to allow something, for each and every action, every single time it tries to perform it (thankfully, there is a "remember this setting" option). What this particular script does is asking the browser to contact a site you did not browse to (a bookmark's news feed) - for some reason, deemed a restricted action. Anyway, go to "about:config" (a pretty nifty page) and seek "signed.applets.codebase_principal_support" (there is a search option at the top). There, make the value "true". Reload this page, answer "yes". Enjoy. :)

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

*cackles madly*

Have you ever had this feeling when a piece of the puzzle that is pop culture you've been missing suddenly fits in? Anyway, I'm watching When Harry Met Sally and all the references are coming back to me. Still no progress on the remote xml loading front.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Mozilla

I've been working on feed integration for the bookmarks but I've encountered some of Mozilla's shortbacks - namely ridiculous security restrictions and bugs in the more esoteric features. You have to enable a security-loosening feature in a hidden setting to make the code run at all, and then it doesn't really work, with weird results. Runs smoothly on WinIE6 though. :-( (You can't see it because I haven't published it yet) Have found out page doesn't work well on IE5.0. How do people who have net access at their workstations get any work done? I'm in training this week and since the training company is completely civilian they have net access. I've been reading blogs all day instead of practicing Oracle Database Administration...

Friday, February 20, 2004

Life

I almost posted a really degenrate fit, but after talking with mom and re-reading some poorly written but very accurate "research" I have come to my senses.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

security and open source

A good example for novice coders. I might use it as a demonstration @ work.

Saturday, February 14, 2004

Dawson's Creek

I have been called "gay" (used as a derisive term) for watching this show, but it is special to me and is actually a pretty good teen drama. I'm not yet too old to be in its target audience, and it's not like I'm more experienced than I was at 16 when I first watched it (tsk, tsk - ed). Those are great characters, long words that make me feel intellectual (wasn't there a quote saying an intellectual is a person who can go for two hours without thinking about sex? If that's true, all pseudo-intellectual teens are kidding themselves) and really pretty girls ("Katie Holmes or Michelle Williams?" is one of the toughest questions I was ever asked, and that includes the linear algebra course final).

Friday, February 13, 2004

200 books meme

If anyone have a list of their own they want to post it here - there's plenty of room. :) ETA: Blogger is a #^&^&(^&()*&#%$@^%*%^&$%*(&^*#%*&&#%^@#^*(&&#$!!!!!!
Legend:
Read
Read parts of it, or started it but never finished
on to-read list

 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
1Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien      
2Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen      
3Dark Materials, Philip Pullman      
4Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams      
5Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling      
6To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee      
7Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne      
8Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell      
9The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe      
10Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte      
11Catch-22, Joseph Heller      
12Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte      
13Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks      
14Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier      
15The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger      
16The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame      
17Great Expectations, Charles Dickens      
18Little Women, Louisa May Alcott      
19Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres      
20War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
21Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell      
22Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling      
23Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling      
24Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling      
25The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien      
26Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy      
27Middlemarch, George Eliot      
28A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving      
29The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck      
30Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll      
31The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson      
32One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez      
33The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett      
34David Copperfield, Charles Dickens      
35Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl      
36Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson      
37A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute      
38Persuasion, Jane Austen      
39Dune, Frank Herbert      
40Emma, Jane Austen.      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
41Anne Of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery      
42Watership Down, Richard Adams      
43The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald      
44The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas      
45Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh      
46Animal Farm, George Orwell      
47A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens      
48Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy      
49Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian      
50The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher      
51The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett      
52Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck      
53The Stand, Stephen King      
54Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy      
55A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth      
56The BFG, Roald Dahl      
57Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome      
58Black Beauty, Anna Sewell      
59Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer      
60Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
61Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman      
62Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden      
63A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens      
64The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough      
65Mort, Terry Pratchett      
66The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton      
67The Magus, John Fowles      
68Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman      
69Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett      
70Lord Of The Flies, William Golding      
71Perfume, Patrick Suskind      
72The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell      
73Night Watch, Terry Pratchett      
74Matilda, Roald Dahl      
75Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding      
76The Secret History, Donna Tartt      
77The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins      
78Ulysses, James Joyce      
79Bleak House, Charles Dickens      
80Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
81The Twits, Roald Dahl      
82I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith      
83Holes, Louis Sachar      
84Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake      
85The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy      
86Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson      
87Brave New World, Aldous Huxley      
88Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons      
89Magician, Raymond E. Feist      
90On The Road, Jack Kerouac      
91The Godfather, Mario Puzo      
92The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel      
93The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett      
94The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho      
95Katherine, Anya Seton      
96Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer      
97Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez      
98Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson      
99The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot      
100Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
101Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome      
102Small Gods, Terry Pratchett      
103The Beach, Alex Garland      
104Dracula, Bram Stoker      
105Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz      
106The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens      
107Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz      
108The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks      
109The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth      
110The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson      
111Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy      
112The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and 3/4, Sue Townsend      
113The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat      
114Les Miserables, Victor Hugo      
115The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy      
116The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson      
117Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson      
118The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde      
119Shogun, James Clavell      
120The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
121Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson      
122Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray      
123The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy      
124House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski      
125The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver      
126Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett      
127Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging      
128The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle      
129Possession, A.S. Byatt      
130The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov      
131The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood      
132Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl      
133East Of Eden, John Steinbeck      
134George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl      
135Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett      
136The Color Purple, Alice Walker      
137Hogfather, Terry Pratchett      
138The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan      
139Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson      
140Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
141All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque      
142Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson      
143High Fidelity, Nick Hornby      
144It, Stephen King      
145James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl      
146The Green Mile, Stephen King      
147Papillon, Henri Charriere      
148Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett      
149Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian      
150Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz      
151Soul Music, Terry Pratchett      
152Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett      
153The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett      
154Atonement, Ian McEwan      
155Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson      
156The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier      
157One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey      
158Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad      
159Kim, Rudyard Kipling      
160Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
161Moby Dick, Herman Melville      
162River God, Wilbur Smith      
163Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon      
164The Shipping News, Annie Proulx      
165The World According To Garp, John Irving      
166Lorna Doone, R.D. Blackmore      
167Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson      
168The Far Pavilions, M.M. Kaye      
169The Witches, Roald Dahl      
170Charlotte's Web, E.B. White      
171Frankenstein, Mary Shelley      
172They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams      
173The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway      
174The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco      
175Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder      
176Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson      
177Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl      
178Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov      
179Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach      
180The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA
181The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson      
182Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens      
183The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay      
184Silas Marner, George Eliot      
185American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis      
186The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith      
187Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh      
188Goosebumps, R.L. Stine      
189Heidi, Johanna Spyri      
190Sons And Lovers, D.H. Lawrence      
191The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera      
192Man and Boy, Tony Parsons      
193The Truth, Terry Pratchett      
194The War Of The Worlds, H.G. Wells      
195The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans      
196A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry      
197Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett      
198The Once And Future King, T.H. White      
199The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle      
200Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews      
 BookWolfTeriLouWahleeLeslieRJA

Victorian Spam

The term was coined by Neal Stephenson (see here and here). Well, I've seen it in my inbox. I'm not amused.

Thursday, February 12, 2004

200 books meme

EDIT: This post has been updated and turned into a color-coded comparison table (look for it two posts up). This is here for the sake of the comments link.

Sunday, February 08, 2004

Bugs

People, if I don't get bug reports, the bugs will never be fixed. I've just found out the thing doesn't work in WinIE6 and that is the most popular browser on the net. I will fix it later this week, but without some kind of feedback - I really won't be motivated enough to keep trying. Building this site is therapeutic, not just wasting my time, so if you care for my mental health - keep me coding. I get depressed when I'm not succeeding in doing something productive so I must manufacture successful tasks for myself and they must be difficult enough to feel real and interesting enough to keep me going when the going gets tough. *rises from couch*

Saturday, February 07, 2004

Say

Oh older and wiser readers of mine, will wisdom teeth make me wiser? It's sure is a pain to grow them, so it better be worth it.

Bwahahahaha!

Take THAT, my literature teacher! And where did I find this article? On /. of course.

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