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New user? Sunday, December 2, 2001
Jad gone?
The Jad homepage is gone.
It's still available in Google's cache, so it couldn't have been long ago that it was removed.
Taliban fighter says he's American
CNN.com: Taliban fighter from prison uprising says he's American
After reading this, I had the weirdest thought. What if The Rock from the WWF was there in Afghanistan, questioning this John Walker guy?
The Rock, entering the room: "Finally, the Great One has come back... to Mazar-e Sharif!" He walks over to the injured Taliban figher, and says... "Where you from, Jabronie?"
John Walker: "The name's John, actually. I'm from Ameri..."
The Rock, interrupting, screaming: "It doesn't MATTER where you're from, you steaming pile of monkey crap!"
John Walker: "Wha... what's going to happen to me?"
The Rock: "Know your role and SHUT your mouth. I'm asking the questions here. If you must know, we'll check you into the Smackdown Hotel... and then, in front of the millions of the Rock's fans, the Brahma Bull will layeth the Smackdown on your candy ass!"
Well, you can pretty much figure out how the conversation progresses from there. This has been... Pro Wrestling Interrogation Theatre.
QuickTime is 10
Happy 10th anniversary QuickTime!
MacCentral:QuickTime anniversary celebration this weekend
There are few thing I would rather be doing day to day than coding with WebObjects. But to use WebObjects to do dynamic QuickTime content... well that would just be the icing on the cake. QT's always been something I've been fascintated by, but never had the chance to really dig deeply into.
Every once in a while I crack open my QT book and get excited, but work and life always gets in the way of real progress.
Permits req'd
Here's a shocker...
EBits - CANOE Money: "There's evidence that Canada may not be the most bureaucratic country in the world in which to start a new business."
You have to know this shocks Canadians if they'd go to the trouble to report it. :-)
Inuit man finally using real name
Ananova: Inuit man officially allowed to use traditional one-word name
US troops patrolling Canadian border
CNN.com: Guard troops ordered to Canadian border
So much for the world's longest unprotected border. Sigh. It was fun while it lasted.
There was an article by the Toronto Sun's Peter Worthington a couple days ago that said Canada benefits from being so lenient when it comes to immigration laws and the other policies which have made it easy for terrorists to camp out in Canada. He said that terrorists would be insane to attack a country that's treated them so well! I tried but I couldn't find an archive link for the story. :-( I hope I got the gist of it right.
A trade
via Scripting News...
Bara Vaida : "Howard Schmidt, Microsoft's chief security officer, is expected to leave within the next month to join the Bush administration and work with White House cyber-security adviser Richard Clarke, according to sources in the computer-security industry."
With my conspiracy hat on... here's how this transaction would be announced in the world of pro hockey:
"The Redmond Microsofts have traded CSO Howard Schmidt to the Washington Republicans for a 1st round draft pick in the 2002 draft and future considerations."
Lookie here...
Travel.state.gov: Possible Loss of U.S. Citizenship and Foreign Military Service (via rc3.org)
Ahem. So who wants to rebutt that it is, or should I say, was possible to avoid taxation by renouncing one's citizenship?
IT has landed!
TIME.com: Reinventing the Wheel
Looks and is described pretty much like I expected. :-( But that's a great thing because I had pretty high expectations! :-)
Ants cried Uncle
Dave wrote about his ant problem today. I had my own ant problem a few weeks ago, when it first started raining. This being my first fall in California, I didn't realize this was a common problem in the area.
They were all over the walls, bannister, door frame... they loved to travel alone the corners of walls. I figured I must have left an apple core or something sweet laying on the floor somewhere to have attracted all those little guys. I'm happy to find out it wasn't my fault. I was told it wasn't my fault but I still wasn't sure. :-)
The building manager called the chemical weapons experts in to give them a good butt kicking. By the next day they were all very... still.
Saturday, December 1, 2001
Editing forum messages
Uh boy. Here we go!
Slashdot: When Should a Website Edit Its Users?
There's a lot of interesting information in that thread already, including references to the DMCA.
So far my favourite post in the thread is this one.
Brad Cox: Misusing Dynamic Binding...
Brad Cox: Misusing Dynamic Binding When Static Binding Would Do, Part 2
Rather this is a condemnation of those who use it inappropriately for problems that can be solved more straightforwardly, productively, and efficiently with static alternatives."
Brad Cox, the father of Objective-C, which ironically is a superset of the C language that adds dynamic binding, has a lot of good points to make about the benefits of static binding and why the use of dynamic binding needs to be rationalized.
I especially loved the way he trashed the blatant over-use of XML files for configuring just about everything these days. You can't run a servlet or a JSP page or just about anything from the mainstream open-source-java-world without drowning yourself in XML-ized config files.
New SNAX offered for Mac OS X
MacCentral: New SNAX offered for Mac OS X
And does it ever! I downloaded it and have been playing with it. I've seen other so-called Finder replacements, and nothing I've tried yet comes close to this. It's totally great.
If you consider yourself an OS X power user, you should check out SNAX.
Matrix Revisited
I just finished watching The Matrix Revisited. 15 bucks, I thought that was pretty good for a DVD. :-) I didn't even know what was on it... it said The Matrix on it so that was good enough for me! ;-)
Turns out it's a 2 hour making-of and philosophy-of the Matrix, plus extras. I really enjoyed it. And thankfully, there were no spoilers about the new movies in the 2 hour bit, that I saw. There's a "Go Further" item in the main menu, with a "What's to Come?" selection in it... the reviews on Amazon say it's related to the sequels, so I avoided that. ;-)
The stuff about the Animatrix is super cool. Anyway, Revisited is basically a $15 commercial for the Matrix, the sequels, and the animated shorts, but I don't care.
I'm so jealous of the Wachowski brothers!!! ;-)
You must be kidding
Scobleizer: A Tale of Two Tech Industry "Leaders"
You know that acronym "LOL", right? Laugh out loud. Well, it's overused. Most of the time when people use it in emails or in IM conversations, I highly doubt they are actually lauging out loud.
Well let me assure you, when I read the quote above, I was LOL. I wasn't quite ROTFLMAO, but close.
FrontPage? OMG. You must be kidding me. _vti_ugh If FrontPage is one of the best publishing tools, then I'm worried about UserLand.
More on Misusing Dynamic Binding
Brad Cox: Misusing Dynamic Binding When Static Binding Would Do, Part 1
A while ago Brad Cox was asking questions about WO on the lists. Either he wrote the article above before learning about WebObjects, or he didn't dig very deep... with WebObjects, pages reference other pages as objects, not by filename! It's great!
With WebObjects, hyperlinks and submit buttons typically target the CURRENT page, and are bound (dynamically, mind you, in a declarations file that belongs to the view of the component) to action methods on that (current) page's object instance. The action methods return a new page instance (the page to be shown to the user).
The action method can configure the target page between instanciating it and returning it. ie: nextPage.setSelectedObject(objectChosen()); This is a very cool way to program web apps, because it means you can pass things between pages UNDER THE COVERS, instead of... er, over the covers, ie: in HTTP=URL&Param=eters.
Here's an example action method in a WO page (pages are WOComponents, and the java code of a WOComponent is the controller in the MVC triad):
public WOComponent showDetails() {
DetailPage nextPage = (DetailPage)pageWithName("DetailPage");
nextPage.setObjectToShow(selectedObject());
// maybe you want to tell the next page where it came from
nextPage.setPreviousPage(this);
return nextPage;
}
BTW, showDetails, setObjectToShow, selectedObject and setPreviousPage are all method names I made up. pageWithName(String) is authentic.
Medical marvel!
Edmonton Sun: He's a medical marvel!
:-)
Friday, November 30, 2001
Do you have TN2034?
Does anyone have a copy of the now pulled Apple technote TN2034?
If so please e-mail it to me.
Update: the URL was: http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2034.html
If you think you viewed it, set your browser to offline mode and click on the URL, hopefully you'll have it in your cache. Thanks again! :-)
Petreley is cool
Hm. Does Petreley write for other pubs? I've always hated Computerworld. I've explained why on this site in the past. I'm surprised they have a guy as cool as Nicholas writing for them.
Nicholas Petreley, Computerworld: The Source Is Everything
I told a friend about this same thing earlier today, in a different context. I said, "In a time where the plug has just been pulled from the drain and the water is rushing out of the tub, it's the sharks that have the best chance of grabbing a meal before they suffocate. The dolphins are in for a rough ride."
The dolphins that don't get eaten by the sharks have the best chance for long term survival. They're mammals, and can breath above water... they just need some people to pour water on them until they get transplanted to a new bathtub.
On the other hand, the shark with blood dripping from its jaw won't get much help from onlookers.
Speaking of sharks...
Nicholas Petreley, Computerworld: Side-by-Side Hypocrisy
As MS CEO Ballmer mentioned recently, Microsoft has an image problem. No-one came to their defense during the anti-trust lawsuit. They're incredibly lucky the government showed up just before they suffocated at the bottom of the bathtub.
It might be a while before we learn why the government saved the bloody-jawed shark this time. But some day the drain will get pulled again, the government won't be feeling as generous, and no-one will be there to save the fat old shark.
Pun intended?
This headline makes me giggle...
Victoria Times-Colonist: Swollen Members tapped to back up Nelly Furtado
(Trivia: Nelly Furtado is from Victoria)
