The Daily Grind

…to Linux. Why?

Because David Hyatt’s weblog has recently confirmed that (a.) they’ve got XML ‘limping along’ in Safari, and that (b.) the intention is to eventually wrap WebCore into a WebKit framework that implements another flavour of NSView. This is a problem because it makes the process of building webby XMLish Cocoa apps pretty much drag&drop in Interface Builder.

It’s a problem for me because for months I’ve been toying with the idea of building an integrated TV series production/scripting system, dubbed ‘ShowFlow,’ since Word is simply the wrong tool for the job. By my reckoning, I’ll run out of excuses for not at least lashing together a test mockup around about June.

One of the components I badly needed has recently been done, in the form of BitFlux, an open-source WYSIWYG XML editor. Hopefully it won’t work in Safari, otherwise I’m going to have to switch to Mandrake. With a bit of luck they’ll go under, leaving me an OS orphan on a platform I’m never going to get my head around programming. Cool.

Brian Sewell ranting about the dreadful imposition of having to travel to see an exhibition he fancies, because it’s showing in the wastelands of the North. As one Today listener comments:

Brian Sewell demonstrates the vapid, unquestioning and utterly selfish Londo-centrism which has, for centuries, maintained the artistic superiority of London through the cultural impoverishment of the provinces.

Let me get this right. My Newton is very nearly five years old, which in handheld computing years is beyond merely ‘geriatric.’ Yet, it currently acts as a webserver over ethernet (lovely example here), and I can still sync it to my Mac. When I get around to it, it should do all this wirelessly using the WaveLAN card I borrowed from my chum Martin. And now there’s an XML-RPC thingy and a Blogging app that talks to Moveable Type?

You have to be kidding me. Also, remind me again why I want Apple to make a tablet Mac? And why in tarnation would I want a Palm thingy?

Bob Park strikes again. Quoting his regular source who’s working on the new ‘grandson of Star Wars’ Missile Defense (sic) system:

You have to set priorities in this game, the goal is to deploy. Management feels testing threatens to divert us from that goal.

I love this approach! Don’t worry whether the damn stuff works or not (hey, if there’s a real attack it’s highly unlikely to do any good anyway) – just get it out there so the DoD has to finish paying for it.

Well, that’s interesting. My Mac is capturing video at the moment, so I’m browsing from my PC. In Phoenix (minimal Gecko/Mozilla browser), I typed ‘quernstone’ in the address bar. This would normally add ‘www.’ to the front and ‘.com’ to the end. Instead, I end up here.

Huh?

This originally contained in a post to uk.comp.sys.mac, but someone suggested I should archive it.

It’s easy to tell the nationality of a touring cyclist from the way they load their bike:

• Front and rear panniers, neatly packed – British.
• Saddlebag and tiny front panniers, ancient bike – hard-core British.
• Huge pile of stuff over back wheel – Dutch.
• Huge pile of stuff over back wheel, plus rucsack – German.
• Glamorous bike, no panniers, luggage in accompanying car – French
• Very glamorous bike, no panniers, luggage in accompanying sports car – Italian.
• All other combinations – New Zealander.
• Sheltering in bus-stop – American.

…to which Sak Wathanasin added:

• Turns up at start in Mercedes with personal mechanic, masseur etc, then goes like the wind – Belgian.

Sak also noted that some Americans really do cycle. Even if it’s raining. Fair point – I don’t claim to be reasonable or accurate. Especially not reasonable.

Hmm. Something a bit weird happened there with one of the Perl libraries running this website. For about a month. But I’m back now.

So… what’s happened in the last month? Christmas at m’darlin sister’s with the family including nephew Stanley; we cooked ‘…and all the trimmings,’ since Kate and husband Matt are vegetarians; actually, come to think of it, I’ve had a turkey-, mince pie- and cake-free Christmas. Cool; New Year with Daniel and Mary was fun; and today mum and dad moved into their new house. And I went back to work, with six weeks to rehearsals. Eek.

Quiet Christmas at home, then.

You?

There’s a couple of guys on uk.comp.sys.mac who seem to have me quoted in their sigs. This is mildly disturbing since it’s vaguely traditional to quote people who are dead, which I aitn’t.

Now, one of these chaps has recently posted a reply in a thread reading simply ‘see sig.’ I’m not sure if that means I’ve contributed, or not.

Either way, I suspect a discussion of software agents is just around the corner.