October 2002
Oct. 1, 2002
Gauss Jordan Elimination
The steps of the Gauss-Jordan elimination process are as follows:
[... 870 words]Applications
The above (badly drawn) ASCII diagram shows a traffic system. Traffic flows from A to B to C to D and back to A again, with new items flowing in to A, B and D at 10, 20 and 40 items per timeunit respectively. Items flow out of the system at point C at the rate of 70 items per timeunit. We assume that the flow in to each of the nodes on the system is equal to the flow out of that node.
[... 933 words]Oct. 2, 2002
MySQL on Linux or FreeBSD?
Jeremy Zawodny: FreeBSD or Linux for your MySQL Server? Jeremy explains the differences in threading implementation between Linux and FreeBSD, and explains why Linux is a better option for MySQL databases running under a high load. Link via Scott who got it from Keith. I wonder if anyone has played with the idea of syndicating link-found-on information in an RSS feed? Tracking link trails could be quite interesting.
Googledumping
It seems Google have tweaked their algorithm a bit, resulting in several high profile webloggers losing their top ranking positions for a search on their name. Scott Andrew summarises the situation nicely:
[... 100 words]Newspaper sites and the link element
Adrian Holovaty advocates the usage of next/previous link elements on newspaper sites to add optional linear navigation. His comments include some interesting discussions on whether or not this feature would really be of use on that kind of site.
Write on
A year ago, Mark Pilgrim’s manager told him to stop blogging. He refused, and was fired a week later. Today Mark celebrates.
RDF query-o-matic
Mental note: Read Burning Bird’s RDF Query tutorial and have a play with the Query-o-matic.
Oct. 3, 2002
Googlebad
Mark Pilgrim explains why Google’s latest update tweaks (mentioned yesterday) are a lot less harmless than they first appeared.
EuLisp
EuLisp gives programmers the ability to define their own error handlers. The default error handler used by the interactive interpreter displays a description of the error and starts the debug loop.
[... 970 words]Lisp special forms
Special forms are generally exceptions to normal Lisp syntax that make coding easier and more convenient for the programmer. They are expressions that do not follow the normal rules of evaluation. Examples we have met so far include quote and if.
Sidekick suck
Leonard Lin has a new HipTop—a hand-held wireless device for browsing the internet. His description of how well different sites work in the device makes for depressing reading. Blogs constructed with CSS and web standards in mind frequently fair worse than less well structured sites—it seems that rather than ignoring the CSS as it should do the device’s browser attempts to render it and mangles sites in the process. Anil Dash has an excellent summary of why this is a Bad Thing(TM) for all involved.
Oct. 4, 2002
Oct. 7, 2002
Eric has permalinks
Eric Meyer now has permalinks! Now if he would only start pinging weblogs.com when he updated I (and many others) could add him to their blo.gs-powered blogroll.
[... 189 words]Free the mouse
On Wednesday, Laurence Lessig will take on the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft. He will probably lose, but I sure hope he doesn’t. Last night I watched Lessig’s <free culture> keynote presentation from OSCon (made available in Flash format by Leonard Lin) with my girlfriend, and I’ve been catching up on the case with this Wired article and MSNBC’s Glitterati vs Geeks. Lessig’s blog has some interesting links as well.
Oct. 10, 2002
Google News to RSS
Google News to RSS is brilliant. Simply type in some search terms (or append them to a query string) and the script queries Google News and returns the results formatted as RSS, allowing you to add a customised feed to your aggregator to follow interesting news stories.
Eldred oral arguments
Lots of news on Eldred vs Ashcroft today. The best account I’ve seen so far of proceedings in the courtroom is this one by Kwindla Hultman Kramer, who has a press pass and was thus allowed to take notes in the court room. I tried to explain to a house mater yesterday why extending the copyright term is bad for creativity, but today I found this article which does a much better job than I did. Slashdot has some excellent links and a lengthy discussion as well.
Voostind interview
Virtual Interview: Vince Oostindie (via techno weenie). Vincent is the author of the excellent Eclipse Library for PHP and a regular on the SitePoint forums, where he frequently educates people in programming PHP using OOP methods. The interview is well worth a read if you are interested in either of these topics.
Oct. 11, 2002
The css-discuss Wiki is now live
The css-discuss wiki has finally gone live to the public. Here’s my message to the mailing list announcing the launch.
Wired Redesigns
Wired have redesigned, and now boast one of the snazziest CSS layouts on the web. The redesign is explained in A Site for Your Eyes, and has already drawn commentary from Jeffrey Zeldman and Mark Pilgrim (with plenty more certain to come). I think the title of Mark’s entry pretty much sums it up—this could well be the high profile redesign the web standards movement has been waiting for.
Oct. 12, 2002
Google Answers uncovered
Information for Sale: My Experience With Google Answers is a fascinating insight in to the world of Google Answers:
[... 100 words]Oct. 13, 2002
List o’ Links
Paul Freeman has a clever new feature on his blog: List o Links, a list of links that he wants to record without writing up a full blog entry. I’m tempted to borrow the idea (which originated with Anil Dash) but I’m slightly put off by the problem of integrating it with my existing blog archives. For the moment I think I’ll borrow Mark Pilgrim’s technique of occasionally posting “catch up” entries with a bunch of blog-worthy links.
Oct. 15, 2002
Scam the spammers
Here’s a fun new way to waste time on the internet: Scamming Nigerian spammers. This guy has a whole bunch of entertaining email exchanges with Nigerian scam artists, but the best has to be the Cthulu themed scam. Watch the Nigerian scam artists get slowly sucked in to a world of cults, demons and unspeakable horror.
Python e-mail features
Python 2.2.2 is out. It’s mostly bug fixes, but they have also included the latest version of the Python email package. I’ve been playing with Python’s email features recently as part of an experimental idea to import all of my mail (from various accounts) in to a mySQL database and build my own web mail / mail application program. Working with email in Python is beautfully simple, thanks to the aforementioned email package and the powerful pop3 and IMAP classes in the standard library.
Oct. 17, 2002
Mozilla prefetching
The Mozilla Link Prefetching FAQ (via Blogzilla). Prefetching is a browser mechanism, which utilizes browser idle time to download or prefetch documents that the user might visit in the near future
. Web page authors can turn on prefetching for their pages using a <link rel="prefetch"> or <link rel="next"> element (or the corresponding Link: headers).