Study today, play someday.

Today has been good. My wife is now taking an online Cisco test for her class. I'm writing for the audience (you- who?). We were at a local university for some quiet studytime earlier today. I got to refine my WEB::Willy module and related server. It all works like a charm.

It's seperated into three parts:

Shape


tables and colour and all that


Stuff


a bunch of files (mostly) to fill it all in


Linker/Controller


puts the right Stuff in the right Shape

The thing that made it easier for me to do this is the '?' notation... in a url like
< a href="http://mypage.foo.cl?faq"> FAQ</a> the '?faq' part can be used by the server to let it make decisions.

So, there you have it... when I have more patience I'll try a better description of it all.

---

Yesterday was a good day as I went with my wife to run around a bit. You see, while in the car, we heard some wonderful news: Augusto Pinochet, the son of a bitch (I sincerely apologize to his mother for saying that), may lose his immunity from prosecution. An apellet court in Chile ruled on the point. Now, this is not yet over- not only must there be a trial, but this ruling will be vigourously apealed. Whatever the case, there is hope.

Pinochet is the asshole who wreaked havoc on my wife's country for 17 years, helped along by both corporate and U.S. government interests.

It's a pleasent thing to see a little justice in the world; or at least hope for it.

Blast it!

Last night, I was tidying up the bugs in WEB::Willy when I shut down my computer to go home. You see, my wife and I were at a bookstore studying while a thunderstorm (with some hail) pounded the world outside. (exciting) Later that night, I started the machine again to finish up- well, I am not sure how I did it, but I must have forgotten to exit vi when I shut down before- so I Restored a prior session after having done a great deal of work ... *sigh*. But I'm not at
all bothered now- I've learnt alot and have it in mind to make it even better :)


just remenber....

package WEB::Willy
our @EXPORTER = qw( Linker Body External_links Index Title Footer);
use Exporter;
our @ISA = qw(Exporter);

At least I hope that's right...

Long Long Long

The day never ends. My wife's day never ends. No end.
I'm silly to say that, but it's such a long day.

gaa!

:P

Further notes.

Thinking to myself::

Three layers...


Data
Control
Structure



Not sure though... most of Control is in the Data layer.

Maybe I should seperate Control into a pmodule... use WEB::Control;

The problem is that Indexes are code intensive the way I'm doing things..


sub control{

$state->{Title} = title('default');
$state->{Index}= index($postmark);

}

sub index{

my $postmark = shift;

if $postmark == 'blah'{

my @list = Windex(0);

} else{

my @list = Windex(1);

}

}



Well, I've got little time left on this break..

ttfn.

Small bit happy

It’s been a bit since I last posted. Currently I’m trying to split time between work, sleep, work, code, and sundry others.

I’ve made good progress on the simple templating code...

sub control {

my $location = shift; #postmark data
#oh... wait I don’t think i need $location... it’s used seperately...

$state->{Title}= ‘Title($location)’;

return %{$state}; #etc

}



looks like $location is used, but the truth is that control() only assigns strings to %state. i’d initialy had control() modify the page, but now it’s relegated to assigning these strings.

template(); holds the form and tags.

control(); links stuff to tags in the template.
generate_content(); substitutes these strings for the tags in the template- the cool
thing is that this substitution will execute the code in the strings.
This way the good stuff will be plastered straight into the page :)

A separate package will hold the routines that either feed files into the page or creates parts of the page.

simplepage.pl

Here is the basic version of a simple templating and non-messy Web page
script.

HTML is bloody messy.... allways messy- It's my pet peeve I guess..

---

#!/usr/bin/perl



use warnings;

use strict;

# this is a proof of concept test designed to

#       find out whether or not I can use POE and HTTP::Response

#       to make a fully dynamic webpage with minimal messyness and

#       uglyness.



#       the modeling will be at three levels:

#               Structure

#               Data

#               Control







use POE qw(Component::Server::TCP Filter::HTTPD);

use HTTP::Response;



use constant BindAddress => '127.0.0.1';

use constant BindPort => '8087';

use constant Filter => 'POE::Filter::HTTPD';





sub server{



        my $alias = shift;

        my $port = shift;



    POE::Component::Server::TCP->new

        (Port           => $port,

         Alias          => $alias,

         ClientInput    => \&handle_client_input,

#  Error          => \&error_handler,

  ClientFilter   => Filter,



#  InlineStates   => {

#               req     =>   \&make_request,

#        }

 );

}



sub handle_client_input{

        # get link data from remote connection.

 # call functions to parse link and change control structures.

 # cycle output.



 my ($kernel, $heap, $request) =

                @_[ KERNEL, HEAP, ARG0 ];



# Filter::HTTPD sometimes generates HTTP::Response objects.

# They indicate (and contain the response for) errors that occur

# while parsing the client's HTTP request.  It's easiest to send

# the responses as they are and finish up.

# (This if statement - including comments are cribbed from poe.perl.org)



 if ( $request->isa("HTTP::Response") ) {

                $heap->{client}->put($request);

                $kernel->yield("shutdown");

                return;

        }





        my $response = HTTP::Response->new(200);

        my $session = control_data($request->{_uri});

        my $stuff = make_template();

           $stuff = generate_content($stuff,$session);

        $response->push_header( 'Conten-type', 'test/html' );

        $response->content($stuff);



        $heap->{client}->put($response);

        $kernel->yield("shutdown");



        #control_data() changes the $control data structure to reflect the

 #choices made by the client.  this data structure will indicate what

 #data will be presented later on by the server to the client.



 #make_template() gives $stuff all the structure junk...  $stuff

 # is just a string full of tags and things for later routines to

 #fill in with "stuff"



 #generate_content() will stick the "stuff" in stuff based on the

 #control structure ($session).  special tags put in the $stuff $string

 #will be substituted with "stuff" fron this routine.

 #e.g   $stuff=~ s/\[\% title \%\]/$session->{title}/;

 # or

 # $stuff =~ s/\[\%(w*?)\%\]/$session->{$1}/;

 #which takes away a tag like "[%Title%]" and

 #replaces it with the contents of $session->{Title}.





 #just read a bit about template toolkit *laugh* go figure..





}



sub control_data{

        # control_data() changes the $control data structure to reflect the

 # choices made by the client.  this data structure will indicate what

 # data will be presented later on by the server to the client.



 # control data recieves $request->{_uri} (see documentation for

 # HTTP::Response) and uses it to create (in future modify)

 # the %control datastructure which it then returns.

 # the hash %control will contain things like the page title,

 # lists of links, and files/locations from which to grab data.

 my $input=shift;

        my $control;



        $control->{Title}='Test Title';

        $control->{Index}='Test Index<b><a href=';

        $control->{Index}.='"nothing.html">Nothing!</a>';

        $control->{Body}='The Body!!<p></p>The Body!!!!!';

        $control->{Footer}="$input";

        return $control;

}



sub make_template{

        #make_template() returns all the structure junk...  $crap

 #is just a string full of tags and things for later routines to

 #fill in with "stuff"



 my $crap;



        $crap = '<html><body>';

        $crap .='<table><tr>'.

                '<td>'.

                '%%Index%%'.

                '</td>'.

                '<td>'.

                '%%Body%%'.

                '</td>'.

                '<td>'.

                '%%Index%%'.

                '</td>'.

                '</tr></table>'.

                'That\'s that<br></br>'.

                '%%Footer%%'.

                '</body></html>';

        return $crap;

}





sub generate_content{



        my $stuff = shift;

        my $session = shift;



        #generate_content() will stick the "stuff" in $stuff based on the

 #control structure ($session).  special tags put in the $stuff string

 #will be substituted with "stuff" from this routine.

 #e.g   $stuff=~ s/\[\% title \%\]/$session->{title}/;

 # or

 # $stuff =~ s/\[\%(w*?)\%\]/$session->{$1}/g;

 #which takes away a tag like "[%Title%]" and

 #replaces it with the contents of $session->{Title}.





 #just read a bit about template toolkit *laugh* go figure..



 #currently this routine does not include data from outside

 #files.. this must change quickly.

 $stuff =~ s/%%(\w+?)%%/$session->{$1}/g;

        print "and stuff is $stuff\n";

        return $stuff;

}

server('debug',BindPort);

$poe_kernel->run();

Testosterone

Just read my wife's post on testosterone. I think I understand the desire behind that suggestion, but, so often, the panacea we think we've found isn't.

Darn it! Too much coffee- I allways feel it after coming back from the Golden Nugget- gaa!!! Why is it so good!?!??!!?!?!?!?!? It's evil!

Information environmentalism?

What the heck??!? We are listening to the radio to a programme called Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me, and the mentioned in the introduction about information environmentalism - going to have to look this one up. Seems to be a movement to get rid of some of the excess information pollution in the world, or some such.

My wife has just posted a really really long post on her log. I'll have to read it when I get an hour or so to digest its contents- we had been eating breakfast at The Golden Nugget this morning (best coffee in the known universe) and were discussing the evils and goods of testosterone. Her post is about that...

---

In other news, SCO is still being mean and our heroes at Groklaw are exposing the company for the mean company it is :P

So there!

Suburbia: Land of the Walking Dead

Part 1.

Ghostly sport utility vehicles,
With tiny women peeking over the steering wheel,
Creeping down an empty street,
In a neighbourhood with nothing but televisions,
In identicle houses.

I think there's a song in here somewhere.
Face it, suburban living is a kind of living dead existance- or it can be at anyrate. If you know your neighbours and there're things going on all aroung it might be fine. The problem is that many of these are "bedroom communities". That name says something. It says that where you live is not important. Sleeping is a communal event?? What the hell is that except a kind of mass dysfunction?

It's just plain sad.

More on this later.

Untangling a web.

This is a working draft of a web design process. Trying to reduce the ugly nature of html, *ml &c code. The likely use of CGI.pm and Template::Toolkit amoung other things should help keep the damage done by html code to a minimum.

The main point of this particular process is to modularize the document peices sufficiently enough to make editing a fairly simple process and to increase the scalability of a particular page or set of pages.

Parts:

Page Template

Contains most of the html code.
Might actually be within a CGI.pm document,
or a POE program.


Data

The actual information, most likely in a database, or in a directory off by itself. Most likely will have to have html in it for links and formatting and the like.



Control Structure

This will link the Data to the Page itself. POE or CGI.pm or whatever else is used will read this structure to decide what goes into the page.

Clicking on a link will change this control structure. It will then be fed back through the same routine. To produce different results.

That is how the page will be kept fairly simple (I hope);

The control structure will be fairly tightly coupled with the template structure, but that's not a terrible PitA.

Ex. of a control structure::

$state->{header} = '/Bob/pretty/mainheader';
$state->{body} = $default;
$state->{copy} = '/Bob/copyright/CC/default.html';
$state->{leftside} = \&ref_to_index;

The first line has the name of a file (presumably a snippet oftext with html code in it) to by inserted by some Perl programinto the webpage that will be made when it's requested.

The second line might act as the first and give the location of a file, or it could contain the document itself for all I know.

The third line is the same as the first, but I figured I'd play with thinking of it like an html document.

The fourth and last line is a bit different; a reference to a subroutine which contains what needs to be done. This might even be nothing more than a further abstraction layer between the final html and the editing process. While it looks interesting, I think that it's likely to be a little redundant.



Ex. Of things made easier- change display/clickability of link to same page using the $state control structure to control it..


for instance::

foreach my $link ($state->{index}){ #array of links inside page

print $link unless $link == $state->{page};

}

Now, the above code isn't quite right, but it's a good start. It would really end up being a little more complex- something that says

If the link has the same string of information that is used to represent the current page, then we shouldn't display the link.

Yes, I rather like that.

Now, there must be an effort to keep the code as loosely coupled with the data as possible. The above snippet might not do that so well unless I am extreamly careful.



So we end up with three layers for a webpage this way.
Form
Data
Control


Now, I remember that there is another model for doing this... some
three letter acronym... Model is one of the words in it, but I can't
remember what the whole thing is.


OK, trying a differnt way to say it::

1. run response.
2. click internal link.
3. this runs a codref? to change values in $state.
4. run response.

continue....



Not a bad way to do things, but I have to be sure that changes
to pages isn't going to be too difficult.

Duck Duck Goose.

Today my wife and I were out walking in a park near our
apartment. We enjoyed watching some mallard families enjoying the evening sun and nibbling on whatever it is they nibble. It was a good evening and a good walk.

However, we witnessed something pretty horrible. Two seemingly stereotypical suburbanites (husband and wife maybe?) were walking there small white dog (shaggy haired fellow) accross a street (not a busy one- it's within the park I think) from us. We came upon them first noticing the dog. It was chasing a couple of mallard ducks; a female and a male. We came to realize that the suburbanite couple was encouraging the dog to give chase.

I later commented to my wife that I'd have expected that behaviour from children or teenagers, not older folk. This couple looked to be in their fifties.

Now, while this was going on, we were in a bit of a state of shock seeing this, and were very worried when we saw the female mallard start limping in the street. We quickly realized that she was only playing at being wounded to entice the dog away from what turned out to be her brood of chicks.

That was unbelievable; impossible for me to understand how anyone could be so cruel. I think that I would like to have yelled at the assholes (I apologize for me language). My wife thought a good hard kick to the dog would be apropiate, but I think the owners are the ones with the intellegence to make a moral choice like that, so they are the ones to be kicked.

Well, my wife tells me that she 'hates' them (small dogs)- she has her prejudices I suppose *grin*. I don't blame her!!!!

---

My wife and I are typing away at this stuff, downloading the latest release of the Mozilla browser and making new blog stuff- she just told me that she's changing the title of her weblog to "Groundhog Day" - which makes sense because she often will liken her current situation to the repititious life of Bill Murry's character in the film "Groundhog Day". If you read her blog, you will note a certain lack of satisfaction in the "Suburban Midwestern Lifestyle(TM)". I make an understatement.

Thank you.

Radio, blogosphere, meme, zeitgeist

Damn. Lost my entire post due to bad pointing and clicking.

I had a nice and tidy discussion on social environments etc...

blogoshpere.
Meme.
Zeitgeist.

I am not terribly happy about this situation. Most annoying.

Anyway, my wife is plugging away at her CISCO tests... playing with router emulators and neat stuff like that.

---

Well, I was wondering about what Harry Shearer mentioned on his weekly radioshow Le Show about what had happened to Nicholas Berg recently and the resultant commentary in the "blogoshpere" (he used a term like "blogsphere" instead- but who's counting?). He said that the reluctance to show what had happened to completion opened the door for speculation and conspiracy theories about the veracity of what was reported... I am studiously avoiding really talking about it because it makes be to damn uncomfortable. Notice all this linguistic twisting and turning to avoid it all... but what he said was interesting.

Many(some?) bloggers have been strongly skeptical about the reports and suggest that the footage was faked... well, that's the impression that I'm getting from Le Show. I haven't tried looking this stuff up myself and don't particularly want to.

This got me to thinking, what about our collective sense of things? Does the 'blogosphere' contain its own memes and zeitgeist, or does it reflect the senses of a wider community or society?



If you are unable to see, then the image is not very useful to you, but what I'm thinking may still be interesting. Now, the image depicts a piece of the social fabric that I deal with in a very simplified form. After twiddling with it, I've given-up being accurate to any degree. However, the idea is to make it a little easier to figure out my own question and answers to it.

Again: Does the 'blogosphere' contain its own memes and zeitgeist, or does it reflect the senses of a wider community or society?

In my current state, I'm inclined toward the latter. While there is an awful lot of incestuous interlinking of weblogs and topics, the people themselves appear to have enough social influences from beyond weblogs to make the logs themselves secondary influences- at most reinforcing previouse positions and/or preferences etc.

I think that my attempt at a graphical reference for this question illustrates this. Most people deal with more than one facet of life. We have home, work, school, family, love, politics, religion, friends of various sorts, etc.etc.etc.etc.etc... on and on and on.. what the graph doesn't show is how much variety that many people have in their relationships... it only shows that "some professionals make web pages and blogs" and "some bloggers make webpages" etc.

I'm not saying that there are no 'blog memes' but, I think they are probably less strong than some might think; especialy those in the middle of said memes.

But then memes are out there. In the wider community, "computers" are a meme that's nearly universal- "computers are good" vs. "computers and bad" etc....


Here's a meme maker- Slashdot. And here's one that's really starting to effect computers and the law Groklaw.

I'm tired and I don't feel like posting any more :P


good night!

Going to Dave&Buster's tonight.

Woohoo! Going to go play video games and all that stuff over
at this neat arcade place - pool tables and other stuff are there too.

Now, this isn't necessarily the most unbelievable place in the world, but it is great fun to play there.... very very very silly place.

^_^

Going out.

We didn't. Were going to go to a big grown-up arcade place, but
got all lazy and watched television! I can't believe that we wached tv.

Our normal routine is to do other things; not watching television.
But that's life. It's late night and we are both winding down. It's around 12:30
in the morning.... I think bedtime should be rolling around shortly.

Food.

Dinner was at a restaurant. A restaurant? A restaurant.
Chinese buffet. My wife and I sat, talked, and slowly ate several dishes. We had hot tea and used chopsticks. Food is too easy here. Walking is too hard here. I'm too darn tired to
keep writing right now :P

Cicada.

Cicadas are coming. Listening to Talk of the Nation“ science friday”. They’re talking about the emergence of 17year Cicadas :)

Look at Cicada Mania for more information.

This place has links for cicada recipies- tast like popcorn?

btw- today’s daily emergence update : washingtom DC, baltimor... etc.... (listening to the guy who made this site talking on the above radio show).

My wondeful wife is not an insect lover, but I find this facinating!


.

:)

identify and read...

Reading posts of other weblogs is very pleasent. I've found
this place full
of profanity and ranting and raving etc. Very enjoyable.

What is the desire for looking into others' lives doing stuck
in our brains? I mean, look at the recent proliferation of the
so called "reality show". It's disturbing to me, but sometimes the
idea's interesting. One of the common fetishes that populates
pornographic websites seems to be voyerism-> the idea that you
are sneaking a peek at someone's private life. Is that so different
from "The Real World"?

I read these weblogs, some have audio from the authors. The one above
has some very funny (to me) audio clips talking about semi-random
things.

I'm listening to his most recent audio post about listening Rush
Limbaugh (US based conservative pundit) and making fun of him *grin*.


well, time to go back to work.
.
.
.
.
.
.

small.

Short post....
Little time.

Friday,nearly ten o'clock in the morning.
I want to rest, but not able to now.


I need a nap. No, I need a chance to think
and play: far better than a nap!

poetic segue

I'm sitting here with my partly working laptop
(in my lap- go figure (ergonomical nightmare?)) typing
a bit for you(who?). It's a bit past 6 pm localtime.

This might be considered an extension of my last post.
As such I'll try to continue my thoughts. There's
a bit of a problem... I can't see my last post!
Well, I'll just have to use my faulty memory to figure
this all out :)

a butterfly
in front and back
of a woman's path

--- chiyo ni

I hope I got that name right- I typed it from memory,
though it's not much to remember is it?

It's a translation (not done by me!!) of a haiku by
a famouse female poet from many years ago- if I recall,
she came one generation after basho??? Basho is a very
famous poet. To many things to say about these things
and too little that I can say due mostly to my ignorance.

Let's not worry about that. Let's just look at the poem
itself.

A question:

Why is it a poem?

I'm willing to bet that the answer is a little difficult to
find since it is a translation from Japanese to English.

Of course the answer is allways difficult when it's about the
human condition- all creative things are about the human condition.

Go figure.

Here is one way to look at it:

The poem follows a kind of structure; one that
is easy to see, and also very subtle.

The easy to see structure is often difficult to
see in translation. A haiku has three lines.
The first line is five (5) syllables long.
The second line is seven (7) syllables long.
The third line is as the first. This is not a
rule set in stone- it can be bent :)

This also describes a poetic form called senryu (i
hope i spelled that right).

Also of note is that these are Japanese poetic forms.
Japanese is a strongly syllabic language (is this a
real term?), meaning that each sound part is strictly
deliniated (I'm exagerating for the sake of simplicity).
In English, one can often struggle to decide how to
seperate one syllable from another. The written
japanese form takes one character and uses that as
the syllable. So it's very easy to count the syllables
and to use syllables as structure.

Haiku vs. Senryu.



Haiku has that subtle structure in addition to the
physical stuff we saw above. The poem deals with
some subject of nature.

Now, I'm not sure, but I think that the following deals
with both poetic forms:

The first two lines set up an image, and the last line
gives you a completion- a surprise maybe, or a thought
to take with you. It might be like a twist in a
story.



I really wish I had some reference material with me
so that I was sure about what I've been talking about.

Ok, now,







a butterfly in front and back of a woman's path

Don't worry about syllable counts and that stuff, just worry about the stuff inside.



Now, the first two lines describe a butterfly,
or maybe two of them.. well, that's part of
nature isn't it?

The third line is different- a woman's path?

That's the twist. The part that brings the first two
lines to completion.

Why?

Because, the butterfly is a culturally significant
symbol of woman in Japan- or at least the Japan of
chiyo ni.

What does it all mean? I'm not sure it's supposed to
mean anything, but bringing the images of a butterfly
and a woman together bring a kind if imaginary gestalt
even for me- and I'm outside of Japanese
culture; past and present.

So, a poem is likely to be culturally charged. I'd
posit that it's more so than other forms of
communication. Though other creative outlets may
be so charged.

Now, here is how I look at the question:

A poem is a poem when it compresses meaning
and idea into something small.

Does that sound silly? It's not silly to me.

A story that's just a story tells a tale.

A poem can tell that tale, but instead of
describing things, it uses words with
meaning suffused through them.

a butterfly
in front and back
of a woman's path

five important words :butterfly
front back woman path.

front and back are really together... that makes
four words.

Four words that say what a woman is and what
life is and the nature of these things. (i think)
It took me longer to summerize the poem than it
took the poem to explain itself!!!

What does that say? It says that poetry
communicates one hell of a lot of meaning
in a small space. Granted, a lot of this
is dependent on culture, but it still works.

What am I getting at? Well, I'm talking about
writing programs.

for (0..$#pages){

save($pages[$_]) if $pages[$_]=~/^\s*?\d{1,3}/;

}

What the heck does that mean?

It means that we are looking at the pages of a book.
We are saving all the pages that have page numbers at
the top of the book.

The truth is, I'm not sure that that's working code.. but it's
good for my thoughts on the subject.

The information is compressed into a small
space and presented in a tight little bundle.

Is this poetry? Well, I suppose it's not exactly, but it
does carry some of the weight: it's expressive material
which lets its information out to the reader who has
the cultural background to understand it.

But what about going beyond the superficial? What
about creativity and meaning? Well the latter is harder
to argue, but the former is definitely there!

Solving any problem takes creativity- as children we
are all creative in our shinanigans and eaqually creative
in our excuses when we get caught.

the above poem- I mean snippet of code was pounded out
at the spur of the moment, much like haiku and senryu have
been in the past: creative processes. Moving stanzas around isn't just to
make a program work right, but to make it read right.

A program should be easy on the eyes, it's structures pleasant
and flowing. The words and phrases should lead you through
the desires of the programmer.

Does this sound like poetry?

Well, this creative endevour is what makes me enjoy writing
programs. It's solving problems and getting past challenges, but
it's also making something that I can call beautiful.

That's my argument today. Programming is (like?) poetry.


I should make a little confession. While I've taken this
metaphore to heart, it's not mine originally. It's something
that others have brought up before me.
The Perlmonks website has had at least one thread on the subject, and
I found a neat interview of some Sun developer about starting a
Bachelor of Computer Arts degree. I don't think this is idle speculation..

I guess that this post is a roundabout way of explaining my love of
programming. Go figure.

---

Sitting here in a green chair. Wood trim.
My left hand is bothering me because I'm typing on this
laptop with poor posture. My wife is in class still.
It's about 1/4 to 8 in the evening (localtime).

I'm tired now. I need some rest. I need to work hard
tomorrow doing things that I do not really enjoy.

But this I enjoy. Expression feels good.

I'm not quite so brave to pour my emotions into this as
my wife has done, but I think I'll come around to doing
that as well.

I was going to study POE (Perl Object Environment). Which
is a very creative method of making neat things happen :)

Of course, I don't need POE to get stuff done and
to enjoy playing, but it makes things so very interesting.
Instead, I'm writing to an anonymous audience from my own
semi-anonymous space.

Is this addictive or theraputic? Or both? One can get
addicted to therapy, or so I hear.

Strange. I just read the last two lines in the imaginary
voices of woody allen and mia farrow- funny?

Silly.

I want to use this thing for talking to myself.. post ideas
for me to see later, but Instead I'm talking you.
Well, I guess I'll have to deal with it.

class

Tonight I will be studying on my own while
my wife will be in class dealing with CISCO routers.

While her work is organized and directed in class, mine is personal; a kind of educational itch.

Last night, she showed me a blog my a programmer (will have to see if i can find it again). The title of that particular post was something like Self Evaluation or
some such. In it, this person discusses his (her?) layoff this past year and talks about deciding whether or not coding is the way to go- does he like it enough? Is it what he
really wants to do with his life? etc.....

I wish i cold find that blog..... *sigh*.

Any way, where am I going with this? I guess I’m getting at myself going through what
might be a similar process, although a bit backwords.

A few months ago, I wrote a coupl of programs to help get information from one place to another. In helping other people to get their work done, I found myself really trying hard to make something worth while. I started paying attention to real software developement. Now all the code I wrote doesn't amount to more than a hundred lines, but who cares? I was (am) hooked! All I want to do is code (that's an exaggeration of sorts). All I need is an "itch". Doing something for someone
is a fantasticway to get that "itch" and dig into a problem in order to solve it.

It’s going to be three o'cklock soon, so I’ll have to go back to work.

This will be continued.

Typing. Two in a room.

My wife is typing away at her blog... i wonder what she's writing? Here I am doing the same, but with less focus. No focus.

Just more typing. Oh dear.. got to go return Girl With a Pearl Earing.

ttfn...

she-bang!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use bedtime::taking_a_nap;


print"sleeping soon";

My gods!!! My wife is reading blog stuff to me-> it's disturbingly funny!! how can this be so very very very addictive? Of course, going to have to concentrate on writing this- but it's so hard to do that!!! EGADS!! tmtm.blogspot.com She's reading this one blog by a person who loves to talk about work. tmtm blog. It's hilarious!!! Ok. enough of that....

This evening I got to go to a local Perlmonger meeting... great chance to learn nifty programming skills which I most sorely lack :) (my wife is /still/ reading to me *laugh*) Well, we mostly talked about meta-topics... how to get younger folk interested in programming in general and Perl/GNU/Linux especially. We also discussed future presentation topics- inclusive of a talk on neural-nets and latinized perl (mine- if i get around to it :) ) oh!!! Almost forgot! Bruce Perens is going to be in the area this weekend. If i get around to it, it'll be fun to see what's up :) What else? Not much to speak of, but I think that I'm happy with things over all.

One thing I am not happy about it the uncertainty of getting a page off this 'blogspot' on occasion it blinks out- gods help us if it gets slashdotted.... Over all, I think that this is a good service and a good idea. I've seen:::::: Politics, Stories, Rants, Talks, Teaching... Notes (that's me!!!) What a good and right way.

Wilson. Politics. Slow. Time.

Earlier today (noonish) listened to the Diane reams show (spelling?) (URL?) and hew discussion with a man by the name of... (something) Honoré (i hope that's the right mark over the 'e') about his book titled In Praise of Slowness. The act of /not/ hurrying has got to be one of the most useful and healthy ideas for those of us stuck in the industrialized world. (more on this later)

Then you have Fresh Air; another talk show with a bit more structure to it and without folk calling in. Former ambassadore (something) Wilson was discussing the damage that the Bush administration has done to his life and to his wife's carrier in the CIA. I have very little time left here, so I will have to continue this in the future. for Better or worse, I must 'hurry' in my work today- none of this sloweness for me!!

Time. have little of it... maybe i'm getting silly.

Envy.

I lack the skills of other bloggers.
unfortunate.

I'd like the oportunity to improve the structure of this place, but the things i need to learn are nearly out of my reach. It's time. Allways time that limits what we do. I think 'slow' is a good word to think about.

I have five minuntes left before i go back to working. I am behind in my go game *sigh* but it's lots of fun! let me think a bit... I've forgotten how to format tables... sad.... two minutes left..... testing this blockquote thing... this is new to me. I see... usefull!! :)

chao..

willy

begin()

Nothing more than a test post, or a self introduction to to this format.

after seeing the post on slashdot.org about Google folk putting up
blogs here, i decided to go ahead and place something of my own.

One nice effect of this is the chance for me to keep online notes for
easy review. :) I'll be able to pass ideas from work to home and
back with far less personal effort :) yes- there is no privacy with that, but i don't think that's a problem.


bien ^_^