March, 24, 2004 archives

it has been over two years since the last release of colobus, my nntp server written in perl that runs on top of ezmlm archives. this new release just incorporates a couple of accumulated bug fixes and tiny features.

i have a proof-of-concept version that uses a mysql backend. i’ll get that code folded in and cleaned up and make a 2.0 release some day.

the videos of the sawstop device are pretty cool. it’s a device that cuts the power and puts on the brakes to the saw blade when something with the wrong electrical properties (like a finger) touch it. (via boing boing.)

no one is happy who does not think himself so.

some notes on character encoding issues. this is the sort of stuff i plan on covering in my talk at the o’reilly open source conference, with a focus on the practical issues of dealing with it from php and mysql. (via simon willison.)

i have to say i was pretty disappointed by eastern standard tribe by cory doctorow (author’s website, including free electronic versions).

the story didn’t really seem to get moving until half way through the book, and ultimately the world he creates just isn’t as interesting as in his first novel, down and out in the magic kingdom.

i think another problem i had with the book is that i just didn’t find the central idea very well developed, or all that intriguing. and you might think i would, considering that i work with people in far-flung timezones, many of whom work schedules that are warped to sync up with non-local timezones. and i regularly use irc to coordinate and socialize with coworkers.

mark pilgrim’s article on determining the character encoding of a feed touches on more stuff related to my practical i18n talk.

here’s another essay on UTF from tim bray.

(don’t mind me, i’m just making sure i’ve marked some of these articles for future reference when i actually start to write said talk.)