Computers: March 2005 Archives
John Gruber has a new version of a script to open lots of files in one window in BBEdit. The only one was harder, because there was nothing in the AppleScript dictionary for it, and the command line program couldn't do it.
I wrote a version in Perl, and the new version is quite a bit shorter:
I wrote a version in Perl, and the new version is quite a bit shorter:
#!/usr/bin/perlAlthough for command-line purposes, I'll use this Perl script, called bbeditm:
use Mac::Glue ':all';
my $bbedit = new Mac::Glue 'BBEdit';
$bbedit->obj(file => \@ARGV)->open(opening_in => enum('new_window'));
#!/usr/bin/perlI have some other similar scripts for BBEdit. One is for using as my default $EDITOR. You see, normally, bbedit(1) will open your files and return immediately. It has an option to wait, but if you set EDITOR='bbedit -w', some programs won't use it because $EDITOR is not executable. So, make an executable, called bbeditw:
system 'bbedit', '--new-window', @ARGV;
#!/usr/bin/perlSomething else I do a lot is pipe program output to BBEdit. To make this easier, bbedit(1) provides options to scroll up to the top of the window, instead of starting at the bottom, and another option to make it so I can close the window without telling it to not save, and I wrote bbeditd:
system 'bbedit', '-w', '--resume', '-c', @ARGV;
#!/usr/bin/perlMuch of the time I use this in the form of perldoc -t Mac::Glue | bbeditd or gluedoc -t BBEdit | bbeditd, so I shortened that, too, in bbeditp:
system 'bbedit', '--view-top', '--clean', '-t', 'Program Output', @ARGV;
#!/usr/bin/perl -s
our $g;
my $prog = $g ? 'gluedoc' : 'perldoc';
my $doc = shift;
open STDOUT, "|bbedit --view-top --clean -t $doc";
system $prog, '-t', $doc;
Regarding TorgoX's journal entry: remember the good old days, when it was the right wing that had pollyanna-ish views of the good old days?
Personally, I feel pretty good about the way the world is going, though I realize I'm in the minority. The economy is pretty good, the Middle East outlook is better than it ever has been in any of our lifetimes, standards of living around the world continue to rise dramatically, democracy and free speech are sweeping the globe.
Sure, there's a lot of problems, but when haven't there been? For most of the lifetimes of anyone older than me, we faced a far greater problem than anything we face today, with the constant threat of worldwide nuclear annihilation. For the rest of us, we've had worldwide poverty, lots of little wars all over the globe, cries of using up all our oil by next week or so, etc.
I cannot recall a time in my lifetime when a positive outlook of the world was pervasively felt. What makes now different? The only thing I can think of is that some people feel more negative than they did before. Well great, but other people feel more positive than they did before. Whoop-de-do.
Personally, I feel pretty good about the way the world is going, though I realize I'm in the minority. The economy is pretty good, the Middle East outlook is better than it ever has been in any of our lifetimes, standards of living around the world continue to rise dramatically, democracy and free speech are sweeping the globe.
Sure, there's a lot of problems, but when haven't there been? For most of the lifetimes of anyone older than me, we faced a far greater problem than anything we face today, with the constant threat of worldwide nuclear annihilation. For the rest of us, we've had worldwide poverty, lots of little wars all over the globe, cries of using up all our oil by next week or so, etc.
I cannot recall a time in my lifetime when a positive outlook of the world was pervasively felt. What makes now different? The only thing I can think of is that some people feel more negative than they did before. Well great, but other people feel more positive than they did before. Whoop-de-do.
So TorgoX quotes someone saying, "No [US] conservative has questioned whether the Executive Branch has the power to make an enemies list of suspects, without warrants, charges, proof, judges, juries, or convictions, and deny fundamental constitutional rights to the people on that list."
That's simply a lie. If nothing else, I am a U.S. conservative, and I question it, and many of my conservative friends and colleagues do, as well. Methinks someone doesn't really know what someone is talking about.
Now, no reasonably intelligent person questions the right of the executive to make lists, even of enemies. Anyone can make a list. What you do with that list is something else, and I don't know any U.S. conservative who does believe that it is acceptable to deny any Constitutional rights to anyone without due process. And even if you can find some, fine, but those are the exceptions, not the rules.
Of course, the person who said that also said that being restricted from travelling is a violation of his First Amendment right to speak, so we're not dealing with a legal scholar here. I have a lot of sympathy for people who don't want IDs, and also for the idea that we should have photo IDs required for certain things like voting. I like to think we can maybe come up with a compromise. Maybe make people who don't want a photo ID jump through extra hoops to validate their identity. I dunno.
On a different note, as to what TorgoX said about the 11th Commandment: he, too, has no idea what he is talking about when he speaks of it as the "highest belief" of U.S. conservatives.
In Washington, you cannot get help from the state Republican party unless you agree to the 11th Commandment. It's in the bylaws. Last year, for the first time, someone refused: a challenger to the frontrunner for the nomination to the U.S. Senate. As a result, he was not even allowed to speak at the state convention. It was put to a floor vote at convention, because we can overturn the rulings of the party at convention, by a rules change. The vote failed, but -- if memory serves -- 30-40 percent voted in favor of modifying the rules.
He, a political science professor -- and, FWIW, the far more conservative of the two candidates -- had a simple argument: he could not highlight the differences between he and the frontrunner without being critical. Duh. And while no one has ever been fined for violating the 11th Commandment by the state party, he could not in good conscience agree to it and then violate it, especially knowing he would violate it at the time of signing.
I agree, the 11th Commandment sucks. Last night the chairman of the state party told some people that they are looking at modifying that part of the bylaws, in some way. There's a lot of dissatisfaction in the party about it. There's something to be said for party unity, but there is surely a middle ground.
That's simply a lie. If nothing else, I am a U.S. conservative, and I question it, and many of my conservative friends and colleagues do, as well. Methinks someone doesn't really know what someone is talking about.
Now, no reasonably intelligent person questions the right of the executive to make lists, even of enemies. Anyone can make a list. What you do with that list is something else, and I don't know any U.S. conservative who does believe that it is acceptable to deny any Constitutional rights to anyone without due process. And even if you can find some, fine, but those are the exceptions, not the rules.
Of course, the person who said that also said that being restricted from travelling is a violation of his First Amendment right to speak, so we're not dealing with a legal scholar here. I have a lot of sympathy for people who don't want IDs, and also for the idea that we should have photo IDs required for certain things like voting. I like to think we can maybe come up with a compromise. Maybe make people who don't want a photo ID jump through extra hoops to validate their identity. I dunno.
On a different note, as to what TorgoX said about the 11th Commandment: he, too, has no idea what he is talking about when he speaks of it as the "highest belief" of U.S. conservatives.
In Washington, you cannot get help from the state Republican party unless you agree to the 11th Commandment. It's in the bylaws. Last year, for the first time, someone refused: a challenger to the frontrunner for the nomination to the U.S. Senate. As a result, he was not even allowed to speak at the state convention. It was put to a floor vote at convention, because we can overturn the rulings of the party at convention, by a rules change. The vote failed, but -- if memory serves -- 30-40 percent voted in favor of modifying the rules.
He, a political science professor -- and, FWIW, the far more conservative of the two candidates -- had a simple argument: he could not highlight the differences between he and the frontrunner without being critical. Duh. And while no one has ever been fined for violating the 11th Commandment by the state party, he could not in good conscience agree to it and then violate it, especially knowing he would violate it at the time of signing.
I agree, the 11th Commandment sucks. Last night the chairman of the state party told some people that they are looking at modifying that part of the bylaws, in some way. There's a lot of dissatisfaction in the party about it. There's something to be said for party unity, but there is surely a middle ground.
TorgoX has the best line of the week: "If the US outlawed trepanning, Chirac would run and get a drill."
TorgoX writes to criticize people who are reacting against evolution teaching. I can criticize them well too, but really, what's the point? The reason they react is because for so long they've had people criticizing their views. This is what happens: they push back.
For years, instead of saying, we don't know what happened, yes, there are many ways to reconcile the Genesis account with evolution and even the theory of natural selection, the establishment has instead ridiculed them backward-thinking crazy creationists. And guess what? Now they're pushing back.
That's how it works.
It's like the proposed gay marriage amendments to state constitutions we saw in November, all of which passed. People got tired of the courts pushing them around, so they voted for a bad law.
Same thing happened with the election primary here in WA. The courts -- rightfully, but no matter -- threw out the blanket primary, and instituted a primary in which you could only vote for the candidates of a single party, not pick and choose candidates. You know, like every other state, the point being that *parties* have a Constitutional right to pick their own candidate, and if you don't identify with the party, you have no business picking their candidate for them.
Well, the people didn't like being pushed around, so they pushed back, and voted for an initiative which results in LESS choice for the voter. Basically, it restores the blanket primary, and then the top two candidates, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election. This destroys choice in the general election (they say it is "better" choice), but at least they get to vote for multiple parties' candidates in the far less meaningful primary!
Except that the two major parties will exercise *their* right to hold a nominating convention, meaning that there will only be one candidate from each party on the primary, which gives the voters far less choice than any of them have ever had.
Now, you can argue that it is the right thing to have courts enforce gay marriage against the will of the people as expressed by their legislatures. And you can argue it is the right thing to say that creationism is stupid. And I can argue it is the right thing to abolish the blanket primary. But to bitch about the people when they react to your dissing them is just stupid. When you push at someone's views, realize that they might react negatively, and deal with it. Bashing them for it just makes them push back even more.
I could also note that in all of these cases, it's the use of the courts that causes most of the problem: the courts tell us we have to have gay marriage, or can't have creationism, or can't have a blanket primary. The voice of the people is ignored. The courts take over. People don't like it. Again, maybe the answer is "so what, it's the right thing." But bashing the people won't make matters any better; it probably won't even make you feel better about it, except briefly.
For years, instead of saying, we don't know what happened, yes, there are many ways to reconcile the Genesis account with evolution and even the theory of natural selection, the establishment has instead ridiculed them backward-thinking crazy creationists. And guess what? Now they're pushing back.
That's how it works.
It's like the proposed gay marriage amendments to state constitutions we saw in November, all of which passed. People got tired of the courts pushing them around, so they voted for a bad law.
Same thing happened with the election primary here in WA. The courts -- rightfully, but no matter -- threw out the blanket primary, and instituted a primary in which you could only vote for the candidates of a single party, not pick and choose candidates. You know, like every other state, the point being that *parties* have a Constitutional right to pick their own candidate, and if you don't identify with the party, you have no business picking their candidate for them.
Well, the people didn't like being pushed around, so they pushed back, and voted for an initiative which results in LESS choice for the voter. Basically, it restores the blanket primary, and then the top two candidates, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election. This destroys choice in the general election (they say it is "better" choice), but at least they get to vote for multiple parties' candidates in the far less meaningful primary!
Except that the two major parties will exercise *their* right to hold a nominating convention, meaning that there will only be one candidate from each party on the primary, which gives the voters far less choice than any of them have ever had.
Now, you can argue that it is the right thing to have courts enforce gay marriage against the will of the people as expressed by their legislatures. And you can argue it is the right thing to say that creationism is stupid. And I can argue it is the right thing to abolish the blanket primary. But to bitch about the people when they react to your dissing them is just stupid. When you push at someone's views, realize that they might react negatively, and deal with it. Bashing them for it just makes them push back even more.
I could also note that in all of these cases, it's the use of the courts that causes most of the problem: the courts tell us we have to have gay marriage, or can't have creationism, or can't have a blanket primary. The voice of the people is ignored. The courts take over. People don't like it. Again, maybe the answer is "so what, it's the right thing." But bashing the people won't make matters any better; it probably won't even make you feel better about it, except briefly.
Regarding the link to a Stan Freberg interview in TorgoX's journal, I would like to note that Elderly Man River is one of the funniest routines I've ever heard in my life.
I thought Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was a beautiful (though certainly flawed) movie. It was a bit gruesome in parts -- I, who have no serious problems watching violence in movies, had to turn away in one scene -- but so too was the actual event. A lot of people criticized the movie because the event, to them, is beautiful, and "Christianity is not about love, not violence."
But like much of Christianity, the crucifixion has a dual nature. It is not, as the great theologian Sam Donaldson said on ABC News, merely about love. It's about how that love was expressed: through suffering. Without the suffering, without the sacrifice, the event has no meaning. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, "by his scourging we are healed."
Accordingly, the song that follows (originally recorded by The Choir, then by The Lost Dogs) captures well the crucifixion's dual nature. Have a good Good Friday.
But like much of Christianity, the crucifixion has a dual nature. It is not, as the great theologian Sam Donaldson said on ABC News, merely about love. It's about how that love was expressed: through suffering. Without the suffering, without the sacrifice, the event has no meaning. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, "by his scourging we are healed."
Accordingly, the song that follows (originally recorded by The Choir, then by The Lost Dogs) captures well the crucifixion's dual nature. Have a good Good Friday.
Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified
Follow Christ to the holy mountain
Sinner sorry and wrecked by the fall
Cleanse your heart and your soul
In the fountain that flows
For you and for me and for all
At the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful, scandalous night
On the hillside you will be delivered
At the foot of the cross justified
And your spirit restored
By the river that pours
From our blessed Savior's side
At the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful, scandalous night
You carried the sin of mankind on Your back
And the sky went black
Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified
At the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful, scandalous night
On that beautiful, scandalous night
On that beautiful, scandalous night
Miraculous night
All linguists or wannabes should dig the eggcorns site. I just contributed one: "vale of tears" vs. "veil of tears."
Over at Slash Central, we are actually working on converting Slash -- including Slashdot -- over to XHTML + CSS.
I'm not kidding.
My current task is taking the code we have to massage your comment and journal text into somewhat reasonable HTML, and making it spit out perfectly valid XHTML. And then converting all existing comments to such valid XHTML.
I'm not kidding!
It's actually coming along well, better than I'd have thought. I took 1,000 random Slashdot comments and ran them through my code and, after fixing some bugs found in the process, got the number of XHTML errors from 7,000+ down to 0. And a side-by-side comparison shows them to still look mostly the same. There's a few small/necessary changes, like putting content inside an UL tag in an LI. Which was a HUGE pain.
A lot more to do, but the progress is encouraging.
I'm not kidding.
My current task is taking the code we have to massage your comment and journal text into somewhat reasonable HTML, and making it spit out perfectly valid XHTML. And then converting all existing comments to such valid XHTML.
I'm not kidding!
It's actually coming along well, better than I'd have thought. I took 1,000 random Slashdot comments and ran them through my code and, after fixing some bugs found in the process, got the number of XHTML errors from 7,000+ down to 0. And a side-by-side comparison shows them to still look mostly the same. There's a few small/necessary changes, like putting content inside an UL tag in an LI. Which was a HUGE pain.
A lot more to do, but the progress is encouraging.
I think we should find out who makes the Israeli Defense Forces uniforms, and sue them.. If they were naked, they could not oppress Palestinians! 
Mac-Growl-0.62 has been released. Download it from the CPAN or SF.net.
(Note: it may take time for the release to propagate to the various download mirrors.)
Changes:
(Note: it may take time for the release to propagate to the various download mirrors.)
Changes:
0.62 Thu Mar 10 21:53:19 2005Posted using release by brian d foy.
- Check installed Growl version in Makefile
- Allow user-selectable base method
- Make test names more sane
Mac-Carbon-0.72 has been released. Download it from the CPAN or SF.net.
(Note: it may take time for the release to propagate to the various download mirrors.)
Changes:
(Note: it may take time for the release to propagate to the various download mirrors.)
Changes:
* v0.72, 9 March 2005Posted using release by brian d foy.
Fix Makefile to work with latest ExtUtils::MakeMaker beta. (Michael Schwern)
Add OSAGetProperty/OSASetProperty to Mac::OSA.
In case you missed it, a recap: Bush is to blame for the massive foreign debt which has existed since before he became President. Don't forget it! And also, if anyone disagrees, just call them a wingnut and read some Krugman. Take deep breaths, they'll go away soon enough.
Mac-Growl-0.61 has been released. Download it from the CPAN or SF.net.
(Note: it may take time for the release to propagate to the various download mirrors.)
Changes:
(Note: it may take time for the release to propagate to the various download mirrors.)
Changes:
0.61 Mon Mar 2 10:06:30 20004Posted using release by brian d foy.
- Updated to Growl 0.6, Mac OS X 10.4
- Made images work with Foundation again
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
