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The other day ...
dude: always nice to look at pretty girls.
me: no one thinks of asking the girl if it's nice or not.
dude: ...
iTunes seems to favour Carmina Burana tonight.
Posted by sniffles at 01:21 AM | Comments (2)
I am stuck somewhere under piles of emails, the motivation to code, a design floating somewhere between a Photoshop file and a Fireworks file, many blogs I've neglected to read and a clogged toilet. At least the toilet got unclogged.
I need to unclutter my brain. Excuse me while I get my head in order.
Posted by sniffles at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)
We serve antipasto way past bedtime: Sleep like ...
Posted by sniffles at 01:24 AM | Comments (0)I'd forgotten to mention - whilst at the cinema, among the trailers we got to see included Master and Commander and Seabiscuit.
Note the following text which appeared in each trailer:
Master and Commander: And the hopes of a nation ... are in the hands of one man
Seabiscuit: The dreams of a nation ... rode on a longshot
Honestly, is there some sublimal message being transmitted, or are writers running out of imagination?
Posted by sniffles at 07:02 PM | Comments (6)
At this fairly expensive restaurant, all was well - we'd experienced a fantastic entrée, the wine was perfect - until my main course of seabass arrived on a plate which had brightly painted fish all around the edge. Brightly painted as in orange, yellow, pink, blue, maybe touches of green, though by that stage, I was so blinded by the plate that I could barely taste the food, let alone remember the number of colours. Rather unfortunate, because the seabass was very nicely done. Mind you, the only way I could really tell was to eat with my eyes shut. Apart from being reminded at every mouthful that it was truly fish I was eating, the clash of colours spoiled the presentation; the delectable sauce of raisins and pine nuts looked extremely dull and uninteresting, as did the accompanying spinach which was cooked to perfection. Such a shame! Good food can be so easily ruined by the abuse of aesthetics.
The dessert was lovely, but we were rushing off to see The Hours, and decided to skip the coffee.
I enjoyed The Hours very much - a solemn film addressing choices, especially in the lives of women. The music is by Philip Glass, whose minimalism never fails to surprise me with its sensitivity, persistency and intensity. No reedy panflutes or prescribed orchestral crescendos here.
Posted by sniffles at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)It's puzzled me for a while - who learned nursery rhymes, and who didn't. I've had too many experiences of casually referring to a nursery rhyme and getting blank looks back (or the virtual equivalent). Today, I had to explain "home again, home again, jiggety jig". My own circumstance was a little unusual - most of the children from my hometown are not likely to have encountered a wide array of nursery rhymes. My mother managed to get whole lot of pretty posters filled with rhymes when I was maybe 4 or 5, and she'd put them all around my bedroom - perhaps they were supposed to help me to learn to read. Wonder if that really helped?!
Abstain for peace (via Karl): There are too many females pushing the testosterone bandwagon. I read an article today by a "chick" who thinks war is the "grown-up" thing to do. She went so far as too chide the protestors as though they are just simple minded youngsters, left-overs from the sixities who are just not "grown up" enough to make a choice for peace, but those who are grown up should know to support the war. Well, sister, even morons grow up.
This wouldn't be the first instance I have heard where someone thinks that protesting is a "dumb thing to do". But if 150,000 people in Montreal thought so, there wouldn't have been 150,000 people showing that they are not happy about the war last Saturday. Nor 200,000 in Melbourne, somewhere around 500,000 in Sydney, nor millions around the world. You can take part in surveys and hope that whoever conducts the survey doesn't manipulate the statistics to say what they want to say, or you can use your physical presence to voice what you believe in.
Posted by sniffles at 06:58 PM | Comments (1)me: what kind of guitar do you play?
dude: a beige one.
Heehee.
Posted by sniffles at 09:55 PM | Comments (3)Karl remarked that practical aesthetics is, in fact, "design".
It is interesting to note that most designers in recent times - Web designers or not - are seeing themselves as artists, when in fact the act of designing is perhaps essentially closer to engineering - engineering which is workable, usable and looks good. It is, after all, a discipline of creating practical, aesthetically-pleasing solutions. How did so many of us end up forgetting the "practical" bit?
So anyway, here's how to know thyself through thy dish-stacking habits. My darling sister, for example, is more the artist than I. The dishrack looks like a piece of modern art after she's done, and you really don't know where to begin to put the dishes away without breaking anything.
Posted by sniffles at 12:53 PM | Comments (5)
There. I was accused of stacking dishes according to aestheticism - honestly, it was the only way to make everything fit whilst in a stable drying condition! The tall blue glasses (seen behind the small white mug) only stand well to the supported side of the rack (i.e. the left), and you can't put two of them on top of one another because the edges are not straight. It's a waste of space to place them side by side, because you can't easily balance anything on them to fill available rack space. Hence the plates to support the tall glasses and whatever I can fit in between, which happens to be small white mugs. Practical aesthetics, maybe?
Posted by sniffles at 12:31 AM | Comments (1)Conquistador of Mexico
The Zulu and the Navaho
The Belgians in the Congo, short memory
Plantation in Virginia
The Raj in British India
The deadline in South Africa, short memory.The story of El Salvador
The silence of Hiroshima
Destruction of Cambodia, short memoryShort memory, must have a short memory
Short memory, must have a short memory
-- "Short Memory", Midnight Oil
Posted by sniffles at 12:34 AM | Comments (2)
When we ducked underground for brunch at midday, the streets were still more or less empty. At a quarter to one o'clock, people had begun to pour out of buildings, and my heart skipped three miles high when it became obvious that almost everyone in sight was headed for Dominion Square. (Indymedia cam.)
Around 150,000 people marched in Montreal today, to add to the tally of protestors in cities around the world:
London: 1.5 million | Rome: 1.5 million | Barcelona: 1 million | Madrid: 1 million | New York City 500,000 | Berlin: 500,000 | Melbourne: 200,000 | Athens, Greece: 200,000 | Montreal, Canada: 150,000 | Dublin, Ireland: 100,000+ | Begium: 100,000 | Paris: 100,000 | Sweden: 100,000 | Jakarta: 100,000 | Amsterdam: 80,000 | Montevideo, Uruguay: 50,000 | Thessaloniki, Greece: 40,000 | Sao Paulo, Brasil: 30,000 | Bern, Switzerland: 30,000 | Japan: 25,000 | Budapest, Hungary: 20,000 | Vienna: 20,000 | Iruņea, Basque Country: 20,000 | Buenos Aires, Argentina: 15,000 | Rio de Janeiro, Brasil: 15,000 | Helsinki, Finland: 15,000 | Johannesburg: 10,000 | Auckland, NZ: 8-10,000 | Sydney, Australia |
I was reminded of of the fact that when you are shorter than average, it's not particularly helpful when attempting to take photographs in crowds (or see, or hear, for that matter). Not that the -20°C weather (-30°C with windchill) was any form of encouragement, but it was a beautiful day bursting with sunshine and people united in a common cause, even if they might have differed in opinions given the slogans on placards in sight. A lady came up to us, took a picture, and began telling us about wearing white scarves for peace.
My feet were frozen blocks of ice before long. Pausing for a hot chocolate at a cafe packed with people stopping for a break, it seemed that many protestors had the same problem. A girl had her feet tucked under her mother's coat, borrowing body warmth. Someone else was doing the same with the help of a friend. I tried to massage life back into my own feet, but to little avail. The hot chocolate warmed my body but the heat didn't reach beyond my knees.
Mike was there, and we were spotted by the silverlady. Karl had more success than I at taking photographs, armed with a peace-loving cow on his head.
Posted by sniffles at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)The questions I've been getting: "Did anything special for Valentine's day?" "Got anything special for Valentine's day?"
Why? Every day is special. If you really want to know, we ate at a food court and shopped for thermal underwear.
A thought did occur to me later though. If they hired more Monica Lewinskys at the White House, and do something (ahem) about the level of testosterone, or whatever else is responsible for the dumb animal urge to fight, maybe we mightn't have to worry about a war.
Posted by sniffles at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)
Blork blorked an interesting essay on the "shock and awe" war strategy.
The other day, I ran into a combat-wounded veteran who fought in the Vietnam war.
"Back broken in 7 places and shrapnel wounds to left side, left arm and leg," he said. "A part of my life that haunts me to this day. It is amazing what governments can get foolhardy young men to do when they believe that they are saving lives. No veteran of any war would want anyone to genuinely know or experience those feelings - you can see the extremes of humanity from the darkest evil to the most heroic most caring acts. What is the eye opener is when you discover you are capable of both and have been on either side of that spectrum where others only imagine they might be able to go."
Fearing that any comment I could have made would be stupid, shallow or trivial, perhaps all three, I asked, "Why wouldn't you want anyone genuinely to know?"
And he replied, "Because you do not need to go through that or to experience it - no one should ever have to. There is no way to verbalize it and the elements in a way that can be felt, smelled, heard, tasted, seen and internalized except to have been there. That is why the combat wounded veterans from all the wars can so well understand each other. You know it is the politicians who send the young off to war and almost always they have never experienced it."
He's now advocating for adequate care and treatment of veterans and learning to ski in a sit-ski.
I'll be off at the march for peace tomorrow - I'll see you there too?
Posted by sniffles at 11:49 PM | Comments (3)Boris presented me with a problem yesterday: how to extract certain values from a plist XML document.
This isn't nice, semantically meaningful XML - for example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<array>
<dict>
<key>Date</key>
<date>2003-02-10T16:14:16Z</date>
<key>HTML</key>
<string>Hello!</string>
<key>Identifier</key>
<integer>10</integer>
<key>Message</key>
<string>Hello!</string>
<key>Outgoing</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>Type</key>
<integer>1</integer>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>Date</key>
<date>2003-02-10T16:14:25Z</date>
<key>Identifier</key>
<integer>10</integer>
<key>Message</key>
<string>Salut!</string>
<key>Outgoing</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>Type</key>
<integer>1</integer>
</dict>
</array>
</plist>
From this, I've been asked to extract 'date', the contents of 'string' just after a key which contains 'Message', and the contents of 'integer' just after a key which contains 'Outgoing'. So an extract from the above example would look something like:
Date: 2003-02-10T16:14:16Z
Message: Hello!
Outgoing: 1
Having to rush out to Rigoletto, I first implemented a couple of really bad solutions in Perl (#1 and #2) - I got as far as printing the results as text and not HTML (which is a small step away hence not a big deal). However, I didn't like the look of these.
So, after getting my head a bit more around XSL - trying to work out how on earth I'm supposed to select the value of an element based on the value a sister element - this is what I got, with the main part looking like this:
<xsl:template match="/plist/array">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Plist to HTML</title>
</head>
<body>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*" />
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="dict">
<p>
<strong>Date:</strong> <xsl:value-of select="date" /><br />
<xsl:apply-templates select="key" />
</p>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="key">
<xsl:if test="text()='Message'">
<strong>Message:</strong> <xsl:value-of select="following-sibling::string" /><br />
</xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="text()='Outgoing'">
<strong>Outgoing:</strong> <xsl:value-of select="following-sibling::integer" />
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
Within the <dict> container, we print the value of <date> as we see it. Then we do something special at the level of <key>. When we see a <key> which has 'Message' in its text, we just print the next <string> we see, using the 'following-sibling' axis. Same goes for 'Outgoing'. Here's the dirty evidence, done using PHP.
You know, it worries me a little bit when the solution looks so simple. :)
Btw, here's a friendlier link to this entry.
Posted by sniffles at 01:54 PM | Comments (8)You know you are beyond help when XML appears in your dream as part of the storyline.
Boris Johnson's opinion on the Franco-German "bid for peace". Suffice to say, no country's intention is pure - each have their own interests, that's not difficult to see. I simply hold the view that trying to blow each other up isn't really going to achieve anything for humanity in the long term.
How about we contemplate peace for a moment? (This site also has an excellent monthly timeline.)
Posted by sniffles at 12:42 PM | Comments (0)John Howard's statement about national security (via waferbaby). There's one particularly nice bit: Australians respect and understand the many cultures and religions that make up our society. Now, more than ever, we must work together to make sure no religion or section of our community is made to feel a scapegoat because of the actions of a small number of fanatics.
Want some tapioca-flavoured biodegradable plastic bags? Perhaps not recyclable for bubble tea ...
(Horror) stories of language teaching in Japan. (Merci, Olivier.)
Canada gave Bangledesh a nasty surprise.
Gulf war 2, on idleworm.
I &heart; XML::XPath. I should probably sleep.
Posted by sniffles at 01:31 AM | Comments (0)The lamp on my desk is almost a smaller version of the streetlamp outside, the same gracefully bent head, the same bubble of electric light harnessed and fastened to a hood. Anonymous dust carousing under tungsten in time with the snow, dancing shyly under the sodium.
He'd said last night that there was barely any light to see me by, and that it was probably bad for my eyes. Though, truth being, my eyesight hadn't gotten any worse in years, much to the constant surprise of my optometrist (who was very lovely and had sent me replacements for the faulty contact lenses). I'd harboured a secret and silly pride that my less-than-perfect eyesight was originally due to reading in places that were too dim and not due to computer screens.
There are days where one hides between pages of books, between lines of code where whitespaces seem to have more consequence than existence. The violin wails on the radio accompanied by the traipsing piano. She asks me what colour should she get married in? Rummaging through memories, I remember only my insignificance.
Posted by sniffles at 07:09 PM | Comments (2)
I got a letter from my grandfather telling me not to be first in my class because only Jews are first. I wrote him and told him I wasn't first, but even if I was, there are no Jews here. We have a few Catholics, but they're not too smart, actually. I don't think you can be smart and Catholic at the same time.
-- "Love Letters", A. R. Gurney.
Thoughts rob me of sleep, but not for long. There is pleasure in dozing with the knowledge that there is sun on the wall just outside the bedroom window, and that in half an hour when I get to the point of rousing myself, half the red bricks will be bathed in gold.
Yesterday was a day for peculiar IM conversations. Take for example:
dude: i was just saying to myself usually girls like you are pretty hard to be around ....lol ( i suppose) i am sort of like you but in MALE version
me: and what does 'girls like me' mean? :)
dude: usually i am a pretty goood judge of caracter and just the fact you told me you were a poet means that you have a strong since of knowing what you want and where your going so ,.. to make it short you are one of the 5 %
dude: welcome to the club
me: *chuckle*
dude: if you didnt understand what i just said tell yourself this 5% control, 5 % know the that the other 5 % control but cant do nothing and 90 % ignore everthing
me: ahh. right.
me: well i don't know whether I know what I want and where I'm going.
me: so perhaps i'm not who you think i am?
dude: well you are young then
dude: and by the way age does play a big role
me: no
dude: depends the amount of IQ behind those eyes
me: ah, how much do you think i have ?
dude: not more than 18
me: tsk.
dude: and tell me then how old are you really ??? for sure your the same range as me
dude: whats up with you and your age ?? do you have issues ?? lol
me: nawww, i'm just tired of the fact people start asking about my age within 30 seconds of saying hello
me: it gets very dull.
dude: dull ...
dude: ahhh
dude: ok
me: anyway, i think after a certain age, age doesn't matter anymore.
dude: you are such a cliche
me: thank you very much ...
I'd taken to saying "I'm a poet" yesterday whenever someone asked me "what do you do?". I think tomorrow I might just say "I am a cliché."
Posted by sniffles at 05:10 PM | Comments (1)Over instant messaging, a random dude initiated a conversation:
dude: how r'u?
me: i'm pretty good. you?
dude: i'm fine thanx
dude: where r'u from
me: Australia.
dude: where in autralia plz
me: melbourne
dude: ewwwwww
dude: too far
dude: bye
dude: i'm so sorry
me: ...
There's a sob story in the NY Post titled "How Dare The French Forget".
Take a glimpse into the history of how the French came to the aid of Americans in the war of independence against Great Britain, way back in 1778.
Posted by sniffles at 03:06 PM | Comments (2)Late peace bid by France and Germany.
The same story, but reported by the NY Times. Note the subtle contrast in focus and viewpoint.
Posted by sniffles at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)
One morning in Toronto, I was in a cafe from which the above graffiti was in full view. Every time I looked up at the wall from my breakfast, I heard a distinct middle C in my head, with the sound of an electric piano much like that on an '80s Casio keyboard. A musician's madness.
We serve anti-war antipasto: The Humanity Chorus.
Current conflicts/wars in the world today.
Montreal March for Peace on Saturday, 15 Feb @ 1pm.
Posted by sniffles at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)Cricket World Cup 2003 begins on Sunday in Cape Town. And you know what, Canada has a team in it. The profile is, unfortunately, somewhat lacking in information - compare that to the Australian team. (And the website sucketh in implementation, but I am anal after all.) From a page in the mag that Dunstan has so graciously sent me: Canada do not have one-day international status, and since their only World Cup appearance was in 1979, statistics are outdated. The squad are based in Toronto and practise on three indoor nets, and they are coached by former West Indies batsman Gus Logie.
On the Sunday Telegraph today:
Lipogrmmtic Works of Fiction. Thnks, Dunstn, though unfortuntely, not using the first letter of 'pple' would brek URIs!
Posted by sniffles at 01:44 AM | Comments (0)I hardly notice the cold anymore, except when my nose starts to run and I'm having to fumble for a piece of tissue with gloves on. I guess I am acclimatising. Still, I am wary of catching a cold or a little worried that this cough of mine isn't going to go away.
One gets better at distinguishing slush from asphalt - believe me, it's difficult when you are not used to the shape of street corners. One gets better at avoiding patches of ice.
He said, "We should go ice-skating ..."
I said, "Errr."
When you haven't grown up around snow or have a family who is in any way enthusiastic about snow, you don't think about snow-related activities. I don't surf either, and I loathe sea water. For a water-sign, I much prefer dry land. Perhaps I was a cat in a past life, leading some kind of leisurely existence.
Tonight, the city wears a thin coat of ice, delicately laced across places where grass would grow in summer, across footpaths or sidewalks or pavements, shimmering under the timid glow of street lamps. It's strange to think of it as frozen rain. I'm getting better at not slipping. I'm getting better at French too, but not quite well enough to distinguish three voices talking at once. Learning a language is about the ability to parse and to construct. A little at a time, so it goes.
Occasionally, I think about home, wherever home is. Lately, I dreamed often of a home of a childhood - a place which never truly existed the way it appears in my dreams. Every time, I would wake up feeling displaced, somehow unconnected to the air that I breathe. Perhaps home is a place I would like to go back to.
Posted by sniffles at 01:31 AM | Comments (3)
As they moved around the galleries together, she would say, 'But is this really art?' She'd been happier at the Kunsthistorisches.
After a while he said to her, 'I suppose art is what you find in art galleries.'
-- "Forty-Seventeen", Frank Moorhouse.
Toronto imposes itself upon you. It slithers under your shirt and stifles you with an impenetrable wall, the grey coat of heavy dusk. The English confused me - I never thought I would say that - my Friday companions had laughed at my apparent loss and flimsy grasp of reality, so I guess they never had the same experience.
The two of us had walked around, shopping for clothes and make-up, being uncharacteristically different and girly from the us we usually are. I bought clothes - when did I last buy clothes?! I went shoe-shopping the following day but all the shops had conspired and none stocked my size. We'd drunk martinis and later I wondered whether it was due to a subconscious Moorhouse influence.
On Sunday, I visited the Art Gallery of Ontario and met a familiar but nervous face. Head spinning from flu, I enjoyed primarily the works of Shirley Tse.
On Monday, I came home on the train and resolved to speak to no one; on the way up a man wouldn't stop talking to me nor leave me in peace, so this time I behaved much like furniture. With a book.
Last night, we dropped by on the Maid in Cyberspace festival. Unfortunately, the presentation space was sparse and much too big, the (very few) installations I found lacking in creativity or originality. Probably not worth your while, in all honesty.
YULBloggers gather and get drunk (ohm! really!) at La Cabane tonight. Get thee there and party-ee.
Posted by sniffles at 05:45 PM | Comments (0)