October 31, 2003
Server-side Web accessibility

Nick Kew has posted a very interesting proposal to engineer a means to handle Web accessibility on the server-side:

The basic approach is an HTTP proxy that rewrites webpages for accessibility:

1. To offer page rewriting options that strip presentational junk that commonly gets in the way of accessibility, whilst leaving page content intact.
2. To offer navigational aids such as automatic page outlines and link summaries, including options for information discovery by following page links.
3. Different pages present different problems, and a one-size-fits-all approach won't solve everything. Users must be empowered with a choice of different presentation options.
4. The system is fully compatible with any Internet browser, not just high-end ones, and requires no more action on the part of end-users than configuring their browsers to use it as proxy.
5. The system architecture is based strongly on speed and scalability, and should never become a bottleneck the user's experience of the web.

Posted by sniffles at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

October 30, 2003
Cold and broken

Poetry, above all things, is a beautiful painting whose tints, to minute inspection, are confusion worse confounded, but start boldly out to the cursory glance of the connoisseur.

"Letter to Mr. — —", Edgar Allan Poe.

Listening to a Leonard Cohen version of "Hallelujah", I noticed that the first verse which I'd quoted the other day (from listening to the Jeff Buckley "Live à l'Olympia" version on infinite loop) was ... "missing". I'm not a big Cohen fan, otherwise I probably would have known the answer.

It took the resourceful Tara to find this:

You know, I wrote this song a couple of ..., it seems like yesterday but I guess it was five or six years ago and it had a chorus called Hallelujah. And it was a song that had references to the Bible in it, although these references became more and more remote as the song went from beginning to the end. And finally I understood that it was not necesary to refere to the Bible anymore. And I rewrote this song; this is the "secular" Hallelujah. «Baby I've been here before..»

Personally, I prefer the mix of the secular and the sacred. Feels much naughtier somehow.

Posted by sniffles at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

October 28, 2003
The holy or the broken

Now I heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord,
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this the fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

-- "Hallelujah", Leonard Cohen.

Posted by sniffles at 11:32 AM | Comments (5)

October 23, 2003
Rust

you are silent in your speech
and I must attest to being
just like everyone else —
unspecial & hesitating
though I confess
                                                thoroughly
that I am merely
a part-time dreamer

Posted by sniffles at 11:20 PM | Comments (1)

October 21, 2003
Everyone can sing, anyone can whistle

There are people who are filled with such horror at the idea of a defeat that they keep themselves from ever doing anything.

-- "The Ethics of Ambiguity", Simone de Beauvoir.

The air is chilly, but not too cold. Still, I pull my beanie down over my ears, clutching at my umbrella. The school bus seems to be running late again, or perhaps I had left earlier than I realised. Overhead, clouds tightly woven hanging like a coat waiting for winter — it seems as if the sun did not rise today. But watch, mankind persists in heroic defiance; the streetlamps glow orange, headlights slice through the darkness between traffic signals alternating red, amber and green — or blue, if you are Japanese.

The rain coats the world in a silky gloss. The roads are cling-wrapped, sprinkled with red and gold confetti, and my new jeans are peppered with the demise of raindrops ...

He had asked me the night before over some squabble about pop literature, "You think a layman like me could be a scholar?" And in my perhaps-naive, optimistic way, I said, "Sure, if you're determined enough." He had laughed at me, striking out with sarcasm. So, he could sing like Pavorotti? To which I gave the answer given to me by a music teacher, words I have carried in my heart for ten years, "Everyone can sing, just not everyone can sing well."

Again, he laughed. Perhaps at my passion to live, to surpass existence. From this distance I could see the gaping emptiness inside him, but it frightens me more that he had grown up with it, gotten used to it, and now he can't see he had become little more than a shell of a human being. And he would gravitate to me, having nothing to say, having no thoughts. He didn't understand why I would bother listening to him, with all the pointlessness, the pain of lacking. I knew. When you live a life of passion, when you ride your days on fire, people are drawn to your light, but when they are not aware of themselves and their humanity, if they get too close — they could very well get burned.

"What are your dreams?" I'd asked. He had no answer. He didn't think he could answer. He merely told me I used nice words.

Posted by sniffles at 10:33 PM | Comments (7)

October 15, 2003
How much are you worth?

Fresh antipasto: Tailoring balance.

Posted by sniffles at 10:21 PM | Comments (3)

October 14, 2003
New old toy

I've been splurging a bit lately. I think it has something to do with having too many things taken away ...

Last Thursday, I saw this little gem which I couldn't say no to. It was sitting on top of a chest at the back of the basement in an antique shop, lonely and forgotten. I thought about it overnight, and decided that it would be a worthwhile purchase (especially since the shopkeeper agreed to sell it to me for lower than the marked price). So, now I own a typewriter — a pretty little Royal Junior. It wasn't too well looked-after, but being a hardy machine, after some squirts of WD-40 and a bit of brushing, it types quite well.

I have no idea of its exact year of production — the serial number is missing, and it's surprisingly difficult to find out information on this particular model of the Royal. After hunting through Google, this page produced some much-needed insight:

The ROYAL SIGNET, and a more expensive version called the SENIOR SIGNET, were produced only for a short time...and so was the other depression-era ROYAL, the JUNIOR, which was a simplified version of their regular portable.

And that was practically the only tidbit of information I found specifically on the Royal Junior. Based on texts by a couple of other owners, I guess it was produced around 1934 or 1935.

What will I do with it? No idea. :) Write some letters with it, perhaps. I just have to remember not to use it beyond 11pm. Might keep the neighbours up.

Posted by sniffles at 11:49 AM | Comments (9)

October 10, 2003
Between earth and sky

At 6:20 a.m., the moon is a bright silver dish suspended between earth and sky. I contemplate fumbling for the camera but the thought of having to struggle to open the windows to get a clear shot is less than appealing; in the end, the urge to keep dozing wins.

Through the thin mist of the morning, father and son are walking to school, hand in hand, singing a Japanese song out of tune with one another. Having seen "School of Rock" the night before — a light-hearted entertaining movie with social sensitivities (if rock's your thing) — I hum a vague tune in time to my footsteps. Squirrel cleans its tail. Squirrels chase around the trees and dig for hidden treasures. Mont-Royal has begun to don its autumn coat. It will be a lovely day.

Dunstan had asked, in context of the entry two days ago:

Steph, how much of your life do you let just happen?

You always seem to be peering around the corners of conversations, the meanings of people's comments, the way films present themselves, the things books fail to address, always looking to take them to bits.

Doesn't it exhaust you?

The true answer is, if your existence has never been challenged for being who you are, perhaps you never need to think. It doesn't take much to notice when you're being treated differently because of something about you that you were born with — your gender, your skin colour, your race, and even your age, relative to others around you. Then you begin to wonder why the world is the way it is.

Posted by sniffles at 11:00 PM | Comments (4)

October 08, 2003
Flying north for winter
I was on my way back to the office from lunch, and there was a guy selling all manner of stuff. Curiosity got the better of me, so I stopped and bought a couple of little things. Turns out that he's from Australia. "Really?" I said. "Where?" "Somewhere between Melbourne and Sydney." "Serious? I'm from Melbourne." "You're kidding?" said he. "Where in Melbourne?" That's a complicated question for me — I'd lived in various places in the South-Eastern suburbs. Finally, I said, "Near Caulfield" because it was easier than trying to remember the fricking long name of the last place I'd stayed in Melbourne. Then he asked me about the Caulfield races which I'd never been to. "Did I give you your change?" he suddenly asked. "I'm so absent-minded today. Too much beer." I laughed. And he went on to say, grinning, "Yeah they think we drink beer all the time, accounts for the absent-mindedness." Chuckling, I asked, "How many Foster's jokes have you had?" He'd just about flipped. "We don't even drink Foster's! Do you tell them that?" By this time, I was seriously grinning from ear to ear. "And we don't know who Steve Irwin is, and he's a hero here!" "Nah, we just ignore his existence," I said. "Where are you from, between Melbourne and Sydney?" "Oh yeah, that's right, I never told you. People don't usually know Australia, so I sometimes say I'm from Melbourne. Works until you get caught out by someone from Melbourne." He poked me in the shoulder. "Albury-Woodonga. Know it?" "Yeah. Got a friend who drives three hours and a half or so up that way to see his girlfriend every other weekend." Never mind that I haven't spoken to said friend for several years. He showed me some photos, having been around Canada for four months now, but I had to leave, work was calling ... I only had Foster's once, ever. It was in Paris, just before the blogmeet, partly for the humour value, and partly because I never actually tasted it, though I guessed it might not be too dissimilar to the Carlton Coldie. Well, that's probably my last ever Foster's — it's really not particularly good. Posted by sniffles at 02:03 PM | Comments (7)

Flowers and Chocolate
Maybe it began with Martine's post on "reverse sexism", or really something else, or maybe it's just a recurring topic with me, but it cropped up in a conversation with James a couple of days ago — how often we say sexist things — in this context, I mean comments which belittle women — without necessarily realising it. In my experience, this has mostly come from men (it might just be that I appear to hang around men more so than women), but women are also prone to saying the same about other women. Consider the "woman driver" phenomenon. Chances are pretty good that if a car comes screeching around the corner or halts very suddenly, or some other equivalent apparent clumsiness, and you happen to notice that it is a woman behind the wheel ... the phrase "woman driver" probably comes to mind. If it's a man, you'd probably think "idiot", but never "man driver". I've caught myself thinking "woman driver" more than just a few times, and as I became aware of the significance of it, I marvelled at the strength of stereotypes which has been so solidly instilled in my thinking all the way through my youth. In fact, I was not aware that there was anything wrong with this "paradigm" until I learned to drive, and I realised that I was, in fact, not at all a bad driver. I remember the day I was doing a hill start during a lesson and balanced the clutch and the gas so well that when I let down the hand-brake, the car neither rolled backwards nor lurched forwards — it stayed purring, ready to go. My driving instructor was suitably impressed. And surely there are other women like me. So whence did this "woman driver" thing come? And the worse thing is, even women buy the paradigm. If you begin to teach a woman how to drive but feed her negative things which make her feel stupid, of course she will make a nervous and unskilled driver. Try doing exactly the same to a man and see what kind of driver he becomes. So, I brought this point up in a discussion with James, and he mentioned that a study has proved that men have better sense of direction than women. I have to admit that I scoffed at that. For one thing, very few things have been abused more than the humble scientific method — it is not possible to conclude if the results of a study is accurate without knowing the original hypothesis, the method, and the sample on which the experiment or survey has been conducted. It only takes an inaccurate and insensible sample to void the experiment, depending on the hypothesis, and such "results" never include the margin of error that is present in every scientific experiment. Secondly, why on earth would someone conduct such a study in the first place? What would have been the point? To prove that one gender is better at another at a certain thing? And what would that achieve? Economic benefits? Did it have the underlying intention to convince women not to bother buying maps because they won't be able to read it? Somehow, I think not. I was still pondering about the particular study the following morning (in the shower, it's my thinking place), and thought that in fact, if the study really wanted to prove that men are more predisposed towards women in having a sense of direction, the study would have to be conducted on children, maybe around the age of 2 or 3, before the education of children takes on too much of a role which would introduce a heavy bias into the growth and development of a child, socially and biologically. I digress. I now cite two conversations that have happened to me recently: (talking about what we do, day-to-day, during our free-time) Me: Oh, I just tend to preoccupy myself with doing stuff. Guy #1: Do you preoccupy yourself because you recently broke up with your boyfriend? Me: I'm sleepy. Guy #2: Not sleeping well? Are you stressed? Me: Probably :) Guy #2: Are you stressed because you just broke up with your boyfriend? Me: Funny, why do you ask that? Guy #2: Well I don't know a 26 year-old lady might be stressed about. Now, I didn't scream at either of these two men. They were not at fault, they have merely absorbed the trash their society has fed them — an implication that a girl could be so terribly preoccupied with her man that she has not a life nor interests of her own. (Oh all you who know me well, laugh now!) The sad thing is, I have encountered enough instances of conversation like this personally to not even flinch. Heard at a bus-stop, between a Canadian man and a Malaysian or Singaporean woman: Man: Do you have to go home and cook? Woman: Um, no, I don't cook. Man: Oh, that's kinda cute. Me: (!!!) Woman: I can cook, but I don't cook very well. Man: How long have you been married? Woman: Since 1997. Man: Oh, that's a while. I just thought that seeing as you're married, you'd be making more of an effort ... Over the weekend, in a bookstore, I was looking for "The Ethics of Ambiguity" by Simone de Beauvoir. Storekeeper: People still read her? Isn't she just a pimp for Sartre? Alarm bells were ringing in my head as I walked out. Again, I didn't pick a fight, I was busy trying to decide if that was a sexist comment or not. In the end, I decided it was. If Sartre had a male partner in his personal and professional life, there would have been little question that both men developed their ideas together, if both wrote separately on the same ideas. Eventhough Sartre and de Beauvoir had an intellectual relationship, this somehow warrant that she ought to be questioned about her contribution to his ideas. The fact remains that many of these "givens" and "paradigms" still exist in our normal conversation today, whether we are men or women. It doesn't mean, as I tried to explain my point of view to James, that we can't joke about it, but it truly comes down to respect and "appropriateness", and context. Humour is something requires an entire investigation all by itself. And so I poured my thoughts out to the wise and witty Wena who nowadays greet me with "Coffee!!" instead of "Hi!" because she thinks I'm a caffeine addict. I complained that specifically amongst the Asian culture, where I keep meeting men who are not aware of the implications of their words, that some re-education is required. And the wise-and-witty-Wena said, "And women too." And women too. As women, we are still learning about our place in the world. Several thousand years of history is hard to change. It is necessary to learn to fight, but it is also just as important to learn when not to fight. "Respecting a woman" should never even be a phrase that comes to mind. It's certainly not about flowers and chocolate and candle-lit dinners. It should be about respecting a person for being a person in their own right. Posted by sniffles at 10:46 AM | Comments (20)

October 06, 2003
Yeah yeah
At the end of a discussion with a lecturer about introducing Linux systems and open source software to students: Lecturer: You're a geek! Me: Well ... Lecturer: But you don't look like one! I'm trying to decide if that's a compliment or not. On the topic of geekiness, some days ago Joe and I stumbled onto a concept one notch more geeky than "page-slapping" — the act of using a URL in an online conversation, usually by copying and pasting, as a means of explanation or reference — that being, the deliberate act of NOT dropping a URL during a conversation with another geek because you know (perhaps by a delayed response time or some geeky sixth sense) that they have gone off to google for the reference already, so there's no point in doubling the effort. Now, what's a good word for that? Posted by sniffles at 01:47 PM | Comments (7)

October 03, 2003
Broken seal
The days are getting chilly, of that there's little doubt. Each day I find myself donning an extra article of clothing — the second pullover, the scarf, the beanie, the gloves, even thick bushwalking socks. The worst thing is they haven't yet turned on the heating in most buildings, it's freezing at home and at work I sit at my desk fully dressed enough to step outside — maybe minus the beanie. Trudging home, weary and tired from the onslaught of too many small unpleasant things, heart full of rain, face half covered by the scarf, glasses fogging at every breath, I walk looking down, marvelling at the invisible histories of those who have walked here before me. Which is how I come to notice the crackle of blue in the ground. I toe it with my right foot, but it seems sealed into the sidewalk. Pieces from a broken mirror? It is blue and curiously buried into the concrete. How is it that I have never seen it before? I pass here almost every day ... Thinking that I ought to photograph it before it disappears, I keep on walking. Not today. The camera is with me, but the light and the shadows are all wrong. There is a time for everything, even for things which may be gone tomorrow. And there is a time for each photograph. As usual, I pass in front of the bookstore. I read the day's featured titles in the window. Sometimes I sneak inside just to have a look around, though today I proceed to walk straight home. Lately I've been coming out empty-handed anyway; I have three piles of unread books at home. Something is different about the shop today. I stop, trying to decipher why my subconscious tapped me on the shoulder, and stare at the facade for a full second. Usually bustling at this time of day, the bookstore seems lonely and empty, though maybe it's just that it's too dark to see inside without truly peering in. But for the first time in many months, the door is closed. I hesitate, feeling oddly shut out. Shall I go in? In my mind I see the shelves of books and smell the musty fragrance of paper. No, not today. I have errands to run, I need sleep. I shuffle the backpack on my shoulders and keep on walking. Today is a not-today kind of day. Posted by sniffles at 11:05 AM | Comments (5)