Hrmf.
Well, this week is deconstructing itself in a polite fashion. Nothing bad has happened, but I'm about three days behind on projects. sigh One of these days, I will be on schedule!
A glimpse into the future, in 2044: Well, this year is deconstructing itself in a polite fashion. Nothing bad has happened, but I'm about three years behind on projects. sigh One of these decades, I will be on schedule!
Sounds about right, right?
The Question of God
I started watching PBS's special the Question of God tonight. It aired here in St. Louis at 2:00 A.M. on two Fridays in September since KETC was running a pledge drive. I obviously didn't watch it live, so now I'm watching a recording of it. So far, its pretty good, although mostly biographical information on the two key people of the special — Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis.
I'll post more on it when I get farther along in it.
Getting Stuff Done
Windows, Windows, Windows. Well, I got the final computer taken care (mostly — I need to check into where the Microsoft Office CD for it went), no thanks to Windows XP which formatted over itself once mid-way through the setup process. Now I just need to call Microsoft's friendly operators to get permission to keep using this $180 product after the end of the next 30 days. Did I ever mention that I don't like Windows?
Invoicing. I'm still waiting to get that invoicing problem fixed. The owner of the company that makes WHMAP is personally working on it for me, which is nice. Clients seem to be getting invoices, which is another big plus — afterall, if that doesn't happen, invoicing software isn't too useful, now is it?
Paper trail. In other news, I also have almost finished a piece dealing with philosopher John Hick's view of the multiplicity of religions. For anyone bored and looking for a way to kill a few minutes, I might just post it online. One paper down, one half-way done, two a quarter of the way done, one not started and three weeks to go. Not too bad.
Two Dells Down, One to Go
Well, concerning the computers I mentioned awhile back, I've finished up with two of them and I have one to go. The two new laptops have been configured, save for Microsoft Office on one (I need to go get the license key from the church office). Now, I just need to get the old desktop refreshed with a new copy of Windows XP and all will be as well as it can be with Windows.
The laptops are nice. Frankly, I think they over-ordered, but hey, who am I?
Whoops!
For the simple reason that I want to keep my mailbox from just filling up my server's hard disk as it pleases, I have a quota of 200 megabytes on it (I keep a copy of messages on the server so that I can use IMAP to access my box from different locations). Unfortunately, I forgot to pay attention to the fact that I was approaching 200 megs of messages until this morning when my mail box traffic seemed a bit slow and my message rules weren't moving things into the right folder. Stupid me!
At any rate, if anyone tried to send me an e-mail message recently, would you please resend them?
Comments Working...
And you ask what kind of news is that? Comments have been working on asisaid since November 2002, months before it was even asisaid, right? Yes. But they weren't working in my next generation blogging software. Now the software properly retrieves comments from its database — the only thing left to do concerning commenting is setup a way to add new comments.
After I complete that, I may try to write a script to pull the data out of the encoded text files that the blog is in now and move it into the new script's SQL database. Of course, some things are still missing in the new code base — trackback support being the biggest of those features. On the other hand, it supports searching previous posts, which is nice.
At the point that I get the code operational, it will be the first significant modification to my blog's code since the aforementioned addition of comments and a more traditional layout and navigation system two years ago next week. I really need to do this — with the plain text file that stores the actual entries growing to over a megabyte in size, it is no longer efficient by any means. To draw the front page, the script must work through that whole megabyte of entries plus read the complete text of the last 15 posts' comments and trackback files so that it can generate the numbers of comments and trackbacks that go under the title. SQL can do all this much more efficiently.
More importantly, asisaid is going to become a test bed of this software for OfB. In the end I'd like to nuke PHP-Nuke and switch OfB over to this new system as well (for security reasons).
Eduardo -- it is your fault!
Yes, it is all his fault that I found this out.
Grrrrrrrrr.
Classic Humor
This gives me a smile each time I read it — particularly the closing couplet.
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay,
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite—
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”— Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, I
Why the poetry tonight? Well, I'm working on an end of semester poetry project, albeit not dealing with our friend Sidney (although I'll consider my work perfected if I manage to fit in at least one reference to his Defense of Poesy where it is actually meaningful). My poet vicit… errr… subject is Archibald MacLeish — another likable poet. As I'm writing this, I'm staring at a big stack of books by and about MacLeish that have made their way here from across the state through the MOBIUS interlibrary loan system. Sounds like a good weekend project, eh?
Bush Promotes Him Again: I need to do a post on Alberto Gonzales as well. I can't really find much of a record (it seems he doesn't have a huge public record), but he looks like a strict constructionist, as far as I can tell. He also sounds like he might be a bit less of a lightening rod than Attorney General Ashcroft. Certainly, I think the president will retain more political capital with this choice than if he had found an Ashcroft, Jr. Ed, I think, is right though — the AG's seat does turn people into monsters… maybe more frequent turnover would be a good idea.
Spoke too Soon
I'm now being invaded by dozens of zero dollar invoices coming from cyberspace.
I think I will just go to bed for now.
