Year: 2003

Weather. Again.

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 10, 2003

I decided I needed a weather category.

Nothing like waking up on a Saturday morning to the blare of the tornado warning system. I stumbled out of bed, trying to see anything out the window but the weather was quite calm. Going downstairs, my roommate already had the Weather Channel on. No need to grab the cat today, though.

The major part of the storm passed to the north of us. However, we got hit with the tail of it, with large hail, up to 3/4 inch or so in size, and a lot of water. At one point the road in front of our place was under about 4-6 inches of fast moving water.

As fast as it moved in, it was gone. The water’s starting to recede, and the birds are coming out from the trees. There’s a fresh breeze blowing a wonderful smell in through the windows.

This is all old hat to people born and raised in Tornado Alley, but rather interesting to a newcomer. I’m sure all of this will become commonplace eventually. In the meantime: wheeee!

Writing

What is it?

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 9, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I took my car in for its long overdue oil and filter change this afternoon. The place I use is right next to a Border’s (a book store) so I looked around there while waiting.

I don’t know if other authors do this or not, but every time I go into a book store that carries books like mine, I always check to see if any of my books are on the shelves. I am ashamed to admit that I never get tired of seeing a book with my name on it in the shelves.

I found the Unix Power Tools book, which isn’t surprising, as it is a popular book. However, finding it on the shelf leads me to a second shameful confession.

A popular book author told me years ago that a way to make a book stand out on the shelf is to pull it out slightly, so it’s no longer even with the surrounding books. This offsetting of the book encouranges people to look at it first, before the competitor books. Ever since hearing this advice, when I find one of my books on the shelves, I always pull it out a bit. I know, bad behavior. And I should be ashamed of my manipulation, and I really am. It’s a Evil Twin thing.

I didn’t find the Developing ASP Component book, which wasn’t surprising, it’s not doing well. The technology is over and done with, as is the technology for my other books I’ve worked on over the years. (The Perl CGI book lasted the longest.)

I looked for the Essential Blogging book, but wasn’t sure what category it would be placed in. Computers? No. Internet? Possibly. Desktop publishing? Again, possibly. I browsed through several sections but couldn’t find any weblog book.

The difficulty with weblog book classification reminds me of the conversations I have with job recruiters about the books I’ve worked on in the last year.

“So, you’ve written a couple of books. What are they?”

“Well, I was co-author for Unix Power Tools.”

“Unix! Great! What else?”

“I just finished a book on Practical RDF.”

“RDF?”

“It’s kind of a XML vocabulary for smart data.”

“XML Data! Great! What else?”

“I was also co-author for Essential Blogging.”

“Essential what?”

“Blogging.”

“What?”

“Blogging. Weblogging. It’s kind of a web publishing technology.”

“Web publishing! Great! Who’s the vendor?”

(pause)

“Microsoft.”

It’s times like these that I’m glad I’m not writing about technology any more.

RDF

The Enron executive who came in from the cold

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 8, 2003

It’s time for me to refocus back on the RDF Poetry Finder, and to that end I made a trip to my favorite place tonight — my local library. Among the prizes brought home are Folk Poetics: A Sociosemiotic Study of Yoruba Trickster Tales by Ropo Sekoni; Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris, and John Le Carré’s newest (for me that is), The Constant Gardener

I used to buy all the new Le Carré book’s for my father, who is a huge fan of his. I’d then borrow the books from my Dad to read, though this type of political suspense/thriller isn’t necessarily my favorite type of book. Still, I can admire a way with the written word, which Le Carré definitely has.

When I spotted The Constant Gardener, I checked the flyleaf to see what it was about. I was curious as to who could possibly be the new type of villain since so many of Le Carré’s stock and trade antagonists have turned out to be paper tigers. According to the cover:

A master chronicler of the deceptions and betrayals of ordinary people caught in political conflict, Le Carré portrays, in The Constant Gardener, the dark side of unbridled capitalism.

Oh my. Le Carré’s finally found a villain he can sink his teeth into and hold on for the rest of his career — western capitalism. Of course I had to bring the book home.

The Folk Poetics book covers Trickster from an African perspective and looks to be an effective blend of story and analysis, thorough but possibly a bit dry. As I was checking it out, I found that it also isn’t a popular book — it’s been in the St. Louis library system since 1994, but I’m the first person to have checked it out. It’s an old new book, with crispy, limp, dusty, fresh, bright, faded pages.

Anyway, back to RDF and the Poetry Finder now that the technician’s been silent, and the poets have had a chance to chat in my comments.

Weblogging

Trackback for the non-trackback enabled

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 8, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I created a Trackback form for pinging my weblog posts for those people who aren’t using Movable Type or some other Trackback enabled weblog tool (or don’t have a Trackback stand alone server) but who want to send a ping to the post.

In the main page, next to the Trackback counter is the link for the form — just click it and in the form page that opens, fill in your post’s information and push the submit button. In the individual pages, the Trackback form is next to the Trackback title in the appropriate section of the page.

Hopefully other Trackback enabled weblogs will provide this type of form for their own posts, as a courtesy not only for those who are kind enough to reference our posts in their own weblogs (or in an email list, wiki, or web site), but also for our readers so they can see everyone who is talking about the post.

A text version of my form page is here. All that you need is to change the look. If you don’t have PHP at your site, you’ll also need to change the process that pulls the Trackback identifier from the URL when the form is accessed.

Simple technical change. Lots of payback. Hopefully a minimum of abuse, but feel free to play with it a bit — I can delete test trackbacks today.

Enjoy.

Connecting

For Willow

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 8, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
Eager she wields her spade; yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
The tale he loves to tell.

Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
Empty of all delight!

Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
The heart-love of a child!

excerpt from Lewis Carroll’s, Dedication from “Hunting of the Snark”

Congratulations, Garth and Zoë, and a warm welcome to little Willow!