To RSS or not to RSS?
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OK, with me its a foregone conclusion that once I get latched onto an idea, eventually the techno-geek wannabe will win. Chasing down this RSS feed thing has taken most of the evening, even considering that I did a lot of the research last night. After several hours of digging and googling and assorted random bits of what one of my more polite co-workers refers to as "salty" language, I've got an RSS feed generator working and in the process, have found a new RSS feed aggregator that combines the best features of my previous favorites.

First, the "salty" language. Much to my ultimate annoyance, it appears that the "browser accelerator" provided by my ISP interferes with form submission pages. Since it compresses data, I guess that makes sense, but I spent a considerable amount of time unsuccessfully trying to get information submitted to web sites (more on that in a minute) to get this task finished, before it occurred to me to turn the thing off. Now, I'm not exactly sure that it was causing the problem, since it doesn't interfere with my on-line banking, but with it off, I got the pages submitted, so that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Second, the RSS feed aggregator. I'm now using Bloglines. This is a free (the number one criteria!) on-line service. It requires a "membership" which is basically giving them your e-mail address. Once you are a member, you can start adding RSS feed subscriptions on the "my blogs" page. This process is basically typing in the URL of the web site that you want the RSS feed from and Bloglines goes out to the web site and finds the RSS feed page for you. You can put your subscriptions in folders of your choosing. And if you aren't sure where to find web sites with RSS feeds you can do a topic search which will return web site results you can preview and subscribe to. Like Aggreg8 it operates in your browser (because it is a service on a web site). Like Amphetadesk, it gets all the feeds at once instead of you having to click on each one. According to the site information, it checks for updates once an hour (but since I'm still using dial-up, I'm usually not on-line that long, so it isn't that big a deal for me). So, basically I seem to have solved the RSS feed aggregator problem. Oh, and once you are set up, there is a "bookmarklet" that you can put on your toolbar or in your favorites file, which when you are at a website you want to subscribe to, allows you to click on the "bookmarklet" and subscribe without copying the site's URL to the Bloglines website.

Finally, the RSS feed generator. There are several programs out there, but I am severely limited by my ISP in what I can run. I don't have the ability to use self-generated cgi scripts and server side programs are right out. After quite a bit of searching, I found another free on-line service which generates the RSS feed for you. It also requires a "membership" which is basically your name, e-mail address and web site name. It is called RSS Publisher, and can be found at Blogstreet. I have to admit it is a little confusing to get set up, and I managed to get my feed set up with the wrong title and the first time I used it to generate a feed I got mixed up and thought I was supposed to be describing the web site, but now that I've done a couple of post descriptions and figured out how to use the "bookmarklet" gizmo they provide to make the description posting easier, I really like it. I don't know why, but the RSS feed thus generated can be read by Bloglines, but not by Aggreg8 or Amphetadesk. The weird part is that the RSS feed is at the Blogstreet server and is not a web page on my site.

So, now I'm generating an RSS feed and if you've got an aggregator that will read it, the link is in my sidebar. (Or, I'm hoping it is/will be because I've got to tweak my template now to include the links and buttons, etc.)

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, March 24 2004 10:05:34 PM

A jolly good outing
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After seeing an article about it, I decided to take the afternoon off and go out to the local university to watch part of the International Students Association Cricket tournament. I've got to hand it to these guys. They are just a bunch of college kids from various cricket-playing countries, going to school out here in Kansas. In what seemed to me to be rather dismal conditions, they were having a blast.

First off, if you've ever seen Aussie rules Football, it is played on cricket ground which are basically big round grassy areas. An American football field is way too small and way, way too narrow for good cricket. Because of the field size and because of the surface of the field, instead of using a regular cricket ball, which is roughly the size of an baseball and just as hard, they were using a tennis ball heavily wrapped in medical tape. The wind was blowing about 25 or 30 miles per hour and they couldn't keep the bails on top of the wickets. And it was about 50 degrees and damp. But, like I said, they were having a blast and there were probably 100 or more people in the stands. I took Rat Jr. with me, and we were too cold to stay more than an hour and a half, but we got to see the India team score 126 runs, all out, with the Sri Lanka team getting ready to bat when we left.

On other subjects, when I was talking about extensions for the Firefox browser the other day, I forgot to mention Aggreg8, an RSS feed aggregator. If you aren't familiar with RSS feeds and aggregators, you should check them out. They provide a way for you to get news headlines and see whether your favorite websites have been updated (at least the ones that provide RSS feeds) without having to go to the web site and load each one. I've had Amphetadesk for some time and like it, but it is a separate program. That is problematic for me for two reasons. First, when I'm in a hurry, I often forget to load it. Second, although I have plans to upgrade soon, I'm still working on a 500 mhz pentium computer and by the time I get the browser, the e-mail, Blog and Amphetadesk open, things tend to get bogged down. The thing I like about Ampetadesk is that it will check the entire list of feeds you have specified at specified intervals while it is running.

Aggreg8, on the other hand is a very small program that opens in a tab in the Firefox browser, so I don't forget to run it and it doesn't bog down my system. The only thing I don't like about it is that you have to click each feed you want checked.

Now I'm checking out ways to provide an RSS feed for Ratlands. The actual XML code isn't terribly complex, and I could probably code it by hand, but I would have to update it by hand, and since I have a hard enough time trying to get time to write anything remotely resembling serious material, the chances of me doing that are pretty slim. So, I'm looking for (free) programs that I can use to do it automatically.

Also, I've gotten a bit tired of the look of Ratlands, so I'm playing with some enhancements. Today's experiment was fonts. I'm not sure I like this one or not, but I'll give it a try for a while to see if it grows on me.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, March 24 2004 07:10:32 PM

Well, duh...
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While catching up on things at the Peeve Farm, I found a link to this article. Apparently, researchers at Rutgers University, with an axe to grind, a research grant and nothing better to do, decided to analyze "The Simpsons" for health messages (which strikes me as being the intellectual equivalent of listening to records backwards to search for satanic messages.) Now, we all know that Homer Simpson is not a good nutritional role model.

Unfortunately, the message appears to have gone over the heads of the health police. They want him to change, cut down on the fatty snacks and eat some pasta. It's not going to go down well with the Atkins people, but they appear to be serious.

A team of researchers from New Jersey's Rutgers University ploughed through 63 episodes of the hit cartoon show to analyse what sort of a health message it was sending out. Failing to see the joke, they were unimpressed.

"Fats, sweets and alcohol, particularly beer, doughnuts and salty/fatty/snacks accounted for 52 per cent of all foods eaten in this programme," their report said. "Homer was also portrayed eating food more often (he alone accounted for 21 per cent of all actions showing food being eaten) and ate greater quantities than other characters."

OK, Captain Obvious, what did you expect to find? And, of course, the answer is that they found exactly what they were looking for: a popular cartoon character (who obviously influences the eating habits of unthinking Americans) who doesn't eat nutritionally balanced meals in healthy quantities. There must be some kind of conspiracy by "Big Food," because Homer Simpson is clearly the "Big Food" equivalent of "Big Tobacco's" Joe Camel. Clearly something must be done about this. It is a foregone conclusion to any right-thinking individual that these kinds of role models are not good. We should probably ban all cartoons where main characters don't exhibit healthy lifestyles. Obviously the world would be a much better place if the only images we were allowed to see on TV were of physically fit, emotionally mature individuals engaged in healthy practices and positive interactions with others.

Well, you know it's coming. It's only a matter of time until the folks who are out there minding my business (because I'm obviously not a right-thinking individual) come up with "advisory guidelines" for nutritional content presentation in cartoons. And when that happens, some advocacy group will start lobbying to make those guidelines into law.

On a tangential note: Notice the use of the term "health police". I always wanted to be involved in a meme. Apparently, when I wrote my "butter police" post I jumped smack dab in the middle of one.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, March 23 2004 02:28:34 PM

The Not-so-Simple Truth
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There is a good article on over-simplification of truth vs. nuanced truth over on The Smedley Log. I was going to copy the "money quote" here, but decided that I will just recommend reading the entire article.

While I was reading it, I was reminded of an interview I saw years ago with George Will on the old Dennis Miller Live show. The topic was about the reduction of American politics and campaigning to 7 second sound bites (or maybe it was 9 seconds, I don't remember now, probably because it took more than 7 seconds to say). Miller was lamenting the fact that there is no engaging debate in American politics because everything has to be reduced to 7 seconds. Mr. Will offered the opinion that generally speaking, conservatives are OK with that, since the conservative message is generally "NO," "STOP," "DON'T," and you can usually communicate that just fine in 7 seconds. It must have been a really strange feeling for the Republican spin doctors to find themselves on the other side of the line when the left came up with "no blood for oil," and "Bush lied, people died." They must be breathing a huge sigh of relief now that a lot of the campaign rhetoric puts them back on the simple slogan side.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, March 21 2004 02:27:20 PM

The Greatest?
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"A stroll through any Belgian city is a feast for the eyes with the country's impressive architecture and intricate stonework. But while travelers will find it hard to avoid the historical influence of religion, there's another type of trinity worthy of a pilgrimage: beer, chocolate and cheese.

And the greatest of these is beer."

OK, this is basically a meaningless quote from one of those fluff pieces that shows up on my ISP's home page masquerading as real news. The only reason I included it was I needed a quick quote to test a new extension I've installed.

I've been experimenting with extensions for my Firefox browser. I've added a bookmarks link checker; helpful because I collect bookmarks like navel lint, and a thing that allows easy movement through the visited links heirarchy and clears the address bar with a touch of the button. Little things I like, but aren't that critical. The one that really impresses me so far is a thing called Quick Note.

One of the very few things I don't like about the Blog software I use on this site is that when you start a blog entry, it date and time stamps the entry from the time you start typing. For people who do a lot of linking without a lot of commentary, this probably isn't a problem. But I'm one of those people who may start writing, get off on a tangent, think of a couple of things I need to link to and have to go do some more research before I can finish. It may be 2 or 3 hours before I post the material. Or I may find some things I want to link to, but am not ready to actually write the post. But if I were to copy the text and the link into Blog, it would be time stamped for when I did the copying. For some reason, it really bothers me that the time stamp shows when I started and not when I posted the article. So, when I find something I want to link to, I end up copying the text and then copying the URL and later I open Blog and do the post.

Quick Note can be set to open as a tab in the browser and can also be set to automatically record the URL of wherever it is you copied the text from. For me, that is a really cool tool and I thought I would share it with the one or two of you out there who use Firefox.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Saturday, March 20 2004 02:25:33 PM

Blurking?
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Samizdata now has a glossary of blogging terms. I don't know when they added it to the site, but I never noticed it before. According to this glossary, given that I don't generally leave comments on other web sites, I am a blurker. Apparently I am not a barking moonbat, although that may be merely a matter of opinion.

On a more serious note, they also posted this article with a positive slant on our presence in Iraq, which is relatively more common in blogs, but not seen often in the mainstream media. In a similar, but more pointed vein, Steven Green at Vodka Pundit talks about the perception of strength.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, March 19 2004 04:42:22 PM

If it were only true
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Someone recently suggested that perhaps I had stopped writing with any frequency because I actually have a life. Oh, that it were true. I may get a chance to talk about it in the next few days, but the short version is that we have just completed a massive reorganization at work and the whole thing has gone wonky on me. Not that it matters. Its just that in the midst of all this I've got some things I really want to talk about, but can't get down on paper or on the screen.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, March 17 2004 01:00:00 AM

Little Things
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One of the strangest things I've ever heard of in the Iditarod happened today. Doug Swingley, who has won the race four times scratched because of frozen corneas.

From the Cabela's website:

A small mental slip by one of the greatest minds in distance mushing, Doug Swingley, snowballed into a condition that threatened his vision and forced him to scratch from the 2004 Iditarod early Wednesday morning. ...

The four-time Iditarod champion, known as a mastermind of strategy, a brilliant dog breeder and exceptional trainer, made one mistake way back in the Dalzell Gorge that triggered the chain of events. Swingley had recently undergone corrective laser eye surgery. Apparently, the corneas are sensitive to cold temperatures for months after this type of surgery. Swingely knew he was supposed to wear a pair of goggles when it got cold. But he just didn't reach into his pocket and slap them on as he descended the hairy, winding chute down the Dalzell Gorge. As his fast team drove headlong into the wind, his corneas quickly froze, clouding his sight before he reached Rohn. "Right now I can only see a blur," he said back at Nikolai.

 

Update/Correction:

I discovered an Iditarod update show on the Outdoor Life Channel tonight and got to see an interview with Mr. Swingley. In his TV interview, he said that the Dalzell Gorge was really treacherous and it was somewhere around 25 below zero. He said he didn't think he could afford to take a chance on the goggles fogging up under those conditions. At the time of the interview today he said his left eye was in pretty good shape but his right eye was still blurred.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, March 10 2004 08:45:11 PM

Go Dogs, Go!
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It is Iditarod time again. If you are familiar with the Iditarod, you know what that means, if not, it is a sled dog race across Alaska covering something over 1000 miles. The best mushers and their dog teams will complete the race in around 9 days. It is a combination of training, skill, strategy and stamina for both human and dogs. (Currently, I'm having trouble viewing the official site, so I'm getting my information from the Cabela's web site.)

As I'm writing this, Kjetil Backen from Norway is in the lead after about 400 miles. Also of note, Charlie Boulding, who is in his 60's is currently in 4th. Out of 87 starters, 85 are still in the race.

I started following the Iditarod a few years ago after my aunt got me interested. In her travels, she had been to Alaska and had met some of the prominent participants. She was the kind of person who would get up at 4:00 AM here and call the Race Headquarters (1:00 AM their time) to talk to the staff out there in the middle of the night to get the insider details on which teams looked good and which mushers were struggling and little details that (at the time) didn't get reported like who had broken a sled and things like that. I used to print out the race update sheets and take them to her sometimes when we were going to cross paths.

My aunt died about 16 months ago. I spend more time checking the race now than I did when she was alive. Every time I check the standings I think about her. The Iditarod was one of the things she enjoyed most in life.

When I started writing this, I had intended to talk about my aunt and how much she influenced me and how much I admired her. Now, I just can't seem to find the words and I don't have a way to end this entry with the kind of style she deserves. Maybe its enough to say that I've checked 20 times today on a race I'll probably never see and can't watch on television in a place I'll probably never get to visit because she introduced me to it and it was important to her.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, March 09 2004 11:16:55 PM

Apologies to Emeril
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A while back I referred to the "Butter Police" in one of my posts. I was just being cute and at the time I thought it was an original idea. Much to my dismay, last night I discovered that Emeril Lagasse has previously the term on his cooking show (in much the same sarcastic vein, I might add). Since I do occasionally watch Emeril, it is quite likely that I heard the term on his show and didn't come up with it independently. So, I am apologizing for using the term, in case it is copyrighted or trademarked or something like that. I wouldn't want the Butter Police Police after me.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, March 03 2004 07:52:39 PM

Beachfront property, anyone?
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According to NASA, Opportunity has discovered evidence of considerable quantities of water previously in existence on Mars. Now they are bubbling about a "sample return" mission and eventual manned missions. In general, I think this is cool. I've been fascinated with space exploration since I was a kid. I was hoping we would have colonies on the moon and Mars by now, etc, etc, etc.

Of course, I'm a fan of good science fiction (and quite a bit that isn't so good). I remember, with a certain fondness, the way my worldview changed when I first read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, Herbert's Dune, and Heinlein's The Past Through Tomorrow. Although I dearly love Heinlein's future history stories, when I first read them, I ate up the stories, but I never quite bought the idea of private exploration of space in the "early" years. That was fine for fiction, but in the real world, of course the government would handle it, as it was obviously too big for private companies to handle.

Now I'm not so sure. I've begun to be skeptical of NASA in particular, and government in general, having what it takes (including money) to take a practical and constructive lead in space exploration, travel, colonization, and research. It's sort of like Rockhound (Steve Buscemi) said in the movie Armaggedon, "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?" Given NASA's track record over the past few years, I'm not so sure that private space exploration isn't a good idea.

There is a series of essays on the subject on the Cato Institue's website. The Cato Institute is a Libertarian organization. While I'm not a Libertarian, I do have a certain sympathy for some of their ideas, and this is one of them. I guess it's because I am just enough of a romantic to hope that someday Rat Jr. or my grandchildren might be able to live on the moon or Mars.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, March 02 2004 09:13:24 PM