Transcending the limits of DOM, SAX, and XSLT, an informative article from IBM DeveloperWorks suggesting the use of Haskell’s HaXml for XML processing.
Social Security probably OK as-is for 75 years
This enlightning article from New York Times Magazine explains that Social Security is likely to be solvent for at least 75 years. Rather undercuts Bush’s assertions that it’s in big trouble, doesn’t it?
Debian From Scratch
Newsforge has a nice article about Debian From Scratch, my Debian install-it-yourself CD, rescue CD, and CD builder package. I must say, Bruce Byfield’s instructions are more complete than my own documentation for it.
I now use DFS for most of my new Debian installations. Best of all, porting it to new archs is trivial.
Review: Hunter Humidifier and AllergyBuyersClub.Com
As winter approaches, indoor air gets dry, which can aggravate asthma and allergies. We needed a humidifier.
I started my research in the humidifier section of ConsumerSearch.Com. After reading through their material, we decided we’d like an evaporative/cool mist model, and the Hunter 34357 looked good.
Read on for more…
I did some more checking of reviews, then went over to AllergyBuyersClub.Com. They aren’t your typical small Internet retailer; they actually review the products they sell. They have a nice humidifier comparison chart, a cool vs. warm mist comparison, and a humidifier FAQ. They also recommended setting the humidity level at 35%-40% (or as high as 45%). That level of detail seems to be typical for them, and the other nice thing is that they actually describe the minuses of each of the products they sell.
The mean reasons we went with the Hunter 34357 are: it produces no “white dust” so it can work with ordinary tap water; it requires very little cleaning due to a nice filter system; it has the digital humidistat; and it has a large tank.
Some people complained that it is noisy. It’s true for the high-speed setting only. On Low, it’s quiet enough to have in the bedroom at night.
Some others complained that it takes a while to raise the humidity in the room. That’s true too, but it’s not a big deal thanks to the large tank and humidistat. Unlike many other humidifiers, this one can be left on all the time, and it will keep the humidity in the room at a constant level. So you only really have to bother to significantly raise the level once.
We wound up purchasing it at AllergyBuyersClub. We’re happy with both the purchase and the unit.
Credit Card Pranks
The problem with the link you are about to hit is that it is just about impossible to read it without a fit of laughter. People will stare. Pets will run away in shock.
From Kimberly comes a link to credit card pranks. The guy tried to see how outlandish he could make his signature on credit card receipts, doing everything from Egyptian heiroglyphics to geometric patters. It’s hilarious.
Oh No!
It looks like Scooby Doo was wrong all these years!
Today’s Reading
Apple: iPod Domination Or Just Another Fad? at The Register.
Various SELinux material from Gentoo. Also, Getting Started with SELinux and Writing SELinux Policy. SELinux looks very complex. I think I’ll just use vserver instead.
The System Rescue CD and Partimage pages. The system rescue C looks like it can pretty much eliminate the need for spending money on Partition Magic or Ghost because of its inclusion of qparted and partimage. Nice!
Today’s Reading
Ethics for the Robot Age at Wired. Less interesting than the author thinks, perhaps, but some questions of robots competing with humans for resources are interesting.
Novell’s Major Filesystems in Linux appendix for Suse. Surprisingly lucid, and with solid explanations of why JFS, XFS, and ReiserFS are all less reliable than ext3fs in data=ordered mode. I wasn’t certain about XFS, but by now knew the answer for JFS and Reiser3. It appears that Reiser4 may equal or exceed ext3 data=ordered semantics in terms of reliability. ext3 is just not practical for me; it gets very slow for large files or directories, especially compared to JFS or ReiserFS. At the same time, it looks like JFS may gain these semantics.
ghc6 Hits Testing Today
Debian’s Haskell packages have been stuck out of testing for some time. I learned that they’re going in today, though, finally! There are also several other packages that this will push into testing, including my own MissingH.
Good Timing?
I have no idea how this managed to happen…. I’m very rarely ranked high on Google for semi-common stuff like that. I suppose it’s because a site that talks about Haskell doesn’t get a lot of inbound links :-)
I noticed this because of a sudden spike in Drupal’s referrer report. (Which is slick, BTW).
