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an eddy in the bitstream

Author: Peter Karman (Page 18 of 76)

Maker of lunches.
Teller of stories.
Singer of songs.
Crafter of code.
Kicker of darkness.

Swish3 progress report

June 9, 2010 / / 0 Comments

There’s been a ton of work on Swish3 in the last year. I’ve actually started planning a 1.0 release, after 5 years of work.

Lately I’ve been focusing on three things: (1) making the Perl bindings easier to install; (2) indexing of compressed documents; and (3) supporting XInclude of document fragments. The first is accomplished: you can install the entire library via CPAN. The last two are aimed at large doc sets where I want to keep the XML compressed on disk for space reasons, and where I want to re-use subsets of the document collections in building multiple indexes.

But Enough About Me

May 26, 2010 / / 0 Comments

A brief history and reflection on the (un)popularity of the memoir. I liked this part in which the author talks about the effect changes in technology have had on the outpouring of personal narrative:

So if we’re feeling assaulted or overwhelmed by a proliferation of personal narratives, it’s because we are; but the greatest profusion of these life stories isn’t to be found in bookstores. If anything, it’s hard not to think that a lot of the outrage directed at writers and publishers lately represents a displacement of a large and genuinely new anxiety, about our ability to filter or control the plethora of unreliable narratives coming at us from all directions. In the street or in the blogosphere, there are no editors, no proofreaders, and no fact-checkers–the people at whom we can at least point an accusing finger when the old-fashioned kind of memoir betrays us.

make test

March 4, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Invoking

make test

in a project and watching as 1000s of successful tests scroll by, culminating in the

All tests successful.

message, gives me the same thrill of satisfaction as when I used to paint houses, and having finished a long day of sweaty labor at sanding and chipping old paint off, I could stand back and survey the structure, primed and ready for a fresh coat of paint. It’s the anticipation that thrills, in the same way that a trip to the grocery store and a full fridge, or several loads of clean laundry folded and stowed safely away in drawers, thrills me. The knowing that I am prepared, belt cinched tight, all tests successful.

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