Below are the 8 most recent journal entries recorded in maekern's LiveJournal:

Monday, May 16th, 2011
11:14 pm	With only a few notable exceptions, this journal is friends only. Contact me if you want access, and I'll consider it. (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 15th, 2008
1:50 pm	Another contribution of mine to the LOLcatsphere (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
12:26 am	Unix stuff. Most of you will not care. On the subject of dorkiness, I would like to add that my previous post was delayed by over two hours from when I originally set out to post it. Why, you may ask? Do you see how every thumbnail is a link to the full sized version of the image? Rather than typing that all up manually, I made a script to generate all of that html for any directory full of images (as long as appropriate thumbnail images also exist). This ended up being more work than I thought, because I wanted it to put the full path to the images in the html with one easy command, and this is made annoying by the fact that "/" is treated specially by sed, which is what I was using to do my search and replace. I ended up having to clean up the URLs with sed in order to use sed AGAIN to place them in the appropriate place in my html code. I ended up having to use statements like sed 's/\//\\\//g' which starts to look suspiciously like line noise. For non unix-types, yes, that actually does something useful, and isn't just the result of me pounding my head on the keyboard. I probably could have done the whole damn thing more efficiently. This is clear now that I've stepped away from the problem. But my solution works, and the extra complexity caused by me solving the problem in a perhaps kludgy way isn't relevant to the user. That's part of what happens when you take an existing program (my original, simpler script) and patch it up to do something more than it originally did, rather than starting fresh. In any case, I had to learn a lot about shell scripting, sed (a damned useful tool) and bash command substitution. So it was useful. If you care, which you probably don't, my complete script and further discussion is ( behind this cut. ) God damn I love using a *nix environment. I'm worthless at things like making X or wireless work properly, but once I am given a functioning system, it's amazing how much I can do. Oh, and the great irony of all of this is that I spent a couple of hours writing this script (because I had to learn a lot of new things and fix a lot of annoying bugs) and have spent a further half hour making this write up, when I could have just made the desired html manually in a couple of minutes. But now I have a script to do that for me! And by the time I've used the script about 24 times to post lists of images, I will have finally BROKEN EVEN on the time I've invested. But it's ok, because I have had a fun and educational evening. Also... holy shit, taking a nap mid-day and having coffee in the afternoon was a bad call. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
1:35 pm	Radio If you like an eclectic mix of music and English accents, you should listen to Lionheart Radio 107.3 fm between 7pm (gmt) and 10pm (gmt) on wednesdays. If you live in northeast England, that is. If you live in America, you may have more luck going to http://www.lionheartradio.com/ ... or go straight to http://www.lionheartradio.com/listenonline/lionheart.m3u because the stations website is ugly, between 1pm and 4pm CST. Go and listen, or I will tell Homeland Security that you are a terrorist. Then you'll be sorry. (There Ally, now you OWE ME!) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
7:32 pm	People who I know to be ok: James & Tina Adam Mykie & Kim Kate & Richard Joellen & Myself, obviously For people who don't live here, the reason why I am getting and sharing this information is because the bridge that collapsed is a very long bridge one one of the busiest highways in the metro area, so there is a non-insignificant chance of any given person who lives in the city having been there when it collapsed. Edit: Yarrick Karen Kellic (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 24th, 2007
12:30 am	My own contribution to the "lolcat" phenomenon. Steal at will. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
10:49 pm	Der Jammerwoch (found in a book long ago, and then again on the internet) Es brillig war. Die schlichten Toven Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; Und aller-mümsige Burggoven Die mohmen Räth' ausgraben. Bewahre doch vor Jammerwoch! Die Zähne knirschen, Krallen kratzen! Bewahr' vor Jubjub-Vogel, vor Frumiösen Banderschnätzchen! Er griff sein vorpals Schwertchen zu, Er suchte lang das manchsam' Ding; Dann, stehend unterm Tumtum Baum, Er an-zu-denken-fing. Als stand er tief in Andacht auf, Des Jammerwochen's Augen-feuer Durch turgen Wald mit Wiffek kam Ein burbelnd Ungeheuer! Eins, Zwei! Eins, Zwei! Und durch und durch Sein vorpals Schwert zerschnifer-schnück, Da blieb es todt! Er, Kopf in Hand, Geläumfig zog zurück. Und schlugst Du ja den Jammerwoch? Umarme mich, mein Böhm'sches Kind! O Freuden-Tag! O Halloo-Schlag! Er schortelt froh-gesinnt. Es brillig war. Die schlichten Toven Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; Und aller-mümsige Burggoven Die mohmen Räth' ausgraben. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
12:00 am	This journal is friends only, except for possibly a few public posts now and then. If you know me and want to be on my friends list, let me know by replying. (Comment on this)