Weblog: Oct 2002

Nigel pointed out this BBC article on the 2002 Turner Prize, amusingly full of scathing soundbites.

Fresh black TrackPoint caps arrived from nudemike. If you don't mind not having the red cap as an orienting beacon in your peripheral vision, you can make your ThinkPad even more basic-black.

While working with syntax-case outside of define-syntax, found that the REPL in the latest DrScheme displays syntax objects with a really useful GUI snippet.

Got GObject signals working in my MzScheme bindings. Next step is to automate generation of the bulk of the GTK 2 bindings, a la .defs files.

Ever innovative, Zipcar rolls out new economizing design.

Do you value authenticity in all areas of your life? You might be a New Authentic. The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Got a start on GTK 2 bindings for MzScheme this weekend:

(load-extension "mzg.so")
⇒ #<global-variable-code>
(gtk:init)
(define win (gtk:window-new gtk:window-toplevel))
win
⇒ #<c-pointer:GObject>
gtk:window-toplevel
⇒ #<c-pointer:GtkWindowType>
(gtk:widget-show win)
(gtk:main)

Adventures in Debian package dependencies.

Demonstrations that are pre-arranged with local police have pre-selected arrestees?

The peaceful demonstration was pre-arranged with Boston police, who cordoned off some streets in front of Post Office Square and arrested only the 14 pre-selected people.

—Cambridge Chronicle, 15-Oct-2002

Released Quack version 0.14.

This herald of the Good Word wandered off before I could ask to take a portrait of him and his sign.

Another nice flag, typical of the People's Republic of Cambridge.

Several people have asked how I implemented the fontified source code views on this site. The site is currently implemented in Elisp, and used Hrvoje Niksic's htmlize package (old version 0.62) to turn Emacs font-lock generated faces into HTML span markup. htmlize's CSS is stripped from the HTML; instead the span classes are defined in the site-wide CSS object, using names beginning with the string fontlock-. I'm actually disabling the fontified views now, partly in preparation for reimplementing the site in Scheme and XML. Here's a slightly modified version of the function that I used to call htmlize:

(defun file-as-htmlized-string (fname)
  (save-match-data
    (save-excursion
      (let* ((htmlize-output-type    'css)
             (font-lock-auto-fontify nil)
             (global-font-lock-mode  nil)
             (visited-p (get-file-buffer fname))
             (file-buf (set-buffer (find-file-noselect fname t))))
        (if (featurep 'jit-lock)
            (jit-lock-fontify-now)
          (font-lock-fontify-buffer))
        (htmlize-buffer)
        (unwind-protect
            (progn
              (goto-char (point-min))
              (while (re-search-forward "<span class=\"" nil t)
                (replace-match "<span class=\"fontlock-" nil nil))
              (buffer-substring-no-properties
               (progn (goto-char (point-min))
                      (or (re-search-forward  "<pre>"  nil t)
                          (error "!"))
                      (match-beginning 0))
               (progn (goto-char (point-max))
                      (or (re-search-backward "</pre>" nil t)
                          (error "!"))
                      (match-end 0))))
          (kill-buffer (current-buffer))
          (or visited-p (kill-buffer file-buf)))))))

Posted to gnu.emacs.sources new versions of 11 of my older Emacs packages, mostly as part of an effort to unperson my old email addresses.

One of the ways that US presidents pander to the nebulous set of Judeo-Christian religious faiths is to make frequent references to "God" in an official capacity (arguably disregarding the principle behind separation of church and state). An amusement for a rainy Sunday afternoon is to search for "god" in vote-smart.org's database of G.W. Bush's presidential speeches. 567 public statements as of a week ago.

Woke up to another curious front page.

Pete Stark's (D-CA) speech

An unfortunate accidental brand placement.

In the process of learning GTK 2 and the MzScheme C API, hacked up a crude MzScheme REPL GTK program.

GObject presents a large and complicated upfront coding effort for GTK 2 bindings. GTK 1 bindings seem much easier to write. Suspect I'll code the GTK side of my research prototypes in C for now, and have high-level app-specific bindings between the GTK and MzScheme sides.

In computers, trouble doesn't have a name — it has a number.

Boston-area idealists may wish to join the George W. Bush Unwelcoming Committee this Friday. www.justicewithpeace.org is supposed to have the latest info.

Update of Sample Junkbuster Blockfile.

Kirill Lisovsky will be maintaining a port of SSAX to PLT 200 now, and I will stop maintaining my port. I'll update the SSAX for PLT Scheme page to point to Kirill's package as soon as it's publicly available.