Archive: January, 2008 @ Irrational Exuberance

archive / 2008 / January

Title: Why Was The Syllabus Born?
Tags: education
My thoughts on an interesting article about removing syllabi from college schooling.
Title: On Hegemony and an Anti-Capitalist Bias in European Textbooks
Tags: education
A few thoughts on anti-capitalist bias in German and French textbooks, and on similarities between pro-capitalist mass education and pro-socialist mass education.
Title: Hot Water Is Broken
Tags: japan
My hot water is broken, and its damn cold here.
Title: 5. A Chartered Bus to Downtown Tokyo
Series: Zen and the Art Of Teaching English Poorly
The fifth segment in what will either become a novel or slowly evaporate into the mists of unfinished dreams.
Title: Standard Workflow for Publishing With LifeFlow
A simple combination overview and Frequently Asked Questions about how to use LifeFlow to publish your blog entries.
Title: Replacing the Karma Social Model with Whuffie
Tags: thoughts
Recently I ran into the concept of Whuffie and immediately fell for its charm as a potential solution to many of the flaws of current karma implementations in web applications.
Title: Catching Lessons From Spam
Tags: lifeflow spam
Looking at some pieces of spam that were inadvertently caught by my old comment implementation.
Title: Translating Entries into Other Languages with LifeFlow
Tags: lifeflow translations
A quick look at the mechanism for providing translations of entries into other languages using LifeFlow.
Title: A Historical Perspective on the JET Program in 2008
Tags: JET
The JET Program is approximately as old as I am, but I imagine I'll continue to age long after it closes its doors. Why? Because of the competing visions about what the JET Program should be.
Title: On The Causes and Cures of Malware
Tags: Microsoft OS X
Thoughts on the John Gruber's suggested 40-40-20 split between Windows, Linux and OS X on the propagation of malware.
Title: Failures of Proactive Communication & Other Generic Complaints
Tags: JET
JET is one of the most singularly frustrating experiences of my life. This, of course, makes me want to endure it in a sense of proving oneself in the face of adversity. But when does inconveniencing others become less important than saving yourself?
Title: かかった年と新しい年の取り返し
Translation of Reflections on the old year, and the new one in Japanese
今年は新しい年だって、どんな年になるかなという質問は大事だろう。去年はどうだったということも大切だ。そのことについてちょっと考えよう。
Title: 生きて変わる
Translation of Changes from Living in Japanese
日本で五ヶ月住んでて、色々な事が違った。今日は生きることを考えてる。
Title: Opinionated Programming Languages, The Huddled Masses, and Elitism
Tags: community java language design scheme
The Language For Smart People and Language For Masses dichotomy is one that leaves a queasy feeling in my stomach. Just because a distinction has become accepted by the community doesn't mean it is a valid one.
Title: Lesson Plan: My Winter Vacation
Tags: English JET lesson plan
A look at a recent lesson I created for one of my first year junior high school classes.
Title: New Style for Including Resources in Entries on LifeFlow
Tags: lifeflow
A brief description of a backwards incompatible change in LifeFlow, while also taking a quick look at how LifeFlow is implemented and where it is going.
Title: Adding Arbitrary Mods to LifeFlow
Tags: lifeflow
A look at the new mod system incorporated in LifeFlow to facilitate adding arbitrary non-standard code to your deployment.
Title: Changes from Living
Tags: thoughts
Translations: Japanese
I try to keep my philosophical musings pretty private. Statements of purpose and meaning have a scale of grandeur that as of yet I can't translate into a public setting. Still, a simple thought: <strong>living is changing.</strong>
Title: Introduction to Kamioka-cho, Hida-shi, Gifu-ken, Japan
Tags: JET japan kamioka
Series: JET: Living
An introduction to the lovely town I have been living in for some five months now. Lots of pictures to illustrate the points that words never can.
Title: Odors from Shoes Curious in OS X 10.4
Tags: Shoes ruby
I like *Shoes*, a GUI toolkit from Why The Lucky Stiff, a lot. Its a joy to use. Except when it goes haywire.
Title: Driving on the Left Side
Tags: JET japan
Series: JET: Living
A few thoughts and pictures of my stylish Suzuki Wagon R that cheerfully (it has a flower sticker on the door to the gas tank) escorts me through the rural landscapes of Kamioka.
Title: Don't Repeat Yourself for Bloggers: Dynamic Blog Context in LifeFlow
Tags: blog lifeflow markdown
Series: Learning LifeFlow
Programmers talk about DRY, or Don't Repeat Yourself, all the time. Its a strategy for making programming more pleasant, more efficient, and to reduce errors. LifeFlow uses a simple idea, which I have brazenly labeled Dynamic Blog Context, to try to take a few steps toward DRY while writing blogs.
Title: Cleanly Extending Python Markdown with Syntax Highlighting
Tags: markdown python
A look at extending the Python Markdown library. It happens to be an extremely well written library, so extending it is a bit more fun than it ought to be. Take a look.
Title: Update to Lethain.com
As you can see (if you are a regular) I have changed the style of the website a bit. Hope you enjoy it.
Title: Customizing LifeFlow Quickly with Skins
Tags: lifeflow skinning
Series: Learning LifeFlow
An introduction to skinning LifeFlow without causing any harm to the SVN checkout. The current skin on this website is about 30 lines of CSS, and a third of those are closing parentheses, so its not that hard to transform it from its default minimalism into something much more appealing.
Title: Installing a Development Deployment of LifeFlow, a Django Blog Solution
Tags: blog django install lifeflow
Series: Learning LifeFlow
Comprehensive instructions on installing and setting up a local deployment of LifeFlow (for those who are moderately in the Django know). This should be all you need to get started using LifeFlow, but I will have another entry soon detailing the little tricks and tips that make LifeFlow helpful.
Title: Reflections on the old year, and the new one
Tags: JET japan thoughts
Translations: Japanese
Its been a strange five months in Japan, and I'm sure the next seven will be strange too. But its not such a bad life. It seemed like a good day to write down some thoughts about where I am and where I am going. So I did.
Title: BluePrint CSS makes LifeFlow look better, and easier to customize
Tags: BluePrint lifeflow
After a bit of work, a BluePrint based version of LifeFlow is now ready for deployment. A little more tweaking and I'll be on to writing some tutorials on setting it all up.
Title: Music Recommendations & Snow Pictures
Tags: japan kamioka winter
Today was my first full day back in Kamioka, and I spent a couple hours of it snapping pictures. Here are a few to share the gift of snow with those who haven't been thusly blessed.
Title: Implementing Threaded Comments in LifeFlow
Tags: django lifeflow
A brief discussion on implementing comments in LifeFlow.
Title: Visiting Kiyomizudera
Tags: japan travel
I went and saw Kiyomizudera in Kyoto on January 1st, and customarily took a few arbitrary pictures.
Title: Status Update for LifeFlow
Tags: lifeflow
A quick update on where LifeFlow is, and where it is going.
Title: Accolades for Pygments 0.9
Tags: python
Pygments 0.9 adds lexers for Common Lisp along with a handful of other languages. I am an unabashed fan.
Title: Actors in Common Lisp
Tags: actors common lisp
Taking a brief look at my current project of implementing Erlang/Scala style actors in Common Lisp.
Title: Packaging of Renu Contact Solution
Tags: japan
A quick look at the packaging for Renu contact solution in America and Japan.