Kiza's journal

Comma separated XML – or also known as “parse this!”

<data>
  funny;column;description;goes into this field
  oh;and;here;is;some;other; column description
  dataset;1;2;3
  <moredata>
    some id;123;43;653;314;fubar
    some id;325;31;434;143;blah
    some id;343;fu;---;;bar
  </moredata>
  <evenmoredata>
    interesting;description;for;some;columns;below or above
    blah;fasel;kek;blubb;10;432441
    foo;bar;baz;<3;2352;23
  </evenmoredata>
</data>

Exercises:

1. Find the dataset lines matching the definitions.
2. Parse a single document containing 68000 such datasets.
3. Write all of the data into an SQL database using sensible data types (text for each column does not count!) succeeding on the first try.

If you have come here in search of knowledge regarding JIT concepts as in “conecepts of the Just in Time principle” you have, quite non-obviously I admit, come to the wrong place. This article presents a whole new (business point-of-)view of the Just in Time Concept… as in “a concept just in time”.

The Just in Time Project – project manager point view

The problem with detailed and overly complicated project plans is… well they take their time. And we all know, time is money! And if the time you spend on your project plan is as little as possible, you can save a lot of money, right? Right?

Right! It'll all come “just in time”.

Well, ok there are some side effects. It generally goes like this: the project plan is a one-liner “make it work, make it look good and make it ASAP”. Not having any big picture the staff makes it work and look decent. And then the management (read: not project management) takes a look at it and, well, decides that a concept is needed!

But if all of this works in the first try, then you indeed saved a lot of money. Worth a shot, isn't it?

The developers' point of view

Before we begin, imagine for a moment the following development environment: a project devided in 3 principle parts with one developer responsible for one of each. Now the just in time concept's main dogma is again to save money. And so everyone starts right away, diving into their work like there is no tomorrow.

As the project evolves into a somewhat bigger gibberish mass from whence it started, person A needs to touch areas of person B, but since there is no conecpt for the whole thing (remember, we're saving time and money), person A goes ahead and changed stuff person B is working on. Which in turn pisses of confuses person B since in his little world of project part B things might probably work a little bit different. But never mind, B can change it back the way he wants it to work and break a part A was working on, after all he doesn't need to care for part A since there is no concept. ;)

To be continued…

Snow in Germany in the Winter of 2009, just a picture.

Hm, it's been snowing for the last couple of days, this could start to be interesting if all the white stuff melts.

Here's a picture from right out of the window at our work place. Must be about 15-20cm already. :)

Compiling the readline 5.2 library and lftp on OS X 10.5, with necessary patches, plus getting an old HP Photosmart printer to work with the system supplied Gutenprint.

Since I have this shiny new Macbook there have been a few things missing. Although I kept being told to use them shiny graphical FTP thingies, I always return to lftp. It does all you could ever want to do with a file transfer program and is not limited to FTP. And apart from that I just don't want an FTP client resembling a rubber duck like on every desktop at work. :x

However… there are obstacles.

readline 5.2

This one does not compile out of the box, however it's just a missing linker flag "-dynamiclib" that is needed on OS X. Obviously the knowledge is all there, it was just forgotten to add Darwin 9 to the list. Invoking the linker command manually or using the patch below will make it compile.

readline 5.2 OS X 10.5 patch

--- readline-5.2/support/shobj-conf 2006-04-11 15:15:43.000000000 +0200
+++ readline-5.2_patched/support/shobj-conf 2009-01-10 11:40:30.000000000 +0100
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@
    ;;
 
 # Darwin/MacOS X
-darwin8*)
+darwin89*)
    SHOBJ_STATUS=supported
    SHLIB_STATUS=supported
    
@@ -171,7 +171,7 @@
    SHLIB_LIBSUFF='dylib'
 
    case "${host_os}" in
-   darwin[78]*)    SHOBJ_LDFLAGS=''
+   darwin[789]*)   SHOBJ_LDFLAGS=''
            SHLIB_XLDFLAGS='-dynamiclib -arch_only `/usr/bin/arch` -install_name $(libdir)/$@ -current_version $(SHLIB_MAJOR)$(SHLIB_MINOR) -compatibility_version $(SHLIB_MAJOR) -v'
            ;;
    *)      SHOBJ_LDFLAGS='-dynamic'

lftp

Doesn't want to compile either, the configure aborts when trying to include the just compiled libreadline. Running "export LDFLAGS=/usr/local/lib" and rerun configure makes it work just fine. [Note: assuming readline went into the default dir.]

And there it is: LFTP! ^^ Now on to the continued “Ugh, why not use a graphical ftp client?” comments.

The printer drivers from hell

Since I didn't want to install the ancient Turobprint I had on 10.5 again the printer suddenly turned into a piece from electronic waste from the past. Well, HP hardware anyway. *cough* My experiences with HP printer “drivers” for OS X were somewhat unpleasant at best. But since the hardware itself still worked, why not give Gutenprint a try. Well, it way almost boring. OS X already includes version 5.1.3. Plugged in the printer, selected the driver and the Photosmart 1115 worked right away. Truly sad, that HP is unable to provide working drivers themselves. Emphasize on working, there are drivers. ;)

It's truly fascinating what you find if you keep clicking through the recommendations list on IMDB for a while. Starting at “Black Sheep” I ended up on “Ôkami to kôshinryô” or the rather amusing English title “Spice and Wolf”. With the official website URL being www.spicy-wolf.com I guess you can already be sure that spicy is related to the wolf and not to Lawrence's trading business. ;) I wonder why they went with the strange English title “Spice and Wolf” instead.

Being only 12 episodes (plus an additional OVA) the main plot is told rather quickly. Lawrence, trader and later dubbed softy by his companion, finds the wolf goddess Horo sleeping in his cart one night. And from then on things go strange ways. It's quite obvious that the story takes place in times of change. In a world where the church is gaining influence with whatever methods they see fit, there is little place for a god people pray to for a good harvest. As people's faith in Horo diminishes there is no more place for her in the old village. So she sets out as Lawrence's companion on a journey returning her to the north.

Contrary to, for example Wolf's Rain, Horo is not a wolf that changes back and forth, but rather drawn the furry way, human girl with tails and ears forming out of her hair. Almost exclusively naked in the first episode ^.^ but they dropped this rather quickly in the following episodes. Well ok, it would draw way to much attention in the world they travel. I guess that first episode is where the title Spicy Wolf truly fits. *cough*

Anyway, the dialogue between Lawrence and Horo is truly magnificent at times, mostly when they argue over the unspoken topic… their relationship. Well, of course there is none, other than the business part. The “side plots” are mostly Lawrences trading business, in which I got slightly lost due to the subtitles rushing by with the speed of light… at least it felt like that.

All in all a series well worth finding and linking to! Who knows, maybe season 2 will come. At least the ending didn't exactly end the storyline in any way.

Edit: It seems various source have confirmed TV season 2! :)

A video about killing Blockhead Grande, an enemy in the PS2 game Okami.

An admittedly lame way of killing him, but then I found maybe a zillion such videos on youtube, so here is mine! After that, slow motion and begone stupid rock! :P

I almost forgot that I wanted to link the website from this journal when it has been finished. Well, it's still not finished, photographs are missing.

«Privateinrichtung — Opernfragment» is a project by Gabi Heller and Hans Melzer, both also made «4 Stunden in Chatila». Privateinrichtung could be translated as "private institution" in the sense of "being alone, private, with something".

It's Gabi Heller's story about her disabled child and their life in our society. About being left alone and the distance other people try to keep, because they don't want to be involved with these problem.

Hm, irgendwie ist 2007 ja schon wieder vorbei. Naja auch egal, ich schreib eh noch 2007 für die nächste Wochen. :>

Und dieser spämmige Post dient auch nur dazu was zu testen. Immerhin wurd das letzte Mal vor zig software updates und bevor der arme demogorgon letzte Woche vollständig gecrasht ist und auch nicht mehr so richtig booten wollte was gepostet.

Ich glaub da is'n Jahr vergangen mittlerweile oder so. Also seit dem letzten Eintrag hier jedenfalls. Was auch bedeutet, dass das supertolle Journal seit einem ganzen Jahr nicht auseinandergefallen ist. Ein Hoch auf Perl!

Hm, eigentlich wollt ich ja nur testen ob noch alles funktioniert, is ja schlieslich auch ein neuer Webserver unten drunter mittlerweile. ;) Oder war das schon länger als ein Jahr her? Kann auch sein.

Um das hier für was sinnvolles zu benutzen hab ich, nagut Kianga war's, eine supertolle Methode gefunden um Bilder auf der Kommandozeile zu resizen. Also so ab 100 Stk ist die wirklich sinnvoll. Und die heißt ned mal ImageMagick, weil mir dieses blöde Teil langsam auf die Nerven geht mit seiner sporadischen Nichtfunktionalität.

Tada!!! sips action:
for NAME in *.jpg; do sips --resampleWidth 120 --out ../out/$NAME $NAME; done

Hm, jetzt müsste das Ding nur noch TGA verstehen, um die WoW screenshots zu konvertieren. Goodbye Imagemagick. ^^