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As long as there have been roads—and vehicles to travel them—municipalities have been faced with the challenge of implementing snow and ice maintenance programs. The newest "old" technologies—pre-wetting and anti-icing—have been around for some time, but not widely used. Pre-wetting is applying a liquid chemical or salt brine solution to a deicing material before spreading it. In anti-icing a brine solution is sprayed directly onto the roadway. These basic practices have considerable benefits.
All Wet
Spread bulk materials tend to bounce off the roadway during application or to be swept away by wind or traffic before taking effect. Some municipalities address this by spreading much more than necessary, assuming that enough will remain to do the job. Though crudely effective, the result is wasted material and expense, not to mention the negative environmental impact.
Continued application problems eventually led to the practice of pre-wetting the spread material. The logic is if the salt is wet, it's more likely to cling to the road than bounce or blow away.
At first operators used water to saturate the materials loaded into the spreader's hopper. However, most now use a part-brine, part-water solution to prevent the load from freezing. Some still wet the material as it's loaded into the hopper, but most use equipment that sprays the brine onto the material as it hits the spreader's spinner, resulting in a more uniform application of brine.
Pre-wet deicing materials also dissolve snow/ice faster. Generally, melting depends on the agent's ability to attract sufficient moisture from the environment and then form a liquid brine. Brine, simply a mixture of water and the active deicing material, lowers the freezing point of water and begins to melt the surrounding snow/ice. Using granular deicers alone is fine—if the conditions are right. But if temperatures drop below freezing, there is usually no moisture on the road, and salt alone is ineffective. Pre-wetting the salt ensures that enough moisture will be present to facilitate melting.


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DPOW3 Light head cable connects DLH4 light head to DT12-4 or DT24-3 power supply.
May also be used as an extension cable.
Length: 8 m (26.2')
The DT24-3 Power Supply/Control Unit offers the same functions and options as the DT12-4 except that this unit powers three lights, each equipped with 150W lamps at a nominal voltage of 24V. Its AC power input can be set for every AC power in the world from 100V to 255V in 24 steps.
Each output...

subset: commoncrawl


text: I buy rough cut green wood in the spring and store it in my shop until it is ready to be used. I store it stacked with stickers (spacers) between each layer of boards and a space between boards of each layer. It takes several months for it to dry enough.


text:
When a person, usually a douche bag, gets excited because a girl that he is hooking up with is bringing "Mamis" out to the club with her. So he then brings it upon himself to do a stupid dance in celebration.
"Hey yall guess what (insert Spanish girl name here) is coming! and shes bringing MAMI'S!!!!" (does the "Mami Dance" when yelling MAMI'S)
by Joey_Money July 30, 2012


text:
Star Power: Robb Nash on 'the Wonderful Opportunity of Dying'
Craig and Marc Kielburger | Posted 03.09.2013 | Canada Impact
Read More: Kielburger, Near-Death Experiences, Free the Children, Manitoba We Day, Live on Arrival, Life After Death, Youth Empowerment, Robb Nash, Canada Impact News
Robb Nash was hit by a truck the winter he was 17. The collision stripped the roof off of the car he was in and knocked him onto the highway, where he cracked his skull. He remained unconscious until the following spring. Now, 16 years later, he offers this advice: "Don't wait to get hit by a semi" to start living with purpose.


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STIHL SuperCut™ Line Head$0.00
Fully automatic line feed that keeps nylon line at same length for optimal cutting performance.
Important Information
WARNING! Improper use of any power tool may cause serious or fatal injury. Read, understand and follow carefully the operating and safety instructions in your instruction manual before using such products.Click to view the STIHL Limited Warranty Time Periods
STIHL products sold through U.S. STIHL Dealers are for distribution in the United States only.
STIHL products sold through U.S. STIHL Dealers are for distribution in the United States only.
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With STIHL Express, you can reserve the STIHL product you need right from your home or office and pick it up at your local STIHL Dealer.
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All pricing on this site is Distributor Suggested Retail Price. This site strives to maintain accurate and current suggested retail pricing. However, dealers' actual prices may vary or change. Please confirm pricing with your dealer
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STIHL SuperCut™ Line Head Description
Fully automatic line feed that keeps nylon line at same length for optimal cutting performance.
STIHL SuperCut™ Line Head
STIHL SuperCut™ Line Head
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Thank You!
Thank you! You will now receive this special offer within your email, so that it may be printed and redeemed in-store.
STIHL SuperCut™ Line Head is rated out of 5 by 13.
Rated 1 out of 5 by StanC from Worst trimmer I've ever had First time I used it, it came apart. Loading it with new string was problematic. Seldom worked. It would waste half of what you would load it with and most of the time, it would only have one useable string in the use of it. If Stihl made head trimmers like they did their chainsaws, they'd be out of business.
Date published: 2017-05-21
Rated 1 out of 5 by Montez from Sucks Just purchased String does not come out as it should had to remove string twice and rewrap
Date published: 2017-04-19
Rated 5 out of 5 by mw72 from Well balanced flat trimmer head The autocut 25-2 is a good and dependable trimmer head, but this one is even better. The flat head cuts evenly and smoothly when placed on the ground. No bumping is needed. The line advances automatically. The only drawback is that it doesn't hold as much line as the 25-2. Overall, it's an excellent trimmer head.
Date published: 2016-09-07
Rated 5 out of 5 by WoodcarverMyron from A really good product. Very reliable. Extends string life. I would recommend this product to anyone. Extends string life, easy to reload, very reliable.
Date published: 2016-07-24
Rated 1 out of 5 by notstihl from EXTREMLEY difficult to load, have your SEPERATE trimmer head manual handy Trimmer is hard to load have your trimmer manual handy
Date published: 2016-05-11
Rated 5 out of 5 by Wylder from Best trimmer head ever I bought this for small residential use on a combi 130/FS-KS unit. It auto feeds great and does not use much trimmer line.After alost a full season it ran out of line, and I had to refill the spool. When it ran out of line, I let a groan out, thinking of how difficult this had to be given my previous experience with trimmers. I couldn't have been more wrong.With the press of the two, count them 2, buttons on the side, the cover was off. Then I just pulled out the spool. The line wound easily, and clipped into place securely for loading. After slipping the spool in, I knew the most difficult part was coming, as it was time to thread the line through the case. Wrong again... the Iine slips into the eyelets securely, and you just snap the cover on.The machine is a large investment, and I tend to have buyers regret, however I keep finding ways to be happy about this purchase. Great product from a great company!
Date published: 2015-08-24
Rated 4 out of 5 by HKP5 from Excellent for routine trimming For routine lawn trimming this is an excellent option as it doesn't require bumping the head to advance the line but rather continually feeds as the head spins.Two concerns, when you are doing heavy duty trimming you have to pause and run the unit to extend the string and the second is that the spool is a bit small and a little fussy to load.Again for regular yard work it is great.
Date published: 2015-08-02
Rated 5 out of 5 by TezKee from Great Product I purchased my super cut head in 1993 on my FS 74 still going strong. Time to buy another trimmer before retirement and it will also have a super cut head.
Date published: 2015-05-30


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Super Meat Boy • Page 2
Indie Game: The Movie selected for 2012 Sundance Film Festival's World Documentary Competition
Indie Game: The Movie, a feature documentary about "video games, their creators and the craft," will make its world premiere as an official selection in World Documentary Competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
Team Meat: We're "jaded fools," our logo "looks like shit"
Team Meat's Edmund McMillen has claimed the two-man dev squad is now formed of "arrogant, jaded fools," speaking in an anniversary voiceover for Super Meat Boy's birthday.
Super Meat Boy celebrates first birthday with special Steam bundle
Team Meat's going big for Super Meat Boy's one year anniversary, announcing a special Steam bundle involving Bit Trip Beat, Bit Trip Runner, World of Goo, Braid, Gish, Aquaria, VVVVVV, Machinarium and even Half-Life 2. The bundle, which will also contain the deluxe soundtrack to SMB and OSTs to Braid, Bit Trip Beat, Bit Trip […]
Team Meat "patches up" Microsoft spat, Meat Boy sale incoming
Having said that Team Meat was "taken advantage of" by Microsoft in the run-up to the launch of Super Meat Boy, developer Edmund McMillen has confirmed that, after a spate of hugging and kissing between the two parties, the ultra-hard platformer is about to be re-pimped on XBLA.
Super Meat Boy Ultra Rare Edition detailed for UK
The day has gotten a bit brighter for UK fans of Super Meat Boy, because it has been announced that the game is getting to special editions at retail. Head on below the break for all the squeal-worthy details.
Team Meat doesn't effing care about piracy
Team Meat voiced an unusual opinion about Super Meat Boy's piracy levels and said a swear! We like that kind of thing.
Super Meat Boy once included World of Goo, Bit.Trip characters
Team Meat has posted an interesting belated developer diary for Super Meat Boy, covering cut characters and content.
Super Meat World update hits Steam, enters into The Unknown
If you log into Steam today and load up Super Meat Boy, you may notice an new feature in the game menu called Enter the Unknown.
Wednesday Shorts Evening Edition: Yakuza, Game music, MinecraftCon 2011, Super Meat Boy
It's hump day. Lucky you. Not much left of the week, or today for that matter, so, no need in trying to escape. Have some short stuff to close it out with instead.
Super Meat Boy Level Editor released on Steam
Team Meat has sent word that the Level Editor for Super Meat Boy has arrived on Steam.
Super Meat Boy Ultra Edition to get EU release
Lace Mamba Global confirmed today that it's to released the Ultra Edition of mega-hard platformer Super Meat Boy in Europe.
Team Meat: No moderation on Super Meat Boy level editing
In an interview with gamrFeed, Team Meat duo Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes have confirmed they won't moderate fan-produced Super Meat Boy produce when they release its level editor. Expect carnage.
Super Meat Boy Ultra Edition ships for PC
The retail PC version of acclaimed indie platformer Super Meat Boy has now shipped.
Super Meat Boy sales total 600,000 units so far
Super Meat Boy has told extremely well for a indie-made downloadable arcade game, according to a recent interview at Pocketful of Megabytes.
Monday Shorts, Overnight Edition - Hot Pursuit patched, Bit.Trip tease, Super Meat World launched
Monday morning, and the streets still reek of the noxious leavings of the weekend's revelry. Something similar happens with dribblings of little news. Here's your lot.
Steam puts indie games on sale with the Potato Sack bundle
Steam has slashed prices on 13 indie games via a bundle called the Potato Sack.
Team Meat says it felt "taken advantage of" by Microsoft over Super Meat Boy
Team Meat's Edmund McMillen has written in Game Developer Magazine that the studio felt "taken advantage of" by Microsoft during development of Super Meat Boy, because the firm put pressure on the team to finish the game in time for the XBL Game Feast promotion.
Team Meat: Super Meat World "will be out very soon, days away even"
Team meat has tweeted that the PC portal for Super Meat Boy is just a few days out.
No publisher found for Super Meat Boy Wii, retail version canceled
Team Meat has announced that its given up on the long awaited Wii release of Super Meat Boy.
GDC 2011 day one bulletin - everything you need to know
Head inside for the full story on GDC 2011's first day, including details from the show's indie track and some stealth announces from Valve and Tecmo.
Super Meat Boy latest
Monday Shorts, Overnight Edition – Hot Pursuit patched, Bit.Trip tease, Super Meat World launched
Team Meat says it felt "taken advantage of" by Microsoft over Super Meat Boy
Team Meat: Super Meat World "will be out very soon, days away even"
No publisher found for Super Meat Boy Wii, retail version canceled
Super Meat Boy post-mortem: Microsoft support failures, 3DS plans, Ultra Version, and more
Team Meat hopes to release new Super Meat Boy levels "next week"
Level Editor and Portal for Super Meat Boy expected within "the next two weeks"
Team Meat's next project likened to "the ginger between sushi entrees"
Christmas break 2010 news round-up – Deus Ex delayed, new LA Noire footage, tons more
Super Meat Boy gets super special edition and super cover art
PETA releases Super Tofu Boy, gets added into Super Meat Boy PC
Naija is last guest character announced for Super Meat Boy PC
Super Meat Boy cameos were intended to draw attention to other indie titles, says Team Meat
New Super Meat Boy chapter confirmed, XBLA title update ready for approval
Super Meat Boy patch almost ready to roll out, Steam version still on track


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The unfunny word combinations that are often chosen as the Urban Dictionary word of the day. They are created solely for the reason for posting on this site, and do not reflect actual slang. See flojectile, dotcomrade, drafterglow, and locavore, to name a few.
by Alex Dubya December 21, 2007


text:
n: 1) one who enjoys consuming large amounts of crap, 2) person who transparently, constantly and voraciously curries favor, especially in a work environment.
I'd like to call her a fucking brown-noser, but that's an HR violation, so I'll stick with calling her a hungry poo gobbler.
by wonkothesane August 17, 2006


text:
|CFDA Number:
|84.928 - National Writing Project (OII)
|Program Goal: To improve the quality of student writing and learning.
|Objective 8.1 of 1: To support and promote the establishment of teacher training programs designed to improve the writing skills of students and teachers. NWP sites will develop methods to assess student writing.
|Indicator 8.1.1 of 1: Students taught by NWP teachers will show improved student writing skills.
|Targets and Performance Data
|Assessment of Progress
|Sources and Data Quality
Progress: Data will be available annually by 2004. Progress will be reported each June. 2004 data will be used as baseline data and succeeding years will be used to measure progress.
Additional Source Information: Sites will determine assessment instruments to be used (possible examples are Academy for Educational Development-derived tests and the NAEP Test of Writing) in cooperation with the NWP Research Division.
Collection Period: 2003 - 2004
Data Available: January 2005
Limitations: NWP sites are using a number of different assessments. It is not clear how comparable these measures are.
Return to table of contents


text:
I've had two first-year beekeepers call and complain how plastic foundation caused their nucs to swarm. In both situations, the nucs were hived with five more frames of plastic foundation in a single brood box.
At first I was ready to disagree, but then I decided it wasn't so much the plastic foundation as it was the bees didn't particularly want to draw out the plastic foundation so they ignored it. The five drawn frames from the nuc filled up with incoming nectar and/or 1:1 syrup. The queen ran out of drawn comb to lay eggs and the congestion triggered the swarming impulse. These beekeepers would have been better off with wax foundation, but the "beginners" kits came with wax.
It's been my advice to beginners and nuc buyers that plastic foundation really works best in a strong colony under a good flow. Secondarily, adding more melted bees wax to plastic foundation is almost manditory in my mind. But these two tips are not applicable to beginners.
Anyone else seeing this problem with nucs?
Jackson, MO


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Old & In the WayView in iTunes
To preview a song, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to buy and download music.
Old & in the Way was a one-shot bluegrass band whose legacy lasted far longer than the band. Led by Grateful Dead member Jerry Garcia (banjo, vocals), the band also featured David Grisman (mandolin, vocals), Vassar Clements (fiddle), Peter Rowan (guitar, vocals), and John Kahn (bass). Garcia formed the band in 1973 as a way to revisit his bluegrass roots and demonstrate his affection for the music. To round out the lineup, he recruited Clements and Kahn as well as Grisman and Rowan, who were both West Coast session musicians who had previously played together in the band Muleskinner. Taking their name from a Grisman composition, Old & in the Way played a handful of gigs, most of them at the Boarding House in San Francisco in October. An album, also called Old & in the Way, was culled from these shows but not released until 1975 on the Grateful Dead's own record label, Round. The record combined standards and Rowan originals, which later became standards. Although the album was the only one the lineup released during the 1970s, the members continued to play together in various permutations over the next two decades, and the record continued to sell steadily. The group reunited after Garcia's death in 1995, releasing a second album (actually composed of 1973 recordings), That High Lonesome Sound, in early 1996. A third album of 1973 vintage appeared at the end of 1997. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Top Albums
Top Songs
1973 in California
Years Active:
'70s, '90s


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Town Square
Battling a new Wal-Mart concept
Original post made by Tim Hunt, Castlewood, on Feb 16, 2012
Surprise, surprise….there is a bit of controversy about Wal-Mart locating one of its smaller grocery stores in Pleasanton.
Wal-Mart, through an anonymous agent, submitted plans to open one of its neighborhood grocery markets in the old Nob Hill site on Santa Rita Road. It's a sorely needed addition to that shopping center where other merchants have suffered or closed without the anchor tenant—to say nothing of residents.
The Wal-Mart deal should be no big deal—one grocery store replacing another grocery store—I don't recall hearing too much flap about when Ranch 99 or Fresh and Easy came to town.
Of course, none of those companies are divisions of the world's largest retailer and one of the major targets of unions across the country. And, that doesn't include retail competitors who would just as soon keep Wal-Mart out of the city.
What was rather unusual during the packed council meeting was the number of speakers who favored the market. It's easy to rally self-interested union members to speak against, but there were both business owners and residents speaking for the application.
The Wal-Mart concept is an interesting one from another standpoint—big supermarket chains want larger stores that can include a range of services (banks, pharmacies, large ready-to-eat spaces) so they've been closing these smaller stores for years. Finding businesses to fill these spaces have been very challenging for the owners of shopping centers. Those anchor spots have sat vacant for years.
Livermore has two neighborhood centers without anchor tenants as does Pleasanton (the former Flair market site on Vineyard and Bernal plus Nob Hill). Wal-Mart is locating one of its neighborhood markets in a similar center in San Ramon and receiving some push-back from some residents. .
What understandably irritates opponents is the company's stealth approach to the cities by going through the leasing agents without identifying the firm.
From a zoning standpoint—which is the only appropriate way the city should consider the application—it's a permitted use—simply swapping one operator for another in the same business.
For some, however, what company does business in town and whether the work force belongs to a union is a consideration—not that it should be. Just like the federal government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers in industries it wants to favor—the same goes for local government.
Councilman Matt Sullivan exercises his "discretion" in this regard to a fault, seeming to base votes on how it will affect existing businesses and what wages will be paid to workers instead of whether it's a suitable land use. Fortunately, his proposal to consider requiring additional city review before a business locates in the city didn't attract three votes.
The protectionism is a failed policy. Competition results in better services and products and yes, it's a dynamic business environment. Things change and all of us must change and adapt as well.
People want value for their dollar—there's a reason the Costco and Wal-Mart do so well—regardless of age of their adult customers.
Comments (10)
a resident of Amberwood/Wood Meadows
on Feb 16, 2012 at 9:47 am
Stacey is a registered user.
Two things:
- Fresh 'N' Easy is run by Tesco, one of the world's largest retailers.
- The City should create a new law preventing similar anonymous applications.
a resident of Parkside
on Feb 16, 2012 at 10:04 am
SteveP is a registered user.
Good write up. No doubt you'll receive lots of flak from the organized mob, but there's no arguing the points you made about the planning commission's responsibilities. Matt Sullivan's attempts at social engineering our out of place and unwelcome in a free society.
a resident of Parkside
on Feb 16, 2012 at 10:09 am
SteveP is a registered user.
If, as has been said many times before in the numerous topics posted about Wal Mart, the filing is a like-for-like business, why should it matter who files the application, an agent or the CEO of the company?
Unless you're planning on promoting Matt Sullivan's 'discretion' in the planning process, we don't need yet another law to govern what should be a very straight forward process.
a resident of Amberwood/Wood Meadows
on Feb 16, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Stacey is a registered user.
I agree that the process should be very straight forward, which is why I think it wrong to allow such anonymous applications. The ability to create an anonymous application is clearly being used as a government-supported competitive business tactic by Wal-Mart. A more level playing field would be to have either all anonymous applications or require more transparency in the application process.
a resident of Vineyard Hills
on Feb 16, 2012 at 8:24 pm
franco is a registered user.
Transparency is always a good thing. However, what evil is created by anonymous applications that substitute one grocery store for another previous grocery store where no substantive changes are requested? If this is a business tactic, then it is available to all applicants on an equal basis. Why make a law against it? In fact one could argue that all such applications should be anonymous in order to prevent discrimination against applicants, such as is occurring in this case.
a resident of Amberwood/Wood Meadows
on Feb 16, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Stacey is a registered user.
"If this is a business tactic, then it is available to all applicants on an equal basis."
Yes, I had considered that the anonymity is equally available. If one business is doing it (and they're doing it nation-wide really) to gain an advantage over competition, others will too. "A more level playing field would be to have either all anonymous applications or require more transparency in the application process." Is anonymity the right direction to go in?
a resident of Ponderosa
on Feb 17, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Sherryg is a registered user.
If the applicant would have remained anoymous, everyone would have been thrilled that a new grocery store was going in to replace Nob Hill. There would have been no protesting.
Now that everyone knows it's Walmart, people crawl out of the woodwork to protest.
a resident of Vineyard Hills
on Feb 18, 2012 at 5:40 pm
franco is a registered user.
My key point is freedom of choice, not creating a law that says everyone must apply anonymously or everyone must identify themselves in a zoning application. Not unlike posting on the these blogs. You have the freedom to be anonymous or you can identify yourself. You choose the tactic to suit your purpose. For example, if you fear your children may be discriminated against if you criticize the teacher's unions in a PW blog, you will most likely choose to go anonymous. This is no different than what Walmart is doing. They know they will be discriminated against, which is now happening before our very eyes.
a resident of Amberwood/Wood Meadows
on Feb 19, 2012 at 9:30 am
Stacey is a registered user.
It's an interesting discussion. The anonymity didn't really prevent discrimination. Like on this blog, where anonymous posters can still be identified through their writing, Wal-Mart's tactic of applying anonymously for grocery store permits (and then revealing themselves later) is a sign the opposition looks for. The OurPleasanton (Saint Consulting) group sent out anonymous flyers to the neighborhood containing factual inaccuracies well in advance of anyone else having a clue. I would argue that transparency would not necessarily have increased discrimination, but the average citizen would have had a clearer picture.
a resident of Vineyard Hills
on Feb 19, 2012 at 5:37 pm
franco is a registered user.
So, the average citizen would have a clearer picture of what? The unions are hunting for Walmart to keep them out, and Walmart is using various tactics, including temporary anonymity, to put stores in target locations. I think at this point the average citizen has a pretty clear picture of what is going on. And no change to zoning application requirements was needed. All parties had freedom of choice to pursue their agenda in their own way.
In fact, the present case exemplifies how far some of our elected officials will travel to use their governmental powers to discriminate against those whom they have prejudice. Whether the greater public good is served is not really considered by them. They seem to serve at best a narrow base of the citizenry from whom they are assured their vote.
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The Great Divide, and What's Next?
By Tom Cushing | 38 comments | 769 views
Sandia recognizes top girl scholars with math/science awards
By Jeb Bing | 1 comment | 563 views
2017 guide to summer camps
Looking for something for the kids to do this summer, learn something new and have fun? The 2017 Summer Camp Guide features local camps for all ages and interests.


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Posts tagged with Weird Wild Web
The Web Week in Review
In a week that that saw a rally in global stock markets and is seeing some of the best Black Friday deals in recent memory, it seems like the world has been able to recapture some sense of normalcy.
Here's the news that caught my attention this week.
The Web Week in Review
Few things are certain in today's crazy world but the weekend is one of them. So without further ado, here's this week's The Web Week in Review.
Second Life faces real estate crunch of its own
Second Life has always been absurd to me, for a number of reasons. Additionally, I've always found interest in it as a marketing platform to be worth a hefty dose of skepticism.
But when I read an announcement posted on the Second Life blog last week, I had to check the date because I thought it might be April 1.
PR tries to sell 'afterthebailout.com' on eBay for $1m
Kudos to Annie Jennings for trying, but something tells me that she's not going to sell the domain name 'AfterTheBailout.com' for more than a million bucks.
Annie, who runs a New Jersey-based PR firm, has fired over two jaw-dropping press releases informing me that the "hottest domain name AfterTheBailout.com is on sale at eBay", with the minimum bid set to a staggering $1m.
Number of bids to date? Zero.
The Web Week in Review
For some reason, the news that interested me the most dealt primarily with two words: music and Google.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee in crazy kitemark scheme
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is to offer reputable websites a kitemark, to help web users work out that they are trustworthy and reliable. The father of the web is to launch the scheme via his World Wide Web Foundation , which begins its work in 2009.
This is, of course, completely bonkers. Why has it come about? Because of a bunch of cults, that's why...
IBM invents teleportation system
There is no technology company in the world quite like IBM.
Its history dates back to 1889 and perhaps no other technology company has been through as much and reinvented itself as many times.
Brand engagement with Wii
It seems that every day we read about the declining effectiveness of advertising. How viewers skip through the adverts, can switch off to the marketing noise, no longer respond to our messages.
Brands are increasingly looking at more diverse ways to engage consumers in their products, and I believe there is currently no better opportunity than the Nintendo Wii.
If you were me would you make any money?
I haven't had a whole lot of time recently to play around in the MMO world but I follow the, err, 2.0 space pretty closely.
There were a couple things that caught my eye this week and are both somewhat troubling.
Innocent maybe, but highly effective
After working on email marketing for many years, I have certainly seen many examples of the good, the bad and the ugly, with many unfortunately falling into the latter two.
However, one brand is leading the way with an email newsletter that has kept me hooked for nearly two years with fresh and engaging content.
Thoughts from our social media session
So much was covered that it would take a week to explore all the issues raised, but I thought I'd just note some of the key thoughts from the event...
MySpace founder 'fibbed about age'
Tom Anderson, the co-founder and public face of MySpace, has been rumbled for lying about his age in his profile – he's apparently four years older than he claims.
But besides showing how far he was prepared to go to appear in touch with MySpace's yoof audience, and being pretty embarrassing, is this a big deal?


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FFIV to Benefit as Cisco Scales Down 'Ace,' Says JMP
JMP Securities's networking equipment Erik Suppiger this afternoon reports that he's confirmed that Cisco Systems (CSCO) has "significantly reduced its investment in the development of the company's ACE (Application Control Engine) product as part of the company's efforts to re-align resources with the company's long-term opportunities," which, he thinks, leaves more runway for F5 Networks (FFIV), which has competed with Cisco in that market.
Cisco's ACE is a plug-in to the company's "Catalyst 6500" series switches that handles load-balancing of corporate applications, something that has been F5′s bread and butter with its appliances.
Suppiger, who has a Market Outperform rating on F5 shares, thinks the scaling back of Cisco's efforts will leave an easier playing field for F5 and for number two competitor Citrix Systems (CTXS):
We recently learned that Cisco is advising its sales people to refrain from selling the company's application delivery controller product, the ACE 30 module, for new deployments. We understand this reflects the company's reduced development efforts for the product, which will result in limited feature advancements. However, Cisco will continue to sell and service the product for existing accounts. We also confirmed the company moved it's the development team for the ACE solution to other areas within the company's data center technologies […] We believe Cisco's de-emphasis on selling the ACE for new deployments is a more recent development that reflects more of a shift away from the application delivery controller market […] Cisco has been losing market share in the ADC market for several years and we believe this will accelerate the company's share erosion. We also feel that F5, as the strong market leader, will be well positioned to capture a large portion of the share. Other players that may benefit include the 2nd largest vendor, Citrix, which controls 16.8%. We also believe privately held A10 Networks, which controls 6.2% of the market, is also well positioned to gain share from Cisco.
F5 shares today are up $2.47, or 2.5%, at $102.86.


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How much do you know about the 43 men who have led the United States? Take this quiz to find out.
Start Quiz »
You scored
0 out of 30
Question 1 of 30
Who had the shortest presidency?
William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia in 1841, only 31 days into his term.
Rutherford B. Hayes
William McKinley
Question 2 of 30
Who was the first president to die in office?
Warren G. Harding
James Garfield
William Henry Harrison
Again, William Henry Harrison has this distinction.
Question 3 of 30
Who was the only unmarried president?
John Tyler
James Buchanan
James Buchanan was the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor.
Franklin Pierce
Question 4 of 30
Which of the following is NOT the name of a presidential scandal?
the Petticoat affair
the Teapot Dome scandal
the War Chest episode
The Petticoat affair and Teapot Dome scandal were real. The War Chest episode, not so much.
Question 5 of 30
There are two father/son sets who have been president. The Bushes are one. Which is the other?
John Adams and John Quincy Adams
Second President John Adams was the father of sixth President John Quincy Adams. William Henry Harrison was Benjamin Harrison's grandfather, and the Roosevelts were fifth cousins.
William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison
Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt
Question 6 of 30
George H.W. Bush and this former president were the only two sitting vice presidents to be elected president.
Grover Cleveland
Martin Van Buren
Many vice presidents have moved up after the death of the president, but Van Buren and Bush were the only two to run for election while they were vice president.
Herbert Hoover
Question 7 of 30
Who was the only president to have gotten divorced?
Richard Nixon
Ronald Reagan
Reagan was married to Jane Wyman before he married Nancy Reagan.
Gerald Ford
Question 8 of 30
Which president had the most children?
Zachary Taylor
George Washington
John Tyler
John Tyler had 15 kids over 45 years.
Question 9 of 30
The only two presidents to have been impeached are Bill Clinton and who else?
Martin Van Buren
Richard Nixon
Andrew Johnson
Clinton and Johnson were both impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate. Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.
Question 10 of 30
Why was Andrew Johnson impeached?
violation of the Tenure of Office Act
Johnson wasn't on board with his party's plans for Reconstruction, and he blocked the enforcement of some congressional acts. The last straw was when he tried to dismiss his secretary of war, in open defiance of the Tenure of Office Act, which required congressional approval for dismissal of certain Cabinet members.
defying the Treaty of Paris
being a Radical Republican
Question 11 of 30
These two presidents were second cousins.
George Washington and James Monroe
Franklin Pierce and James Polk
Zachary Taylor and James Madison
Zachary Taylor was the 12th president, and James Madison was the fourth president.
Question 12 of 30
Who was president during the stock market crash of 1929?
Herbert Hoover
The stock market crashed only seven months after Hoover became president.
Calvin Coolidge
Warren G. Harding
Question 13 of 30
Who was the only ex-president to become a Supreme Court justice?
Millard Fillmore
William H. Taft
Taft left office in 1908, and Warren G. Harding appointed him as chief justice in 1921.
James Polk
Question 14 of 30
Who served nine terms as a congressional representative after his presidency?
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams had a much more politically active post-presidency life than most, serving nine terms as a representative from Massachusetts.
William H. Taft
Andrew Jackson
Question 15 of 30
Who's the only president to hold a doctorate?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Bill Clinton
Woodrow Wilson
Wilson held a doctorate in political science and history from Johns Hopkins University.
Question 16 of 30
Who was the youngest elected president?
Barack Obama
John F. Kennedy
JFK was 43 years and 7 months old when he was inaugurated.
Zachary Taylor
Question 17 of 30
Who was the youngest president to be in office?
John F. Kennedy
Theodore Roosevelt
Roosevelt took office at 42 years and 10 months old, but he wasn't elected — he took office after President McKinley was assassinated.
Franklin Pierce
Question 18 of 30
This president was a congressman, senator, governor and vice president before he became president.
James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson truly climbed the governmental ladder to the presidency.
Harry Truman
Question 19 of 30
John F. Kennedy and this ex-president are the only two to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
William H. Taft
In addition to his presidential term and stint as chief justice of the Supreme Court, Taft also served as secretary of war.
Ulysses S. Grant
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Question 20 of 30
How many presidents have been assassinated in office?
Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy were all killed in office.
Question 21 of 30
How many presidents have survived an assassination attempt while in office?
Jackson, FDR, Truman, Ford and Reagan all survived assassination attempts while in office.
Question 22 of 30
How many of those survivors were wounded in the attempt?
Reagan was the only one to be wounded by a would-be assassin. He suffered a punctured lung and internal bleeding when John Hinckley Jr. shot him.
Question 23 of 30
Who was the oldest president at the time of election?
Chester A. Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
Ronald Reagan
Reagan was 69 years old when he was elected.
Question 24 of 30
Who was the shortest president?
James Madison
Madison stood 5 feet, 4 inches (163 centimeters) and weighed only 100 pounds (45 kilograms).
Richard Nixon
Rutherford B. Hayes
Question 25 of 30
Who was the heaviest president?
William H. Taft
Taft weighed in at about 330 pounds (150 kilograms) but lost 150 of those after his presidency.
Grover Cleveland
Millard Fillmore
Question 26 of 30
Who was the tallest president?
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln stood 6 feet, 4 inches (193 centimeters) tall.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Thomas Jefferson
Question 27 of 30
These ex-presidents died on the same day.
Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew Johnson
Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
Former rivals Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Question 28 of 30
Which president was re-elected after admitting to having had a child out of wedlock?
Grover Cleveland
Cleveland owned up to the scandal but claimed the child wasn't biologically his. A 2011 book alleges that Cleveland date-raped the mother 10 years before he became president.
Franklin Roosevelt
Thomas Jefferson
Question 29 of 30
Who was known as "Old Rough and Ready"?
Zachary Taylor
Andrew Jackson was "Old Hickory," Teddy Roosevelt was a Rough Rider, and Zachary Taylor was "Old Rough and Ready."
Theodore Roosevelt
Andrew Jackson
Question 30 of 30
Who was the only president to get married in the White House?
Grover Cleveland
Tyler and Wilson both got married while in office but not at the White House. Cleveland married Frances Folsom there in 1886.
John Tyler
Woodrow Wilson


text:
LB is one thing, in this defense you can hide your LB with DL play. Hankins and Joeseph will make them look better.
The CBs are a wreck. Amukamara and Hosely are the only guys signed for 2014 worth mentioning. Webby, Ross and T2 are on 1 year deals and there is no one in the hopper. This was a solid CB draft and we failed to take advantage.


text:
Ten years ago I gave up bee keeping, Defeated by the verona mite.
With the introduction of the mite resistant carniolians I decided to try beekeeping again.
My bee are russian's from Kelly bee's, I am very happy with the way they came through the winter. I would recomend them to anyone in northern parts of USA.
I have two hives, both with two deep brood hive bodies installed in 2010
My question is [This spring 2011]
Do I need to switch the hive bodies. I mean change the brood hives bodies from the bottom to the top, And the top to the bottom.
central Indiana Jerry


text:
Emren Fogle: Distinguished Student
SUGAR CITY, Idaho - The weekly United Dairymen of Idaho Distinguished Student Award winners are often chosen on the basis of their grades, talents and extracurricular activities. Sugar – Salem High School senior Emren Fogle has all those qualities, but also an amazing smile.
"I just hate frowning, so I smile and I get a lot more friends by smiling and trying to get to know everyone - that's my goal this year is to try to get to know a lot more people than I have in my high school career, and I just smile and get to know everyone," Emren says.
Emren enjoys getting together with a good friends in show choir for fun - just standing around the piano, singing.
"I can express myself through song," Emren says. "My brothers did it when they were in high school so I did it and it's just the best thing ever - I love swing choir."
As one of the yearbook editors, Emren takes special note of the cross country section. She's on the team. She took 6th place in the state in the long jump and looks forward to doing better this season.
She also pushes herself to get good grades.
"My parents have inspired me to do well at school, so I just study hard and do all that I can to get my grades up and keep them up," Emren says.
From cross country to yearbook to swing choir, Emren is involved in a lot of activities and encourages other high school students to do the same.
"Do everything you can to get to know anyone," Emren says. You'll be amazed how many people there are that you wouldn't have come in contact with if you hadn't tried something new."


text:
"Punk Rock Action" is rocking punk rock/heavy metal song with attitude. It will get the adrenaline flowing in your veins and get you read for some action! It contains heavy guitars, groovy drums and synths creating a modern, industrial atmosphere!
It's perfect music for any action scene. This fast and driving song provides the drive and energy you need. This song is also suitable for video games!
3 different versions are included!
- Punk Rock Action (Full Version): 2:04
- Punk Rock Action (loopable 30 second version): 0:30 (in preview at 2:04)
- Punk Rock Action (60 second version): 0:30 (in preview at 2:36)
The .zip includes mp3 and .wav files of the both versions!
p>Remember to rate the track after purchase!


text:
IN.gov - Skip Navigation
Note: This message is displayed if (1) your browser is not standards-compliant or (2) you have you disabled CSS. Read our Policies for more information.
Attorneys not admitted to practice in Indiana seeking to appear before the board must petition the Indiana supreme court for temporary admission under the Indiana Rules for Admission to the Bar and the Discipline of Attorneys, Rule 3, Section 2. See 52 IAC 2-3-2(d).
Visit the Indiana Supreme Court website: http://www.in.gov/judiciary/supreme/


text:
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text:
Thursday, November 30, 2006
The Master Takes Away...
It's still at number 2 on google.ca
But this remark is interesting: "there is something unsettling about this whole process in terms of how, for ourselves and for our kids, do we get our brains around the scope of the potential manipulation of ideas and information on the Web?"
I heard a saying recently, I can't remember where, and I can't remember the exact quotation (it was only at the periphery of my perception), but it went something like this:
The master gives the workers the tools they need to work. The master takes away the tools when they begin to tear down the house.
The implication is: so long as what we're doing online (such as messing around with Google rankings) benefits them, they are happy to let it continue. But if it begins to threaten their lordship over things ('tearing down the house') they take the tools away.
I have been thinking about this small saying a lot recently. About how much of our new empowerment is genuine, and how much exists only through the benevolence of the masters.
It's pretty easy to test.
I got an invitation recently to talk at some conference in Florida or Carolina or something, a conference for executives. Asked what I would talk about, I outlined how in order to function in the new economy they would have to give up power, to function through networks of equals rather than through coercion. I never heard from the conference organizers again.
Oh, I'm happy to see that site drop in the rankings. I looked at it; it's a piece of racist crap and deserves oblivion.
But what do I do if I'm next? If some major society, say, were to decide that socialists (which I am) or communists (which I'm called) are as bad as racists.
Suppose even that I simply attract the ire of some major company that sponsors conferences. Could they silence my voice? See to it that my rankings drop?
The master takes away….
I'm just wondering what happens when the other shoe drops. If it drops.
"There's been a flurry of news about new video downloading services — BitTorrent, Wal-Mart, Time Warner — as copyright holders get busy taking back control from consumers. YouTube just cut a deal with Verizon that gives users so little control that the blogosphere couldn't find enough pejorative adjectives to describe it.
"The glory days of consumers in control of copyrighted content seem to be coming to an end — people who still want to control copyrighted content are being driven underground, or to sites like DailyMotionMovieVids.com, where you can find the location of copyrighted content still available online."
Scott Karp
Here's the reference:
"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never allow us to bring about genuine change." ~ Audre Lorde
A New Website, Part Ten - More on Mailing
Summary: I solved the problems by creating the /Mail directory in my account on mail231.csoft.net and then rebuilding my mailboxes.
None of the work (which I document below) should have been necessary.
1. The /Mail directory should have been created when the account was created
2. The mailbox routine on the control panel should report an error when the mailbox fails to be created (that it doesn't do this is a remarkable programming error)
3. The list of email addresses in the control panel should be complete
4. 'Delete' should delete email addresses even if there is an error in the mailbox configuration (such as it not existing)
5. Documentation on how to set up mail should be complete, specifying (eg) the use of SSH as a server setting
6. Documentation on how to set up mailing lists should be complete, *especially* the bit about running the command on a second server in the Mail directory
7. Finally, the response to my original complaint was inadequate. At the very least, the person responding should have looked at the Mail directory to see if there was a problem. At that point, he would have noticed that the directory doesn't exist.
Now I'm going to go see if I can figure out how to tell people how to subscribe to my mailing list, which is also undocumented. *sigh*
Here is my work record:
My mail problems multiply.
Attemnpting to login to mailbox 'stephen' fails. Sort of. Stalls at 'sending login information' with 'no encryption', fails entirely under TLS, and appears to accept login but fails to respond under SSL (it may simply be returning an empty mailbox) (obviously I'm just guessing at the settins here, because they are not documented).
An email sent to firstname.lastname@example.com was not rejected (yay!) but does not appear to be retrievable.
The previous attempt was IMAP. I also attempted to set up a POP account. Mailbox name 'stepop', password 'DAVIDHUME'. I sent an email to 'email@example.com' which was not rejected. Mailbox sizes remained '0' however.
When I attempted to access this account I got: "Sending of password sis not succeed. Mail server MAIL231.CSOFT.NET responded 'Unable to create lockfile' (2) on /home/downes/Mail/stepop/Mailbox': No such file or directory (2)
The list of current email addresses only shows 12 email addresses, all 12 created by two of my attempts to create mailing lists, foo and fob. No current email addresses (including email@example.com and firstname.lastname@example.com (both of which I reconfirmed exist) show up on the display.
Attempts to delete six of the addresses (those associated with 'foo' fail with an error).
Error: No such alias recipient: `|/usr/local/bin/ezmlm-moderate'.
I attempted to run the ezmlm command in the Mail directory on mail231.csoft.net as instructed.
The Mail directory did not exist (though there existed a symbolic link Mairdir -> Mail/Maildir). So naturally the ezmlm command failed (I tried ezmlm-make -m ~/Mail/fob ~/Mail/.qmail-fallacies:ca-fob fob fallacies.ca and got: ezmlm-make: fatal: unable to create /home/downes/Mail/fob: file does not exist
I created the directory Mail and tried again. The commands then worked.
I tried sending emails to the two email addresses (email@example.com and email@example.com) and logging into their respective mailboxes, but again, same results.
I sent email to email@example.com (the mailing list that should now exist). This email *did* appear in my email (email@example.com) with a moderation request. Reply to 'accept' did not bounce (I never saw the email again - I guess the moderator doesn't get copies).
I deleted the 'stephen' mailbox and recreated it. I attempted to associate it with ;firstname.lastname@example.com' again but got an error "Error: Existing recipient: `&stephen'" It seems to me that when you delete a mailbox that email associations should also be deleted. I am of course unable to delete the email address 'firstname.lastname@example.com' because I cannot see it.
I created a new email address, 'firstname.lastname@example.com'. It also does not show up on the list of email addresses (this is getting REALLY frustrating - that HAS to be fixed). It DID show up in the mail box. An email sent to 'email@example.com' also showed up. Clearly, recreating the mailbox (which presumably is now in the 'Mail' directory) was the trick.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
A New Website, Part Nine - Mailing List Follies
Over the weekend I installed the Views module and experimented with it. Repeat after me: "A view is a list."
Happily this module does exactly what I want it to do: it allows me to describe a list of records I would like displayed on a page or a block, and it then displays them for me. In this it corresponds with my old 'keyword' command, that I would insert into a web page.
I didn't get a chance to do a lot of experimentation, but basically the idea is that you select what type of content you would like to display, what fields from that content you would like to display, what you want to filter on (eg., 'Content type = author') and how many records you want to show at a time.
In my system, I would feed each record into a template. This does not appear to be quite so flexible, and I haven't really found a way to style the output yet, but I'm sure there is one.
The Front Page
I decided I wanted to create a nice clean front page, displaying my records and news and stuff inside the website.
This was a disaster, and I ended up messing up the administration screens.
Without going into details (there's no point, and I can't remember it all), here are the lessons I learned:
- first, the administration screen needs the columns, so don't wipe them out in your template
- second, keep your content in blocks, not pages
Data, Revisited
This week I have been looking again at how to convert my old data to the new system, with more success.
Using the CCK module, I have determined that I can create new data types that emulate the tables in my old system, including even the links between records that I use.
I have experimented with the 'Authors' table first. In my system, when I describe a web resource, I enter the name of the author. So when I save a post, I also save a record for the author (if it's a new author) or find the name (if it's an existing author) and link it to the post record.
Now CCK isn't going to support anything so sophisticated (I will have to write some input script) but it will support the record types and linking.
In my system the author table has the following fields:
I would have added more but I never got around to finishing off this part of my system.
I defined a new content type, 'Author', in CCK, with the following fields: Link, ID, Description and Crdate. I let the Title of the record be Name. I then created a test record, just to see what CCK would do.
CCK creates a bunck of new tables and records to track the new content type. The actual data for a record is stored in three separate tables: node, node_content_author, and node_revisions. The first and third are standard Drupal tables, and the second was created when I created the content type.
My next step, therefore, is to look at each of these three tables and create a crosswalk -- that is, a mapping from my table to the Drupal table. Here's how I set it up (I have no idea why Blogger puts a big gap there, there's only one line and no markup in my text):
|Drupal Field
|My field or default value
|(Auto Increment)
|(from node_revision)
|Drupal Field
|My field or default value
|(from Node)
|Drupal Field
|My field or default value
|(from Node)
|(not used)
|(not used)
|(not used)
So this was all pretty nice, it seemed clear I would be able to recreate my table just fine.
So I went into phpMyAdmin running on my current website and, navigating to the 'author' table, selected 'Export' and saved the data as an SQL file. I then copied the contents of this file (it was only a little more than 2000 lines) into the 'SQL' window in the phpMyAdmin running on the new site. Running the SQL created an 'author' table on the new site that was an exact duplicate of the one on my old site.
Then I created a script that would access this new table and copy it into the Drupal table. As I write I haven't finished this script, but here is what I have at the moment.
use DBI;
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Test
my $dbh = &db_open("DBI:mysql:xxxxxx:localhost","xxxxxx","xxxxxx") or print "Database connect error: $!";
print "Database is open
my $sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM author");
while (my $ref = $sth -> fetchrow_hashref()) {
#print ($ref->{author_name});
#print " -
print "Testing insert
$vars->{author_crdate} = time;
$vars->{author_name} = "Test";
$vars->{idfield} = &db_insert($dbh,"author",$vars);
print "Inserted record into record number ",$vars->{idfield},"
if ($dbh) { $dbh->disconnect; }
sub db_open {
my ($dsn,$user,$password) = @_;
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, $user, $password)
or die "Database connect error: $! \n";
# if ($dbh) { $dbh->trace(2,"dberror.txt"); }
return $dbh;
sub db_insert { # Inserts record into table from hash
my $dbh = shift || die "Database handler not initiated";
my $table = shift || die "Table not specified on insert";
my $input = shift || die "No data provided on insert";
# die "Unsupported data type specified to insert" unless (ref $input eq 'HASH' || ref $input eq 'Link' || ref $input eq 'Feed');
my $data= &db_prepare_input($dbh,$table,$input);
my $sql = "INSERT INTO $table ";
my(@sqlf, @sqlv, @sqlq) = ();
for my $k (sort keys %$data) {
push @sqlf, $k;
push @sqlq, '?';
push @sqlv, $data->{$k};
$sql .= '(' . join(', ', @sqlf) .') VALUES ('. join(', ', @sqlq) .')';
#print "Content-type: text/html\n\n $sql -- ",@sqlv,"
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
return $dbh->{'mysql_insertid'};
# Adapted from SQL::Abstract by Nathan Wiger
sub db_prepare_input { # Filters input hash to contain only columns in given table
my ($dbh,$table,$input) = @_;
my $data = ();
my @columns = &db_columns($dbh,$table); # Get a list of columns safeguard data input
foreach my $ikeys (keys %$input) { # Clean input for save
next unless ($input->{$ikeys}); # - no blank fields
next if ($ikeys =~ /_id$/i); # - do not change ID
next unless (&index_of($ikeys,\@columns) >= 0); # - input column must exist
$data->{$ikeys} = $input->{$ikeys}; # Transfer to input hash
#$data->{$ikeys} = &demoronise($data->{$ikeys}); # Fix non-standard character input
return $data;
sub db_columns {
my ($dbh,$table) = @_;
my @columns = ();
my $showstmt = "SHOW COLUMNS FROM $table";
my $sth = $dbh -> prepare($showstmt);
$sth -> execute();
while (my $showref = $sth -> fetchrow_hashref()) { push @columns,$showref->{Field}; }
die "Can't find any columns for $table" unless (@columns);
return @columns;
sub index_of {
# Get item and array from input
my ($item,$array) = @_;
# Initialize counter
my $index_count = 0;
# For each item in the array
foreach my $i (@$array) {
# Return the counter value if it matches item
if ($item eq $i) { return $index_count; }
# Increment the counter
# Return -1 if no match is returned
return "-1";
As you can see, what it does right now is print a list of all the items in the new 'author' table I created, as well as add some test data into the new database. To finish this script I need to create some hashes to implement the crosswalk, then run an INSERT command for each of the three Drupal tables using the crosswalk.
This is a small job, but I don't want to finish and run the script just yet. My website, after all, is a working website. Every time I add a new link, I could be adding a new author. So I don't want to run this until I'm ready to commit to the changeover.
Mailing Lists
The other major thing I need to do is to set up a mailing list. After all, most of my readers still receive OLDaily by email (three or four times as many as by RSS, in fact). So I can't make the changeover without setting up the mailing lists.
I don't want to use my current script. There's a simple reason: it's not very good. Oh sure, it will send the emails, but it takes a long time and ties up system resources. It makes much more sense to use a proper mailing list program.
CSoft supports a mailing list manager called exmlm (easy Mailing List Manager). Here is all the documentation CSoft provides:
By invoking ezmlm-make from your shell. We do not allow mailing lists which accept posts from non-subscribed addresses, so make sure to always pass the -g or -m flag to ezmlm-make.Honestly, that's pretty inadequate (the link is to the unix man page for ezmlm, but this is unfortunately not written in English). Moreover, following those instructions to the letter doesn't work; the email simply bounces (of course - I could be sending it to the wrong address). There is a nice web interface for it, but that doesn't appear to be supported by CSoft and because the developers created a Perl module (which means you need admin provileges to use it) I can't use it (which is exactly why I am moving away from Perl - the strategy of requiring perl modules you need superuser privileges to install is borked).
The command to create a "firstname.lastname@example.com" mailing list, would look like this -
$ ezmlm-make -g ~/foo ~/.qmail-domain:com-foo foo domain.com
A moderated list is created using the -m flag, and by subscribing moderators like so -
$ ezmlm-make -m ~/foo ~/.qmail-domain:com-foo foo domain.com
$ ezmlm-sub ~/foo/mod email@example.com
OK, maybe Drupal supports mailing lists.
I tried a search (why oh why do irrelevant Drupal discussions always rise to the top of Google searches of the Drupal website, and not things like, say, documentation?). After getting a bunch of useless results, I combined 'Drupal' and 'exmlm' in my search and got this page, the Drupal ezmlm module.
However, it says, "Note that this module, ezmlm, will no longer be maintained after release 4.7 because its functionality has been superceded by the Mailing List Manager (mlm) module."
OK, so I went to the Mailing List Manager module, downloaded the module and installed it as per usual. Only to be greeted by a slew of database errors. Huh? What?
Well, according to the bug reports, the Mailing List manager module installation routine simply failed to install the necessary tables in the database. This is just me, but wouldn't this be a really big problem? You'd think - but I see no activity on the module for months.
This then is probably another one of those abandoned Drupal modules. This, it seems to me, is a real problem for Drupal. If the modules are basically abandoned, they should be removed from the site. From what I can tell, the Drupal site is littered with half-built and semi-working modules. How about a little quality control here. Or at least, some requirement that you finish coding the thing before it gets listed.
I saw through another link something called 'og2list' - of course, what the search turned up was this screencast page and then this totally irrelevant page (the bad search results is a huge problem for me using Drupal - and it's probably because there's no %$%$ links to the documentation for Google to seize on, so Google has no way of knowing which Drupal website pages are important).
I eventually found the module here. But this is way more than I want - it is basically a set of modules that turns a Drupal installation into something like Yahoo groups. Nice, but not what I'm after with my website. Also, it requires all kinds of admin privileges to install, so once again I'm at sea here.
So far as I can tell, Drupal does not support a functioning mailing list module. So I wrote a note to my host technical support asking for either (a) help setting up my mailing lists, or (b) documentation.
So, another day. Not sure what I'm going to do. At least Perl works on my site, so if worst comes to worst I can just use my existing script. But I think that the CSoft people wouldn't like that very much.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Sumaj - Live in Barcelona
The woodwind band Sumaj plays live in Barcelona in an open air concert on La Rambla. Enjoy.
LOMand Dublin Core
I think I look at this question a bit differently, asking instead, "Why do we need one?"
A characteristic of LOM (and increasingly of Dublin Core) is that it is trying to do everything itself. Inside LOM is bibliographic information, categoization and taxonomic information, authorship and publication information, technical information, rights information, and only incidentally, it seems, educational (or learning-related) information.
By creating 'one-size-fits-all' versions of such metadata, in my view, the result is that these different types of metadata are done badly. Consider Rights, for example, characterized by a couple yes-no questions and a text string. Surely there are better ways of doing this. Certainly, there are alternative (ODRL and MPEG-REL) ways of doing this.
Similarly for technical metadata. Ill-conceived (by requiring the definition of a player, rather than a media format) the technical metadata can and should be very precise - and most importantly, different - for different types of media.
To me, the metaphor of 'metadata as document' or 'metadata as catalogue card' - with a primary emphasis on things like search - unnecessarily limits how we can talk about learning objects and learning resources in general. We ought to have, for example, evaluative metadata, including (as appropriate) commentary, links to review, and more. We ought to have usage metadata. We ought to be able to, over time, assemble from many different sources, different metadata 'views' of the same resource, depending on our needs and perspective.
Certainly, the 'core' approach (as instantiated by the Dublin ilk, or RSS, or Atom, or a few others) ought, in my mind, to be favoured, creating a minimally defined set of elements that may, as need and custom demand, be extended.
Why do I feel the need to comment on this? because there still exists the tendency to belief that some specialized need ought, by the fact of its possibility, constrain or even become a part of the specification.
I agree with Mikael: "The way forward that I see as most promising is not merging standards but rather to disassemble standards."
If there is a way forward for LTSC, I think that it would be in articulating how we think about this and how we use disassembled standards in concert to realize semantically useful results (not just searches - there is way too much emphasis on searches, in my view - not everything is a library).
My own views on this (a bit dated now, but still possibly fresh enough): http://www.downes.ca/files/resource_profiles.htm
The Quebec Card
For the record - and only for the record - I am happy to recognize the Quebecois, the people, as a nation. In Canada we have plenty of precedent for such a designation, so much so I am surprised that there would be any debate about this.
Has everyone in the media, for example, forgotten about the First Nations? Among whom we would include the Six Nations? The ones with whom we as a country negotiated a series of treaties? How about the Inuit, over which Canada negotiated governance of the territory of Nunavit? And have we also forgotten the Dene Nation?
There will come a day, I suspect, when we (quite rightly and properly) recognize the Chinese (who, after all, built large sections of our national railroad, the link that forged the country) as a founding nation. No history of Montreal would be complete without a nod to the Jewish nation and even the United Empire Loyalists who constitute, in part, my own ancestry. And I could go on.
No, what should be remarked upon at this juncture is not the substance of the debate, for there is none. Rather, it is the playing, once again, of the Quebec Card.
The Quebec Card is, of course, a pale understudy for the ultimate card, the Race Card. It is a tactic that is pulled out by politicians, usually from the right (because they seem to have this thing about race), when they are losing an otherwise more typical debate or contest.
That is why it comes as no surprise to me that Michael Ignatieff played the Quebec card. Though relentlessly promoted by the national media (who, remember, gave us Paul Martin) Ignatieff was nonetheless losing the leadership race. That is why, for no other apparent reason, he raised the question of Quebec nationalism.
"I speak for those who say Quebec is a nation, but Canada is my country,'' Ignatieff said, falsely (as he most certainly does not speak for me) and unnecessarily. And - I might add - unclearly (the best way to stir up a debate is to be murky about which side of it you're on). Perhaps this will obscure his support for the Iraq war, something only his long residence in the United States or his conservative leanings can explain.
It is of course no surprise to see the other conservatives take up the Ignatieff play, raising the proposal by a motion, sowing chaos into the Liberal debate, and not incidentally, the Canadian political landscape.
The Conservatives, after all, had just slipped behind the leaderless Liberals in the polls, having totally botched the environment portfolio and having lost ground on issues as diverse as gay rights (which they oppose), capital punishment (which they support) and the Afghanistan war (where they wish they could be). They can't even get free speech right. Much less media relations.
It's a shame we have to witness this, once again, and a shame our corporate media is ready and willing to whip this into a frenzy. Most likely, Canadians are not fooled by the Quebec Card any more (though the Bloc can be counted on to leap like a walleye to the lure).
If I had my druthers, we'd all nod in bored agreement and then get on to some things that matter. Like the war, say. The environment. Education, health, poverty. Energy, the economy and regional development. And a few dozen other matters Canadians place at a much higher priority than stupid word games being played by stupid people.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
A New Website, Part Eight - Drupal Reloaded
I got into the office a bit late today because I had to sign some papers related to my new gas furnace. First thing, I went to Google looking for information on how to install new modules in Drupal 5.0.
It's very simple. Modules have a name, say, 'foo'. There is a .module file associated with that module, 'foo.module'. There can be (but doesn't have to be) a directory with that same name, 'drupal/modules/foo'. Drupal, when it lists the modules that can be installed, checks the 'modules' directory and any subdirectories for a file called '.module'. That's it.
So why wasn't this working on my website? Why were new modules, uploaded and very carefully checked for permissions and all that, simply not found? I have no idea. The core modules were loaded OK because they are all listed in the 'modules' table in the database, no problem.
Once I was comfortable I fully understood the module loading, installation and initiation process, I was also comfortable in saying, my installation of Drupal 5.0 is borked. Which left me two choices: I could either delve into the code that loads the list of modules for admin/modules and try to fix the bug, or I could give up on Drupal 5.0 and try to use an earlier version.
And that's when I decided 5.0 wouldn't work. I poked around in the code for a while, looking for exactly where the script scans the directory structure looking for .module files, but I couldn't fine it. I did find this very nice way to navigate the Drupal fuctions, which helped a lot (I have linked to the source for index.php, and you can pretend your a computer and navigate all the functions yourself), but I wasn't really prepared to root around looking for it (and you have to root around, PHP allows variables to be valled as functions, something that makes coding more flexible but is just miserable to debug, at least to me).
But more to the point: it was very possible that Drupal couldn't find the list of modules because the current version of PHP didn't support it. Drupal might be trying to do some sort of crazy strsub on the directory names, for example. Who knows? So I decided to try Drupal 4.7 because that would also tell me whether it was a PHP problem, as opposed to a Drupal problem (verdict: it's a Drupal problem; Drupal 4.7 read the directories just fine).
So I installed Drupal 4.7. It took me about 10 minutes. Here's what I did:
- Deleted database 'downes', then recreated a new and empty database called 'downes' and gave my user access to it, just like before
- Downloaded the Drupal 4.7 package to my home machine and uploaded it to my website using gftp
- Opened a console window, used SSH to access my website, then used 'cd' to navigate to the 'www' directory
- removed the previous installation of Drupal using the command 'rm -r drupal' (note: be extremely careful using 'rm -r' because it wipes out directories recursively)
- then I executed the command 'tar xzf drupal-7.7.tar.gz'
- Executed 'mv drupal-7.7.tar.gz drupal' to move my software into a nice clean drupal directory
- removed my symbolic link from fallacies.ca to the drupal directory, then recreated it by typing 'ln -s drupal fallacies.ca'
- used gftp to download /drupal/sites/default/settings.php to my desktop, used gedit to change the username, password and database name for access to the database, save it, then uploaded it back to the computer
- created the new Drupal database structure by typing: mysql -u username -p databasename foaf module to my desktop, then uploaded foaf.module into the 'modules' directory. Now for the test: I navigated to admin/modules and... yes, there it was. I selected 'enable' and updated the page, and the new module loaded just fine.
Good. Then I decided to try the flexinode module. Same process, only the flexinode module got its own directory. With all the files loaded, I went to admin/modules again, and... there it was. I enabled it and then gave it a test run.
The idea of something like flexinode is that you define a new data type and then assign to it the fields you want for that data type. So I went to 'content types' and defined a new data type, 'Post', and then gave it fields for 'url', 'description', 'author' and 'publisher'.
Once done, I went to 'Add Content' and saw my new content type there. Great! But when I opened up the form to create some content, it was mangled. I had to play with the content types editor several times, but the form never did display. Ah, whatever, I could always define a new form.
Once I have created a test entry, I went into phpMyAdmin (which really lurches and complains on this installation of PHP - either this installation is really bad or (more likely) phpMyAdmin has overreached and now demands as 'required' PHP functions that are very optional and not typicall installed). I needed to see what a 'post' record looked like in the database before I could consider porting the data over.
I was disappointed. It was a very ugly hack. It was sort of like microformats, done badly. All the different fields were placed into the 'body' field, and the script used 'div' tags to delineate them. Well, OK, but the classes used to name the 'div' tags were not descriptive at all - they were 'flexinode.1', 'flexinode.2', and so on. So,. basically, the flexinode script did the minimum to put the data in there, but that was it. Even worse, the names of the fields actually were in the data, delineated with
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
A New Website, Part Seven - Converting The Data
Also, I want to make some changes to what I'm doing. First of all, I've decided I need a much faster-loading front page, and one that easily directs people new to my site to the information they may be seeking. Right now someone who visits me for the first time would never find my more important papers, for example.
As well, I want to try to implement some of the changes I've been planning. I want to use a proper mailing list tool, for example, instead of the home-made one I have been using all these years. I want to properly connect different content types. I want a better integration with remote data sources such as Flickr and Slideshare.
I am working, then, roughly according to a plan, but it's pretty loose. Basically, the first thing to do is to get the content off the NRC servers and into Drupal. Then I'll configure Drupal to roughly emulate my existing functionality. Finally, I will add the enhanced functionality.
The Content
OK then, let's take stock of what sort of content I have. This is a bit tricky because my website includes both harvested content from Edu_RSS and generated content such as my articles and posts. Tricky, but not impossible, for as we have seen Drupal also has an RSS aggregator.
I had always kept the two types of content - Edu_RSS links and my own content - separate, but recently I started putting all that into one big table, distinguished only by content 'type' and by the author. I did this so it would be easier to write templates and the like to display the content. I am not under this constraint here, as Drupal will manage that for me (though I will still have to do some custom work for each new type of content). So I will separate the two types of content again. Edu_RSS content will be managed separately from my own website content.
My own content consists mainly of two major content types: 'posts', which are essentially the links I post in OLDaily, and 'articles', which are the longer types of writing I do. I have more than 10,000 of the former, from eight years worth of collecting, and they are all in the same place (happily). I have about five hundred of the latter, and these are stored both on my own system and in Blogger, where I have been depositing such work recently.
The posts are mostly sand-alone, though some are connected to files and others to resources such as my photo sets. My photo sets were stored on my website, but I have been recently moving them all to Flickr. The posts, additionally, have 'topics'. I do not use either taxonomies or folksonomies to manage my topics; happily, it is a flexible approach we can leave it until later.
Complicating matters is that each post is also associated with one or more links. This is an artifact of Edu_RSS, which managed the imput of many different people about the same resource by creating a separate identity for each resource, then linking the posts to the resource.
The articles, meanwhile, have their own special features. Any given article may be associated with a file, such as an MS-Word or PDF document. Moreover, an article may also be associated with an event, such as a paper presentation. Articles may also have publication data, and some of them have been published more than once.
This introduces another major type of data, my presentations. I have more than a hundred PowerPoint slide shows, currently stored on SlideShare (but also on my existing website) as well as more than fifty MP3 audio recordings of my talks. The also are associated with events, and are also associated, sometimes, with articles.
That's the pretty basic set-up, and really isn't anything other people wouldn't have in their own data collections.
The way databases work is that each of these different types of entities is given its own table, where a table consists of a series of records, one for each item. Each record in each table is given its own identity, called a key. A record's own identity is called the 'primary key'. A record may be related to other entities, and when it is, these other identities are identified by their key; when this key shows up in a table, it is called a 'secondary key'.
Now there are different ways entities can be related to each other:
- one-to-one. This is pretty rare. Traditional marriage is works this way; each spouse has one and only one spouse, and the other spouse in turn has one and only one spouse.
- one-to-many. This is pretty common. Mothers and children work this way. Each mother can have many children, but each child can have only one (biological) mother.
- many-to-may. This is very common. Cousins work this way. Each person may have many cousins, and each cousin may also have many cousins.
In the case of one-to-one and one-to-many relationships, keeping track of associations is simple. We simple put a column in the table such that each record has a field containing the key of the associated entity. Nothing to it.
In the case of many-to-many, however, we have to construct a separate table of data where the keys of each of the associated entities are paired. This table is sometimes called a 'lookup' table. Since a lot of my data is many-to-many, I will need to plan for that.
In addition, I have attached to all of the my discussion board system, which over the years has collected hundreds of comments on things. This isn't as major a thing as NewsTrolls, which has thousands and thousands of posts. Ah, but one site at a time.
As much as possible, I would like to map my content types into existing Drupal tables. This means I don't have to create extra tables and associations and all that. It also means I can draw from the examples of Drupal designers when I do have to create some custom content.
What will help is that in addition to the standard modules, which I covered in the previous installment, Drupal has hundreds of additional modules. Of course, many of these were designed for Drupal version 5, and won't work in the Drupal 5.0 version I am testing. But many will, and more will each day.
OK then.
The Transfer
What I want to move first are the posts. They are the simplest type of content to move, and also form the heart of the services on my website.
Here's what the post records look like on my website.
id is the primary key. type indicates a type of post (in my system, articles, comments, posts, and any other type of content I upload is a post, each with its own type. A post, for example, is a post type 'link'). pretext is an extra content field (it's text that can be placed before the title of the item). title is the title. link is the actual URL of the item while linkid is the secondary key from the Links table. author and journal are the names of the author and the journal for the link I am discussing, while authorid and journalid are the secondary keys from those tables, respectively. key is legacy, from my previous database, hits is the number of hits, thread is unused (it used to track comment threads), dir specifies where to put files associated with the post, crdate is the date it was created, in unix time, creator is the secondary key of the record creator, crip is the IP address from which it was created (used to track spammers) while pub is the publication date.
What I want to do is to on Drupal find or create a type of content that most closely matches this. Drupal has by default the 'page' and 'story' content types. I need to first ask myself whether either of these will work for me. 'Page', probably not (and I will want to use it for website pages). What about 'story'?
What followed at this point was a couple of hours worth of investigation into how Drupal stores its data. As this site observes, "An important concept in Drupal is that all content is stored as a node. They are the basic building blocks for the system, and provide a foundation from which content stored in Drupal can be extended. Creating new node modules allows developers to define and store additional fields in the database that are specific to your site's needs. Nodes are classified according to a type. Each type of node can be manipulated and rendered differently based on its use case."
Taking a look at the Drupal database itself, we can see that the content is stored in two separate tables. One table is just a list of all the contents. The other table is the actual content itself. Doing ti this way keeps one of the tables really short, so you can do things like print lists of the titles or display the teasers. Also, by keeping the body of the item separate from the listings, you can have versions of the same item, which opens up all sorts of possibilities.
OK then, so each one of my posts will be a node. I will create a new node type, called 'post'. Then I will attempt to populate these two tables:
nid is the node id (ie., the primary key) and will increment automatically. vid is the current version, and for us, will always be the same as the node id. type is the node type, in plain text (and not the key from the types table). title is the title of the item. status indicates whether it is published ('1') or not. created and changed are times when these happened, and they are in unix time (yay!), which are is the number of seconds since the standard epoch began at January 1, 1970 (GMT). Here's a time converter. comment, promote, moderate and sticky are status flags, and we'll use the defaults.
nid and vid as above. uid is the identity of the owner of the node - which in our case will always be me, user number 1. title is the title and a repeat of what we say before. body is the body, and as a 'long text' item can be very long. teaser is like an abstract or summary. Don't know what log is, but it's empty on all my test content. timestamp is self-explanatory. Don't know what format is, but 'story' used '1' and the poll used '0'.
So what I need to do is create a mapping from my table to Drupal's. Some of the fields I just won't copy over - the legacy database key, for example, and the thread. But others are buts of data for which there is no Drupal equivalent. Pretext, for example.
But - importantly - one of the big differences between my system and Drupal (and every other blogging system) is that posts in my system are about something, and I store that essential data - the title, author, publisher and link - as separate data items in my database. This is important, because it allows me to connect my work to other people's, but it also allows me to index the content based on the author or publisher, as I do on my resources page. I have always wondered why other systems don't do this - when people talk about something else they just put the link into the text, in an almost random fashion.
Well. Time for lunch and a walk to think about all this.
After Lunch
Well, it is now after lunch, two hours later, in fact, and I can report a most frustrating afternoon.
While i was walking up to the Tim Horton's I decided that basically what I was looking at was something like microformats. After all, if my post is about something, then it is essentially a review. And you can create reviews in microformats.
You see, what I had been thinking originally is that I would have to add extra fields to the database, so that I could add the extra information. I also considered just adding another node-type database, to hold this info. But what creating the record as a microformat would do is actually put the structured data into the 'body' field in 'node_revisions'.
So when I got back to the office I decided to see whether there was anything on Drupal and Microformats. And ran smack into Drupal's brain-dead documentation again, finding this, a project in 'alpha' that consists of nothing but a place-holder (hey Spaghetti, an 'alpha' is still supposed to be something that works). And as far as I can tell, the plan is to implement it using some sort of pseudo-code. No, not good at all.
Some more searching revealed some more discussion, including more posts from Digital Spaghetti but also some from gusaus talking about structured blogging. Well, that would work too - after all, what I do with my website, when I fill in the form identifying the author and the publisher and all that, is structured blogging. There's an implementation, from GoingOn - but no, the site is down for maintenance (has been all day). Then an absolutely useless and misleading page that seems to be about table-less layout (folks - don't say your page is about one thing when it's really about another thing, ok?). Still searching - found another discussion on structured blogging - same participants, same references, different discussion. Some good outline on what structured blogging is, and how it compared to microformats, but no new information about Drupal.
I then hit on this post from D'Arcy Norman. He writes, "upport for custom formats and authoring templates is baked into the DNA of Drupal. Even for non-coders, anyone can make up new formats (and templates) on the fly using the flexinode module. And several other formats are already available as prepackaged modules (events, reviews, etc...)." I had looked at the flexinode module, gagged at the completely useless (but oh so typical) documentation, and decided to pass on it. Maybe now it was worth a revisit, even though it contained no installation instructions.
Installation for modules in Drupal seems straightforward. There's a 'modules' subdirectory in the Drupal installation. Create a subdirectory under the modules directory, and stuff your module code into it. A module release will consist of a few files (this one contained about seven files). The files and the directory have the same root name, and the tyoes of files are indicated by the extension. So, say, if the module is called 'devel' then the directory is 'drupal/modules/devel' and the files might be 'devel.module' and 'devel.install' and 'devel.css'. Etc.
So anyhow, I create a 'flexinode' module and stuff the files in, and then go to the 'Modules' administration page in order to enable the module, just like I enabled all those other modules. I look - but it's not there.
Hm. OK. What's happening then? The 'flexinode' module I'm working with was designed for Drupal 4.7 and so isn't really intended for Drupal 5.0. And when I look in my NewsTrolls Drupal installation, it doesn't even resemble the 5.0 installation - all the ',module' files are in the 'modules' directory,a nd there aren't any subdirectories (that puzzles me, but I set it aside).
OK, are there any modules that are ready for Drupal 5.0? When I search, I get this page, which isn't a list of modules, but rather, some discussion about modules. Some utterly useless advice from harrisben (if you aren't going to describe something fully, or provide a link, just don't comment, OK? Saying 'check the downloads section' without any indication of what you're looking for or where it is is really useless - and frustrating).
Anyhow, there is a list of Drupal 5.0 modules (but you won't, by the way, find it in the downloads section). OK, good, I'll install a 5.0 module, something that's firmly developed for 5.0, and see if that works. Then maybe I can fix flexinode (since it doesn't look like the author has looked at it since 2004). devel is a perfect candidate. "Fully ported and the DRUPAL-5 branch exists." No installation instructions once again (do they thing we set up these sites by ESP?) but I follow the standard procedure. Then, over to the 'Modules' admin page to enable it. And... nothing. devel is nowhere to be seen.
So there's some magical procedure here that appears to be undocumented - at least, in a full day of searching about, I haven't encountered it. It's the end of the day, I'll transfer a few more photos to Flickr, read some email, and think about it overnight.
In Support of Bob Rae
I should be selfish, I suppose. A Rae win would divert votes from the newly resurgent New Democrats. But that party, and especially current leader Jack Layton, has always been about supporting good government, not political advantage, and so my selection goes to the best candidate, not the most opportune candidate.
That said, I will say that if another candidate wins in the Liberal vote, then it is very likely that the rise in the NDP's fortunes will continue, as voters will be convinced, after the Paul Martin coup and then this, that the Liberal party has abandoned its progressive roots and become what the news media has always wanted: a corporate-friendly moderate right wing coalition.
On the other had, should Rae win the leadership, then I think it may be time for he and Jack Layton to sit down and talk seriously about becoming a coalition of some sort or even a united party. Coalition politics, of course, works much better in a preferential balloting system such as in Australia, where the ruling National Party has long managed to stay in power by virtue of such an arrangement.
In Canada, it would cement the leadership of the left, as we as a nation have long leaned in that direction, the Conservatives, despite their occasional successes, being for the most part a marginalized political philosophy, supported only by U.S. money and people who yearn for the good old days of monocultural Canada.
For his own part, Rae says he has learned from the lessons of the past, but he doesn't apologize for his performance as Ontario's premier either. Nor should he. The nae-sayers who condemned his government promptly turned around and showed how to really wreck a provincial economy, with the Conservatives' 'Common Sense Revolution' being reduced to something just short of a joke and his party reduced to a political rump. And they managed it in economic conditions far more favorable than those faced by Rae, who had to content with Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney's Made-In-Canada recession.
With Rae, my expectation is that we will see a return to the progressive centre-left style of government that we saw under Jean Chretien, a government with a relatively modest political agenda but one which makes steady and, over time, significant progress toward issues such as the environment, health care, and social welfare. Even if I support the NDP federally, I can applaud this sort of government, and would find it much more to my liking than what we have seen under the Harper Conservatives.