Fri, 29 Jul 2005
mnoGoSearch PHP Extension on Debian Sarge
The mnoGoSearch extension is one of the few PHP extensions that isn't packaged by Debian. Additionally, the version of the mnoGoSearch extension in PHP 4.3.10 seems to be incompatible with the version of mnoGoSearch in Debian Sarge. Here's how to upgrade the extension and build a php4-mnogosearch package:
/usr/src# apt-get build-dep php4 /usr/src# apt-get install mnogosearch-dev mnogosearch-mysql /usr/src# apt-get source php4 /usr/src# cd php4-4.3.10/ /usr/src/php4-4.3.10# ./debian/rules patch /usr/src/php4-4.3.10# curl http://xn.pinkhamster.net/download/php4-mnogosearch.patch | patch -p1 /usr/src/php4-4.3.10# cd ext/mnogosearch /usr/src/php4-4.3.10/ext/mnogosearch# curl http://mnogosearch.org/Download/php/mnogosearch-php-extension-1.96.tar.gz | tar xvz /usr/src/php4-4.3.10/ext/mnogosearch# mv 1.96/* . /usr/src/php4-4.3.10/ext/mnogosearch# rmdir 1.96/ /usr/src/php4-4.3.10/ext/mnogosearch# cd ../.. /usr/src/php4-4.3.10# ./debian/rules binary
You can now install the php4-mnogosearch package located in /usr/src. If you're using SQLite or PostgreSQL, you should be able to install the correct mnogosearch-* package instead of mnogosearch-mysql, but I haven't tested doing so.
For the lazy, you can just add this to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://packages.pinkhamster.net/
sarge main
Then run apt-get install php4-mnogosearch.
Update 11/02/05: I've updated the Sarge package to 4.3.10-16.
Update 11/06/06: I've updated the Sarge package to 4.3.10-18.
Update 05/05/07: I've updated the Sarge package to 4.3.10-20.
Update 08/10/07: I've updated the Sarge package to 4.3.10-22. I also
put a copy of the mnogosearch extension tarball in my download directory because mnogosearch.org is currently
down.
Thu, 21 Jul 2005
Napster Marketing
At least somebody noticed that Americans weren't really going for that whole "ownership society"
thing.
business » marketing » advertising | Permanent Link
Watered-Down California Wine
Intelligent Life, a new magazine from the publishers of The Economist, has a story about how much of the wine produced in California is "watered back", i.e. diluted with water. Apparently, this is done to keep alcohol content down or to make sure that fermentation occurs if there is too much sugar in the grapes. I'm no wine connoisseur, but I'd be surprised if very many wine drinkers were aware of this.
…French towns and villages are a great deal more picturesque than anything that northern California can offer. Calistoga and Yountville are not exactly Beaune and Châteauneuf-du-Pape. But for the winemaker the obvious difference is the weather: California has longer and warmer sunshine—which means that the fully ripened grapes may well produce a wine with a bit too much alcohol for comfort (too much, also, for the bottom line, since wine and liquor are taxed according to their alcohol level).
One obvious solution would be to pick the grapes earlier, except that that would be at the cost of the "full-bodied" flavour and "big" character of the typical Californian wine. Hence a preference for the other obvious solution: adding water during the fermentation process. At which point, everyone gets a little coy, even a trifle alarmed. Witness the concern of a spokeswoman for California's Wine Institute. "How did you hear about this?" she demanded. "This is a long, long story—it's kind of a stylistic thing."
Congress to Slow Earth's Rotation
According to the Chicago Sun-Times (via Max Clark), Congress is planning to add two months to Daylight Saving Time.
"The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,'' said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored the measure with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
Shifting daylight from the morning to the evening doesn't create more of it. See Wikipedia for more details on DST.
Sat, 16 Jul 2005
Smoke Detector From Hell
Apparently, Friends episodes are based on true stories. Do you remember The One Where Phoebe Destroys Her Smoke Detector? My smoke detector must have seen it, and decided to recreate the episode last night. In the middle of the night, it started beeping, loud enough to wake me up, and just frequently enough to almost let me fall back to sleep before beeping again. I got up without putting on my glasses, followed the blurry glowing green light in the dark, and felt around for the button on it. Now, I know the button is to test the device, but for some reason I thought it might also serve as a "shut up, it's 3 in the morning" button. Remarkably, after pushing the button, and pissing off my wife (born without the ability the hear the ultrasonic beeps) with the squeal asserting to the world that smoke detector was still doing its job admirably, the beeping stopped.
Alas, sometime not much later I guess, the beeping resumed. I got back up, twisted the alarm off the wall, and tried to disconnect it from the mains. After struggling for a bit, I put on my glasses and turned on the light, vexing my wife considerably more, and successfully disconnected the alarm. I placed it on my desk, and went back to bed. Of course, that didn't stop the beeping; it has a battery backup so that it can keep beeping in the case of a power outage.
So, I took the alarm to the kitchen, closed the bedroom door, and retired to my bed once again. The little alarm persevered: the beeping was still loud enough for me to hear it. I got up, returned to the kitchen, and disconnected the 9-volt battery. The beeping continued. We have a small apartment. There wasn't anywhere to put the alarm farther away from my bedroom. I considered putting on some clothes and taking it out to my car. I also thought about putting it in the refrigerator. Or, I could leave it out in the hallway of my apartment building. I might still be able to hear it there, but at least I'd be able to share my hell with the guy across the hall whose alarm clock goes off for hours and hours every afternoon.
Feeling pretty clever for 3am, I decided to wrap it in a little blanket and sandwich it between two throw pillows. Finally, I was able to get some sleep. My wife still wanted an apology in the morning.
Thu, 07 Jul 2005
Damn You, Macy's
The secret to a happy marriage is two comforters. Why is it imposible to find twin-size duvet covers by any of the "luxury" bedding makers?
(No, I don't really care, but Denisa is no longer happy with our IKEA bedding.)
