September 10, 2003
Filler 4
OK, so things have fallen off a bit since that lunatic flurry of activity (by other people) on Sunday. This is mainly because I have nothing to say; however, that's never stopped me before, so I figure I should make some kind of effort here. In very slight mitigation, I would point out that I did add a new photo album entry, which will presumably have escaped the notice of anyone not subscribed to the corresponding RSS feed, which is to say (at a rough estimate) everyone.In an idle moment at work on Monday I composed a double dactyl to commemorate my poetic commentators, then decided not to post it as it might seem like an attempt to upstage them, which would obviously be very bad form. Inevitably, such well-intentioned reticence can't hold its own in the face of a blog entry as hopelessly bereft of content as this, so here it is. Apologies to all concerned, and especially to Stairs: at the time I thought I had some reason to believe your name was Alistair, but after a root around your site I clearly just imagined that; I've left it anyway, on the grounds that I needed the syllables, which I know is a piss-poor excuse.
Max, Dan and Alistair
Took up a challenge I
Hadn't thought there;
Luckily all displayed
Versificatory
Talents with oodles of
Wit, style and flair.
Eek. How sycophantic is that?
Apropos Max's suggestion, I've spent some other idle work moments (there have been quite a few of those lately; I really am starting to despair of the whole "work" thing, but that's a post for another time) pondering the possibility of adding a live chat facility here. I still feel this would be an act of monumental uselessness -- the WalkyTalky chat moment has surely been and gone -- but then again, utility is no more the purpose of this site than honesty, so it's worth at least thinking about. In those idle work moments, say.
As it happens, the hosting package for this site comes with several chat room scripts, but they are so astonishingly ugly and provide so little scope for customization that I can't believe anyone ever uses them, and I'm certainly not about to. Which is a bit of a shame, since it would make life a lot easier; not so much in coding terms (a basic chat server isn't hard to write; as Joanne in Company says of marriage: I've done it three or four times) but in terms of staying on the right side of my hosting provider. Although it is possible to run a chatroom on a connectionless, client-pull, basis -- jChatBox seems to work that way, for example -- the thought of all that HTTP polling just offends my sensibilities as a programmer; a proper connection-based, dedicated server is so much more efficient, but for that I need to be able listen on a stable port and that strikes me as the sort of thing that most web hosting companies would frown on. So it's a dilemma.
The ideal solution would be if I could find detailed specs of the services they already have running and write my own, less ugly, client for them. Which I may try to do if things go on as they are at the office...
In the meantime, apparently the opticians/optometrists chatroom on Gaydar is the place to be. No, I'm as baffled by this as anyone.
Posted by matt at September 10, 2003 01:51 AM
Posted by: Eurodan at September 10, 2003 10:16 PM
Posted by: matt at September 11, 2003 12:05 AM
Frau Leni Riefenstahl
(Propagandographer --
'Nazi? Nicht ich!')
After the war was lost
Expiatorily
Photo'd some Africans:
Realpolitik. Posted by: Max at September 11, 2003 10:23 AM
New Yorker Faustian
Enters the lists, although
Somewhat too late;
Hopes to conceal from Matt,
Transcontinentally,
Ardor unseemly and
Longings--oh, wait. Posted by: Faustus, M.D. at September 11, 2003 05:38 PM
