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Zarbo is a really cool Deli in Newmarket, Auckland...

Frolm Kurt Cagle

A new Open Source project has been started to port Michael Kay's Saxon 8.0 (and hence XSLT2 and XPath2 at a minimum) to C#, at http://www.x2x2x.org/x2x2x/home/. This is some of the more exciting news I've heard in a while, especially as Microsoft itself has been VERY ambivalent about adopting XSLT 2.0, preferring instead to go with their own "custom" XML transformation technology in Longhorn.

If Saxon is ported to C#, this could very easily prove the foundation technology to get XSLT 2.0 onto Windows in a major way. While not perfect, XSLT 2.0 is considerably less verbose, easier to build extensions and capable of group filtering and manipulation far in excess of what version XSLT 1.0.

I went to the Cop shop the other day. What I wanted to acheive was trivially simple- I needed a copy of a bank statement and my drivers licensed certified as copies.

So the first station I go to is the little community station and I'm told that only the senior sgt. (or above) can sign the documents for me and he is away on a call. Fair enuf says I... so I head into the main station in the middle of town.

I get there and rock up to the counter and a coppa comes out who is either;

• Extremely ignorant
• Extremely rude
• All of the above

He was about as much help as tits on a bull. I had copied both the statement and drivers license onto a single sheet of paper. he refused to sign them on this basis- or at least I think that's what I could make out from his mumbles and grumbles. No effort was made to be helpful though... no 'oh I'll just pop out the back and make another copy for you'... just a 'piss off and come back later thanks very much'.

Now this pisses me off something cronic. Our Police seem to have lost the community focus that they really should maintain. If they want people to be helpful when they need to investigate serious offences and the like then they should be a bit nicer when we law abiding citizens go asking for a favour.

So anyway... I buggered off and have yet to get this stuff certified. When I got home I thought I look up a bit more on the guy in question to see if he was some big cheese - maybe I had pissed him off by asking such a menial task of him. He did look about ready to Perf. But no... he was a Senior Constable (kinda like going from Private to Lance Corporal in the Army on the basis of 'long service')... so he would have been a fat lot of good when it came to signing it anyway.

Last time I try that approach- next time I'll try a nice friendly, elderly Justice of the Peace.

I wonder what sort of impact blogging is having on the Google ranking system.

The ranking system (search ranking based on number of inward links) was certainly a clever idea from Google but I wonder how much relavence it acutally has in the new Blogger oriented internet. My logic is that most blogs are extremely diverse in their content. For example I range from information on Windows Mobile Devices right the way through to some fairly abrasive commentary on religion and social freedoms. In the past I might have run three different sites to give my views on these issues, today they all get bundled as one.

Now if my Google ranking is boosted by a few inward links (particularly from 'A-List' sites) into one of my technical interest areas that ranking is also applied to the more controversial rants that I have too. It kinda means that the democratisation of information nut that Google had pretty well cracked runs into problems. I wonder if Google are doing any work to try and compensate for this phenomenon.... Maybe building some sort of content grouping mechanism to assgn search rank on a content basis...

A friend posted this on our New Zealand Dot Net mailing list.... I laughed my ass off so much that I just had to share (with permission it).

[When should I use interfaces in my code]

I use them when I need a common API across dissimilar objects  - a little bit like getting drunk eg, take the following 2 classes..

 

public class hotChick

...

 

public class fatSlag

...

 

Obviously, 2 quite different classes... however if we get good & drunk we can make them implement the same interface eg:

public class hotChick : IShaggable

...

 

public class fatSlag  : IShaggable

...

 

When programming against the interface you dont want to care about the actual implementation - getting drunk has the same effect...  as long as the interface is the same you generally dont care...

eg

public void myMethod(IShaggable myShag){

  myShag.ShagRotten();

...

 

... as if by magic the fatSlag class, with a 10 pint handicap, all of a sudden appears to have some of the same properties and methods as the hotChick class

 

[UPDATE}

Lauren with the great comeback

 

class SexistPig: ILonelyBastard

ILonelyBastard TimHuffman = new SexistPig();

ILonelyBastard.Shaggable = false;


Lauren

I rank as number 5 for the search

Happy Clappy Church

http://www.google.com/search?q=happy+clappy+church&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=30&sa=N

But, really, in the end, not seeing "F9/11" would be like allowing your First Amendment rights to be abrogated, no matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat.

Yes, Fox News!

via NZ Pundit

Club iMate has the new Smartphone ROM here...

http://www.clubimate.com/index.asp?PageAction=DEVICE_SP2_UPD

Herewith the slides for the lecture tonight.

16th June - Form State.ppt (413.5 KB)

Hi guys the slide deck for the Mon 14th NZ DNUG ASP.NET Lecture are here....

If you're a townie, fomer high flying corporate lawyer and member of parliament.... the last thing you want to do after buying a 2027 hectare 'pig hunting' block is to infer that your neighbours are a pack of 'theiving dope smokers'...Law and Order spokesperson or otherwise, it's just not the done thing.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2939790a10,00.html

Also.... this sort of stuff just screams of desperation...

If you did not get ballot papers, or receive this message after its too late to vote I would like to hear from you.  Let me know at doreen.leacock@parliament.govt.nz.  I will get an idea of the numbers from your responses.  It would not be consistent with a secret ballot but if you joined on 3 or 4 June, and you did not get ballot papers back in time, and have not voted by fax, and wish to indicate how you would have voted I will report those numbers to the caucus during its deliberations over the weekend.

...

Stephen Franks

Our ASP.NET course made it into the press this week.

http://idg.net.nz/news.nsf/UNID/AC7D8502C42007F2CC256EAA001E878A?OpenDocument&Highlight=2,auld

Federated Farmers has launched a campaign to highlight the fact that farmers are being screwed by local govt. rates.

Federation members wanting to join the 10K Rates Club will have an opportunity at Mystery Creek Field Days on June 16-19. Members who bring to the Federation's stand a copy of their general rates demand which shows rates in excess of $10,000 a year will be given the official club mug, which is emblazoned with the club motto "I'm A Rates Mug". The Federation's site is in the main pavilion at PB71 and 72.

Whats more we are now in a situation in this country whereby, in may cases, absentee landowners are denied a vote in local body elections.... It's been a while since I've been to the fielddays... but they are great fun.... well worth a visit if you are in the North Island.

From Hard News.... for those unfamiliar the Maxim Institute is a loony tune bigoted, 'family' centric, bible thumping, conservative right wing think tank outfit....

Tim Michie pointed that the Maxim Institute is running a tertiary student essay competition - six lucky winners will get to work for Maxim in the holidays. Six? These people have money. The suggested text for the essay topic is C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, one of the sacred tomes of the whole hell-in-a-handbasket movement. (You can crib and buy an essay on that.) It's fairly obvious that an essay which does not accord with the Maxim worldview will not be a winning one, but if anyone wants to enter such an essay I'll be happy to consider it for publication here after the contest has closed. We might even be able to manage a prize of our own

I've got $50 towards a competitive prize and challenge all of those liberal (in the classical sense of the word) readers among my throng to do the same.

Pledges in the coments please.