<lvh> I’d split, if only because it does French spacing correctly.

<raz> oh, split is magic in that way?

<Wild_Cat> “French spacing”?

<Wild_Cat> what is French spacing?

<lvh> If you know your input won’t do that, fine :)

<ProgVal> a word is something which match with that :
#[^a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]+[^a-zA-Z0-9]#

<lvh> Wild_Cat: It’s what the English call something stupid to mock the
French.

<lvh> Wild_Cat: Two spaces after a period. [09:51]
*** toabctl (~tom@ubuntu/member/toabctl) has joined channel #python

<Wild_Cat> but nobody uses that!
*** nzmm (~matthew_j@121.98.145.205) has joined channel #python
*** regebro (~lregebro@121.16.97-84.rev.gaoland.net) has joined channel
#python
*** nzmm (~matthew_j@121.98.145.205) has left channel #python: #python

<Wild_Cat> (I’d have expected “French spacing” to mean something like putting
a space between words and ? or !)

<lvh> Wild_Cat: loads of software has broken because of things that “nobody
does”, because nobody does that, until somebody does [09:52]

<raz> well, he has a point. whitespace counting only makes sense after
squeezing whitespace, e.g. with a regex
* evanton wonders what’s the problem to google for “python word count”

<ProgVal> <lvh> Wild_Cat: Two spaces after a period. => Why do you call that
French spacing ?

<Wild_Cat> lvh: no, I mean, nobody does that in France. Why the heck is that
called French spacing?

<ProgVal> I’m french, but never write two spaces…

<lvh> ew no, let’s not use things that solve NP-complete problems
*** lamefun (~dingbing@92.246.161.75) has quit: Remote host closed the
connection

<lvh> ProgVal, Wild_Cat: <lvh> Wild_Cat: It’s what the English call something
stupid to mock the French. [09:53]

<Wild_Cat> (I suspect it’s like French fries: it’s actually Belgian spacing
but it’d sound silly :p)

<evanton> space length contest

<evanton> enlarge your space!

<lvh> You have been successfully trolled by long-dead English typographers.

Google Apps for your domain bring you all the functionality of Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar and talk to your own domain. Which, for those of us who like Gmail et al, is a very nice thing to have.

What Google Apps doesn’t give you however, is the integrated google account that gives you access to all their other services like Google Reader and Analytics.

So after a while switching between my shiny new apps account & my plain old google account, I decided to write a little greasemonkey script to add them to Google Apps.

Basically it inserts links to Google Reader and Analytics into the top left navigation of Gmail, Google Docs & Calendar, and redirects the navigation in Google Reader to point to your Apps account rather than the ‘Google Account’ you’re using for Reader & analytics.

You can generate the script for your site by typing the domain in here and then following the link:

e.g. deadpansincerity.com

Alternatively you can take a look at the Source on github, or clone the repo with

git clone git://github.com/davidmiller/apps.expanded.user.git

Hope you find it useful somehow.

Love regards etc

I have been very lax in the blog posting department recently. I have been exceedingly busy, or perhaps Santa…

However this does not mean that the internet here & elsewhere is not still brilliant.

Cases in point:

The year is coming to an end, which makes it possible to discover the best scandals of 2008. Not included on that list was the heinous case of some guy reported only by some other guy.

In case you were not wondering & had therefore not clicked the link, the image at the top of this post is from If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats which is reliably graphic as far as weblogs go. the picture is the following:

Mayor Destroys Last of Slot Machines.

New York — A modern St. George conquering a moral dragon, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York City has the personal satisfaction of destroying some of the 2000 slot machines which were loaded on a municipal barge, towed out to sea, and dumped. They are believed to have been the last machines in the city. The money remaining in the machines at the time of confiscation will be turned over to the police pension fund. Watching the Mayor are Police Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine and State Senator Joseph Esquirol, sponsor of a bill outlawing the evil. (1934)

A truly beautiful moment in the history of self-righteousness.

NOTICE: I have also recently discovered the secret of eternal life. If you want to discover the meaning of life then please donate five pounds to my paypal account:

NOTICE1.1: If you think that you can get the secret of eternal life for just five pounds then you clearly don’t deserve to know it. In order to receive the secret of eternal life please donate the amount you think it is worth to my paypal account:

NOTICE1.2; DISCLAIMER: This may or may not be a reworking of a Peter Cook sketch that I was unable to find a link to. I may or may not be in possession of the secret of eternal life.

Use either your own skill & judgement or the nearest thing you have.

Love regards etc

Amazon’s mechanical turk did grab my attention enough for me to take a look. Offering cash for tasks that can’t be automated in an online marketplace is an interesting idea. The sort of thing I might email to the recent graduates I know who complain that they can’t find a job. Except the remuneration for taking a HIT (Human Intelligence Task) is almost exclusively peanuts.

And you know the phrase – Only monkeys get out of bed for peanuts.

Which brings us to something that IS brilliant, The_Turk.

Which was a chess playing machine built in the late 18th century that claimed to be an automated chess machine but actually concealed a human chess master in a small cupboard. The Turk toured for the best part of a hundred years, and amongst other achievements, beat Bonaparte and was the subject of a Poe article.

A brilliant sense of imagination, wonder & showmanship at work in this story. Which reminds me of the Werner Herzog film Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (Every man for himself and God against them all)

So thank you amazon for reminding me of these. And interesting that you might name your new venture after an infamous hoax. I hope it’s irony I’m appreciating there.