The Wacky World of Chris Knight

A few years back I coded a website called HyperDictionary. It went through several life cycles of re-writes, moving from SQL database driven perl script to Dict client mod_perl module; bugt all the incarnations did basically the same thing: fetch dictionary definitions and then turn every word in the definition into a link to the definition for that word. I did it as an experiment while learning regex and mod_perl, but it ‘escaped’ into the wild thanks to web crawlers and became quite popular. The experiment ended when I needed to make a mortgage payment and I sold the site.

Not too long ago I was playing with the preg_ functions in PHP, and I decided to try to recreate the functionality of HyperDictionary with PHP. Now, I haven’t seen the HyperDictionary code in years, as deleting my local copies was part of the sales terms. I do remember the mod_perl module being fairly long and complex, even if I don’t remember how many lines of code it was. The trial version that I wacked together in PHP is essentially four lines of code. That’s a hell of an improvement over the original, though I am sure it will grow a little once I add search capability and word-of-the-day tracking. Still, the right tool can make a hell of a difference:

SubDomain Dictionary

-Chris

So, Mel and I are riding to work on BART this morning, and we are talking about the wedding arrangements. Mel cutely asks “Why isn’t my dress here yet?” Being too smart for my own good, I teasingly say “At this very minute they are boiling alive the silkworms that made your silk, and they will turn that your dress soon. If you listen very carefully, with your inner ear, you can hear their screams.” She looked at me with a mildly horrified and puzzled look. So, I had to take it a step further and explain just how silk is produced, and why silkworms are unique in that they don’t fuse their cocoon thread on each spin which makes their cocoons ‘unwindable’, and that the silk moth eats its way out of the cocoon when it matures so they boil the cocoons to kill the caterpillars. She looked thoughtful, and then said she may never be able to wear silk again. If I had just kept my mouth shut Mel wouldn’t have decided not to wear silk lingerie anymore. Stupid brain.

-Chris

I frequently see “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers. I see them making statements both for and against the ‘war’ in Iraq; but many people on both sides of the ‘war issue’ agree that the men and women sent to Iraq deserve the support of those of us at home. What does ’support our troops’ mean though? Obviously, the government’s definition of ’support’ is a little different than the one I grew up with:

WCSH6.com - National Guard Troops Denied Benefits After Longest Deployment Of Iraq War
National Guard Troops Denied Benefits After Longest Deployment Of Iraq War
Rhonda Erskine, Online Content Producer

MINNEAPOLIS, MN NBC — When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bushs surge.

1st Lt. Jon Anderson said he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill.

“Its pretty much a slap in the face,” Anderson said. “I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership… once again failing the soldiers.”

Andersons orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days.

Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school.

You can’t tell me that someone ‘accidentally’ or ‘randomly’ wrote out a 729 day deploy order. That’s a pretty odd number to just pop out of someone’s head. It is the perfect number if you want to squeeze as much blood out of a combat unit as you can while not having to give them GI education benefits… Talk about support. Is this the type of greedy back-stabbing government that we are trying to forcefully promote in other parts of the world?

-Chris