Wanted: vintage, pre 1994 mullet.

Do you have proof of a pre '94 mullet? The OED wants YOU!
The OED is looking for the first mullet, but they need documented proof the mullet is really of pre 1994 vintage! Take it easy Rooster, this contest can't be won with that picture of your coiffure at the New Year's Eve Tractor pull ca. 1993. This is for the OED (Oxford English Dictionary). That means you have to have a published example of the earliest usage of the word mullet. You see, the work of a dictionary publisher is never done. Old words take on new meanings, and new words are constantly being created. So you can imagine that the researchers at the OED have their work cut out for them. The OED has long relied on volunteers to help find examples of first usage for words, and they have just put out a new call for action. They have a specific list of words they are looking for. Among them: mullet, cyborg, porky, full monty, to bonk (sexual intercourse). If you can provide documented examples of earlier usage for these words or any of the words on this list, you can go down in history as one of the illustrious contributors to the greatest dictionary in the English language, or any language for that matter.

Lucene, please don't do me no wrong.

Get your baby back with Lucene
Lucene is an open source search and index API. It is by all accounts the gold standard of search and index APIs. A fire tested and proven technology, Lucene powers search functionality on many high traffic websites. To me the most impressive example is Wikipedia. As of this writing Wikipedia spans over 2,656,739 pages and their daily pageviews are spilling beyond the lofty borders of 1,000,000,000. If it is good enough for Wikipedia, it is good enough for anyone. All this and it is a freely available, well documented part of the Apache Software Foundation. Strangely though the history of Lucene is rather vauge. Most sources have little to say about the project other than it was written by Doug Cutting, and released on SourceForge in March 2000. I have done some "serious" research and uncovered a bit more information about the project. So stop the presses because I have the scoop on how Lucene got its name.

101111 Days Until Christmas

Put Tiletoy in your stocking
This toy was linked off BoingBoing. They're electronic. They're programmable. They're open-source, and with their white on black blocky design, they look like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. What else could the geek on your Christmas list want? The best part about giving this gift of geekiness is that you don't have to spend anything, just put this url into their stocking "http://tiletoy.blogspot.com/" and you will fill their heart with joy. Actually that url won't help much just yet because the open hardware specifications have not yet been released. This article claims that both the software and hardware will be available under a GPL license. The hardware spec. is scheduled to be released in late November.

How to Arg a Perl Script

Arg, that is a good script!
Perl is often associated with camels. It has been that way ever since O'Reilly's book Programming Perl came out with a camel on the cover. Beyond the even-toed ungulate mascot, I don't have much good to say about Perl. I'll take Python or Ruby over it any day of the week. (I apologize profusely to Perl afficianadoes for my poor Perl skills. I just have no interest in being good at it. I was raised on Java and OO. I know, I know, Perl does OO too, but looking at OO Perl is like watching an 80 year old man popping his booty to the Black Eyed Peas. It is just plain wrong.)

NaNoWriMo

My NaNoWriMo pre-event checklist.

1. 3 cases of wine: (Aren't the best novels written by drunks?)


2. 2 cases of lite beer: (Yea, they are all written by drunks.)


3. 1 case gin: (Really raging drunks.)


4. 8 pounds Kenya AA:


5. "Mark Twain" eyebrow augmentation surgery:

Kansas schoolboard around Thanksgiving

Schoolboard and cranberry sauce. A Thanksgiving tradition.
This entry started out as a 4 paragraph affair on the contraversial Kansas State Schoolboard. Verily, it bristled with epithets, jibes, slurs, and opprobrium. It was sooo good, and sooo true that I realized it was too good to publish here. And too obvious. Any first grader who has ever ridden a schoolbus or seen southpark has the necessary vocabulary to write 4 solid paragraphs on the Kansas school board. Consequently, I have cut all that obvious stuff. I'll sum up those four deleted paragraphs with a simple comparison: the Kansas Schoolboard members are like a bunch of turkeys.

Mmm, a nice hot bowl of Phlogiston

Nothing beats a theory that was just plain wrong.
Should we love a theory any less just because somebody went and disproved it? I think not. You can learn a lot from a disproved theory. Take Phlogiston for instance. Have you ever heard of it? I hadn't, until I stumbled upon A Phlogistonic Vehmence Attenuator!?! Everybody needs one! Say Phlogiston out loud. Isn't it a great word? It sounds fake, doesn't it? Well, it is. People used to think that Phlogiston was the material that made something flamable. This was taught in schools and universities for nearly a hundred years, can you believe it? If some 17th century scientist told me to believe in a substance without color, odor, taste, or weight I would have been dubious. But to think they gave it such a fake sounding name, "Phlogiston." They should have been laughed right back into the Renaissance.