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Tuesday, November 11, 2003 |
The XML Book Business.
Kendall Clark comments on a recent discussion among XML developers
about the unfortunate state of the XML technical book business. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]
Interesting piece. Makes me glad I'm
not writing books anymore. I've bought at
least my share of XML books, if not more, and not many of them were
worth the money. Only a few that I have are in any sense practical,
that is, they don't help me solve a problem that I'm facing, i.e. how
do I transform this particular bunch of data into a particular XML
format? Or the other side: how do I read this particular piece of XML?
XSLT books are really this way, usually they're big chunks of
documentation with not much in the way of solid, real-world examples. I
have one book on XSLT:FO that really helped me at a particular time,
and a book on PHP and XML that's been useful. O'Reilly's Practical RDF
didn't seem to be practical at all. If someone would write a practicall
results-oriented book on mySQL and XML, I'd buy it immediately.
9:37:56 PM Permalink
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A mixed message.
United States: According to the Metropolitan Community Church, a predominantly gay and lesbian Christian congregation, they received a letter from George W. Bush congratulating them on their 35th anniversary during a week officially dedicated to denying civil rights to lesbians and gay men!
In his letter dated October 14, 2003, to MCC Los Angeles, the founding congregation of Metropolitan Community Churches, President Bush wrote, By encouraging the celebration of faith and sharing of God's love and boundless mercy, churches like yours put hope in people's hearts and a sense of purpose in their lives. This milestone provides an opportunity to
reflect on your years of service and to rejoice in God's faithfulness to your congregation.
The letter was written during the anti-gay Marriage Protection Week, an effort endorsed by President Bush and organized by such Religious Right leaders as Jerry
Falwell, Dr. James Dobson, the Southern Baptist Convention and the American Family Association to deny equality under the law to gays and lesbians.
In his proclamation endorsing Marriage Protection Week, President Bush wrote, Marriage is a sacred institution, and its protection is essential to the continued strength of our society. Marriage Protection Week provides an opportunity to focus our efforts on preserving the sanctity of marriage and on building strong and healthy marriages in America.
The Metropolitan Community church performs more than 6,000 same-sex weddings annually in its 300 churches in 22 countries. U.S. President Bush Congratulates Predominantly Gay MCC Church On 35th Anniversary Letter Arrives During Bush-Endorsed Anti-Gay Marriage Protection Week - Metropolitan Community Church Press Release, 10th November 2003.
[The Pagan Prattle Online]
The administration can't even do its hate right!
5:07:28 PM Permalink
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Paperback Writer. Wapo's Jonathan Yardley offers a welcome appreciation of John D. MacDonald, the more-read-than-praised author of paperback originals.
Nice to see this appreciation. MacDonald was wildy uneven. Some of the books, like the one discussed in this piece, The Dreadful Lemon Sky, are fantastic, and this piece shows why. His portrait of Florida is unique, and the precursor to Carl Hiasson among others. And Travis McGee is a wonderful character. I think I read all he McGee novels as they came out, starting in about 72 or 73. Some of them I don't remember liking much at all, such as The Green Ripper, which was just a shootup. And sometimes, but maybe this wasn't the case in the McGee novels but in the early crime novels, the plotting was slapdash. Still, years after his death, I often remember Travis McGee and scenes on The Busted Flush.
7:41:28 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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