greatsufficiency.net is my catch-all project for experimenting with web design and development. this blog is powered by blosxom.
i'm an MLIS student in the pacific northwest and i enjoy research, web design, organization, reference, graphic design, technology, video games, and professional wrestling.
if you're looking for something specific, feel free to contact me.
e-mail: shelly @
aim: greatsufficiency
01.20.2008
:: Back to this, then, and updates.
Hello. Somehow my blosxom.cgi file got un-chmodded to the correct executable setting, which is why it's been gone so long. I didn't have any time to pay attention to it until now. Really I still don't have time, but I'm fascinated. We keep discussing access structures in my XML class. Hierarchies are so interesting, and this, being a hierarchical blogging system, is different from other things.
Speaking of XML class, I keep coming up with wonderful ideas and beautiful information types. I used to keep a dream journal online in a rickety old place I'm afraid will go under any day now. When they do, they'll take my dreams with me. Wouldn't it be great if I could store all of my dreams in XML? It's a hearty project to undertake. I'd need to build a schema and then encode several years' worth of data into the XML file. But then I'd have it. I intend to do it.
I keep panicking about who's keeping tabs on information about wrestling events. There's a website, the Online World of Wrestling, which will get you results for almost anything you'd want, but it's shoddy. The breadth of events and organizations that it covers really is astonishing, because there are so many dedicated fans. But it's inconsistent. I don't know if each page is just an HTML page that exists on its own or if there's some database driving it. The information about events is lacking. Some are just long paragraphs rather than a match-by-match listing. Most matches lack finish details. Was it a pinfall? Submission? And who was the ring announcer? Who were the commentators? The results are full of editorializing and there are gaping holes where there should be useful information. Like I said, I'm panicking. I don't intend to do anything about the situation. But if the WWE would give me a job as a metadata librarian, I would gladly go to work. Wouldn't it be beautiful to have an enormous faceted browsing archive of everything major that's happened in the world of wrestling? Facets for wrestlers, specific finishes, specific arenas, dates, match types, match lengths, commentators. It's a beautiful vision, isn't it? Being able to click on Arn Anderson, see a list of every match he's been involved in. Click something else and limit the list to matches in WCW. Click again and limit it to matches also involving Ric Flair.
That's probably enough daydreaming for now. I do have actual work to do. Hopefully I can play around with my blosxom and make it happy. Have a beautiful weekend!
11.13.2007
:: Busy.
I don't know how I got so busy. I took a good day to figure out this design and implement it for this website. And it's not even done.
I've been taking longer than that on an information system I'm designing with XML. It has to look good, you know, so that's always the part I put the most work into. Yeah, it's fine to know how to structure things in XML, professor, but how do I make it pretty?
I have a comparison report due Friday, two assignments due Monday, and miscellaneous things that don't really have due dates sprinkled throughout the rest of the quarter, pre-finals. I want to take the time this weekend for Survivor Series, but that means day-long excursions away from home to focus on so many many projects.
I have knitting to do (maybe for charity!) and I have books to read.
I need to get back into a workout routine. I recently found the Couch-to-5K Running Plan. I've never been much of a runner. It seems so entirely plausible that I'll probably take it up. If not tomorrow, then over my Christmas break.
11.12.2007
:: BLOSXOM
Blosxom is light-weight blogging application that I'm going to be experimenting with. The website isn't all together yet, so give me some time. If you're interested in using blosxom, you can [go to their website]. It's free. Cgi-based. Not difficult in the least to use or design. Let me know if you need any help. My contact info will be up eventually.
I'm really interested in it because it's based on a hierarchy structure. It's intended to be used with text files and folders. The same folders we all use on our hard-drives anyway. Recently there's been an explosion of "tagging" or "labeling." GMail lets you "label" items and items can have more than one label. Blog posts and photos can have more than one tag, should they fit into more than one category. But I think there's something fundamental and beautiful about a taxonomy. Things within things, in one place and nowhere else. You have to make a decision about the sum of an entity. You can't always collocate.
