XML: XmlStarlet: ‘a set of command line utilities (tools) which can be used to transform, query, validate, and edit XML documents and files using simple set of shell commands in similar way it is done for plain text files using UNIX grep, sed, awk, diff, patch, join, etc commands.’ Sheer genius!
SCOvEveryone: Humorix: ‘PROVO, UTAH — Nearly two hundred humor writers, fake news reporters, and tongue-in-cheek columnists descended on SCO’s headquarters yesterday to protest the company’s continued slide into unreality.’
‘Humor writers have very active imagination. But none of us — absolutely none of us — could ever have imagined the kind of ludicrous and inconceivable things that SCO has decided to pursue,’ explained a reporter for the New York Times, the world’s leading source of spurious news. ‘You simply can’t make this stuff up… a fact which represents a great hardship on humorists everywhere.’
(thanks Ben!)
Ireland: some beautiful pics of Dublin in Autumn from Diego Doval.
Books: Hari Kunzru rejects the John Llewellyn Rhys award, since it is sponsored by two notoriously anti-immigrant newspapers, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday:
both ‘pursue an editorial policy of vilifying and demonising refugees and asylum-seekers … As the child of an immigrant, I am only too aware of the poisonous effect of the Mail’s editorial line. The atmosphere of prejudice it fosters translates into violence, and I have no wish to profit from it. … The Impressionist is a novel about the absurdity of a world in which race is the main determinant of a person’s identity. My hope is that one day the sponsors of the John Llewellyn Rhys prize will join with the judges in appreciating this.’
Well said! (via Oblomovka)
Health: University of Chicago healthcare ‘stories of shame’. A shockingly widespread situation in the US, as far as I can tell. For non-USians wondering what all the fuss is about, have a read of this and it’ll become clear. At the same time, the US government spends more per capita on healthcare than Sweden does. Figure that one out…