a crank’s progress

First some background: I was running MovableType 2.661 on FreeBSD 4.10, with MySQL as the datastore, Apache 1.3.31 as the http server, with mod_perl and mod_gzip to make things easier/faster. The first step is to extract all your content from your existing MT instance. Navigate through your www.sitename.com/and/path/mt.cgi to the menu and find the export option (the menu looks like what you see below).

You have brought us to the verge of victory in so many ways: YOU have spoken out against the radical policies of the Administration and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives…. YOU have worked to elect new Democratic Members of Congress in heavily Republican districts in Kentucky and South Dakota…. https://www.democraticaction.org/getinvolved/donations/q2end Now we must work together to cross the finish line — to elect Members of Congress who represent Americans, not corporate special interests or extreme right-wing ideology. I ask you today to continue your help and support of Democratic House Candidates…. With your continued voice, we can move forward our Campaign for a New Majority - a Majority of progressive representation of all Americans.

stevenberlinjohnson.com: Apple’s Ten-Year-Old Breakthrough: I think it’s pretty ironic that the most highly-touted feature in Tiger is one they’ve been trying to get into a shipping OS for almost ten years. Sometimes information society isn’t quite as fast as it’s rumored to be.

Matthew Yglesias: June 20, 2004 - June 26, 2004 Archives
Then one day I lightened up.
It’s fun! John Kerry is like Hitler because he supports increased highway funding. George Bush is like Hitler because he likes to fight wars. Michael Moore is like Goebbels because he uses film to advance his political views. Bill O’Reilly is [...]

I was out of town for a few days, a (too) brief family trip to Oregon. Not too restful: we had a Coast Guard search and rescue operation for a possible missins surfer/swimmer on Saturday night (two Coast Guard Seahawks trolling along the coast from 9 til way late, then again from 5 until 7). [...]

My first trip to Powell’s City of Books. I can see this becoming a *dangerous* habit.
The Spirit Level/Seamus Heaney
Sometimes a Great Notion/Ken Kesey
Electric Light/Seamus Heaney
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890-1914
The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
And [...]

CNN.com - A dream of a 1,000-year camera - Jun 29, 2004:
The proposal: Position cameras above all major American cities and shoot one frame — a 24th of a second of film — each day at noon. The frames would be strung together gradually to create a continuous chronicle of each city’s development.
“It’s the same [...]

A retrospective of political cartoons [PDF] from the Reagan era . . .
As seen below, he defied the labels both sides tried to attach to him: while I’m not an admirer, I’m sufficiently contrarian to enjoy seeing ideologues made uncomfortable by their heroes.

Cheney Dismisses Critic With Obscenity (washingtonpost.com):
There is no rule against obscene language by a vice president on the Senate floor. The senators were present for a group picture and not in session, so Rule 19 of the Senate rules — which prohibits vulgar statements “unbecoming a senator” — does not apply, according to a Senate [...]

Ever find yourself stumbling over old posts and thinking to yourself, “that looks like a dog’s breakfast” but not having any easy way to fix it? If you have ever tried to edit content more than a couple of hundred posts back in MovableType, you know what I mean. something like ecto would be great [...]