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Joomsayer and Hyphenation for Movable Type are now both released in version 1.0. Sociotags and Curvaceous are both released in version 1.01.

The previous version of Joomsayer contained a bug that appears to break functionality of either Joomsayer or (worse) other plug-ins in MT 4.2 RC2. There is no formal bug fix; however, the bug is believed to be caused by a dependency that has been completely removed in version 1.0, and the defect is currently not reproducible.

Perhaps the most important new feature in Joomsayer is that you no longer need to rely on a hardcoded HTML block; it is now completely configurable in your plug-in preferences.

Also, the screendump showing the customized Joomsayer quotation box with white background, dropshadow, rounded corners, and blue quotation characters is available as a download.

To upgrade Joomsayer from version 0.2, unfortunately you may have to revisit the plug-in preferences for each of your blogs and set the quote box alignment and the quote source positions anew. The reason for this inconvenience is that the automatic upgrader is not able to migrate your settings due to an obscure bug in Movable Type that has survived for quite some time.

The release 1.0 version of Hyphenation adds the option to explicitly remove all hyphenation tags from output regardless of whether the Hyphenation plug-in is enabled or not; this is useful for your blog feeds.

Two other Movable Type plug-ins have received minor updates: Sociotags and Curvaceous are both available in version 1.01. Both of the releases include a minor bug fix that could potentially cause problems in future upgrades. Neither of the updates are critical, but they could save you some trouble in the future. In addition, Sociotags includes the Danish service Anyhed.dk.

The Sociotags plug-in for Movable Type has been updated with some new social networks, some of them more significant than others. The plug-in is now considered mature enough to warrant a version bump to version 1.0. Get Sociotags for Movable Type here.

Hyphenation for Movable Type was barely released before all but one of the planned features had been added to the alpha code.

The new beta, which is out today, now features a dictionary installer that enables you to simply upload your OpenOffice dictonaries without doing anything to them, and you have the option to specify different dictionaries throughout your entries.

Hyphenation for Movable Type is a plug-in for Movable Type 4 that provides automatic hyphenation of your text based on OpenOffice hyphenation dictionaries.

Automatic hyphenation is very useful if you often use left-aligned or right-aligned images with text flowing along the side of the image in a narrow column. With Firefox 3, hyphenation is now displayed on all major browsers.

The screenshot below is an actual example of Hyphenation for Movable Type in action:


Once installed and properly configured, the plug-in provides automatic hyphenation of your entry text.

Requirements

• Movable Type 4
• Downloaded OpenOffice hyphenation dictionary files.
  

Installation

1. Download Hyphenation for Movable Type, and extract the archive file.
   
2. Upload the contents of the archive to the "plugins" folder in your Movable Type installation. (There should now be a directory called "Hyphenation" in the plugins directory.)
3. Download your preferred OpenOffice hyphenation dictionary from the OpenOffice localization web site.
4. Go to the system administration and select the plug-ins settings. Use the Hyphenation's "Install New Dictionary" button to install the downloaded hyphenation dictionaries (you don't need to unzip them).
5. Go to Preferences -> Plugins for each of the blogs where you want to enable Hyphenation for Movable Type.
6. Check the "Enable" box.
7. Select your preferred default hyphenation dictionary from the drop-down box. The list should contain the dictionaries that you installed earlier.
8. Save your changes.
   
9. Edit the templates that display entries (in the MT4 default templates, these would be the "Entry Detail" and the "Entry Summary" template modules), adding the tag modifier (i.e., global filter) hyphenate="1" to the <$MTEntryBody$>, <$MTEntryMore$>, and <$MTEntryExcerpt$> tags; for example:

<$MTEntryBody hyphenate="1"$>

As of version 1.0 (out soon!) you should also add the tag modifier hyphenate="0" in your feed templates (the RSS and the Atom feeds) to explicitly disable hyphenation in your feeds.

Usage

Hyphenation for Movable Type has two modes of operation: it either hyphenates all text in your entries, or only the text you've marked for hyphenation. Since automatic hyphenation of all text will significantly increase the size of your HTML pages, you should consider manual selection of the text that should be automatically hyphenated.

To indicate that a text section should be automatically hyphenated, enclose the text between the tags [hyphenate] and [/hyphenate] in your entry.

You may specify an alternative dictionary for a particular text section by adding the attribute dict="xx_YY" in the [hyphenate] tag, where xx_YY is the name of the alternative directory. For example, if your default hyphenation dictionary is en_US, you might specify a German dictonary by enclosing the German text within the tags [hyphenate dict="de_DE"] and [/hyphenate].

The tags will be stripped from your entries if Hyphenation for Movable Type is disabled, or if hyphenation for your template has been explicitly turned off with the tag modifier hyphenate="0".

(Please note that if you installed version 0.1 of Hyphenation for Movable Type, you'll have to install your dictionaries and select your default dictionary.)

To report bugs or request features, please use the comments.

The Movable Type 4 plug-in, Curvaceous, is now released in version 1.0. Have fun!

The Sociotags plug-in for Movable Type has been updated to remove old social networks and update the links to the current social networks. Get it here.

Curvaceous is a plug-in for Movable Type 4 that causes text to flow smoothly around the edges of irregularly shaped images, as shown in the actual screenshot below:


Once installed, the plug-in works in the background, converting any images that are either left-aligned or right-aligned.

Requirements

• Movable Type 4
• Image::Magick (you probably have it, but please consult your web hosting service)
  

Installation

1. Download Curvaceous for Movable Type, and extract the archive file.
   
2. Upload the contents of the archive to the "plugins" folder in your Movable Type installation. (There should now be a directory called "Curvaceous" in the plugins directory.)
3. Go to Preferences -> Plugins for each of the blogs where you want to enable Curvaceous.
4. Check the "Enable" box, and click "Save Changes." (You should seriously consider not selecting "all" as the build method.)
   
5. For each template for which you plan to use Curvaceous, add the following line between the <head> and </head> tags (if you are using the MT4 default templates, go to the Template Modules and edit the "Header" template):

<$MTCurvaceous$>

8. Edit the templates that display entries (in the MT4 default templates, those would be the "Entry Detail" and the "Entry Summary" template modules), adding the tag modifier curvaceous="1" to the <$MTEntryBody$> and <$MTEntryMore$> tags; for example:

<$MTEntryBody curvaceous="1"$>

9. Add a link to the Curvaceous for Movable Type page on your own blog on all pages where Curvaceous converts your images. The software is free of charge, but you must add a link.

Usage

Enable Curvaceous in the plug-in settings, and then simply insert the images using the "insert image" button in your entry editor the way you're used to.

If you prefer to code in raw HTML, insert the images manually using the <img> tag and specify whether it should be left-aligned or right-aligned by entering "float: left;" or "float: right;" in the style attribute.

Please note that this plug-in may significantly increase build time for your blog. To minimize your build time, there are three options available for the build method: firstly, you may choose to convert all images via the Curvaceous plug-in. This will be the most time-consuming method. Secondly, you may choose to convert either just the images you specify, or all images but the ones you specify.

To specify an image for inclusion or exclusion (depending on your choice of build method), simply include the class type, "curvaceous" in the image's "class" attribute in the raw HTML. For example, if you insert an image and click the <A> button, add the word "curvaceous" as follows:

Known Issues

1. PNG images must be in RGB mode; Image::Magick does not seem to recognize the transparency information in grayscale images.
   
2. Animated images are not supported.

Note: to use Curvaceous for Movable Type, you must place a link to the Curvaceous for Movable Type page on your own blog on all pages where Curvaceous is used to modify the images. (For commercial use: you can avoid linking to the Curvaceous page by paying a registration fee--please contact me at wolf@blazingangles.com.)

To report bugs or request features, please use the comments.

The Joomsayer Movable Type plug-in has (finally!) been updated to version 0.2, which should work with Movable Type v. 4.1. The new version no longer relies on modifying the entry while editing, and instead makes the necessary modifications at the time the entries are published.

The style sheets and Javascript are unchanged, but you'll need to add a tag modifier. Please refer to the installation and upgrade instructions.

I'll confess that I haven't found much use for an OPML feed yet for a blog, but some geeks might insist that if it can be done, then it should be done.

The following template is an example of how to create an OPML feed for your Movable Type 4.1 blog that traverses through the categories and subcategories, listing the entries within each:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="<$MTPublishCharset$>"?>
<opml version="1.1">
<head>
  <title><$MTBlogName remove_html="1" encode_xml="1"$></title>
<MTEntries lastn="1">
  <ownerName><$MTEntryAuthorDisplayName encode_xml="1"$></ownerName>
  <MTIfNonEmpty tag="MTEntryAuthorEmail">
    <ownerEmail><$MTEntryAuthorEmail encode_xml="1"$></ownerEmail>
  </MTIfNonEmpty>
  <dateModified><$MTEntryModifiedDate format_name="rfc822"$></dateModified>
</MTEntries></head>
<body>
<MTTopLevelCategories>
<MTIfNonZero tag="MTCategoryCount">
  <outline text="<$MTCategoryLabel remove_html="1" encode_xml="1"$>"
    type="link" url="<$MTCategoryArchiveLink encode_xml="1"$>"
    created="<$MTDate format_name="rfc822"$>">
    <MTEntries>
      <outline text="<$MTEntryTitle remove_html="1" encode_xml="1"$>"
        type="link" url="<$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$>"
        created="<$MTEntryDate format_name="rfc822"$>" />
    </MTEntries></MTIfNonZero><MTSubcatsRecurse></outline>
</MTTopLevelCategories></body>
</opml>

Name the feed file something sensible, say, "index.opml" and select to have it published automatically.

To also enable autodiscovery of the feed, add the following line to the Header template, between the <head> and </head> tags:

<link rel="subscriptions" type="text/x-opml" title="<$MTBlogName encode_html="1"$>"
 ref="<$MTBlogURL$>index.opml" />

I have no idea how it will render in any OPML reader, because I haven't been able to locate one. However, the feed appears to validate correctly.

Science has a reasonable understanding of matter and how the strong, the weak, and the electromagnetic forces and (at least for practical purposes) gravity affect it. We also have a firm grasp on an large array of other natural laws and principles.

But none of the forces or laws indicate that, from a human point of view, there is a constant evolution and change in our universe. They only describe change within so limited scopes that one cannot express connections between cause on the microscopic level and effect on the macroscopic level, or vice versa.

The laws of nature do not state anything about the development of life; although we do understand how DNA replicates, how organisms reproduce and mutate, how organisms adapt and survive according to changing environments, and how they in turn change their environments, we cannot explain which direction life will take. Neither do the laws of nature explain our emotions or reactions in spite of a good understanding of biochemistry, some neurological insight, etc.

I think now understand how to configure Microsoft's products in such a way that they appeal to me intuitively.

Now, in the world of user interfaces, "intuitively" simply means that applications do what you're used to. In that sense, I suppose the only intuitively correct behavior among Microsoft applications would be frequent crashes, mangling of your documents, incorrect calculations in your spreadsheets, file conversion problems after service upgrades, intelligent help systems provided your IQ matches your room temperature, and so on. I suppose that in that sense I don't have to change anything.

However, I'm a Linux user at home, and while Linux applications often have their shortcomings that can often be traced to a nerdish lack of attention to the fact that non-programmers might use the applications as well, at least they rarely do something that appeals only to complete idiots. Except when they take a well throught through Linux distribution such as Ubuntu and decide to create a "Christian edition" of it, of course, but the Linux community has its share of dolts, too.

I want applications to not do my thinking for me based on others' heuristics. If my applications must do something anticipatory, at least they should seed their heuristic algorithms with my particular behavior, which I find just a little more intelligent than that of the broad market average Microsoft customer: I want my applications to do what I want, not what Mr. Average wants. Microsoft, on the other hand, wants its applications to do what Mr. Average wants, knowing that Mr. Average doesn't really know to begin with.

So there you have it. I basically want the opposite of what John Doe wants, and consequently what Microsoft wants him to want. This provides me with a perfect recipe for configuring my Microsoft products at work where unfortunately I have little choice in terms of my applications use.

The key is to invert all preselected options.

For example, when MSN Messenger recently proposed that I "learn more," that is, that I upgrade to the next, less insecure version, if presents me with installation options enabling MSN as a start page in Internet Explorer, and offers to harvest use data to use at Microsoft's discretion (not that I doubt it does anyway, but at least it gives you some artificial sense of the existence of company ethics). So I inverted these selections.

Next, MSN Messenger offered to install a blog writer, a mail access feature, one more toolbar, or an image gallery, which had all been selected for me. I might want some security features to be installed, but keeping its coding tradition, Microsoft had deselected that option. I inverted the selections once again.

Similarly, I've learned that any installation of a Microsoft product should involve a visit to the tab in the options window that was once named "Advanced" to practically invert all of the selections. The tabs have been ordered differently within recent years, distributing the options contributing to automated intelligence among multiple pages, making the task a little more cumbersome. It is still somewhat straight-forward to make the Microsoft products behave somewhat less stupidly than at their default configuration.

In Microsoft Word, look for anything that seems automated in the Options window. So for example, "Mail as attachment" may be safely left checked, because it does not seem like an unexpected, pseudo-intelligent move from Word. In contrast, correcting your typos as you type will lead to highly unexpected results, many of which will be undesired with the default dictionary, in particular if you are writing in another language than English. The letter 'i' means "in" or "inside" in my language, and I really don't want those words capitalized in mid-sentence. Oh, now I mention it, perhaps I should tell you that these options are no longer found in the "Options" window, but in the "Autocorrect Options" window. You may need to entertain yourself with a little explaration of the menus which may be found in the strangest of places.

Covering the entire options system of the various Microsoft products is far beyond the scope of any blog, and probably even beyond the scope of any but the most detailed users manual. There is instead a simple rule, which says:

"Invert any option that indicates automated behavior".

Following this rule will increase the chances that your Microsoft product will treat you as a reasonably intelligent being.

"Chirp, chirp," says the little turkey chicken, and its mother reacts by feeding the chicken. And the mother turkey is in fact ready to feed anything—even its sworn enemy, a stuffed polecat, is carefully nurtured if equipped with a tape recorder that plays back the "chirp, chirp" sound. It looks like a mechanism where an innocent sound triggers the playback of a complex series of actions, much like a tape recorder that is turned on and fitted with a tape that plays back a standard behavior.

Robert B. Cialdini, professor in psychology at Arizona State University, has studied when similar "tapes" are played back in humans, and what triggers the playback of these tapes. And in that sense we are no smarter than the mother turkey, who is easily manipulated into caring for its worst enemy.

Figure 1. Dr. Robert B. Cialdini.

One Foot in the Door

It has been a significant advantage throughout human evolution to return a service for another service, or to offer a gift after receiving one. When someone gives us something, it is an almost irresistible urge that we must give something in return. The eagerness to pay back usually overcomes any negative feelings against the gift-giver, and it does not matter if one even declined the gift. The size of the gift is also largely irrelevant, and people are willing to offer considerable gifts in return for insignificant gifts.

This reciprocal principle, as it has been termed, can of course be used to coerce people into doing something. Free samples in super markets are thus not intended to convince us that a particular food tastes good, because few of us are capable of determining that. Instead, these free samples make us wish to buy something now that we received these gifts. The flowers handed out by the Hare Krishna monks are certainly not an expression of universal love either, but gifts that almost force the recipients to provide monetary donations. Free merchandise from various companies is of course also not motivated by altruism.

The reciprocal principle also works on a somewhat more hidden level that is widely used. If one begins by demanding a disproportionally high price for a service or a product, one may "reluctantly" offer to lower the price to a value that is still far too high. However, by offering a "gift" in the form of a reduced price, the customer is more willing to "pay back" by accepting the new offer than if one had made this offer to begin with.

My iPod has one redeeming factor: its storage capacity. At 80 GBytes, I can actually have all of my music on it. But I won't buy another iPod if this one breaks. The reasons are:

1. I don't like iTunes. It doesn't run on Linux, and even if it did, I'd probably want to use something else because of its poor user interface and slowness. (I use Amarok instead, but it won't install firmware updates.)
   
2. My iPod crashes regularly. I can't just reset it according to Apple's instructions; I actually have to let it sit for a while and try several times until finally I'm lucky enough to reset it.
3. When I turn it on and start playing a song, the controls are rendered useless for about half a minute while the song plays. The song will occasionally pause, too.
4. Apparently even minor MP3 stream corruptions will cause the iPod to skip the song rather than fast-forward to the next usable MP3 frame.
5. Apple's proprietary formats might offer a reasonable quality, but I'm strongly opposed to proprietary formats.

I don't know which music player I will be purchasing next, but I'm convinced it won't be made by Apple.

You can't use a religous text to make predictions about a religious group's behavior, yet atheists often refer to the Christian Bible or the Muslem Quran when they describe how "real" Christians or "real" Muslems are.

A Danish scholar, Tina Maagard, who focuses on text analysis and interpretation nonetheless extends her interpretation of the texts to make predictions about existing groups of Muslems. A few years ago she concluded that because the Quran contains more hostile phrases against other people than the Bible, Muslems can therefore be considered more war-like.

For obvious reasons this conclusion was welcome among right-wing politicians who now had "proof" that Muslems have higher potential for being terrorists than anyone else.

There are just a few devils in the details. Most importantly, it is not possible to compare the "raw" scripture in the Quran with the "raw" scripture in the Bible if one wants to draw an objective conclusion. The aforementioned politicians and "Islam critics" have such a literal belief in the influence of the Quran that it beats several Muslem fundamentalists, and one must suspect that they have forgotten that religion is man-made and therefore must be studied by looking at mankind rather than its books.

Q: But the two religions view the Quran and the Bible as their respective foundations, don't they?

It is true that the religions consider these religious scriptures central for the religions. Unfortunately, this will not make you any wiser, because the Christian Bible has prompted interpretations ranging from fire-and-brimstone preachings from paranoid, Christian fundamentalists to abstract, "godless" traditions where "god" is merely seen as a symbol. You cannot determine which interpretation is the "correct" one, because that would require you to know what the Christian god meant—and in that case you believe in the Christian god, and are making a theological interpretation that is neither scientific nor objective.

You can conclude that the Christian Bible has a prominent place in the Christian religion but the interpretation of the book is so open that in practice its place in the religion is only symbolic. This is of course also true about the Quran of Islam. When Christians and Muslems refer to their books, they are interpreting their scriptures. They may be citing literal scripture when they quote their scriptures, but when and what they quote are not arbitrary. Their choices of when and what to quote are also interpretations of the scriptures.

The two books thus have a place in the religions via the interpretations of the books made by the religions. Few Christians and Muslems would admit this, however, because that would require them to accept that their interpretation is just one among many possible and equally valid, and therefore not necessarily the "truth."

Q: So what is it that creates the religion if not the religious scripture?

Sociologists currently tend towards an explanation of religion as society's worship of its ideal selfimage. Society's values, morals, attitudes, etc. are measured according to an ideal image which, like society itself, changes over time. The ideal is seen as the final goal of the society, and is expressed in a more or less symbolic form. The ideal image typically involves the absence of all non-ideal things in society such as violence, oppression, frustration, etc. The thought of this ideal leads to religions that incorporate this ideal image into their visions. Religion is this an expression of what society thinks about itself at any given time, and how society would prefer to be.

Q: So you're saying that if Muslems included more hostility in the Quran than the Christians included in the Bible, then this actually means that the Muslem cultures are more war-prone than the Christian cultures (hah, gotcha!)?

No, this only reflects the circumstances in the times when the two books were written. It is fair to conclude based on the Bible and the Quran that the first Muslems were probably more hostile than the first Christians. However, it is 1,900 years since the first authors began to write the Bible, and it is about 1,500 years since the Quran was written. Christianity as of today cannot be compared with Christianity as of back then (how many Christians today believe that they are the "true Jews," for example, and that Messiah came back as a traditional, human king while the first Christians were still alive?); Islam as of today cannot be compared with Islam as of back then; and Islam as of back then cannot be compared with Christianity as of back then, more than 400 years later.

Today, both Islam and Christianity are so different from the Islam and Christianity that were found 1,500 and 2,000 years ago that it does not make any sense to use ancient, culturally inspired scriptures as references for those cultures today.

No-one would be stupid enough to claim that Europe is still stuck in the Germanic iron age culture 1,500 years ago, and it would be equally stupid to claim that the Muslem culture had not developed during the same 1,500 years unless one would argue that the culture was exceptionally strong and one was rather ignorant on History.

Conclusion: one cannot use the contents of the Quran and the Bible to determine which one of the two religions today is, say, the most war-prone. Firstly, the relevance of the two is restricted to the interpretations of the books that the religions make (not vice versa); secondly, the "raw" content of the books must be viewed in the context of the time when the books were written.

The grandmaster of a martial arts branch once remarked that the head only takes up one eighth of the entire body proper. Anyone that uses only his head to think with is seven-eights paralyzed.

Yet often I hear atheists cry: "rationality!," "logic!," "reason!", etc. when they argue that religious people are separating themselves from the real world. They cling to the intellectual and the abstract. Apparently their real world is restricted to the upper one-eighth of the body.

The last seven-eights of the body does not think in the intellectual sense of the word. However, the body feels and senses. Dr. Antonio Damasio explains in his book, Descartes' Error, that it is not the human brain that controls a human being's rationality. It is instead the body that creates what Damasio named "somatic markers," or bodily points of reference, that direct the brain. Body and brain join in a reciprocal, closed-loop action where the brain is just one of many organs that together spark reason.

Damasio experimented with patients suffering from a brain damage that prevented them from applying their somatic markers. To his surprise, Damasio discovered that these people were just as intelligent as other people, only were these people controlled exclusively by their intelligence, that is, by their brain's reasoning alone. Yet it was as if their goal had changed. Deprived of the use of their somatic markers the actions of the patients showed that the patients unconsciously—but apparently very deliberately—attempted to create problems for themselves, financially as well as socially. Denying their bodily feelings and relying on their reasoning alone the patients had become self-destructive.