Tom Morris



2007.01.21

  No. 451 

Essays as XHTML 2007-01-21T14:42:54ZPermalink

I'm working on an essay for college at the moment. I hate using Word - and OpenOffice is just a fairly naff Word clone. I can't seem to get LaTeX to work on my PC. I can't for the life of me figure out how to write DocBook XML (way too complex!).

So I'm now writing my essays as beautiful XHTML. But here's the real killer bit.

I've come up with a semantic format for storing bibliography entries. And I'm going to build some application layer on the top of it. Once I've got some time, I'm going to produce a parser to turn my bibliography entries in to XML, JSON and RDF/XML.

Once I've done that I'm going to explore how to make the process of writing essays easier. Meanwhile, I'm in a great situation at the moment - I've got my essay stored as pure HTML on a USB flash drive.

Firefox on the Mac has a really good print setup. And once you've got your head around hacking little bits of bothersome CSS (hanging indents should be easier), it becomes very easy to just have a template, bash in a bunch of text in to P elements, hit save, hit reload in Firefox.

I'll be releasing the template in the next few days.

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Tom Morris 9f4907d871750fd4c9b9bad7086701b51d6abd10 bd9f81a05283ed85e699175ed057b4a497f20b77 802c68123e12bf69d99a25a87cef360f18813fe4
Currently in: East Sussex, England
Usually in: East Sussex, United Kingdom
AIM: tommorris
YIM: tom.morris

I am a , an , like to code in and (and Java, but let’s not talk about that), and noodle about with and the .

I have an MA in philosophy from Heythrop College, University of London. My philosophical interests are in analytic metaphysics, ontology, modality, the work of , , , and . I have a strange, unfulfilled interest in . I’ve been influenced by Gadamer, by , , and .

Musically, I like jazz fusion, soul and P-Funk. My musical nirvana would be a mixture of Beethoven, Miles Davis and George Clinton topped with a side-serving of Erykah, Jill and Angie.

I also write for the Citizendium, an online encyclopedia project. If you know about stuff, you should join in. I occasionally produce audio recordings for The Pod Delusion.

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