Tomorrow I head down to Baltimore for some touristy action culminating in watching the Sox thrash (hopefully) the Orioles. Have a good weekend.
July 2003 Archives
Hunting for Bambi is officially a hoax as determined by the AP. We can all breathe a little easier now.
I've been meaning to improve the URLs here for a while, but I haven't gotten around to it. Maybe once I read through these article, it'll inspire me.
So here's the poop: as of late, I ain't got much to say.
It's not that things aren't happening, they're just not very interesting things, or things I feel worthy of sharing, or things that someone else hasn't said. Anyway, here's some things:
Firebird 0.6.1 PC rocks. It's seriously awesome. Gone is the dropdown crash that made me cry, here are the new buttons that are smaller and more brightly colored. Seriously, this is the brower you should be using. Got questions? Fire away. I'm game.
Andy Gienapp is posting regularly. Again, I'd like to remind you that there are lot of things in life that we take for granted, one of them being that if we dial 911 someone will be there to help us. Read Andy's stuff. It's a sampling of the things he faces every day; it's a sampling of the things you take for granted.
Using ETags and Last-Modified dates in PHP for the purpose of aggregation is easy to do. However, what's not so easy is capturing a bunch of feeds at the same time because it causes your script to time out. I'm not wuite sure how to get around this yet. Ideas appreciated.
I refuse to believe that Jackie killed JFK. Obviously so does everyone else. That's why this guy hasn't received any rational replies. Also, I don't know where that video is from, but it's pretty graphic (wasn't the Zapruder black&white? Am I wrong or was it from the other side of the car?).
I have a theory: a team that gets blown out one night is too ashamed to let it happen again. Just go ask the Texas Rangers or Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Jerks.
My MT install is no longer pinging. I'm not sure if it's the slow response of weblogs.com or if it's because of something on the host. I hate the web.
samorost
You *HAVE* to check this out. Very much like Myst, only done in flash, this is an excellently done Flash movie. A short story about a little person trying to save their ship from destruction, the interactivity and graphics are captivating. A must click!
In Apple, DRM and me, Sean Yeager talks about some problems he had with music he purchased from the Apple Music Store after he moved to Canada. In short, due to some confusion and some miscommunication a large commotion ensued. In checking the two trackbacks on the article so far it seems like I caught the tip of the iceberg by reading Sean's post. In any case, the post is worth a read, and Sean's site worth a bookmark. His content is top-notch and engaging. Check it out.
Lance Arthur is working on a new site, at which he publishes more frequently. I've always found his writing entertaining. Check him out, maybe you'll like him too.
I've been checking out this site for about a week now. Some of the designs are nice, some not so nice. However, it seems that the only things there so far are designs. It would be cool if they had other types of information. For example, select lists of zip codes, states, and countries comes to mind (for easy form building). No matter what though, it's a site to keep an eye on because the idea is good and it seems like there's a community forming to support it.
I'll be going away for a few days. I know posting has been light, but you know how it is. No comp access on the road unless you bring your own, and I can't. Have a good mid-week and I'll catch y'all in a few.
Darwin in a Box: This is really neat. The videos are worth the time it takes to download them. The basic premise is that the researchers programatically created a nervous system as well as all the muslces, tendons, and senses needed to walk. They then algorithmically evolved the system until it taught itself to walk.
First off, I'm always amazed at how easy these articles make this sound. Take ten random numbers between one and ten. Pick the five closest to ten. Those five get reset to a random number between two and ten (they're range is smaller because being closer to ten is better in our experiment and they won the first round so they get a bonus). Reset the other five to a random number between one and ten. For each strain that advances reduce it's range.
That seems awfully artificial to me, but it also seems to be how these evolution programs break down. However they work, creating a video game character (a troll for example) and then having it develop a method of locomotion unique to the body you created for it is extremely interesting and could lead to some very cool new characters and navigation structures.
Does anyone else have links to open source versions of these types of programs? I'd be interested in learning more.
I finished reading Hillary Clinton's book Living History. This book is far from an award winner, however it's an interesting look into the political system.
Having never run for office, I found myself marvelling at the things she had to do in order to get where she was. For instance, she's been active in politics since she was a child. She had a huge social network from working on other politicians campaigns. I'd like to think that a politically minded twenty something year old could be successful running for some kid of office, but based on her story it seems unlikely unless you're a lifelong politician.
Another thing I found disturbing in this book was the extent to which partisan politics was placed above the good of the American people. It seemed that constantly one or the other parties was more concerned about the other party and their doings than they were about what was important to the people who elected them. That, my friends, is bullshit.
The story is very detailed and full of names. So much so that Clinton introduces you to them over and over, as even she knows you'll never keep them straight. Some of the happenings are not very exciting, however all of them are interesting as far as understanding Hillary and her outlook on things. There are some very funny passages as well, such as her recounting of Boris Yeltsin's attempt to feed her moose lips.
The bottom line is that this book comes off as the foundation for larger political goals (read: a Presidential run). Hillary outlines her beliefs, her politcal goals, what she's accomplished, what she hasn't, what she wants, and why we should cut her some slack (those damn Republicans!). The style is somewhere between formal and friendly, rough in spots, but touching in its awkwardness in others.
Although it dragged at points, Living History was worth the read. It taught me a lot about Hillary and left me looking forward to Bill's side of the story of his Presidency. What was he doing while she was travelling the world? How did he feel about the constant roadblocks and investigations? Something tells me I'll get my chance to find out in the near future...
Rat Chicken was one of the first sidebar links I put on my blog, back when I was writing my own blog software. That was a long time ago. Rat Chicken lives on, though. You can find one episode here. Rat Chicken rules.
And while I'm posting humorous nonsense, check out My Cat Hates You. "He can barely stand to look you in the eye. Because you suck."
I was always a Netscape user. Like many others, I converted family members, classmates, friends, anyone who would listen. When the Mozilla project was kicked off, I followed closely, playing with the early Milestones (4!) as I waited for something usable. I've never used IE.
When I read today that AOL had begun the process of leveling the Netscape division, I was sad. Just like many others, I immediately jumped to the worst conclusion possible: this is the end of Mozilla.
As I reflect and read more, I'm positive I was wrong. This can only lead to good things. Mozilla has had plenty of time to become too valuable to other companies in order for them to let it just die off. For instance, the Mozilla browser has become an important app for RedHat, Sun, IBM, and embedded users. I think it's unfortunate that Apple made the choice that it did regarding Safari, as had Gecko been chosen, Apple would have picked up where AOL left off. The flipside of that decision is that the khtml engine seemed to be fine without AOL, so Gecko and Moz should be alright as well.
It's going to be very interesting to see what happens in the browser world over the next few months. With Safari gaining ground, IE being put on ice until the next version of Windows, and Mozilla focusing on marketing their products more we're about to see some competition in the browser market. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think the competition is going to involve money (an issue in itself). However, it will involve making the web a better experience for everyone.
Before I wrap up, I'd like to touch on the money issue. Browsers are free. It will be interesting to see if a "for pay" browser doesn't emerge to compete with Opera. I think the mode of thinking goes like this: 1) IE is not effectivley being improved. 2) Netscape is dead. 3) Do you want a better browsing experience? Buy our browser for a few dollars. Hell, if anyone from Apple is listening, maybe you should consider a cross platform release of Safari with iTunes. One person's trash (IE's user browser marketshare) is another person's treasure.
In any case, for those Netscape developers who might not have known, there are a lot of us who really appreciated the work you did. To the Mozilla developers (and I realize there's some overlap) your products are great, your community thriving, and your energy high. Keep up the good work and your user base will continue to grow and reward you.
Of interest:
AOL Cuts Remaining Mozilla Hackers
ex-mozilla.org
Mozilla.org/Mozilla Foundation
Mozilla Found. Press Release
Never having done the usenet thing, I didn't know what the phrase "September that never ended" meant. I know, I just lost my geek status... If I ever had one... Anyway, people are afraid the same thing will happen to blogs due to AOL's soon to be released blogging tools.
It will definitely be interesting to see how tools such as technorati scale into the new audience (I mention that one in particular because Dave Sifry stopped by once and left a comment and that will leave him forever on my list of excellent people... Never get too big to say hi to the little people!). As the population of the blogosphere swells, it will become more important for such tools to perform well, as without them we won't be able to handle the large amounts of information present, nevermind monitor our online social networks or follow the latest meme.
Another thing to watch will be how the existing more fully featured blog/cms packages take advantage of AOL's software as a way to get "newbies" ramped up and into more advanced uses of the technology. For example, will the upper echelon of AOL's bloggers become the target market for the pro version of TypePad? Mena hints that this might be the case, and since I know she, Ben, and Anil are not stupid people, they must be thinking about how to take advantage of such a large number of people being introduced to the blogosphere.
The bottom line: with Google buying Blogger, SixApart getting funding, AOL and others introducing their users to publishing, and new technologies such as camera equipped phones, we're about to see another mutation of the web as we know it. I for one am pretty excited. Are you?
"Even expensive hookers are a thing of the past with Movable Type (although it doesn't go down as often as Blogger does)." says Kottke. I had to post it. It made me laugh out loud...
I stumbled across this link over at the [H]. Pretty messed up stuff. If I didn't know better, I'd think this was making fun of hicks with guns... Make sure to watch the video, and for added scariness check out huntingforbambi.com. NSFW and pretty f-ed up overall. This ain't no Harry Potter.
Via James over at Aces Full of Links comes a story at CNN about rubber ducks washing up along the shores of New England.
The ducks were released from a shipping container that fell off a cargo ship in 1992 while travelling between China and Seattle. Since then they've moved North through the Bering Strait and then past Iceland.
Aside from wondering why no one tried to pick these little plastic eco-destroyers out of the ocean, this is pretty wild. I'm half tempted to drive down to the beach to look for a few of the suckers myself! Screw that geo-caching stuff; these ducks have been hidden in the ocean for years!
Don says that he blew through the first books. But the "most recent volume, Order of Phoenix, seems different from the previous four volumes. It goes deeper into Harry Potter's mind and tries to teach something to the kids. While I breezed through other volumes in matter of hours, I struggled over several days to read few chapters of the latest volume."
Hello? Earth to Don? What is wrong with teaching something to kids? You make it sound like a bad thing. Walk through any public place and look around. You'll notice that today's kids have *a lot* to learn.
Don also says "My son had similar problems so he skipped through most of the book. When I asked him his opinion about the book, he said it was fun. I didn't probe deeper because he was obviously faking it." I'd be very interested to know how old Don's son is. Maybe he's not old enough to be able to appreciate the struggles Harry is going through as he works through his teen years.
The books are written so as to follow Harry's travels through school. In the first book he's ten and in the fifth he's 15. His view of the world while young is much more shallow and superficial than it is as he grows older. Some people, and that includes Don, may want Harry to stay in his fantasy world where everything is black and white and the grown-ups know best. In my opinion, though, the series is nothing but better with the addition of the more realistic themes and Harry's more young-adult view of the world. The fifth book definitely didn't go south.
That Mark Pilgrim, I heard that not only does he snap the arms of living babies to gnaw on, but he's a damn thief and a stalker too! Did you see him steal all of Dave Winer's posts? Sheesh. Dave, you better close your curtains, or Mark will be watching you poop next!
Here, here, here, and lots more places.
UPDATE: Mark has now password protected the Winer Watcher.
Have you been following the Winer/Pilgrim saga? I'm a geek. I admit it. I like geeky things like new formats and new standards. Hell, I was using Mozilla back around Milestone 4. Like I said, I'm a geek.
That admitted, I couldn't help but be interested in the development of the new syndication/API/format being worked on. Running through the whole process though is undeniable tension between Dave Winer and others. Someone said the whole thing was about as interesting as a soap opera.
Anyway, here's the deal: Winer has made some disparaging remarks about Mark Pilgrim. Pilgrim responds most recently by collecting Winer's posts via RSS and creating what equates to a change log, visually showing where Winer has edited his posts. Enter the feces throwing monkeys as hilarity ensues.
You can find Dave's comments on the matter here and here. You can find the actual page here. Look around, absorb some of it. It's funny. Then, when you're done, check out the technorati link for what other people think. That's funny too.
In the past I've criticized Mark a little, but the bottom line is that I respect his technological prowess and his knowledge. I could criticize Dave as well, but I also respect his experience and accomplishments. This little exhibit is an extremely powerful example of the strengths of syndication formats and scripting. What gets me is that the negativity keeps going on. Dave can't leave it alone and threatens copyright violations (look how well that's gone for RIAA) and Mark keeps throwing more wood on the fire.
Don't get me wrong, I don't know the whole story, and last time I made a comment to Mark about something he said he told me until I do things like he does I had no room to talk. I don't deal with Dave and RSS the way Mark has, so I can't comment on all the other things leading up to this. All I know is that from this side of the interweb, I think this whole thing is quite a laugh. Check it out. Maybe you will too.
I finished reading the DaVinci code, and I have to say: I liked it a lot. The shorter chapters were conducive to reading on the T and kept the story moving quickly along. The strong reliance on art history and art studies gave the book a very truthful and realistic feel, drawing me in even more. The writing style is light and easy. Plot wise, there's not a lot of fluff; the story is fast paced and moves.
Overall, I highly recommend this one. It reads quickly and lends itself to a few chapters before bed, a few on the train, and before you know it you're hooked and burning from one end to the other. Throughout I found myself guessing at the meaning of clues and riddles as I tried to figure out what was going on. With a few sharp turns at the end, there are suprises even when you think you've got it all figured out.
When you finish, let me know what you think.
PHP 5.0 Beta 1 has been released (for a little while now). There's a ton of great content regarding the project's development over at Zend. For those of you not in the know, Zend is the company behind the PHP engine. You can find a todo list for Beta 2, comments on the Beta release, information on the additions to the PHP pcre functionality, and more.
If you want to keep your skills up to date, you better start reading. There are some big changes in the works involving everything from better object oriented functionality, to including more and better Java support. This is going to be a great release.
CNN is running a story claiming that "Women, some scantily clad, sell games". Well no shit. Once again, I ask you to picture a bunch of guys standing around the office trying to decide on a story topic.
One: "Wait, wait, wait... I got it! I bet that scantily clad women cause more teenage boys to buy video games!"
Two: "Can we find an expert to back that up?"
One: "Who needs an expert when we can get a no name video game magazine contributor!"
Sheesh. The next story will probably be about how games with good graphics make people want to buy new hardware so they can play them. Assholes.
- Blogspot: Each post is a sentence formed from the acronym of the last word from the previous post. Like word games? Looking for some weird word combinations to use as quotes on your site? Check this out.
- It's not what you say, it's how you say it. When written in pastel colors and rounded fonts, anything can sound cheery.
- Slashdot is running a T-shirt design contest. I'd like to do something, but lately I can barely breathe on a consistent basis, nevermind come up with enough creativity to design a T-shirt. And there are all those other projects I'm supposed to be working on right now. Oh well, if you want in, here are the official rules.
- I can't get a real permalink to work, but soxnation has a post called "If you will it, then it isn't a dream..." Brian's argument is that the Patriots were so successful in their SuperBowl in large part because their fans were so supportive. When they were in a fight against a team that was tough, that last bit of toughness they needed was drawn from the support of their fans and the belief that they really could pull it off. Brian claims that if the Red Sox got this same kind of support, maybe they too could be champions. I've said this before, calling it the Tinkerbell theory. Everyone needs to clap, or Tinkerbell, or in this case the Sox, will die.
- Another corked bat parody: Sosa called to help NASA with cork insulation problem.
- Ever wanted to create an extension for Mozilla? This tutorial will teach you how.
- Looking to build you own TiVo like system? Well, if you're willing to shell out the time and the money, ExtremeTech will show you how. The pricetag is a little bit steep for me right now, but it's an interesting project.
ESPN.com: Page2 - Harry Potter and the Corked Broom
I used to read the Page 2 Column, enjoying it the most during the Patriots' run for the SuperBowl as the author is a Patriots fan. At some point, the old Page 2 and I grew apart. I checked it out tonight though, finding this "sample" chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Great stuff!
I finished Harry Potter Five, The Order of the Phoenix on Friday night. Having had a few days to think it over and to get into some preliminary discussions with some other people, I’d like to start a conversation hear about the story, what people thought, how it relates to the other books, and where Rowling will go from here.
Careful, though: there will most likely be spoilers ahead…
Continue reading Harry Potter Five The Order of the Phoenix.
- Blogger now works with Mozilla. Although they claim to still bounce other browsers to their low-fi interface, one would think supporting Moz would open them up to other standards compliant browsers. It will be interesting to see how all of the competition between Google owned Blogger, SixApart owned MovableType, and others such as Userland shapes up.
- Newsmonster will soon/now works with Firebird according to a post at Kevin Burton's site. This is interesting because I installed NewsMonster in Firebird the other day and it was close to working but not quite fully functional. From what I saw it was pretty good, so I'm looking forward to a fully functional Firebird extension release.
- On the day of the release for the new WarCraft expansion, four of Blizzard's top designers filed their walking papers. As a huge Blizzard fan, I can only hope that thisleads to two amazing companies: Blizzard and the one that should soon be started by these four amazing people.
- NASA was studying the ionosphere the other night by making clouds. No matter how safe they claim this to be, releasing trimethylaluminum into the atmosphere and burning it sounds a little scary to me. And I'm no Captain Planet.
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