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June 30, 2003
Reboot: Video captures of speakers
The people at Reboot6 has made vidcaps of all of the key speakers. Very nice work indeed. Must look at these when I have the time.
Really ought to burn a CD and bring home with me. These are pretty large files.
June 27, 2003
Richard Dawkins: I am a bright!
Richard Dawkins, author of among other things the interesting and amusing "The Selfish Gene" has written this article about how change of attitudes can start with raising consciousness around something that is wrong. How? By changing our language or way we use the language.
The feminists taught us about consciousness-raising. I used to laugh at 'him or her', and at 'chairperson', and I still try to avoid them on aesthetic grounds. But I recognise the power and importance of consciousness-raising. I now flinch at 'one man one vote'. My consciousness has been raised. Probably yours has too, and it matters.
A triumph of consciousness-raising has been the homosexual hijacking of the word "gay". I used to mourn the loss of gay in (what I still think of as) its true sense. But on the bright side (wait for it) gay has inspired a new imitator, which is the climax of this article. Gay is succinct, uplifting, positive: an "up" word, where homosexual is a down word, and queer, faggot and pooftah are insults. Those of us who subscribe to no religion; those of us whose view of the universe is natural rather than supernatural; those of us who rejoice in the real and scorn the false comfort of the unreal, we need a word of our own, a word like 'gay'. You can say 'I am an atheist' but at best it sounds stuffy (like 'I am a homosexual') and at worst it inflames prejudice (like 'I am a homosexual').
Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell, of Sacramento, California, have set out to coin a new word, a new 'gay'. Like gay, it should be a noun hijacked from an adjective, with its original meaning changed but not too much. Like gay, it should be catchy: a potentially prolific meme. Like gay, it should be positive, warm, cheerful, bright.
Geisert and Futrell are very insistent that their word is a noun and must not be an adjective. 'I am bright' sounds arrogant. 'I am a bright' sounds too unfamiliar to be arrogant: it is puzzling, enigmatic, tantalising. It invites the question, 'What on earth is a bright?' And then you're away: 'A bright is a person whose world view is free of supernatural and mystical elements. The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic world view.'
You mean a bright is an atheist?
Well, some brights are happy to call themselves atheists. Some brights call themselves agnostics. Some call themselves humanists, some free thinkers. But all brights have a world view that is free of supernaturalism and mysticism.
Oh, I get it. It's a bit like 'gay'. So, what's the opposite of a bright? What would you call a religious person?
What would you suggest?
Of course, even though we brights will scrupulously insist that our word is a noun, if it catches on it is likely to follow gay and eventually re-emerge as a new adjective. And when that happens, who knows, we may finally get a bright president.
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | The future looks bright
Update: For some strange reason a lot of people have been searching for "Dawkins", "bright" and similar words and ended up here. I guess the Dawkins article has created interest somewhere.
It would be interesting to know with whom and why they arrive at this page.
WIRED: Doomsday skepticism - We're All Gonna Die!
"Omigod, Earth's core is about to explode, destroying the planet and everything on it! That is, unless a gigantic asteroid strikes first. Or an advanced physics experiment goes haywire, negating space-time in a runaway chain reaction. Or the sun's distant companion star, Nemesis, sends an untimely barrage of comets our way. Or ... "
"Not long ago, such cosmic thrills, chills, and spills were confined to comic books, sci-fi movies, and the Book of Revelation. Lately, though, they've seeped into a broader arena, filling not only late-night talk radio, where such topics don't seem particularly out of place, but also earnest TV documentaries, slick mass-market magazines, newspapers, and a growing number of purportedly nonfiction books. Everywhere you turn, pundits are predicting biblical-scale disaster. In many scenarios, mankind is the culprit, unleashing atmospheric carbon dioxide, genetically engineered organisms, or runaway nanobots to exact a bitter revenge for scientific meddling. But even if human deployment of technology proves benign, Mother Nature will assert her primacy through virulent pathogens, killer asteroids, marauding comets, exploding supernovas, and other such happenstances of mass destruction."
June 26, 2003
I need a WiFi camera
With DefaultCity cranking out surfzones all over Sweden at a very reasonable price I really need to get my hands on something with a built in WiFi card and camera... Palm Tungsten perhaps?
"April 24 — It is spring, time for plants and trees to bloom, and for a new crop of handheld computers to review. Palm is first out of the gate with two new devices, one with a built-in digital camera and the other a top-of-the-line model with features rivaling some of its impressive competition."
SRL: Survival Research Labs
This is a must see. Robots and pyrotechnics in a wonderful (horrific!) combination. Don't miss the nudie calendar!
An example...:
"The SRL policy of making ever more dangerous machines seems a fitting response to those who would have SRL perform safer events. See the SRL New Machines section for a pictorial guide to the final assembly and testing of the Pitching Machine. Also under construction is an all aluminum remote -controlled Hovercraft, and the Wheelocopter."
Reboot 6 revisisted: illustrations
Very interesting (and pretty!) illustrations by Bjarne Tveskov to various themes and issues discussed at Reboot 6.
"A few thoughts, observations and pics from this years day off..."
See the pretty pictures.
June 25, 2003
Textamerica provides great moblogs!
I just got added to moblogging.org along with among others someone named Jade. Jade's moblog is the best looking I have seen to date.
Jade uses textamerica.com. Seems like they either provide great looking sets of standard templates, highly configurable, or allow users to roll their own templates from scratch.
This moblog really looks great!
Secure blogging via email
I have been thinking for a while about how to make email-publishing more secure. Obvious solution is to add a personal signature, based on something like PGP...But that's way over my head.
Here is a neat solution though:
"Since I couldn't find a decent (for me) desktop blogging client for Movable Type for Linux, I have decided to make it possible to blog from my favourite application: mutt. To add some security to the script, it only posts entries that have a good GnuPG signature, and even then only if the fingerprint of the key used to sign is allowed to post. And signing emails with gpg is a snap with mutt."
SLACKERBIT.CH: Blogging via mail, securely
Six Apart also wrote about this:
Newsmonster: An RSS-browser for weblogs, built into Mozilla
That does it. This is the last nail in OUtlook's coffin on my home PC and laptop. It is time for Mozilla, with NewsMonster on top.
"NewsMonster offers a superior web experience and outstanding integration with existing websites and weblogs that support RSS. Even sites that don't support RSS can work with NewsMonster. That's not all! NewsMonster incorporates an advanced reputation system to prevent spam and discover and inform you of important news.
NewsMonster supports fully cached HTML articles for reading while your computer is offline . Want to take NewsMonster on the train or to your favorite coffee shop where without wireless? No problem! Just run NewsMonster right before you leave the house. "
Blogmatrix: Yet another blog tool worth checking out
Several utilities are offered, probably based on a combination of RSS-feeds and metadata.
BlogInfo displays all the information we know about a blog, including what entries have been posted, who it links to, and who links to it.
BlogTrack monitors blogs and displays them as they are updated in an easy-to-use two-frame format.
BlogThread displays cross-blog conversations as text and graphics. Like BlogTrack, blogs and their entries are displayed in an easy-to-use two-frame format.
Microdoc: Social Network that Builds a Blogologue
An article about how social networks builds "blogologoues", distributed journalistic stories.
Research has been made based on 45 blogosphere stories. The result is presented here.
A link is available to a previous article, "Dynamics of a Blogosphere Story", which also looks an interesting read.
"Blogosphere stories (that we have noted some people are calling a 'blogologue') are viral in nature and are a collective journalistic activity created by people who are bloggers. Anyone who writes a blog online can join any story and can play a part."
June 24, 2003
Time to leave: .nu island wide WiFi free for all
Polynesian Island of Niue the First Free Wireless Nation. Time to leave Sweden. Free broadband, free WiFi all over... ...do they have lots of sun and waves as well?
This rocks.
"Alofi, Niue, THE SOUTH PACIFIC--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 2003--The Internet Users Society - Niue (IUS-N), today announced that it has launched the world's first free nation-wide WiFi Internet access service on the Polynesian island-nation of Niue. This new free wireless service which can be accessed by all Niue residents, tourists, government offices and business travelers, is being provided at no cost to the public or local government."
Aaron Swarts made a script that checks Google for related ads
This neat little script letsyou submit a URL and see which ads Google would serve if it came up in a search on Google.
Try Before You Sell (Google Weblog)
Apparently people looking for me need business cards and more money. According to Google anyway.
Darwin Magazine: Are You Ready for Social Software?
Found this link on Socialtext's site. Looks like an interesting read. Socialtext's web site is recommended, lots of interesting stuff there.
"It's the opposite of project-oriented collaboration tools that places people
into groups. Social software supports the desire of individuals to be pulled
into groups to achieve goals. And it's coming your way."
Read Darwin -Are You Ready for Social Software? - WHAT'S NEW - Magazine - Darwin Magazine
Deciding on a neutral and efficient log format
Clearly there is a need for a well defined core of standards for a log format. In this wiki a RoadMap is built with that goal in mind.
This wiki is a vendor-neutral space for agreeing on a new log format that is:
* 100% vendor neutral,
* implementable by everybody, anywhere, for any reason
* freely extensible by anybody, anywhere, for any reason
* cleanly and thoroughly specified.
Here's the project roadmap:
Decide on the conceptual model of a log entry.
* Decide on a syntax for this model.
* Build a syndication format using this syntax.
* Build an archiving format using this syntax.
* Build a weblog editing protocol using this syntax.
Time: About phonecams, and what attracts users
Time Online Edition has this brief entry on phonecams and what you can do with them.
Much like myself, what fascinates people is the sense of immediacy and that you always have your phone with you ready to send a picture to the web for friends and family to see.
(I like the analogy to lomography. Setting all rules of photography aside and just see what sticks to the film...)
"It is too soon to tell if phone blogging will be more than a passing fad, but the early buzz has prompted AT&T Wireless and Sprint PCS to offer password-protected online photo albums for up to $15 a month to customers with phone cams. Other services, such as Textamerica.com, let people create public phone-cam blogs for free. Posting pictures is as easy as sending an e-mail. On some phone-cam blogs, you can also add a few lines of text or an audio clip and invite others to comment."
June 23, 2003
Philip Greenspun: Redefining Professionalism for Software Engineers
In an interesting manner Philip Greenspun by examples explains what it really means to be a professional programmer.
"A MIT computer science senior with whom we were working objected >>You can't say 'rich and poor' when you mean to say 'rich and poor'!<< Why not? >>It is unprofessional.<< Curious to know what his definition of software engineering professionalism was after four years of MIT education, we probed a bit deeper and established that the way that he thought about professionalism did not differ from the thinking of a Mary Kay cosmetics saleswoman: wear nice clothes, drive a clean car, and don't say anything that might offend anyone. "
Eric Raymond: Open Source IS agile programming!
In this article Eric Raymond, having read "Refactoring" by Martin Fowler, sees huge similarities between the school of agile programming and what hackers have been doing in the open source community for decades.
"The open-source movement and agile programming may be converging. While reading Martin Fowler's excellent book "Refactoring", I realized development by refactoring is a sharp description of the normal style of open-source hackers. In this essay (which Martin Fowler and Kent Beck and I discussed in draft) I explore the connection further."
Parsing FOAF with PHP
This article is a guide to using PHP to parse FOAF documents. FOAF stands for Friend-of-a-Friend and is a fun application of RDF that describes people and their relationships to one another. It assumes that the reader is familiar with XML and PHP but that they have little or no knowledge of RDF or FOAF and how to parse them.
FOAF provides about two dozen useful terms for describing people. These can be plugged into existing RDF or form the basis for a dedicated FOAF file, packed full of infomation about a person and the people they know. The most important term in FOAF is Person which (surprise!) represents a person. There are also a set of helpful properties such as name, homepage and knows.
June 22, 2003
RegExp Library:
This is just excellent. A site where regexps are stored and displayed library style. Just search, copy, paste.
Regexps are probably the most brainwrecking concept ever thought up by man. But oh so useful. Essential even, in the land of Perl, I have come to understand. So this is like christmas to a non-techie like me.
Regular Expression Library -- presented by ASPSmith.com Training
Enkelriktat.com: Kite-riding mobile spy cam
The first flying phonecam in the world? Niklas Johansson with friend has made a phonecam airborne using a kite and snapped high-flying pictures. Cool.
The camera was rigged to the kite using tape and then set to snap a picture using the built-in timed trigger.
Now all we need are remotes for our mobile cams. Or built-in webbservers so we can surf to them from another phones and activate the camera in a more controlled way... ;)
Enkelriktat.com: Osorterade tankar nedskrivna av Niklas Johansson
June 18, 2003
Perl Design Pattenrs
In 1995, Design Patterns was published, and during the intervening years, it has had a great influence on how many developers write software. Here is a piece on how to use design patterns while coding OO Perl.
"In this series of articles, I present my take on how the Design Patterns book (the so-called Gang of Four book, which I will call GoF) and its philosophy applies to Perl. While Perl is an OO language -- you could code the examples from GoF directly in Perl -- many of the problems the GoF is trying to solve are better solved in Perl-specific ways, using techniques not open to Java developers or those C++ developers who insist on using only objects. Even if developers in other languages are willing to consider procedural approaches, they can't, for instance, use Perl's immensely powerful built-in pattern support."
June 17, 2003
Excerpt from 'Code Name Ginger'
New book: 'Code Name Ginger'. About how the Segway came to be, describing the development of the innovative human transporter. Detailed accounts of discussions with Bezos and Jobs.
"Because I see a big problem here," said Jobs. "I was thinking about it all night. I couldn't sleep after Dean came over." There were notes scribbled on the palm of his hand. He explained his experience with the iMac, how there were four models now but he had launched with just one color to give his designers, salespeople, and the public an absolute focus. He had waited seven months to introduce the other models. Bezos and Doerr nodded as he spoke.
HBS Working Knowledge: Innovation: Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos meet "Ginger"
June 16, 2003
Fortune.com: QNX - software that must not fail
Interesting article about the company QNX and their operating system that is indeed "built to last".
"As far as anyone can tell, software created by a Canadian company called QNX Software Systems simply doesn't crash. QNX's software has run nonstop without mishaps at some customer sites since it was installed more than a decade ago. As a delighted user has put it, 'The only way to make this software malfunction is to fire a bullet into the computer running it.'"
Fortune.com - Industry Management & Technology - Heroes of Manufacturing
June 13, 2003
Water pipe: I need to get one of these...
Probably the coolest household utensil to own. Get them at Möllevångstorget in Malmö.
Right next door to Cristina is a store specializing in water pipes. From really small ones to pipes two meters in height... ...they have everything. A bit like the store in Amsterdam that sells only tooth brushes. ;)
So You Want To Learn Japanese
Since I always wanted to learn Japansese, I guess I need to read this... Found it over at AkuAku SF.
"You've eaten at a few Japanese restaurants, seen some anime, hosted an exchange student, and had a Japanese girlfriend. And now, somewhere in the back of your tiny brain, you think that Japanese would be a good language to learn. Hey, you could translate video games! Or Manga! Or even Anime! Pick up Japanese girls, impress your friends! Maybe you'll even go to Japan and become an anime artist! Yeah! Sounds like a great idea!"
Textamerica.com: Another Moblog-service
"Take pictures with your camphone and post them directly to the web, instantly! You can post pictures from any country and any cellular or mobile provider. You can also post comments on your pictures, and then customize the look of your pages, no html or knowledge needed, start your moblog today."
Publishing pictures and text via email, sending the contents to a personal email-address on the form domainname.secretoword@tamw.com.
This service looks really neat and easy to use. No unnecessary extra gadgets or clutter, no silly community fuzziness going on.
June 12, 2003
WIRED: Xeni Jardin on moblogging
Xeni Jardin, who apparently recently started a moblog of her own, writes in Wired about the phenomenon of moblogging.
It seems pretty apparent that the idea of posting photos from a cell phone is a rather new one. From blogs we got the niche of photoblogs and now we start seeing moblogs becoming more and more common.
Of course the voyeurs will have a ball. The first sites posting not so decent pictures taken of unsuspecting "victims" are starting to show up. Like mobileasses.com, "the real reason why cell phones need cameras"...
In the article Xeni writes about the possible uses of cell phone cameras and a little about the future to come.
Memigo.com - personal news aggregator
Worth checking out: "Memigo is a website for news junkies. Technically, memigo is an intelligent news agent: it goes out on the internet and it finds news articles, stories and editorials from "trusted", high quality sources."
When you log in to memigo as a registered user (try it: it's free and anonymous), memigo will give you its idea of the best links of the past 24 hours or more. Unlike a news or weblog aggregator (like NewsIsFree, Syndic8, Blogdex or Daypop), memigo tries to guess what news you personally will be most interested in.
How? When you visit memigo you are either explicity or implicitly rating each link that you see. Memigo compares your ratings to those of other users and rates links according to how people like you have rated them. It also keeps track of how you and others like you rate individual sites by using your link ratings. So, when memigo finds a new link, it gives it a rating based on its source, its referrals and its popularity among memigo users. In case you are wondering, yes this is very much like how Amazon Recommends suggests books that may be of interest to you. The added challenge for memigo is that links are short-lived, so fewer people are bound to see and rate them.
June 04, 2003
This summers reading list...
Liz Lawley, blogging at mamamusings, recently published a list of books to read covering the topic of social networks. Looks like a good starting point.
"Some of my colleagues have asked for a summer reading list of books related to social software. This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, just a few personal favorites. Feel free to add suggestions for additional items in the comments, or provide any other feedback on the choices."
Analysts to SCO: No thanks to code review offer - Computerworld
"Linus Torvalds likened the fight to a Jerry Springer episode" - I think that about sums up the discussion...
"Analysts are balking at The SCO Group Inc.'s offer to view its proof that there is illegal Unix code in Linux, with one calling the move a publicity stunt."
Analysts to SCO: No thanks to code review offer - Computerworld
