Doc on Blogging wich is... talking

After reading Mike's latest (which is deep and helpful, as always), I think that's the best answer to the question Why do we blog? is another question: Why do we talk?

This came to me, as things often do, while reading Mike. I realized that I probably blog for a single reason: I work alone, and I need to talk about something other than work — and work too — with somebody. Or anybody. And I'm probably not alone in this regard. That's why I think a lot of programmers blog. And fellow journalists. We're all cave workers.

And most of us can't help talking anyway. It's a highly human condition.

[Via the always insightful Doc Searls Weblog]   

Let's talk about the global village (aka the world wide web)

I got a message this morning from Gaspar, I quoted an Italian paragraph from his site yesterday, he noticed and sent me this email:

How funny!

You read my italian blog thanks to your french and spanish.
I read your french blog thanks to my italian and spanish.
We both speak english.

Somewhere this has a deep meaning, which I'm unable to grasp at present...
;-)

Cheers!
Gaspar

Vous voyez à quoi je veux en venir? Get it? Comprende? Que chacun s'exprime dans la langue de son coeur et s'efforce de comprendre celle de son voisin.   

First Annual Google Programming Contest
[Posté sur pssst!]   

Lord Chesterfield
Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.
[Via MQotD]   

Raymond Chandler
Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency. Ça c'est pour mes potes d'agences!
[Via Quotes of the Day]   

Open Source a needed outlet for programmers
The Register reports on a recent OSDN (owners of NewsForge) and Boston Consulting Group study. Open source hackers are very likely to be programmers with a decade of professional experience employed by a commercial software company, and very unlikely to be the stock high school math-club geeks of popular press reports.
[Via NewsForge: Open Source News]   

Quick and Dirty Topic Mapping
If you've ever tried to map out a taxonomy for an existing or future body of content, you know it can be a frustrating exercise. Here's a strategy for creating a taxonomy from the bottom up rather than top down -- including the Perl script to run it.
[Via the O'Reilly Network Newsletter]   

The CSS Oath of Allegiance: I solemnly swear from this day forth to live my life according to the dictates of the HTML 4.01 Strict Document Type Definition, promising to forsake the use of any deprecated or frameset definitions and attributes. I also undertake to uphold the standards of CSS1 and CSS2 while awaiting the release of CSS3. I humbly accept the changed function of the !important property wherein the user's !important value takes precedence over that set by the author. Finally I agree to sever all contact with any person, even a close family member, who persists in their use of the FONT tag. Hehehe.
[Via the humorous Jonathon Delacour Unplugged]   

The current state of spam
The battle against junk e-mail, or spam, has numerous allies: Legislators have enacted laws targeting it, trade groups have crafted voluntary guidelines to govern it, and software developers have created weapons of mass deletion to thwart it. [Via Matt Goyer]