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Sunday, March 21, 2004 |
REST for the rest of us.
The word used again and again lately to describe distributed
information systems is "composition". The Unix idea of piecing together
solutions from reusable parts has morphed into XML-based,
service-oriented architecture. This time around, though, it's all
happening on the Web, in an environment where everybody can compose
simple and popular tunes. When technologists forget that, I hope users
will administer the dope slap we deserve. [Full story at XML.com]
I wrote this column on the plane home from SXSW. Dinah Sanders, product manager for the Innovative Interfaces OPAC system, invited me to sit in along with Liz Lawley, Tanya Raybourn, and Sun's corporate librarian Cynthia Hill. Reactions to the panel came from David Weinberger and Jenny Levine.
... [Jon's Radio] 
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Channel 9 hype machine starts spinning up. Ahh, the project I've been working on, Channel 9, is starting to get talked about (Channel 9 was named for the channel on United Airlines where you can listen into the pilots in the cockpit -- we're trying to do the same thing for you at Microsoft. Coming soon). Lenn Pryor, my boss, teases. Jeff Sandquist, our program manager, posts a flair, Alan Griver talks about being interviewed today (Jeremy Mazner did the interview, I played camera monkey).
Microsoft employees: we're looking to interview anyone interesting who is doing interesting things. Fit the bill? Especially for developers or ISVs? Email me: rscoble@microsoft.com. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
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Programmers at Work reunion. Last night I participated in the Programmers at Work reunion at CMP's Software Development Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, California. It brought together seven of the 19 programmers profiled in the now out of print book along with interviewer Susan Lammers as moderator. They contacted most of the subjects that are still living and these were the ones who could make it last night. The post is a write up with pictures and some comments on open source. [Dan Bricklin's Log]
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It's articles like this that make me glad I can still subscribe to Evhead. [Scripting News]
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Laszlo Inspector. Laszlo inspector.
Laszlo inspector
For the Laszlo developers amongst my readers...
I wrote a little interactive debugging tool that I have found very
useful in my own app development. It lets you inspect the view hierachy
and see and modify key properties (bgcolor, position, size, visible).
You can try it here.
You can change bgcolor and view position. Click on the x/o to toggle
visibility. Click on '...' will send the instance to the debugger,
where you can click on it for further inspection.
You can download a zip of the source from the mylaszlo forum.
[Sarah Allen's Weblog]
This seems really cool. Thanks Sarah!
We'll be using this - like today. [Marc's Voice]
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Electric Sheep artificial life DVD launch March 31, San Francisco.
Spot Draves is the author of the brilliant Electric Sheep screensaver
-- this is a distributed rendering application that grabs its users'
computers' idle cycles to create computationally expensive, vivid and
beautiful animated fractals. Users vote for the animations they like
best while the screensaver is running, and those fractals are then
given precedence within the computational gene pool, spawning
variations that are rendered out again, dancing for their human masters
who have the power of life and death over them.
The result is a breathtaking, psychedelic form of artificial life
whose fitness factor is the ability to tickle the aesthetics of
computer geeks.
Spot has assembled the best of these animations -- these "Electric
Sheep" -- on a DVD, with DJ mixed background audio. The contents of the
DVD are all online as small QuickTime movies, for for the high-rez,
you'll have to order a copy or go to the launch on March 31, in San
Francisco:
wednesday march 31st 7pm-2am StudioZ
314 11th st @ folsom san francisco
415.252.7666 www.studioz.tv 21+ w/ID
free admission
featuring the soundz of Spool, jhno, mbb,
dj vordo, and Kenji Williams/ABA Structure
Link [Boing Boing]
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Carbs crank up serotonin. An MIT study suggests that low-car/pro-protein diets like Atkins can chemically bum you out. Judith Wurtman, director of the Program in Women's Health at the MIT Clinical Research Center, found that when you kick the carb habit, your brain stops regulating serotonin. As people who take SSRI drugs like Prozac know, serotonin elevates mood and can also act as an appetite suppresant.
"According to Wurtman's clinical studies, if the carbohydrate craver eats protein instead, he or she will become grumpy, irritable or restless. Furthermore, filling up on fatty foods like bacon or cheese makes you tired, lethargic and apathetic. Eating a lot of fat, she said, will make you an emotional zombie." Link
[Boing Boing]
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Nature's artforms, with alpha channels, free for the remixing. 
Spot Draves has released a bunch of Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (Artforms of Nature) as Creative-Commons-licensed, high-resolution scans in PNG format, with painstaking alpha transparency channels that allow you to easily composite them onto other images. Haeckel was the naturist who stated that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" -- that foetuses step through their evolutionary history in the womb. It turned out that he was kind of making that up and faking his evidence, but he sure drew pretty pictures, and the meme's got legs. Well, first it had a tail, then it had legs.
Link
[Boing Boing]
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XPower Mobile Plug Inverter. Via Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools:
You plug this solid-state inverter into your car's lighter socket and
power whatever 110 volt AC appliance you want, 75 watts max. No need
for special DC gadgets. It's made for recharging cell phones and other
batteries, but I've used it for my scanner and my printer while on the
road. Also, I've run a small B&W TV set (5'5), and more important,
my baby's bottle heater (I admit is a small one). You can power almost
anything that doesn't use large resistance like hair dryers, waffle
makers, bread toasters, small ovens. I haven't tried a coffee maker
yet. The same company offers an assorted line of automobile inverters
with more output power (200 watts on up). This is the smallest one.
-- Juan J Gil
XPower MobilePlug 75, Manufactured by Xantrex
[Boing Boing]
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Peter Bagge's libertarian comics for Reason.  I used to dislike Tom Tomorrow's comic strip, This Modern World.
I'm not entirely sure why it didn't work for me, but I think it is
because he would set up right-wing straw people to say exaggerated
things to make them look bad. Lately, I've been enjoying his strip a
lot more, and I think the reason is because the right-wing is now so
outrageous, he doesn't need to exagerate to show how bad they are. The
truth is funny without having to embellish it.To me, Peter Bagge is the
opposite of Tom Tomorrow. I love the stuff he did for Weirdo, Neat Stuff, and Hate. Now he's doing a libertarian comic strip for Reason,
and like a mirror-image Tom Tomorrow, he tries to make his point by
exaggerating the kinds of things left-wingers say. And just as
Tomorrow's early work wasn't funny, Bagge's recent Reason work doesn't make me laugh either. I did read Bagge's latest Hate Annual and thought he was in top form, so this criticism only applies to his Reason comics. Link
[Boing Boing]
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WSJ.
Using cellphones to detonate bombs remotely. This isn't a new technique
but it has now gone mainstream. The simplicity and power of the
technique promise extensive use in the future.
Terrorists in last week's attacks in Spain apparently hooked up
bombs to cellphones, which theoretically could have allowed them to
detonate the explosives from the other side of the world. Hooking up a
phone to a bomb also provides the option of using an alarm clock in the
phone to detonate the explosive, which is how it appears one unexploded
device was set up.
Cellphones can allow a large operation to be run by just a few
people, since the bombers aren't being blown up along with their bombs.
"All the bombs went off within four minutes, so it would have been
possible to detonate the blasts from just one or two phones," Dr.
Ranstorp said in a telephone interview about the Madrid bombings.
Authorities investigating the bombings in Saudi Arabia "seized
cellphones which appeared to have been modified to trigger improvised
explosive devices," according to a U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
bulletin released to American law-enforcement authorities last June.
This method enables global power projection, multi-point attacks,
and simultaneity. It is also very difficult to guard against. Smart. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Financial Times. New Gartner study on outsourcing.
The growth of global IT outsourcing will continue despite a growing political backlash, particularly in the US, and up to 25 per cent of traditional IT jobs will be relocated from developed to developing countries by 2010, according to Gartner, the IT consultancy.
Wow, that is much higher than other estimates. At that rate of
growth, it is hard to believe projections that the US IT job base will
grow over the rest of the decade. Also, remember that IT jobs are just
a part of the offshoring trend. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Lind on strategic bombing in Spain:
The whole notion that the 21st century can suddenly revert to the 18th
and governments can fight wars in which the people and vital national
interests are not involved is absurd. That is the real lesson of the
Spanish election. War is no longer a “game of princes.” The
people are involved, and Fourth Generation opponents know how to make
sure they are intensely involved, by bringing the war home to them.
The Washington Times quoted a Pentagon official as saying of the Spanish election, “This was a big defeat for us. Al Qaeda caused a regime change better than we did in Baghdad. No cost.”
That is exactly correct. Using the simplest of technologies, al Qaeda
or whatever Fourth Generation organization did it, undertook a
strategic bombing campaign of unprecedented effectiveness. Their backpacks outperformed our B-2 bombers. [John Robb's Weblog]
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What categories should I have?. I had over 80 categories on my old Radio Blog. I think that was too many.
All non tech stuff will go on our personal blog at www.BarbAndRoland.com. So that leaves about 60 categories.
I think I will see how it develops, but for now, I think the
categories will be: Social Software (for wikis, blogs, RSS, etc.),
HowToDevelopSoftware and the rest I will leave uncategorized for now.
Suggestions? Leave a comment or email roland AT rolandtanglao.com [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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MovableType is the Windows of Blog Systems. Nice rant from Boris. Where is the Macintosh of Blog Systems? Drupal is more like the Linux of Blog Systems. More powerful but requires effort to learn because it is not user friendly. Perhaps Wordpress
is the Mac of Blog Systems (or personal publishing systems as Boris
likes to call Blog Systems) but I doubt it. Probably need somebody as
fanatical as Steve Jobs to get that and as far as I can see, nobody in
the Blog world (except maybe Brent Simmons) has his eye for visual aesthetics and usability.
Anyways, the prime reason I am now using MT is that it is the best
blogging platform to build software on top of at the moment. As a
result, all the coolest toys (like ecto
which I am writing this post with) work best with MT. And part of the
reason why might be because it is built using Perl and CGIs which
evidently, Boris and I share the same love/hate relationship with.
From MovableType is the Windows of the Personal Publishing World | B. Mann Consulting:
QUOTE
Everyone is all a-twitter that MT 3.0 is about to come out of hiding.
Am I biased because I use a different publishing system? Probably.
But I maintain that MT has gotten to the top of the heap because of
it's wide adoption. Much like Windows. Many people agree that OS X or
even Linux is a technically superior operating system, but it's still
Windows with the lion's share of the market. Much like MT.
So, herewith, a list of things that I don't like about MT.
These are in no particular order. I've used MT (kicking and
screaming), but am by no means proficient. These are my opinions, so
you can disagree with them. Feel free to comment or otherwise let me
know if I get something factually wrong. And yes, I am talking about a
default install.
UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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Impossible Japanese pencil carvings. Website documenting the creation of some insanely implausible carvings -- made from common #2 pencils, in Japan.
 "According to their forms,they are divided into 4 types
- Double spiral, Chain,
Ring and Kikko that may be called a honeycomb
pencil.
Others like Six-fold spiral,
Extensible and
Triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon
are considered to be variations based on one of those 4 types.
[...] We are required to be skilled enough for delicate woodwork in carving out
a pattern like some kind of a tracery without making any miscut on the naked
lead inside."
Link (Thanks, CJC) [Boing Boing]
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40 drunkard milestones.
This Modern Drunkard list of 40 Things That Every Drunkard Should Do is
very good. I like "Sit in on an AA meeting" and "Extravagantly overtip
a bartender," but this one is my fave:
7.) Buy a crowded bar a round.
For no reason at all.
Jump up on a barstool and shout it loud: "A round for the house! On
me!" Make sure you have a good toast ready, because, for once, they'll
all be listening.
Link
(via Fark) [Boing Boing]
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Uncovered - The Whole Truth About the Iraq War.  Uncovered
is a documentary about the way the White House distorted the truth in
an attempt sell the American public and the rest of the world on its
pre-emptive war on Iraq. I already thought that Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice,
and the rest of that gang were being sneaky about it, but this DVD
nailed it for for me. The reason Uncovered is so persuasive
is that the director wisely chose to interview only "insiders" for the
documentary -- CIA analysts, weapons investigators, Pentagon officials,
and former White House counsels. Their comments on the administration's
exaggerations and spin are devastating. According to the director, even
people who support the war in Iraq become angry after watching Uncovered, because it exposes the Bush administration as a pack of thoroughly corrupt liars. Link
[Boing Boing]
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VSLive = VSLove.
AT VSLive next week, Microsoft's will have a few new product
announcements up its sleeve, ranging from Speech Server 1.0, to its
Laguna CE database, to its MapPoint Mobile Server. And there will be
new Whidbey alpha code, to boot. [Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley]
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Nerdy Bay Area dream-jobs.
Claris sez, "A collection of cool geeky companies located in the
greater San Francisco Bay Area, from anime/manga publishers to
videogame companies to special effects shops. Best of all? Direct links
to the job opening pages of each site, whenever I can find 'em. Might
as well work somewhere cool, right?"
Link
(Thanks, Claris!) [Boing Boing]
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Business Week.
Excellent article about outsourcing. The central idea is that
comparative advantage is now giving way to absolute advantage. Those
factors that drove the US comparative advantage -- labor (educated and
hard working), capital (investment at favorable rates), and technology
(infrastructure and new tech) -- is now available in China (and to a
lesser extent India). Other contributing factors: security, climate,
and geography are also now non-issues. This change provides an absolute
refutation of Ricardo's theories and yields:
It's not really about trade but about labor arbitrage.
Companies producing for U.S. markets are substituting cheap labor for
expensive U.S. labor. The U.S. loses jobs and also the capital and
technology that move offshore to employ the cheaper foreign labor.
Economists argue that this loss of capital does not result in
unemployment but rather a reduction in wages. The remaining capital is
spread more thinly among workers, while the foreign workers whose
country gains the money become more productive and are better paid.
Bing! What does this mean for the US? Global
equalization of incomes (a rapid decline for the US and a slow rise for
the rest of the world). A rapidly increasing trade deficit. Climbing
budget deficits. AWOL multinationals. Radical intrastate income
inequality. Political unrest. Protectionism. Domestic terrorism. The
list goes on....
There is no silver lining for Americans. Unfortunately,
our economists will continue to believe the world is flat. The
invisible hand and comparative advantage will provide, they will
intone. Time for some new thinking. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Scott Mathews does it again. The logic of IP.
It has taken me way too long to catch up on this point, but I've been
thinking it through for sometime now, and here's version 1. Scott
Matthews is a talented coder. He's the author of Andromeda, and this very cool thought experiment Baudio. And he's become a valuable contributor
(Salon) to the file sharing debate. He posted a piece on Dave's IP list
(I used to be a subscriber, but I had to change email addresses and
then can't seem to be able to get back onto the list -- no longer
interesting enough I expect) which points to a suggested contradiction
between my views and Creative Commons. Here's his post
with a response by Dan Hunter. Dan's right about many things, but don't
think he's right about Scott's intelligence. (More...) [Lessig Blog]
Scott Matehws is one of my favorite new age entreprenuers. He's
often attacked on the pho list for his views - which combine the
freeness of P2P with the logic of an pragmatic capitalist. Right on
Scott!
I haven;t had time to grok Baudio - yet. Needless to say things have been hopping around here, my Dad is here and..... [Marc's Voice]
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© Copyright 2004 William J. Maya.
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Photographer and QTVR enthusiast 
"Piercing," a dark, beautiful, wordless online comic by 
