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Sunday, January 05, 2003 |
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Configuring a New Macro.
One other item I leaned was how to place an index of recent posts onto my public home page. The instructions came from Dave Winer. It was kinda cool because it forced me to get back to the basics of style sheets too. I ended up adding a style and using a new style by specifying <SPAN class=header>. Very basic I know but I haven't done raw HTML in a long time so it was a good reminder of how easy it is. What is obvious is that now I need to add a code style for posting my code. [Mark Michaelis: My Learning About Radio]6:34:33 PM  trackback []
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From BurningBird http://weblog.burningbird.net/
I feel it it my bones: 2003 will be the Year of Linking Dangerously. It will be the year that we reject page ranks and popularity-based 's/he with the most links bubbles to the top of the heap' skimmers. It's in the air. It's viral. It's contagious. Hold your breath or your'll catch it. Case in point: Joshua Allan writes elegantly and compellingly in defense of the Semantic Web in response to somewhat disparaging comments made by Mark Pilgrim and Dare Obasanjo. In his post, Joshua makes the point that the Semantic Web is about people, and about making people's voices audible and indelible. On audibility, Joshua writes:
On indelibility, Joshua continues:
Joshua sees the Semantic Web as a way of storing our collective knowledge in a manner that is easily accessible, based on methods more effective than today's crude raw scans of hypermarked text. He also sees that the so-called problem child of the Semantic Web, RDF/XML, is more of a "red-herring" to the discussion rather than an actual impediment. RDF/XML is really nothing more than the selected method used to record knowledge, chosen from among all possible methods. It's a means to an end, not the end itself. He answers the argument about RDF/XML being too complicated by saying:
Joshua also states that he agrees with the consensus that, overall, RDF is to complex for most renmin ("people"), something I, of course, <shamelessplug>hope to disprove with my book</shamelessplug>. Joshua Allan's post is extremely well written and well argued, and you should take time to read it in its entirety -- whether you're a techie or not. I not only agree completely with Joshua, I'll take it farther by saying that the Semantic Web will never be built with today's system of dumb links -- links with no inherent meaning attached to them other than their numeric value. All links do is push a resource's rank up, piling link after link like pieces of wood for a bon fire; except instead of using dead trees we're using dead links. Torch the piles! Reject the concept of "all we need is links, sweet links"! Burn down the house that Google built before we become as dependent on Google as we almost became on Microsoft Windows. So where do you start? First, enable Trackback. It's the first semi-intelligent threading implementation that's actually starting to get fairly widespread use. The Trotts from Movable Type have provided standalone trackback servers for those who don't use Movable Type. The technology has already been integrated into Bloxson. If you're using a weblogging tool that hosts the pages, ask the tool vendor to incorporate trackback functionality if it hasn't already. Once your tool supports Trackback, use it. It's there to allow people to visibly show their connection to your writing. It let's your readers know that others have something to say about your post, good or bad. It continues the conversation. It breaks the hell out of this idea that weblogs are just some form of electronic journal, written in isolation that just happens to be published for posterity's sake. More than that, though, Trackbacks provide deliberation and some intelligence with the link. Not a whole lot other than the words of the associated post, but it's a start. There's a tiny bit of RDF/XML associated with the Trackback link -- a placeholder for future information, future bits of knowledge. A base on which to build. At a minimum, Trackback doesn't break into your space like comments does. You don't even have to post the excerpts associated with the trackback -- just the link. By allowing trackbacks, you're providing a way for others to participate in the thread you started. When you don't implement trackback, you're breaking the thread. Of course, the use Trackback, as well as enabling comments is a personal choice. If you wish to separate yourself from others and exist in splendid isolation, far be it from me to get in your face about it. 6:12:38 PM trackback []
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100 Words That All High School Graduates — And Their Parents — Should Know: "The quality of a person's vocabulary has a direct effect on his or her success in college and in the workplace. In response to parents' misgivings over the quality of their children's education, the editors of The American Heritage® College Dictionary have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend each high school graduate should know." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson] 2:25:23 PM trackback []
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The Dharma Bums: One of the books on the "in-progess" reading stack (I typically read a couple of books at a time, so I have two seperate stacks -- in-progress and pending), is this Jack Kerouac classic. I am about 35 pages into the book. Around page 32, I was overcome with the thought that my life would have been a lot different if I had read this book in middle school. [douglasp] 2:22:02 PM trackback []
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Momix. MomixBoth Jeremy and JWZ are realizing the issues of giving their Mom a Linux box (i.e. Momix):
This is something I thought a lot about over the Christmas holiday since I saw my Mom then. And I was forced to use her Windows 98 box (Yup; Not a typo) to check some weather information. There's no question in my mind that if Open Source developers adopted the type of dirt simple usability recommendations that Jeremy suggests we'd all be in better shape. Much better shape. There is nothing more humbling for a developer than to be forced to watch a real person, THAT THEY KNOW, sit before the computer and just fumble in confusion. It really makes you understand the differences between yourself and "the rest of us". I'd also suggest some type of better approach for installing applications. As much as I hate to say that Lindows got it right, they actually did pretty well with their Click 'n Run warehouse. It really does work. And please don't tell me that the solution is to give my Mom (or their Mom's OSX). That's one solution. The reason it doesn't work for me is that I'll end up doing the support and unless I have an OSX box in front of me to answer questions with I'll just screw it up. The best way to do support is to walk the user through the tasks on your system doing exactly what they do. This way you can give them the exact steps. And, for novice users like my Mom, that's key. [The FuzzyBlog!]1:57:53 PM trackback []
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Tapestry @ Apache or A differing world-view. This morning I'm working on branching POI so I can move my parallel array code into it. Meanwhile I'm involved in the Tapestry discussion on general@incubator.apache.org. Its not going well, it seems just like the old system where people opposed to accepting new projects (or new Java projects in some cases) argue its too mature or too immature or that they have too little community or too much or both at the same time. It makes your head spin and generally and goes in circles until one side gives in. The process is a fillibuster. So I asked for a *clear* list of questions for the tapestry committers rather than frustrating the crap out of them. I also submitted a paper to members at apache.org and board at apache.org which outlines my issue with the incubator and the increasing number of bureaus and committees at apache. One person sent me something that summed up "whatever works and shows progress is good" (paraphrased as I interperate it). I replied (just because it looked like a verbatim quote, but its been some years since I read The Prince) that it sounded fairly Machiavellian to me. Needless to say that was quickly rebuked. I guess it comes down to a different life philosophy or world view. To me its not the outcome its the journey. I've gone on trips that would largely be characterized as a failure to some, but that I wouldn't trade for all the world. I learned this lesson a few years ago in Germany. It was also supposed that no two things are alike, I agree with that, but I think there are similarities between all disciplines. I tried to explain this once to a college professor who could not accept that some prinicipals I was learning in one course was very similar to something from a completely "unrelated" discipline. One day he actually changed his mind and had a bundle of books from that said "other discipline" and said "I try to learn from my students every day". His courses usually were not well thought out in advance, they usually meandered off course, and some of the time I thought "what a waste of time". That was back when I had the whole world figured out you see. It would take until a number of years later in Germany that I would finally figure it out. He was right, it was the journey. I was right, all things are related. And though I knew nothing, we learned from each other. That was the best professor I ever had. Its a pity he is no longer teaching. So for me, it is the journey. For me, all things are connected. That is my world view. While I've not come out of my Apache experience unscathed I've learned so much that I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'm not sure what my referendum on Apache will be in the finale. Maybe it will be that Apache is a great idea but that it has reached critical mass and a similar effort needs to take place which matches it. For me (like the rest of the world outside Apache) Jakarta is a temendous success. A huge resource of increadible Java software. People who have set out to do this in more controlled manners have failed. Apache seems to be moving towards more control centers, and I think that may result in less emergence. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it. I'll leave it up to others to have the mounds of discussion (or not) on the subject. Boy that branch can take awhile when you keep watching he mail lists. ;-) So other than Apache Catch-22s, today should be kinda fun. I get to merge my SOA "fork" (oooh I'm bad and evil...ooooh bad andy, I said the word "fork") into a "performance" branch on POI. Gump has a new mail list just for it and Sammy boy even set it up on Gmane! I'd like to see that trend continue, Gmane is awesome. There is a parallel meant to be drawn here... Emergence is messy business but I prefer it to control. There is less discussion and voting when consenus is reached and it precedes an actual issue. There is not consensus at Apache these days. Some want growth and a stronger community and to help others along the way, some think its gone to far. The good news is that emergent behavior will take care of this in time. A consensus will be reached, probably through fragmentation. I wish effort would be made on all parties to reach consensus without that. Either the birds make compromises and reach a consensus or new flocks form. The outcome of flying in the pretty patterns is quite possibly predestined. Howard Ship of Tapestry just sent this. As good as a rationale as any that Tapestry and Jakarta are made for each other ;-). [Hacking Log 2.0]1:48:28 PM trackback []
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Location Services. At least Google is moving closer towards owning the semantic web, and nobody is fussing. They already have a web service interface, and webquotes allows what is essentially annotation metadata about a resource. And assuming that Sergey was not leading Dave on at the conference last week, they are gung-ho about allowing people to update metadata directly into Google. Am I the only person who is grasping the full potential of this? Here is something to think about: if you could "push" your web pages to Google to be indexed, and Google already caches those pages for access, why would you even have a web server? If you publish to Google's cloud, you get automatic indexing, metadata like who is linking to you, and more. And Google can add little semantic web-like features such as webquotes every few months to keep you hooked. Then, the advantages of a central index really kick in when metadata starts to explode. Obviously Google isn't pushing the "we made a better Internet" angle yet, but they could -- and the fact that they are so carefully surrounding key strategic bits of territory is not a coincidence. I think AOL and MSFT both blew it already, and the Google guys are not as "aww, shucks, we just like to write web crawler software" as they talk. Game over; the tired old Internet can't compete. I wonder why nobody is publicly speculating yet about why Microsoft seems to be so interested in location services? [Better Living Through Software]1:46:08 PM trackback []
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Last update: 12/26/2003; 7:57:54 PM .
