Coyote Gulch

Monday, May 5, 2003

Matt Croydon - Blojsim
Blojsom/Blojsim.
I installed Blojsom this evening in hopes of trying out Blojsim, which enables blogging from AIM/Jabber. (Of course, it's the jabber part that I'm psyched about). The problem that I'm encountering is that there are no installation instructions (that I can find). I'm sure that it's obvious to someone who is familiar with the blojsom codebase, but I'm just a stupid end user here. I've submitted a feature request on the sourceforge site. Hopefully someone will write up some quick installation instructions.

I was amazed at the Blojsom installation. It "just worked" and was as simple as a blosxom installation (assuming Tomcat or similar is already purring along)
[Matt Croydon::postneo]
8:13:34 PM

Dave Winer - TTI Vanguard
My talk went well even though the discussion wasn't that spirited. The only sparks flew when Alan Kay (yes the Alan Kay) pointed out that narcissism is a personality disorder. I actually knew that, I was just trying to deflect an ad hominem from another famous cyber geek -- JP Barlow. [Scripting News]
8:11:50 PM

2003 Denver Municipal Election - Election Night Parties
The parties are usually catered a bit with a cash bar. I've only posted parties that I found out about from e-mail.
Don Mares:
Executive Tower Suites, 1405 Curtis St., 7:01 PM
John Hickenlooper:
OXFORD HOTEL Ballroom, 17th & Wazee, Doors open at 6:30 PM.
Ari Zavaras:
7PM at the campaign headquarters-firehouse at 562 Ogden Street.
Dennis Gallagher:
University Club, 17th and Sherman.
Debbie Ortega:
Domo Restaurant, 1365 Osage, 7:00 p.m.
Marcus Pachner:
7 pm at Serioz Restaurant, 2nd & Quebec, in the Lowry Town Center
6:13:05 PM

Dave Winer in Denver
I'm at the TTI Vanguard conference in Denver. Dave Winer is the speaker. I hope I can talk to him after his dog and pony show. Dave is explaining what the hell a weblog is.
Here are my notes:
Mr. Winer allowed the audience to drive his talk by taking questions from the start. He used a style common to programmers, that is, to be at a computer, going through the code.
Winer was asked why he chose XML. He emphasized that the most important thing about XML is the agreement around it. He explained a GUID as a global, unique, ID, consisting of a URL, Date, Time, and descriptor. He touched on the concept of permalinks and mentioned the New York Times paywall.
One guy asked Mr. Winer his views on large companies trying to drive standards and organize the world around their technology. Winer told the story of the collaboration amonst many that eventually led to XML-RPC and SOAP. He reminded those present that XML-RPC is going strong, widely used, and SOAP is still a work in progress.
Another questioner asked, "What problem is SOAP trying to solve?" Winer responded that IBM and others are trying to build secure transactions around SOAP. It is working fine in some applications where security is not necessary. He affirmed that Google has a web service built on SOAP.
At the end Winer got into a discussion of the utility of weblogs. Were they just a narcissistic pursuit? Winer responded that just the simple act of writing about your work can help to clarify the thought process around a project and that blogging can be a creative outlet if you enjoy writing. Things were a bit contentious between Mr. Winer and one person in the audience at the end. Everyone in the audience had easy access to a microphone. Both a good and a bad idea.
I was a attending as a guest of Ann Cheslaw and she told me that Dave had been "feisty" all day. I'll bet
3:50:41 PM

2003 Denver Municpal Election
Here's a link to today's The Stump from the Rocky Mountain News [May 5, 2003, "The Stump, May 5"].
Remember, if you requested an absentee ballot you cannot vote at the polls, nor can you drop off your ballot there. The Rocky [May 5, 2003, "Absentee ballot collections"] has a list of locations where you can drop off your ballot today and tomorrow. Vote early and vote often.
If you're not sure where to vote you can call the Election Commission according to the Rocky Mountain News [May 5, 2003, "Polling information"]. Here's a link to DenverGov's precinct finder.
Here's the link to the Election Commission website. They plan to post results as they are processed on Tuesday.
The Rocky [May 5, 2003, "Election on TV"] has a short synopsis of planned election night coverage from the Aaron Harber show.
6:24:54 AM

2003 Denver Mayoral Election
The mayoral candidates are heading into Tuesday shaking hands and trying to get out the vote according to the Denver Post [ May 5, 2003, "Would-be mayors on final push Leading candidates hit parks, churches, festival to try to sway undecideds and get out the vote"] and the Rocky Mountain News [May 5, 2003, "A fevered pitch"].
Here's a story from the Rocky [May 5, 2003, "Plan to meet, greet secured Peña's feat"] highlighting Federico Pena and his surprise victory in the 1983 mayoral election.
Ran across a couple of articles on the Intermountain Jewish News, May 2nd edition. They conducted an unscientific poll in the mayoral election that has Don Mares on top.
6:10:01 AM

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