I found this listing today which seems to have all of the different timezone codes [Timezone Codes]. It didn't come up first in a google search, so I'm linking it here in hopes that it's ranking will improve <grin/>. A collegue of mine, Dave, sent me a link to the W3C page on time standards [World Time]. Also a useful resource on time standards, though I didn't see a link to the timezone codes on that site. 11:51:46 AM    comment []  

Here are some libraries I have found for doing XML data binding in Java:

• Castor
• Enhydra's Zeus
• JAXB - Sun's attempt at a standard
• ArBorealis - a little out there, but has potential

There's also a nice overview of Castor's approach [Data binding with Castor]. They are all fairly similar, so it is probably just a matter of which one you think will still be around in a couple of years. 5:37:23 PM    comment []  

It's been a while since I last posted. I've been swamped at work. I think things are calming down the the point where I can start posting again, however. 5:05:02 PM    comment []  

Someone told me today that on a clear day you could see Venezuela from Trinidad. I found that interesting since I didn't realize that Trinidad was so far west. I found a nice map that shows quite a few islands in the Caribbean [Caribbean Map]. 9:30:13 PM    comment []  

One of the systems I helped build at Loudeye is a set of tools for creating Internet radio stations and managing streaming media content. Loudeye uses this tool to provide streaming media radio services to websites that want to use music as a promotional tool.

One of our clients is Sprite. We power their online radio player [Sprite Radio]. Anyway, through this relationship, we were able to get some backstage passes to the Sprite Liquid Mix Tour, so I went with one of my colleagues.

It was pretty fun, however, I was about ten years older than pretty much anyone else there. I wasn't familiar with any of the bands so I was listening to Sprite Radio constantly for a couple of days before the show so that I would be familiar with the groups. There were some good bands there. In particular I liked The Roots. It was kind of interesting to go back stage, but it was nothing like what gets portrayed in movies like Almost Famous. 10:45:43 AM    comment []  

I've added a new topic sheet on XML [XML Tools and Resources]. It only has a few useful links to some XSL resources, but I will be adding more in the future. 3:47:35 PM    comment []  

Sun demoed their new Linux distribution, "Mad Hatter" [ITWorld]. It's big selling point? JVM preinstalled. Wow! I need that. Okay, I already have that. So what's the big deal? Apparently it will also feature a "3-D Desktop Environment" called Looking Glass. There hasn't been a useful 3-D desktop environment yet and I seriously doubt that sun has built the one. Sounds like a big lemon to me. 9:24:26 PM    comment []  

Not surprisingly, there is now a tool out there that will replace the portions of the Linux kernel that were allegedly taken from SCO intellectual property [InformationWeek]. This was bound to happen within minutes of the hacker community finding out where the offending pieces of code actually were in the source [June 8]. However, I wasn't aware that that information had been released yet. 9:13:28 PM    comment []  

I just started a project today to use XSL to transform one XML language to another. Here are a couple of useful resources that I have found online:

• Discussion on mixing DOCTYPE and DTD's with XSL [Dave Pawson's Homepage]. This page points out that there is no "normative" DTD for XSLT, because there cannot be
• There is not normative DTD for XSLT, but if you are using a validating XML editor with a name-completion feature, there is a non-normative DTD that you can use [A DTD for XSLT stylesheets][via C. M. Sperberg-McQueen]. Also, this guy's site has tons of other useful XML related links
• Theory is great, but I learn faster from examples and lots of 'em [ZVON XSL Tutorial]. This page has more XSL examples than you can shake a stick at
• And of course, let's not forget the W3C recommendation [XSL Transformations (XSLT)].

I'm starting to see the role of XSL in my development and it looks promising. 2:52:25 PM    comment []  

Oracle has now completely transitioned their infrastructure onto Linux within the company [Slashdot]. Very cool. I hope all the CIO's and CTO's out there are listening. Linux is mature. 11:21:50 AM    comment []  

I love it when science shows us how our basic intuition of things can be so wrong. For instance, a group at MIT has shown how water striders (those little insects that shoot around on the surface of ponds without ever breaking through) are able to propel themselves [Christian Science Monitor][via Slashdot].

Now, this is not a discovery that will revolutionize anything, but I find it instructional in the same way that the story of the Three Little Pigs might be. It gives us a lesson in a microcosm that is applicable to our own lives. Call it an analogy or a parable. What I take from this is the knowledge that whatever I think is "obvious" or "common sense" is possibly (and maybe even probably) wrong. 11:09:19 AM    comment []  

I found this handy little webapp for managing recreational sports teams [Team Check-in]. With Team Check-in, you can manage teams, players, games, dues, fields, see upcoming and past game results and send updates and nofications to your team via email. Basically, it does everything that a manager would need to keep things running smoothly. The site creator built it for his own use and to demonstrate his knowledge of OSS development tools. The app seems very logically laid out and would certainly be a useful tool for team managers. However, at $10 per month, I don't think too many rec teams will be interested. I really don't think that is a lot for a team, split between 14+ players, but I think it will be a deciding factor. 9:53:09 PM    comment []  

I had heard some vicious rumor that there was a site out there that you could use to find teams to sub for in the Seattle Co-Rec soccer league. Well, I haven't found that site yet, but I found the weblog of a player in the league [cholstro.net]. His weblog is well put together and he regularly gets a few comments on his postings, but he hit Google paydirt last month with one of his posts [Stacy's Mom Has Got It Going On]. With 595 comments on that post and counting he's got to be really surprised.

I need to seed a couple of posts with interesting keywords to generate some Google traffic. Not that I need the traffic or anything (it's not like anyone actually wants to read my weblog), but it would be fun. Maybe I could sprinkle in some words from Google Zeitgeist, like "marie trintignant", "superenalotto" and "kim bordenave". I don't know who or what any of those things are, but according to Google they're pretty hot. But then, on second thought, maybe I won't do that. 9:25:46 PM    comment []  

"In games of Risk, aggression pays. So says a US mathematician in a fresh analysis of the popular board game" [David Harris' Science & Literature].

When I was in junior high, I attempted to find out what the most effective approach would be in playing the game Risk. I didn't have the mathematics knowledge needed to perform a rigorous analysis, but what I did have was a Commodore 64, BASIC and a strong desire to experiment. With these tools in hand, I wrote a program that would throw three dice against two and tabulate the results based on the Risk rules. I let the program run for a day or so with the counter continuously updating on the screen. I don't remember the result anymore, that was years ago, but my conclusion was that it was better to attack. 10:08:32 PM    comment []  

In a vain attempt to garner support from the OSS community, Real is offering a grant of up to $75,000 to promote the development of software based on their Helix multimedia platform [Slashdot]. Read on in the Slashdot forums for some insightful commentary on what the OSS community thinks about this idea.

The media player is simply the player sans any codecs and the server is simply and encoder/server again sans the codecs. Apparently, you're supposed to buy the codecs from Real. Even more annoying is the fact that you can't even download the blasted beta software without becoming an active developer and signing and faxing 5 different NDAs! What the hell kind of "open source" is this anyway?! [AKAImBatman (238306)].

Personally, I think the battle has been fought and Real already lost. Windows Media owns the authorized media format space. The unauthorized media space is owned by mp3 and that is something even Microsoft can't touch. 9:48:24 PM    comment []  

SCO has announced their pricing for a "license" to use Linux [ArsTechnica]. What a bunch of crap. 9:40:57 PM    comment []  

Just as Microsoft anti-trust problems are calming down in the US, they are picking up in the EU [ArsTechnica]. 9:39:15 PM    comment []  

Here are some photos taken of my weekday soccer team, Racer-X, by a fellow Racer-X teammate, Gareth Loveridge [Photos of Team Racer-X]. 11:15:55 PM    comment []  

My HP 48gx calculator was the top-of-the-line for years and years. I sometimes wondered if it would be the last calculator ever made, but HP recently announced a new line of calculators based on and ARM9 processor [hpcalc.org]. PC's are so much more powerful, and Mathematica or MatLab can do far more complicated calculations far faster. However, the keypad on an HP calculator is specialized for entering computations and is far more efficient than any PC interface. The added ARM processor will make this generation of HP calculators far more powerful than its predecessor. 10:34:55 AM    comment []  

"They used to say 'home taping' was killing music, now it's meant to be internet downloaders. But the real pirates these days are crime bosses - and the rewards are plentiful" [BBC News]. It's an interesting point that the selling of pirated CD's is robbing the recording industry of more revenue than the sharing of MP3's. I can say this, when I lived in Venezuela you could find a vendor on nearly every street corner selling pirated media. I would guess that the vast majority of media sold in countries like Venezuela is pirated. 10:27:50 AM    comment []  

Novell buys Ximian [ArsTechnica]. I really don't know what to think about this. Ximian has been doing some innovative work and I would hate to see that come to an end at Novell. Now, it's not that Novell would intentionally stifle innovation; as a matter of fact, I'm sure they bought Ximian to bring some of that innovation into their doors. However, ever since Windows stomped on Novell's network server business, the company hasn't done a whole heck of a lot. On the other hand, Novell has the potential to do good things with Ximian. 10:21:43 AM    comment []  

Now this is good! I saw a television program about "Hunting for Bambi" a couple of weeks ago and thought is was absolutely hysterical. The concept: guys would pay $10,000 to hunt naked women with paintball guns. I saw the news report, complete with footage of a hunt taking place, interviews with the proprietor and with the girls being hunted. If that isn't enough, the footage showed one of the girls get shot and then interviewed her afterward where she showed the welt from the paintball. It turns out that the whole thing was a hoax and CBS affiliate KLAS, out of Las Vegas, got suckered.

Despite the fact that the station's LuAnne Sorrell did a four-part report on the scheme -- supposedly giving men the chance to hunt naked women with paintball guns for up to $10,000 -- it failed to do the heavy lifting needed to unmask the hoax. Instead, urban legends site Snopes.com led the way within days with a detailed explanation of why it was a hoax [USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review].

I have used Snopes.com a number of times to look up urban legends. The site has a ton of them listed and explained. Kudos to them for doing the work that the mainstream media is obviously not willing to do. 12:29:32 PM    comment []  

It seems that gcj is making headway with the recent announcement that it has now been used to compile the Eclipse IDE to native code [Slashdot]. Though the "write once, run anywhere" mantra is important and a major selling point of Java now and in the future, the ability to compile down to native code has some obvious advantages, speed being the most obvious.

I have been watching some of the discussions on the Debian Java mailing list and there is a lot of buzz about using gcj to compile most, if not all of the Debian Java packages to native code. The advantage of this being that the J2SE SDK is not completely free and, therefore, cannot be part of the main Debian distribution. However, if an OSS Java application where to be compiled down to native bits, this would circumvent the reliance on Sun's code and allow these projects to be included in Debian. 12:15:00 PM    comment []  

My wife, Andrea, is about to go to India for three months. She will be setting up some English classes there for Microsoft service center employees. It's a good opportunity for her, but it does suck that we will be separated for so long. However, while she is there she will be maintaining a weblog [Andrea's Weblog]. She decided to start a weblog so that she could keep friends and relatives appraised of her experiences in India. It is a much more efficient and less obtrusive means of doing so than email. I just hope she enjoys it and keeps it up after she returns. 10:59:35 AM    comment []  

Robert Cringely has an interesting idea for music distribution. Instead of owning CD's, paying to download tracks or a subscribing to a service, he proposes that a central repository of CD media be established to which individuals could "invest". Like a mutual fund, all the investors could claim partial ownership. The key to the system is that it would "check out" CD's to individual participants, thus operating within established legal parameters, allowing the participants to listen to or download tracks from the CD at their leisure. When a participant is done with a track/CD, they can "check it in" thus freeing up the media for another participant's use.

Every time a shareholder wants to download or play a song, he or she must ensure that their download is matched on a one-for-one basis with a physical CD somewhere in the system. The database does that by locking and unlocking access records to the physical CD. The CD doesn't have to be in the possession of the shareholder, just under his or her control. The Snapster 2.0 database handles that by effectively borrowing control of the physical CD for a period of time, during which it is agreed that particular physical CD can't be played by anyone else. It is a token passing scheme, and only the shareholder with the token can play the song [Snapster 2.0].

Sounds like an interesting idea, and it could work. Now, Cringely, you ready to put your money where your mouth is? 11:29:00 AM    comment []  

My next PDA is going to have built in GPS [Garmin iQue 3600]. 11:17:18 AM    comment []  

I'm constantly on the lookout for technology standards that will help me build better, more maintainable software faster. XForms is a standard that is being proposed by the W3C that just might be one of those tools [Slashdot]. XForms decouples model, presentation and data for web based user interfaces allowing for modularity and probably more code re-use. 11:16:07 AM    comment []  

Check out this guy's self-made backyard roller coaster [Jeremy Reid]. 11:06:59 AM    comment []