The lovelyWren has written up her "five stages of weblogging". I honestly can't say for sure what stage I'm in. I give it a week tops before somebody (stage 3, obviously) takes upon themselves the task of listing weblogs based on the stage they're in; the subsequent screaming and moaning and wringing of hands will last at least a month. I know that there are classifications of weblogs already based on the emode color test (could somebody please send me the URL of said listing? Thanks, Mike.) and personality types.
From the mystical, conspiratorial, and chaotic shadow world in which he appears to live, Matt Rossi writes of a theoretical battle for supremacy between Professor Moriarty and Fu Manchu. Matt, are you aware of Isaac Asimov's theory about Moriarty's suppressed thesis, The Dynamics of an Asteriod? In one of his Black Widowers mystery short stories, a Holmes fan opens speculation into the true subject of Moriarty's opus, and the reason for its suppression. Asimov's characters (in particular, the brilliant waiter Henry) come to the conclusion that Moriarty must have been writing of the formation of the asteroid belt, and the catastrophe which led to its creation. Why, then, did the Royal Society do all within its power to keep his scientific masterpece under wraps? Moriarty must have included his own speculations on how to form another such belt by destroying the Earth! Regrettably, all my Black Widowers compilations must be in a storage unit in Mississippi, or I'd come up with a more specific reference.
As an aside, I do hope Matt has read Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October; it seems to fit his interests. Told from the point of view of Jack the Ripper's watchdog, it chronicles a gathering of mystics (including the Mad Monk, the Count who sleeps by day, the Good Doctor and his Experiment Man, and the Great Detective) in Victorian England. The fate of the world may depend upon their mysterious contest.
My sympathy for victims of the latest Love Bug variant, and contempt for the gaping holes left in Microsoft security in the name of integration, are limited by my horror at the sheer boneheadedness of anyone who still opens unidentified attachments. After all the publicity surrounding the original ILOVEYOU virus, this smacks of a complete inability or unwillingness to learn basic self-preservation skills. Update: Uh-oh. Now there's a Linux variant...
I love MetaFilter, and I hope that a handful of posters aren't going to turn it into another Trolldot. Still, there's been a really ugly flamewar raging there (and in a /. interview). Web designer Jeff Zeldman made some comments in favor of using JavaScript to override the URL placed in browser status bars. Now, everybody wants to stone the heretic for defying the laws that Jakob brought down from the mountain. I certainly can't blame him for his final exasparated response.
My personal take on the "laws" of web design is that they are not written in stone, but merely guidelines. They seem to me the kind of rules (like the classic Elements of Style for English writing) that are all right to break as long as you know why you're breaking them. I am no great web designer, and still break more rules out of ignorance than out of informed choice. However, more of the flamage seems to be coming from people who are offended that The Law has been broken than from any real effect of not following those rules.
Another web app that I've finally given in and decided to experiment with is Manila. (Waits for screams of disbelief, shock, and rage to die down.) OK, so I'm a traitor. Deal with it. I'm trying to learn some new things about web publishing and web applications, and have started playing around with different tools. I have no intention of switching Considered Harmful over to Manila (though Blogger is a possibility), and still think Andrew has created an incredible tool here, especially (but not exclusively) for newbies. The site I'm creating over at Weblogger is something different, and will not take the place of Considered Harmful. When (and if) I tweak the new site to my satisfaction, I will post a link here.
I chose Weblogger over EditThisPage or another UserLand based hosting service because I do not wish to place my site under Dave Winer's editorial control. I had reservations about his editorial judgement even before the recent Winerlog debacle. While Mr. Winer talks a good game about openness, freedom, etc., some of his other comments and policies appear to contradict those positions. As much as he claims to detest an atmosphere where he has to worry about how someone else will change his words, he seems to be creating just such an atmosphere on his sites.
I'm playing around with a (new?) web application called Backflip. It's basically a web-based bookmarking service; I want a set of bookmarks that I can access from home, work, or anywhere else, organize as I see fit, use across browsers, and keep as public or private as I want. It's kind of neat, and not as browser-limited as the (admittedly more powerful) Deepleap. However, it's dog slow, doesn't give me as much control over the arrangement of my links as I'd like, and is strictly dependent upon the good graces of the sponsoring company. I'm still feeling my way through it, and trying to learn some things about web apps along the way. By the way, one of my folders on Backflip is specifically for sites that I want to blog later, but don't have time to write up in the detail that I'd like. A nice feature for a weblogging tool would be a place to work on "pending" posts before publishing them to the public weblog.
In one of my (brief) forays into #BlogIRC last night, I asked a question about color resources. Someone (I forget who) pointed me to the web-safe color charts at VisiBone. These are the best references to the web-safe pallette I've seen, especially the color lab which lets you experiment with different combinations of color.
Still, while this is a useful site, this wasn't quite the kind of stuff I was looking for. Does anyone know any good resources (websites, dead trees, whatever) on color theory? What colors work well together, what kind of moods colors convey, etc. Maybe I'm too left-brained to trust my intuition, but there have to be some good resources out there on the principles of color that would provide a good starting point. Well, the VisiBone folks linked to one site that might help.
If you like They Might Be Giants, or just want to support artists who support MP3, be sure to check out their new downloadable EP, Working Undercover for the Man. These guys may be my favorite musicians performing today, and they are willing to make the surprising assumption that a lot of their fans aren't thieves! Download short samples of their songs, buy individual tracks for less than a buck, or check them out over at Wired Planet.
Here comes another Microsoft security hole. The almost universally despised "Office Assistant" (the annoying pop-up "Paper Clip" from Office 97 and later versions) can be controlled from web page scripts. This ActiveX control apparently has the power to create and delete files. Any ActiveX control marked as "safe for scripting" (as this one was) can be placed on a web page in IE and controlled by a script. Microsoft has released a patch to close this loophole, but I still don't understand why anyone would have marked this control as safe in the first place.
Unfortunately, I missed last week's Chuck D / Lars Ulrich showdown on Charlie Rose, since I couldn't find out when the show was on locally. (Thanks to Brad, I should have better luck finding the show in the future.) In an interview with ZDNet, rapper Ice-T (a long-time supporter of the format) adds his two cents to the debate. Like Chuck D, he seems to take the position that MP3 file swapping is inevitable, and that artists who take advantage of it will find a way to benefit. As more and more artists take sides in the controversy, I'll be interested to see if there are any major trends in who supports music swapping and who doesn't. Update: [via Swirlee] Street Tech has another good editorial on MP3 issues, including Metalica's infamous 300,000 userids:
Laurence Pulgram, Napster's lawyer accepted the list and replied simply: "If the band would provide the names in computerized form, rather than in tens of thousands of pages of paper intended to create a photo op, that would expedite the process."
I just had a thought. What if the massive stack of paper was intended as a legal stunt as well as a PR one? "Hey, we'll give our list to Napster in a form that will take them forever to process, and complain in court that they're taking too long to comply with our demands!"
There are a lot of inventions that we deal with every day, that have become a part of our lives, yet don't work quite the way anyone would want them to. Still, we live with them because they're good enough, and no one seems to want to make the effort to perfect them. Now there appears to be a British think tank which is trying to do just that.
CCL are working on a shower that - get this - provides water at a constant temperature, accurate to one degree Celsius, and actually corresponds with the hot/cold dial. Four buttons - cold, medium, warm, hot and then a dial for fine adjustment.
A few of the inventions this firm is working on (new electronic displays, DNA analyzers) are a bit more exotic, but it is their refinement of the everyday that seems to have the most potential.
Everybody's going on and on about various emode tests. For the record, I'm brown, a pit bull, and allegedly far too intelligent for anyone's good. The creepiest result I've gotten, however, is a disturbingly low score on this test. What's worse is that they say that low scores are fairly common.
Even though I haven't bought anything from Amazon in months (partly because I want to support local business, partly because of their software patent silliness), I still use the site as a source of book reviews. I've noticed that I take more of an interested in the negative reader reviews than the positive ones. If a dozen reviewers give a book four or five stars, and a couple of users give it one or two stars, I read the one- and two-star reviews much more carefully. I think the reason is that by the time I look up a book on Amazon, I've already decided that I want to read it, so I don't need positive reinforcement to back up my decision. I'm a browser by nature, and I have yet to find a book site that can give me the information to draw my interest to a book as quickly or as easily as a trip to the local (or, to be honest, national chain) brick-and-mortar bookstore.
What I'm looking for on the web are the reasons not to buy the book; negative reviews usually pinpoint specific problems with the book, with enough information to tell me whether I will find the book useful or entertaining despite those shortcomings.
What, on the web, can convince me to buy a book? First off, recommendations of books on other people's sites. I read enough that I'm considering writing my own book reviews for the web. I guess I could write a few epinions, but the idea of a personal site that reflects my overall tastes appeals to me more. Secondly, reading an author's writings on the web encourages me to seek out their works in print. For that matter, I've even bought paper copies of books that were freely available on the web, because I wanted to support the author's work, or to have a more convenient reference.
Have I mentioned in the last thirty seconds how much I love The Register?
We didn't get hit, mainly due to the fact that after the last vbs mailer to go around, we (in BOFH-ish fashion) stalked around the office, waving tire irons and shouting "DEATH TO THE ATTACHMENT OPENERS!" and pummeling those who appeared in our inboxes with "Check this" as a subject header.
Most of the stories here, however, are about cures that were worse than the disease. Still, their dedication to responsible journalism is commendable.
I know that Microsoft is the source of all evil, that Bill Gates is the Antichrist, and that the Spawn of Redmond is dedicated to producing such a half-hearted implementation of the W3C specs that the herd assumes everyone else is doing it wrong. Still, would it kill some of you to download and install Internet Explorer and cross-check your frickin' web pages? You, with some cheesy bit of JavaScript on your page. Yeah, you know I'm talking to you. Your script doesn't work in Internet Explorer. No, I don't care whose fault it is that Explorer handles it differently than Netscape. What matters is, I get a message box asking if I want to keep executing scripts on your page every frickin' time I load your page in IE. It's probably some minor discrepancy that would take less than a minute to fix if you could be bothered to test it. Yeah, yeah, and so's your old man. Update: Oh, hell. Never mind. Further Update: In today's episode of "Brennan sticks his foot in his mouth", a reader (Wow, they do exist!) informs me that these error messages are more likely the result of not turning off IE's default "bother me with piddling little errors so I'll think VBScript is inherently better" setting. Thanks for the assist, Joel.
Ev pointed to a good article on the XHTML spec, which had a pointer to a nifty little program called HTML Tidy. I'd been wondering if there was a program that could take user-entered HTML (or XML) and clean up any problems that XML processors would choke on. I haven't had a lot of time to look at this, but it sounds like it might be the kind of thing I'm looking for. HTML tidy cleans up mismatched end tags, neatens up formatting, etc. It even claims to fix the nightmarish HTML generated by Microsoft Word 2000 (one of my work problems of late)! There are a few XML-correction features I'd like to see in a program like this (forcing attribute values into quoted form, [missed that on the first read] adding a trailing slash to standalone tags, etc.), but this is worth a closer look when I have time. If anyone does know of other programs for XML cleanup, I'd love to hear about them.
Bill Gates's next acquisition? The America's Cup! The Big B appears to be a member of a cartel which plans to hire the New Zeland sailing team who won the last America's Cup, to win it for the U.S. Gee, what if Bill started applying this philosophy to the software industry?
I am going to have to get some of these books. For my cousin's children. Really. A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of gloomy yet humorous children's books written by Lemony Snicket (who is channelled by author Daniel Handler). OK, I want to read these myself (I have no qualms about reading Harry Potter), but I honestly think these sound like stories that my cousin's girls would enjoy.
[via Ev] This fellow has some interesting ideas about voluntary micropayments for digital content. I wonder if this idea would be an effective model for MP3 music. I really think that a major reason why online piracy is so widespread is because people can't purchase music in a way that makes sense to them. Everybody complains about having to shell out fifteen bucks for a CD with maybe two or three good songs; would these people be more likely to pay a lower price for individual songs, possibly even voluntarily? (I don't think PayLAR$ would be a decent example, especially since the band has done everything in its power to alienate fans.) I've heard rumors that Napster users aren't pirating music by bands (like TMBG) who are willing to take the chance to sell inexpensive MP3's. Is it possible that those bands who show respect for their listeners will be respected in return? Admittedly, there are some bands that don't appeal to an audience mature enough to pay for value received (no wonder Metallica is so ticked off), and wouldn't benefit from such a system. Update:Dan Gillmor talks about the revenue model the media corps really want.
I love the Food Network. If anyone actually read this page regularly, they'd know that it began with an Iron Chef obsession. Lately, I've caught on to an awesome food-science show called Good Eats. Where else could I catch a half hour on how to make the perfect bowl of my favorite soup?
The latest in the Metallica/Napster controversy: Frontman Lars Ulrich had a online chat with fans (and former fans) this week, leaving the definite impression that the band is Part of the System now.
"For the doubters out there, Metallica will carry on for the next 20 years," Ulrich said. "Whether you're around for the ride or not, that's your problem, not ours."
Well, I'm sure there will still be enough fans with bad hair (By the way, I've never looked like that. Really.) twenty years from now to keep them in denture cream and incontinence pants. I think the Shuttlecocks have a much better grasp of the band's motivations. Anyway, if you still care what Lars has to say, /. is sending them some questions to answer.
A brief bit of meta-blogging (hopefully, it isn't too contagious): One blogger with a site title longer than many of my entries gives good rant. Some crazy chap linked his rant about rants, buch I much prefer his May 4 diatribes on the maligned Vlad Tepes, and Victor Von Doom's college days. If that ain't enough strangeness for you, check out the creepy dark fantasy over at Dark Currents.
When my mother retired, I was afraid she would be bored out of her mind in a few months. Fortunately, she found a couple of hobbies to keep her occupied: genealogy, and quilting. Yesterday, I received a care package in the mail with an incredibly beautiful wall hanging she made for me. I'll have to take my own pictures to show some of the detail; this one doesn't do it justice. This is a copy of one she made for a millennium quilting contest; the circle in the middle, made from the fabric supplied as the contest theme, looks like an astrological calendar with the year 2000 marked. The outer area is full of suns and stars.
The latest study of web-surfing habits suggests that text is a lot more important than graphics to most web surfers. Let this be a warning to the forces of evil. Update: Well, the GirlHacker doesn't have much faith in their methodology.
I'm sure everybody knows this, but it bears repeating. Do not open strangely named email attachments without extreme caution. And always practice Safe Hex.
I've always been a big admirer of The Nature Conservancy, although I've never actually scraped together the money to join or to make a donation. A report on NPR this morning convinced me that it's finally time to put my money where my mouth is. Palmyra is an undeveloped, nearly untouched Pacific atoll, privately owned by a family who have decided to sell. Despite higher offers from developers, they have chosen to give the Nature Conservancy first crack at this natural paradise for a wildlife refuge. I really want to support this cause.
After watching Buffy and Angel on the local WB affiliate tonight, I saw a brief promo for the local news. Was it about coverage of important national policy issues? Was it about a late-breaking local stories? No, it was about their feature on another WB program, Felicity. A few weeks ago, newsies raised a stink about actor Leonardo DiCapprio interviewing President Clinton instead of a "professional journalist". How ridiculous. Newsanchors have been playing themselves in movies for years. News programs seem to be giving as much air time to their own networks' blatant PR plants as to legitimate news. You want to be taken seriously as journalists? You should have thought of that a few years ago before you decided you'd rather be entertainers.
Heard this on NPR this morning, but had trouble finding a decent link. New research shows that the human brain undergoes significant change during the teenage years. While it was once believed that new brain cells and neural connections only formed during the first couple of years of life, there now seems to be a second growth of neural tissue later in life. The teen brain restructures itself in other ways as well. This makes me believe that we need to take a much closer look at the effects of drugs (both legal and illegal) during this stage of development.
I knew there was a really good reason why I've never used Napster. Metallica managed to harvest a third of a million user names which they claim have been pirating their music, all over the course of one weekend. They've passed the list on to Napster in the hope of shutting down the offenders. If any of you Napster users out there thought you had any anonymity or privacy while using the service, time to reconsider. I still don't think too much of Metallica or other bands trying to crack down on MP3 trading; I'm afraid that one of these days a band that I actually listen to will jump on the bandwagon, and then I'll have a tough choice to make. Update: [via MetaFilter] Rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy has written the best defense of Napster I've seen so far.
[via CamWorld] Playing around with weblogs and weblog tools has stirred up my interest in template-based HTML generation. This article seems to have some interesting ideas on XML-based template processing that my provide some inspiration for the Evil Master Plan.
Everyone's (well, almost everyone's) favorite Linux Hacker has found a new toy to play with. The guy who really opened the I-Opener internet appliance to turn it into a cheap Linux PC, has done the same with a set-top box on sale at CompUSA. The company seems to have clamped down on selling the bargain system without the service agreeement, but may also take the high road of offering a more expensive version to would-be hardware hackers. Internet appliances are all well and good, but the people trying to make money off them need to make a decision. Either they're selling a service, and should get serious about service contracts, or they're selling hardware, and need to price their devices at or above cost.
[via Ars] Microsoft's latest "anti-piracy" measure seems exceptionally bone-headed to me. More and more OEM's are shipping PC's without a full-blown Windows install CD, opting for alternative recovery options. With an operating system whose traditonal troubleshooting mantra has been "Reboot, Reinstall, Reformat", this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Personally, I've been building my own systems from components for a few years now; I'd hate to do any major hardware tinkering without having a full-blown reinstallation option available.
Ever since the Global Positioning Sytem (GPS) was created, it has offered two differing degrees of precision: military-grade, precise to within 20 meters, and civilian-grade, accurate to within 100 meters. At midnight tonight, the IGEB, the U.S. agency which manages the GPS, plans to end its "Selective Availability" policy and offer 20-meter accuracy to all users. However, IGEB will now have the ability to deny GPS location to specific regions on demand.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that some group of researchers managed to use the civilian-grade signals to get something on the order of 1-meter accuracy. They analyzed the waveform (phase shift, etc.) of the signal rather than relying upon the transmitted data. Anybody who knows where I can find more detail on this experiment, please let me know.
considered harmful adj.
[very common] Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the March 1968 "Communications of the ACM", "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars (text at http://www.acm.org/classics). Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print an article taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. (Years afterwards, a contrary view was uttered in a CACM letter called, inevitably, "`Goto considered harmful' considered harmful'"). In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies have borne titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realization that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke (the `considered silly' found at various places in this lexicon is related).
-- from The Jargon File, version 4.1.4.
