TV Be Gone (zap!)
Firefox web developer toolbar
Laszlo - the next hard to spell big thing
Laszlo Systems recently open-sourced their toolkit for rich UI browser-based clients. Or, as they put it, "Now serving rich Internet applications baked with open source goodness".
10/29/2004 11:07:00 am: permalink
Colorado Software Summit
Vector graphics with Javascript
Walter Zorn's astonishingly capable toolkit draws lines, polygons and ellipses right in your browser. Cool!
10/29/2004 10:57:00 am: permalink
Accessing files on Win2K from Linux using NFS
It's pleasantly easy and quick even over my home network... though I'd recommend using SOSSNT over Cygwin for the Win2K NFS server.
10/22/2004 11:13:00 pm: permalink
Amphibians: going, going, gone?
The world's frogs, newts and toads are dying. They are being over-harvested for food, their homes are being destroyed, and most worryingly, entire species are disappearing for no apparent reason
Amphibian malformations- extra limbs, malformed or missing limbs, and facial malformations - have been documented in 44 states, and involve nearly 60 species. In some local populations, up to 60% of the amphibians exhibit malformations.
Amphibians are declining, as are most, if not all other groups of life on Earth. This loss of biodiversity should be a cause of concern to all of us. However, there are good reasons for thinking that disappearing amphibians are especially significant.
An entire species of golden toad, observed breeding on a Costa Rican mountainside, vanished two years later and has not been seen since. Frogs examined during a middle-school science outing in Minnesota are found to have astonishingly high rates of physical deformities. At least three species of amphibians have apparently vanished from their former range in Yosemite National Park. What is happening to amphibians?
Amphibian malformations- extra limbs, malformed or missing limbs, and facial malformations - have been documented in 44 states, and involve nearly 60 species. In some local populations, up to 60% of the amphibians exhibit malformations.
Amphibians are declining, as are most, if not all other groups of life on Earth. This loss of biodiversity should be a cause of concern to all of us. However, there are good reasons for thinking that disappearing amphibians are especially significant.
An entire species of golden toad, observed breeding on a Costa Rican mountainside, vanished two years later and has not been seen since. Frogs examined during a middle-school science outing in Minnesota are found to have astonishingly high rates of physical deformities. At least three species of amphibians have apparently vanished from their former range in Yosemite National Park. What is happening to amphibians?
10/15/2004 11:08:00 pm: permalink
Need a free music player for Windows?
Quinnware's' Quintessential Player does the trick. MP3 and OGG both supported :-)
10/15/2004 09:50:00 pm: permalink
Why Jon Udell's blog rocks
Just recently he has written about (among other things):
- JotSpot - the Application Wiki
- XML literals for Python (like the fabled X# but with Pythonic semantics)
- E4X - EcmaScript for XML
10/14/2004 06:01:00 pm: permalink
Content-specific URL links to PDF content
URL Examples:
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#nameddest=Chapter6
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#page=3
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#page=3&zoom=200,250,100
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#zoom=50
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#page=72&view=fitH,100
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#view=fitb&nameddest=Chapter3
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#pagemode=none
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#pagemode=bookmarks&page=2
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#page=3&pagemode=thumbs
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#nameddest=Chapter6
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#page=3
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#page=3&zoom=200,250,100
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#zoom=50
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#page=72&view=fitH,100
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#view=fitb&nameddest=Chapter3
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#pagemode=none
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#pagemode=bookmarks&page=2
http://mydocs/doc.pdf#page=3&pagemode=thumbs
10/14/2004 05:57:00 pm: permalink
Python and XML tidbits
Two nice tidbits from this overview of the current Py/XML world:
- XMLObject combines the best Object Oriented features of Python with XML managing. Declare your XMLObjects, you don't have to know the internal cooking, you deal with Objects, you get XML. That's all.
- GraphPath is a little-language for analysing graph-structured data, especially RDF. The syntax of GraphPath is reminiscent of Xpath. It has a python implementation that can be teamed up with your favourite python RDF API (e.g. Redland, rdflib, or your own API).
10/14/2004 05:47:00 pm: permalink
Beware the Patent-wock my son
Troubled by the recent news of Sun's out of court settlement with Kodak I sank into a deeper despair when I read this:The most sobering aspect of the story of Major Armstrong is that the patents involved were relatively simple and clear cut. They described genuine inventions that stood apart from anything that had gone before, that could easily be understood and put in context, and that did things that had clearly not been possible before. Each of them changed the world. Software patents rarely have any of these attributes.
If such exemplary patents could fuel half a century of pitched legal battles, with entrenched interests prepared to burn money and lawyers to distort the market, how much more trouble is due to us with software patents? What modern-day Armstrong would knowingly embark on a similar course? And without more Armstrongs, how are we to make progress?
If such exemplary patents could fuel half a century of pitched legal battles, with entrenched interests prepared to burn money and lawyers to distort the market, how much more trouble is due to us with software patents? What modern-day Armstrong would knowingly embark on a similar course? And without more Armstrongs, how are we to make progress?
10/13/2004 04:46:00 pm: permalink
Open vs patched security holes
Compare and contrast this data from Secunia:
10/11/2004 06:00:00 pm: permalink
Organic farming boosts biodiversity
From NewScientist: Organic farming increases biodiversity at every level of the food chain - all the way from lowly bacteria to mammals. This is the conclusion of the largest review ever done of studies from around the world comparing organic and conventional agriculture.
Previous studies have shown that organic farming methods can benefit the wildlife around farms. But "the fact that the message is similar all the way up the food chain is new information", says agricultural scientist Martin Entz of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.
The study reviewed data from Europe, Canada, New Zealand and the US. Neither of the two groups of researchers who did the study - one from English Nature, a government agency which champions wildlife conservation, and one from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds - has a vested interest in organic farming.
Previous studies have shown that organic farming methods can benefit the wildlife around farms. But "the fact that the message is similar all the way up the food chain is new information", says agricultural scientist Martin Entz of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.
The study reviewed data from Europe, Canada, New Zealand and the US. Neither of the two groups of researchers who did the study - one from English Nature, a government agency which champions wildlife conservation, and one from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds - has a vested interest in organic farming.
10/11/2004 05:31:00 pm: permalink
Rumsfeld is misunderstood? Yeah, right
"To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two [Iraq and Al Qaeda]," Mr Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations.
The statement - a u-turn on Mr Rumsfeld's assertion in September 2002 that the CIA had "bulletproof" evidence of a connection - appeared in line with a new intelligence review that failed to find a connection.
Mr Rumsfeld later said his comments to the council had been "misunderstood".
NB: In an interview in 2003 Paul Wolfowitz said that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Full references and citations at TruthAndPolitics.org
The statement - a u-turn on Mr Rumsfeld's assertion in September 2002 that the CIA had "bulletproof" evidence of a connection - appeared in line with a new intelligence review that failed to find a connection.
Mr Rumsfeld later said his comments to the council had been "misunderstood".
NB: In an interview in 2003 Paul Wolfowitz said that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Full references and citations at TruthAndPolitics.org
10/11/2004 05:09:00 pm: permalink
Doing business in the bedroom
We have absorbed so deeply the logic of market capitalism that it has infected every form of human interaction; the language we use to describe intimacy says it all. We talk of "investing" in our relationships; we have transferred the language of business - our "partner" - to the bedroom. The model of contractualism, exchange and self-interest now applies to love with all the cynicism that entails: "What am I getting out of the relationship?" "I'm not getting my needs met". Our experience of sexuality is riddled with mutual instrumentality: using others as means to our own end - sexual pleasure. These are all signposts of a banality in our understanding of human interaction, with no access to our deep and inescapable interdependence from which so much true human satisfaction comes... This may all sound relentlessly grim, but there are reasons to be cheerful. What too often gets overlooked are the many places of resistance - institutions of great inspiration and relationship which manage (just) to get beyond the contractualism of the market to offer unconditional service. I think of the Catholic hospice where my father died and the generous-hearted nurse who nursed him. I see everywhere the struggle of people holding on to their own sense of integrity and authenticity of relationship in a hostile culture; it's rarely reflected in the media and it has little public celebration or endorsement. We don't have language even to describe it to each other, so sceptical and cynical of human motivation have we become, but we all know it when we meet it and it is the greatest of riches. The nagging unanswered question in my mind is whether those places of resistance are the last pockets of rebellion soon to fall, or the beginning of the fight-back.
10/11/2004 04:51:00 pm: permalink
Which was NOT nice
Info9002. Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 (KB867460) cannot be installed because you have one or more hot fixes installed. Remove them and try again.
How long will it take for Microsoft to reinvent the sort of dependency aware software-packaging system that other OS-es (e.g. Debian) have had for years? Sigh...
How long will it take for Microsoft to reinvent the sort of dependency aware software-packaging system that other OS-es (e.g. Debian) have had for years? Sigh...
10/11/2004 11:55:00 am: permalink
S5 runs slide shows in a browser
With just CSS, XHTML and Javascript - wow. So simple and elegant. Great stuff!
10/08/2004 06:43:00 pm: permalink
Java 1.5 - don't leap before you look
Look here:
- even Bruce Eckel is Puzzling through Erasure (spread over 4 information crammed blog entries that can only leave you scratching your head and wondering, "All this, just to avoid a ClassCastException?!")
- the Trove collection classes offer an efficient means of storing primitives without requiring the Java 1.5 autoboxing features
- even Bruce Eckel is Puzzling through Erasure (spread over 4 information crammed blog entries that can only leave you scratching your head and wondering, "All this, just to avoid a ClassCastException?!")
- the Trove collection classes offer an efficient means of storing primitives without requiring the Java 1.5 autoboxing features
10/05/2004 05:00:00 pm: permalink
The Internet in a nutshell
1. The Internet isn't complicated
2. The Internet isn't a thing. It's an agreement.
3. The Internet is stupid.
4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value.
5. All the Internet's value grows on its edges.
6. Money moves to the suburbs.
7. The end of the world? Nah, the world of ends.
8. The Internet\u2019s three virtues:
a. No one owns it
b. Everyone can use it
c. Anyone can improve it
9. If the Internet is so simple, why have so many been so boneheaded about it?
10. Some mistakes we can stop making already
Full detail at World of Ends
2. The Internet isn't a thing. It's an agreement.
3. The Internet is stupid.
4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value.
5. All the Internet's value grows on its edges.
6. Money moves to the suburbs.
7. The end of the world? Nah, the world of ends.
8. The Internet\u2019s three virtues:
a. No one owns it
b. Everyone can use it
c. Anyone can improve it
9. If the Internet is so simple, why have so many been so boneheaded about it?
10. Some mistakes we can stop making already
Full detail at World of Ends
10/05/2004 11:17:00 am: permalink
Clearer anti-aliased typefaces
Have you activated Cleartype yet?
"9 out of 10 consultants prefer it!" (source unknown)
"Wow cleartype is pretty good!" - Robin Morris
"The best thing since....the last quite good thing" - Stuart Rolland
"I can see clearly now, the text is smooth" - Jimmy Cliff
"9 out of 10 consultants prefer it!" (source unknown)
"Wow cleartype is pretty good!" - Robin Morris
"The best thing since....the last quite good thing" - Stuart Rolland
"I can see clearly now, the text is smooth" - Jimmy Cliff
10/01/2004 04:34:00 pm: permalink
