"Dave" released what he has been teasing recently about.  Its a blog search service that builds on Google.  Its different from other blog search services in that it searches with a specific blog as context.  Another key idea is that results are sorted by date.  His demo searchs Scripting News blog.  Nice.  If this is shitty software as Dave claims, we'll soon see it mentioned in Tom Peters' new edition of "In Search of Excellence."  Now.  I hope UserLand offers it as a service just like the Radio comment facility so people can search my blog.

DHTML

With DHTML, nothing is happening.  After years of browser wars, W3C's reenactment of the Little Engine That Could, and upgrade campaign that succeeded quietly and without any help from the developer community, finally nothing is happening.  DHTML has finally reached the state of mundane.

Only brightspot is DomAPI which continues to chug-along after 3.0 release.  Biggest feature of 3.5 is performance (supposedly 400% faster).

Flash

After arguably unsuccessful attempt to replace DHTML, Macromedia is now repositioning Flash as a rich client application platform.  Despite Flash's impressive graphics capabilities, odds are stacked against them.  An empire built by an army of artisans will certainly look pretty and interesting, but I wouldn't want to live in it.  They need to build better infrastructures that can support the weight of everyday living which I find more important than occasional "Wow!"

Lastly, a neat tool for Flash developers: flasm.  flasm is an assembler for Flash 'bytecodes'.  It also disassembles SWF files.  If you thought you enjoyed handrolling tight code, imagine the fun you'll have handrolling animation a bytecode at a time.  flasm has been around for a while, but I thought it deserved a bit more raving.

Interesting interview with David Kirk, one of the brightest and most influential graphics architects in the world (so they tell me), about where 3D Graphics industry is heading toward in the next 10 years.  I found examples of non-graphics applications of GPU particularly interesting.  Did you know you could do parallel database key sorting and searching with a Nvidia GeForce FX?

Russell and his fellow mobile gang are going gaga over Nokia 3650.

Believe it or not, I haven't had a cellphone for a year now which probably makes me a modern day caveman to some people.  I don't have a cellphone because it felt like a lifeline wrapped around my neck all the time.  Yes, I could turn it off anytime, but I never did, except in meetings, because I felt paranoid about being out of touch.

Same thing with Internet.  When I am working on something, I disconnect from the Net completely.  I am resisting the temptation of WiFi with all my power.  Connectivity is as addictive as nicotine, folks.  And, frankly, I can live without being hardwired into rest of the world all the time.

Still, I might get Nokia 3650 for development.  Really.  I swear it is for development only.  Argh.  I better call my Connectivity Addicts Anonymous sponsor.  Here it is, 555-1212.

I visited an accupuncture specialist today to finally fix my stuffy nose.  It was interesting.  The doctor (accupuncturist?) put eight needles on my nose, four on each side.  It didn't hurt much and, after a while, my nose felt numb.  When I looked down, the needles looked like cat's whiskers.  Is my nose fixed now?  Nope, I have nine more visits.  Hey, I am a cat with nine lives to go!

Ray Ozzie, CEO of Groove, has been blogging mostly about blogging and occasionally social software.  His exploration-style writing has attracted a large following, but I doubt his blog has generated sales for Groove.  Until now, that is.  Today, he raved about TeamDirection, a third-party Groove application along with a cool screenshot.

I don't think Ray was trying to do anything other than give an honest opinion about a great piece of software, but I believe the effect on the bottomline will be tremendous.  Most people just don't realize that Groove is an application platform.  The best way to sell an application platform is to do what Ray did today, evangelizing applications.  And don't forget to throw in eye-candies!

I have been living in a waterfront home for more than 15 years now.  When you fly into SFO, look out the window on the left and you will see a mile long lagoon shaped liked an arrow.  I live where the arrow feather should be.  Oracle headquarter buildings shaped like drums are near the arrow head.  Its pretty quiet here (except for the small airplanes frequenting nearby airport) because people know water can amplify sound, especially at night, and keep the noise down.

Last night a neighbor two houses down was apparently having a party and was playing music really loudly.  The music was amplified by the narrow lagoon and projecting right into my house.  Although the sound was the loudest I have ever heard in 15 years of living here, I am not a party-pooper so I let it go until it was around 11pm and my son couldn't sleep due to the noise.  So I went over to ask them to lower the volume.  What I got in return were verbal abuses from an old lady who lived there and physical abuse from her husband.

Drunk, she yelled she was a lawyer and she knew how to take care of troublesome Chineses.  While I was thinking whether to tell her that I am not Chinese, her husband walked over and pushed me hard in front of my house.  Oy!  That really pissed me off.  I came back inside and tried to cool off violent thoughts with reason.  Although I was just standing there getting yelled at, I guess the guy was trying to be protective of his wife.  And I wasn't hurt (except for a slight whiplash) so it wasn't a big deal.  The lady was drunk so I can let her abuses slide, hoping she behaves better in court rooms.

If there is a lesson to be learned here, its this: don't try to reason with people when they are drunk.  I should have waited longer and let the police handle it instead of going over myself.