Month: July 2003

AOL Journals: Wide Open Orgy

Read all about it from the Buzzmachine himself, Jeff Jarvis.  This is bigger than Google's Pyra buyout.  It means Prime Time.  Yeah, baby.  Now the feature war begins, tools and services available to bloggers within their own communities and alliances.  While the 'old folks' continue their squabbles, the neighborhood will be flooded with people who don't know nor care about the A-list.  Bring along a swimsuit and take a leak, er, peek.

My Thoughts on Blog API

First de facto standard Blog API was Blogger API by Evan Williams.  It was naive in design and had some design peculiarities like appkey puzzled others, but it worked.  Evan's "experimental" disclaimer lost its merit when his API was taken up by others without him complaining loudly about it.

Dave Winer then designed MetaWeblog API to supplement Blogger API with some notable overlaps in features.  MetaWeblog API is a classic example of 'embrace and extend' strategy which has many benefits as well as many problems.  One such benefit is taking of initiative which is the opening note of many war songs.

Both Evan and Dave had the opportunity to remove the danger of confrontation when MetaWeblog API was being designed.  Unfortunately, neither did so.  In fact, both aggrevated the situation by Dave not supporting appkey parameter from MetaWeblog API and Evan starting work on Blogger API 2.0.

I think both Dave and Evan are responsible for the mess we have today and I see little chance of a universal Blog API emerging for a while.  If I had the power to dictate things, I would have the Echo project adopt the union of Blogger API 1.0 and MetaWeblog API as Echo API 0.0 and extend it as needed without breaking backward compatibility.

Will everyone involved sacrifice their prides, ideals, and needs for the good of all?  Maybe, just itty bitty miraculous maybe.

Update #1: I thought I should make some of the implications of my proposal clear:

  • Echo API 0.0 will be just as pretty as it is now.  Will you choose beauty and elegance over universal Blog API and continuity?
  • Members of Echo project will control the future of the universal Blog API.  If you want some control, join the project.
  • All the blogging tools will continue to work.
  • XML-RPC binding must be supported.  SOAP and REST binding are up to the Echo project.

Update #2: Since people seem to be still mixed up about what I mean by "just do it", let me list the specific actions that must take place before the miracle can happen.

  • Dave must say "I will support Echo API 1.0 if it is backward compatible with the union of Blogger API 1.0 and MetaWeblog API as it is now."
  • Evan must say "I will support Echo API 1.0 even if it is backward compatible with the union of Blogger API 1.0 and MetaWeblog API as it is now."
  • Echo must say "We will use the union of Blogger API 1.0 and MetaWeblog API as the basis for Echo API 1.0 with the understanding that backward compatibility must not be broken."

Three seemingly simple but courageous actions are the key ingredients for the miracle.  And PLEASE don't say it any differently, add other conditions, recount the past, or even make apologies.  Just do it.

Lastly, I don't want people to send me their opinions, questions, nor criticisms.  Time for discussion is over.  If you want it to happen, just do your part without worrying about others doing their part.  Trust me, you have everything to lose by doing it, so mine as well do it without thinking about it.

Freaky Inventions out of Korea

I often tell my friends that I am too inventive for my own good.  Here are some too inventive ideas from Xeno Freaks, Inc in Korea [via Suman Park via Cyflux].  These webpages are in Korean language, but pictures are sufficient to communicate the freaky ideas being presented.

Xeno Freaks ARS (Anus Recognition System)

Biometric authentication technology of a different kind.  You can find more pictures at the ARS web page, but don't go there just before or after a meal.

Could be a brisk seller if it checked health-related problems as well.  Probably not appropriate where there are many absent-minded professor types.

Xeno Freaks Self-Rechargeable Mobile Phone

Every time you dial, you are charging your phone's battery.  I love rotary phones!

July 4th Slaughter

I woke up this afternoon (working late again) and found that my wife had captured five adult cucumbers from our yard.  I knew them from their early childhood, so seeing them lined up in our kitchen made me…hungry.

So I lovingly chopped up one of them and ate it while thinking about what I should do to remember them.  This is what I came up with.

Happy Fourth of July Everyone!

I had named one of them Funky.  Can you tell which one it is?

God Spits on Earth: Film at 11

Scientists around the globe are wondering what the 41 feet long 13 ton white blob washed up on a Chilean beach is.  Longer I look at the picture above, it looks like what a spit looks like from an ant's point of view.  Maybe God is a baseball player.

Daily Pictures

Here is a picture of my son paying a flock of geeses that I hired to patrol my neighborhood against terrorist rose bushes.

A close up to make sure they are not rose bushes in geese disguise.

Meanwhile, here is a picture of a rose bush that crashed into a wall at 100 mph while travelling south from Vancouver.  I think it is one of Tim's rose bushes.

Filters in News Aggregators

Russell Beattie's post on Turning A Blogger Off made me think and suggest an alternative solution in a comment to the post.  I have reproduced it here for wider distribution.  I have no feelings one way or another about the ranty part of his post, but I can't resist solving a good problem.

<hat type="Zen master">
    Ignoring takes energy.
</hat>

<hat type="engineer">
    Best solution is to filter out unwanted posts from RSS feeds. News aggregators with filters should be able to hide posts with unwanted content. One should be able to provide filtering hint to the aggregator with a single click that say:

  • "don't show me posts like this from this blogger" or
  • "don't show me posts linked to this post."
  • "don't show me posts with these words."

First hint can be processed by a Bayesian filter.    This filter should also be able to filter out spams.  Second one is just a simple link filter.  Third is a general string or regular expression filter.
</hat>

<hat type="Zen master">
    We all have good sides and bad sides like a stick of chocolate/vanila twirl icecream. Eat carefully instead of throwing it in the trash entirely.
</hat>

Update #1: Filtering RSS feeds is a relatively simle and not very interesting technology wise.  The interesting part is what can be done with the hint.  Leaving out the nightmarish use-cases, using them as feedback to the author could be useful.  Feedback aggregation can be done using services similar to "Dave"'s excellent subsHarmonizer.

Update #2: The filters should also be applied to comments so hint like "filter exchanges by these two bloggers" will work on comments as well.

Ray on Extreme Mobility

Ray Ozzie doesn't update his blog regularly, but when he does magnitude of his thoughts often make up for lost time.  His writing on "Extreme Mobility" is a Must Read if you care about where the computing world is going.  At least it made me think furiously for an hour.  There is a slight push on Groove, but that's what he should be doing anyway.  Unbiased world is so boring like a sugarcane sucked dry.

Tourist Pictures from North Korea

High walls of North Korea has a small side door for tourism.  My father went through the door twice to see his younger brother and sisters still living there more than ten years ago.  Here are some more recent pictures taken by Taro (found at Population: One) who lives in Japan but has an English website.

Beware that these pictures show how North Korea presents itself to visitors, not how common North Koreans survive day to day.  Still, one can see the artificial front drilled into North Korean children, turning them into robots.  Kim Jong-Il is a source of extremely violent thoughts for me.

How NOT to Link to Other Blogs

Do NOT link to other blogs if you:

  • think you are doing a favor to them
  • think they must agree with your opinions
  • think they will be betraying you otherwise

DO link to other blogs if you:

  • think it is something your readers wants to read
  • think it makes you feel good to do so.
  • think it furthers your message.

Everyone who links to me, I owe you my sincere thanks.  But my thanks don't mean IOU.  My thanks don't mean I will shut up when I don't agree with you.  My thanks don't mean I will put up with nonsense.

I like having a lot of people read my blog.  Maybe it is pleasure of public masturbation.  Maybe it is sharing what I have with others.  Maybe it is reducing the burden of holding thoughts in.  Whatever it is, it is not worth compromising my sense of who and what I am.

I am just a lazy bum who dropped out of college and got into programming because it was so much easier than chasing quarks and explaining their love life.  Millions of people use software I wrote everyday without knowing who I am, but I am happy being who I am.

Now I am blogging because it makes me feel good.  I am NOT blogging so I unknowingly end up owing people allegiances that prevent me to tell it like it is.  Hear this and hear this well.  I don't know how NOT to tell it like it is.  Only time I do is when I have to choose between truth and my wife's happyness.  Call it a survival skill.

If anybody has a problem with this, let me know so I can knock the wrong idea out of your head with the righteous thunder of "Selfish Pig".