I highly suggest printing, reading, and re-reading this piece from Tim O’Reilly on piracy and distribution if you havn’t already.
Monthly Archives: December 2002
Oh I Get It! THAT’s Compassionate Conservatism!
Read it and weep at the Washington Post.
Hey, at least this is a whole lot more honest. The typical tract is to leave loopholes only those who can afford it can find.
And need I Say It?
Critical Flaws and How to Ruin American Enterprise
Posted so close together you’d figure these two are conspiring.
First read at the Washington Post what you already know, cultural critics deploy the same kinds of arguments again, and again, and again. A perfect how-to for you webloggers that want to get in the game!
And lo and behold the weblogosphere has started to link to this Benjamin J. Stein article on how our culture is slowly poisoning us.
From Yesterday’s Inquirer
It was good reading yesterday. Let me share some highlights…
First, the Inquirer covers how Street’s biggest contributors do very well at City Hall. That’s pretty much the way it’s always been and Street simply hasn’t faught the “way it is”. Actually, he seems to embrace it according to the article. Of course this has a whole lot to do with campaign finance and Philly isn’t following other cities’ attempts at reform.
Related to what I said yesterday about Philly slowly losing the control to govern itself, Tom Ferrick details just how well the state (Republican) takeover of the parking authority has gone.
In Silencing the demons Ralph Vigoda shares the story of Larry Boettcher. Suffering from schizophrenia, not taking his medication, he set himself up to be shot by the police.
Zeitgeists and Top 50s
Pretty much every weblog out there has linked to Google’s Year-End Zeitgeist, but let me direct you to the almost forgotten Lycos Top 50 for some similar fun. “Dragonball” was the most searched for term at Lycos.
Reading a related Slashdot thread discussing the results, ya gotta wonder, what do they say about us?
Two for Philly
The NYTimes has started a series of articles that will explore private management’s (Edison) impact on Philadelphia’s public schools. Their first installment is depressing.
Over at PhillyBlog it’s Katz vs. Street. Looks like I will be voting Republican in the next mayoral election. I don’t want to, especially considering the underhanded politiking that’s been ripping away Philadelphia’s right to govern itself these past couple of years. Street needs to open his eyes right now or one of the biggest upsets in city political history will take place.
Struts, Boland, EJBs, Complexity, Successes, and Bridges
Rafe points out a growing chorus is critquing Struts.
Marc Fleury, creator of JBoss, posts a self serving, but very insightful Why I Love EJBs. It is a must read for server side Java developers.
Dave Winer hasn’t smoked for six months! Congratulations!
Borland being bought by Microsoft is just…. ironic! Wonder if it will happen?
Mike posts about the desktop software market and wonders is it dying?. I’d have to answer no. What has died (settled down more like it) is the productivity software market. That market was the area of so much interest/competition/innovation during the 80s and early 90s.
During the mid to late 90s software development turned it’s attention to the internet. A grand switch of attention occured on the server side. The desktop stagnated.
Now that attention is turning itself back to the desktop looking to utilize the lessons learned and the bridges built to exploit the benefits of connectivity, sharing, communication, integration, and convenience.
New ways of organizing the complexity out of the desktop/internet experience are are coming on the scene almost daily. Napster? Kazaa? Maybe an RSS Aggregator? Radio or AmphetaDesk perhaps? Google on the desktop will happen. Believe it. Weblogging as a metaphor for organizing your desktop? Yep. That too. Think of categorization and date/time instead of folder/office cabinet. Check out the Microsoft MyLifeBits Project. These are the kind of desktop innovations that could only occur after attention was spent on the Internet.
I’d argue that iPhoto heralds a new kind of app. It’s more then a simple photo manager. It integrates a multimedia external device to your PC. It enables you easily share your efforts. That’s a new class of software that won’t settle down for a long time. Think iPod, cellphone and PDA. How will these ultimately impact your desktop is unforseen right now. But they will.
One long running behind the scenes market not dominated is developer tools. It’s still wide open. But if MS buys Borland…. man oh man…. that would be interesting. I wonder if that will do for IDEs what it did when they purchased FoxPro and took over the desktop database market?
Speaking of bridges Shelley is building them at her weblog lately.
Of Resignations, Responsibilities, Law and Lott
Let me lay down a few links for you.
CNN: Trent Lott won’t step down. The Bush administration did a good job of distancing itself from him. Here’s the bottom line… if Bush/Rove wanted Lott to go, he’d be on the first Chevy Suburban out of town. All that’s come so far is brilliant political sidestepping. Keep that in mind the next time you blindly vote for a political party across the board – it’s your/our fault he’s in office in the first place.
dangerousmeta: Garret argues for zero tolerance and points to the latest unemployment rates. It’s damning. That’s what it is.
The Cardinal steps down. That’s not enough when this is as systematic as it appears. I’m surprised at how quiet the other Christian bloggers have been. Yes, statistically, the occurence of these crimes against humanity are similar to the population at large – but that is no excuse for the coverup. No excuse. No excuse. No excuse! It makes me sick, gets me angry, and depresses me all at the same time when I think about it.
In the cases of Law and Lott you have organizations that should have taken responsibility and done the right thing. Instead you have protection of the organization superceeding protection of those that are served by it.
In other, related news….
NYTimes: Kissinger Pulls Out of 9/11 Commision.
Oliver Willis: Whitman expected to resign from her EPA post. She was set up to fail IMHO. You can argue what you may about her, but she does inspire passion. Hopefully we will see her in the public service realm arena again.
An Introduction to the Eclipse IDE
This O’Reilly article does the best job I’ve seen so far at getting you started with Eclipse.