Author Archives: Karl

Why not free voice mail?

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A service like the following would have been very helpful when I was homeless. I had to convince someone to act as my “residence” and answering service. It was a crucial part in finding stable work. In fact, I believe it helped me land my job at Sears. The rest is, as they say, history.

Community Voice Mail provides voicemail for those in need. It’s inspiring.

There’s free email, so why not free voice mail? Especially for those that need it most.

Another part of my success was making sure I always had transportation – a monthly SEPTA transpass. It was a major expense that was very much worth it. You never knew if there was a job opportunity someplace, and having the transpass insured I had a way to get there, along with, for a period of time once, a place to sleep. It would be a worthy effort make available transpasses for those who need them.

Om Malik Vs. Steve Case

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Break up Time Warner… or not?

Steve Case: Washington Post: It’s Time to Take It Apart:

…Although I played a key role in bringing AOL and Time Warner together six years ago, it’s now my view that it would be best to “undo” the merger by splitting Time Warner into several independent companies and allowing AOL to set off on its own path. Here’s why.

…Time Warner has proven to be too big, too complex, too conflicted and too slow-moving — in other words, too much like a classic conglomerate — to seize new opportunities….

Om Malik: Ed Tu Steve Case?:

How can he be suggesting the break-up strategy by looking at the past, when the future is finally beginning to align with Time Warner. How many time does one have to point to at Rupert Murdoch and predict the future? Time Warner, despite AOL is the only company which has it all, and can basically benefit if it plays its cards right.

…In short, Time Warner reminds me that childhood tale – where five sticks when bound together, are unbreakable. When separated the sticks can be broken into little pieces. I hope Time Warner folks don’t pay attention to these forces who want to break up the company. Last company that followed the advice of carpet baggers, AT&T, ended up as a footnote in history. Michael Armstrong’s vision of a four-play – phone, TV, broadband and wireless- was right, but he did not have the desire to stand up to the Wall Street and a few individuals. Now everyone is indulging in four play. I think TW learn from that.

Yahoo and Six Apart form partnership

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Reuters: Yahoo offers Movable Type for bloggers:

Yahoo Inc. and Six Apart Ltd., creator of Movable Type — the most popular software used to create professional blogs — said on Sunday Yahoo will be the preferred supplier of Movable Type for small businesses.

The partnership is the latest in a string of deals by the world’s largest Internet media company as it seeks to embrace so-called “social media,” the new generation of Web sites that encourage Internet users to share written text, photos and videos.

Smart.

Oh no… a mess of links…

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The following are just some items that caught my interest that I’m not talking about at Philly Future. Before I run off, let me recommend catching “Walk The Line”. A powerful movie on many, many levels. Richelle and I saw it the day before our anniversary, and it fit. See Hurt at VH1. It’s getting harder and harder to find this online, which is a shame, considering that this video, and his cover of the NIN original, moved me more musically, than anything in years. How does it make you feel when you watch and hear it?

A letter to the President

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Before you get in an uproar – this was not written by me – it was emailed to me. After looking up the passages in the Old Testament, and linking to them, it became quite thought provoking. In light of the news that certain chuches will be closed on Christmas… well I couldn’t help but post this.

This is probably a version of the oldie but goodie “Why Can’t I Own a Canadian?”

Anyways….

Dear President Bush,
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from you and understand why you would propose and support a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. As you said, “in the eyes of God marriage is based between a man a woman.” I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination… End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness – Lev15: 19-24. The problem is how do tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them . Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination – Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev.21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev. 24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Still here and happily busy

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There is only so much time in a day, and paradox1x, my personal site, has taken a hit since, well I have a day job that is unrelated to discussions I am involved in on matters related to the future of newspapers, actually, the future of news organizations. You can follow much of it here, which is already a couple days behind (some great articles and talks I have add to it right away) since the conversation is distributed across many blogs and email, and there is so much to think about and do.

I’ll be back with a link dump here later in the week. But until then, I’d like to invite you into the discussion. It has to do with journalism. It has to do with democracy. It has to do with technology. It has to do with community. It has to do with money. It has to do with blogging. It has to with trust and relationships. I’m sure you’ll see a reason to join in. Don’t be shy.

And yes – consider this a call out to my old EditThisPage friends 🙂 The new (well it’s not so new) Philly Future misses its old community. Come on by.

Speaking of email – if you are forced to use a webmail solution – how gmail handles conversations can be a lifesaver.

Music and movie related link dump

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Google Video: Randy Rhodes in Quiet Riot – except for Randy’s awesome guitar solo… my band smokes this version of Quiet Riot (they got far better by the time they got signed)… but Randy… unbelievable even then. He even plays a version of “Dee” in here! It made me cry when he slowed down and started to play those delicate passages. May he rest in peace.

Google Video: A killer Paul Gilbert guitar solo

Google Video: Canon in D Guitar: Wow, wow, wow

Google Video: Mario Guitar: Wow (not as awe inspiring as Canon in D – so just one wow)

the Onion: Metal Council Convenes To Discuss ‘Metal Hand Sign’ Abuse (hell ya!)

Please take the ‘Cool Person Test’

Wired: The Hit Factory: On MySpace and the future of music marketing

the smedley log: Give the music back (quoting lyrics to one of my favorite songs)

Matt at Philly Future: Creating Buzz: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on NPR.

ScientificAmerican: Creativity Linked to Sexual Success and Schizophrenia. via Garret.

And not music related, but why not:

Superman V: The Whole Sordid Saga: this script has been thru hell and ba… no… it still seems in hell

Guardian: The longlisted passages for the Bad Sex in Fiction award. NSFW and funny.

atom2rss: a poorly written Atom to RSS converter

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Not to vent, but Blogspot’s default of outputting Atom and no RSS for its users gave me all sorts of headaches. A huge expense in time that that drove me away from more important matters at Philly Future. CivicSpace/Drupal’s aggregator does not handle Atom. That means if you are on Blogspot, a site like Philly Future could not include you. An upcoming version of Drupal’s aggregator will have this capability. Bryght’s hosted Drupal solution does right now. However, I couldn’t wait for Drupal to release an aggregator with Atom functionality, and I’m self-managing Philly Future – so I needed my own solution.

A simple service that would, upon passing it a URL of an Atom feed, produce RSS, be best. That way I could avoid hacking Drupal code. A few folks suggested I use Feedburner, and for a while I did, until I read the terms of service. I was, inadvertently, claming I owned those feeds! Once I discovered this, I removed those feeds from my Feedburner account and found another way. After an exhaustive search on Google, I found a few Python implementations of what I was looking for, but no PHP. The hosted web services that I did find wanted to charge money, or warned they were to stop service at any moment. I had to do it myself.

Not that anyone needs converters like this anymore as most services and aggregators handle both Atom and RSS, but I figured it would be a good thing to release for others reuse, so here it is. Using the required Magpie RSS, the PHP RSS Parser library, it retrieves, caches, and parses the passed in Atom feed, iterates over its items, and outputs RSS. A brute force approach, certainly not perfect, nor complete in terms of the metadata it attempts to convert, but one that has worked for the great many Atom feeds Philly Future encounters.

Accessing the Newsgator API within PHP

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Shelley Powers published a short tutorial on accessing Newsgator via its API and PHP. I’m working with the code and fleshing out a wrapper library I hope to release shortly. I’m fairly sure using Newsgator judiciously will help alleviate the hosting problems I’ve been facing as Philly Future grows, and allow me to add some interesting new features. We shall see.