rob flickenger proves once again that he is too cool for school. he’s whipped together a nifty-sounding streaming server and rendezvous services for his seattlewireless node:
“Wireless users at the cafe across the street (or anywhere within a block or so) can find my local services any time just by looking at available rendezvous sites. As if that weren’t enough, my streamer is even advertising itself as a DAAP stream, so iTunes 4 users can see that it’s available from inside iTunes itself.“
the
guardian
takes a half-hearted
whack at social software
. although it’s not entirely coherent, it does get bonus points for
capturing the lack of consensus on what exactly social software
is
:
“Social software is the next big thing: everybody’s
talking about it. A lot of people are developing exciting new
programs to aid social interaction. Social software is being
massively overhyped. It’s just a sideshow run by a few geeks with a
tenuous grip on reality. Social software isn’t new: we’ve been
using it for decades. We already have email, Usenet newsgroups,
chatrooms, instant messaging, bulletin boards, multi-user games and
more. Social software isn’t a new technology at all, it just
reflects changes in society. Take your pick…”
beyond being a nifty umbrella to organize all
the things that prove that
“it’s the communication, stupid”
, i’m not sure how useful the phrase is. i hereby predict that it
will die the horrible that awaits every bit of buzzword bingo that means all things
to all people – meaninglessness.
salam pax is back and as eloquent as ever:
“Things are looking kind of OK, these days. Life has a way of moving on. Your senses are numbed, things stop shocking you. If there is one thing you should believe in, it is that life will find a way to push on, humans are adaptable, that is the only way to explain how such a foolish species has kept itself on this planet without wiping itself out. Humans are very adaptable, physically and emotionally.”
having grown up in the northeast, lived just a hop skip and a jump from the old man while at dartmouth and hiked a good deal in the white mountains, i was sad to see that the ancient rock formation collapsed recently. it’s hard to imagine that nathian hawthorne once waxed poetic about the curious collection of rocks:
“Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: ”It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice.” We are titans of another sort these days. Hawthorne wrote that if a viewer of the Great Stone Face walked up too close to it, ”he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another.””
into the annotated bookmark bin – XUL: rendering GUIs with PHP and XUL to PHP-GTK. it has been awhile since i’ve toyed with xul – while certainly not a panacea with some obvious downsides, it’s surprising that it hasn’t seen more uptake in the developer community. [ via blogzilla ]
i see that
everyone and their sister
is talking about
beck’s blog
[ or, more precisely his journal ]. intrigued, i decide to check it
out with the appropriate degree of skepticism. and despite my best
attempt to view the journal through jaded and cynical lenses, i
have to admit that i’m impressed. although it appears to be updated
sporadically, entries like
press
junk and junket
might just make me a regular reader:
“interviews range from chit chat about your favorite
food to justifications for your actual existence. usually what
interviewers do is find something that somebody said somewhere
about you that wasn’t particularly nice, then ask you “a lot of
people think or say blabedy blah about you, what do you think about
that?” its the tactic they’re taught in school; to find the
‘conflict’, flesh it out and get their story. which is ok when
you’re doing a story about a kid who gets stuck in the bottom of a
well, but with someone who’s writing some silly little songs and
prancing around a stage, its kind of overkill (unless you’re
mainlining drugs of mass destruction or you’re locked in heated
oasis battle). otherwise its just tedious–“a lot of people say
you’re unoriginal, a lot of people say you have no soul, a lot of
people say your last album ended your career”, ad nauseam. here’s
my view on this kind of thing, though its no justification or
intended to change one’s aesthetic sense; one could admire the
actual physical feat of standing under 110 degree lights, 2 hours
sleep, a scrutinizing audience, and trying to sing in tune without
actually being able to hear anything, etc. I don’t tend to rip on
other bands in the press, cos I think its a waste of time and
energy and I know what goes into making a record, touring, press,
etc. I only have respect for people who go through the mill and
down the gauntlet just to play a few tunes for
people.”
no rss feed, a restrictive legal statement on
copying content and use of the word ‘Cos’ are all definite
turn-offs, but hearing the faint sounds of a coherent, strong voice
might just stop me from passing over
beck
the next time i go shopping for tunes.
i got my ibook back from the shop after latest round of repairs. here’s to hoping it will last longer than a month before needing another massive overhaul.