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Mar 2002 weblog posts
gRadio weblog posts for March 2002.
So last Friday, I finally went to the walk-in clinic to get some treatment for that nasty stuff that had attacked my immune system (I think I had two seperate bouts of ick, whose activity happened to overlap). I had finally had enough of the sinus infection that had developed, and I was prescribed the usual suspects -- an antibiotic and a hellaciously powerful decongestant for the coughing. Anyway, the real reason for this post is so I can brag about losing around 12 pounds due the illnesses. Plus, thanks to the severity of the coughing fits, I've got harder abs than I've had in almost a decade. I'm almost ready to model for one of those ab-tronic electrical stimulation belt devices that are about to require FDA approval. The downside for this method of personal fitness is I managed to strain most of the muscles on the right side of my chest, and right now it really hurts to breathe, reach for objects, and to cough out the last of the crud, which sneaks in hard now due to the mega-decongestant. Could be worse, though. At least the antibiotics haven't killed off all of the good bacteria in my almost-six-packed gut. Yet... Newsblaster is an attempt to use natural language processing to produce summaries of news reports, and it has DARPA funding behind it. It compares stories from the following sources, and generates a summary of the news story. Current [Newsblaster] sources: Yahoo, ABCNews, CNN, Reuters, LA Times, CBS News, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Virtual New York, Washington Post, Wired, FOX News, NY Post, USA Today, Science Magazine, BBC News, Nature Magazine and Lycos. I have more than a few doubts about the AI algorithms being used, and how current journo practices of just running with the wire report might affect them. Regardless, the same old problems of machine translations and summarization appear to be alive and well -- check out the last sentence of this summary, for instance:
Huh? Well, at least editors should still have some job security if this tool goes into operation in news rooms... Scoble-man, didn't you know that there are many levels of being a Frontier Newbie? I'm still working my own way thru these... ;-) A Radio and Frontier Newbie. Oliver Wrede wrote "the Golden Rules for Newbies to Radio and Frontier." Heck, I've been using both for a year and I'm +still+ a newbie. I'm still under an NDA here, but DaveW has a huge zig lined up for this Monday. He had originally announced what would be a nice zag, but he's said now that it's not gonna be exactly like he said it would. Zig! It is gonna be huge, and could have an impact for every Radio user. Wow, does this one have some cool potential. Let a thousand points of <something /> bloom... So now I think I have a shot at the finals for being the most lazy man in the country.... Today, I bought a pair of loafer-style training shoes. Yup, no shoelaces on these 'athletic' shoes. What a fine country I live in where someone thought of these and managed to see that vision to market. *sniff* I've worked in Cow-lumbus, Ahia before. I've seen some nasty jobs before. Researched by Joe Florenski on lunch hours to ease the pain of a mind-numbing desk job. I think Joe's musta been a doozy, though. A Paul Lynde shrine site? And would that all fan shrine sites were this good, too. Reading this one almost caused a cow-orker to spew drinkage all over their large monitor. Be careful with this one. Get the Shrub an intern OK, I like the streamlined look, but I want the About Google News page to also mention how often it updates, and I WANT AN RSS FEED FOR THAT NEWS PAGE! John Van Dyk sure got it right, baby. If it's not streaming into my own newsfeed, it takes much more effort for me to go visit other places these days. That RSS Alligator sure spoils you. But a meta News-search-engine could reduce some of my current surfing even more... Now this might be handy for some project meetings I'm going to get sucked into... George Carlin Collects a list of 2443 dirty words. Categorized for ease of use.. (georgecarlin.com) Stan Krute, one of the brains behind the Java-based outliner JOE, has liked that InsideOutliners article I had resurrected from the grave of analog past so much, he linked to it from the JOE forum on SourceForge.... It looks to me like there are some powerful brains working on that project, and I expect good things from it. Do check out what they're up to. Hint: Do a search on Brent's page, which lists all of the toys people use to hit his site, for the word "mullet". Lalalalalala, no, I don't know who that could be.... Lalalalalala, oh no, sir, not me... After we get home and eat some snacks, the mancub stands before me as I'm trying to check my email to see if anything has blown up at work. "Up, up up!" he says, while waving his hands. (translation: "O Father, wouldst thou be so kind as to hoist me onto thy lap, please?") I lean over to him, smile and ask, "And why should I do that?" "Because I love you." The dial-up connection times out as I hold him in my lap and he falls asleep. More on the Orinoco-to-Airport 802.11 hackMore det .... More on the Orinoco-to-Airport 802.11 hack A nifty follow-up to the how to hack yer Orinoco into an Airport Base Station announcement I blinked from GlennF. People who tap the Internet from high-speed connections spent more time online in January than people with traditional phone lines... Nielsen/NetRatings reported Tuesday that broadband usage reached the critical 50 percent benchmark in January, when people with high-speed connections accounted for 51 percent of the 2.3 billion hours that Americans spent online throughout the month. By comparison, the survey found that broadband users spent 727 million hours online in January 2001, accounting for 38 percent of the total time spent online in the same month last year. Well, DUH! How many of you folks with fat pipe connections shut off the stream when you leave your computer? Part of the attraction of fat pipe is... It's always on! There are so many problems that I can think of with this survey... How are they measuring online? Self-reported? Packets coming in? Keystrokes? What if your homepage is one that refreshes every so often automatically? How many different ways (that people use their computer online) can you think of that would skew the results? The real problem I have with this sort of crap is the 'journalists' who dutifully report such dreck, without providing more information about the methods used, or without asking more questions. With the embracing of soundbite news, and journos' willingness to simply recycle press releases, no wonder the bigco news organizations are losing revenue -- people who can think and reason are looking to make their own interpretation of events by piecing together things from the variety of other resources that are available online. The perception of journalists' ability to add value is seriously under fire, now that they are no longer the sole source of information to the public. Many journos who simply were going through the motions are going to have start working again. Yes, some principled journos never slipped into the bad habits, and some may have been pushed down that ugly slope by editors' or news consultants' decisions (or corporate owners applying pressure, for that matter). The end result may ultimately be stronger news coverage or interpretation, but I'm pretty certain that there will be some serious bloodshed (job-loss) as the journo herd gets thinned out. Techniques to avoid chartjunk include replacing crosshatching with (pastel) solids or gray, using direct labeling as opposed to legends, and avoiding heavy data containers This isn't a how-to, it's a how-not-to. An interesting page that will provide some good food for thought on a current project... OK, I'm baffled. How the heck does a URL like this: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0029947 show up in my referer log? I just double-checked, and the page for Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby does not have a link to my page on it, the best I can figure out is some browser out there is kind of sticky in holding onto a page, and just offers it up when queried for the referer page... Mind you, it is a favorite film of mine, and I wouldn't mind having that kind of link-juju going on, but really now... GlennF points out some of the coolest tricks, if you're into wireless toys. Turn a $150 Orinoco RG-1100 into a $300 Apple AirPort Base Station, for free: regular reader Ben Finkelstein forwarded a post from a Mac list in which a reader notes that Agere's Orinoco RG-1100 is essentially the same device as the Apple AirPort Base Station, but at half the price. The post offered these instructions (I've cleaned them up), which I am sure void your warranty and put you into a special place in purgatory if the update fails. I warned you! We need our wireless here, since it allows SHE and yours truly to surf simultaneously. And yes, some days we are bed-webbers, thankyouverymuch.... Unfortunately, I know I'll be needing this as a reference sometime... cgisecurity.com Author: Zenomorph - Fingerprinting Port 80 Attacks: A look into web server, and web application attack signatures: Part Two.. So one of the precious family heirlooms was given to the mancub for his own use a while ago (original Pentium 90, running Windoze 3.1 -- hey, he's three and a half and doesn't have to sweat y2k date issues), and I found a bargain muddymedia CD-ROM yesterday that'll still run on that vintage iron and it had some of his current favorite Anyway, the mancub pulls me into his room, saying something bad happened. An error message about the D drive being unreadable is onscreen. I pop out the disc, reseat it and send it back in, then click the retry button. Things then begin to proceed again onscreen. The mancub grabs the mouse, and says "You can go back to what you were doing..." (exact quote) and then proceeds with his game. No thank you, no eye contact, either. *puffing out paternal chest* My boy's gonna be in upper management someday. Since about noon today, the temperature has dropped over thirty degrees F. Combined with the insane winds, it's in the single digits with the wind chill. Compare that with the temperature from last night's post, which was accurate. Outside my house, over the shrieking winds, I can almost hear a drunken argument between the brass monkey and a witch about whose body parts are currently colder... So if you want to see all my posts for this month on a single page, you can. This doesn't ship as a built-in part of Radio, but Radio is user-extensible, so you can build something like this yourself. Only, I didn't even have to bother, since Paul Novarese already had done the heavy lifting on creating a script to make the monthly archives. Paul's even made a cool how-to available, so you can add this monthly archive of posts feature to your own Radio website. If you're really feeling your oats, I'll bet you could easily make it spit out weekly archives, too. If you're a prolific blogger, you may want smaller chunks for your archives.... Hey Paul, just like we surmised, if you set the monthEnd variable to be the first of the next month, it works just fine, and you'll never have to try to remember what the last day of the month is, whether it's a leap year, or any of that other calendar-type nonsense. Now all we gotta do is figure out how to get the permalinks and the comments to appear, too...;-)
So the Electronics Department here has a little known website for their own purposes. The website consists of near-real-time weather data, much of which happens to be represented using dynamically generated images. The instruments creating the data feed are about half a kilometer away from where I work. But the data itself isn't publically available -- I asked them, since I wanted to use it for my own first attempt at a web service. No go. And I didn't want to just link to the images directly, since that could break and cause ugly broken image icons on my desktop homepage. Honestly, I do have some sense of aesthetics, even if it's a little warped. Now, thanks to Tom Clifton's nifty dynamicImages Tool for Radio, I have a very good idea of what it's like outside right now. Even though I don't have a window view from my cube. And the coolest part is I have recent weather info, and I'm not having to allow the weather.com folks to track my or anyone else's browsing info. Kewl! Thanks, Tom. Careful there, Alwin! The placement of the parentheses was done quite purposely (just as it must be done in LISP or Scheme -- Their powers of parentheses-fu are quite strong!) to differentiate from that other kind of (more negative) activity. A New Meme? I sure hope so, Duncan. I want everybody to have an Alwin(er)log [(Al)Winerlog?]. Turn the energy from negative to positive! Turn the hate into love! Add more exclamation points!!! Zoooooom 'em if they can't take a joke!!!!! Yea!!!! Zoooom 'em!!! Or else we'll just put bees in their hair... Aaaaaiiieeeee!!! Bees! Bees in my hair!!!! I'm not sure why, but it always creeps me out to hear someone in the next stall using their cell phone as they sit on the throne. Even worse though is when they initiate a call after they're seated... Welcome, "Scripting News" readers! The message DaveW referred to today is down below... Radio: It's user-fault tolerant! Some folks may remember the tale of how Jake used the Google cache to recover his website lost in a heard-drive crash. Today, I just discovered that with Radio, I'm better than the Google cache. (Sometimes. But only for my own site. And only with a good backup practice going on.) I was testing a post before publishing it, and foolishly hit the Post & Publish button intead of the Post button. Realizing what I just did, and not wanting the post to go live yet, I hit the stop button in my browser, then switched over to Radio to see if I was fast enough. I wasn't. The post went up, and worse, it completely replaced a previously existing post (it should have become post 155, but instead it bunnystomped all over post 154, the Alwin(er)Logger explanation). The previous post ceased to exist now. It was also gone in the rss.xml file Even worse, Google had last visited my site two days ago, so I couldn't use Jake's cache trick. However, I had just upgraded my version of the Radio app to 8.06 last night, after making the missing post. As a precaution, I had made a backup copy of my entire Radio UserLand folder. Without thinking, I opened my old copy of weblogsData.root, but the 'missing' post was gone from it, too. (It shouldn't have been, but perhaps there was some sort of bad juju happening in RAM that caused the two open roots with the same name to become synchronized... I kept looking, though, and hoping. And there the missing post was. Inside my Radio UserLand>www folder was the rss.xml file from last night. And the very last post was sitting right there, in xml format. So a little BBEdit magic text translation later, plus a little doinking in my weblogData.root (renumber the latest post, recreate the pieces for the missing 154 post, paste in the BBEdit-massaged text from the previously missing post, and increment the number for the next post in weblogData.prefs.nextPostNum) and poof! There it is. Yes, having a backup was a key here, but also since Radio can create different versions of your content (rss feed, categories, daily renderings), the likelihood that you can recover something from one of these is pretty darn good! <Mickey Rourke Barfly voice>For all my link-ho frieeeeends!</Mickey Rourke Barfly voice>
Here's the actual message I sent. Sending a problem report in this format is the best way for you to help the UserLanders' to spend their time wisely. There's only so many of them, and so much we want done, so help 'em do their job well -- it's in our own best interests. Please use this format, even if you don't have a clue where the actual problem might be -- I happened to be lucky on this on, and could figure out what script was involved. Even just a report following the 1,2,3 format shown below could prove helpful, though.) Sorry to be a pest about referer-related issues, but I'm not sure if it affects others, too... Radio 8.06, freshly updated root (update went smoothly, BTW. Kudos to Jake for making that fly just fine) 1. I did this. On my desktop home page, clicked on the "Referers" link in the Cloud Links section of my status bar. 2. I was expecting this. To see the pretty new referer page for the Userland-hosted RCS (for my blog's hits for today) -- BTW, quick feature request for that page -- could the date/time stamp appear on that page again? 3. But this is what happened. I saw a page devoid of the actual referers (URL that was actually loaded was http://subhonker6.userland.com/rcsPublic/referers?site=0001215 ) The correct URL should be http://subhonker6.userland.com/rcsPublic/referers?site=0001215&group=radio1 I think the problem lies in system.verbs.builtins.radio.macros.cloudLinks, on the line that currently reads addrow ("<a href=\"" + radio.data.cloudUrls.referers +
usernumstring + "\">Referers</a> " +
radio.string.getlocalizedstring
("cloudLinks.referersDescription"))
It looks like the correct URL is only getting partially built. Hand-editing the URL to include the group portion of the query does the trick for me, but I suspect there may some newbies who might not know how to get to the correct URL. Of course, it's entirely possible that I haven't changed a pref somewhere, and I'm just being a stupid-head... Cool! Right now, I own the phrase Alwin(er)Logger in Google. *frenetic happy chair-dance, followed by a very ugly strut in my cube* So what is an Alwin(er)Logger? In stark contrast to that which has flowed most recently from the weinerboys, an Alwin(er)Logger has a different mission in life... First an Alwin(er)Logger should choose another blogger (a person, not the cool app for posting on the web) as their target. The Alwin(er)Logger should keep tabs on that person, and reflect goodness back at them -- by posting on your own blog, by filling their comments system, by sending them email. Exhibiting some of the actions of the weinerboys, but in a "warm fuzzy" way most of the time. Sort of an anti-weinerboy, if you will. (You are still allowed to use your own voice, so if sarcasm is your thing, go for it. But do try to remain uplifting.) There is the possibility for a sort of a random acts of blogness thing... You could choose to Alwin(er)Log someone for a few days, and then move on and do it to someone else. You're also not just limited to acting in a solo capacity if you choose to Alwin(er)Log. You and some others might also choose to gang-Alwin(er)Log someone. I figure there are plenty of other folks out there who take potshots (cheap and otherwise), and anyone brave enough to blog can use a little helping of good every now and then. Particularly with the economy in the dumps (regardless of Greenspan's latest brayings), and so many folks laid off from the tech industry, start earning some good karma points for yourself. Become an Alwin(er)Logger for someone. There will be at least two folks who will feel better for it. Got any other ideas for how to be an effective Alwin(er)Logger? Leave your comments, I'd love to read 'em... File this one away for near future use. This could be very handy for some projects on the horizon... I'm introducing a course on Knowledge Management at the Kellogg School in April. You can see the syllabus here, which is part of a Manila site I am using to manage most of the course development. One item that I thought would be of more general interest is my top 10 books to read to get up to speed on KM. How can you get someone to test the browser reload button for hours? 15295 » March 5 2:45 PM. The Euphemism Generator can create up to 68,289,490 unique phrases! Keep this one away from folks who are under-supervised and/or paid by the hour. You have been warned. These things are sucky...
These things are cool...
And blessings go out to John, the caretaker of GeneHack. I am also making this article about outliners available as a tribute to the quality that once was common in the media coverage of the computing industry. It is here to remind us of a time when there were more choices in available software, and when the computer industry media often took a more critical POV when doing a comparative review of the software. I would love to see a feature table like the one in this article created for the outlining software that is still available on the operating systems of today. If anyone is interested in helping to create one, leave a comment on this post, please. A reader at Rafe's place pointed him to where part of the shadow gummint will hole up if'n'when things get uglified. (Are they ugly enough now?) On a related note, there's also lots of interesting sites about the once-secret bunker under the Greenbrier Hotel. But there's not a single mention at any of these sites about how many nubile breeding babes might be maintained there --go rent Dr. Strangelove, if you didn't get that reference. [hand-blinked via Rafe's place] So I go to check some mailing lists I'm on that are hosted by Yahoo Groups, and I got to meet the Yahoo Groups plumber for the first time. Cute, but I'd rather have a robust, no-ads service, thanks. Fifteen more days, according to one Billy Pooper. Once we got there, it was a very nice time. The reception was cool. Good food, nice crowd, and... a klezmer band. Everyone acted pretty classy (no cake in the mush action, for instance), and the 'toasters' spoke quite nicely of the couple. Enough dancing, but no too much, and there were enough other kids to keep the mancub occupied. We were to celebrate the simcha of some friends' wedding today. I'm hoping we still might be able to make the reception, since the huppah was raised at 1pm. Kids and dogs have some ability to sense nearness of deadlines, and then cause particular kinds of havoc at inappropriate moments. Some kind of Murphyism at work, methinks. Whoops. Another gem from today's referer page. heh. I guess that person was disappointed by the search results... They were looking for "sexy golfer" and I'll bet they landed here, instead. Well, I guess if you're into that particular thing... Wow, another employment change for someone on my regular read list... Craig courageously resists becoming another Peter Principle victim. The answer, finally, was simple, it didn't feel right. The analysis of why it didn't feel right is far more complicated and I may never fully sort it out. But there is an important and resonating theme that has recently been bubbling up from my subconscious into my conscious being. I'm an artist/craftsman. I have spent most of my adult life making things with my hands for a living. I derive great pleasure and satisfaction from designing and building beautiful things. My job at Acme would have been that of a manager. My focus would have been on building and maintaining systems and business relationships. While there may be art in this kind of work, you can't touch it or feel it, it exists for me only on an abstract plane. It can be very hard for many to make such an adjustment at work, and to leave behind the things that give them pleasure, and thus made them good at their work. In some ways, good managers are born, or view the world slightly differently. Brent is leaving UserLand, and that makes me sad. I always did enjoy seeing his initials attached to some change in a root file in Frontier or Radio, and I've been seeing them pretty much since I've been poking around in Frontier. Now he is moving on to do other things. That makes me happy for him, and I wish him all the best in whatever he decides to do. I hope he finally gets to make and enjoy that rib-eye sammy recipe I shared with him ;-) [Update] I got home a little early today (had to take the canine son to the vet) and shook some dust off the furniture in the living room in Brent's honor. Here's a partial playlist...Ramones - Bop 'Til You Drop I'm not quite sure why, but Brent reminds me of Billy Zoom from X (I've never met either in person, so I'm prolly way off base here, but...); quiet and usually doesn't get too involved in the talking, but once he starts into what he's there for, just tears the livin' Aitch-Eeeee-double hockey sticks out of the place. And looks stylish while doing so. Jah, give thanks and praises for Brent, mon! |
2002.03.18 (Monday)
