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Sunday, April 11, 2004 |
Open Source VoIP.  This is the third Ted inspired post.....
Schtoom is a open source VoIP project in Python. This could be huge!
Vercotti: (Michael Palin) Well,
I had been running a successful escort agency - high class, no really,
high class girls... we didn't have any of that . That was right out.
And I decided. (phone rings on desk) Excuse me. (he answers it)
Hello... no, not now... shtoom... shtoom... right... yes we'll have the
watch ready for you at midnight... the watch... the Chinese watch... yes, right oh, bye bye... Mother.
Shtoom is a open-source, cross-platform VoIP softphone, implemented
in Python. As well as the basic phone, the package also includes a
number of other applications -
- shtoom - the end-user phone
- shtam - a simple answering machine/voicemail application
- shmessage - an announcement server
Shtoom should work on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It ships with
user interfaces for Qt/KDE, Gtk/GNOME, Tk and a command line. There
will hopefully be native user interfaces for Windows and the Mac soon,
until then, the Tk interface works on those platforms.
Shtoom has audio support on Linux using OSS or ALSA, and on all
other platforms using the PortAudio library. Native sound drivers for
Mac/Windows are planned (the Mac interface should be done soon --
volunteers to help with an interface from Python to Windows DirectSound
libraries are more than welcome!)
Shtoom requires Python 2.3.3 and Twisted 1.1.1 or greater.
Availability:
Shtoom 0.2 is now available. You can get it from the Sourceforge Files page. Or, for the brave, you can get source via subversion. Anonymous checkouts should get svn://divmod.org/svn/Shtoom/trunk/shtoom, while folks with developer access should use svn+ssh://divmod.org/svn/Shtoom/trunk/shtoom. [Marc's Voice] 
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Context Broker. Context Broker Architecture.
CoBrA is an agent based architecture for supporting context-aware
systems in smart spaces (e.g., intelligent meeting rooms, smart homes,
and... [Raw]
| [about.CoBrA] |
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Context Broker Architecture (CoBrA)
is an agent based architecture for supporting context-aware systems in
smart spaces (e.g., intelligent meeting rooms, smart homes, and smart
vehicles). Central to this architecture is an intelligent agent called context broker
that maintains a shared model of context on the behalf of a community
of agents, services, and devices in the space and provides privacy
protections for the users in the space by enforcing the policy rules
that they define.
Key differences between CoBrA and other similar architectures are the following:
- CoBrA uses the Web Ontology Language OWL,
a W3C Semantic Web standard, to define ontologies of context (people,
agents, devices, events, time, space, etc.). In other systems, context
is often implemented as programming language objects (e.g., Java
classes), lacking the expressive power to support context reasoning and
high-level knowledge sharing.
- CoBrA provides a resource-rich context
broker to maintain a shared model of context for all computing entities
in an associated space. In other systems, individual entities are
usually required to manage their own contextual knowledge.
- CoBrA allows the users to define privacy
policy to control the sharing and the use of their situational
information (e.g., where they are, who they are with, what they are
doing). In other systems, the computing entities are usually free to
share any acquired situational information of a user.
Figure 1 shows an overview architecture diagram of CoBrA. For more information, please see the documents listed in the paper section. |
Thanks Danny! [Marc's Voice]
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New short from Susannah Breslin. Former BoingBoing guestblogger Susannah "Invisible Cowgirl" Breslin celebrates a birthday today. She also a new short story out in Ducky Magazine. Dig the phat cover art. Excerpt:
One morning, she woke up and discovered that her head was gone. She had
reached up to pat her hair, or rub the sleep from her eyes, or scratch
her ear, and she had realized that her head was nowhere to be found.
Where, she wondered, had it gone? She had no idea at all. She could not
recall, in fact, very well what had happened the previous evening. She
had been at a bar, and she had gotten drunk, and then she had come back
home. From what she could remember, her head had still been sitting
squarely on her shoulders when she had climbed into bed. Perhaps, she
considered, her head had run off at some point during the night while
she lay sleeping.
Link to "The Woman Who Lost Her Head". [Boing Boing]
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Technorati Toolbar. I'm
developing the Technorati Toolbar for Internet Explorer. It enables you
to look up references from blogs that point to the web page you're
reading, and lots of other cool stuff. I'm developing an open-ended
plug-in system: Technorati Toolbar Plug-ins will extend the Technorati
Toolbar to support popular blogging tools, render interactive
interfaces to dynamic web services, and integrate other tools and
services into high level, practical, task oriented user interfaces.
[Don Hopkins' RadiOMatic BlogUTron]
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Good time waster: simple sliding tile puzzle.  My
dad sent me the url to this java-based slider tile puzzle, and it has
killed half my work day so far. He solved it in 48 moves. I guess 44 is
the minimum. I can't solve it! If everyone who reads Boing Boing spends
ten minutes on it, it will result in 312.5 man-days of wasted time! (It
didn't work in Safari for me; I had to use IE) Link
[Boing Boing]
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The $14 SteadyCam.  Brian
sez: "For less than 5% of the price of a real Steadicam (the ones made
for small video cameras go for about $900), you can apparently build
your own "Steady-Cam" for $14 with parts from a hardware store. The
sample video makes it look pretty good. Great gift for the amateur
videographer in your life who refuses to use a tripod, the bastard.
(Oh, and stabilized images compress much better for the Web, too.)" Link
[Boing Boing]
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Distributed audiobook for Down and Out. Jill Smith has begun a distributed audiobook project for my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, whose new, liberal Creative Commons license allows for exactly this kind of mishegas (see the distributed audiobook project
for Lessig's Free Culture for an example of how well this can work).
She's recorded a reading of the prologue and posted it to the Internet
Archive's public submission area, where open-licensed material is hosted for free.
I'm immensely gratified by this -- audiobooks are my favorite
nontextual medium for storytelling and I can't fall asleep at night
without one. I would love for others to take Jill's lead and finish it
out.
Link
(Thanks Jill!) [Boing Boing]
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WND.
An Arab language jihadi Web site posted a very rough six point plan for
causing economic destruction in the US. The points are:
- attacks on the assets of large American companies all over the world;
- attacks on U.S. oil refineries;
- attacks on civilian airports with the goal of financially devastating U.S. airlines;
- deliberate pollution of food system;
- setting of fires in the forests – "especially those that
provide the American market with the raw materials for the wood and
paper and byproducts industries";
- attacks like those on the railway transportation lines in Spain.
[John Robb's Weblog]
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Try your hand at balancing the federal budget. US Federal Budget sim created at Berkeley. This
simulation asks you to adjust spending and tax expenditures in the the
2004 budget proposed by the White House in order to achieve either a
balanced budget or any other target deficit...According to the White
House, the 2004 fiscal deficit is projected to be $307 billion. This
does not include the costs of the Iraq War, so it has been increased by
a base estimate of $50 billion for those costs in this simulation
(which can be increased, lowered or eliminated depending on peoples
views of the costs or likelihood of the war.).
Link [Boing Boing]
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Thursday, April 08, 2004 |
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Wednesday, April 07, 2004 |
AbiWord goes Mac native.
AbiWord is a cross-platform, open-source word-processor that reads and
writes Word, OpenOffice, Word Perfect, RTF, Palm and HTML documents.
The project has just shipped an OSX-native version that runs without
X-Windows, meaning that all you need to do to run it is double-click
and launch.
Link
(via Forwarding Address: OS X) [Boing Boing]
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Classic Gamer Magazine. 
Classic Gamer Magazine is a downloadable PDF zine (6MB compressed)
devoted to news and reviews of obsolete arcade games. I love the
graphics, especially the repros of vintage video-game ads.
Link
(Thanks, Cav!)
[Boing Boing]
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Channel9 conversation continues.... Channel9 gets Slashdotted. Oh, the comments are great!
Here's some other reactions from around the Web:
Kent wants a single page of all the RSS feeds. I'll do that tomorrow.
Evelyn Rodriguez: Maybe It's Time to Re-Think What Marketing is
DonXML: The human beings behind XML at Microsoft.
"My only regret from last night was that we didn't have someone there
walking around the dinner with a video camera, recording what I saw, a
bunch of human beings in open and candid discussions."
My reply: Don, I recorded a ton of them, but the audio is useless. I'll try tomorrow in some of the product team meetings.
Jerry Pisk takes us to task for our HTML (over in a comment over on Jason Mauss' critique of Channel9): http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fchannel9.msdn.com
- They can't even get the Transitional HTML right. It's just so typical
of Microsoft - we're going to listen to you, as long as you say and do
what we want you to. In this case only use IE and waste your time
watching videos... But we're going to keep telling you it's not
marketing so you have to believe it's not.
Yes, we know we have crappy HTML. Watch the site over the next few weeks. That, itself, will turn into a Channel9 topic.
Jeff Putz: "...the content strategy is kind of poor..."
My reply: AMATEUR HOUR IS THE WHOLE IDEA! In fact, here's the point.
We're using cheapo digital video cameras. You can buy this stuff at
Best Buy. No lighting. A $30 microphone. Stuff you can do at home.
Listen, we want candid looks inside Microsoft. NONE of the
interviews I posted were checked out by PR. No lawyers. No execs. It's
just me and Charles roving the campus for interesting people doing
interesting things telling interesting stories. We interview them over
lunch. In the cafeteria. In their offices. Hopefully soon out on the
lawn. Maybe at the Pro Club while we work out.
Now, we have a multi-million-dollar studio. Why not there?
A couple of reasons. 1) Scheduling becomes a nightmare. Asking for
one hour of Bill Hill's time is one thing. Asking for four hours so he
can come into studios is a whole nother thing. 2) When people go into
the studios and have lights and makeup and stuff, they become un-human.
They start talking differently. In fact, even in front of my little
tiny digital camera they behave differently. Eric Lippert, today, on
his blog, talks about "fidgeting" on camera. I want them to feel as
comfortable as possible. We're just having a conversation.
Why not just text? someone asked me on IM. I'm well-versed in why
video sucks for online communication (I do write a lot, if you haven't
noticed). Watch Bill Hill's video again and tell me that the
conversation would be just as interesting in text as it is in video.
Even with the amateurish video quality. The poor lighting. The crappy
camera work.
Plus, we wanted to play around and learn how people might want to
use video in the future. This stuff is remarkably easy to do now with a
digital camera, a firewire connection, and Microsoft Windows (using
Movie Maker to edit the videos).
I can't wait for the day when you all can post your own videos to
your blogs. Yeah, the text purists will yell and scream, but let's play
around together. There's more to life than just ASCII text you know.
Imagine doing a blog just for your family with home videos. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
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Core versus Context - Core creates value that competitors can't replicate. From :: Under the Buzz - "April 2004 - Vol 5, Number 1 - The Unattainable Real-Time Enterprise (by Geoffrey Moore) (PDF):
QUOTE My analysis in a nutshell
is that core activities are those that increase the sustainable
competitive advantage of a company. Core activities create value for
customers in a way that is hard forcompetitors to replicate, and by
doing so increase the market power of the company. Investors notice
this, and reward the company with a higher stock price.
Of course in today's market, core doesn't stay core for very long as
competitors copy successful companies. At one point a web site to
distribute marketing information was a core activity. Now it is a
context activity, something that is required by the market that does
not differentiate. Political factors also drive context to encroach on
core. Everyone wants to feel important, meaning to feel like core, even
though their activities might more reasonably be considered context. In
most organizations, context activities compete for resources with core,
and when they win, the company loses.
My recommendation is that companies never lose site of the
distinction between core and context as they do business. Invest as
much as possible in core activities. Seek to reduce costs and outsource
context activities. If you have to cut spending in downturn, don't do
it across the board, cutting core and context by equal measures.
Instead, seek to actually increase your investment in core while making
even more drastic cuts in context to achieve the total cost-reduction
goal. UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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Google is a single, very large custom computer. Fascinating!
From Topix.net Weblog: The Secret Source of Google's Power:
QUOTE Competitive Advantage
Google is a company that has built a single very large, custom
computer. It's running their own cluster operating system. They make
their big computer even bigger and faster each month, while lowering
the cost of CPU cycles. It's looking more like a general purpose
platform than a cluster optimized for a single application.
While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google
has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing
platform for web-scale programming.
This computer is running the world's top search engine, a social
networking service, a shopping price comparison engine, a new email
service, and a local search/yellow pages engine. What will they do next
with the world's biggest computer and most advanced operating system? UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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Game operations in New York. ...Spent some time today updating my links page,
where I try to keep track of anyone doing anything remotely
game-related in New York. Doing this is usually depressing, but I
found, somewhat to my surprise, that I was adding more promising new
companies than deleting lame dead ones... Maybe things are actuallly
looking up.
Speaking of which, I'm hosting a meeting of the
"Gamoids," the NYC IGDA chapter in a few weeks... If you have a
professional interest in the field, and are in the area, let me know. [Games * Design * Art * Culture]
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Why is LSD use down.  LSD
use is way down in recent years, according to arrest records, hospital
records, and surveys with high schoolers. Slate looked into it, and
came up with two reasons why. First and foremost, the DEA busted a
couple of guys in rural Kansas back in 2000, who supplied 95 percent of
the country's acid. The other reason is the breakup of the Grateful
Dead.
"The LSD market took an earlier blow in 1995, when
Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia died and the band stopped touring.
For 30 years, Dead tours were essential in keeping many LSD users and
dealers connected, a correlation confirmed by the DEA in a divisional
field assessment from the mid-'90s. The spring following Garcia's death
(the season the MTF surveys are administered), annual LSD use among
12th-graders peaked at 8.8 percent and began their slide. Phish picked
up part of the Dead's fan base—and presumably vestiges of the LSD
delivery system. At the end of 2000, Phish stopped touring as well, and
perhaps not coincidentally, the MTF numbers for LSD began to plummet."
Link [Boing Boing]
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Spymac beats Google to the 1G free email punch.
A small Mac-related web hosting site offers a free gig's worth of
email. The company promises no adwords or other forms of promotion
linked to email contents. Instead, they're using the free service to
promote Web hosting and auction services. Link to announcement on Spymac site, Link to related News.com story. (via Batelle, thanks also Jean-Luc) [Boing Boing]
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Customer demand for a ubiquitous InfoPath runtime.
The last time I asked Microsoft why there's no plan to make the
InfoPath runtime ubiquitous, the answer I got was: "We don't hear
customers asking for it." Well, I do. Here's a typical rant from one
customer who, because his company has a relationship with Microsoft
that he doesn't want to jeopardize, asked me to anonymize his comments:
I believe a primary requirement of a forms application is to make it
possible for the form to be completed by a wide audience of people from
whom I wish to gather data. A key driver, at least in the world of my
customers, is to be able to distribute the form widely to people who
aren't necessarily connected to the network and get them to fill it in
and return it. I don't want to authenticate these people in my network.
They won't install software on their computers just to fill out my form.
They don't want to learn a new application.
It seems InfoPath has completely ignored the question of how the form
will actually be filled in by the responder. There is no free viewer as
there is with Adobe Acrobat. There is no ability to save the form
template as an ASP.NET web form. It appears that Microsoft expects
everyone to purchase a full copy of InfoPath--the complete form design
application--just so they can fill out a form. They can't possibly
believe the product will gain any traction with this licensing and
deployment model, can they? [1] What are they thinking? [2]
So my main question is, is there any way to deploy InfoPath forms
without putting full InfoPath on every desktop? [3] Do you know whether
Microsoft understands this issue and are planning anything to address
it? [4] The two applications that are widely available on everyone's
desktop are a web browser and Adobe Acrobat, and it seems like it would
be a good idea for InfoPath to support forms deployment via one of those
means. Am I missing something here? [5]
... [Jon's Radio]
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Collaborative editing. I've posted about this before.
I sure wish ZeroConf (Rendevouz) was readily available on the PC. I know, I know it is - but nobody is using it!
Collaborative Coding / Text Editing.
I've seen two really neat collaborative text editors - where two
people can work on the same document or piece of code simultaneously. 
- Mac - SubEthaEdit is very polished and works via Rendevous.
- Windows - A bit more complex: an open source editor jEdit that takes a plug in called DocSynch and uses the IRC as the network protocol.
Nothing for Visual Studio yet... [nick gaydos > thynk] [Marc's Voice]
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Oh man! That's all I can say. Quindi rocks!. Another tool to roll into the "Digial Life Aggregator".
The Anchordesk column this morning covered meeting minders and organizers. I've used Microsoft's Onenote a bit, but the review of Quindi looked pretty interesting.
I'll admit that I think Tablets may go somewhere, but Quindi doesn't
focus on handwriting. They've allowed their software to record video,
sound, powerpoint images, as well as the standard notes, agenda items
and tasks that meetings normally entail.
The interesting bits
are that each of these items can be played back double time. I've got
to imagine that this allows you to sift through the meeting timeline
pretty efficiently.
Neat ideas in concept... now I'll just need to try Quindi out!
[nick gaydos > thynk]
What is an indexed meeting?
The key to making captured meetings
usable is indexing: the time-stamped markers that let viewers locate
the important stuff quickly. Viewers can navigate through a meeting by
slide, keyword, note, or screenshot. Additionally, we provide the
ability to speed up playback – up to 2x the normal speed – without
distortion.
Key Features
Capture rich meeting content: voice, video, notes & data
Review rapidly via indexing and accelerated playback
Share with others by email
View using free Quindi viewer
Uses standard PC/laptop and off-the-shelf peripherals
[Marc's Voice]
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Channel9 Launches. So, I turn on my computer this morning, go over to Technorati. Enter: http://channel9.msdn.com into the search box there. And, wow, people discovered that we turned on Channel9 overnight. They love it. They hate it. And all sorts of opinions in between.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
There's a Wiki in there. There's a weblog in there. There's a
streaming video in there. There's a social computing paradigm in there.
Oh, and there's RSS 2.0 streams on EVERYTHING. Steve Gillmor, did you
wanna know whether Microsoft gets RSS? Check it out! Subscribe to it.
We'll be pushing down more videos soon (Translation: within a day or
two, and we'll try to stay on pace to push down new stuff every day or
two after that -- if you haven't yet tried an RSS news aggregator, this
is your chance).
Ahh, I see Mary Jo Foley has written about it: Microsoft turns on Channel9.
I'm off to go to the MVP Global Summit. Eric Rudder will show this to everyone. I'll be online this afternoon. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
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Robert Crumb family pictures.  Robert
Crumb's son Jesse runs a site that sells Crumb art. There's also a
gallery of family photos. (Robert shown on left with a Devil Girl wall
plaque). Lots of good stuff on the site, including art from Max,
Charles, Sophie, and Jesse Crumb. Link (via The Cartoonist)
[Boing Boing]
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TiVo, Amazon, and the library.
I'm not sure I'll ever write another book, because I have more fun
writing here every day, but I love reading books and seeing authors
speak about their books. Tonight I used TiVo to skim through a dozen
accumulated hours of CSPAN's Booknotes and BookTV. Then I watched the
two talks that grabbed me: Shashi Tharoor on Nehru: The Invention of India and Irshad Manji on The Trouble with Islam. At the same time, using LibraryLookup, I found that Tharoor's book is available at the library and Manji's is on order.
... [Jon's Radio]
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Popular Mechanics has an interesting article on the RPG-7:
But by the time the first statue of Hussein was pulled off its
pedestal, a massive stockpile of rocket-propelled grenade launchers and
shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles had fallen into the hands of
Islamic insurgents (...Hussein's looted arsenal was also brimming with
SA-7 Grail anti-aircraft missiles. ....In Iraq, as many as 5000 Grails
are believed to have fallen into the hands of insurgents.). In
the months that followed, half the Americans who died in Iraq were
killed by one type of these weapons, the RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade.
Mordica and other weapons analysts tell PM that at least 1
million RPG-7s have been manufactured by Bazalt or are under license.
What is known is that since the fall of the Soviet Union, the flow of
RPG-7s from military warehouses to the black market has grown from a
trickle to a flood. RPG-7s are now so plentiful, they can be bought for
less than the price of a decent laptop computer.
The mujahedeen (in Afghanistan) found the weapon even more
valuable, adopting tactics that included forming armor-vehicle
hunter-killer teams. "Fifty to 80 percent of the personnel were armed
with RPG-7s. This could be up to 15 RPGs," says Grau.
Part of the reason for the continuing success of the RPG-7 is
Bazalt's eagerness to introduce new types of ammunition for its
venerable weapon.
A new defense is in the pipeline:
At present, the most
promising plan for defending troops against insurgents' rocket and
missile attacks is called FCLAS. The abbreviated acronym stands for
"full spectrum active protection close-in layered shield," which in
itself is an explanation of how it works. FCLAS is an antimissile
missile in a tube. Strategically placed around a vehicle, boat,
building or helicopter, these missiles create a sort of invisible
shield that detects and then demolishes incoming threats. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Skype CE.
A stripped down version of Skype for Windows CE handhelds (needs a PDA
with a wireless connection) is now available according to their news blog. FAQ. Download.
It also supports conference calls (not available for the CE version)
for up to 5 callers and call holding for up to 16 calls. It's free,
secure (encrypted), high-fidelity, and P2P. Finally a reason to own a
CE wireless handheld. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Laszlo is independent of Flash and can do more than Flash since it is based on XML. Awesome new blog from Laszlo's CTO (via Ted Leung)! I want more rich internet applications built using Laszlo!
From Laszlo is XML technology, not Flash technology:
QUOTE Again, Laszlo is about
XML, not about Flash. But wait, you say, Laszlo applications run in the
Flash player. So how can that be true? And why is that meaningful or
relevant?
First, Laszlo's platform and APIs are abstracted from the client
APIs. In contrast, Macromedia's MXML includes ActionScript and relies
on UI components built in Flash MX -- it's tightly bound to the Flash
player and authoring tool. Or consider Microsoft's upcoming XAML, which
is tightly bound to Microsoft's Avalon/WinFX client framework.
Laszlo's XML language and framework is self-contained (no need to
use ActionScript APIs, Flash MX, C#, "code behind," or any other
external language) and designed expressly for development of rich
interactivity. Even Laszlo's own UI components are defined in LZX;
there's no notion of "intrinsic" widgets or an escape hatch such as
embedded Flash-authored components. For Laszlo, the SWF format is
simply a compiler output format. An analogy is C++ -- a developer
writes in C++ and the compiler targets a given CPU, whether it's Intel,
PowerPC, or SPARC. Here, a developer writes in LZX, and the compiler
outputs SWF bytecode.
(As an aside: Flash developers sometimes assume that Laszlo, since
it targets Flash 5, cannot offer capabilities beyond the Flash 5
authoring tool. This is not the case; as an obvious example, Laszlo's
language offers capabilities well in advance of Flash 5 -- e.g, a
formal class/object model. But that's a topic for another day.)
Over time, Laszlo wants to make LZX a universal,
runtime-independent, rich Internet language. Imagine writing a single
Laszlo application and using Laszlo Presentation Server to deliver this
application into Macromedia (Flash), Microsoft (Longhorn/Avalon), and
Java/J2ME runtimes. This is the architecture we've built for from day
one, and we have designed the system so that compatibility will be
preserved as the Laszlo compiler targets other runtime environments.
Take a close look at LZX and you'll see that with its view
hierarchy, constraints, XPath-based data binding system, and animators,
it delivers unprecedented expressive capability for rich, data-driven
UIs. With a clean language designed from the ground up for the purpose
of delivering RIAs with highly customized behaviors, this is possible. UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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I'm in Kunal's World now, (Now I know why we called them K-Logs). You
know, Kunal's OutlookMT feature is, for me, a killer feature. One of
those that'll change -- dramatically -- my life forever.
The Outlook team and Sharepoint team should hire Kunal to implement this feature ASAP. It is THAT IMPORTANT.
What does it do?
It adds a new folder to Outlook. OK, let's say Bill Gates emailed me
right now. Let's say I wanted to post that email out to the world? In
the old world I'd need to open up Radio UserLand, copy the email, clean
up the HTML, then click post.
New "Kunal's" world? Copy the email over to the folder. It's posted. Done. No more work.
Do you have any idea how this is going to change knowledge management? You just watch!
Now, keep in mind, this isn't commercial quality. Lots of work to
do. But he's responsive. I bet that by the end of the week he has it
working well enough for almost everyone. The quality difference between
yesterday and today is huge. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
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Sunday, April 04, 2004 |
CNN. Terror
plot to bomb transportation systems in major US cities. This, in
addition to the multiple attacks in Spain and the disrupted plot in the
UK, points to a growing trend in terrorist operations: attacks on
infrastructure. The start of the shift began with 9/11 and will soon
come to dominate terrorist operations. Unfortunately, the unintentional
consequences of scaling terror operations will lead them to the right
operational strategy. Much more on this in Global Guerrillas over the next couple of months, and a complete examination of this new mode of operations in my upcoming book. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Debka has posted
an interesting terrorist strategy document (take this with a grain of
salt). This is particularly interesting since it signals an increasing
level of sophistication in attack planning:
Hafiza calculated the cost of maintaining US forces in Iraq and
the dollar losses al Qaeda is capable of inflicting on the Americans
through terror attacks. Two, before recommending the attack in Madrid,
he analyzed the results of all Spain’s elections since 1982, one by one
and drew lessons. He noted that the 9/11 attacks in America gave Spain
its first chance ever to distance itself from the dominant European
axis of France and Germany and align with the United States. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Craigslist Zen: Army and Arabic-speaker "role-play". BoingBoing buddy Choire "Gawker" Sicha redirects our collective cursors to this utterly bizarre entry on Craigslist.
Arabic speakers needed to roleplay for the Army - $4000 in 25 days
Date: 2004-03-31, 8:28AM CST
Arabic speakers only. Participate in a 25 day rotation to help train
soldiers in an Army base in Louisiana. You will role play such roles as
mayor, mailman, shopkeeper, farmer, etc. You will be instructed on what
role to play once you arrive at the base. All meals, housing and
transportation will be provided. All Arabic speakers are welcome to
apply, men and women of any age and from any part of the country.
Link.
While we're on the subject -- of Choire, and of the bizarre -- check
out this gutbustingly hilarious scientific study penned by Mr. Sicha
for The Morning News: "An actually accurate mathematical equation [that helps] you decide in which restaurants it's appropriate to breastfeed." Link
Update: BoingBoing reader Blake West says:
"This posting really isn't that weird. The Joint Readiness Training Center
at Ft. Polk, used mostly by the US army, has been running training
scenarios for years with simulated civilians. There are little villages
set up in the training area, and military personnel are tasked to play
civilians. REAL civilians are also hired to participate in the training
because they possess special skills (like speaking Arabic). Here's a power point about being a "Civilian on the Battlefield" or COB. Ft. Polk has really crappy weather. It's basically a big swamp." [Boing Boing]
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World's evilest pop-star. Bruce Sterling calls Svetlana "Ceca" Raznjatovic -- the widow of noted Balkan
war criminal "Arkan", the current girlfriend of assassin and military deserter "Legija,"
and the former girlfriend of murdered gangster "Shaban" -- the "most evil pop star in the world." Here's her fansite.
Link
(via Beyond the Beyond) [Boing Boing]
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Tron cosplay. 
This guy made himself an incredibly faithful reproduction of the
costumes from Tron, including the glowing piping around the seams.
Link
(Thanks, Julian!)
[Boing Boing]
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Photoblog of Tibetan monks creating a sand mandala. Boingboing reader Jayvant says:
In my photoblog, I document the construction of a traditional Tibetan
Sand Mandala built by two visiting Tibetan Buddhist Monks in my
university. This truly fascinating and intricate piece of artwork is
built slowly using just a few grains of sand at a time. Once the
Mandala is completed it is deconstructed and deposited into a body of
water, to symbolize the Buddhist belief of nonattachment.
Link [Boing Boing]
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Happy 25th Birthday, Space Invaders. 
Space Invaders is 25 years old. Riding a wave of '80s old-school geek
chick, the cult Japanese game is experiencing a renaissance. On April
25th, Space Invaders for PS2 launches around the world -- and mobile
versions are said to be in the works.
Paris-based online/realspace boutique colette (I heart this store) will
sell the remake. They'll also be selling tons of other cool Space
Invaders schwag like t-shirts, key holders, books, and more. Tuesday
29th April is evidently Space Invader Day with intergalactic gaming
competitions planned in Japan, Paris, and elsewhere.
Link to colette store online (horrible Flash interface -- I love what they sell, but I hatehatehate the website UI), Link to Times UK story, Link to press relelase about Space Invaders remake coming to mobile phones with BREW platform, and Link
to Space Invaders 25th anniversary home (also built with Flash, but IMO
a rockin' good UI). And finally, I urge you to visit the website for
Taito, the Japanese company that created Space Invaders -- if only to
read the clumsily translated English copy on this page that invites
you, over and over, to "crick here for detail." Sweartagod. Link [Boing Boing]
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Everyone In Silico, licensed for remixing. My friend Jim Munroe is a brilliant sf writer, author of Angry Young Spaceman (which I reviewed for Wired), Everyone in Silico, and Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gas Mask.
Silico is a particularily interesting novel about the corporatization
of public spaces (Jim used to be a managing editor at AdBusters), and
among Jim's publicity stunts for the book was a letter-writing campaign to corporations mentioned in the book, shaking them down for money for "product placement."
Jim has decided to release Silico online under the same Creative Commons license that I chose for the re-release of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom,
a license that allows the production of non-commercial derivative
works, such as fan-films, sequels, translations, and audio adaptations.
He credits me with inspiring this, which is immensely gratifying --
Jim's a talented writer and this is a wonderful book.
Link [Boing Boing]
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WinForms is dead misconceptions are misplaced. I
just had a call from one of our best customer evangelists telling me
Microsoft is screwing up with its Longhorn evangelism message.
I think he's right. So, let's take it on head on.
What's the screw up?
That we made it clear that in Longhorn we were changing forms strategy.
First, for those who aren't developers, what I'm talking about is
the technology used to display user interface elements. You know, the
words, buttons, text-entry areas, drop-down list boxes, and other
elements that make up a Windows application.
In current versions of .NET, that technology is called "Windows
Forms" or "WinForms" for short. In Longhorn we're introducing a new
forms technology, code-named Avalon.
Now, if you saw the PDC, or followed my writings here, you'd come to the conculsion "WinForms is dead," right?
The customer who called me this morning (I don't know if he wanted
to be named, so I'll let him leave a comment if he does) said this
really is hurting Microsoft and his business (he does consulting and
training to a bunch of large companies). Why? Because companies who
hear this message say "hey, I'm not gonna move to .NET, I'm gonna keep
my existing apps on VB6 or MFC, cause WinForms is dead and why would I
write an app using WinForms today when I should just wait for Longhorn
and Avalon to get here?"
Well, that means that the Longhorn evangelism message is getting
through, right? Well, yes. We did a pretty good job of hyping up the
future. And it is a bright future. Avalon really is going to let you
build new kinds of apps that are simply not possible today.
But, let me take my Longhorn evangelism hat off and put my "real world" hat on.
First, Avalon is a Longhorn-only technology. There are no plans to
convert it to Windows XP, or 98 or ME or 2000. Now, think about that
for a minute. If you are writing apps for an enterprise, say Procter
and Gamble, how soon will you have 100% Longhorn coverage? Here's my
guess: 2012 to 2014. So, until you have 100% coverage, you won't be
able to use Longhorn-only technologies in your apps, right? At least
not ones that need reach.
Second, WinForms-based apps work just fine in Longhorn. In fact, you can encapsulate WinForms UIs inside Avalon-based ones.
So, why does this all matter? For a few reasons.
One, .NET today (and especially as we get closer to the release of
Visual Studio 2005, code-named Whidbey) is more productive to develop
apps in, and easier to integrate, than older technologies like MFC, and
VB6. In Longhorn having your code in .NET will really help you out
(since much of Avalon itself is being written in .NET, you'll see that
Microsoft has been converting rafts of programmers over to .NET). Plus,
most .NET programmers have found that they are more productive in .NET
than they ever were in MFC, and VB6-based programmers will find their
skills will be more in demand if they move to .NET.
Two, Microsoft is pouring huge investments into .NET. I'm hearing of
.NET being used in projects across the company, from SQL Server to
Alerts. That means if you invest your developers' time in .NET, that
work will be leveraged in the future. For instance, I just talked with
the SQL Server's Euan Garden on Friday. He talked with me about how the
SQL Server team's work with the CLR has made .NET faster, more secure,
and easier to integrate. You'll see those innovations in Whidbey and
Longhorn (and SQL Server itself, the next version of which has .NET
built into it). So, the .NET code you write today will just get better
in the future as the platform underneath evolves.
Three, the eco-system is moving to .NET. Look at bookshelves. Look
at conferences like VSLive. Look at training. Look at the coolest new
apps (OnFolio, and NewsGator were done in .NET, for instance). Look at
the bleeding-edge shops. The Pistachio factory, for instance. .NET.
Reuters. .NET. And I could go on all day about this. The world is
moving to .NET and that trend is only going to accelerate over the next
few years.
How do you best move your Enterprise team into a position where they
can take advantage of Longhorn later this decade? Get into .NET today.
The skills you learn will move smoothly into Longhorn when it gets here.
Do you agree? If you were Microsoft, what would you do differently? [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
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New York Times on Silicon Valley's relationship with Microsoft. New York Times' John Markoff: Silicon Valley is Seeking Peace.
Some interesting quotes. Folks still holding onto the perceptions
that Microsoft doesn't innovate. Microsoft is changing in a big way
there. Don't assume the past is gonna be like the future. We're
spending billions in R&D and that translates into better products,
services, and experiences. And, look at where many things came from at
Microsoft: they were purchased -- from Silicon Valley. Hotmail.
PowerPoint. Flight Simulator. WebTV. Placeware. On and on. When I lived
in Silicon Valley I knew quite a few entrepreneurs who got rich from
selling to Microsoft (these were often the same folks who'd then turn
around and bash Microsoft in the press, which I often thought was funny
behavior). So there's some goodness there as well that these articles
often overlook.
I saw Dan'l Lewin getting credit in the article for working on
Silicon Valley relationships (I'm glad he's on our team, he's been
working very hard to build relationships with companies small and large
and is a remarkable person, if you ever get a chance to meet him ask
him for some stories about his days as an executive at NeXT).
Oh, I much rather would compete in the marketplace than in
courtrooms, or in executive or weblog rhetoric. The customer definitely
is in power here. Let the best products win! [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
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Nice sum up on Lance's weblog
about the outsourcing trade shock and what we need to do about it.
Unfortunately, it looks like we are creating a budget deficit of such a
magnitude that it will prevent these needed reforms. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Friday, April 02, 2004 |
Next big step in contextual advertising: ad-based decision support. Google-mail
may be innovative if: it looks like Zoe. It may have a great business
model if: the contextual advertising is smart too. Smart? Yes. I think
the next big innovation in contextual advertising, now that we have
this level of volume, is:
Ad-based decision support tools. Simple, clear, branded, and well researched tools to help people to decide which product to buy.
I led a team that built up a business to do this at Gomez
(in 1998) and it grew from $0 to $1.8 m a quarter (in revenue), in less
than 2 years. Of course, at this volume, it could generate several
orders of magnitude more. I have to give Google credit with Froogle.
It is a step along this road. Consumer reviews will probably be the
next step. However, price comparison and consumer reviews are only two
aspects of product evaluation. A suite of smart comparison tools will
need to include these aspects and more (there is also some
counter-intuitive ways to make money from this type of system that
protects objectivity). If I was going to build a new business online
today (a real company and not a publishing venture), I would build one
that builds contextual advertising decision support tools. [John Robb's Weblog]
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More RSS job listings. Responding to this earlier post
about job listings by RSS feed, BoingBoing reader
Javid says, "FlipDog (which is now part of Monster) has RSS job
listings for each state now too." Still no word on whether or not my
former paramour Jim Anchower used XML-syndicated help wanted ads to obtain his most recent gig at the Quad County Dragaway "takin' tickets and sweepin' up."
Link to Flipdog
[Boing Boing]
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How to change your body's timezone.
Great Seattle Times article on some peoples' natural propensity to be
early risers and others' to be night owls, and hwo to change from a
night-person to a day-person. Good, popularist brain-hacking for the Eastern Standard Tribe.
In college, many people find their optimal rhythm and harness it. Larks
join the crew team; owls discover they study best over the midnight
oil. These morning folks may be asleep by the time the kegger is
raring, but they will be vindicated when it's time to enter the real
world. They show up before the boss and look like go-getters. Owls can
either find a night-shift job, one with a flexible schedule or reset
their body clock to join the 9-to-5-ers.
A body-clock mismatch also can be hard on lovebirds. If she wakes
up on New York time but his clock is set on Pacific, she'll view him as
lazy, and he'll grow bored spending evenings alone.
Link [Boing Boing]
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Thoraxic cavity made of cake. This Hallowe'en cake is a replica of a Gray's Anatomy illustration of a complete thoraxic cavity. Swoon.
The plan was for each organ to be made out of a different kind of cake
and to secrete a different color of fluid when it was cut into.
Previous heart cakes have bled fresh, homemade raspberry sauce. This
year I made raspberry, strawberry, kiwi, mango, and blueberry sauces.
Sadly, the organs didn't bleed as well as I had hoped when I cut the
cake, as each organ was relatively small and couldn't hold much sauce.
Also all the moving around after filling the organs made it hard to
keep the sauce contained in the little cavities I hollowed out. The
heart bled pretty well, but the other organ fluids weren't very
dramatic.
Link
(Thanks, Michael!) [Boing Boing]
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Spidering Word files for embarrassing metadata.
A hacker spidered every English microsoft.com site and sucked down all
the Word documents, then used a script to identify interesting erasures
left behind by the revision-tracking feature. Some interesting stuff
fell out of his investigation.
A pointless idea came to my mind that instant: why not run
a gentle web spider against all Microsoft sites in English,
specifically looking for other instances of tracking data not removed
from documents? I coded a bunch of scripts and let them run through the
night, fetching approximately 10,000 unique documents; over 10% was
identified as containing change tracking records. I decided to collect
only those with deleted text still present, yielding a crop of over 5%
of all documents. Quite impressive. Below, you will find a brief (and
rest assured, incomplete) list of the most entertaining samples I've
run into, along with some speculation (and only speculation) as to the
reasons we see them.
Link
(Thanks, Eli the Bearded!) [Boing Boing]
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Battelle on Google's S1 filing. John Battelle breask the news on Google's S1 filing, and digs up some interesting details.The
employee stock option plan, long believed to be the impetus to a public
filing, has been dumped in favor of a private shadow equity plan
modeled after the Economist magazine. "It's the only magazine we read
that hasn't put us on the cover," Page explained. "We kind of hoped
this hat tip might change that." Link [Boing Boing]
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Thursday, April 01, 2004 |
Feds crank up heat on P2P, new House bill promises prison for "pirates". I just filed a story for Wired News
on a new House bill that proposes prison time for file-swappers -- and
on today's Justice Department announcement of a new
intellectual-property task force to analyze how the department
addresses issues like the unauthorized sharing of digital software,
music and movies.
Justice spokesman John Nowacki declined to disclose
further details on the membership of the [Intellectual Property Task
Force], or what specific activities it will pursue.
The task force was created in the wake of criticism by some members of
Congress that the Justice Department has not done enough to crack down
on digital piracy. The announcement took place on the same day that a
House judiciary subcommittee unanimously approved a bill that would
punish file swappers with up to three years in jail for first offenses,
and up to six for repeat offenses.
Sponsored by Reps. Howard Berman (D-California) and Lamar Smith
(R-Texas), the bill targets heavy users of peer-to-peer networks and
those who pirate copies of feature films. The bill outlines a new
piracy deterrence program for the FBI, and calls for the Justice
Department to create an antipiracy "Internet Use Education Program." If
signed into law, Justice would receive $15 million for investigation
and prosecution of copyright-related crimes in 2005.
If signed into law, H.R. 4077 -- the "Piracy Deterrence and
Education Act of 2004" -- would be the first to punish file sharing
with jail time. The bill also takes aim at camcorder copiers who sneak
into film screenings. Anyone who "knowingly uses or attempts to use an
audiovisual recording device in a motion picture theater" to copy a
movie could face up to six years in jail.
Link to Wired News story.
Text version of PDEA should be available through Thomas shortly, here: Link. Update: PDF version (63Kb) of the PDEA is now available here: Link. [Boing Boing]
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Powerbook battery tracker.
A new beta app for tracking your Powerbook's battery health just got
posted to VersionTracker. The release version promises
network-awareness so that you can compare you battery's health to
others'.
iBatt is a new PowerBook battery tool which can diagnose
your battery's health, and generate graphs showing battery utilization
trends. Whereas the system only provides you with current charge level,
iBatt tells you total battery capacity, rate of charge/discharge,
current battery voltage, and battery state. The release version will
have network support to compare your battery's health with other
batteries in your PowerBook model.
Link [Boing Boing]
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Homeless Hacker profile in Wired. Great Wired profile of Adrian Lamo, the Homeless Hacker who got busted for using the NYT's Lexis-Nexus account.
In theory, it's easy to see Lamo as a good guy. Unlike many hackers -
even whitehats - he never uses a pseudonym and makes no effort to hide
his identity. If the company he notifies appears grateful, he will
often offer to help plug the hole he's discovered for free. Poulsen,
for one, believes that Lamo "practices a style of hacking - open,
brash, illegal, but carefully observant of an unwritten code of ethics
- that went out of style a decade ago."
Indeed, Lamo's hacks are uncommonly witty and at times almost
inspiring. Once, after tunneling into Excite@Home's customer service
database, Lamo pulled the email and phone number of a customer whose
complaint had gone unanswered for a year. Lamo called him up, chatted
briefly, then offered to forward him all the company's internal
correspondence pertaining to the original complaint.
Link [Boing Boing]
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Keanu stars in A Scanner Darkly.
Boing Boing pal Dave Gill points us to news that Keanu Reeves will star
in the Hollywoodization of A Scanner Darkly, based on Philip K. Dick's
masterpiece SF novel about drugs and schizophrenia. As Dave says,
"uh-oh." According to Variety, Richard Linklater may direct the film,
employing the same live action-to-animation technique seen in Waking
Life. I suppose it's no surprise that Keanu was chosen for the role.
After all, The Matrix was the ultimate PKD rip-off. Link
[Boing Boing]
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Mephisto
morphed art-pr0n. Our pals at Fleshbot say:
Sure, any hack with a copy of Photoshop and a few hours can turn women
into barnyard animals,
but if you want to see beautiful models transformed into slugs,
chocolate bars, or five-and-a-half foot tall anthropomorphic
cigarettes, you'll have to consult the work of a master. (Anyone
curious to see how Britney looks as a pig, cow, or dog should check
this out as well.)
Mephisto
Gallery (photomanipulations @ doc.furvect.com) [Boing Boing]
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Top 5 Tips for Virus Writers.
Trash It: Creating the perfect virus takes more than just good code --
you need drive, determination, and some good old-fashioned know-how.
Check in with our resident virologist to learn how to earn your place
in Viral Valhalla. [Extremetech]
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As the Worms Turn. Shootout: We put seven of the latest worms to the test to see who gets around the fastest and who wreaks the most havoc. [Extremetech]
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Gentlemen, Start Your Viruses….
Roundup: Whether you're looking for the merely annoying or hunting down
that perfect ISP-killing DoS worm, you've come to the right place.
Today, we examine three state-of-the-art system infectors and try to
determine which is right for your agenda. [Extremetech]
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Macromedia Flex. 
The Flex strategy first began to crystallize two years ago when
Macromedia rolled out the Flash 6 player, Flash MX development tools,
and ColdFusion MX server. The possibilities were exciting, and the
back-end environment was comfortably based on Java and Web services.
But the client-side discipline was alien to the corporate programmer.
One obstacle was the ActionScript 1.0 language, which lacked
the strong typing and formal class model that a Java programmer would
expect. The solution to this problem arrived last fall when Flash MX
2004 introduced Flash Player 7 and support for ActionScript 2.0. Yet
the Flash IDE was still built around the concept of making a movie, not
coding an application. Flex presents a development model that will make
immediate sense to an enterprise developer. [Full story at InfoWorld.com]
The sample Flex app that appears in the story is the RSS reader
that Macromedia's Christophe Coenraets wrote. I guess RSS readers are
now the official benchmark for next-generation markup-driven
development. Here's the same thing done in XAML.
... [Jon's Radio]
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Phone, Fax, Email, IM. With all of the recent talk about Instant Messaging in libraries,
I thought I would point out an obvious, but often overlooked, point.
Librarians need to consider adding their IM names to their personal
business cards and signature files. I'm not even talking about doing
this mainly for patrons, but for each other. After all, younger
librarians may prefer to talk to you this way.
"I'm not alone on this. I communicate solely with a number of people
using not the voice features of my phone, but through texting and IM.
On one occasion I called a friend of mine and the first thing he said
was, 'Uh, what's with the voice communication?' " [walking paper] [The Shifted Librarian]
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Wednesday, March 31, 2004 |
© Copyright 2004 William J. Maya.
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In
July, the US Post Office will issue a Buckminster Fuller stamp
featuring an old Time magazine cover illustration by the late great 
