Ranting and Roaring

When Speaking Truth To Power, the preferred mode is lecture, not dialogue (þ Tim Blair).

Zap2it reports:

The Sci Fi Channel will delve into the backstory of “Battlestar Galactica” with a new series that looks at the years leading up to humanity’s devastation by the Cylons.

The prequel, called “Caprica,” heads a list of development projects the cable network unveiled Wednesday. [...]

“Caprica” will be set more than 50 years prior to the events of “Battlestar Galactica” and focus on the lives of two families—the Adamas (ancestors of future Galactica commander William) and the Graystones. Humankind’s Twelve Colonies are at peace and on the verge of a technological breakthrough: the first Cylon.

I was nervous before the presentations started, but not at all as I was doing it. I’ve never presented in front of a 100+ crowd before! I had to rush through my demo because I had a lot of ground to cover and I’m afraid I didn’t quite get across all my points. That’s OK. As Randy says, I need to do this about 10 times to get the traction I need.

I was very gratified afterwards to have people come up to me and say they were mulling over in their heads what I had been saying. That’s exactly where I wanted people to end up (well, besides writing cheques!) — there’s a lot going on in the BlogMatrix Platform; it’s concept dense.

(Note: Toronto people, can you bring your damned business cards please; there’s something we can learn from the Japanese).

Here’s some reviews (I may update this if more come in):

Back from democamp tdot:

BlogMatrix was next. It’s a really impressive blogging engine that incorporates maps and calendar data into a blog post. The calendar’s scheduling features are really powerful and allow you to add all sorts of different events to your personal time management software. BlogMatrix uses Microformats extensively which is very geeky and very cool.

Thomas Purves:

Attended democamp number 5 last night. Another great event that somehow put itself together last (kudos to camp councelor David and and all those who helped out). Wow, some impressive technology demo’d last night including blogmatrix and DableDB. Even with democamps running every 4 weeks, this town is not running out of technology to show off.

Remarkk (I’ll be in touch):

What grabbed my attention and met the threshold of being remarkable?

Blogmatrix and Dabble DB.

Wow. Really. Pay attention to both of these guys. Blogmatrix is integrating an amazing amount of workflow, microformats and mash-able goodness into a blogging platform. Dabble DB rocked my world and made my head spin from the potential applications and its truly disruptive nature.

DemoCamp 5: Yet Another Hit!:

David Janes demonstrated BlogMatrix, his platform for structured blogging and microformats. He demo clearly showed the power of structured blogging and its ability to tie together disparate sources of information into something a little more cohesive and useful; I hope this sort of thing catches on. He also demonstrated a BlogMatrix site built for Toyota Canada proving that yes, DemoCamp projects do get actually paying customers—customers who pay well, in fact.

I’m quite pleased with these reviews, and I’m very happy to me mentioned in the same breath as Avi Bryant & Andrew Catton‘s incredible-but-unreleased Dabble DB. Here’s a picture of me sucking a lemon upon realization that I’m in the room with people much smarter than myself

(More)

BlogMatrix Platform by David Janes (Chris Nolan):

I admit, when I saw this on the wiki I thought oh great, yet another blogging platform. I didn’t have high hopes for it, but was pleasantly surprised by the stuff David Janes of BlogMatrix shared with us.

He’s taken structured blogging, thrown in microformats and a few mashups, and presented it in a manner that most marketing/pr type people can grasp without too much effort. I could tell he knows his stuff, both on the blogging front and the coding front, and made a well rounded presentation that would appeal to the whole cross section of the democamp audience from marketers to designers to code geeks.

I presented at DemoCamp 5 last night. Here’s some photos of me (and Tim to my left, your right) sitting about before and after my demo:

Kudo’s to David Crow (photo, with wife Kristin and friend Mark) for pulling this off and Greg Wilson (I’ll be in touch) for organizing the facilities.

Enterprise Monitoring With Google Calendar!. My main question is—how much do you trust Google to keep your data for you? There are certainly stories of Google deleting (old, inactive) e-mail accounts.

A better solution may be to use an intermediate, enterprise controlled, data store and then sync that with Google Calendar. And if people start doing that, then this opens up a whole market for Intranet AJAXy tools with potentially real data models.

Exceptionally good news from the Campbell family. Congratulations Mike and Lori!

I’ll be presenting the BlogMatrix Platform at TorDemoCamp5 tonight, if you’re downtown and are bit of a geek.

Joey deVilla notes:

Jane Jacobs died today at the age of 89. Among other things, she was a champion of liveable cities, a citizen of Accordion City and the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Robert Fulfold said of her: “Jacobs came down firmly on the side of spontaneous inventiveness of individuals, as against abstract plans imposed by governments and corporations. She was an unlikely intellectual warrior, a theorist who opposed most theories, a teacher with no teaching job and no university degree, a writer who wrote well but infrequently.” We all owe her a debt of gratitude.

I used to be quite a fan of Jacobs, in more recent years not so much so. Jacobs was the prototypical downtown (Annex) denzien, in reality seeing little value in lives not being lived like her own and providing a gloss of intellectualism to urban hipster disdain of the “bourgeois middle-class” that they’re pretending not to be. Her sneering at the suburbs and suburbians was never put to the test of reality; in fact, it turns out most people who live outside the downtown core actually like that environment and find it quite livable.

Lots of half-price chocolate bunnies after Easter.

Google just sent me an “invite” to their Web 2.0 page creator Google Pages. Here’s my home page.

Raymi: blond guy’s wife somehow is magically able to suppress her knowledge of his gayness for many years without snapping or letting him know she knows. i would’ve been all PEACE HERE‘S THE KIDS YOU LYING HOMO ten seconds into finding out

Damian Penny writes:

Michelle Malkin mentions me, and uses my “Cowardly Central” line, “in her New York Post column today”:http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/62417.htm. Welcome to any Post readers who Googled my name and found this blog for the first time.

At her blog, Malkin has much more about Comedy Central’s staggering hypocrisy and cowardice, including a form e-mail from the network openly admitting its fear of retaliation from Islamic extremists. Too bad the network executives don’t watch their own show.

While I don’t agree with CC’s decision, I’m missing the “hypocrisy” part. A bunch of wackjobs who have been moderately good on keeping good on their promises say they’re going cut your head off with a rusty knife if you show Mohammed; CC says they’re not going to show Mohammed because of this.

Every other media outline, now…

Steve “ESR” Martinovich writes:

The GOP may lose control of the Congress this November so it’s important to run on some important issues. What does the GOP consider important? A marriage amendment, an anti-flag burning amendment and new limits on abortion.

While I can almost understand a renewed push to “protect” marriage and re-open the debate over abortion—though frankly you probably lose as many votes as you gain—is there really a (ahem) burning drive to ban flag burning in America?

What about fixing Social Security? Reducing the debt? Arguing for healthcare savings accounts? Improving national security? Cutting discretionary spending? Incentives for new jobs?

I could keep going on but I trust you see my point. There are a number of really important issues which will determine the future of America’s very economic health but the GOP is more interested in running on issues that no one really wants re-opened at the moment. It’s like mowing the lawn but forgetting to fix an old house.

The marriage amendment, an anti-flag burning amendment and new limits on abortion are the pressing issues in the states these days? The GOP is desperately looking for a time-out. From my seat up here in the frozen north, the only thing that’s likely to save them is the fact that their opponents are f*cking nuts. But that’s not going to last forever.

David Crow scores big for future TorCamp TorDemoCamps.

This morning Mark Kuznicki and I met with Allen Gelberg, Director of the Collaboration Centre at MaRS. Allen has offered to sponsor future DemoCamps. The MaRS sponsorship would be for space and facilities for 10 events throughout the year. Allen and MaRS donated the space for DemoCamp4 and they were impressed by the openness, the energy and the people that attended (see I told you it was about the attendees . This sponsorship would include the facility rental for the MaRS Auditorium which is roughly $2,500/night, that’s a $25,000 donation of in-kind services (Kristin might argue my not working would count as an equivalent or larger donation). There are a few conditions of the donation of space, including:

1. Guarrantee that the space is used by BarCamp/DemoCamp for the purpose outlined (an open space for people to share, learn and get excited about technology and what is going on online)
2. We may be bumped by a paying customer
3. We use preferred MaRS services including catering

BarCamp is inline with the MaRS mission of “accelerating the commercialization of new ideas and new technologies by fostering the coming together of capital, science and business.” Part of the discussion is that not all of the topics at BarCamp are commercialize-able and there is no reason that they should be, BarCamp is a place for people to share, learn and get excited about technology and what is going on online.

I was at MaRS for the iSummit conference and it’s a very nice facility, with great access to transit and nearby socialization nexii (i.e. bars)

I’ll be demoing the BlogMatrix Platform at the next DemoCamp on the 25th of April. This will be significantly different than what you see here even though the underlying software’s the same (well, with four more months of development). We’ll be showing structured blogging/CMS, mapping, calendaring and microformats all rolled together and if you’re lucky we’ll be showing some projects we’re doing for paying clients (along the lines of this in terms of navigation).

It’ll be sad though, IMHO, if MaRS is the only venue used for TorDemoCamp. We’ll have to see if the crowds (150+ at TDC4) keep growing.

Tagged: microformats, Toronto, DemoCamp, TorDemoCamp.

Possibly in response to my post on Jon Udell and Microformats, Upcoming has “added hCard info to all our venues and events on Upcoming.org” (here). Their official notice is here.

The reason you should care about this is that this allows venues and locations to be transparently copied between different event services without having to use proprietary “venue IDs”.

Again, sweet.

Tagged: microformats, hCard, Upcoming.

Google has released Google Calendar.

I got burned several years ago by using an online calendar, the name I forget, that was bought by Palm and then closed down after the crash. So if I’m going to use an online service seriously, I’m looking for a business model, otherwise forget it. Fortunately, Google is Google so there we go; however…

1. Where is my Upcoming.org import?
2. Where are the tags?
3. No Microformats?

… says Tara. Yes. In particular, why can’t I import continuously an RSS feed with iCalendar enclosures or even better an Atom feed with hCalendar embedded objects or even better than that an XHTML page with hCalendar.

Just think about that last scenario — just point at a page that has events and your calendar automatically gets updated as the page changes. No need for a specific Upcoming or Eventful import or hunting down syndication feeds.

100% disclosure — I’m working on a tool that (as part of a lot of other functionality) exports calendar events in hCalendar, so this would make my demos very very sweet.

Tagged: microformats, hCalendar, Google Calendar.

Computers are getting insanely cheap. For example, for $230 (I added 256 Mb RAM) you can get this configuration:

CPU – AMD Sempron 3000+ 64Bit
Motherboard – Socket 754 Motherboard
Memory – 256 512MB DDR400 (Upgradable to 2GB)
Hard Drive – 80GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
Optical Drive – 16X DVD+/-Writer (Double Layer)
Video – Onboard – 3D Graphics, AGP 8X Slot
Sound – Onboard 6.1 Channel Audio, S/PDIF-Out
Network – Onboard 10/100 LAN
Case – ATX Mid Tower w/ 400W PSU
Warranty – 1 Year In-Store Parts and Labour

If I could get a reliable bidirectional high-speed connection to my house for such a reasonable price, I’d consider giving up all the servers I have camped out out the on the Internet.

Kathy writes:

Thanks to Father Shawn for sending this link. He wonders when the South Park “boys are gonna hack on Shoutin Bill” Donohue. I’m guessing next week sometime…

“…frequent ‘South Park’ critic, William Donohue of the anti-defamation group Catholic League, called on Parker and Stone to resign out of principle for being censored.

”‘The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central that’s their decision not to show the image of Muhammad or not it’s Parker and Stone,’ he said. ‘Like little whores, they’ll sit there and grab the bucks. They’ll sit there and they’ll whine and they’ll take their shot at Jesus. That’s their stock in trade.’”

Well, one thing for sure, those South Park boys are equal opportunity offenders. For example, right now at this very instant, I’m watching an episode called Super Best Friends that prominently features Mohammed. Strangely, I don’t remember any Human Rights Commission complaints, firebombings, marches, letters to the editor, op-eds in the Globe and Mail and so forth even though I’ve been given to understand that depicting Mohammed to a Muslim is like being raped or having your eyes gouged out with a used grapefruit spoon. On the other hand, it did air a couple of months before 9/11…

Look what’s got everyone’s knickers in a knot today. Bruce Cheadle (CP):

Publisher Elizabeth Margaris said that Mark Tushingham, whose day job is as an Environment Canada scientist, was ordered not to appear at the National Press Club to give a speech discussing his science fiction story about global warming in the not-too-distant future.

“He got a directive from the department, cautioning him not to come to this meeting today,” said Margaris of DreamCatcher Publishers.

“So I guess we’re being stifled. This is incredible, I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she said [this part was cut from the story for some reason: “drooling slightly while checking her BlackBerry for new orders” — dpj]

1998:

Horror stories first surfaced in May in a prestigious fisheries journal. Three leading scientists complained that when governments administer research, bureaucratic and political interference corrupts the science. In reviewing the collapse of Canada’s East Coast cod stocks – a disaster that threw 40,000 people out of work – they pointed out that for many years the government ignored scientists’ warnings about the perils of overfishing. Preferring to blame stock declines on seals rather than on its own irresponsible policies, the government suppressed and distorted evidence to the contrary and censured scientists who refused to toe the party line.

Just three months after the publication of this damaging article, the discovery of an internal government report confirmed many of the worst allegations. Based on interviews with dozens of researchers, the report stated that scientific information was “gruesomely mangled and corrupted to meet political ends.” It accused management of “fostering an attitude of scientific deception, misinformation, and obfuscation.” It went on to say, “It has become far too convenient for resource managers and others to publicly state that their decisions were based on scientific advice when this is clearly not the case. It appears that science is too much integrated into the politics of the department.”

[...] For those who still needed convincing that something is terribly amiss at DFO, the testimony of witnesses appearing before the House of Commons Fisheries Committee this winter left little doubt. One former DFO scientist described numerous incidents of intimidation and harassment of scientists conducting research that contradicted Ottawa’s official position. Condemning what he called “Stalinist behaviour,” he recounted the government’s forcing a colleague to write a letter disowning his perfectly legitimate research conclusions.

Note that these two items aren’t strictly comparable. So far, once we get past the breathless reporting stage, Tushingham is being asked—no, told—not to represent himself as an Environment Canada employee to promote his book.

Only in Canada would this be a headline:

Abduction victim grateful for rescue

A man from Vancouver who was abducted by armed men more than a week ago has publicly thanked police for his dramatic rescue.

Orin Kerr writes:

The “New York Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/us/13moussaoui.html has a report on the audio tapes of what happened on Flight 93 on September 11 ,2001, played at the Moussaoui trial for the first time in public. It’s hard to do justice to the event or the tapes with just an excerpt, but here is the most chilling of the very chilling parts:

The recording ends with a three-minute crescendo of noise as a passenger apparently just outside the door shouts: “In the cockpit! If we don’t, we’ll die!”

On the other side of the door, two hijackers are heard deliberating before deciding to end the flight to avoid being overcome. “Is that it? I mean, shall we pull it down?” one asks in Arabic and the reply is, “Yes, put it in it and pull it down.” They then both scream repeatedly “Allah is the greatest” in Arabic as the planes goes down at 10:03 a.m. into a field in Shanksville, Pa., at more than 500 miles an hour. Aboard were 33 passengers, 5 flight attendants, 2 pilots and the 4 hijackers.

The story adds, a few sentences later: “Mr. Moussaoui, who was in jail in Minnesota at the time of the attacks, smiled broadly at times during the playing of the recording.”

After he’s executed, his body should be dumped in an unmarked grave filled with pig entrails and the shit and piss and tampons from an enlisted women’s latrine. We’ll see if his last moments are filled with laughs and giggles then.

• sunshine
• rain
• hail
• sudden wind gusts
• sunshine

I guess weather’s having one of those days.

Matt Mower:

I think we already have the answer [for an export format for a blog]: RSS. It’s already a natural format for holding the essential data of a weblog and namespacing is an easy way to store the tool-specific data. A tool that understands another tools metadata (e.g. ENT topics) can import it, a tool that cannot can safely ignore it. Actually why are we even discussing this?

The real question seems to me to be: how best to use RSS for this purpose? Do we have one gigantic RSS feed for a weblog? In my case with about 2100 posts it would be pretty big and unwieldy. Back in 2004 Paolo and I were talking about how to do weblog archives.

I was messing with an approach that combined RSS and OPML to create a weblog archive. For each post/day/month (pick your granularity) create a corresponding RSS feed of weblog entries. These feeds are then referenced from an OPML file that defines the overall structure of the archived weblog. In this way you can quickly narrow down to find an individual post, or suck up the whole thing (useful for tools like Sigmund).

Danny Ayers:

I’m sure RSS+OPML would be doable, but it seems like building on quicksand given the nature of those specs. The RSS part could certainly be productively flipped to Atom. I’m not sure whether there’s anything spec’d up yet for the role of the OPML file – the Collections of the Atom Protocol should be pretty close.

[...] Another alternative would be to use HTML. Done systematically there’s potential for a neat export/archive system. Conventions are already available for the core of this kind of stuff with microformats – hAtom for entry/feed level data, XOXO for broader, site level structure etc.

I can think of three advantages right away of using microformats over RSS+OPML. The clearest being that it would be using proper specs, well-defined and none of that silent data loss nonsense. There’s more flexibility because the representations can be freely mixed, it’s all HTML. You can’t mix RSS and OPML in the same document. The third is the big pragmatic gain that a level of partial understanding comes for free. The stuff is HTML, a browser can make a useful rendering of that out of the box.

I noted in Danny’s comments (slightly rewritten):

hAtom, in my mind, was always the first step [of a blog-post microformat]. The second step was to make a microformat for marking up archive lists that you see on sidebars. This (in my mind) would not require XOXO, though it would work with it if it’s there.

It’s then only a matter of constructing a URI pointing to the uFed archive (probably the blog’s home page + a fragment) and we can walk the blog in a structured, ordered method.

If I progress down this route, I’m considering offering a bounty to Wikize all “examples on the net”, just to save time.

Sorry everyone, but Iraq did go uranium shopping in Niger. By Christopher Hitchens.

FYI: my right hand is f*cked and I have huge deliverables, so minimal debate on my part.

I should stop reading newspapers and just start at the corrections page:

An article on Feb. 9 about the military’s recruitment of Hispanics referred incompletely to the belief of some critics that Hispanics in the Iraq war and blacks in the Vietnam War accounted for a disproportionate number of casualties. Statistics do not support the belief. Hispanics, who are about 14 percent of the population, accounted for about 11 percent of the military deaths in Iraq through Dec. 3, 2005. About 12.5 percent of the military dead in Vietnam were African-Americans, who made up about 13. 5 percent of the general population during the war years. The error was pointed out in an e-mail in February; the correction was delayed for research after a lapse at The Times.

So much for conventional wisdom of black folk being walked into machine guns to take hills by Niedermiers.