Wired printed my letter to the editor on the ridiculousness of calling RSS a “push” technology. July 2004 issue (12.07).

Update: I have come up with what I think is a fair definition of “push” :

A) The content provider initiates the transmission

B) In order to do that, the content provider knows
1) That you want the transmission
2) Something about you - at least your address

RSS satisfies neither of these criteria.

Over the past few evenings, set up WebUserPrefs on birdhouse hosting to allow users to configure their own SpamAssassin sensitivity thresholds as well as whitelists/blacklists. In the process, ended up contributing my bug fixes and new features back to both WebUserPrefs and the Communigate Pro plugin for it.

Birdhouse has deleted 84,982 spams for 40 mail users in the past 7 days alone. Now up to 98-99% spam blockage for users with filters on stun. One of our power users receives 13,000 spams per week to a single user account. The vast majority of them were to made-up names on the domain; rejecting mail to unknown names brought that down to around 1,000. Satisfying progress.

In January 2003, I predicted that major browsers would have RSS readers built into them within six months, which would have put the first release of such a feature at around July 2003. Obviously, that didn’t happen. At WWDC today, Apple unveiled the major features in Tiger (OS X 10.4). Among them is an integrated RSS reader for Safari. That puts my prediction off by a year. Except that Tiger won’t be out until 2005, so make that 18 months. My crystal ball must have been hit by a stray neutrino.

A few readers have written me over the past week speculating about whether HFS+Finder in Tiger would more closely resemble BeOS’ spectacular BFS+Tracker combination, given that Dominic and Pavel have been working at Apple for the past year and a half. The answer is… sort of. Spotlight is going after metadata in a big way, and is making system-wide, instantaneous search on any type of heterogenous data seamless. The “Keywords” feature may or may not be similar to BFS’ Attributes. The key to making Spotlight as fast and flexible as BFS+Tracker will be, for me, whether attributes, er, keywords, are 100% customizable into arbitrary metadata forms, whether the metadata indexing is fast, automatic and efficient, and whether Apple finally releases a complete cousin to Be’s incredibly powerful FileTypes panel.

Also cool in Tiger: The very slick Dashboard (did Apple purchase Konfabulator?), full videoconferencing in iChat, and a powerful-looking scripting front-end called Automator. Oh, I wouldn’t mind a 30-inch aluminum-encrusted display, either.

Update: The Register confirms that Apple didn’t buy Konfabulator - they pulled a Watson on it (thanks Michael). I got a kick out of one of the propaganda posters Apple apparently has out at the WWDC: “Redmond, start your photocopiers.” Which is especially ironic given all the copying that Cupertino is apparently doing.

Digging out the rootballs of four 15-ft. Lilly Pillies in our yard, a nightmare. Big thick roots entangled with those of a 15-ft. Laurel - be sure to cut the right roots. What’s that? A pipe from the defunct sprinkler system, don’t mess with it. Oops, up against the foundation. Soil hard as clay (because it is). Saw blade clogged and dulled with dirt. Two weekends on this now, and still not done. Some home improvement jobs just thankless. Making way for a new and improved, less Euclidean front yard.

What I love about Home Despot is the fact that they’ll take anything on return. Last week bought a Mutt for chopping out rootballs – like a hoe with a thicker, sharp blade that’s straight rather than L-shaped. Of course couldn’t resist using it as a prybar, and promptly broke the handle. Didn’t have the receipt. HD took it back no questions asked. Now I’m part of the problem. The woman in front of me brought back three houseplants she hadn’t watered. They were dead, Jim, dead, but HD took them back no questions asked. Now that’s customer service.

Bizarre and frightening. At georgewbush.com, a new Republican campaign ad features faces and speeches of various Democrats, intercut with a snippet of Adolf Hitler spieling at a rally. I guess this is what Bush meant by “changing the tone in Washington.”

Is this an effective ad? Does anybody even understand what point they’re trying to make here? That both Democrats and Hitler have spoken excitedly at rallies? I’m speechless. Sign the petition at democrats.org to demand bushco to talk about issues.

Arthur C. Clarke proposed the idea in his 1978 book Fountains of Paradise — build a 50km tower on Earth near the equator, put a big mass (like a tamed asteroid) into geosynchronous orbit, and connect the two with a massive cable. The whole assembly stays upright, essentially attached to space itself. Run electromagnetic elevators up and down the cable, and you can lift payloads or people into space for a fraction the cost of rockets or shuttles. Amazingly, NASA is now taking the idea seriously, although the idea is going to take a while to get off the ground (think late 21st century).

Spent much of the day upgrading the J-School’s MT installation to 3.0d, and experimenting with comment moderation + TypeKey. Since my bitter MT3 Sting post a few weeks ago, Six Apart has released an educational pricing model that turned out to be perfect for us. We ended up purchasing a site license that will cover as many blogs as we need (the previous pricing model looked prohibitive for our 17 blogs and 270 users).

My first attempt to get up and running with MT3’s comment control features on birdhouse was a bust, but I know realize that A) I needed deeper changes to comment templates than I had made and B) TypeKey was having indigestion that night, causing authentication to fail. Today’s experiments were smooth as glass, and I was once again impressed at how clean Six Apart’s code and methodologies are. No, we didn’t get the raft of features we were looking forward to, but they’ve done an amazing job on what they did release.

I’m flip-flopping re: questions of true open source (WordPad, etc.) vs. “free enough.” The diveintomark piece makes an excellent case for why hitching your wagon to a commercial entity leaves you vulnerable to tectonic licensing shifts. But yesterday I read Jay Allen’s Collective Deep Breath, which makes the counter-argument just as convincingly — exceptional software is worth paying for. Great developers are hard to find, their efforts deserve reward, and users benefit by supporting them.

The parallel for me of course is to how BeOS users saw the world when both BeOS and Linux looked like universes of equal potential. Those of us who used both systems knew that Linux on the desktop was a miserable joke compared to BeOS. But that was an impossible point to make to the open source advocates. In the end, they were right in one sense — we hitched our horses to a commercial wagon, and eventually all the wheels fell off. But in another sense, we were right — we were using a system that was in many ways better on the desktop than Linux is even today. Be’s commercial backing brought BeOS a level of cohesion and vision the open source community just hasn’t been able to muster (and of course the excellence of Mac OS X on the desktop compared to Linux reinforces this point).

That’s how some of my WordPress experiments felt - Hey, wow, this is cool, and free to boot. But some of the edges were so rough that I was put off (for example, the image upload + thumbnailing + popup window) features were just pathetic compared to Movable Type’s. Part of me wants to rewrite WP’s image upload functions and give my changes to the community. The other part of me is saying, “With what time? Just pay Six Apart their small bounty and get on with your life.”

At this point I’m leaning more toward sticking with MT on birdhouse as well (though I am still interested in WP to eliminate rebuilds, though that question is separate from licensing and philosophical aspects).

In Pittsburgh, a city particularly inhospitable to bicycle commuters, cyclists are marking the spots where other bikers have been hit or killed by cars. Old bicycles are painted white and locked to chain link fences or sign posts, then draped with a placard “Cyclist struck here - ghostbike.org.” The images are, at least to me, chilling.

GBP is a group of concerned bicycle commuters who have seen lives destroyed by the lack of concern by city government and automobile drivers in general. They see Pittsburgh as a city with an uninviting transportation infrastructure, a government reluctant to accommodate their needs, and a set of laws that leans toward the rights of motorists and ignores unprotected bicyclists. … Bicycling remains a viable form of transportation that can reduce roadway congestion, air pollution, noise, parking needs, energy use, and above all, to provide more daily physical exercise for everyone.

Even though Pittsburgh’s Dept. of Public Works has been removing ghost bikes from the sites where they hang, GBP encourages people in other cities to mobilize similar actions.

Absolutely spot-on piece by Cory Doctorow on the interface between technology and copyright. Doctorow delivered this piece to Microsoft. Thesis: DRM systems don’t work, DRM systems are bad for society, DRM systems are bad for business, DRM systems are bad for artists, DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT. From the piano roll to Betamax to e-books to MP3. Sound dry? Old hat? Read it anyway. It’s juicy. A must-read not just for anyone interested in digital rights management, but for anyone living in the modern world who consumes media/information/entertainment. Check the Wiki version for updates and commentary.

What I’ve learned about Google’s AdSense over the past three weeks:

1) AdSense makes sense for topic-specific sites and pages. Multi-themed sites like this one confuse the heck out of it. The topic is always changing, so Google deals with it by categorizing the homepage according to the top post the last time its bots swept by. Which is why you’ve been seeing ads for Ronald Reagan memorial statuettes for the past week (thanks for your ironic emails about this, but I was enjoying the perversity of it all :)

2) Unless people click on the ads, I don’t make jack. And birdhouse readers don’t click on ads (not that I blame you). The bottom line is… well, my agreement says I’m not supposed to talk about that. Let’s just say the birdhouse ads might buy me one used CD a month. Or one lunch. Depending. Kissthisguy is faring roughly 25-50% better than with standard graphical banners served through Burst Media, no complaints there.

3) AdSense lets you filter ads by URL, but not by entire category. I don’t want ads for other hosting companies appearing here, so I started filtering those out. Trouble is, there are a heck of a lot of hosting companies advertising through AdSense, and it was becoming an un-fun game of Whack-a-Mole.

I’ve removed the AdSense block from the homepage, leaving it on the more topic-specific permalinks. We’ll see how that affects my ongoing pursuit of the god-almighty electric plasma peso.

Because he’s sunk billions into programs that are in lock-step with various aspects of the neocon agenda (such as his program encouraging abstinence, wherein participants are required to drink cups of one another’s spit to demonstrate how foul is the exchange of bodily fluids), the U.S. Senate hosted a gleeful coronation ceremony for cult leader Sun Myung Moon one day last March. Moon, a founder of the American Family Coalition as well as being a multi-billionaire ex-convict:

…has views somewhere to the right of the Taliban’s Mullah Omar. Moon preaches that gays are “dung-eating dogs,” Jews brought on the Holocaust by betraying Jesus, and the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped in favor of a system he calls “Godism” — with him in charge.

And he was coronated in our very own Senate. At least one congressman (out of 81 total attending) claimed not to have been present at the ceremony, until pictures were produced. Believe it or not, the story gets weirder. And the media missed it.

Die Duckomenta features dozens of famous museum pieces spanning ancient history to modern interpretive abstraction, each with Donald Duck transposed into the theme. No cheap Photoshop tricks - these are real works, artfully created and beautifully collected. What makes it work is that they took such a seemingly trivial idea so seriously - went all the way. Don’t read German, but think I get the idea. Disney’s lawyers have got to be breathing down their necks right about now, but this will certainly qualify as satire (not that the obviousness of that fact ever stopped Mattel’s raging a-hole lawyers from attacking Barbie art).

   

Miles and Amelia went to the Museum of Children’s Art to try their hands at painting. Michael the painting gorilla got nothing on them. So joyful. The era of refrigerator art has begun. Miles also got his first haircut recently - bittersweet to let go of original curls. He’s not a baby anymore - he’s a little boy.

In an excellent synopsis of why the utopia of the Semantic Web will never work (Metacrap), Cory Doctorow points out that, at the time he wrote the piece, a search for “plam” on eBay produced nine results for “Plam Pilots,” all of which of course were hidden from everyone running a normal search on the string “palm.” Hidden, and therefore barely bidded on. Need to find a good deal on eBay? Try searching on misspelled versions of the thing you want.

ORA blog: The new and improved directory services integration in Panther Server make it almost effortless to bind a Mac server or client to a Windows Active Directory system. So effortless, in fact, that with two clicks and a splash of ignorance, I broke an entire network. Here’s how.

Getting so much out of this shell class. It moves fast, and the focus is on how things really work, not just how to get things done. Muster showed off some great instructive Flash animations demonstrating how umask works differently on directories and files. Try entering masks like 022 or 555 and see how the behaviors change. Never would have imagined Unix instruction lending itself to Flash animation, but wow.

In the midst of a week of relentless lionization of Ronald Reagan, it was interesting to read another take on the canonical tales of how Reagan single-handedly ended communism in the Soviet Union. The Globe and Mail’s Gorby Had the Lead Role, Not Gipper points out that it was Gorbachev who was taking great strides to reduce the arms buildup while Reagan scoffed that it was all “propaganda.”

…the U.S. administration was reeling. Polls were beginning to show that, of all things unimaginable, a Soviet leader was the greatest force for world peace. An embarrassed Mr. Reagan finally responded in kind.

The “kirktoon” linked above offers biting reverse spin on the week of worship. And the UC Berkeley News Center has an interesting piece on how Reagan used the UCB campus as a political whipping boy. The Free Speech Movement, for example, was one of Berkeley’s great accomplishments - not just for Berkeley but for campuses across America. Students mobilized to make sure that Constitutional rights were more than just empty promises. Reagan saw the movement as the work of spoiled college kids:

Reagan took aim at the university for being irresponsible for failing to punish these dissident students. He said, ‘Get them out of there. Throw them out. They are spoiled and don’t deserve the education they are getting. They don’t have a right to take advantage of our system of education.’

But he was, we are told, infectiously optimistic, so that’s got to count for something. I was young while Reagan was in office, and did not grow up in a very political family. But I remember to this day the absolute scorn my parents held for the man, and how livid they would become talking about his policies. I know my parents were not alone in their hatred of Reagan. But he was, after all, infectiously optimistic.

Spent the better part of last week at work wrestling with an upgrade of Jaguar Server to Panther Server. There were a lot of things we wanted out of Panther — the honed Active Directory integration and overhauled mail server chiefly among them. The upgrade seemingly went fine, and we were back online in an hour. Then I hear from one of our Movable Type users that they’re getting errors trying to post stories. Hmm… the installation can’t seem to find the DBD::mysql module. It’s still there, I can see it. Reinstall the DBD package to be sure. Installs successfully, but problem persists. Compile Bundle::DBI and DBD::mysql from CPAN — the latter fails. Start doing research — I’m not the only one with this problem — some wonky interaction between multi-CPU threading, the version of perl installed with Panther Server, and the module in question.

Over the next few days, tried every possible trick I could think of or find reference to, but no joy. Editing bugs out of perl’s Config.pm, tweaking the makefile, changing environment variables. What tanned my hide was the fact that all of this worked perfectly before the upgrade. Some small bug buried somewhere in the bowels of perl or the OS wasting days of my time.

Finally ran out of options and decided to do a clean install rather than the upgrade, which meant recreating users and shares, updating databases, etc. Everything I had hoped to avoid. But after the clean install, three tweaks to the makefile and one to Config.pm convinced DBD::mysql to compile cleanly, and MT came back online.

Nothing is as simple as it seems. Nothing.

Why am I suddenly starting to receive funding solicitations and other propaganda from the RNC? I take a certain perverse pleasure in scrawling “Power, Corruption and Lies — Bush Must Go” across the pledge sheet and sending it back in the postage-paid envelope that is inevitably provided. I’ve done this about half a dozen times now, but it so far has not gotten me removed from their mailing lists. That’s OK — I’m patient. And I’ve got lots of Sharpies.

Mission of Burma tonight at the Fillmore with Roger. Their first new record in 22 years, “On Off On,” and touring again. Expected the show to mostly showcase the new album, but heard tons from “Vs.” and “Signals, Calls, and Marches.” First set didn’t seem to cohere as well as last time we saw them, but something happened in the margins, and the second set soared. Stratmospheric. Check out the MTV trailer for a sip. Something sounded strangely familiar. A cover. Was it Cream? No, wait. Early Pink Floyd — something from Umma Gumma, or Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Have to figure this out. Never heard Floyd sound like this. The only other cover I know of Burma doing is a version of The Stooges’ “1970″ on “The Horrible Truth About Burma.”

Sudden strange impulse to know how Burma would sound unplugged. Maybe with Conley on Mariachi bass, Miller on Spanish guitar, Prescott with Tito Puente’s drums. Or even tablas.

Disproportionate number of Moby scalps and Drew Carey glasses in the audience. First encore Penelope Houston jumped onstage. Second encore finished with a totally plugged-in “Max Ernst.” Just electrified.

Caught the last few pieces by Kinski, one of the openers. Some blend of Hawkwind, Spacemen 3, and Can. Psychedelic jam bands still exist (Kinski, not Burma), with modern electronics. And flute! Should have heard more.

Intrigued by Apple’s Airport Express / AirTunes announcement. Finally, an Apple-centric (but not Mac-centric!) way to get the iTunes library across the house and into the stereo. The solution is pretty unique — not at all what I (or almost anyone) expected, which was more like a wireless iPod-like home stereo component, maybe with video capabilities bolted on. AE plugs into a power outlet and into your stereo’s audio-in (analog or digital). Your Wi-Fi capable Mac then auto-discovers the device, and music flows like water. Cake. And it doubles as an AirPort Extreme base station and print server.

The good people at Slim Devices must be hating this. I personally sold our sliMP3 a while ago; had finally come to see our home stereo as the final refuge, a fortress from which I could escape the ubiquity of MP3 in my life. But AirTunes is a tantalizing prospect…

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the death of our friend, musician Matthew Sperry. Matthew was run over by a pickup while on a bicycle on his way to work, leaving behind his wife and two-year-old daughter. His premature death sent waves of shock and sadness through our circle of friends, which resonate with us still. His daughter Lila is three now, and is beginning to better understand and articulate her daddy’s absence in sweet but chilling ways. His wife Stacia is coping as best as could be hoped, but is still suffering from his loss.

A large circle of Matthew’s friends gathered yesterday in the beautiful columbarium where his ashes lie. The bow from his bass was passed around as a “talking stick,” and people took turns memorializing him in words — so many different angles on his passing. It was truly touching. Matthew’s musician friends performed mournful pieces in the resonant, sun-filled chambers of the Chapel of the Chimes. Afterwards we gathered at Stacia and Lila’s house to eat, talk, and remember.

We love you, Matthew. You are missed. So missed. Blessings.

Goal for the day was to install and test WordPress and TextPattern, see what the options are. My last blog software roundup was the feature I wrote for MacWorld last year. Things have changed since then — new apps are gathering momentum, old ones becoming mired. mneptok encouraged me to also give TikiWiki a shot and see how it stacks up.
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So guess who’ll be keeping his tattoo for the rest of his life? When I was 19, I had a 2″ question mark tattooed on my right ankle. I still stand behind the question mark as a symbol; no regrets there. But it was done in a kind of balloon-y, cartoonish style. It’s not terrible, but in recent years I’ve gotten tired of it, finally decided I wanted it gone.

Waited three months for a consultation, only to learn today that the fact that it’s comprised of mixed blue and green inks (the lasers are targeted at specific pigments) and is 20 years old means I would need 12-15 laser treatments at $650 each!!! In other words, $40 to have it installed, nearly $10,000 to have it uninstalled. So it’s staying put. Unless I can convince Amy we need to sell the Subaru…

Last time I had an all-vegan meal (NO products derived from animals whatsoever, not even dairy, not even honey) I was living in Santa Cruz, in college. I hated it. Everything tasted flat and boring. I’ve never been into self-discipline where food is concerned. I don’t overeat, but I like to eat delicious food. Meals are meant to be enjoyed. So when rinchen suggested we go to Cha-Ya for dinner tonight, I balked; not so much because I need the meat as because I thought it would be a disappointment. And now I eat my words, so to speak. One of the best meals I’ve ever had, totally changed my opinion of the possibilities in vegan cooking. Not only not lacking in flavor, but fresh and delicious and creative and totally satisfying. Great idea to combine a Japanese restaurant with a vegan restaurant; the two styles complement one another perfectly. If you live in the Bay Area, don’t miss Cha-Ya on Shattuck — this has to be one of the more unique and delightful eating experiences you’ll find anywhere.