php-horde-feed 2.0.1-4 / usr / share / php / tests / Horde_Feed / Horde / Feed / fixtures / lexicon / http-www.tbray.org-ongoing-ongoing.rss

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 <title>ongoing</title>
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 <updated>2008-07-21T22:10:32-07:00</updated>
 <author><name>Tim Bray</name></author>
 <subtitle>ongoing fragmented essay by Tim Bray</subtitle>
 <rights>All content written by Tim Bray and photos by Tim Bray Copyright Tim Bray, some rights reserved, see /ongoing/misc/Copyright</rights>
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<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/21/'>
 <title>SPotD: Shoes</title>
 <link href='Shoes' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='0'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Shoes#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/21/Shoes</id>
 <published>2008-07-21T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-21T22:10:12-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>There&#x2019;s nothing wrong with kids having some weeks of flat time in summer with an empty schedule; they&#x2019;ll look back on those days fondly.  There&#x2019;s also nothing wrong with the odd soccer or basketball camp.  I rather enjoy dropping the boy off at these and watching the other parents, who appear, pre-9-AM on a weekday, in a remarkable variety of apparel and presentations.  I caught one of my recent faves for this summer day&#x2019;s photo.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with kids having some weeks of flat time in summer
with an empty schedule; they’ll look back on those days fondly.  There’s also
nothing wrong with the odd soccer or basketball camp.  I rather enjoy dropping
the boy off at these and watching the other parents, who
appear, pre-9-AM on a weekday, in a remarkable variety of apparel and
presentations.  I caught one of my recent faves for this summer day’s photo.</p>
<img src="PS081328.png" alt="Mom fixes kids’ shoes pre-soccer-camp" />
<p>This woman was dressed for work and I thought her shoes extremely superior;
she was fearless striking off across the soft grass in them, too.  It seemed
poetic justice somehow that she got caught up in shoe maintenance.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/20/'>
 <title>SPotD: Curtainshadows</title>
 <link href='Shadows' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='0'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Shadows#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/20/Shadows</id>
 <published>2008-07-20T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-20T23:27:24-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>We spend a lot of time on our back porch this time of year.  Unfortunately, the beautiful plum tree that kept the setting sun from boiling our eyeballs died, and until the replacement gets big enough, we&#x2019;ve been hoisting bedsheets on the west end of the porch roof at suppertime.  Which can make for some interesting shadowplay, as in the Summer Picture for today.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>We spend a lot of time on our back porch this time of year.  Unfortunately,
the beautiful plum tree that kept the setting sun from boiling our eyeballs
died, and until the replacement gets big enough, we’ve been hoisting bedsheets
on the west end of the porch roof at suppertime.  Which can make for some interesting
shadowplay, as in the Summer Picture for today.</p>
<img src="PS081308.png" alt="Porch shadows on blue bedsheet" />
<p>Actually, just this afternoon Lauren ran out of patience and put up a nice
thick patterned curtain on real actual hooks.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/19/'>
 <title>SPotD: Fireworks</title>
 <link href='Fireworks' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='2'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Fireworks#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/19/Fireworks</id>
 <published>2008-07-19T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-19T12:45:16-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Today&#x2019;s summer picture is of some of the fireworks after the <a href='/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/18/Baseball'>ball game featured yesterday</a>.  They weren&#x2019;t big-league, but it isn&#x2019;t a big-league park, so you get to sit pretty close to them.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>Today’s summer picture is of some of the fireworks after the
<a href="/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/18/Baseball">ball game featured
yesterday</a>.  They weren’t big-league, but it isn’t a big-league park, so
you get to sit pretty close to them.</p>
<img src="PS081276.png" alt="July First fireworks at Nat Bailey Stadium" />
<p>Before the game I went looking for advice on photographing fireworks and
it seems that it’s all a matter of taste, except for one thing: use a tripod.
For what it’s worth, these are with the ordinary 40mm prime lens at <i>f</i>8
and using the “B” setting to keep the shutter open for quite a while.  Next
time I’ll try shooting with a
wider-angle lens.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/18/'>
 <title>SPotD: Ball Game</title>
 <link href='Baseball' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='1'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Baseball#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/18/Baseball</id>
 <published>2008-07-18T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-18T16:32:21-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World/Sports' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Sports' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>On July first, we celebrated Canada and my son&#x2019;s birthday by going to the ball game and fireworks.  It was a warm, warm evening.  The Summer Photo for Today is an outfielder and a scoreboard.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>On July first, we celebrated Canada and my son’s birthday by going to the
ball game and fireworks.  It was a warm, warm evening.  The Summer Photo for
Today is an outfielder and a scoreboard.</p>
<img src="PS081251.png" alt="Outfielder and scoreboard" />
<p>Yeah, the home team got thumped.  But the fireworks were pretty good.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/18/'>
 <title>Mobility Blues</title>
 <link href='Mobile-Net-Gloom' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='26'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Mobile-Net-Gloom#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/18/Mobile-Net-Gloom</id>
 <published>2008-07-18T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-18T14:17:01-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Business/Internet' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Business' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Internet' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology/Internet' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology/Mobile' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Mobile' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>These days, I&#x2019;m gloomier and gloomier about the prospects for the mobile Internet; you know, the one you access through the sexy gizmo in your pocket, not the klunky old general-purpose computer on your desk.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>These days, I’m gloomier and gloomier about the prospects for the mobile
Internet; you know, the one you access through the sexy gizmo in your pocket,
not the klunky old general-purpose computer on your desk.</p>
<p>We’ve all heard about the glowing future;
<a href="http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/">Jonathan</a> is particularly good at
telling it; “There are more mobile phones sold every day than computers sold
every year, etc.” (OK, I’m exaggerating, but that’s the thrust).  And indeed
there are big parts of the world where a networked computer is in the
economic reach of very few, but a cellphone is attainable to many.</p>
<h2 id='p-5'>The Legacy Problem</h2>
<p>We all know that cellphones have been able to access the Net for years and
years.   In theory.  I’m a heavy Internet user and have carried a phone for a
decade or more, and have never seriously used the one on the other.
The browsers suck, the programming models suck, and lots of things are
intentionally crippled, like my current pretty-good Samsung whose
JVM won’t run anything that didn’t come with the phone.</p>
<p>And anyhow, I remember the first time I got a phone advertised as “having
Java”.  So I went and got whichever flavor of Mobile Java was current at the
time.  Quickly discovered that I couldn’t use it to make a phone call on the
phone, or pretty much anything except write pretty-but-vapid games.  Couldn’t
see the point.</p>
<p>“But wait,” you say, “the iPhone has changed all that!”</p>
<h2 id='p-1'>The iPhone Problem</h2>
<p>Yep, iPhone owners do actually use them as
general-purpose Net clients.  And, for the first time ever, they’re decently
programmable in a somewhat-uncrippled way.</p>
<p>But there’s a little problem and a big problem.  The little problem is that
I don’t wanna learn Objective-C and I don’t wanna learn a whole new UI
framework.  I acknowledge that lots of smart people think Objective-C and
Cocoa are both wonderful, and quite likely they’re right.  I don’t care.  I’m
lazy; I know enough languages and enough frameworks.  You’re free to
disapprove, but there are a whole lot of people like me out there.</p>
<p>The <em>big</em> problem is this: I don’t wanna be a sharecropper on Massa
Steve’s plantation.  I don’t want to write code for a platform where there’s
someone else who gets to decide whether I get to play and what I’m
allowed to sell, and who can flip my you’re-out-of-business-switch any time it
furthers their business goals.  
<a href="http://pragdave.blogs.pragprog.com/pragdave/2008/07/if-you-work-for.html">PragDave’s
experience</a> is hardly a confidence-builder.
Call me paranoid if you will, but I just ain’t
going there.  No way, nohow.</p>
<p>Granted, the device is slick and has massive consumer pull, and maybe we’ll
end up with a situation where the only way to be relevant in the mobile-apps
space is as an Apple sharecropper.  That’s not the future I want, but maybe
it’s the one we’ll get.</p>
<h2 id='p-2'>The Android Problem</h2>
<p>I guess it’s a little impolitic for a Sun person to say this, but I really
like Android, at the conceptual level.  It seems more modern in
its feel than the other mobile SDKs I’ve looked at, and the amount of new
stuff I’m going to have to learn is much less, and the platform has no
intrinsic lock-in that I can spot.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it seems like there’s not much there there; haven’t seen
much in the way of updates or hardware or movement, and there seems
little transparency about what’s happening behind the scenes.
And Android doesn’t address the dysfunctional business model that has
crippled mainstream as Net clients, to date.  More on that below.</p>
<h2 id='p-4'>The JavaFX Mobile Problem</h2>
<p>It’s easy to like the JavaFX Mobile idea. It’s just Java SE only with
access to the whole device, so you can use the phone as a phone, and with
a layer on top to make it easier to program.  In principle there’s no reason I
couldn’t actually write my app in JRuby or Jython or some such.
It’s probably got the least lock-in potential of <em>any</em> of the
mobile-future options.</p>
<p>The problem is that it isn’t here yet.
A year ago, my feeling was that maybe they’d started
too late.  Given the whole industry’s lack of progress since then, and the
generally dismal outlook, I think there’s still a window of
opportunity if FX
Mobile ships before too long and turns out well.</p>
<h2 id='p-3'>The Business Problem</h2>
<p>I’m on the record
<a href="/ongoing/When/200x/2004/11/15/WalledGarden">here</a> and
<a href="/ongoing/When/200x/2007/11/20/Android">here</a> and
<a href="/ongoing/When/200x/2007/09/23/Flat-Rate-Considered-Harmful">here</a>;
many of my commenters disagree with me, but they’re wrong.
Until we get network operators who are willing to open their networks, and a
business model that makes access affordable while incenting operators to
encourage its use, all the shiny SDKs and glitzy pocket-jewels in the world
aren’t going to come close to realizing the true potential of the mobile
Net.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/17/'>
 <title>SPotD: Lemonade</title>
 <link href='Lemonade' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='2'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Lemonade#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/17/Lemonade</id>
 <published>2008-07-17T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-17T21:36:34-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World/Food and Drink' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Food and Drink' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I&#x2019;ve been too overloaded to write much or even post pix, but never (it seems) to <em>take</em> pictures, so they&#x2019;ve been building up.  I look at the buildup and discern a theme; herewith the first Summer  Picture of the Day; more to come.  And what could be more summery than lemonade?</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>I’ve been too overloaded to write much or even post pix, but
never (it seems) to <em>take</em> pictures, so they’ve been
building up.  I look at the buildup and discern a theme; herewith the first
Summer 
Picture of the Day; more to come.  And what could be more summery than lemonade?</p>
<img src="R0010559.png" alt="Lemonade at the Liberty Café, Vancouver" />
<p>This is at the Liberty Café on Main Street on Vancouver, and a fine place
it is for lunch or refreshments, albeit not fast.  One of their better
offerings is home-made lemonade, which comes in a big plastic pitcher, visible
behind the glass.</p>
<p>Some internationalization is called for.  This is <em>North American</em>
lemonade, which is just lemon juice, ice, sugar, and water; terribly
refreshing on a warm day.  The word can mean
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemonade">something completely
different</a> elsewhere in the world.</p>
<p>Confession: Not much
<a href="/ongoing/When/200x/2004/03/15/Photointegrity">Photointegrity</a>
here; this is oozing artificial sparkle and heat, courtesy of Lightroom.  I can
live with myself.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/17/'>
 <title>It&#x2019;s Called AtomPub</title>
 <link href='AtomPub' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='1'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='AtomPub#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/17/AtomPub</id>
 <published>2008-07-17T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-17T21:18:38-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology/Atom' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Atom' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Recently, I was asked for feedback on some technology being built inside Sun which was said to rely on &#x201c;Atom Pub/Sub&#x201d;.  In related confusing news, more than one big company has talked about &#x201c;Rolling out APP&#x201d;.  Branding matters. So we took it up on the Atom Protocol mailing list and, for what it&#x2019;s worth, the community of implementors has agreed that we&#x2019;re all going to refer to the protocol specified in RFC 5023 as &#x201c;AtomPub&#x201d; and nothing else.  Please co-operate.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>Recently, I was asked for feedback on some technology being built
inside Sun which was said to rely on “Atom Pub/Sub”.  In related confusing
news, more than one big company has talked about “Rolling out APP”.  Branding
matters.
So we took it up on the Atom Protocol mailing list and, for what it’s worth,
the community of implementors has agreed that we’re all going to refer to the
protocol specified in RFC 5023 as “AtomPub” and nothing else.  Please
co-operate.</p> 
<p>Next, we need a logo.  Might Google or Microsoft, who are taking the lead in
rolling out AtomPub-based services, be willing to dedicate some design
talent to a candidate or two?  Do any indie hackers with graphics skills want
to play?</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/17/'>
 <title>Ephemeral Aggregators</title>
 <link href='News-Gentrification' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='2'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='News-Gentrification#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/17/News-Gentrification</id>
 <published>2008-07-17T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-17T20:56:55-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology/Publishing' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Publishing' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World/Life Online' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Life Online' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I&#x2019;m thinking that <a href='http://anarchogeek.com/articles/2008/7/7/the-ascendancy-of-hacker-news-the-gentrification-of-geek-news-communities'>The ascendancy of Hacker News &#x26; the gentrification of geek news communities</a>, by <a href='http://anarchogeek.com/'>Rabble</a>, is, in its quiet way, one of the most important think pieces I&#x2019;ve read in quite a while.  It&#x2019;s pretty clear that online aggregations of individual contributions are occupying a bigger and bigger slice of the spectrum of useful information sources.  And also clear that this new landscape isn&#x2019;t stable, but steadily shifting underfoot.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>I’m thinking that
<a href="http://anarchogeek.com/articles/2008/7/7/the-ascendancy-of-hacker-news-the-gentrification-of-geek-news-communities">The ascendancy of Hacker News &amp; the gentrification of geek news communities</a>,
by
<a href="http://anarchogeek.com/">Rabble</a>,
is, in its quiet way, one of the most important think pieces I’ve read in
quite a while.  It’s pretty clear that online aggregations of individual
contributions are occupying a bigger and bigger slice of the spectrum of
useful information sources.  And also clear that this new landscape isn’t
stable, but steadily shifting underfoot.</p>
<p>First off, I’d recommend reading the comments on the “Gentrification”
essay along with it.  Like the a couple of the
contributors, I think 
the pattern of conversational flow is accurately described, but am
uncomfortable with the use of “gentrification”.</p>
<p>Here are my take-aways, the first couple lifted more or less directly from
the essay:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Success as an aggregator is ephemeral.</p></li>
<li><p>The pressure of the SEO slime is continuous and unrelenting; 
a significant evolutionary force on whatever it is online communities are
becoming.</p></li>
<li><p>The effect of individual burn-out is maybe understated.  Consider
Slashdot; one reason it has less traffic these days is that the editorial
quality filters are pathetic compared to back then; the regime where
CmdrTaco and friends had the wheel and <em>just instinctively
knew</em> the wheat from the chaff was probably just not sustainable.</p></li>
<li><p>The value of following a few carefully-selected primary sources and
keen-eyed individual observers just can’t be overstated.
The right selection of blog and Twitter feeds can put you in a situation where
you’ve already seen most of the good bits of today’s Reddit or equivalent.
Yeah, it takes a little more time than just dropping by an aggregator.  Whether
this is a good trade-off depends on what your job is.</p></li>
<li><p>It should be painfully obvious that these lessons probably apply to
news loci outside the technology ghetto; today’s hot news fora for politics or
sex or knitting are just as vulnerable to online traffic’s fickle flow
patterns.</p></li>
</ul>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/14/'>
 <title>Cargo Carriers</title>
 <link href='Bicycle-Baskets' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='11'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Bicycle-Baskets#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/14/Bicycle-Baskets</id>
 <published>2008-07-14T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-14T22:29:20-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World/Puzzling Evidence' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Puzzling Evidence' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World/Gender' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Gender' />
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>It’s not obvious why the attachment of baskets to bicycles should
be gender-related, but in fact one observes that 100% of the bicycles with
baskets on the front handlebars are ridden by women.  In fact
I find the effect feminine and charming, but I suspect that’s because of
the riders.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/10/'>
 <title>It&#x2019;s Slow</title>
 <link href='Slow-Linux' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='10'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Slow-Linux#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/10/Slow-Linux</id>
 <published>2008-07-10T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-10T13:42:27-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology/Servers' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Servers' />
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>The Penguinistas like to brag about how GNU/Linux runs
just fine on low-rent hardware, by contrast with competitors like
Vista that need the latest gleaming iron to be useful.  And they have a point; but
only up to a point.  I can testify from personal experience that an elderly
333-MHz Dell with a recent Debian totally sucks wind when you run
WordPress.  And the real point is, it ain’t operating systems that bog
your computer down, it’s apps.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/10/'>
 <title>LAMP, Rearranged</title>
 <link href='LAMP-funnies' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='19'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='LAMP-funnies#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/10/LAMP-funnies</id>
 <published>2008-07-10T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-10T10:45:28-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology/Web' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Web' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World/Humor' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Humor' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>It started innocently enough; someone mailed the internal bloggers&#x2019; list saying &#x201c;We&#x2019;ve got this <a href='http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/beyondlamp.html'>Beyond LAMP</a> article on SDN, might be good blog fodder.&#x201d;  Which constituted an opportunity for geeks to have fun with acronyms.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>It started innocently enough; someone mailed the internal bloggers’ list
saying “We’ve got this
<a href="http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/beyondlamp.html">Beyond LAMP</a>
article on SDN, might be good blog fodder.”  Which constituted an opportunity
for geeks to have fun with acronyms.</p>
<p>That was yesterday, and they’re still coming.
Let’s assume that “L” always stands for Linux, “A” for Apache, “M” for MySQL,
and “P” for PHP (or Perl or Python).</p>
<table cellpadding="4">
<tr align="left"><th>Acronym</th><th>Key</th></tr>
<tr align="left"><td>SAMP</td><td>Solaris</td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td>MARS</td><td>Rails, Solaris</td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td>MAPS</td><td>Solaris</td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td>SPAM</td><td>Solaris</td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td>WIMP</td><td>Windows, IIS</td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td>DAMN</td><td>DirectX, ActiveX, .NET</td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td>WIMN</td><td>Windows, IIS, .NET (pronounced “women”)</td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td>SIN</td><td>SQL Server, IIS, .NET</td></tr>
</table>
<p>I bet you can think of some more.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/09/'>
 <title>Which Tools?</title>
 <link href='Which-Tools' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='10'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Which-Tools#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/09/Which-Tools</id>
 <published>2008-07-09T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-09T13:50:57-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology/Coding' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Coding' />
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>Wow, this one touched a nerve.  Some guys here at Sun were arguing about
which bug trackers and SCM tools were currently da bombiest, and they decided
to ask the world.  Hasn’t received hardly any publicity yet, and already over
200 responses.  Join in, and pass the word; Here is
<a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=xU6w8ry3_2f3IGfQZEn7s1hg_3d_3d">the survey</a> and here are
<a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=Vng7MOwBeNpnJhv3392wadMvjE6rl8lq8Kcu95Q5Cig_3d">the
results</a>.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/07/'>
 <title>Atomic Monday</title>
 <link href='Atom' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='6'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Atom#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/07/Atom</id>
 <published>2008-07-07T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-07T22:32:25-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology/Atom' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Atom' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Herewith some evidence, for the general tech public, that Atompub is a big deal, and for the Atomistas, some interesting developments.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>Herewith some evidence, for the general tech public, that Atompub is a big
deal, and for the Atomistas, some interesting developments.</p>
<h2 id='p-1'>It’s an Atompub Future</h2>
<p>Let’s see;
<a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2008/05/28/NotTurtlesAtomPubAllTheWayDown.aspx">Microsoft
is using Atompub</a> for... well, everything, pretty much.
Google has been for a while, and that’s
<a href="http://www.dehora.net/journal/2008/06/24/salesforcecom-and-google-integration-atompub/">now
leveraging Salesforce.com</a>. 
Oh, and the Kool Erlang Kids are getting into the act: 
<a href="http://www.cestari.info/2008/6/19/atom-pubsub-module-for-ejabberd">Atom-PubSub module for ejabberd</a>
(Hmm, I dislike “Atom PubSub” and all its orthographic variations).
And then there are things like
<a href="http://www.infoq.com/articles/atomserver">AtomServer</a>.</p>
<h2 id='p-2'>The Right Amount of Cloud Lock-In</h2>
<p>But here’s the real reason.  We seem to have consensus that the future is
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Computing">cloudy</a>.  My #1
gripe with the cloud-computing infrastructure I’ve seen out there is that it
all seems to come with some degree of lock-in.</p>
<p><em>The only appropriate
amount of lock-in, to build a cloud-centric future, is zero.</em></p>
<p>It seems to me that Steve O’Grady really hit the nail on the head with
<a href="http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2008/06/24/cloud_standards/">Question for
Cloud Campers: The Cloud and Standards</a>.   Now it’s quite possible that my
obvious bias as one of Atom’s fond parents is showing here, but it seems to me
that the Atom format provides a nice clean zero-lock-in way of getting
information out of the cloud, and Atompub an equivalently safe way in.</p>
<p>Now let’s move on to some Atom-technology news stories.</p>
<h2 id='p-3'>Atom-Multipart</h2>
<p>To post an image (or any other bit-blob) with Atompub, you HTTP-POST it;
the server stores it and creates a synthetic Atom entry for metadata about
it.  Then if you want to update the metadata, you have to PUT that.  So Joe
Gregorio, based on his work at Google, is
<a href="http://code.google.com/p/atompub-mulitpart-spec/">proposing
“atom-multipart”</a>; the idea is use pack up your bit-blob and an Atom entry
full of metadata, and push ’em at the server in a MIME multipart package.</p>
<p>Everyone seems to like the idea, the Atom-protocol mailing list is chewing
it over, the IETF seems to think it’s appropriate for the standards track, and
I’ve volunteered to be the consensus referee (which is probably poetic 
justice since
I’m obviously going to have to implement the sucker in
<a href="/ongoing/misc/Software#p-5">mod_atom</a>).</p>
<h2 id='p-4'>Meta-CRUD</h2>
<p>Just to review: an Atompub implementation lets you create, retrieve,
update, and delete (CRUD) Web Resources.  So, suppose you think of
publications as Web Resources, wouldn’t Atompub be a candidate for the CRUD
job?  Now, this is all getting more than a little bit meta, but the idea is so
obvious that everybody is doing it.  In fact, I’m doing it myself in mod_atom,
since my original idea (to create a new publication, edit the Apache config
file) is, well, really lousy.</p>
<p>I thought “If everyone’s doing this, maybe we should standardize it, and
then authors of Atompub test suites (like me) could build portable tests”.  So
I raised the issue on the mailing list and well, it’s complicated.</p>
<p>Just by way of reminder: Atompub starts with a
<a href="http://bitworking.org/projects/atom/rfc5023.html#appdocs">Service
Document</a>, which contains one or more named
<a href="http://bitworking.org/projects/atom/rfc5023.html#workspaces">Workspaces</a>,
which contain
<a href="http://bitworking.org/projects/atom/rfc5023.html#dataiscode">Collections</a>,
which are what you actually POST to in order to start up the CRUD process.</p>
<p>So the meta-idea is simple; have a collection that when you POST to it,
creates a new publication.  What could be simpler?  Well, it turns out that
there are three obvious choices you could take as to what happens when you
POST to one of these meta-collections:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Create a new Service Doc, with Workspaces and collections.</p></li>
<li><p>Create a new Workspace in the current Service Doc.</p></li>
<li><p>Create a new collection in the current Workspace.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>There are implementors out there doing all three of these things; mod_atom
does #1.  We just don’t have enough experience yet to decide which (if any) of
’em deserve standardization.  Oh well.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/04/'>
 <title>(Last) RotD: Lucky Sunset</title>
 <link href='Lucky-Sunset' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='4'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Lucky-Sunset#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/04/Lucky-Sunset</id>
 <published>2008-07-04T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-04T22:14:13-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>The last rose of the day is a &#x201c;Royal Sunset&#x201d; in the sunset,  A lucky shot, another small instance of good fortune in what&#x2019;s been (so far) an unreasonably lucky life.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>The last rose of the day is a “Royal Sunset” in the sunset,  A
lucky shot, another small instance of good fortune in what’s been
(so far) an unreasonably lucky life.</p>
<img src="PS081174.png" alt="Sunlit Royal Sunset rose blossom" />
<p>Well perhaps not sunset exactly, but after supper last Sunday, a narrow
shaft of slanting sun illuminated the blossom and not much around it.  I had
the
<a href="/ongoing/When/200x/2007/05/24/Pentax-SMC-DA-21mm">21mm wide-angle</a> on but there wasn’t time to fiddle with lenses, I just
threw the camera on all-auto and pointed and shot.  Lucky, I said.</p>
<h2 id='p-1'>Lucky, You Say?</h2>
<p>In spades.  My family is mostly free of both insanity and cancer and we
mostly like each other, all of which
puts us in a small minority of families.  
I drifted through life without working very hard
at anything until I stumbled into work that I loved and have been well-paid
for it. 
My kids are tractable and healthy.  I live in a nice part of a nice city.  I
get to travel to interesting places and meet interesting people.  I
get along well with my wife of twelve years.  I get to tell stories to the
world, and some people like them.</p>
<p>And sometimes a sunbeam catches a rose when there’s a camera handy.</p>
<p>There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t shake my head in amazement at
how well things have worked out so far.  If I were a character in a play by
Sophocles the outlook would be grim.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/03/'>
 <title>Good Morning</title>
 <link href='Morning' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='3'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Morning#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/03/Morning</id>
 <published>2008-07-03T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-03T23:35:45-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='The World' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I like mornings.  Especially bright ones on foot in the city. People are up and about for a reason; it&#x2019;s easy to believe the world is on the whole is a well-organized purposeful kind of place.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>I like mornings.  Especially bright ones on foot in the city.
People are up and about for a reason; it’s easy to believe
the world is on the whole is a well-organized
purposeful kind of place.</p>
<img src="R0010436.png" alt="Bee at breakfast" />
<p>I smile particularly when I walk past a restaurant or other storefront and
they’re outside washing the big windows.  Glass in a city gets cruddy
fast, and the window-washers are a daily battalion of shock troops in our
doomed but admirable struggle against entropy generally.  People who ten hours
later pause hungrily by the windowgleam to consider the menu, they never think
about the minion in the morning light with the bucket and rubber blade on a
pole.</p>
<img src="PS081183.png" alt="Transparency" />
<p>And if they’re washing the windows in front, in the back you know they’re
chopping and peeling and mixing and baking.</p>
<img src="PS081161.png" alt="Baking" />
<p>Driving can be good too (well, unless you’re going east) but it could be
better.  I like all kinds of music but 
when it’s morning and I’m behind the wheel of a car, all I want to hear is
rock &amp; roll, hard fast and loud.  I could put a CD in but it’d be nice
to be surprised.  Sadly, the rock stations don’t play much music in the
commute window, that’s their prime slot for ads and then they seem to
think the people in cars want airhead DJ banter, mostly.</p>
<p>Hmph, this is a big-government country with an intrusive
<a href="http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/welcome.htm">broadcast regulator</a> that
oversees radio formats.  Clearly they’re doing something wrong. I’m a taxpayer
and I want some damn enforcement; compulsory morning rock &amp; roll
please.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/03/'>
 <title>The Shambling WS-Undead</title>
 <link href='The-Shambling-Undead' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='12'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='The-Shambling-Undead#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/03/The-Shambling-Undead</id>
 <published>2008-07-03T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-03T22:34:26-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology/Web/Services' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Technology' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Web' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Services' />
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>I’ll try to play this straight.
It seems that a posse of 
industry titans (IBM, Oracle, CA, and EMC) 
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-ws/2008Jun/0001.html">want
a W3C working group</a> to standardize WS-Transfer,
WS-ResourceTransfer, WS-Enumeration and WS-MetadataExchange.  Because, as they
say, “There is still some work to be done”, and “Accessing data about a resource through Web services is an area of  
the Web services architecture that has yet to be fully realized.”
I guess that if you really do want to implement HTTP on top of the
SOAP stack on top of HTTP, these are clearly the Right Vendors For The Job.
There is, however, real danger in this move, as outlined by Mark Nottingham in
<a href="http://www.mnot.net/blog/2008/07/04/a_new_dread">The WS-Empire Strikes Back... feebly</a>.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/03/'>
 <title>RotD: Morning Mist</title>
 <link href='Morning-Mist' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='0'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Morning-Mist#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/03/Morning-Mist</id>
 <published>2008-07-03T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-03T14:13:35-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>We planted today&#x2019;s rose in an awkward corner of the garden and thus had to move it;  this summer it&#x2019;s recovering and only produced one blossom. Pretty pictures are a relief, I hope, in a week that feels like summer&#x2019;s <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_Latitudes'>Horse latitudes</a>.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>We planted today’s rose in an awkward corner of the garden and thus had to
move it; 
this summer it’s recovering and only produced one blossom.
Pretty pictures are a relief, I hope, in a week that feels like summer’s
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_Latitudes">Horse
latitudes</a>.</p>
<img src="PS081215.png" alt="Morning Mist rose blossom" />
<p>Tomorrow’s RotD will be the last, and it’s a honey.</p>
<h2 id='p-1'>Horse Latitudes</h2>
<p>Yeah, I seem to be busy enough; talking to product and research groups
internally, Wide Finder moving right along, making progress on mod_atom albeit
slow, but it all seems an effort of will, not something that’s pulling me
toward the keyboard at all times.  Right now the only thing that’s exciting is
a couple of big Fortune top-whatever Sun customers I’m talking to about modern
Web stuff; the cognitive dissonance between the vigor of the high-tech Twittersphere and
what’s actually in BigCo production is invigorating.</p>
<p>Whatever, time’s on my side; I never stay bored long.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/07/01/'>
 <title>RotD: Sombreuil</title>
 <link href='Sombreuil' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='1'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Sombreuil#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/01/Sombreuil</id>
 <published>2008-07-01T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-01T14:29:41-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Today&#x2019;s rose has a lovely French name and, like many others, lots of <a href='http://www.google.com/search?q=sombreuil%20rose'>associated lore</a>.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>Today’s rose has a lovely French name and, like many others, lots of
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=sombreuil%20rose">associated
lore</a>.</p>
<img src="PS081212.png" alt="Two Sombreuil rose blossoms" />
<p>I don’t have time to be a rose geek, I just prune ’em and
photograph ’em.</p>
</div></content></entry>

<entry xml:base='When/200x/2008/06/30/'>
 <title>RotD: UltraPink</title>
 <link href='Ultra-Pink' />
 <link rel='replies'        thr:count='2'        type='application/xhtml+xml'        href='Ultra-Pink#comments' />
 <id>http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/06/30/Ultra-Pink</id>
 <published>2008-06-30T02:00:00-07:00</published>
 <updated>2008-07-01T01:04:05-07:00</updated>
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts/Photos' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Arts' />
 <category scheme='http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/' term='Photos' />
 <summary type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>This rose-of-the-day grows in our front yard, but we inherited it and I don&#x2019;t know what it is.  Plus, Nikon is making waves in the camera world.</div></summary>
<content type='xhtml'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<p>This rose-of-the-day grows in our front yard, but we inherited it and I don’t know what it
is.  Plus, Nikon is making waves in the camera world.</p>
<img src="PS081211.png" alt="Extremely pink rose" />
<p>You might want to check out
<a href="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/06/27/Other-Rugosas#comments">Alex
Waterhouse-Hayward’s wise remarks</a> on the difficulty of photographing this
colour range; my experience would suggest he understates it.  But in this
particular case, I walk by this particular plant several times every day and I
think the rose→camera→Lightroom→browser bucket brigade does a
surprisingly good job of showing you what I think I saw.</p>
<h2 id='p-1'>Cameras</h2>
<p>Nikon
<a href="http://www.dpreview.com/news/0807/08070103nikond700previewed.asp">launched
the D700</a>.  This is the camera that might have pulled me off the Pentax
bandwagon, but it arrives too late.  Still, I don’t know.  Most of these rose
pictures are Pentax’s “Limited”
<a href="/ongoing/When/200x/2007/04/27/Pentax-P-DA-40mm">40mm prime
pancake</a>, except for the last one which I’m saving up to end with a bang,
shot with the
<a href="/ongoing/When/200x/2007/05/24/Pentax-SMC-DA-21mm">Limited 21mm
prime</a>.
I’m pretty sure that those two lenses don’t have any serious competition
smaller than any camera body you might want to attach them to.  I’m happy for
now.</p>
</div></content></entry>

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