Chaos Magnet
has moved!
Sorry, I should have chosen a better URL in the first place, and the move
to Movable Type clinched it. You'll be directed to the new page in 30 seconds,
or
click here if you're impatient.
Don't forget to update bookmarks and blogrolls!
No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, in case anyone noticed. In the midst of moving this questionable tome to Movable Type I got caught in NYC for the blackout and it took me four days, five airports, and no less than seven schedule changes to get home. Two pieces of advice: first, if you're ever in a situation like that and you have the means, just rent a car and start driving. It'll be faster. Really. Second, if you don't have the means (or if you live more than three days drive away) try and get to your airline's hub. You'll have a much better chance of getting there than to your final destination, and once you're there, you'll have lots of choices.
Anyway, I haven't abandoned Chaos Magnet, it's just been a bit more chaotic than usual.
Thanks for your patience!
Time for another list of Links To Remember.
http://www.thawte.com/html/COMMUNITY/personal/index.html
http://forums.zdnet.com/group/zd.Anchordesk/anchordesk/anchordesktb.tpt/@thread@99570@forward@1@D-,D@ALL/@article@99570?EXP=ALL&VWM=hr&ROS=1&
http://www.w3.org/2001/10/glance/doc/howto
http://www.w3.org/2001/10/glance/view/
http://otn.oracle.com/tech/xml/content.html
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/012302-1.shtml
http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1003752.html
http://www.aquameta.com/gf/drupal/node.php?id=67
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/08/06/x3d.html
http://www.phparch.com/news/429
http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020415,39115499-3,00.htm
http://blogs.salon.com/0001455/categories/govIt/2003/08/07.html#a2200
You can't see it yet, but next Friday, InformIT will be running an interesting article on the
history of distributed computing. It starts with the hypothesis of "thinking machines" in the 1940's and comes up to today's grid systems. An interesting hypothesis: that PDAs will, someday soon, form themselves into a giant network.
Today is the day I get myself organized (he said hopefully). I've only got two things to really accomplish this weekend: finish up the new XForms section and the rest of this week's update for the
XML Reference Guide, and finish the User Pages tutorial I'm working on for the
MetroSphere series. Oh, and I have to go to the ATM. And mow the lawn. And the post office to mail those checks. And now that the
RDF section's been added to the Guide, I can finish looking into FOAF and blog
Alexander's site on the the XML blog.
Other than that, my weekend's clear.
Let's hope George Bush has a
sense of humor.
For reasons that I will never be able to discuss because of non-disclosure agreements,
today's Dilbert describes my life right now.
Unfortunately, I don't live in any of the areas it serves, but
Craig's List is a great resource for jobs, stuff for sale, and lots of other stuff regarding the business of living in the real world. It's separated out by geographical location, so you can see stuff that's local to you (if you live in one of their areas...) You can also get free stuff by looking under "For Sale" and clicking "free". (It's also a good way to give away all that stuff you don't need anymore but just can't bear to throw away because it's still good.)
Sure, just when I get my General Amateur Radio (ham) license, the
ITU drops the Morse Code requirement. I'm kinda torn on this one. I like the fact that you have to work for the HF privileges, which let you talk internationally. Anybody can memorize test answers, but the code, well, that requires some skill. I'm not an elitist, I just think that people appreciate it more and take it more seriously this way. Apparently, though,
code is moving online, just as long distance conversation is moving online.
Unfortunately, I think sometimes that Ham Radio is dying. It's hard to get people interested in the fun of making/getting a radio that will talk to people around the world when all they have to do is log on and send an email. It's too bad.
I understand that most people blog about things they've read and found interesting. Half the time I feel like this blog is about pages I wish I had time to read.
Amplifying Cognition - Extending Memory and Intelligence looks fascinating, and one day I'll have time to finish it. In the meantime, it's got a terrific quote:
"We are smart enough to realize we are stupid, and stupid enough to make the problem of becoming smarter hard." -- Anders Sandberg
(Credit where credit is due: I found this quote in
XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web. You can actually
read the book online, too.)
Shamless plug alert. I've been featured on the
developerWorks home page! My tutorials usually wind up there, but they don't usually mention me by name.
Understanding DOM isn't changed too much from it's original form, but
Understanding SAX is practically a whole new tutorial.
A couple of years ago, I thought about being an Internet Consultant. Now don't laugh. I've been doing this for a goodly number of years now; I've been on the Internet longer than the World Wide Web has. But before I really got started, lots of firms started popping up selling courses and promising that you can make big money being an Internet Consultant. In other words, give us some money and we'll teach you the buzzwords you need to scam all these people who don't know what a web site is.
Needless to say, I changed my mind about hanging that title on my shingle.
Today I remembered why. I belong to a fairly sizable number of mailing lists that involve technical issues that your average person really doesn't need to worry about, like XML-DEV and RSS-DEV. Today this message came across www-html, the group that defines (or tries to define) the tags that go into various versions of HTML.
Names have of course been changed to protect the clueless.
------------------
Hello,
We cannot seem to get our site to work consistently in AOL. If you visit www.mywebsite.com or http://food.myothersite.com, it give the Web Site Not Responding error. However, if you visit www.myothersite.com the page immediately displays, but when you click on the link leading you to the shopping cart, http://food.myothersite.com, you once again receive the WSNR error. The only difference that I can see is that we have the w3c 4.01 on the Main My Other Site Page which is not made with the shopping cart program we use, Comersus, but is a stand alone page. We tried to place the 4.01 code in the cart, but it will not accept it. The cart developer says it is AOL's problem and not theirs.
Could you please help me with resolving this problem?
Thank you so much for any help and your consideration.
Sincerely,
Jane Doe
Internet Consultant
www.myconsultingsite.com
PH: 408-555-5555
FX: 408-555-6666
Email: jane@myconsultingsite.com
------------------
For those of you who are
not "Internet Consultants" and thus have no reason to know why this is to ridiculous, I'll give you a heads-up. The site http://food.myothersite.com is the same whether you go directly or you get there via a link to a shopping cart. It's not appearing because the hosting provider -- which may not even be AOL, who knows? -- doesn't have DNS set up properly.
It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the version of HTML on her pages.
There. Rant over. I feel better now. It just makes me crazy when people latch onto a title that they clearly aren't qualified for just because it sounds good. For heaven's sake, call yourself a Web Designer. There's no shame in that! Leave Internet Consultant for those of us who've put in the time and the work to learn this stuff.
(Whatever her problem was, it's apparently fixed now.)
One day I want to be in a position to enforce
The Alice Side Agreement.
Some new info from the ACLU today.
First, an opportunity to thank (or spank) your representative for the overwhelming victory of the
Otter Amendment, which, should the spending bill that it's attached to pass, "would effectively prohibit implementation of one of the most controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act, which permitted federal agents to obtain sneak and peek warrants in any criminal case, whether or not related to terrorism. Sneak and peek or 'black bag' warrants, as they are also called, allow agents to search homes, confiscate certain types of property and essentially bug computers without notifying the subject of the search that it is happening." The ACLU's system will tell you whether or not your representative voted for the amendment. (Thank you, Mike Bilirakis, R-FL!)
Next, the US Treasury is
seeking comments on a proposal to end the ability for immigrants to open a bank account using foreign identification. How is this supposed to make us safer, exactly? It's not, that's how. All it's going to do is
force immigrants to find other ways of banking that, because they are out of the traditional banking system, will now be completely untraceable. But this isn't about safer banking, anyway. It's about justification for a National ID card for non-citizens. Citizens will be next.
Finally, "ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson will conduct a
live online chat Thursday [July 31, 2003] from 1-2 p.m. (ET) about the FBI's broad new surveillance powers under the USA PATRIOT Act. "
This arrived in my mailbox from my best friend, who clearly knows me too well. If you're the original creator and you want me to take it down, just
say so.
