Month: July 2006

Mel Gibson, who earned a permanent spot on my blacklist with his hateful movie, got busted for drink driving in Malibu and then cursed at the cops and, of course, blamed the Jews. We’re all out to get him, you see. Frankly I think his religious views and booze combined with the megalomania natural to any huge star and the success of Passion of the Christ so that now Gibson thinks he’s the Second Coming. At least after knocking back a few.

Yesterday I went to the Krugle office to meet Steve Larsen and Mel Badgett, respectively the CEO and VP Product Management, for coffee–and to pick up my iPod–and we had a really great chat. Their open source code search engine is pretty early days but already delivers the goods.

One thing I really appreciated was how interested Steve and Mel were in my feedback. Not surprisingly a few of them are already in the works, like an Eclipse plugin, but Mel was taking copious notes. I try to do the same when speaking with people using RawSugar and hopefully do as good a job.

We also looked at RawSugar and I was glad to see that both were impressed with a number of our features including the powerful multi-level tagging system, that tag auto-complete works in every field where one can type in a tag, and that advanced search help is available right next to the search field (but one click away). So it was a two way exchange.

The Nano is black, if you’re curious. I never had one, or really looked that closely at them, before and the reputation Apple has for designing every part of the experience definitely came through. Even in the packaging: the plastic wrapping of the iPod itself, for instance, had a small unglued tab so removing it was smooth and easy. Didn’t need to use scissors except for the shrinkwrap the box itself was in or tear any wrapping other than the packet containing the foam cover for the ear buds. How did Steve miss that one?

Now of course I have to explore the humongous world of iPod accessories. Any of you care to share favorites?

Google’s new open source project hosting looks neat. Put me in the camp of the SourceForge discontented but I’m happy to see a major competitor. Of course RubyForge does a pretty good job for Ruby and Rails prjects too, don’t want to neglect those hardworking guys.

But can anyone out there actually access the code? I tried to use the browser view on half a dozen different projects and see nothing except empty directories, same result for the one project I attempted to download using TortoiseSVN. Sent in an email though I wonder how much of a response to expect; no doubt the GMonster will sort this out soonish if it’s on their end.

I’m having coffee at Krugle tomorrow with their CEO and VP of Product Management, they ought to have an interesting opinion on this. Bet they plan to index it as fully as they can ASAP.

Update: The Google Project Hosting problem had a simple explanation. All the projects I looked at had not yet checked in any code! I think Google released this a bit prematurely, a number of fit and finish issues should have been closed first, but the leads probably felt the need to make it available during OSCON.

The Krugle CEO did have an answer, by the way. He said Google will not really want to spend the resources to offer a competing service any time soon because the added value is too small relative to other opportunities, and that Google staff he discussed this with agreed. Good for them.

After seeing An Inconvenient Truth, I discussed the movie with a friend who asked a good question: What are you doing differently? My answer took some thinking. While I do a number of everyday things taking resource consumption and impact into account, I hadn’t really made any specific changes despite being horrified at the future painted by Gore if we don’t all make some big ones.

So I decided to revive a routine from the days when NetDynamics was its own little company in Menlo Park and ride my bike to work whenever I don’t need a car for other reasons during the day. Plus it’s extra exercise time, another good thing.

I took my old Trek hybrid into Bicycle Outfitters for a tuneup–surprisingly they have a backlog on service work so it took 10 days to be ready–and picked it up Tuesday afternoon. TS1 went with me so we could stop at a market too, and when we got home the bike went in our storage space.

But I forgot, afterwards, to lock up the 4Runner. Old story, if my head wasn’t screwed on… Wednesday morning we came down to go to the gym and somebody took advantage of my laxity. Stuff from the glove compartment, between seats compartment and even the little bin on the inside of the door was strewn across the seats!

Apparently I do not leave good crap in the car since nothing was missing as far as either of us could tell. The only thing I would have picked are my nice pair of Oakley sunglasses, the rest is essentially a dozen or so rock cassettes that are at least 10 years old and two pairs of prescription glasses (one is sunglasses but the other is because I’m paranoid about being out on the road and losing my contacts). Also there’s a nice long winter coat, not very desirable in the midst of this nasty heatwave.

So we got away easy this time. Maybe it was just a neighbor demonstrating our poor judgment rather than a thief or a kid who wouldn’t know Bruce Springsteen from Bill Bradley.

Anyway, I had to run to Menlo Park yesterday to get my CPAP machine so no biking to work. Today was the day and despite going about six (seven?) years since my last ride I made it all the way to the office. A big seven miles of essentially flat riding, w00t! Plus the same to get back home in a couple of hours. Tomorrow is another trip to Menlo Park so Monday will probably be the second ride.

So this is my answer: As often as possible I’ll ride the bike to work rather than drive. A small change, only about 13 miles each day, but a good one.

My challenge to all my web friends: What can you–will you–do, small or large, differently to improve the odds we’ll leave the future a more habitable world?

One can learn all kinds of amazing things on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, but the definition–heck, the mere existence–of a job called Chicken sexing is one I could have lived a very long time without knowing. Just call me a child of the ‘burbs! ROFL [via Matt]

While I’m passing on the humor, the funny guys at gossip blog ValleyWag posted Trackback Mountain, a parody of Scoble, Om and Battelle in the never gets old “I can’t quit you” format.

Reading Tony Hillerman’s novels are, for me, like a nice second course from a chef who understands its place in the overall meal. Given my predilection for dense material, his ability to deliver an enjoyable story at a much slower pace fits well for me.

The First Eagle (1998) is later in Hillerman’s Navajo Police series featuring Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn; the latter is a year into retirement, the former potentially filling his old slot on an acting basis and neither adjusting well. One of Chee’s men calls for backup at a typically remote location but by the time he arrives Officer Kinsman is dead. Meanwhile Leaphorn is recruited by a wealthy old woman to look into the disappearance of her niece in the same vicinity but isn’t sure if she’s kidnapped, dead or hiding to avoid becoming a suspect in the policeman’s murder.

This is a well-told tale, the author really knows his characters, their culture and the territory they live in. If I wasn’t aware, from Garret’s mentions, that bubonic plague is fairly common in the desert areas of New Mexico and Arizona and that a handful of people die from it each year then its use here might have been shocking. But I am and so it wasn’t a big surprise, though perhaps Hillerman expected most readers to see it that way. No matter.

recommended

Federation is sponsoring a major rally this Sunday, July 23, at 5:00 at the Circle of Palms, the Plaza on Market St. between the Fairmont Hotel and the San Jose Museum of Art.

If you live further north, a similar rally will be held that day in San Francisco at noon at the Justin Herman Plaza at the foot of Embarcadero and Market St.

Show the world that we Stand With Israel during these terrible days! Please remember to wear blue and white. Feel free to make your own signs but please no signs or graphics offensive to any racial, ethnic or religious group including but not limited to Arabs, Islam, or Palestinians.

If you can’t attend or want to take care of this ahead of time, you can donate to the Israel Crisis Fund online. Only $350 can take an Israeli child out of bomb shelter and bring him or her to a summer camp in a safer place (photos).

Finally! I was waiting to find Stross’s book in a cheap paperback or at the library and last week good old MVPL came through. Let’s just say not only was Accelerando worth the wait, I was incredibly anxious to see how he resolved the story. Think of three day old peeling sunburn on a hot, sweaty afternoon with no Aloe Vera lotion. LOL–you can read it free but for all my geekness reading books on a computer screen isn’t comfortable for me.

As in Singularity Sky Charlie unleashes a blast of technofuturism that I’ve rarely seen outside of Hamilton or Macleod. This time he takes the idea of the Singularity head on and shows how his characters live through it. While Stross and others have written great books set before and after this so-called Nerd Heaven, Accelerando is the first one I know of that tries to show the event as it happens.

absolutely recommended

Adam Greenfield is a noted user experience designer and futurist who’s worked for large and small clients around the globe; heck, he even has a decent-size biographical article in Wikipedia. I mention all this just to establish credentials.

Earlier this year Greenfield published Everyware, his first book, a manifesto to raise awareness among designers of the issues which should be accounted for as their products increasingly become part of the ubiquitous computing environment that even now is emerging. Structured as a set of 81 theses, Adam works his way through from a statement of concerns, definitions and history, conditions, opportunities, assertions of appropriate underlying principles and, finally, a warning of the challenges “ubicomp” poses to all of us if those involved in bringing the technologies to market do so blindly and disconnected.

It’s not a long book and many of the theses are four pages are less but, as one Amazon reviewer wrote, “I have to stop and think. And think. And daydream. And read a passage over again, and dream a little more.” Because the topic addressed is truly profound and far-reaching: Everyware is Greenfield’s name for the emerging aspect of our modern age, that computing power has become so cheap and useful that every product is, or soon will be, designed to incorporate.

But not just that everything will have some computing power; that all these things will be connected through pervasive networking. You can see simple examples today in the RFID tags Wal-Mart requires its suppliers to attach to all shipments, in Internet-connected refrigerators and TiVos, in greeting cards that allow one to record a message that’s played when the recipient opens the card.

True story: As I was almost finished reading I had a checkup with my doctor. He saw the book, asked what it was about and, after I told him, mentioned that his catalogs are starting to include products (like blood pressure cuffs and thermometers, I guess) which have a wireless option to automatically send measurements to patient records.

Adam’s book is targeted to designers but you should understand that he includes in that group everyone who works for companies that make these products. Not just the people who design the physical appearance or specify the internal workings but marketers, executives and all those who have a say in what gets made and how. Seems reasonable to me, especially given the current political and business environment where almost any information that can be collected is collected and then aggregated and analyzed by whoever can make a case for getting their hands on the data.

recommended

John Grisham is perhaps the reigning master of legal thriller fiction, running faster down the path that Scott Thurow opened than Thurow ever managed and selling books near the Tom Clancy volume level. For awhile it seemed like Grisham got bored, or perhaps just caught in a rut, but trying his hand at other forms seems to have reinvigorated the man.

The Broker, though it will never be confused for high literature, is an amazingly readable, off the track confection. Think of it as a dessert like Death by Chocolate because its so addictive. I bought it in the airport on my way back from Seattle and barely put it down except for sleep until I finished the 420 pages two days later.

Six years ago Joel Backman was the second most powerful man in Washington, the lobbyist uber alles, but when he and his partner, the former Senator from Texas, got too greedy over a prize that dropped into their laps the Senator got dead and Backman was sentenced to spend the next 20 years in solitary confinement in a federal prison. On the evening before the Presidential Inauguration, the outgoing incumbent is deciding on which of the last minute rush of pardon requests to sign when he comes across one for Backman that originates from the legendary Director of Central Intelligence, a man with a Hoover-like history.

Teddy Maynard never believed Backman’s assertions that he’d told all he knew about the stolen prize. Even if that was so, Maynard knew that the mysterious origins of the technology could be revealed by seeing who came after the lobbyist if he was set free, hence the pardon. Backman is released and the terms of his pardon are that he be relocated outside the United States with a new identity, never to return to our shores or contact anyone from his past life. Not if he wants to live.

Sent to Italy, Backman quickly surmises the danger of his situation. How he gets out alive is the treat Grisham delivers. Plus the subplot of our hero adapting to life in a new country, where he only gradually learns the language and the pace of the places, is really well integrated.

definitely recommened

Krugle Blog: ding-ding-ding! We have a winner!

How nice is it that besides getting code I was looking for in futility for months, Krugle‘s sending me a nice prize too? Suw-weet!

I’m pretty sure My Circle On Trial is the kind of fake character blog Scoble et al have been calling out lately. I found it via a blog ad on LVPD Shocked by Murder of Officer and Its Own Inexperience, a fairly serious article about the on the ground effect of Scalia’s decision about police and exclusion of illegally taken evidence.

Since there are more anti-corporate class action lawsuits these days than you can shake a stick at, I had to read quite a bit of Claudia Lake’s reporting on this so-called “Trial of the Century” before realizing the site is a joke. Call me funnybone-deficient or thick as a brick for not recognizing the intent immediately if you like but the whole thing in no way makes me more likely to switch to Alltel, the cellphone company behind it.

If anything, I agree more with Robert and Steve Rubel that such sites are wasted energy that can be much more productively used to directly engage customers and potential customers.

Cliff asks:

Any word on three sequels:

1. Van Helsing. This movie made (I think) around 160-175 million at the box office and a lot more in DVD’s. Heck,thats more than the recent Mission Impossible III flick made by 30-40 million bucks! Has there been any mention of a sequel?
2. X Files Movie. Again, made decent money on the first film and have heard rumors over the years of a sequel.
3. And of course, Raiders of the Lost Arc. What is the holdup on making a 4th movie of this blockbuster series?

My answers:

I wish I had the definitive answers for you but here’s my best understanding:

1. Not going to happen, though of course in Hollywood if the right two people get it in their head then any movie can be made. But Hugh Jackman is probably happy elsewhere and Steven Sommers, though quiet lately, has four unrelated projects listed for the next couple of years in IMDB.
2. There are stories from some of the principals, including Frank Spotnitz and Ducovny, that this will happen but there’s still no approved script or production plans.
3. Similar status though maybe closer to production–one or another of the key players have rejected scripts written by very successful writers including Frank Darabont. IMDB lists it as a 2008 release but I’m sure that’s no more than a guesstimate and they don’t give a specific day or month, just the year. OTOH if they wait too much longer Ford will need to do it from a wheelchair 😉

Bonus info: Cinematical pointed me to the stunning trailer for The Prestige, a movie coming this fall starring Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine and witten and directed by Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Memento, Insomnia).

I think tonight’s meeting showed JHTC is starting to get back to the level of community we had in 2003-2004. A terrific speaker in Eric Benhamou, 50+ people in the room and lots of small group conversations before and after the main event.

Eric gave an energizing hour long presentation title “Business for the Soul,” discussing the role of social action for corporations and how that translates into venture philosophy, using as a case study the terrific success the Israel Venture Network, which he chairs, has had in six short years. He then took questions from the group for 25 minutes.

As I announced at the beginning of the meeting, our next two meetings are already set:

• Sep. 12 – Ofer Ben-Shachar, A Pragmatic Serial Entrepreneur
• Nov. 14 – Barry Kramer and Candy Mirrer, Venture Capital and M&A for Startups

Thanks again to Fenwick & West for the use of their great conference space!

Here are a couple of photos, one of Eric and one with him and me:

Thanks to new source code search engine Krugle I finally solved a silly little PHP coding task that had boggled me through about a half dozen previous tries, with the very first result: Clint Ecker’s opmlParser.php.

The 64 games finished today with, of course, the Italian Blues beating the French branch of the color. The game was pretty decent, not a complete defensive afternoon, but there are plenty of news sites to dissect the play so I won’t go into detail. I’m glad of the result and felt the winners had the better of the play.

I just want to capture my complete mystery, even seven hours later, on why three time World Footballer of the Year and hero of France’s 1998 World Cup glory Zinedine Zidane went nuts only minutes before the end of extra time and got tossed for lowering his head and blasting it into Marco Materazzi’s chest. Already commentary is saying this incident, in what is supposedly Zizou’s last professional match, will overshadow one of the best careers of this era.

The 2010 tournament in South Africa is only four years away! Just enough time to get the American team shaped up.

I had lunch Thursday with fellow TextDrivers Jason Speck and Mark “Mr sIFR” Wubben at a little Mexican place to celebrate Mark’s arrival from the Netherlands for a summer internship with JotSpot. Mark took a semi-decent shot of Jason and me:

My wonderful friend Pam is turning mumblety-mum years old Monday so TS1 and I met up with another couple, her and her husband Henry tonight for dinner at VILLAGE California Bistro and Wine Bar in Santana Row. We had a terrific time and a pretty good, albeit expensive, meal.

Since neither of us had been to this fancy new development before we decided to go a little early and explore. I even picked up my first Moleskin notebook at the Borders, since Garret and others wrote so favorably of them.

Santana Row is an upscale integrated development, stores and restaurants on the ground level and housing on top. How upscale? Let’s just say that the Mercedes, Lexii and Porsches complimented the Ferraris and the stores strongly reminded me of Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

No surprise then that the restaurant was a bit above our normal range. We really enjoyed the food, spring asparagus with goat cheese and vinagrette, risotto with mushrooms and banana split (with carmelized banana, chocolate and caramel sauces made in the kitchen). And the company, of course.

That reminds me. Have you checked out her CD yet? Eight lovely songs she wrote, sings and plays (piano, with a studio band) for a measley $12.97. Buy yourself a copy and make her birthday even happier 😉

Over at BMR I posted write ups tonight of most of the movies seen the last couple of weeks:

• Superman Returns
• X-Men 3: The Last Stand
• Fun with Dick and Jane
• Alien Nation
• High Art
• Bobbie’s Girl

Still to come: An Inconvient Truth, which I’ll be giving a 5 (out of 5).

118 minutes of unbreakable defense on both sides and then boom, two minutes from the end of OT the Azurri get lightning strikes from Grosso and Del Piero. Italy hand Germany their first loss ever at Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund (14 previous matches over 71 years) and move on to the final against the Portugal-France winner. Major props to Fabio Cannavaro, who stood hard at the center of the Italian defense, my choice for Man of the Match.

For a change in this tournament the referee, Armando Archundia of Mexico, did not take the game away from the players. Much as I dislike Marcello Balboa’s commentary he was right to compliment Archundia for allowing play to flow and not buy into most of the diving.

A beautiful, beautiful match with a classic ending between two historic rivals. Hard to fault the players or coaches on either side and the 65,000 fans made the grounds rock with passion. Rumors have US Soccer ready to approach Jurgen Klinsmann to replace Bruce Arena but I think the German Federation would be foolish to let him leave. Germany is a pretty young team outside of Jens Lehmann and will surely be even stronger in four years.

Will Italy win their fourth championship, France a second or Portugal break through for the first time? I’m done with predictions and will be rooting for Portugal tomorrow and Italy Sunday.