Stupid people do stupid things

Too bad they are such prominent people with so much ability to influence the world and our lives. First, there is the ongoing matter of George W. Bush as exemplified by the latest on China and its nukes. Then there are the people out to ruin the UN World Conference on Racism by turning truth on its head. And, since bad things come in threes, let’s end by mentioning those religious zealots running Afghanistan and their ridiculous persection of foreign aid workers; after all, Afghans have an incredibly high standard of living and don’t need charity from anyone else, do they?

What are Web Services?

And why do we want them? Web services are the hot new thing in internet applications but so far people are having difficulty understanding why they want to use them and what functions are bested suited to be deployed as web services. In this XML Magazine interview, Adam Bosworth, chairman, CTO, and co-founder of (acquired by BEA) Crossgain gives an excellent overview on the subject, the best I’ve read yet. More credentials for Bosworth: he was the man who got Bill Gates to approve the XML project at Microsoft and he wrote one-third of the code for Borland’s Quattro Pro spreadsheet before moving to Microsoft to build the Access database; Bosworth is mentioned quite often in Breaking Windows, an excellent book I’m reading just now.

The key advance, as I read this, is that web services ships data (in the form of XML documents) from place to place where previous n-tier architectures such as client/server and CORBA/DCOM shipped code. Bosworth cites three characteristics that are critical for successful architectures that can span processes, companies, and the Internet: they must be loosely coupled, they must use coarse-grained communication, and they must support asynchronous interaction. Worth reading.

Today’s task: site update

Another milestone in the billsaysthis redesign. Every page conforms to a standard, structured layout that include the top row elements (logo, page title or saying on the home page, and site search), site navigation bar along the left side, and the page’s individual content occupying the remainder. Used modular programming in PHP to get this and hopefully future design changes will not require updating every single page. I know that a content management system would also get to this point with less work from me but part of the reason for doing the site is to do my own programming and not use a package

Today’s movie (2): Beautiful

I wonder if I watched the same move as James Berardinelli, who called the film “a wretchedly insipid effort that makes a mockery of its name.” How can any film with both Minnie Driver and Joey Lauren Adams be that bad? Okay, the story is a little implausible and how anyone can think Adams could play the schlumpy best friend is a mystery to me. I admit that Sally Field doesn’t do the movie any favors in her directorial debut, though. At least Andy Klein of New Times L.A. agrees with me.

Today’s movie: Shane

In this 1953 Academcy Award nominated film, Alan Ladd plays the loner who walks in and saves the day. George Steven’s Shane is considered one of the quintessential movie westerns pitting ranchers against homesteaders in 1880s Wyoming. This could be simplistic but reaches deep to make the bad guy understandable–although the rancher is shown ordering murders he also gets an excellent speech explaining how he came to his position–and brilliantly uses a young boy to focus us tightly on Ladd’s stoic hero. Hollywood gets its material from elsewhere and in the case of most westerns, that source was Frederick Jackson Turner, a historian who argued that the continuously receeding western frontier was the central story of America in the 19th century.

Can you make it to all 51?

National Geographic names the 50 Places of a lifetime, “destinations no curious traveler should miss.” I’ve been to Jerusalem, New York, San Francisco, the Grand Canyon, the Amalfi Coast, the British Virgin Islands, Coastal Norway, and Cyberspace. Only eight but I’m young yet. How many have you been to?

(P.S. I had a six hour tour of Paris by bus once, does that count?)

Liverpool 5, Germany 1

In World Cup qualifying today, Liverpool took apart Germany. Well, really it was the English national side that did the trick but Red players scored all the goals, Michael Owens leading the way with a hat trick. This puts England in excellent position to move through to the finals with a game in hand on Germany and the next match at home against Albania on Wednesday. The win was England’s first in Germany since 1965 and only the second home loss ever in Cup qualifying for the Germans. Read the tears and gloating (and confusion) on metafilter.

Short and to the point

Only two days after being delisted from NASDAQ, NetObjects issued a two sentence press release:

“REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sep 1, 2001 (BUSINESS WIRE) — NetObjects, Inc. today announced that it will cease operations effective today. The Company intends to sell its assets as expeditiously as circumstances permit.”

Four years ago IBM purchased 51% of this company and we at NetDynamics thought of it as an important competitor, but almost immediately it fell by the wayside. Per the latest 10-Q filing, IBM owned 48% but there is no statement from them about this.

Today’s movie: Rat Race

A goofy bunch of losers are gathered by eccentric Vegas casino owner (Monty Python’s John Cleese) to race 660 miles for a gym bag filled with $2 million in Rat Race. We laughed a lot. This is a throwback to movies like Cannonball Run (remember Jackie Chan in that one?) done surprisingly well. Seth Green and Vince Vieluf as the Cody Brothers have a lot of the best laughs although Amy Smart’s helicopter pilot has the best scene buzzing her no-good boyfriends backyard pool. Except for maybe Cuba Gooding’s time driving a bus full of Lucy Ricardo fans. There’s almost no foul language or sexual material, so this flick is recommended even for kids.

CSS: Where to get the goods

Oh, have I been struggling with CSS for the past week. But I think I’m getting somewhere, thanks to the following resources:

This kind of thing won’t help Sun

Blatantly biased (note the “Prepared for Sun Microsystems” right at the top) whitepapers like J2EE vs. Microsoft.NET by Chad Vawter and Ed Roman of The Middleware Company will not be swallowed whole by developers. Even with ‘promises’ like “We promise to compare these choices at a logical, neutral, and unbiased level.” Bought and paid for analysis is usually worth a lot less than it costs.

Will Sun get a new life out of StarCat?

ZDNet is reporting that Sun Micro is preparing to launch StarCat for September. StarCat is the codename for the new high-end UltraSparc III-based servers. Something better come along because Sun stock is down $2.64 to $10.79 this morning!!! StarCats will support up to 72 UltraSparc III 750 MHz chips (with 900 MHz and 1 GHz in the pipeline) divisible into 18 separate Solaris domains (that is, virtual servers) with 576 Gb of RAM–imagine how fast Quake would run on this box.

Today’s books: Star Trek Maximum Warp (Books 1 and 2)

Decent adventure, bringing in the Romulans, Klingons, and, of course, Picard and the Enterprise. Another case of Paramount grasping at the money by splitting what should have been one novel into two parts, though. I hate it but I can’t help myself. For a real review, check out what Michelle Erica Green wrote on the Trek Nation site. Let’s just say someone is messing with the primal nature of space itself, creating dead zones where higher forms of energy (like warp propulsion) don’t work, and Picard must work with Spock (yeah, cool) and a Romulan scientist to save all of existence.

Today’s movie: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Some people may dismiss Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as sexist, juvenile, gay-baiting, potty mouth humor. And they’d be right. Except that it’s really funny and all the political incorrectness is self-mocking. Jay and Silent Bob are finally starring in their own movie after being supporting characters in writer/director Kevin Smith’s four previous gutbusters. Since Smith has announced this is his last ‘New Jersey’ film, he brings back many of the old characters–Ben Affleck plays himself (with Matt Damon and director Gus Van Sant parodying Good Willing Hunting) as well as his Chasing Amy cartoonist, Jason Lee reprises his roles from Mall Rats and Chasing Amy, even Shannon Doherty and Joey Lauren Adams. And Jason Mewes as Jay is all over the place with the machine gun cursing/sexual fantasy raps and director Smith as Silent Bob.

On the other hand, can someone please tell Will Ferrell to take a vacation? The man is in more more movies than I can count and he stinks in all of them

But not Shannen Elizabeth. She falls for Jay, somehow, after throwing over her international ring of extremely hot female jewel thieves for him.

Moviefone (yeah, the place you look up showtimes) has a good feature explaining the characters in Kevin Smith’s universe. And there’s the obligatory interest group controversy, this time with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Being a modern woman or a skanky ho?

Maureen Dowd wrote an interesting Op-Ed piece for the NY Times called The Manolo Moochers all about attitudes towards who pays on a date. Apparently, a lot of women think that men are supposed to pay, but it sure doesn’t mean they’re going to put out. And men tend to agree:

“It is, as one guy says, ‘one of the few remaining ways we can demonstrate our manhood.'”

I know I generally pay but I’m not averse to a woman treating me some of the time when we’re in a committed relationship.

Gay judge to run for Helms’ Senate seat

North Carolina Superior Court Judge Ray Warren, a former Helms staffer and Republican state senator, who came out of the closet and became a Democrat, is considering a bid for the seat currently held by the retiring “crap-ocrat” Jesse Helms. This would be so cool I would be willing to move to North Carolina. (Of course they do have lots of good tech jobs there…) Great quote from Warren:

“We’re all entitled to grow up,” Warren said Monday. “George (W.) Bush had his problems with alcohol. I was a Republican. We both got over it.”

I knew these guys were bad news

Two weeks ago, I wrote that employees should beware of Promethean Investment Group. And I am scared that I’ll lost my highspeed ‘Net connection if Excite@Home goes under. In a terrible nightmare, the two are coming together, as The Standard reports in Creditor Calls on ExciteAtHome; Promethean is calling in $50 million in notes they hold and in a written statement, Excite admitted that if it were forced to repay the notes “it would have a materially adverse impact on the company’s liquidity and its ability to fund its operations.” Excite management claims the charges are frivolous and without merit but I’m shaking in my boots for now. Urggh!!!

Do not f%#k with Matt Taibbi

Matt, I am your buddy, pal, friend, never fear Bill is here. Just please don’t do to me what you did to Thomas Nolle. I will admit that he’s a strikingly good example of some of the excesses in our economy/society. But wow! did you ever get him. And, Matt, Nolle was wrong, oh so wrong!

Nolle, a New Jersey telecommunications consultant, came to Matt’s attention after being quoted in the LA Times saying that the Internet is run by “hippy anarchists. Don’t get on Taibbi’s wrong side–not responding to a letter brought on Nolle prank orders of pizza and grocery deliveries, calls to government agencies and known employers, and worse. Worse? How about calling police to report a domestic dispute at Nolle’s home and a call to his neighbors from the DEA who’d “like to ask you a few questions if you could, not about you, but about your neighbor, Tom Nolle.” The kind of terrible things that make life a nightmare.

Matt and Mark Ames, the men behind eXile.ru, live and publish in Moscow but focus on Western topics such as how consultants foisted on Russia by the World Bank to administer aid from the bank pocketed all of the loot. And how good life is in Moscow if you have a few dollars and the guts to brave the place and its macabre mafia violence. The two published a book last year full of their cruel and caustic humor, telling tales no major American paper would dare publish. Let’s just say that being in Moscow gets eXile a lot of slack when it comes to legal ramifications.