Quote: But the Jackson associate said that in renewed negotiations, CBS agreed to pay another $1 million to the star to grant the interview so that the network could finally broadcast its entertainment special.

Randy: "Money! Money. Money. Must be funny. In a rich man's world." That's the new titled co-autobiography of Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson. The book will be released during the upcoming first episode of CBS' new reality show "How to Buy American Justice?"

source Scripting.

Quote: The inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, has been awarded a knighthood for his pioneering work. Dubbed the "Father of the Web", he came up with a system over 10 years ago to organise, link and browse net pages.

source Scripting.

Dude has a new face.

I find it funny that most all bloggers support Dean for president. The reason is obvious. But to elect someone as president because he's a blogger is right up there w/ electing actors. Do Americans actually care about policy? Or do they vote solely for the coolest person?

I added blog templates to Dude and here's the first one I did. Sweet!?

iM 19th on my first name "randy" and 3rd and 4th on my last name "morin". But I do have #1, 2, 3 on the term "real geek".

Quote: A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named "Administratium." Administratium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Administratium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of 3 years; it does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Administratium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass." You will know it when you see it.

iM not a good receiver of gifts. I usually put black sox at the top, bottom and throughout my Xmas list. Not that iM much a giver of gifts, my wife doesn't all that (she even buys here own that are from me). This year, I got 4 coffee travel mugs, a cordless and wired phone and clothes, which was pretty much exactly what I wanted. Now, if I had a real Xmas list, what would it be?

1. Leafs win the Stanley Cup.
2. Goto Disneyworld in March.
3. Finish Dude v1.
4. Better hosting for Dude.
5. Dude acquires enough money so that I can focus 40hrs/wk effort.
6. Finish PaSSAPI.
7. PaSSAPI gets used.
8. Dedicated server for KBCafe.com.
9. Finish Recase/Juice/DruTEx.
10. Redo of iBLOGthere4iM.

It's more like a things TODO list.

Quote: The Internet is no longer a geek's world: it's officially mainstream - at least in America, according to researchers.

Randy: Have we crossed the chasm?

I just started embedding HTML link elements in my RSS.

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:kbcafe="http://www.kbcafe.com/rss">
   <channel>
      <title>KBCafe</title>
      <link>http://www.kbcafe.com</link>
      <description>My Website</description>
      <item> ... </item>
      <kbcafe:LINK title="History" href="http://www.kbcafe.com/history" />
   </channel>
</rss>

Don Box: several Geek-esque technologies/products that I think would improve (my) life on earth substantially if only they existed.

source Scobleizer.

Ya they lost. Haven't shaved the goatee, yet.

Quote: As you have all seen the past few days, we have been having technical difficulties. [cut] The solution to this problem is to purchase now sufficient hardware to give us enough excess capacity so that we can be reliable. I estimate that $20,000 in hardware would get us to a point where we have reserves to handle the failure of any one machine.

source Scripting.

Quote: There is an online getaway where you can hang out with your friends and meet new ones--all in a lush 3D environment that's yours to explore!

Randy: I have seen the future and it is there.

I often ask developers if they are handling exceptions and very often the answer is yes. The problem is that I didn't really ask a good question. I should ask if they are handling exceptions properly. For instance, a common fault is to return false from a function when an exception occurs.

   try {
      do();
   }
   catch( xxx ) {
      return false;
   }
   return true;

This is a perfect example of handling an exception but doing nothing with it. A better approach is to catch the exception, do something with it and rethrow it. Thus allowing the caller to perform his own actions on the exception.

   try {
      do();
   }
   catch( xxx ) {
      cleanup();
      throw;
   }

This is not to say that catching an exception and not rethrowing it is improper. This depends primarily on your design. For instance, if you are being called by a framework that will terminate if you allow exceptions back thru from your callback, then rethrowing is clearly not an option. Last, you more than likely have to eventually not rethrow the exception. The trick is to find those spots and rethrow most everywhere else.

After some complaints awhile back that my HTML didn't validate, I spent the extra 5 minutes to check my new site, this time around. It validates! As does my CSS.

Actually, one page doesn't validate. The articles page contains some markup from PayPal which prohibits validation. I checked and it looks good ok Firebird and IE, which should cover most of my readers. I haven't redone the blog yet. It doesn't validate.

I once consulted for a very large, successful, profitable and growing company that shall remain nameless. While working there, I'd often pass by this one team leads office and more often than not, he would be involved one of four activities, in order of most frequently occurring.

• Spinning around on his swivel chair.
• Tossing a water bottle.
• Bouncing a ball.
• Social chatter.

Rarely did I ever see this invidividual working. In fact, I once stood slightly out of his view and timed him twirling around on his swivel chair for 12 consecutive minutes, while on another occasion I timed him tossing a water bottle for 8 consecutive minutes. But then, I had nothing better todo and most likely neither did he ;)

It's amazing after working for so many high stress dot-BOMB startups, that the one place I worked where nobody did any actual work, was also, the most profitable.

Cute Programming is when you use a creative technique out of the ordinary to accomplish a task. These techniques often work well on a team of one programmer, but not in collaborative team projects.

The best example I have of cute programming, was a programmer who decided unilaterally to prefix his class names with Cxx_, where xx is the component name. This forced the IDE to group his classes by component. Of course, the IDE allowed for adhoc grouping, so the technique, although creative, served only to confuse his co-workers.

Quote: Beer Bottle Coffin made for July, 2002 issue of Maxim magazine. White oak stained a lively beer bottle color with hand painted label, "Old Swill Premium Draught Beer." Coffin and two piece lid upholstered with plush hot pepper fabric. Maxim magazine is offering the coffin as a prize in a nationwide contest.

source Smartpatrol.

20-18 predicting this NFL season against the spread. I'll predict games w/ some meaning left.

• Browns v Bengals - Bengals are still playing for a playoff spot, expect them to run over the Browns. Bengals -7.5.
• Steelers v Ravens - With a Bengals win ealier in the day, the Ravens will press for 2000 yards for Jamal Lewis. Ravens -7.5.

odds from Covers.com.

Quote: Robert Scoble works at Microsoft. Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here. Deal with it.

Randy: You'll find it in the right sidebar.

Quote: Mats Sundin scored 3:35 into overtime to lift Toronto to a ragged 6-5 victory Friday night over the New York Rangers and stretch the Maple Leafs' point streak to 16 games. The Maple Leafs, who couldn't protect leads of 4-1 and 5-2, escaped with their streak intact despite being outshot 35-25. Toronto is 14-0-1-1 since last losing a regulation game on Nov. 20 at Edmonton, and 7-0-1 away from home.

Randy: Leafs are winning ugly now and are no longer playing well defensively. Kidd hasn't looked good his last two starts.

Dave: The audio from my talk at Stanford is available.

• Software Hacking is when you know enough about programming to be dangerous, but not enough to contribute real value. If your component or system is constantly falling over, then you are likely a hacker.
• Software Programming is when you can add real value by writing components or subsystems, but don't understand the big picture. If you just write code w/ no plan, then you are likely a programmer.
• Software Development is when you can write a full system by following a complete spec to delivery development plan.

iM a heavy morning coffee drinker. Coffee worsens a hangover. The next morning, I replace coffee w/ Five Alive Citrus Juice when I have a hangover. Two glasses this morning (full of ice) cured the hangover.

Hangovers are caused by three things; dehydration, depleted nutrients and heat. Yes, your body temperature rises after drinking. Citrus Juice over ice is an obvious cure.

Quote: From a fascinating facial hair competition to an in-depth look at Hollywood's most-enhanced stars to several sites highlighting regrettable fashion choices, this year's picks remind us the Web knows no bounds. And for this, we are thankful. Without further ado, here is a list of our 25 favorite Yahoo! Picks of 2003.

Randy: Many are blogs :)

source Scobleizer.

I hope everybody got what they wanted for xMas. I got 4 travel mugs (1 branded w/ the Maple Leaf's blue), 2 phones (1 wires-1 wireless), some clothes and three happy kids. Lots of Batman for my son, Leap Frog for my older daughter and baby toys for the baby. They played till 2AM xMas morning (including the baby).

I failed to blog on xMas day, which broke my streak of 50 straight days :(

But today is when the real fun begins. I promised my daughter to do some Easy Bake Oven. Promised my wife to let her go shopping all day, while we (the royal we) clean the house.

iBLOGthere4iM

Highlights: Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2004 was $153.9 million, up 22% from $125.7 million in the previous quarter and up 107% from $74.2 million in the same quarter of last year. Net income for the quarter was $16.3 million, or $0.20 per share diluted, compared to net income of $2.1 million or $0.03 per share diluted in the prior quarter. RIM is updating revenue and earnings guidance for the upcoming two quarters. Revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004 is currently expected to be in the range of $195-210 million. Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2005 is currently expected to be in the range of $220-240 million. RIM is now expecting GAAP earnings per share (EPS) for the fourth quarter in the range of 30-40 cents per share diluted and adjusted EPS, excluding the patent litigation provision, in the range of 45-55 cents per share. For the first quarter RIM is expecting EPS to be between 35-50 cents per share diluted on a GAAP basis and 50-65 cents adjusted. The total of cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments was $531.6 million as at November 29, 2003, compared to $528.1 million at the end of the previous quarter.

Randy: What did RIM do differently than 724 Solutions? They preserved cash until the downturn was over. Now the rewards.

Quote: The Maple Leafs will get to enjoy their Christmas this year as they enter a short holiday break with the point streak intact and at 15 games.

Randy (iM a real Leaf's fan):
All I really want for x-mas is to spend some time w/ u.
But I, iM 34 yrs old and have never seen your face.
I have touched you on 67, do you re'mber that embrace.
Just give me this one wish, bring home Stanley's grace.

It's quite amazing how almost every programmer on this planet believes that they are the ultimate programmer. That they know more about programming than all the programmers who past before them. That no matter how young, their inexperience is compensated by their supreme intellect.

The truth is that you don't really know how to program until you understand that you are not a programming god, that you know nothing. Only then can you move forward. But, it's not enough to admit this to others. You must admit this to yourself. This is very humiliating. But it's like how admitting that you are an alcoholic is the first step to recovery.

"It just goes to show ya; it doesn't matter if you're black or white, the only color that matters is green." - Peter Griffin (Family Guy).

and a beer in a tree.

source You Hoser.

Quote: This section introduces the link (or hyperlink, or Web link), the basic hypertext construct. A link is a connection from one Web resource to another. Although a simple concept, the link has been one of the primary forces driving the success of the Web.

<LINK title="iBLOGthere4iM" href="http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/">

My daughter really likes the links bar. She puts all her favorite Websites on the links bar. She's 5 yrs-old, can read and surf the Web. But navigating the Favorites menu is too complicated. The links bar is more in her face and easier to understand. When she likes a Website, she asks that I put a link on her links bar for that Website. Today, she ran out of space and she had to make a decision to remove one link.

Yes, I could create folders on the links bar, but that wouldn't be easy for her to understand. I could also shrink the text on the buttons, but I already do that and don't want to get her into short-forms just yet.

What I really need is a links bar that can expand into a second row.

Twas the night before crisis,
And all through the house,
Not a program was working,
Not even a browse.

more...

Create a set of XSD/WSDL schema/interfaces based on the Atom API, Atom syntax and RSS. The interfaces will allow users to...

• Perform complex queries on one or more Atom/RSS feeds.
• Manipulate Weblogs.
• Manipulate news syndication Websites.
• Upload browser <object>s; images, movies and flash applets.
• Translation between Atom and RSS.

These interfaces will work with common Web service toolkits. They will also work w/ various WSDL enabled transports; HTTP GET, HTTP POST and HTTP SOAP. PaSSAPI will initially work for RSS 2.0 and Atom syntax over a SOAP Atom API. Future versions will incorporate RSS 1.0, RSS 0.9x, HTTP GET, HTTP POST and REST.

Quote: The enrolled (final) text of S. 877 as it was passed by the Senate on November 25, 2003, and agreed to by the House of Representatives on December 8, 2003, appears below (also available in PDF).  The bill was signed by the President on December 16, 2003, and takes effect on January 1, 2004.

Randy: Read the law that will stop unethical SPAM in 2004.

source Marc's Voice.

 this is an interim version so that we can do some look and feel testing. I'll have yet another before Xmas.

New features

• More buttons :)
• Improved AutoUpdate.
• 1-click blogging.

Coming features

• Dudesphere search.
• Smaller icons.
• Better overlay setup.
• Dynamic buttons.

Please uninstall previous versions before you install this new version.

John Robb: Dave is not going to be a fellow at Berkman Center anymore. 

source Blog Universe.

Microsoft Watch: What's the future of SOAP, in your opinion (and as one of the original authors of the SOAP spec)? Is it evolving into Service Oriented Architecture Protocol than Simple Object Access Protocol? (and are these two things different)?

Don Box answers.

source Scobleizer.

Quote: Mats Sundin scored the go-ahead goal with 29 seconds left and the Maple Leafs registered at least a point for the 14th consecutive game with a 4-2 victory over with Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.

Randy: I wasn't ready to shave yet anyway. For those that don't know, I've been growing a goatee during the winning streak.

An interesting side note. What coach holds the record for the longest NHL unbeaten streak?

Dave: Randy Charles Morin sent a question about this. Does the blogosphere pick up or go on holiday during the holidays? Here's what I said.

1. I don't have any data, but I do have subjectives.
2. The actual flow goes down, around the 25th way down.
3. But the volume of real work goes up, because people have time for projects that require attention or thinking, which they have more of in the coming two-three weeks.

Quote: Monetize your RSS feed. Maintain total control over the ads placed in your feed. Expose all of your content via premium RSS feeds.

16-17 against the spread this season.

• Falcs v Bucs - Bucs haven't scored more than 24 in the last 9 wks, and only twice more than 16. How can they be 7.5 pt favorites against Vic. Falc +7.5.
• Pats v Jets - I don't see the Jets stopping one of hotest teams. Pats -3.0.
• Lions v Panthers - Panthers never win big, Lions are over-penalized on the road because of the streak and Davis is questionable. Lions +9.5.
• 49ers v Eagles - This is the Eagles! Eagles -7.0.
• Fins v Bills - Fins have lost to Pats twice, Colts, Titans and Eagles (all 10-win teams). They only lost one other game and it was by 1 pt and they are giving me 3 pts? Fins +3.0.

odds Covers.

View Photo
Fri Dec 19,11:36 AM ET - (AP)

Most people spend the majority of life waiting in lines, staring at ads, watching the tube, waiting to be told what to buy next.

While we're talking about waiting around and staring, I thought I'd give you something to stare at. Now, I put this picture in with email SPAM and I'll have everybody waiting in line to stare at my tube. I mean her tube of course :)

Notes. Propylene Gycol is antifreeze. Glycerol turns to Acrolein when smoked, which irritates the respiratory system, interferes w/ the lungs and is a carcinogen. Diammonium Phosphate and Ammonium Hydroxide, a.k.a. ammonia turns normal nicotine into free-based nicotine.

source Tarnival.

Don Box teaches us

• to output "Hello World" in red using XML (first 15 minutes).
• to sing Longhorn Xmas songs (rest).

source Scobleizer.

Here's an RSS 2.0 to Atom syntax XSLT that iM working on. The tough part was the date. If someone ever invents another date format, then send me their email address, I've got some friends who'll take care of them. Try it out and give me some feedback, ala Sam's WSDL feedback, so that I may improve them. Next I'll setup a Webpage where you enter your RSS 2.0 feed URL and I'll give you some HTML to put an Atom link on your blog. Also on the list is RSS 1.0 to Atom syntax XSLT.

Issues

• Timezones in date. I don't translate non GMT dates at all.

Sam takes my Atom WSDL to another level. I guess he's directing my next move, which will be to take what he learned and incorporate it into my WSDL. By the way, here's a test server compiled from my latest WSDL.

Marc: Dave Winer likes randy Morin. I do too.  Anybody who can help connect things together - I say right on. 

Randy: Thanks Dude! Now back to work on that Ruby-Winer hug-fest ;)

Quote: Against the advice of all anti-spam organizations, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed the CAN-SPAM Act, a bill backed overwhelmingly by spammers and dubbed the "YOU-CAN-SPAM" Act because it legalizes spamming instead of banning it. Spam King Alan Ralsky told reporters the passage of the House bill "made my day". Spammers say they will now pour money into installations of new spam servers to heavily ramp up their outgoing spam volumes "all legally".

Randy: CAN-SPAM sets guidelines for how to SPAM correctly and makes it illegal to SPAM otherwise. Spamhaus doesn't view this as a win, but rather a loss. It's zero SPAM or bust. Extremism w/ no compromise. CAN-SPAM will stop unethical SPAMming and make it easier for ISPs to filter out most undesirable SPAM. We often forget that the offers we receive from NHL.com (substitute your favorite site) is also SPAM. A law that makes such ethical SPAM illegal is wrong. CAN-SPAM is good.

Quote: Mats Sundin and Gary Roberts each had a goal and an assist in the third period, and Ed Belfour earned his third shutout in the last six games as the Maple Leafs beat Tampa Bay Lightning 3-0 Tuesday night. Toronto has 44 points and is tied with Philadelphia for the league lead.[cut] Darcy Tucker added an empty-net goal for the Maple Leafs, who set a franchise record by recording a point in 12 straight games (11-0-0-1). They celebrated with a group hug after the final buzzer. 

Randy: After this Atom RSS thing is over, we too shall celebrate with a group hug. I can't wait to see Winer and Ruby, together at last :)

Quote: If there were an award for being a peacemaker, Randy Charles Morin would surely be up for it. This guy has been standing in the middle of the Syndication developer community, squarely, and doing what's right. [cut]

On the Atom-Syntax list, RCM said: "In the next month, I'll present a framework based on Atom API called PaSSAPI that will implement both the Atom syntax and RSS over the Atom API. Then you can choose to do whatever pleases yourself." Choosing whatever pleases yourself sounds good on paper, but in practice it's bad.

Randy: Thanks Dave. Add to list of things todo. Convert one of the authors of SOAP to SOAP. I can group that item w/ convert Ruby back to SOAP :)

Quote: What are the cultural differences between Unix and Windows programmers? There are many details and subtleties, but for the most part it comes down to one thing: Unix culture values code which is useful to other programmers, while Windows culture values code which is useful to non-programmers.

source Smartpatrol.

Winer: When people have questions, it would work best if they were formed as such, without ad hominemns. Randy Charles Morin recently did that, and Brent, Jon and myself got to work.

Randy: Thanks!

This is my first try at a draft-02 WSDL. Untested and written by hand. Things to do next...

• test w/ ASP.NET

Thanks to Sam for his help.

• HTML in titles and descriptions
• Links and permalinks

A response to Sam's presentation on Atom and RSS limitations.

Quote: All servers SHOULD support the following alternate interface mechanisms to enable a wider variety of clients to interact with AtomAPI servers.

Randy: In order to compensate for deficiencies in REST, the Atom API recomments that servers support SOAP in addition to REST.

1. Announce there will be an RSS 3.0 and that it will be the most thought-out syndication specification ever.
2. Announce that RSS 3.0 will ship on July 1, 2005.
3. Open up a mailing list, a wiki, and a weblog to track progress on RSS 3.0 and encourage community inclusion.
4. Work with Microsoft to ensure that RSS 3.0 will be able to take advantage of Longhorn's new capabilities.
5. Make sure RSS 3.0 is simply the best-of-breed syndication protocol.

Randy: How is this any different than the Atom initiative?

Quote: 724 Solutions (NASDAQ: SVNX; TSX: SVN), a leading provider of next-generation IP-based network and data services, announced today that it is now offering its X-treme Alerts Platform (XAP) on open-source Linux. This latest version of XAP, available in both hosted and in-house deployments, increases performance and significantly reduces total cost of ownership for mobile network operators.

Quote: The new management team is led by UserLand's new chief executive officer, Scott Young. Mr. Young was formerly SVP of operations and chief technical officer of Vicinity Corp. Vicinity went public in 2000 and was acquired by Microsoft Corp in 2002.

source Scripting.

XSD.EXE
Based on my XSD, I produced some C# using XSD.EXE.

XML Spy
I then used XML Spy to generate an Atom library in C#, Java and C++.

Quote: Kirk Johnson promised Tuesday to be trimmer and better prepared the next time he steps into a boxing ring. And the North Preston, N.S., heavyweight vowed to battle his way back to another world championship fight despite his self-described "amateurish" performance in a second-round loss to Vitali Klitschko of Ukraine on Saturday.

Randy: Sports are losing their appeal because the athletes are spoiled before they succeed, leading to excuses and poor showings.

Dave: Scoble is right, if people were paying attention, they'd be concerned at how IBM and Google are throwing their weight around in syndication space. And if Microsoft were doing what they're doing, there would be a holy jihad. Technology companies have always acted this way, and I guess they always will. I remember well how IBM screwed up SOAP, and the pattern is totally repeating.

Randy: Agreed. Politics.

   
Randy: A really awesome online collection of pics.

As a CDNian, I can't vote, but I can cheer.

Quote: In the second century of flight, private companies will ferry tourists into space, personal flying machines will roam digital skyways and executive jets will make supersonic speed around the globe, aviation experts and scientists say.

Randy: iM bored. Just wanted to blog something. iM writing a game. Weird. Need artwork.

Quote: Pierre Omidyar and Esther Dyson both complain about getting spammed by invitations through business-oriented social networking services such as LinkedIn.  This brings up two fundamental problems with these services. 

• First, the most connected people need them the least.
• The second problem is that the social networking services don't have a field for "do I really know this individual personally?" 

source Werblog, BoingBoing.

iM 13-13 predicting against the spread this season.

• Packers v Chargers. Chargers have lost big @ home against much worse opponents and were blown out at home following their first two wins. Beware the Flutie factor. Packers -5.
• Eagles v Fins. Fins have won only 1 home game this season by more than 3 pts and they are favorites against the hottest team in the NFL? Eagles +2.
• Lions v Chiefs. Lions have held opponents to 14 pts in 4 of their last 6 games. Yet they are 14 pt underdogs? Lions +14.
• Texans v Bucs. Bucs haven't beaten a team by ten the last six weeks. Texans +10.5.
• Panthers v Cards. Panthers have won by more than 6 once all year and it was @ home. Cards have been blown out repeatedly on the road, but have played well @ home. Cards +6.5.
• Browns v Broncs. Broncs have blown out the opposition 6 times this season. Browns have been blown out 3 times. Broncs -10.5.
• Ravens v Raiders. Raiders have gotten worse all season. Ravens +6.5.

odds Covers.

Quote: This is huge news: from CNN: U.S. believes Saddam captured, AP: Saddam Captured Alive, MSNBC: Britain says Hussein Captured, NYTimes: DNA Evidence Said to Confirm Saddam's Capture, Washington Post: Hussein Possibly Captured. According to analysts, this may not necessarily end the unrest in Iraq.

source Alec.

This is my first try at a draft-02 XSD. Untested and written by hand. Things left to do...

• content/multipart
• xml:base
• test against a few feeds
• unsure of "rel" attribute value

Quote: A videotape taken by witnesses appears to show Jama Jama, a 21-year-old landed immigrant from Somalia, trying to stop the fight before police arrive. Once officers from 23 Division show up, the tape, as broadcast on CITY-TV, appears to show a gloved officer gritting his teeth, grabbing Mr. Jama and punching him in the face, apparently unprovoked.

Quote: Mikael Renberg scored twice and had an assist to lead the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 3-1 victory over the New York Rangers on Saturday night. Gary Roberts added a goal and two assists for the Maple Leafs, who have won 10 of 11.

Randy: 10-0-0-1 in the last eleven and my goatee is fully grown in. At this point, iM thinking about not shaving for the remainder of the season and playoff, till the Leafs are eliminated.

Quote: A new draft of the Atom format is available;
http://www.mnot.net/drafts/draft-nottingham-atom-format-02.txt [plaintext]
http://www.mnot.net/drafts/draft-nottingham-atom-format-02.html [hypertext]

Randy: As already mentionned on the Atom mailing list, I will update my Atom.xsd to reflect this latest format.

Quote: The Profile was developed according to a set of principles that, together, form the philosophy of the Profile, as it relates to bringing about interoperability. [cut] The scope of the Profile delineates the technologies that it addresses; in other words, the Profile only attempts to improve interoperability within its own scope.

Randy: Cool!

source Ken.

Issues raised over IM w/ a fellow Atomite.

1. RSS Issues. The RSS issues are those raised here. PaSS does not currently address these issues, but may in future revisions. The resolutions in PaSS may be as follows; single-escaped HTML in title and description (CDATA?) and link means reference, not permaLink, use guid for permaLink; want XHTML, then use xhtml:body.
2. Setting aside of the Atom effort. PaSS will be embedded in Atom and requires the Atom effort continue moving forward.
3. An Assumption that RSS can be revved. RSS as a feed format is different then PaSS as a vocabulary. RSS will not be revved, PaSS will.
4. Process. The process will be a small group 3-5 that will vote yeah and nay on proposals by the community. iM seeking volunteers to lead this group.
5. The purpose to the community, once the spec is released. A WSDL and RSS capable Atom API.
6. Yet another format. PaSS is not a feed format, as outlined in the spec.

Quote: Hitachi and Japanese ciggie lighter maker Tokai will ship a direct methanol fuel cell system for PDAs in 2005. And they have already built the prototype, the pair said this week.

source Paul's links.

Every once in awhile I go on a rampage of bad code that I've seen over the years. Today, is one of those days, so let's enumerate a bit of it. Hopefully, somebody can learn, not to do this.

• A programmer didn't know that the base Java Object has synchronization methods. He proceeded to write a synchronization class based on polling a bool. The consumer was a while loop (w/ no wait or sleep) that polled the boolean for true. The server ran at 100% CPU utilization, for obvious reasons.
• A programmer wrote a server that created one thread for each user alert condition. A user could have zero, one or  more alerts defined. In the early beta, a few dozen users had set a few hundred alerts and the system collapsed.
• A class had a protected member that the programmer required. He defined a class within a method (yes, it's allowed) that inherited from the class and defined a public method that gave him access to the protected member. He then casted a pointer to the original class to the class defined inside the method and BINGO! he defeated the protected keyword.
• A step better. The same scenario, where a programmer required access to a protected member. He edited the library include file to make the member public. Of course, it only compiled on his machine.
• A programmer wrote many C++ preprocessor macros that redefined well written function names like SetWindowsText to cryptic names like SWT. He claimed he could type them faster.

Here's a tip on how to identify Spaghetti Code. Try to use one class within a library. If including this one class requires that you include a second class and that second class requires that you include a third class and so on, then you have Spaghetti Code (not always, but almost). We had this problem at 724 Solutions. If a 724 developer included any one class within the core framework, then you were required to include all other classes within the framework.

Note: 724 is approaching their all-time low. On Wednesday, they traded as low as $3.50 CDN, 8 cents above the low. They haven't released news in a month and a half. They once traded on TSE at $3,450.00 (post split price).

You haven't lived till you see this!

source Scripting.

Quote: A new draft of the Atom format is available;
http://www.mnot.net/drafts/draft-nottingham-atom-format-01.txt [plaintext]
http://www.mnot.net/drafts/draft-nottingham-atom-format-01.html [hypertext]

source Finally Atom.

Quote: Revision 09 of the draft RFC for the AtomAPI has been released. The change in this version is the addition of SOAP handling originally outlined in DifferentlyAbledClients.

sources Atom mailing list, Finally Atom.

Randy: It's worth the click.

source Malakasis.

Quote: Now you can post to your "Dude, check this out!" blog from any web browser! Is this the first D00d h4ck? :) You know you have a good thing when people start hacking it to make it work better for them!

source Smartpatrol.

Quote: U.S. President George W. Bush is grateful for help in the war on terrorism and is "working" to include Canada in lucrative rebuilding projects in Iraq, he said in a farewell phone call to retiring Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Randy: Chretien called and thanked me for my help in this matter. Does Bush read my blog? Is he afraid of a CDNian attack? ;)

Fitzy and The Eagle played big for the Leafs winning 1-0 tonight. They haven't played very well in the last two games, but still captured 3 of 4 points. It's typical to pick up a lot of points on the back-end of a winning streak while not playing well. Eventually, the play will catch up to them and they'll lose a few games. By the way, the Leafs are 9-0-0-1 in their last ten games. That's 19 of a possible 20 points.

The question was asked, "Did I shave?" after the Toronto loss to the Blues. I didn't! They did still get a point for losing in overtime. I will shave when they lose in regular time.

Quote: Example displaying only "http://www.trusted_site.com" in the two bars when the real domain is "malicious_site.com":
http://www.trusted_site.com%01%00@malicious_site.com/malicious.html A test is available at: http://www.secunia.com/internet_explorer_address_bar_spoofing_test/. The vulnerability has been confirmed in version 6.0. However, prior versions may also be affected.

Randy: Anybody notice that the vulnerabilities are not nearly as bad in the last month or two? By the way, this vulnerability is also in Mozilla, but only the status bar, not the address bar.

source Intertwingly.net.

With 3 minutes left in the game last Tuesday night, losing 2-1, Fitzy took a 4 minute high sticking penalty, which meant the Leafs would be short-handed the rest of the game and losing by a goal. Surely Toronto would get zero points this game.

The next 3 minutes played like the Leafs were on the power-play as the dominated the play 4 on 5. With 17 seconds on the clock Nieuwendyk potted the tying goal.

Still on the power-play in overtime for another 59 seconds, the Blues scored to win the game. But the Leafs earned a big point with 3 minutes of top play.

Quote: Did MSBlast cause the Aug. 14 blackout? [cut] The MSBlast worm first appeared on Aug. 11 and infected more than a million computers in the days following. [cut] The coincidence is too obvious to ignore.

source Paul's links.

Quote: Tokyo — Honda Motor Co. unveiled on Friday a cheaper, smaller but beefed up next-generation fuel cell for cars that overcomes a major problem of past models — running at freezing temperatures.

source P&D Operations.

Quote: McBride has also made a lot of his fellow SCO executives very happy. In fact, since March, when the first round of lawsuits was announced, SCO executives have sold not insignificant amounts of stock. [cut] Last week, SGI -- another company in SCO's legal crosshairs -- conducted its own tests of its product vs. the Unix code owned by SCO, and found "no more than 200 lines" of infringing code out of several million total lines. SGI quickly changed the infringing lines and wrote an open letter to the Linux community explaining its efforts. [cut] But unless a company such as IBM decides to purchase SCO -- something that could happen if IBM's internal review shows a significant amount of infringing code...

Randy: IBM could have purchased SCO for $20-30 million (a big premium to their trading price at the time) when SCO first threatened the case. Now SCO is valued over $200 million.

This article is old, but it's rare to find a good SCO-IBM article where the bias of the author isn't immediately obvious.

source P&D Operations.

Hillary: Absolutely. You know P'Lod is a really decent -- a decent alien yes. [ light laughter ] and you know I had to go to some event in Washingotn and you know I asked him to accompany me. And look at what happened. He puts aside his busy intergalactic business he goes to the Kennedy Center with me and -- you know and now look he's held up to ridicule. It really is so unfair.

source P&D Operations

Quote: A Japanese businessman has been ordered to stay away from Britney Spears for three years after a judge ruled he was "abnormally obsessed" with her. Despite sending hundreds of letters and photos to her home, he denied stalking her and said he was just an avid fan. He also allegedly sent photos of himself and notes saying "I'm chasing you".

Randy: Sounds like a cool dude!

Quote: A Princeton PhD student has published a paper detailing the music industry's latest CD copy protection scheme - and how the technique can be bypassed by simply holding down the host computer's Shift key when a 'protected' CD is inserted.

The copy-protection mechanism in question is SunnComm's MediaMax CD3 system. Launched in September, the company claimed its technology had passed strict testing to Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) copy-protection standards with "flying colours".

The "comprehensive test procedures" - SunnComm's words - were performed by "world-renowned" Professional Multimedia Test Centre (PMTC), based in Belgium. PMTC Division Manager Frans Pender is quoted by SunnComm as saying MediaMax C3 offered "an incredible level of security for the music".

source P&D Operations.

Quote: SCO Group Inc., which has been the target of intense criticism by open-source groups angry over the company's legal challenge of Linux, was struck Wednesday by a large-scale denial-of-service attack that brought down the software maker's Web site.

Randy: I can't tell you who is right or wrong in the SCO v LINUX(IBM) debate. I don't have enough information to make that decision, but I can tell you that constant DOS attacks on SCO are furthering my opinion against the GPL community, which has already admitted they were behind some of the attacks.

Downtown Windsor, Ontario. Across from tunnel exit from Detroit, Michigan. I miss the food. I suggest the 242, ribs and chicken for 2 people. The BBQ sauce is the best. The ribs are to die for. 

I would think twice about eating the ribs, as they might spoil your enjoyment of ribs afterwards. I stopped eating ribs elsewhere when I had them at TBQ. If you've had TBQ, then your appreciation of other ribs will change.

References to PaSS in the Blogosphere.

RSS+Atom=PSS - TechGuru
PSS is now defined using RSS and Atom by Randy Morin. Via Scoble.

What is PaSS - MyCollections
Quote:PaSS is a Web content syndication format based on its sister standard RSS.

When I play video games w/ my daughter, I often tell my 5-year daughter about my desire to lose. I'd rather win 50% of the time than 100%. Easy games are not worth the effort.

Quote: They stood outside the locker room and chanted. They chanted for the equipment manager, of all people. They chanted for over an hour.

Randy: An emergency backup goalie that actually hit the ice and won the game in a shootout last season.

Quote: From bookworm to NHL backup. That's how a whirlwind Tuesday unfolded for UBC Thunderbirds goaltender Chris Levesque. The Port Coquitlam native found himself an unlikely backup to Johan Hedberg in a 4-3 overtime victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins after Dan Cloutier suffered a groin injury during the morning skate.

Randy: This is a great hockey story. How do I get the movie rights?

I got Tribe.net Scam Spam today.

Quote: I am the first daughter of an ex military/ex president [cut] to transfer the $18.5mUSD which my late father deposited.

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a global hypertext project, to be known as the World Wide Web. Based on the earlier "Enquire" work, it was designed to allow people to work together by combining their knowledge in a web of hypertext documents. He wrote the first World Wide Web server, "httpd", and the first client, "WorldWideWeb" a what-you-see-is-what-you-get hypertext browser/editor which ran in the NeXTStep environment. This work was started in October 1990, and the program "WorldWideWeb" first made available within CERN in December, and on the Internet at large in the summer of 1991. - bio

Quote: Man cannot live by Cameron Diaz alone. Sometimes we need big guns, fast cars, dumb jokes, and huge explosions. You got a problem with that?

source Jay Solo.

Ken: Recently on the atom-syntax mail list we've been talking about escaped html again. HTML Tidy is a tool originally written by Dave Raggett and now maintained on SourceForge that takes arbitrary, potentially malformed, HTML as input and creates valid XHTML as output.

source Finally Atom.

Quote: Washington — The Pentagon has formally barred companies from countries opposed to the Iraq war from bidding on $18.6-billion (U.S.) worth of reconstruction contracts. A directive from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz limits bidders on those 26 contracts to firms from the United States, Iraq, their coalition partners and other countries which have sent troops to Iraq.

Why Canada hasn't attacked the U.S.

Randy:  iM planting more corn.

source Alec.

Search results at a friends blog.

Query	Visitors	Relative Traffic
miserable failure i'm feeling lucky	562
miserable failure	200
miserable failure, i'm feeling lucky	97
"miserable failure" "i'm feeling lucky"	94
"miserable failure" i'm feeling lucky	70

Type Real Geek at Google and click I'm Feeling Lucky. That's my old Radio blog that I use only for testing now.

Quote: Druken, 24, has played seven games for Toronto collecting four assists with two penalty minutes. He registered back to back assists November 27 at Atlanta and November 29 at Ottawa. Druken has also played eight games for St. John's collecting 11 points (seven goals, four assists) with eight penalty minutes.

Randy: It must be very disturbing when you are sent down to the minors after playing 7 good game.

These are a funny no-no.

void OpenWindow(Window w)
{
   w.Open();
};

Quote: The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target for the federal funds rate at 1 percent. [cut] the Committee believes that policy accommodation can be maintained for a considerable period.

Randy: The Fed has been flooring it for too long. A 1/4 pt hike would ease the mind. Instead they continue to suggest no immediate movement. Four year-old history tell us that a bubble and crash are in the near future.

Roy Fielding: Getting two components to communicate is a trivial process that can be accomplished using any number of toolkits (including the libwww ones).

Sam: It is fun seeing one of the primary authors of the HTTP spec lecture one of the original designers of a key portion of what is the dominant web browser on the Internet as to what exactly is and what exactly is not trivial.

Randy: Getting two components to communicate is a trivial process? Not if one speaks REST and the other speaks SOAP. Atom v RSS. RDF v XML. Progress is always paced and pushed by a functionally equivalent #2. But #1 almost always wins. Just ask Pepsi.

Quote: A federal antispam measure may soon be law, allowing penalties of up to $6 million and five years in jail for senders of some spam. The bill now needs only the president's signature to take effect. The House of Representatives has approved an amended version of a bill that the Senate approved in October.

Oleg: I suppose, yes, I do foresee blogging becoming easier for random non-technical users. Dude, Check This Out! service, which I personally haven't tried yet, has some promise.

Software development is not about architecture, it's about satisfying REQuirements. Architecture is a tool that facilitates satisfying REQuirements, not a tool to make REQuirements implausible.

Scenario: The technologist argues that you shouldn't meet the REQuirement because it doesn't fit into his architecture. The business analyst responds, "Please look up the word REQUIREMENT in the dictionary."

Quote: Perhaps one the presentations mentioned will explain what it is, where it stands, whether the "average" weblog author can use it, etc.

Randy: This is THE QUESTION that has to be answered by RSS and Atom. The answer is that RSS and Atom are the protocol and neither can be directly used by the "average" weblog author, both can be used as a tool to meet end-user REQuirements.

The problem is not technical, it's emotional. The Atomites v RSSers problem. Which, is now on the same level as the RDFers v RSSers problem of only six months ago. We've moved from one problem, to an identical problem w/ Atom taking the role of RDF.

PaSS will strike a middle ground between RSS and Atom syntax, SOAP and REST. It'll all be ubiquitous. But, I have said that I'm giving Sam at least a week to create the "big picture." His "big picture" will be inherited by my new Road Map.

Any help, would be well appreciated. Feedback and suggestions, even more-so. Marketing help would be mucho-mucho appreciated. Get the word out!

Yet another Me for President in 2004 blog.

source Scripting.

The question has been asked many times in all the feedback iM getting from PaSS. The answer is here. iM giving Sam my ear and waiting for his "big picture." Next weekend, I'll merge Sam's "big picture" into a roadmap for PaSS.

In consideration

• Merging PaSS w/ Atom API
• PaSS over SOAP (a.k.a. PaSSAPI)
• PaSS and ParticleWave
• PaSS and the RDF Site Summary namespace
• Adding elements of the Atom syntax not present in RSS to PaSS

One thing that should be obvious, is the "Motivation for PaSS." The motivation is the re-integration of the two syndication camps; Atomites and RSSers. For this to work, the Atomites have to compromise. For this to work, the RSSers have to compromise. Maybe we can meet in the middle.

In the next day, iM going to release PaSS v1.1. PaSS is a formal namespace for RSS. v1.0 was named PSS, which left too much room for fun. v1.1 will include.

• ordering of elements,
• concrete XSD,
• copyright switch for RSS to Havard, 
• the new name.

I'll then release PaSSAPI v1.0. An RSS/SOAP protocol, that uses the PaSS vocabulary.

Update: Here tis.

Quote: The recent debate on both the atom-syntax and the www-tag mailing lists focuses on the feed:// URI proposal and it's lack of adherence to guidelines set in the current draft of Architecture of the World Wide Web document being produced by the W3C Technical Architecure Group. This document is an attempt to document the architecture of the World Wide Web ex post facto.

Randy: There are already countless mechanisms to subscribe to syndication feeds.

• Extend IE/Mozilla w/ a Subscribe button that uses Auto-Discovered feeds (i.e. RSSExplorer).
• Running a localhost mini Web server to capture such clicks (i.e. Radio).

Why would we break the Web architecture to do something that has already been solved within the Web architecture?

Rule #39
Admitting when one is incorrect is a value worthy of praise.

INTERROGATORY NO. 12: Please identify, with specificity (by file and line of code), (a) all source code and other material in Linux (including but not limited to the Linux kernel, any Linux operating sytem and any Linux distribution) to which plaintiff has rights; and (b) the nature of plaintiff's rights, including but not limited to whether and how the code or other material derives from UNIX.

Randy: It's finally time for SCO to fess up.

source Groklaw.

Quote: SCO asserts that the GPL, under which Linux is distributed, violates the United States Constitution and the U.S. copyright and patent laws. Constitutional authority to enact patent and copyright laws was granted to Congress by the Founding Fathers under Article I, § 8 of the United States Constitution: Congress shall have Power … [t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

source P&D Operations.

Quote: Gary Roberts returned to the lineup Saturday and picked up right where he left off with Mats Sundin as the duo registered a goal and a helper each. Roberts missed the last two games with a hip flexor problem, but wasn't bothered by it at all in a 5-2 victory over the Detroit Red Wings Saturday, the team's eighth straight.

Randy: My beard grows.

Check them out! They are inventions of my father-in-law.

1. Powerbrush attachment
2. Hand crank bicycle drive

His CDNian portfolio.

1. HAND CRANK BICYCLE DRIVE
2. POWERBRUSH ATTACHMENT
3. BIFOCAL READING LENS HEIGHT COMPENSATOR
4. BAR SOAP SINK WALL HOLDER
5. ROCKING BOARD
6. VISUAL LEARNING DEVICE FOR PERSONAL PUTTER
7. BIFOCAL EYEGLASS READING LENS LIFT

Quote: I don't think the current situation means decoupling content from the Web is a superior or desirable choice compared to keeping the content on the Web. [Henri Sivonen]

Randy: Awesome!

Randy: Consider Java. M$FT wrote the best JavaVM, packaged it w/ the OS and watched their engine go to shit and client-side Java died. An effective way of killing a technology. Why would they not do the same to the Web browser?

It was Dating Design Patterns. The ultimate reusable set of solutions for a complex system. The Gang of Four's original and most ingenious work. With assistance from Christopher Alexander, whose personal dating diaries were recently discovered in a garage sale inPoughkeepsie.

source Scobleizer.

Talsorian, an earthling dropped a couple loons into the automatic waiter unit and requested another glass of wine. The plastic cup dropped down and filled up with red house wine. Two drinks down and another coming, Talsorian though to himself. Let's just hope this disk exchange takes place before I'm dead drunk.

Randy: Back in the late 90s, I use to post so much on Usenet, that I made the SPAM lists for most of the second half of 1998. I still post on Usenet quite a bit.

Quote: SSA was formed to assist, support and defend the creation of social software standards and practices. Social software is a dynamic and constantly evolving environment, rich with possibilities to create better connections between people using tools that support interactions within online communities, social networks, and virtual teams.

Randy: Not Another Stagnant Wiki?

Quote In this illustration, the nine planets are in order but their relative sizes and their orbital distances from the Sun are not to scale. A radar image of Venus was selected to show surface features; Venus is actually covered by dense clouds. A comet is heading toward the inner solar system; its glowing tail is the result of heating by our star, the Sun. JPL spacecraft have visited and imaged all the planets except Pluto.

Randy: My new deskstop wallpaper.

See all wallpaper images

Quote: Two spacecraft carrying identical rovers are on approach to the red planet for landings scheduled three weeks apart in January 2004. After travelling some 300 million miles, each spacecraft must survive a fiery entry and descent to the planet in order to beat the odds that have claimed more than half of all missions to Mars. If they survive, these robotic geologists will explore two diverse areas of the planet.

I just uploaded a new SushiBar, version 4.0. It's C++, not .NET, so you dont have to install the 23 Meg .NET run-time. It installs w/ a System Tray Icon. That's why its now a suite (sweet). More features will come on board soon. Version 1.0 of Dude Sweet, which includes the new SushiBar can be installed here.

Dec. 4 — New and threatening messages have been received from al-Qaida. There’s a videotape aimed at American and Saudia Arabian rulers and another that includes what appears to be well-produced footage of the 9/11 attacks — raising still other questions.

source little green footballs.

Quote: Voting for the awards will be open to all, but you will only be able to vote once in each category. The final decisions as to the participants in each category will be mine, but I will try to take all nominations into account. There are enough categories that most sites that really want to participate will be able to find one they fit in.

source Scripting.

Quote: A Dutchman is offering a "soul in good condition with no serious damage" on eBay. The starting price for a well-kept soul is a modest £6 and the buyer receives a contract including a "soul number".

Source: P&D Operations.

Go to google and type in "miserable failure" and then press the "I'm feeling lucky" button...

source Dude.

Quote: Browser extensions, introduced in Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5, allow developers to add functionality to the browser and enhance the user interface.

Randy: Just a bookmark for some work iM doing.

Quote: Owen Nolan had three assists, Darcy Tucker and Joe Nieuwendyk each had two goals and Ed Belfour kept everything outside the pipes in 6-0 romp over the Bruins, Tuesday night in Boston. Mats Sundin and Tie Domi also had two points for the Blue & White.

Randy: I guess I'm growing a playoff beard early this year. I haven't shaved since November 18th. They lost that night and two nights latter, but haven't lost since. I'll keep the whiskers at least till they lose their next.

Chris Erickson, CEO of Tira Wireless has disappeared from their Website. Replaced by Tony Davis, his predecessor. Additionally, the press release announcing Chris' accession has been removed from their Press Release archive.

iM not saying that your feed has to validate all the time. iM sure mine doesn't validate from time-to-time. But if your feed has numerous validation errors that prohibit it from ever validating, then you have a problem.

Sam: I could not have said it better myself. [cut] I am working on two presentations for next week.  I will attempt to pull together the big picture in these presentations.  These presentations will be posted on the web for all to see.  They will cover Atom on an element by element basis.

Randy: iM going to sit back and give Sam my ear. Mull his two presentations and re-eval my vision of the road forward. All Atomites and RSSers should do the same. This month can be a turning point in the RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0 Atom Yet Another Syndication Standard war.

Unfortunately, I cannot attend either presentation. I expect them to be blogged in detail. Can we get telemetry during the presentation? Like Sam's pulse, blood pressure, etc?

Quote: I am sorry to announce that BlogShares will not be reopening after the current technical difficulties are resolved. Currently, the database server is dead and looks to be for the next few days.

FOR SALE: BlogShares - one careful owner

Just had my first Skype call. The other end didn't have a mic, so we communicated over both MSN MSGer and Skype. I now have two Skype contacts.

Update: I made my second Skype call later the same day. I couldn't hear the person on the other end, but they could hear me. I tried MSN MSGer and they could hear me, but I could not hear them. Weird.

Update: My third call finally clicked. We could hear each other on both ends.

Investigate everything and you'll find yourself better capable of differentiating between those that do and those that lie. Not that anybody is perfect, everybody makes mistakes (especially me) and more lies are the result of ignorance than intent to mislead (I've told my share of lies, but mostly from my own ignorance of the truth).  But a regular liar is not ignorant, he's deceptive. He's not trustworthy and not worth the effort.

I once worked for a person that would lie to my face, I'd expose him a second later and he'd be right onto a second lie. I also worked for a person that would lie (from ignorance) to my face, I'd expose him a second later and he'd be right onto the next ignorant lie. Neither person is worth dealing w/, one because he's unethical and one because he's un-intelligent.

I investigate almost everything. If I liked working w/ you, then you can be sure that you are neither unethical nor ignorant. If you were either, then I'd be gone with you.

Ahh!

Quote: While pretty much any modern client has access to a socket library and can pretty much construct any request in such a manner, a number of programming languages have higher level interfaces which take care of a number of administrative functions such as redirect, proxy support, and the like. Examples of such libraries: Python's urllib2 and JavaScript/VBScript/JScript's XMLHttpRequest. Unfortunately, many of these higher level libraries are limited what they support. Even the relatively recently issued XForms 1.0 Proposed Recommendation does not provide support for the DELETE method.

Randy: In other words? REST is flawed, doesn't work w/ most client software and we should've done SOAP in the first place. Now, we are going to kludge some SOAP in there to take care of the REST-loose ends.

Quote: If you agree with what I wrote in "Making Atom Happen", please add your voice of support below. [DonPark].

Randy: Sigh! I got more to say, but iM a little busy right now. Got deadlines. I'll re-blog Friday or the weekend.

Comments over on Sam's blog.

Johnson turned down $1.5 million (v. Lewis) to fight Klitschko, or so it's told. If Johnson wins, then he'll likely fight Lewis. CDNian v CDNian.

December 6, 2003

Pavel Brendl scored 94 goals in 88 games in his first year of Junior hockey. Where is he?

Quote: Nine goals overall, six in the first period, five fighting majors, three game misconducts and two 10-minute misconducts equaled a thrilling 5-4 Leafs victory over the Rangers, Tuesday night at Air Canada Centre. It was the Leafs second straight over the Rangers and sixth straight since their Western swing ended positively in Vancouver.

Mats Sundin took one more step towards becoming the greatest Maple Leaf of all-time, recording his 64th game-winning goal in the third period. He danced behind the net before lifting his patented backhand, top-shelf, over Mike Dunham while in the midst of a spin.

Just incorporated a new HR resource and payroll company. If you have TO-based resourcing or payroll needs, then I can help. It's amazing how easy it is to incorporate in Canada now. Twenty minutes of works and $220.

Quote: Microsoft plans on Wednesday to announce a new program for licensing some of its intellectual property to others in the technology industry.

Randy: Got patents. Will license. For $$$.

Real or Fantasy? Or Both?

By TERRY KINNEY, Associated Press Writer

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Police appeared to follow procedure when attempting to subdue a black man who later died, and "it's obvious one of the officers was assaulted" before the taped beating began, Police Chief Thomas Streicher said Tuesday.

If my computer powers off while I have Outlook running, the next time I start Outlook it takes 5-10 minutes. This happened twice today when two of my kids accidently pulled the power cable. Sometimes this happens even when I shut down normally. My return to Outlook Express is near at hand. I don't how I let people convince me to use Outlook in the first place.

iM cooking today. I don't do it often enough of late. Today, it's Eye of Round Roast w/ parisian potatoes, carrots, onions, shallots. My wife is slow-cooking meatballs.

For instance, I go to Don Park's blog, click on any Trackback link and you get an error. This is so common, that I don't even bother trying anymore. By the way, Radio Comments are no better. Radio seems to be dying without Winer and Robb.

Draft 08 of the AtomAPI is now available.

This revision has been a long time in coming as it reflects the large changes that were previewed almost a month ago. Changes include:

• Refactored the specification.
• Merging the Introspection file into the feed format.
• Dropped the distinction between the type of URI used to create new entries and the kind used to create comments.
• Dropped user preferences.

Scoble: Hey, since we're gonna have to do two formats (RSS 2.0 et Atom), why shouldn't Microsoft invent a third?

Randy: You mean a fourth? There are already two common formats; RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.91/2.0 and many flavors of each. Atom is yet a third. And M$FT already has an RSS equivalent . It's called CDF :)

More classic comments.

John Robb: Microsoft should just create its own, make it the default standard through wide distribution, and stop all of this nonsense.

Don Park: So called Atom specs are just proposals by certain active participants who are 'first-movers' with 'loudest-voices'. Even worse, they are just RSS format with different element names. API-wise, it's poisoned with REST ideals.

Quote: Malaysia's brazen software pirates are hawking the next version of Microsoft's operating system years before it is supposed to be on sale. Underscoring the scale of U.S. companies' copyright problems in Asia, CDs containing software Microsoft has codenamed Longhorn are on sale for six ringgit ($1.58) in southern Malaysia, as compared to Microsoft's Windows XP which sells for upwards of $100 in the United States.

Randy: Question is... is it worth the price?

Quote: Did you hear the news? Social networking is the next big thing. [cut] Friendster, which if you listen to the hype will revolutionize the way we interact in the same way the Segway will make the automobile obsolete, recently scored $13 million in financing. Friendster has also, according to published reports, spurned a $30 million takeover offer from Google and somehow managed to secure a $56 million valuation.

source RVDad.

"Holy great mother of God, I've been cloned!"

source Malakasis.

Quote: We will not be implementing or supporting the Blogger API 2.0. We apologize for having that out there in a semi-final looking spec for so long. We know it was frustrating for developers. But please forget that ever happened.

Randy: Old news, but I wanted to bookmark the death of BloggerAPI.

Quote: Patricia VanLester had her eye on a $29 DVD player, but when the siren blared at 6 a.m. Friday announcing the start to the post-Thanksgiving sale, the 41-year-old was knocked to the ground by the frenzy of shoppers behind her.

source Yet Another Weblog.

Quote: THE YOUTH WHO broke open DVD encryption has now cracked open Apple's iTunes music site, according to Australian IT.

Quote: Now come Tribe and LinkedIn, sites started last summer, whose owners paid $700,000 in September to YouthStream Media Networks for United States patent No. 6,175,831, also known as the "six degrees patent," which they consider the seminal social networking patent. It covers an online software platform that allows users to build relationship networks. Andrew Katz, a lawyer with Fox Rothschild who specializes in Internet intellectual property deals, said, "This is probably the pioneer patent out there." Mr. Katz, who said he had no financial interest in either Tribe or LinkedIn, added, "It should be taken very seriously by everybody in the industry because it is in the hands of people who have the means and the business acumen to enforce it properly."