Keeping it simple. An excellent article about Dave Winer, SOAP, Radio, and blogging.

Ed-Tech Is Not Tech But Ed"What we hope is that those lines start blurring," he said. "Every technology program should be about education." I couldn't agree more.

Laurie Anderson. "Paradise is exactly like where you are right now...only much, much better" [Quotes of the Day] One of my all-time favorite quotes.

Webcrumbs according to the Traumwind Alienator.

Human Factors International--ensuring usability through software ergonomics, human factors and design artistry: "How a blind person will "see" your Web page ïFD0 audio comparison of inaccessible and accessible Web pages "

The Little Shop of CSS Horrors

The MCU: Jim's Web Accessibility Weblog : Accessible Web Design Articles and Guides This may be easier: a link to the page listing all the articles I've been reading and blogging.

The MCU: Jim's Web Accessibility Weblog : Are disabled students set to lose out in the digital revolution? A good analysis of the problems facing disabled students. One of these days, I need to get permission to put the white paper I wrote about accessible online learning on the web...

The MCU: Jim's Web Accessibility Weblog : Benefits and Challenges of Web Accessibility. More good stuff...

The MCU: Jim's Web Accessibility Weblog : Table Manners This is a fantastic article about making tables accessible on websites. I have been doing a lot of CSS work lately and even have a redesign of my raggedcastle.com webcrumbs site using CSS in the loop (it's not quite done yet). But I still use tables when necessary and it is still sometimes necessary. This article is a good read if you care about this issue (and I think all web designers should).

So, now I can easily do pictures with Radio. Nifty! (That's me, btw). The big test now is whether this works across the blogger bridge...

30 Billion Earths? New Estimate of Exoplanets in Our Galaxy: "When Jupiter developed, it simply bullied other objects into position or out of existence. Then the mighty gas giant became Earth's protector. "

Context Magazine has a fascinating interview with science fiction authors Bruce Sterling and David Brin. The introduction states "Two modern practitioners of the craft[~]David Brin and Bruce Sterling[~]say science fiction can help penetrate the murk of the future partly because writers follow technological possibilities to their dramatic extremes, taking them further than most people are constitutionally capable of doing.". I've always described science fiction as modern philosophy. Examining our essential humanity through the lens of new powers, new abilities, or putting people in settings which act much like philosophical petrie dishes to see how they may behave has always been the province of science fiction. Few other genres are capable of examining humanity from such angles.

Sir Winston Churchill. "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." [Quotes of the Day]

kuro5hin.org || Craps: The Most Fun You Can Have with Two Dice I learned craps this past fall and fell in love with it.

Turning Macs on Thievery. Stolen computers are notoriously difficult to recover. But a Houston man cleverly found his sister's stolen iMac using remote control software, friends on the Net, luck and brains. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News] Very clever!

Atlas - Xpeditions @ nationalgeographic.com is a free service providing printable maps. Very nice!

CamWorld: Thinking Outside the Box: "Winerlog has been great lately." Huh. I went and checked out Winerlog (no link from me) and I felt it to be childish and mean. Dave Winer is many things both good and bad but I do not think that anyone deserves public ridicule. That's got to hurt even though he doesn't show it. Debate the points, discuss the issues. Don't ridicule the man. That's a primary school tactic.

"The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need! My name in print! That really makes somebody! Things are going to start happening to me now." -- Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) Jerk, The (1979)

Well, I've got one reader! apulrang.diary: "Andy wonders if anyone is reading his blog. I'm curious about that myself, about my own diary. However, I know I read Andy's, and I know he's ready mine. That's enough to keep me at it. Because really, I don't think I blog for actual readers, but for myself and some sort of hypothetical reader. If I were all of a sudden to find out a lot about a whole bunch of new readers, I think it would change my blogging style and habits. I don't know if they'd change for better or worse, but they would definitely change. I don't mind if that happens, but I'm in no hurry for it to happen, either" Andrew has a good point. Right now, I have a pretty good idea who is reading this. For the most part it is friends, no family (not sure why, but I don't push much either), and a few other bloggers who found me at some point, liked a particular entry and linked to it and now wonder why they are still reading :) But what if my audience widened a great deal? What would change? Well, I'd probably get a lot less personal in what I write. Not that I'm that personal now but I'm certainly not quiet about some things. It's an interesting point of view. If I ever get that popular, I'll revisit this. But I doubt that that will happen.

And now, in the useless department: My blogger code is B9 d++ t- k s u f i o e l c--

Alternative Lord of the Rings

Well, I've been using Radio for a week now and I have to say, it's damn nice. I am now using it to drive my blogger site and all posts are being streamed through Radio rather than some here, some there. Ultimatley, I will keep both sites as my blogger site is my personal home page on my personal domain which is how I want it. I will keep this because of all of the community features it offers (referral listings, rankings, automatic RSS files, etc.) So, I'll have two websites with nearly identical content. Strange, but what the hey. Now I need to get the stuff that's still up in my manila site over to one of the two. Then again, maybe I should mirror stuff from here to there and keep THREE sites going! Oh the insanity of it all!

Larry Hardiman. "The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'." [Quotes of the Day]

Yoko Ono slams Beatle death as derivative. LONDON, Tuesday: Yoko Ono, the widow of John Lennon, has criticised former Beatle George Harrison for attempting to cash in on the legacy of John Lennon. Harrison, 58, died this week at his home in Los Angeles, following a brief battle with cancer and a long battle with Yoko Ono. [Chaser]

Harry Potter fans warn against dangerous effects of Bible. OXFORD, Tuesday: A number of concerned British Harry Potter fans have spoken out against the Bible, claiming that the holy text of the Christian Church can cause serious damage to children, who might interpret the miracles as evidence of the supernatural. [Chaser]

Ok, I'm curious. Given that the radio site's referrals listing lists only hits from me and I haven't bothered to check the logs for the version of this site at raggedcastle.com I have no idea if anyone is reading this. So, if you are, drop me a note and let me know. Or link to me if there's something worth linking to, or send me an owl or something. Let's expand the question: what makes a weblog interesting and what makes one one that you just glance at and then forget?

We drove around looking at open houses, neighborhoods, and houses that are for sale but not open. Nothing stirred us the way the two townhomes we saw yesterday did. So, this is going to take some time. But we're in much better spirits today because we feel a little more in control of the process. And, in a strange way, it felt good to reject some places. We made a bit of a game out of it. Because we had Jack with us and because Jack was in ultra-cranky-baby mode, we took turns going in to look at places while the other stayed with Jack in the car. When we were both done we told each other what the other person liked and didn't like about it. "OK," I said, "You really liked the sunken living room and the built-in bookshelves but you hated the main Brady Bunch style stairs and the weird kitchen" "Exactly!" said Ann. "And you liked the finished TV room in the basement but didn't care for the back yard and the lack of a gardening place." The nice thing about this is that I really do grok what Ann is looking for so that when she goes back to Rhode Island, I'll be able to look at places and accurately judge what she would think about them. It's going to be a long strange trip until we finally get settled somewhere...

Lucas Marshall's Weblog: "The weblog that never gets any visitors." I think that describes me as well :) Lucas has built a neat tool which displays the song currently playing in iTunes on his blog page. I can't wait for him to release it so I can a) Run it myself
2) Figure out how he wrote it so I can write cool things too

Luxo Redux - MAB3D.com: Brilliant.

Buying a house sucks. There's no two ways about it. And there's no reason to mince words. It sucks. A lot. We drove around in the snow yesterday looking at the outside of a few places we'd gotten from our buyer agent just to see if we were intrested in seeing the inside (we couldn't get ahold of her so figured we'd at least do this much). Both were excellent from the outside. So, we called and asked her to get us in to see the inside. Uh oh. Both were already under contract. That took no time. So, we're going to go back out today and do open houses, new listings, etc. But it appears that the only people who get to buy these units are the ones who get there first before anyone at all. With a 22 month-old, we aren't exactly fleet of foot, if you know what I mean. And Ann and Jack have to go back to Rhode Island at the end of the week meaning that I either have to make any buying decisions without her input or hope that we can get her down here on a plane before it's too late. So, this process sucks. If anyone has any good advice, I'm all eyes.

susurration: Dictionary.com Word of the Day. This seems oddly appropriate for 5:30 in the morning...

Doc Searls on Blogging: "Blogging for me is mostly a matter of discovery and curiousity. Maybe that is what makes it different than capital-J journalism. If I want to compose a finished set of findings and opinions, I'll produce an essay, a column or a book. If I put it here, it isn't done." I agree completely.

And we're back. Raggedcastle.com was down and out for two days thanks to a screwup either at Verisign or with me. Either I didn't pay them or their records got messed up. I have to dig through my records to figure that one out. They had an old address and email on file for me and it is a pain in the ass to update those things with them so I never got around to it. But I did keep paying them. Well, whatever. We're back now. Let's see how much email I lost due to bounces. Maybe I got auto-removed from spam lists? One can only hope...

Raggedcastle.com is still down. It will take 24-48 hours for Verisgn to update my account and propogate the domain back out to the internet at large. So, I'm not getting email nor is my regular weblog up and running (and I doubt these entries can be automatically added by the radio-blogger bridge after-the-fact). Not happy today. Not one bit.

Why does Verisgn make it so hard to manage domains with them? I have two. One of them is currently inactive because they claim I haven't paid them and that I have to prove that I have before they will reactivate me. So, now I have to troll through my banking statements and receipts to find the right thing. That would be fine if those files weren't up in Rhode Island. I paid a renewal to get it reactivated and if I can prove I previously paid (a year or two ago when I renewed for many years) then they will make my renewal go from the actual expire date rather than the one they have on file. Very annoying. And the only reason I didn't get any notices from them is because the admin and billing contact information was very old and they make it nearly impossible to update that information in the first place. So, that's my saga for today. If you are trying to email me, don't use my raggedcastle.com address. It's nonfunctional at the moment. Use one of the other addresses you have for me. If you have no others, wait 24-48 hours and try again.

Kelvin Throop III. "Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?" [Quotes of the Day] What a great quote!

Media and War, Appearance and Reality "Coverage of the "war on terrorism" has reversed the traditional role between the press and the military. Abandoning the hypercritical coverage of the past, the media have become cheerleaders -- allowing the conflict in Afghanistan to become synonymous with the war at large and portraying that war as an unalloyed success. The reversal of roles between media and military creates public expectations that can affect the prosecution of the war."

Dan Heller's Photos of The World Trade Center. These are beautiful. Makes me very sad. I've seen all of these views in real life when I lived in New York City.

We're back ... New Wallace and Gromit! YES!

Dating Tips from the Onion. LOL funny.

The Onion | Infographic. New features of the iMac. It's all true.

UN concern for US Afghan captives. UN human rights chief Mary Robinson urges the Americans to treat their al-Qaeda captives in Cuba humanely. [BBC News: world]

A great "Red Meat"

If you are reading this then I was able to post a weblog entry via email through Radio Userland. Not sure how often I would use this since access to email means access to the web, but you never know...

Galileo's Final Blaze of Glory [Slashdot]. They need to crash Galileo into Jupiter due to fears that Earth-originating bacteria could possibly contaminate Europa should the craft run out of fuel and crash into it. If Europa has life on it (a possibility) then we cannot take any chances.

Dictionary.com Word of the Day. fugacious [Dictionary.com Word of the Day]

Forbes.com: Wireless Gets Danger-ous "Probably one of the biggest drawbacks of joining the hyper-connected set is a shortage of pockets. Carrying a mobile phone, PDA and maybe a wireless e-mail device like a Blackberry can become a logistical challenge." -- Arik Hesseldahl Me? I have a variety of small bags I use depending on what I need to carry around. Generally, I have a cell phone on my belt and my laptop and Palm in my backpack. I used to wear a blackberry and I sometimes do miss it but I've found that I am no longer the hyper-wired. Part of it is being a parent. I no longer want to be connected when I am not physically in the office. Rather, I want to be with my family. Also, I've done the hyper-wired thing. It's stressful. You're always answering calls and emails and dealing with things. I like being out and about and just enjoying what I am doing. I have more control over my life now. Maybe my job will change such that I need to be more on call and will have to go back to the hyper-wired lifestyle. That's fine. But it's not something I am looking for outside of that potential necessity.

Apple's Myths Page does a good job of summing up the most common myths about the Mac. The main comment I have for people today is to stop using the same old arguments especially now that MacOS X is out and has completely changed the landscape. There were a lot of valid criticisms of OS 9 and what came before (though I was perfectly happy and productive in those operating systems) but OS X is industrial strength, UNIX based, highly mature and extremely stable.

I now have Radio set up to submit all changes to my blogger site in addition to the radio site. So, the Webcrumbs main site will be the most complete while the Radio-based site will only contain those items I submit via Radio.

Row deepens over prisoners' treatment. The United States comes under mounting pressure to grant al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects held in Cuba full rights as prisoners-of war. [BBC News: world]

Trebuchet.com Everything you could possibly want to know about the medieval siege engine... (not the MS font, which is nice too).

The United States is losing the right to lead the free world

"Many of the prisoners in Cuba may indeed be the lowest and vilest men on earth, which is why they must be guaranteed scrupulously fair treatment. Human rights are fragile and easily crushed unless we are prepared to ensure them for the people we hate and demand their implementation from people we support and admire. "I speak not as a dreamer but as one of the millions around the world who are terrified that this latest Western deceit will massively increase support for terrorism. Dictators and cruel, charismatic leaders will now tell gullible people ? quite rightly ? that the Western allies kill human rights when it suits them." --Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Webcrumbs: Radio Edition: I'm testing out Radio Userland 8.0 and am therefore running two blogs at the same time. Confused yet? I sure am...

Interview with the iMac's designer. Very interesting.

Rainbow On the drive in to work today Chris and I were struck by the sheer beauty of the sunrise. It had been raining and freezing-raining over night and the trees were all black from wetness. Through them, a rich pinkness had emerged broken by stripes of a glowing aqua blue. "The water in Maui is that color" said Chris, who leaves for Maui tomorrow morning. As we drove along the sky faded and we commented what a beautiful morning it was. Not long after, we saw it: a faint rainbow starting to form off to the west, opposite the sun that had just risen. As we drove along it grew and formed into a solid arc that went all of the way up and back down again making a single, solid rainbow. As the sun rose higher, the main bow grew in brightness and you could just make out the secondary and tertiary bows just underneath the main bow. Finally, outside of the main bow a major secondary bow formed bringing the total to four visible rainbows all at once. Traffic, as you would expect, slowed down as people craned their necks to see the show. By the time we reached work, the rainbows had faded into the slate blue of the clouds. It was a glorious way to start the day.

I just finished reading "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose this morning and am moved by a great many things. First off, the incredible work that these men and all of the other servicemen did in World War 2 (including my father-in-law who was an engineer stationed in Africa) humbles me. Sometimes when I consider the problems of my own life I have to stop and consider what these men went through and why. I know that personal issues are completely relative and that what may seem horrible for me personally would be laughed at by another. But there is also a line at which nothing compares. That line is somewhere between here and where these brave men stand. What really struck me was how successful these men were in their later lives. Many ran companies, built things, or taught. But all excelled in their chosen paths. I realized that much of that is due to how disciplined and driven they were. They were one of the best units in the war because they were so finely tuned, so well trained, and deeply prepared to meet any challenge. When I look at my own life and the situation I am in, I realize that one of my worst habits is that when confronted with a major problem, I turn my back on it and wait for it to go away. And therein lies the problem. The key to success in life is the willingness and ability to face hardship square on and look it in the eye. It is having the courage to stand up and handle problems as they arise. It is also in being so prepared that problems do not catch you unawares. Upon realizing this I found a new sense of resolve within myself, almost as if I had been waiting to finally get this through my thick skull. The time to act is now, the time to live is now. I have to go. I have a lot of work to do today.

You know, I'm no closer to knowing what they are. But there is a little british store underneath the office I work in, so I'll see if they have any... I may even mix them with Diet Coke... This is another 2002 resolution. Watch this space for details...

not.so.soft » life.unfolding "Diet Coke, when drunk after a mouthful of cheesy quavers, tastes and smells like sweaty old uncle." What? you ask... well, I was watching Brit Wit on PBS here in Virginia and one of the characters made a reference to Cheesy Quavers so I had to go look it up on the net to find out what the frick they were. See for yourself...

The New York Review of Books: Notes on Prejudice "Few things have done more harm than the belief on the part of individuals or groups (or tribes or states or nations or churches) that he or she or they are in sole possession of the truth: especially about how to live, what to be & do?& that those who differ from them are not merely mistaken, but wicked or mad: & need restraining or suppressing. It is a terrible and dangerous arrogance to believe that you alone are right: have a magical eye which sees the truth: & that others cannot be right if they disagree."

NPR's All Things Considered: What Went Wrong With Islam, Bernard Lewis "Lewis, an emeritus professor at Princeton University, explores the decline of Islamic culture in a new book, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. The central premise of the book is likely to stir fierce debate, because it describes an Islamic world trying to catch up with the Western world for 400 years."