Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Books of the Day - don't worry, no referal links! ;-) I highly recommend The Pushcart War.  I thoroughly enjoyed it at a young age, and recalled and realized it's impact on my outlook as I mature.  Vonnegut can teach you courtesy while entertaining you, and so will this book...it's also more appropriate for children. If you need lighter reading, five The Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish is just a fun book.  Will this one pervert your perspective? Perhaps.  On my first date with my wife, when the sewers were spewing steam in Chicago, I impressed her when I asked her if she had heard of or read the book.  There was a certain eclecticity in the air that night... 10:57:38 PM    Your 2 cents... Currently.   Jerry Pournelle drools over tablet PC's Jerry's weekly article explains the virtues and shortcomings of a few tablet PC's. Based on my own experience with the ruggedness of laptops, I'm waiting for the drop tests on these.   That's a critical requirement for the devices in schools, my litmus test for hardware.  My wife is licensed High School English, my sister is an Elementary teacher, and my company provides software for classrooms...which reminds me, I need to post a disclaimer on this site.   The eMac design over the flat panel iMac is my best example of this. Back to Jerry...I don't believe tablet PC's will bring back eBooks.  Books are handy, durable, and cheap.  Last night I fell asleep on top of mine, this afternoon a hornet met it's fate under Refactoring.  Tonight I was startled as my wife threw two across the room before turning to sleep...and you've seen the duct tape on our Eye Book.  Add in that 70% of our library (~20 4 foot shelves) is quite used, coming from library rejects or garage sales. Prose on a computer screen is scanned, not digested.  An e-Book will not help you read faster.  Computers help you do things faster or have fun. Aside from all that, I'm hoping that the eBook revolution is revived.  I find Safari wonderful but had to cancel after 5 months of unjustified use.  eBooks are a means to an end. That end is a of a rebirth of audio books and their technological tag-alongs.   Not having to hold or turn the page of an eBook will create a demand for audio books, and audio control.  Let us all mourn if the physically-challanged community is overlooked by gains in this technology also.   It takes longer to listen to a book than read it. *sigh* 1:21:13 AM    Your 2 cents... Currently.   ZWiki ZWiki has to be my favorite Zope product. Lightweight, quick-fix. Very similar to the hands on development loop that I appreciate in Python's compile-less cycle.  DTML and the ZMI are nice for this. I hope the transition to Python based templates doesn't lose that. Today I got a Catalog and ZWikiTracker going.  Simple Issue Tracking.  Started into a BlogFace, but left that for later.  I'm not sure which calendar project I'm supposed to use with it. The conversion from 0.9.9 to 0.10.0 hasn't been simple.  They have some apt Zopista's working out the core code, and (like everyone) could use help in documentation and polish.  It's was nice to have such an open repository to narrarate my steps, document my issues, and contribute suggestions during my upgrade. ZWiki's founder Simon Micheal is one of the most pleasant Open Source project managers I've come across. 12:57:00 AM    Your 2 cents... Currently.   Uses for xmlStorageSystem ? Graph the World! Frankly, I don't know much about the technology beyond XML and extrapolation based on WebLogs and grandiose title. Here are my suggestions for items which have personal and "cloud" implications: Definining your Top 'n' Things: Media, Quotes, Jokes Determining your Hierarchy of Good/Evil . (Which is more evil: Watching Sitcoms or Reading Harlequin Romance?  Genetically modified rice or Passive genocide?  These are what are elected officials use to determine laws, which apply directly to the legal system of society, and what we personally make decisions by daily.) The lightest, most distributed community Wiki in the WORLD !! ! ! !  ! !!! "Cloud" implications are the wonderful stuff derived from referer logs, triangulation, Google...stuff that sits on the fence off a controlled feedback loop. Make the psychometricians sweat while the anthopologists and sociologists look on in awe. Except for that last one. ;-) Reacted from: http://www.pycs.net/notes/2002/09/17.html#a56 ,  http://radio.weblogs.com/0109405/2002/09/16.html#a46 12:29:07 AM    Your 2 cents... Currently.

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