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Folks,

Today I ran across all three East River bridges, it was awesome. We cheated a little bit (at my request - Alaina is often slowing down or resting on my behalf) - walking some in Chinatown. It was wet. Of course, I took pictures with my phone. The weirdest one is here (Alaina's pictures are here)

On my way home I had both a Pepsi and a Coke, I think I prefer Pepsi - is that possible?

Yesterday I started some coriander seeds, tonight I'll plant some basil seeds, and then Adriana and I are going to see "Van Helsing," starring Kate Beckinsale and Wolverine.

Stop me if you've heard this one: Kate Lyons and Jenny Baum were involved in a team spirit exercise at the Central Library. The question at hand was "If you were stranded on a desert Island, who would your companion be and why?" They wrote their answers down on scrap paper. Kate's read "Jenny, because she's such a great partner, and together we can solve problems that we couldn't alone." Jenny's read: "Wolverine, because he can cut down coconut trees with his claws and defend us from wild animals."

Thanks,

David

Personal Democracy, One Week Later

Angela's summary of the Personal Democracy Forum is the best summary I've read. The low point of the day, for me, was the lack of the panel's ability to answer Angela's question about the lack of diversity in the audience and on stage. One of the panelists responded "I like blogs because I don't know the race, class and gender of the participants."

How could a panelist discuss spreading democracy through technology without considering who the audience is? Every campaign survey or web site attempts to ascertain the demographics of it's audience, not just race, class and gender but also geography, age, education and income. I assumed this was common sense, but it lets us know how far we have to go.

The best part of the conference was meeting new people who were open to ideas, as I've mentioned previously and Anil wrote about. I'm still hoping the comments on the personal democracy blog pick up, and I'm also enjoying the blogines and kinja pages. I have an OPML file of these subscriptions, if you're interested drop me a line.

The New Tools of Personal Democracy

The third panel about "New Tools and Dynamics" didn't reveal much that was new, it was more about the (largely incomplete) projects of the panelists. That's not to say it wasn't useful, but we're just learning the different ways the current generation of tools are being used and implemented, so talking about the next generation of tools was awkard at times.

One marked exception was MoveOn's new distributed telemarketing campaign. I'll definitely link to this when I have more information. The Fourth Panel, "What's Next," will hopefully focus on more concrete strategies.

The second panel, about blogging, journalists and politicians, was highlighted by a extended dialogue between Congressman Anthony Weiner from the 9th District of New York about whether or not blogs would be useful for him right now. Congressmen Weiner deals in the economy of conversations - it's all that he does. His challenge to the room was not just to conversate more, but to conversate more effectively. Here are a few choice quotes.

Personal Democracy Forum

I'm attending the Personal Democracy Forum today.

You can keep up with all the participants at Bloglines or Kinja, neither of which update often enough to be useful for conferences like this. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a live chat projected on the screen which goes down every five minutes or so and drastically redirects the audiences attention. In my humble opinion, the middle ground is for people to participate the comments on the PDF weblog.

The Echo Chamber

CNN is now hosting their own series of offbeat images.

hello, Paul

Hello, Paul Lindner. Thanks for the note about spam. Your technique is nearly unstoppable. I'm still getting a couple of spam a day, but that's better than 36 a day. Thanks! Also, I enjoyed the mod_perl cookbook. Thanks for that too.

Personal Democracy Forum

Regular readers of Hello, Typepad or randomWalks know that I was skeptical when the "politics of the new Internet" were all over the news. Once the Dean campaign collapsed in a cloud of ambiguity, I jumped on the bandwagon. Now I'm excited.

I'll be attending The Personal Democracy Forum on Monday along with Andrew Rasiej, Senator Bob Kerrey, Vince Stehle, Joe Trippi, Ralph Reed, Gifford Miller and many others. I like that there's a single track, so there's no hand wringing over which session to go to, and attendees will have a shared networking experience.

I've also been impressed with indyvoter's evolution. Even as they empower hundreds of volunteers on the streets of swing states and promote their book, the excellent activist tool How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office, they're also building a technology platform to make sure they are swinging future elections as well. They're putting on what seems like 3 events a week in many cities, so join their mailing list to stay in the know.

Wiretap's election website Storming the Polls and it's companion blog are the election web sites I visit the most. Although I love the indyvoter book, it does have some drawbacks that would make it less appealing to youth, thankfully Angela broke them down so I don't have to. Storming the Polls was written expressly for youth, but it's no less serious or inspiring.

Whereas Stupid White Men is more of an instruction manual for the trained activist, Storming the Polls is more of an introduction to the activist world for youth, or an introduction to the youth world for ex-youth. Both indyvoter and wiretap are smartly continuing their off-line work on-line and building strong communities for the future.

Blog Most Open Tabs

Amidst all this hand-wringing over reading and writing, it's still not easy enough to simply "publish what I'm looking at and what I'm thinking about it." I'm assuming google is working on this problem.

• Will 'I Dos' End the Gay-Marriage Debate?

  Gay marriage is always going to frowned upon by at least 30% of the population, for the next several years. But for anyone who's studied law, which most lawmakers and judges have, it should be clear that it's an undeniable civil rights issue. (CivilRights.org)



• How to Score

  No one suffers like a Mets fan, not even a Red Sox fan. As a Mets fan, I live vicariously through the success of the Red Sox. That's pathetic! (Avogadro)



• Nick Hornby: Rock of Ages

  When I say that I have found these feelings harder and harder to detect these last few years, I understand that I run the risk of being seen as yet another nostalgic old codger complaining about the state of contemporary music. I feel the opposite, I think the pace of musical innovation is dizzying, and I feel lucky to be able to listen to it. I've also been enjoying an emusic account, two years late, I know. (New York Times)



• TEACHER BUSTED IN GIRL FIGHT

  One of the combatants quoted Murray as saying, "This is kept here. This better not to get back to the dean." Can we bring this into the workplace as well? (New York Post)



• Google's Blogger Boss Focuses on the User

  Google's working on it. I should be a blogging boss. (Anil)



• Bill Gates, future Blogging Boss, on RSS

  Another new phenomenon that connects into this is one that started outside of the business space, more in the corporate or technical enthusiast space, a thing called blogging. And a standard around that that notifies you that something has changed called RSS.

  This is a very interesting thing, because whenever you want to send e-mail you always have to sit there and think who do I copy on this. There might be people who might be interested in it or might feel like if it gets forwarded to them they'll wonder why I didn't put their name on it. But, then again, I don't want to interrupt them or make them think this is some deeply profound thing that I'm saying, but they might want to know. And so, you have a tough time deciding how broadly to send it out. RSS is already an epony. I want to read everything and nothing, all the time. (Anil)



• Analysts: iPod division could lead to other devices
  Apple created a brand new division for the iPod, but everyone is missing the obvious motivation - APPL is going to spin off IPOD and get a nice stock boost. Buy APPL now. (MacCentral)


• Speed up Safari
  There are a hundred "Speed up Safari" tips and none of them work. But look at the ad in the sidebar - how did I miss the release of O' Reilly's Perl Debugger?


• Seinfeld & Superman costar in On-line film

  See it at the Fourth Annual Media That Matters Film Festival.



• 'Doonesbury' to List Names of Iraq Dead

  There should be a web app to do this.



• It's Not Easy Being Green and Unsung By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

  Jennifer Steinhauer is the best of the New York Times' writers. My Google news alert with her name in it is my favorite email of every day.



• A-rod ready for Texas fans.

  Every time A-rod leaves a team, that team improves. He'll forever be cursed for not becoming a Met. (New York Times)



• Pistons throttle Nets
  I think we just got frustrated," Kidd said. I fell asleep about two minutes into this game. (New York Times)


• Mary-Kate's Fender Bender

  No one was hurt but both vehicles were towed from the scene, where Mary-Kate reportedly unwound with a Dr. Pepper, according to Extra. (We smell product placement.) ... The Olsens, who hosted Saturday Night Live last week, have upped their headline quotient in recent weeks with the premiere of their debut feature New York Minute (released May 7) and impending 18th birthday (they're legal June 13). "They're legal June 13" ? Does this mean they can cause freeway accidents in LA with no recourse, or are they allowed to do that already? (Yahoo!)



• Perl Debugger Pocket Reference
  (This is how tabs work)


• Garnett, 'Wolves ready for Lakers
  I predict this is going to one of the NBA's all-time great series. Go Wolves! (Blazers fans suffer so much, we have to live vicariously through other teams success) (New York Times)


• Great Bob Herbert editorial about Sergeant Mejia
  Sergeant Mejia told me in a long telephone interview this week that he had qualms about the war from the beginning but he followed his orders and went to Iraq in April 2003. He led an infantry squad and saw plenty of action. But the more he thought about the war — including the slaughter of Iraqi civilians, the mistreatment of prisoners (which he personally witnessed), the killing of children, the cruel deaths of American G.I.'s (some of whom are the targets of bounty hunters in search of a reported $2,000 per head), the ineptitude of inexperienced, glory-hunting military officers who at times are needlessly putting U.S. troops in even greater danger, and the growing rage among coalition troops against all Iraqis (known derisively as "hajis," the way the Vietnamese were known as "gooks") — the more he thought about these things, the more he felt that this war could not be justified, and that he could no longer be part of it. (New York Times)


• Subway Officials Seek Ban on Picture-Taking
  I thought this was already illegal. But I am still going to take a hundred pictures a week with my phone. (New York Times)

An Atom-sized thought

Syndication is going to be controversial for at least five more years, but the buzz may be at a peak now,as the Atom community debates whether the W3C or the IETF will maintain the specification.

As the courtship continues, the debate continues to focus on the ramifications not just for atom, but how RDF will or won't be integrated and even what will become of RSS 2.0. What people are missing is that reading weblogs is just half the atom equation - the API is the true innovation of the project, and writing weblog posts is obviously exactly as valuable as reading them.

Brood X

Proof that capitalism breeds innovation,
via randomWalks.

Reels on Two Wheels (Har!)

Once we get this year's Media That Matters Film Festival ready to go, I'm hoping to enjoy a little bit of the 2004 Bicycle Film Festival, expecially "Bike Thief" (by the Niestat Brothers!) and "Even the Girls."

One Blogosipher's Help Ticket

When do my weblogs running 2.6 expire?

How much does TypeKey cost? Is there a subscription available?

Where are the permanently archived versions of older releases?

Where do you get these crazy ideas about "non-free" software?

Since there are 11 different XML formats all calling themselves "RSS," I anticipate problems exporting between different CMS packages. Shouldn't there be one format that everyone can standardize on? Are you working on that?

If yes, how much does that standard cost?

Why do you hate us?

my new filing technique is and has been unstoppable

Google on outsourcing

Interestingly, when we announced our engineering center in Bangalore, we found ourselves knee-deep in the debate about "outsourcing" -- the practice of cutting a company's American operations in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere. India in particular has been a subject of a lot of press coverage on this topic lately, which we find to be pretty unfair. It's not their fault they have a lot of brilliant computer scientists who don't care to relocate to the States.

Posted yesterday at the official Google blog. I couldn't agree more!

Goodbye, Pokémon (for now)

Against the game: 201 Pokemon, 176 hours of gameplay (obnoxiously, it counts), 8 badges. With friends: 7 wins out of 13 battles, 166 trades (Alaina, Silas, and Adriana) and 20 Pokéblocks mixed.

The last pokémon was Milotic, a beautiful little creature. In exchange for my blood sweat and tears all I get is a "Congratulations, nice PokéDEX" from that lousy Professor Birch. Anyway, I'm glad that's over now. On to Wario Ware.

Why do Cicadas only come out every 17 years?

The 17-year broods today lie north of the 13-year broods. The border between them follows a well-known S-shaped line from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Plains. It sweeps south of most of the Appalachian Mountains and then turns north as far as southern Illinois before turning again and passing south of the Ozarks. It divides eastern North America into two zones — one with long, harsh winters to the north, and the other with mild, shorter winters to the south.

Why Cicads lie dormant in prime numbers. When the 221nd year comes around (when both the 13 and 17 year cicadas are out at once), it's going to be crazy. Via randomWalks.

Sorting Books

The book borrower . . . proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures . . . as by his failure to read these books.

Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.

(Walter Benjamin, Unpacking my Library)

We moved recently, and we've taken our time unpacking and getting settled in. We don't enjoy much idle time at home, and our bookshelves are about three inches taller than the plaster detail border around our walls which bugs me every day. We also haven't spent enough time sorting our collections. We like to mix our DVDs, LPs, books, comics and magazines, but we can't agree on much more than that.

I was pleased to see Jessamyn post about her new sorting order, by color , as ROYGBIV is an old favorite of mine. In the past I've been the subject of intense ridicule at the hands of my "friends" with advanced degrees - Adriana, Kate and Jenny and Irene (PhD candidates in "rhetoric" - and her diploma is going to be signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger!) Now I take comfort in the tenuous connection I've made with a kindred soul who prefers to know a book by it's cover even when there's not enough time spent between the pages.

Adriana's generals are at the end of the month, and until then every surface in our apartment is covered with books, and that's good and proper. Come June, however, things are gonna change. "Physics for the Rest of Us" will go at the end, in case you were wondering. (I've got to give Jason credit for that line).

!Update: Creaky.typepad on sorting by color.

People Like the iPod

It's obvious there have been changes, as others have touched upon, such as a big influx of *nix users to their developer base. But as far as big, high-quality apps... there just aren't many, and those that are being released are from the usual suspects. Nothing much new. Isn't Cocoa a developer nirvana, and doesn't the "power of Cocoa" allow one guy to do the work of 5?

The opening paragraph of Rhapsody in Yellow hit a nerve with me because I was just wondering the exact same thing. But I realized that for Apple users to benefit from the same plethora of applications that Windows users do, Cocoa would have to let one programmer do the work of 20, because there are at least twenty times as many Windows developers as there are Cocoa and Carbon developers. Consider that Visual Basic is easier to learn and more powerful than Applescript, and that Carbon is going by the wayside in the next few years, the numbers grow starker.