pointdexter points out that the best of FOAF isn't getting a page telling who you know - you already know THAT - it's being able to find people who you SHOULD know. currently FOAF accommodates that because I can look at the people's FOAF files that I have linked and see who they linked, so i can figure out if maybe i should know them. what it doesn't do is help you find arbitrary people who you should know but aren't really linked to yet - so there needs be a LOFF (Looking For a Friend) application built on top of FOAF that will check out FOAF geopoints, similar interests (blogs or keywords) and spit back people you may want to know. anything to keep us from going down to the bar and meeting drunks.#

peter merholz links a review that he co-author for Boxes And Arrows. It's interesting because it looks past a big name and checks the facts and the process behind a recommendation. I liked reading the review.#

matthew denis writes about how his workplace is dying and it is oh-so-obvious. cubicles disappear and strangely the others get larger. and employees are such a rarity they are treated like animals in a zoo. i would hate working like that.#

les wonders about the Mechanical Turk behind Google's AdSense service that notices when people complain about the monotonous ads and changes them on account of it.#

derek writes about why i don't normally goto conferences... waiting in lines. i hate at it.#

neil writes about how there are no killer features that will make one browser better than any other. there are only killer apps which create a new domain... he says that ''People won't switch to Mozilla or Firebird because of any great features, because those features aren't what people think of as a browser. The only way to get people to use a browser is if that browser is something else. Like, a complex information-overflown workflow organizer. Oh, and to anyone who wants to create that, don't put a Back button in it -- people will think it's a browser.'' - yep.#

dave pollard meta-blogs about writing and blogging. the blogging process. he has a nice diagram that matches mine fairly well. he then moves on to talking about the next step of blogging and the things that fit around this diagram. the key point is that a blog is very a blunt instrument and for real conversation it would be useful to easily move a discussion to other mediums (when appropriate) and maintain links between them all so that the discussion could be tracked, yet be at the right place at the right time. pie in the sky, but what a nice pie it would be.#

discovering that you don't always need the mouse is a very liberating and productivity increasing moment indeed. one thing to make sure you bring along with you: nice wrist and forearm cushions so you don't get them all worn out on the side of a desk. i don't really use my mouse in unix, but a lot in os x... but i mostly do browsing there so i find it to be reasonable.#

dr. frank informs us today about how to do vocals in the studio. he talks a lot about how your vocals are just another instrument that need the same amount of attention and arrangement. he writes a little about what he's been doing recently and i noticed what he's talking about because i just got his Eight Little Songs in the mail yesterday. it's very good, it reminds more of his other solo cd rather than MTX in general. i like it verrry much.#

keith writes on ''Standards, Semantic Markup, Distributed Authorship and Knowledge Management'' - interesting#

proceedings from the Linux Symposium 2003 are here - yummy pdfs.#

carly really liked the movie "How To Deal" and wishes she looked like Mandy Moore's character. she muses on wanting to look "classy" versus "indie rock" - i think she could do it. side note, a friend of mine just got his hair cut and i said it looked very emo, he said "You started it. Plus I specifically asked for 'indie rock.'" - i thought it was very funny.#

tim bray on not being a gamer - to which don park responds as does james robertson - the basic idea of these posts is that online games are great because it's a nice way of to find companionship and adventure in a way that doesn't necessarily become addicting and real-life sucking (although it can) - i like james' advice to try a family-oriented board game and i would add that if you're in an RPGy mood then there's HeroQuest which is a nice Low-Overhead RPG Board Game and the Fudge RPG System that is really good for playing short, one-time games with simple rules. (The advantage of the low overhead is if you don't want to allocate a lot of people's time and still have fun)#

simplebits links a neat article about this guy Todd Rundgren who is a musical pioneer and techy. read on.#

kieth links a presentation on The Why and How Blogging - it's pretty interesting, if not kind of introductory.#

tim bray writes about metadata and how it relates to searching. he points out that there is no cheap meta data whether it's computationally intense (and error prone) process on the search engine's end or on the source's valuable time. i like this: ''you can start a fistfight in the bar at any XML or Content-Management conference about what\u2019s data and what\u2019s metadata.''#

moxie is not amused when got shows are perverted for american audiences. she offers this funny idea: ''What's next? Survivor 1 remakes with John Travolta staring as Richard Hatch and Ryan Seacrest as Jeff Probst?''#

tony writes about freedom and truth and how we may think we have it but we really don't. ''i want to hit the road. i want to show people that On the Road was a pile of shit written by a guy who wasnt honest about anything in his life.'' - on that note i goto school in lowell, where kerouac is from, and it's like blasphemy if you say something bad about him in any class... kriticism is key to kwalitee.#

peter lindberg writes about what "grammar" really is to a language. he says primarily that ''grammar describe languages rather than define them. Languages emerge and grammar classifies and describes what has emerged.'' - i think of it like this, it's form and function. the language is the whole thing. the grammar is the form, and the function is the semantic meaning. so the old standby, "form should follow function," supports the idea that a language should not start with grammar - perhaps a reason why Esperanto wouldn't really work? but like the structure of anything, grammar is useful for learning it from the outside in. when you're a native speaker, the language "grows again" within you (which is how languages evolve, the grow differently each generation) but when you are not a native speaker you need to study the form of another language and adapt it to your language's functional aspect. i'm no linguist but this makes sense to me.#

al3x gives a personal rule of thumb - i have another, if a corporation, organization, or individual has to take out a paid advertisement to tell you that they are performing well financially or otherwise, then they are definitely not. Someone said that if Google ever tried to IPO they wouldn't buy because it would mean that they were starved for money - that's the origin of my rule.#

al3x writes on the full disclosure dilemma. it's survival of the fittest essentially, if you don't fix your software, you get hacked, people don't buy your stuff. except reality isn't so great, and people keep using sendmail and microsoft. he follows up later with some stories of a misguided youth.#

rory writes that being a contractor is like being a nanny. you can get attached but they're never really your kids. from rt#

i have this quote on a wall next to my desk. Alan Kay: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."#

wisdom from the buddha, is applicable everywhere in life, including the Online.#

brian hess blogs on punk and the sex pistols. he says ''Thankfully, they made room for bands like The Clash who were, I think, far more talented and had a lot more to say than did the Pistols.'' - on the story of clash, there's a radio excerpt where Joe Stummer is talking about how he was unsure about being in a band and then he heard the Sex Pistols and decided that it didn't matter if he was talented or not and he could just get up and do something. word.#

darling girl, writes about her problems writing her book. a desire for perfection is often not rewarded. she says, ''I have no idea if my back-assward labors will ever pay off. Today, for fiction by a woman to be considered marketable, it has to be about a sassy Prada-clad nanny/editorial assistant trying to find love in Manhattan. I don't think a slim novel about a bulimic high school physics teacher who's obsessed with amusement parks qualifies as "hot fic" these days. '' - everything is supposed to be Bridget Jones huh?#

kottke's grocery shopping will never be the same#

richard gabriel reports on a talk that Larry Lessig gave to a group at Sun. He talks about the idea that one benefit of an open source platform is that no one can strangle you in the future if they see fit - he offers the idea that the platform be put into a conservancy which will protect it. coool. It contains this great quote: ''Larry's talk also pointed out a fact I always love to hear: Disney's Mickey Mouse was created for Steamboat Willie, which was a parody of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr. The best part is that both the parody and original were released in 1928, which means that the Disney company knows of what it speaks when it worries about people ripping off the success of Mickey Mouse.''#

ryan talks about lowering restrictions on advertising and the general "puritanic feel" of the country. #

tony deals with being very popular and thus not being able to write what he really wants. maybe he'll make a secret blog? i agree with him about how it's strange to be too first personal and personal or write about dating. and tony does have the best disclaimer ever.#

peter lindberg muses about creativity. this was brought on by Bob Hope and jokes, obviously. ''There's always selection in creativity. I've thought about this regarding photography. Some photographers can visualize an idea, set it up and shoot it, while others have to shoot lots and lots of pictures, and then select the good ones. You can't say that either way is better; they're just different: the selection takes place at different times.'' - You may notice that lots of designers (architects... software and otherwise, etc) have design books that they keep all their ideas in. this is essentially the same idea as taking lots of pictures. by doing paper implementations and rough designs we can get a clearer idea of what doesn't work or what we can think about.#

kim points out the differences between _quality_ and _robustness_ and talks about how when you lower quality to decrease costs you can't skip testing or completely leave out key features. eye candy she says, is expendable.#

from kuro5hin to confessions of a g33k to the smoking gun is the best legal document ever. it is an essay on the word "Fuck" - very entertaining#

kuro5hin article on the "Gay School" in NYC.#

from kim is brad delong writing about purple america and linking similar pages - this interesting because it shows how things really work rather than creating some sort of class/regional struggle between the "Bible Belt" and the "Money Sucky Northeast" and "Heathen West"#

Tom Coates writes that sites like Blogdex and Technorati not only tell us what is being written about, they are also a source for things to write about. so there is a snowball effect (or a self fulfilling prophecy, whichever you prefer) that these things will get lots of coverage. interesting.#

dan refines why you should, or rather would, care about how many ops are in parrot. dan also explains why he decided to go with CPS for Parrot after meditating about it for so long#

boing boing links a gallery of "technical documentation weirdness"#

from use perl (and i think it was also on perl.com and slashdot) is the new Exegesis from Conway, number 6. It's very nice the way it slow builds up functionality and desire for the functionality. and the final section on how you would have to do it in perl 5 is very revealing.#

southern california sounds great.#

the loony blog warns bush that crazy bills, will be big embarrassments in the future. dam#

aaron got a letter back from donald knuth after reading a book and finding some errors. knuth is a very interesting guy. browse around his site#

aaron also writes about ways to make record companies and current pirates happy. i like his explanation of Nielsen ratings. I'm glad I now know what they mean.#