* Drupal annoyances - Admin-privileged user when editing comments must still hit Preview then Post - Same when posting a new comment: preview should be optional - Deleting a comment deletes its descendants. - When replying to a comment, the subject is not automatically "Re: Original Subject" - The submit buttons are not close enough to the editing window, so you have to scroll -- too much mouse use - Same with "log message" text field -- put it near the change itself. - Deleted comments could go to a holding area where the user could make a complaint, or at least have a conversation with the moderator. * Where are the consortiums? Libraries theoretically would benefit. Performing arts organizations, same thing. Political parties (even though competitors) probably likewise. Virtually all academic groupings; municipal services, etc. Yet by and large, they are not forming. See http://www.anctil.org/users/eric/oss4ils.html: "The future direction of the open source library software movement is at a crossroads. There is a lack of scope in terms of marketing, target audience, and international coverage. Currently, there are no corporate outlets for technical support of open source library software (Clarke, 32). There is a general lack of interoperability among the diffuse open source projects, few of which have reached development maturity for testing in pilot libraries (Bretthauer, 3; Breeding 2002a, 17; Slashdot 1999). Nevertheless, the climate may change for open source and proprietary modules coexisting (Bretthauer, 1; Breeding 2002a, 17). The Callimachus Group promotes interaction between open source library software projects and recognizes projects that are interoperable with one another. This is conducted through collective involvement in standards bodies, professional associations, and conferences. With project administrators from the various open source ILS projects as members, it has the potential to encourage a centralized development approach toward a common open source ILS project (Callimachus Group 2003; Morgan, 14-15)." * Remember the visit to BankOne's Corporate Banking processing floor? The problem is not computers and automation and repeated, algorithmic tasks. The problem is that society (in particular, profit-driven enterprise) realized the value of automation *before* it truly had the capability to automate. So humans had to fill in for the not-yet-invented machines, that was the tragedy of the industrial revolution and everything up till now. Just now are we beginning to build devices to execute the processes that we've been running for two hundred years... * Design considered harmful. :-) * Brevity considered harmful. Why "Can you put it into an elevator statement?" is an insidious question, reflecting our society's prioritization of time over understanding. Writer-responsible vs. reader-responsible cultural orientations. * what programmers really do Why do they communicate so badly? Unlike a human, a program cannot receive any message it is not expecting. It must know every possible message, or class of message, it can receive, and have a way to deal with each one. To write solid programs, a programmer must disengage the very things that make him human. * evolution and intentionality * negative effects of transiency * Chinese gov't co-opting of talent; sitting around in meetings all the time; positive side is breeds patience in adversity, discipline, much more controlled inner life than the West is accustomed to * voter participation * silly monograph on Journal markers ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * libraries like inscape Libraries need to be preserved as physical environments which are unlike other places we spend time. Libraries, as physical institutions, most reflect what the inside of my own head feels like; I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Wandering through memory, many "spines of books" catch the eye, and some get taken down, while others merely stimulate a tendril of thought. It's quiet in there, but it's the busy quiet of concentrated activity. If libraries become like everything else, a unique sort of space will be lost. Point out also that wandering in a library is a much more information-rich process than wandering online in some ways -- don't give the Internet more credit than it deserves, folks! Don't be blown away just because it's new technology. In terms of browsing potential, a row of books still beats the Web, plus laying out several books on a table is a lot more "screen space" than any computer monitor. Books are as important as they ever were. Have you read a book on a computer? Do you know anyone who has read a book on a computer? Have you *ever heard* of anyone reading a book on a computer? Right, point made. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * (essay) TJ, 1st Hacker President, for Wired maybe? * (essay) Why I play Bach on the piano... Authenticity can be a slippery goal. Just because a harpsichord had certain properties doesn't mean J.S. Bach liked it that way. The modern piano has properties that modern pianists don't like, too -- we're all trying to coax a sustained, singing tone out of an instrument that simply doesn't do that. Could have been the same way with Bach both in loud/softness and sustaining. No one examining the music would think that he actually wanted only the beginning of the note to be important! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Christ the Game Theorist" From a prisoner's dilemma point-of-view, taking others' welfare as equal in importance to your own is actually advantageous: in trying to help them, you often help yourself *more* than you would have if you had tried to help yourself at their expense. (In the same sense that Tit-For-Tat never does better than any of its opponents when it meets them, but nevertheless comes out first in the overall contest.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * JimK's apartment environment lacks "fractal depth" (has only "integral depth") -- which is what depresses many of us in our workplace, and sometimes living places. Forests have it, lawns DON'T, explore the difference... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Essay: Only One Implementation Of Anything Guile and R5RS arguments; contrast with Perl. Standards are not important except when there's more than one implementation. Portability, consistency, and documentation are what's important. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Essay: Apple chose the name "Darwin" find out why, point out that the *real* evolutionary stuff is going on elsewhere. Advertising can say anything it wants, but truth don't change. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Essay: Design Considered Harmful shrink-wrap vs plastic dome analogy... elegance (topological expl given to Jesse over Friday wine?) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Essay: "The Bazaar in the Cathedral" Thesis: actual cathedrals are not built the way ESR says they were. Furthermore, no project of significant size and complexity can be built that way -- *only* the small projects can be encompassed by one mind and one pair of hands. Yes, the basic shape of a cathedral was laid down by the original architect (who often did not live to see the completion of his creation), but the final product often varied from that shape to a degree we might find surprising. And cathedrals, like software, are never finished. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Essay: Windows hard drives are all full of things the user doesn't know about. I used to deride them for this -- like someone who buys an English manor country house but doesn't know what's in all the rooms, doesn't ever even go into some of them. My Linux system used to be the opposite, it needed less absolute space, to be sure, but more importantly I knew what was taking up the occupied space. That's all changed nowadays -- I can barely claim knowledge of 10% of my hard drive. It turns out the "messy room" syndrome I had scoffed at in Windows was not a symptom of architecture, but of *popularity*! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Essay: The Algorithmic Revolution I have always thought that the hunter-gatherers were happiest. True, they did not live as long as we do, but so what? Comparing lifespans is typical of our need to quantify, as if quality of life could be evaluated numerically. ... People often regard the Industrial Revolution as an old phenomenon that is now being replaced by the Information Revolution (sometimes called the "post-industrial era"). But in fact there was only one revolution: the algorithmic revolution, and its methods came a few centuries before we had the means (computers) to realize them. [Those laborers sweating away at mindless repetitive work in Manchester factories were performing tasks that should have been automated]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Essay: The argument goes that capitalism's greatest strength is that it harnesses the engine of greed toward socially good ends (in much the same way that parliaments are supposed to harness the engine of personal ambition toward political good). But as jimb points out, its easy to confuse means and ends -- greed itself is not good, and it's highly suspect to say the least to presume it can be used as some sort of neutral driving energy in society. This whole "directed harnessing" commonplace makes me suspicious; the so-called engine is not a generic power source to be used however its masters see fit -- it has its own idea of where to go. Reasoning by analogy is always dangerous. Analogy should be used for descriptive purposes only, not reasoning. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Essay: usually bigger==more important, except in words. In words, short words represent important concepts: "good", "bad", etc. (What is "good", how do we recognize it? Algorithmically? Cytowic & his limbic system.) (Come to think of it, "recognize" is going to need a shorter form soon, hence "OCR", because it is becoming a more carefully delineated concept now that we have to train machines to do it). Hey, Morowitz's essay on Aristotle vs Plato, wow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Essay: Why The Command Line Doesn't Die