Monkinetic Weblog

Getting Jodi setup on TypePad. I think Micro is going to be a good fit for those times when staring at an empty blog post form is just too much #micro #typepad

@chrismessina yes, I can has @steveivy, too. Perhaps I should tweet here and save @monkinetic for blog posts #identity #confused

Dave adds Atom 1.0 support to his software. No big deal unless you were around in the tech industry about 7-8 years ago, and were anywhere near the RSS/ATOM flame wars. As one sage said "then again, let's not go there. 'Tis a silly place." Thanks Dave!

info@bulk-mail.org

accelerate---track-by-track tags: "" tp_commentcount: "0" tp_favoritecount: "0" tp_urlid: 6a010534988cd3970b0120a55ce9a5970b

R.E.M. is sounding like a band again, instead of Whiny Michael and the Stipes.

I bought R.E.M.'s new album last week, and I've been listening to it on and off since then, and I'm starting to develop some thoughts. For better or for worse, I tend to examine each new R.E.M. album in the light of how does this album build on / relate to what has gone before, and how does it explore new territory? I'm happy to say that for me, Accelerate does both with vigor.

Living Well Is the Best Revenge (3:12)

Out of the door loud, fast. Sets the tone for the album. Companion tune to New Test Leper from New Adventures In HiFi, barking back at a media that, in the end, doesn't really matter. Bonus points for the return of Mike Mills to background vocals (or at elast to appropriate volumes), and for Mike and Peter for a return to Document-quality rock-n-roll. R.E.M. is sounding like a band again, instead of Whiny Michael and the Stipes. - 4 Stars

Man-Sized Wreath (2:32)

I can't quite get a grip on Man-Sized Wreath. Not sure if it's the lyrics or the tune, but while I can already sing along to most of the lyrics (it's catchy!) I can't tell you why. Yet. - 2 Stars

Supernatural Superserious (3:24)

First single, very hooky. Really fun to listen to. Companion tune to Nightswimming from Automatic For The People. Michael sings to the lamenting youth from Nightswimming, assuring that it doesn't last. - 4 Stars

Hollow Man (2:39)

I love Hollow Man. Following tender mostly-acoustic verses, the chorus winds up and rings out like a 70's sitcom theme (in a good way) then comes to a satisfyingly noisy spinout at the end. Some excellent Murmurs-era guitar work from Peter Buck (still looking for the specific song I'm thinking of). - 4 Stars

Houston (2:05)

Lovely, dirty organ that sounds like it was resurrected from a swamp, or from a flooded church (a true New Orleans Instrumental?). Also, includes an echo of the acoustic riff from Try Not To Breathe. - 3 Stars

Accelerate (3:34)

Michael's invoking cartoons ("where's the cartoon escape hatch for me"), which had me thinking of the Dr. Seuss references in The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight, but it comes amid a fast, full-of-fuzz song that conveys the fear, urgency, and tension in the lyric. - 3 Stars

Until the Day Is Done (4:09)

This is another one that's growing on me. Followup to Ignoreland from Automatic For The People and would fit nicely on that album right after it. Another politically-flavored song, but is lamenting after the angry protest of Ignoreland. - 3 Stars

Mr. Richards (3:46)

Mr. Richards is a slow, loping, admonishment (beat-down? ) of the title character (who at one point I thought was referring to Michael Richards, of Sienfeld fame, but now I'm not so sure). - 3 Stars

Sing for the Submarine (4:51)

A weird song that is really growing on me, and (IMO) references several 3 R.E.M. songs from the past:

• Electron Blue, from Around The Sun by name

• In a stretch, a reference to the Machine from Green's World Leader Pretend

• Fables of the Reconstruction's Feeling Gravity's Pull

• High Speed Train from Around The Sun

• 3 Stars

Horse to Water (2:18)

You're only as big as your battles

• 2 Stars

I'm Gonna DJ (2:08)

Somehow reminds me of 1995's [Revolution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_Movie_(video) but without the cool "La La La"s. I suspect it might take the place of The End Of The World As We Know It as a show-closer, but I hope not. - 3 Stars

The action is over here. Next step is to start in on the thornier issue: how to start building the whitelist.

-portable-social-networks

> If you love something, set it free

> If it comes back to you, its yours

> If it doesn't, it never was

> -- Author Unknown

These wise words graced the wall of my childhood home in Virginia Beach, VA, along with a generic painting of a seagull. (Why anyone would want to keep a seagull was beyond me.) However, in today's web the words ring true all over again.

Social networks are popping up faster than weeds, and user fatigue is already setting in. One of the solutions (the most "Don't Be Evil" in my opinion) comes in the form of a discussion of Portable Social Networks - the idea that social networking sites should allow users' data to be portable between sites. This idea comes in two parts:

1. Allow users to import their data from a source they trust in the form of an hCard, and their existing contacts in the form of XFN-linked hCards.

2. Optionally publish user's data in these same formats so that if they lose interest, they can move on.

Part 2 used to scare people running sites, but it's becoming the de-facto standard and is becoming expected behavior (see Twitter, Flickr, dopplr, etc.) Data lock-in is considered in very poor taste now.

Surprisingly, part 1 is still finding its way into apps, though it would go a long way toward making users feel that they and their time are respected. A few sites are doing a good job of making it easy for users to bring their data with them. Dopplr.com, though in private-beta right now, is getting good reviews for a registration process that offers the user the option of importing their profile data from a variety of other social sites, and also offers to match up the users contacts from those sites with (and this is an important point) users already in the Dopplr system. Let's cut down on the social-network-invite SPAM while we're at it, mmmkay? Dopplr as even gone as far as publishing code.

Portable Social Network Lib

As a couple folks have discovered, I've started a project for a ruby library called, surprisingly, Portable Social Network Lib.

PSNlib is quite early in its life (and I've been distracted by an adoption and by adding some stuff to mofo to make building PSNlib easier) but it has two goals:

1. Make it easy for a ruby-based app to add hCard+XFN import to an existing model layer, and

2. Make it easy to publish user profile and contact/friend information as hCard+XFN

Eventually, I'd like to see OpenID/OAuth mixed in in some way as well. Kevin Lawver has started some cool stuff in that area, and I'm going to keep my eye on it.

Outstanding Issues

It's after 2 AM in Vladivostok, Russia, and the whole point of this post was to get down some issues I'm having in implementation so I could STOP thinking about them. So in no particular order, here are some things that are bugging me:

Mixed data: XFN+hCard

When parsing an XFN list and you want to look for hCard data for those contacts along it, what is a good parsing strategy? lab.backnetwork (another site experimenting with XFN+hCard importing) uses:

<li class="vcard"><a rel="friend coworker"><span class="first-name">Co-worker</span> <span class="last-name">Friend</span></a></li>

This is thorny because while mofo/hpricot makes finding the XFN relationships easy, it would take some working around the default behavior to figure out that the XFN relationship was wrapped in an hCard (class="vcard"). Likewise, I'm unsure of the recommended practices when publishing XFN contact list data with hCard data mixed in with it.

XFN pagination

rel="next" or rel="me next"? lab.backnetwork uses rel="next" but microformats.org recommends rel="me next".

Wrapping Up

That's all I have energy for today, but if you have thoughts or ideas, please leave them in the comments. Thanks!

-portable-social-networks tags: "" tp_commentcount: "0" tp_favoritecount: "0" tp_urlid: 6a010534988cd3970b0120a55ce758970b

If you love something, set it free

If it comes back to you, its yours

If it doesn't, it never was

-- Author Unknown

These wise words graced the wall of my childhood home in Virginia Beach, VA, along with a generic painting of a seagull. (Why anyone would want to keep a seagull was beyond me.) However, in today's web the words ring true all over again.

Social networks are popping up faster than weeds, and user fatigue is already setting in. One of the solutions (the most "Don't Be Evil" in my opinion) comes in the form of a discussion of Portable Social Networks - the idea that social networking sites should allow users' data to be portable between sites. This idea comes in two parts:

1. Allow users to import their data from a source they trust in the form of an hCard, and their existing contacts in the form of XFN-linked hCards.

2. Optionally publish user's data in these same formats so that if they lose interest, they can move on.

Part 2 used to scare people running sites, but it's becoming the de-facto standard and is becoming expected behavior (see Twitter, Flickr, dopplr, etc.) Data lock-in is considered in very poor taste now.

Surprisingly, part 1 is still finding its way into apps, though it would go a long way toward making users feel that they and their time are respected. A few sites are doing a good job of making it easy for users to bring their data with them. Dopplr.com, though in private-beta right now, is getting good reviews for a registration process that offers the user the option of importing their profile data from a variety of other social sites, and also offers to match up the users contacts from those sites with (and this is an important point) users already in the Dopplr system. Let's cut down on the social-network-invite SPAM while we're at it, mmmkay? Dopplr as even gone as far as publishing code.

Portable Social Network Lib

As a couple folks have discovered, I've started a project for a ruby library called, surprisingly, Portable Social Network Lib.

PSNlib is quite early in its life (and I've been distracted by an adoption and by adding some stuff to mofo to make building PSNlib easier) but it has two goals:

1. Make it easy for a ruby-based app to add hCard+XFN import to an existing model layer, and
2. Make it easy to publish user profile and contact/friend information as hCard+XFN

Eventually, I'd like to see OpenID/OAuth mixed in in some way as well. Kevin Lawver has started some cool stuff in that area, and I'm going to keep my eye on it.

Outstanding Issues

It's after 2 AM in Vladivostok, Russia, and the whole point of this post was to get down some issues I'm having in implementation so I could STOP thinking about them. So in no particular order, here are some things that are bugging me:

Mixed data: XFN+hCard

When parsing an XFN list and you want to look for hCard data for those contacts along it, what is a good parsing strategy? lab.backnetwork (another site experimenting with XFN+hCard importing) uses:

<li class="vcard"><a rel="friend coworker"><span class="first-name">Co-worker</span> <span class="last-name">Friend</span></a></li>

This is thorny because while mofo/hpricot makes finding the XFN relationships easy, it would take some working around the default behavior to figure out that the XFN relationship was wrapped in an hCard (class="vcard"). Likewise, I'm unsure of the recommended practices when publishing XFN contact list data with hCard data mixed in with it.

XFN pagination

rel="next" or rel="me next"? lab.backnetwork uses rel="next" but microformats.org recommends rel="me next".

Wrapping Up

That's all I have energy for today, but if you have thoughts or ideas, please leave them in the comments. Thanks!

This post made using Flock

He says he'll stop. Will he, or is this another "no one is inviting me to conferences about things I invented. I'm going to take my blog and go home"?

Jim Roepcke took me to task for my previous comment about dual-booting an Intel-based Mac with Windows. I said:

Dave writes about what I've always thought was a good idea but have a serious reason to care about now: we want to be able to subscribe to audio content feeds via something like RSS and get it downloaded directly to our iPods. I'd love to be able to have |NetNewsWire| automatically add any .mp3 enclosures to a special playlist in iTunes.

Sun Microsystem's CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, has a blog. Now, I don't care a heck of a lot about what's going on at Sun, but I am enjoying hearing about life from Jonathan's POV. Largely he's using the blog to address issues that are facing Sun these days, like how they are going to monetize Java, or how to compete with "Free" software.

Scripting News: 5/17/2004 >At some point in the next few months, there will be an open source release of the Frontier kernel. Not sure what license it'll use. There won't be any grand expectations of what kind of community will develop. Even if no bugs get fixed, if no features get added, if no new OSes are supported, it will be worth it, because its future will be assured. That's the point Ted makes, and that's my reasoning behind this.

Sean McMains (friend and Conversant user) has been out of work since March when they closed the office of Electronic Arts where he worked. > Woohoo! Just heard from the University, and they extended me an offer! I should be starting on Monday.

Jodi and I played a game of Cribbage over lunch, and ran afoul of a question of play. Google, of course, had the answer.

Well, I managed to survive Monday's brain-bake, so obviously Murphy was not satisfied. Grilling a nice fat rack of boneless pork ribs tonight I got a rather severe burn to my forearm from the grill lid. Damn.

I've changed the search box (top right corner of this page) to use the weblog search feature.

Dave says:

I got to talk to Mo, owner of Coffee Rush, today. He and his brother Yanni (no idea if I'm spelling that right - they're Jordanian) have been running Coffee Rush for a year now, and evidently started planning for it 5 years ago.