Perhaps everyone other than me has already seen the masterful geek wit that Shelley Powers, aka burningbird has wrought -- since it was posted on slashdot some time ago.
Reading the burningbird blog I am re-inspired by what is possible in his medium. But especially this "Parable of the Languages" which is at once beautiful and geeky, a contradiction which you'll just have to grok for yourselves...
It begins...
If programming languages could speak, really speak, not just crunch bytes and stream bits, they would have much to say that is both wise and profound.
After all, the original programmers were philosophers, and programming languages were philosopher tools...
Saturday, October 19, 2002
Can anyone recommend a reliable Email Service?
I have been a customer of SiteAmerica (part of Register.com) for 5 or 6 years now and the service has been unreliable at best over the last few years. My afterink email is out again and I am ready to switch providers. I need someone who will host my domain and provide POP mail or IMAP mail access -- can anyone out there in blogland recommend a service provider that I can count on?? Please email me at tshelton@borland.com if you have a suggestion... thanks!!
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Lessig's Debrief on Eldred v. Ashcroft
Lawrence Lessig has surfaced again, with this report on events at the Supreme Court. I am taking this quote a little out of context but it is an example of the reassuring things that Lessig has to say...
The Court clearly got it. Though the other side had written literally 300 pages trying to show all the good CTEA did (and pronounce it like it is a disease -- sateeeya), the Court hadn't bought any of it. Congress was not acting to promote progress, it was acting to reward "court favorites." The only question the Court was struggling with is whether it has the power to do anything about it.
The Court clearly got it. Though the other side had written literally 300 pages trying to show all the good CTEA did (and pronounce it like it is a disease -- sateeeya), the Court hadn't bought any of it. Congress was not acting to promote progress, it was acting to reward "court favorites." The only question the Court was struggling with is whether it has the power to do anything about it.
Blogdex - very interesting resource
Sort of a "best of" blogging, take a look at MIT Media lab's blogdex which lists and rates top blogs.
Sunday, October 13, 2002
Giants Win!
Great ending to the Giants-Cardinals NL championship game tonight -- and a great one for my first time to Pac Bell park. For some reason I just hadn't managed to get to the "new" ballpark -- although I was frequently reminded tonight of reasons to watch the games on TV instead of inside the park...
At Yankees games it was all about celebrities -- here in Silicon Valley? I think it was Vinod Khosla that we saw at the game... Although my friend swears he saw Danny Devito as well.
In any case, it would be great to see Barry Bonds in his first World Series... They can't walk him every time, can they??
At Yankees games it was all about celebrities -- here in Silicon Valley? I think it was Vinod Khosla that we saw at the game... Although my friend swears he saw Danny Devito as well.
In any case, it would be great to see Barry Bonds in his first World Series... They can't walk him every time, can they??
Joel On Software
Joel Spolsky is an interesting software programmer in New York who has a blog and reports on a variety of interesting software development issues. He was recently pointed out to me by Pat Kerpan, one of Borland's product BU VPs.
In a June letter entitled Strategy Letter V Joel outlines how technology companies seek to commoditize products that complement their own in the marketplace -- Microsoft commoditizing hardware, for example. I found it to be a good analysis, with one objection -- Sun thought that they were commoditizing the desktop, or client experience -- not the server. Worth reading though, as this is one small nit to an argument which I otherwise feel is right on target.
In a June letter entitled Strategy Letter V Joel outlines how technology companies seek to commoditize products that complement their own in the marketplace -- Microsoft commoditizing hardware, for example. I found it to be a good analysis, with one objection -- Sun thought that they were commoditizing the desktop, or client experience -- not the server. Worth reading though, as this is one small nit to an argument which I otherwise feel is right on target.
Monday, October 07, 2002
Two days to go...
If you've been wondering why Lawrence Lessig has been silent of late -- Eldred vs. Ashcroft goes to the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Here is the lead from CNN's article on the case (posted just hours ago on their web site):
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Mickey Mouse's days at Disney could be numbered and paying royalties for warbling George Gershwin tunes could become a thing of the past if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with an Internet publisher in a landmark copyright case this week....
So that I am not accused of violating "fair use" doctrine, read the rest of the article on CNN's web site
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Mickey Mouse's days at Disney could be numbered and paying royalties for warbling George Gershwin tunes could become a thing of the past if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with an Internet publisher in a landmark copyright case this week....
So that I am not accused of violating "fair use" doctrine, read the rest of the article on CNN's web site
Tuesday, October 01, 2002
Freedom to Tinker
For those interested in more on Edward Felten, he sends the link to his own blog, Freedom To Tinker subtitled "...is your freedom to understand, discuss, repair, and modify the technological devices you own." I will definitely be adding Felten's site to my Amphetadesk using his XML link.
On the 27th Felten posted a very interesing note on the Berman-Coble hearings -- hearings to discuss the possibility of giving companies a legal right to attack your home computers under the pretense of disrupting "illegal" P2P networks.
Worthwhile reading throughout.
On the 27th Felten posted a very interesing note on the Berman-Coble hearings -- hearings to discuss the possibility of giving companies a legal right to attack your home computers under the pretense of disrupting "illegal" P2P networks.
Worthwhile reading throughout.
Monday, September 30, 2002
Where it matters most, globalization thrives
A thoughtful piece by Thomas L. Friedman, writing for the New York Times and reprinted here in the International Herald Tribune, Friedman argues that in places like India and China globalization has been a success. He also writes that September 11th has taught us that:
...terrorists originated from the least globalized, least open, least integrated corners of the world: namely, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan. Countries that don't trade in goods and services also tend not to trade in ideas, pluralism or tolerance."
The debate will go in, but Friedman's point is that it is often people from the rich West who wonder whether globalization is doing harm or good, while the developing world has experienced improved standards of living and social mobility as a result of these policies. Young people in Bangalore, for example are not protesting against Silicon Valley firms spending money on Indian software engineers.
...terrorists originated from the least globalized, least open, least integrated corners of the world: namely, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan. Countries that don't trade in goods and services also tend not to trade in ideas, pluralism or tolerance."
The debate will go in, but Friedman's point is that it is often people from the rich West who wonder whether globalization is doing harm or good, while the developing world has experienced improved standards of living and social mobility as a result of these policies. Young people in Bangalore, for example are not protesting against Silicon Valley firms spending money on Indian software engineers.
Sunday, September 29, 2002
Web Surfers can Follow U.S. Buildup
So writes the International Herald Tribune last week, pointing out that commercial satellite photography is available of Iraq and U.S. facilities in the Gulf at Globalsecurity.org a "military watchdog group." The byline is from Eric Umansky of the New York Times. According to the article, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld isn't so happy with the existence of this public access to military information, saying "I wish we didn't have to live with it." According to the article, a 1992 US law allows the government to declare any part of the earth off-limits to American commercial satellites to "meet significant national security or significant foreign policy concerns." Here is a link to the original article on the New York Times website, although you'd have to be a member and pay to read... The article doesn't appear in the IHT archives -- I guess because it was re-printed from NYT.
Friday, September 27, 2002
Tinkerers' Champion
Lest you thought that Lawrence Lessig was the only professor battling copyright law's reduction of our civil liberties, this fascinating article from the Economist describes Edward Felten's argument for the "freedom to tinker."
It is not just libertarians who are concerned about the restrictions caused by America's latest copyright law. Edward Felten, a professor at Princeton University, argues that the “freedom to tinker”—the right to understand, repair and modify one's own equipment— is crucial to innovation, and as valuable to society as the freedom of speech.
This article also includes some info about a a bill recently introduced in Congress by Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina -- a bill which could "...criminalise open-source software..." I guess other folks have known about this bill for awhile, I found this March, 2002 article on the topic in Wired News -- truly scary stuff that we need to stand up and fight against!
It is not just libertarians who are concerned about the restrictions caused by America's latest copyright law. Edward Felten, a professor at Princeton University, argues that the “freedom to tinker”—the right to understand, repair and modify one's own equipment— is crucial to innovation, and as valuable to society as the freedom of speech.
This article also includes some info about a a bill recently introduced in Congress by Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina -- a bill which could "...criminalise open-source software..." I guess other folks have known about this bill for awhile, I found this March, 2002 article on the topic in Wired News -- truly scary stuff that we need to stand up and fight against!
Amphetadesk
Thanks to Craig Stuntz for pointing out this really interesting new tool, Amphetadesk.
This tool creates a local webserver on your desktop. The scripts allow you to subscribe to any web site that supports an XML version, bringing all of the headlines and summaries of your subscribed sites onto your desktop. Right now it just lists all headlines for each web site, grouped by site. But since the data is local, it shouldn't be long before there is a hack that lets you sort by search word or date or author...
This kind of tool makes keeping track of multiple blogs much easier and, in my opinion, starts to show one possible direction for the future of blogging -- blogs could be a bridge technology to a world in which we rely on individual trusted author/editors rather than corporate news conglomerates to parse through all of the world's news sources to put together a constant perspective on particular topics of interest.
For example, a blogger could decide to be an expert on Iraq and would search the world's news outlets for the most interesting tidbits on that country. I could then subscribe to that individual's blog using Amphetadesk and would then have a view into all of the world's news on that topic, but screened by someone I had chosen to trust to give me just the important or interesting items.
Next question -- what is the economic model?
This tool creates a local webserver on your desktop. The scripts allow you to subscribe to any web site that supports an XML version, bringing all of the headlines and summaries of your subscribed sites onto your desktop. Right now it just lists all headlines for each web site, grouped by site. But since the data is local, it shouldn't be long before there is a hack that lets you sort by search word or date or author...
This kind of tool makes keeping track of multiple blogs much easier and, in my opinion, starts to show one possible direction for the future of blogging -- blogs could be a bridge technology to a world in which we rely on individual trusted author/editors rather than corporate news conglomerates to parse through all of the world's news sources to put together a constant perspective on particular topics of interest.
For example, a blogger could decide to be an expert on Iraq and would search the world's news outlets for the most interesting tidbits on that country. I could then subscribe to that individual's blog using Amphetadesk and would then have a view into all of the world's news on that topic, but screened by someone I had chosen to trust to give me just the important or interesting items.
Next question -- what is the economic model?
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
Dale hands out free beer...
Borcon Germany kicked off to a great start with Borland CEO Dale Fuller and Borland icon David I giving a terrific keynote speech. Turnout was quite strong with a total of about 600 attendees expected over the four day event in Frankfurt.
Prior to the keynote, Dale was showing attendees this 10 year old photo of David, at a long ago Borcon.
By the way, these photos are from a Nokia 7650 phone with a built in camera. The resolution is only 640 x 480, but have you ever seen better photos from a phone? :-)
Dale wrapped up the keynote by asking for questions from the audience and rewarding the asker with a pint of beer. Here he is passing someone a beer.
One final photo -- David I on stage answering questions.
Monday, September 23, 2002
Lessig Blogversation
It has occured to me that it is very difficult to follow a blogversation as the reader is presented with the conversation in reverse chronological order, and must bounce back and forth between multiple blogs to read each entry into the conversation. To solve this problem, I have created a separate page which includes all of the entries, in chronological order, for my blogversation with Lawrence Lessig on the topic of his ideas on "opaque creativity." As there are new additions to this conversation, I will post them here on the main page, and also on the separate chronological page.
Sunday, September 22, 2002
Dasher - alternative text input
A very interesting alternate text input experiment can be found here from the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. I think that this is a good example of the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that we can expect in the next generation of handheld devices. Many have said that handheld devices will not become computing platforms until we have voice recognition due to the challenges with the input mechanism. Experiments like Dasher, while early, show that there is still a lot of room for innovation in the way we think about "typing" into devices.
Oktoberfest and Borcon
What a great idea! Hold our German Borland user's conference (Borcon) at the same time as Germany's Oktoberfest celebration! Both events started on Saturday the 21st, with Monday night being the actual opening keynote speech for Borcon. The weekend pre-conference was filled with training classes and certification testing (hopefully some beer drinking...) Germany is one of the largest markets for Borland products and Delphi especially is still very strong here. Where Delphi might be in 10-15% of corporations in the US, it is used in 30% of all German corporations. Now only one problem, I am in Frankfurt for Borcon and the big Oktoberfest celebration is in Munich...
Lord of Light Roger Zelazny
I have been re-reading, for probably the first time in 15-20 years, Roger Zelazny's classic Lord of Light. I enjoy Zelazny in general and also recently re-read his 10 Amber novels (conventiently re-printed into a single volume). But it is as if by a different author altogether -- Lord of Light is a masterful novel where the Amber books are just a fun read. Beautiful language, compelling plot line -- the book describes a world where a colonizing ship's crew has used technology to become the gods of the Hindu pantheon and rule over the passengers that they had brought to colonize the planet. Well worth reading just for Zelazny's use of language.
By the way, if you are an Amber fan, I recommend the new Dawn of Amber novel by John Gregory Betancourt. Written with the permission of the Zelazny estate, this is a prequel which trace the origins of Amber itself. Sadly only the first of this new trilogy is available and it is a bit of a cliff-hanger.
By the way, if you are an Amber fan, I recommend the new Dawn of Amber novel by John Gregory Betancourt. Written with the permission of the Zelazny estate, this is a prequel which trace the origins of Amber itself. Sadly only the first of this new trilogy is available and it is a bit of a cliff-hanger.
Saturday, September 21, 2002
Platform adoption -- the role of the software developer
There is a comment that I made to Eric Knorr in my interview with him that seems to have been misunderstood by some readers. It is also a key to understanding why Microsoft has been so successful while other platform vendors have not. I said:
"In the non-Microsoft world, there is very little appreciation for how important the developer is to the ultimate success of the platform."
Geoff Stevenson wrote in, pointing out that Linux has been entirely developer driven and that "...these are people who actually care in a personal way about what they're doing..." He also chided me for extoling the virtues of Microsoft... which I had not done.
The point I was trying to make was actually entirely consonant with this reader's view. It is because software developers are often passionate about their creations that they can contribute so much to the success of a platform. The rapid growth of Linux, and the quality of that platform is a testament to that fact.
My point was that amongst platform vendors, Microsoft has been one of the few companies that have really focused on the role of the software developer in making their platform a success. This focus causes them to create good developer tools, good partner programs for developers, and a variety of educational forums for teaching developers the Microsoft way. By contrast, look at Palm which has no development tools and a miniscule partner program. They simply haven't focused on developers and are now paying the price as Win CE begins to have all of the exciting content for customers of handheld devices -- its the developer that makes the product something that a consumer wants to buy.
Microsoft itself has struggled in the game station market for exactly this reason. The "hit" software is on the Sony and Nintendo devices. So Microsoft has even had to buy game development companies in order to get the hit products that will help them sell the Xbox.
"In the non-Microsoft world, there is very little appreciation for how important the developer is to the ultimate success of the platform."
Geoff Stevenson wrote in, pointing out that Linux has been entirely developer driven and that "...these are people who actually care in a personal way about what they're doing..." He also chided me for extoling the virtues of Microsoft... which I had not done.
The point I was trying to make was actually entirely consonant with this reader's view. It is because software developers are often passionate about their creations that they can contribute so much to the success of a platform. The rapid growth of Linux, and the quality of that platform is a testament to that fact.
My point was that amongst platform vendors, Microsoft has been one of the few companies that have really focused on the role of the software developer in making their platform a success. This focus causes them to create good developer tools, good partner programs for developers, and a variety of educational forums for teaching developers the Microsoft way. By contrast, look at Palm which has no development tools and a miniscule partner program. They simply haven't focused on developers and are now paying the price as Win CE begins to have all of the exciting content for customers of handheld devices -- its the developer that makes the product something that a consumer wants to buy.
Microsoft itself has struggled in the game station market for exactly this reason. The "hit" software is on the Sony and Nintendo devices. So Microsoft has even had to buy game development companies in order to get the hit products that will help them sell the Xbox.
Thursday, September 19, 2002
Borland's bird's-eye view
Part one of an interview I did with ZDNet's Eric Knorr. If you want to comment you can join in the discussion section at the bottom of that page or send me your comments directly at tshelton@borland.com
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