I've been waiting for FOAF to take off for a few years now. There's actually a lot of data out there being generated by various services, but many people using those services are not aware of it.
I don't want to be tied to one 'social network' service. I have accounts on various services like del.icio.us, last.fm etc plus my own blog. I've been playing with various aggregators like Mugshot and Friendfeed that can build a single feed from them all. Friendfeed has the neat feature of 'imaginary friends' so that you can build a feed for someone else, even if they don't want to join themselves. Both of these are limited in what services you can add. They both only allow for a single RSS feed so you can't even add multiple others like that.
I'd really like to see an aggregator that just reads my FOAF and builds a feed. Does one exist?
These don't really allow for private feeds that some of the social networks offer. I'm not sure how you can implement those in a decentralised way.
I agree that most of us have exceeded the speed limit at some point, including me, but it's a question of degree. It also depends on the conditions. Doing 90mph on a 70mph road is probably fairly safe if there is no other traffic, the road is dry and visibility good, but that's a rare state.
There is a proposal for 20mph limits in British towns. I think this should apply at least on non-through roads where you are more likely to get kids running around. If you are almost at your destination then it's not going to make much difference if you have to go a bit slower. Germany introduced 30km/h zones ages ago, but I don't know how much difference they made.
Some group called Association of British Drivers seem to be against any sort of limits, but it seems you cannot rely on 'common sense' for people to adjust their speed to the conditions. I do agree with them that limits should be enforced to improve safety rather than to generate money from fines.
My point is: almost everyone does this. Glass houses, stones, etc. No they don't. I think most people drive at around the speed limit, but you don't notice them as much. If people want to speed on an empty road then they can take their chances, but their insurance should be void if they crash. On busy roads they should show consideration and help to cut down on the number of accidents. Most people seem to think that they are better than average drivers, but that can't be true.
The idiot in the story should be locked up for endangering others. I'm sure he scared plenty of people in pursuit of his stupid 'record'.
There's not much point in speeding on my way to work as I rarely average even 40mph with 70% motorway/30% urban. I aim for minimal stress and reasonable economy.
I'm actually thinking of migrating the opposite way. Pyblosxom is great if you want a fairly minimal site. It can even handle comments with Akismet spam filtering. I've used it for a few years, but I could do with something that makes it easier for me to add and edit posts. I had hoped to write some Python to customise my site, but haven't found the time. I've had a play with WP and it looks more like what I want, even though I like simple systems. I previously ran Postnuke, but that was way over the top for my needs. WP may be the happy medium.
I have no bad feelings about Pyblosxom and would recommend it to anyone who is happy to hack their site to get exactly what they want.
There was a similar story recently. I think it was quoting BBC sound engineers with the same 10% BS. I liked the bit in the glossary on this article about FLAC:
"It reduces storage space by 30 percent to 50 percent, but without compression."
Sounds like magic to me.
The audio on a CD has a lot of redundancy. That's what FLAC removes. MP3/OGG/AAC remove what their algorithm assumes you won't miss, but there will be some compromise when you get to lower bit rates. I would say that 128k MP3 has at least 95% of the music. That will gradually approach 100% as you move up towards lossless. The quality of the equipment you listen on is another matter entirely.
I used to rip at 128k CBR MP3 when I didn't know better. These days I find 160-200k OGG a reasonable trade-off between file size and quality. For the rare times I listen to that music on the move it's via a PDA with an SD card, so FLAC is not an option.
Of course you can get the content to people outside FB by other means, but that means a duplication of effort. Otherwise they have to join FB.
I think that the reason that FB and some other social sites can claim such high membership numbers is that people are joining just to see their friends' pictures, but then never post anything themselves.
I have a blog, but my pictures go on http://multiply.com./ I happen to like the degree of control they give me over who can see what I post. I'm also on Facebook, but only because some friends were there. I quite like the look of http://mugshot.org/ as it seems to be closer to what the author is suggesting.
What I would like to see is something I can host myself that combines a blog with FOAF and OpenID. FOAF would list the people who I want to allow access and they would log in with OpenID. It could also include XFN. I don't really want to run a full CMS.
I found the chording fairly easy to learn. The tutorial was very good. When the Agenda came along I really wanted one, but it was out of my financial reach back then and I ended up with a second hand Psion. Typing with your thumbs was abig step backwards.
I've seen some chording keyboards sold for PC and PDA usage. For the latter it makes so much sense as it's very portable and doesn't require a large surface to rest on.
Why do yo think they just passed 30 million 'members'? How many only joined so they could see a friend's profile and then never used it again?
I'm on FB with a mere 5 friends who I all know well IRL. There's plenty of others I know, but don't socialise with and so won't add.
They do have a few nice toys, but probably not much that other social sites don't offer. I've only played with a few. My favourite is http://www.multiply.com/ It's not so well known, but is very user friendly and offers easy control of access to your profile and posts.
Similar here, except I am still buying CDs. They come home, get ripped, and then live on the shelf. They only generally come off the shelf when I want something for the car (no MP3/OGG car unit yet) or to lend to friends.
I've never bought a download yet, but have plenty from sources that give them away. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I'm not so keen on buying non-physical media. I would only consider it if the media had the same freedoms as a CD and at least the same quality.
Some people don't buy music because it is so easy to download and copy MP3 files. They don't care about the moral/quality/legal issues. Free as in free is all they care about. In my younger days I used to tape every record I could get hold of, but it took somoe time and effort. These days I can afford to buy all the CDs I really want, which is probably around 20/year.
There seems to be a general trend to make cars bigger. It seems that each time a model gets updated it grows. Eventually they have to introduce a new smallest model to fill the niche for those who want a really small car. It always strikes me how big all the cars are when I'm in the US. As for the pickups... When I see something like a Dodge Ram over here it looks so out of place.
I think this article was originally about hybrids. I'll only buy one of those if it can really give me better economy and doesn't cost a fortune.
I drive a diesel manual Vauxhall Zafira 1.9L, 120ps. The quoted economy is Urban 37.2, Extra-Urban 55.4, Combined 47.1mpg (UK). I have averaged 46mpg over the last 3 years, so that's pretty accurate. My daily commute is 25 miles of motorway that always slows to a crawl in places with the rest in variable London traffic. I drive for economy, anticipating when I need to slow down and not accelerating too hard. Recently I've taken to keeping to around 65mph on the motorway rather than around 70mph when traffic allows. For the last couple of tanks I've averaged almost 50mpg. That's about 41mpg (US). I don't think that's bad for a car that can carry seven people.
The time is coming when we will replace our old Rover 1.6 manual petrol (37mpg). I'll be looking for something that uses less than the Zafira to use for my commute. With the price of fuel rising again in the UK it has the potential to save me a heap of cash. Diesel looks likely to go over a pound soon.
A friend went from financial adviser to truck driver after his company went broke. He's had enough of it after a couple of years. The hours are terrible, lots of night work, and the people he drives with have no conversational skill at all so he's terminally bored.
I sometimes think about doing something different, but I don't know what it would be. I'd love to do something in music, but I know the chances of earning well are slim unless you are really good and I'm not. I have to provide for the family.
This week I noticed a set of four more conventional wind turbines had appeared on a new building on the A406 North Circular Road opposite Ikea. If the intention is to use the breeze generated by cars to power them then they are doomed as the traffic generally crawls past there. Given all the stuff I've read about the viability of wind turbines in built-up areas I wonder how much good they will do anyway, but it's still a very visible bit of greenwashing.
My first thought on seeing a picture of the NJ turbines was that they would have to be increasing the fuel consumption of passing cars, if only marginally. Perhaps they could be placed where people should be slowing down, e.g. off ramps and junctions, to actually slow the cars a little. I had a thought ages ago that junctions should be on raised ground so that cars are naturally slowed as they approach uphill and gain easier acceleration as they leave downhill.
Yeah, get rid of the shopping channels (never watch then) and the +1 channels (who needs to watch Friends an hour late?) and the there should be enough space for some HD.
Of course we will have to buy new boxes to watch HD anyway.
I checked my Google homepage when I first heard about it and found that it had reverted to defaults. Now, just as I'm reading the comments on/., I find that it's all back again:)
I have a single tab page with about a dozen gadgets on it. It's just a convenient way to see what's going on, especially as I can use it from home or work. I generally like the Google apps. I use their Reader (all the time), GTalk (well the Jabber part), Calendar (it's growing on me) and Gmail (not as my main account). Losing any of these would not be the end of the world, but I'll enjoy them whilst they are available and free.
Back then it was a case of trying to compress all the source for a project (in Turbo Basic) onto a single floppy for a quick backup. I vaguely remember that ARJ gave the best compression then. I suspect we were comparing with ZIP and LHA.
We also went through various sorts of DOS (MS, DR) trying to find the one that gave us the maximum free RAM so we could compile the project.
I would think that GeoURL has a different purpose as it has nothing to do with RSS. It's more about being able to see the location of whatever a site relates to. I know that a lot of sites have the GeoURL/ICBM data, but the main site has not developed over the last couple of years. That doesn't stop others from using the data for things like making their own Google maps. Even with my limited Python skills I was able to knock something up based on the members list on our LUG site. A few of us had the GeoURL coordinates on our sites, although some chose to reference a location other than where they live.
I'm still not giving up on the Semantic Web (whatever Web x.0 it may be)
I'm really disappointed that cars have not become much more efficient in the last couple of decades. Instead they get loaded up with more weight and engines get bigger and more powerful. It's like there's a race to use up all the oil.
I've been keeping an eye on this car for over a year. Even the quicker one would use half the diesel that my Zafira uses. Most of my driving is with just me in the car, so space is not generally an issue. If they can produce it, at that price, I want one.
The facts that you have to lift up the front to climb out and the rear seats are in the boot/trunk, mean it's not going to be too good for transporting elderly relatives.
Over a million killed worldwide on the roads! I believe it's around 40k/year just in the USA.
How many die in plane crashes each year? I expect it's in the hundreds on average. Similar for trains.
I think the news programmes should announce road death statistics regularly to give people some perspective on which is the most dangerous form of transport. I'm certainly more scared when driving than when flying even though I appreciate that a motoring accident is generally more survivable.
My 1200 Duron is still working fine, but I guess I would notice some difference if I went for even a low end dual core. It would not be worth upgrading my box, so it means a whole new PC. I know they are cheap these days, but I hate waste. It just seems ridiculous that people are buying dual core PCs just for everyday surfing/email/letters to granny. They will only really stress the PC if they play the latest games. I don't play many games, but have been getting addicted to Frozen Bubble lately.
Since I first read about the semantic web a few years back I've been hoping that some of it's ideas would take off. I've created my own FOAF file, but it's only recently that a couple of geek friends have created theirs that I can link to. I know a few social network sites generate these, but they may not be able to link to people outside that network. The project site does not seem to have been updated in a couple of years. There's the usual problem of nobody daring to publish an email address for fear of being spammed, although FOAF caters for SHA-1 checksums to reduce the risks.
I've also played with http://geourl.org/. I see a few sites using it, but, again, the homepage is not being updated.
Cory Doctorow wrote about Metacrap in 2001. Has much changed since then? There is the risk/certainty that companies/spammers will create fake metadata to attract the clicks, but perhaps someone can come up with a trust system to avoid that.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been waiting for FOAF to take off for a few years now. There's actually a lot of data out there being generated by various services, but many people using those services are not aware of it.
I don't want to be tied to one 'social network' service. I have accounts on various services like del.icio.us, last.fm etc plus my own blog. I've been playing with various aggregators like Mugshot and Friendfeed that can build a single feed from them all. Friendfeed has the neat feature of 'imaginary friends' so that you can build a feed for someone else, even if they don't want to join themselves. Both of these are limited in what services you can add. They both only allow for a single RSS feed so you can't even add multiple others like that.
I'd really like to see an aggregator that just reads my FOAF and builds a feed. Does one exist?
These don't really allow for private feeds that some of the social networks offer. I'm not sure how you can implement those in a decentralised way.
I agree that most of us have exceeded the speed limit at some point, including me, but it's a question of degree. It also depends on the conditions. Doing 90mph on a 70mph road is probably fairly safe if there is no other traffic, the road is dry and visibility good, but that's a rare state.
There is a proposal for 20mph limits in British towns. I think this should apply at least on non-through roads where you are more likely to get kids running around. If you are almost at your destination then it's not going to make much difference if you have to go a bit slower. Germany introduced 30km/h zones ages ago, but I don't know how much difference they made.
Some group called Association of British Drivers seem to be against any sort of limits, but it seems you cannot rely on 'common sense' for people to adjust their speed to the conditions. I do agree with them that limits should be enforced to improve safety rather than to generate money from fines.
The idiot in the story should be locked up for endangering others. I'm sure he scared plenty of people in pursuit of his stupid 'record'.
There's not much point in speeding on my way to work as I rarely average even 40mph with 70% motorway/30% urban. I aim for minimal stress and reasonable economy.
How about Rowbots?
I'm actually thinking of migrating the opposite way. Pyblosxom is great if you want a fairly minimal site. It can even handle comments with Akismet spam filtering. I've used it for a few years, but I could do with something that makes it easier for me to add and edit posts. I had hoped to write some Python to customise my site, but haven't found the time. I've had a play with WP and it looks more like what I want, even though I like simple systems. I previously ran Postnuke, but that was way over the top for my needs. WP may be the happy medium.
I have no bad feelings about Pyblosxom and would recommend it to anyone who is happy to hack their site to get exactly what they want.
1. All ninjas are liars
2. I am a ninja
Draw your own conclusions
There was a similar story recently. I think it was quoting BBC sound engineers with the same 10% BS. I liked the bit in the glossary on this article about FLAC:
"It reduces storage space by 30 percent to 50 percent, but without compression."
Sounds like magic to me.
The audio on a CD has a lot of redundancy. That's what FLAC removes. MP3/OGG/AAC remove what their algorithm assumes you won't miss, but there will be some compromise when you get to lower bit rates. I would say that 128k MP3 has at least 95% of the music. That will gradually approach 100% as you move up towards lossless. The quality of the equipment you listen on is another matter entirely.
I used to rip at 128k CBR MP3 when I didn't know better. These days I find 160-200k OGG a reasonable trade-off between file size and quality. For the rare times I listen to that music on the move it's via a PDA with an SD card, so FLAC is not an option.
Of course you can get the content to people outside FB by other means, but that means a duplication of effort. Otherwise they have to join FB.
I think that the reason that FB and some other social sites can claim such high membership numbers is that people are joining just to see their friends' pictures, but then never post anything themselves.
I have a blog, but my pictures go on http://multiply.com./ I happen to like the degree of control they give me over who can see what I post. I'm also on Facebook, but only because some friends were there. I quite like the look of http://mugshot.org/ as it seems to be closer to what the author is suggesting.
What I would like to see is something I can host myself that combines a blog with FOAF and OpenID. FOAF would list the people who I want to allow access and they would log in with OpenID. It could also include XFN. I don't really want to run a full CMS.
I had use of a Microwriter for a while back then. The original one looked like this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter
I found the chording fairly easy to learn. The tutorial was very good. When the Agenda came along I really wanted one, but it was out of my financial reach back then and I ended up with a second hand Psion. Typing with your thumbs was abig step backwards.
I've seen some chording keyboards sold for PC and PDA usage. For the latter it makes so much sense as it's very portable and doesn't require a large surface to rest on.
Why do yo think they just passed 30 million 'members'? How many only joined so they could see a friend's profile and then never used it again?
I'm on FB with a mere 5 friends who I all know well IRL. There's plenty of others I know, but don't socialise with and so won't add.
They do have a few nice toys, but probably not much that other social sites don't offer. I've only played with a few. My favourite is http://www.multiply.com/ It's not so well known, but is very user friendly and offers easy control of access to your profile and posts.
Similar here, except I am still buying CDs. They come home, get ripped, and then live on the shelf. They only generally come off the shelf when I want something for the car (no MP3/OGG car unit yet) or to lend to friends.
I've never bought a download yet, but have plenty from sources that give them away. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I'm not so keen on buying non-physical media. I would only consider it if the media had the same freedoms as a CD and at least the same quality.
Some people don't buy music because it is so easy to download and copy MP3 files. They don't care about the moral/quality/legal issues. Free as in free is all they care about. In my younger days I used to tape every record I could get hold of, but it took somoe time and effort. These days I can afford to buy all the CDs I really want, which is probably around 20/year.
There seems to be a general trend to make cars bigger. It seems that each time a model gets updated it grows. Eventually they have to introduce a new smallest model to fill the niche for those who want a really small car. It always strikes me how big all the cars are when I'm in the US. As for the pickups... When I see something like a Dodge Ram over here it looks so out of place.
I think this article was originally about hybrids. I'll only buy one of those if it can really give me better economy and doesn't cost a fortune.
I drive a diesel manual Vauxhall Zafira 1.9L, 120ps. The quoted economy is Urban 37.2, Extra-Urban 55.4, Combined 47.1mpg (UK). I have averaged 46mpg over the last 3 years, so that's pretty accurate. My daily commute is 25 miles of motorway that always slows to a crawl in places with the rest in variable London traffic. I drive for economy, anticipating when I need to slow down and not accelerating too hard. Recently I've taken to keeping to around 65mph on the motorway rather than around 70mph when traffic allows. For the last couple of tanks I've averaged almost 50mpg. That's about 41mpg (US). I don't think that's bad for a car that can carry seven people.
The time is coming when we will replace our old Rover 1.6 manual petrol (37mpg). I'll be looking for something that uses less than the Zafira to use for my commute. With the price of fuel rising again in the UK it has the potential to save me a heap of cash. Diesel looks likely to go over a pound soon.
A friend went from financial adviser to truck driver after his company went broke. He's had enough of it after a couple of years. The hours are terrible, lots of night work, and the people he drives with have no conversational skill at all so he's terminally bored.
I sometimes think about doing something different, but I don't know what it would be. I'd love to do something in music, but I know the chances of earning well are slim unless you are really good and I'm not. I have to provide for the family.
This week I noticed a set of four more conventional wind turbines had appeared on a new building on the A406 North Circular Road opposite Ikea. If the intention is to use the breeze generated by cars to power them then they are doomed as the traffic generally crawls past there. Given all the stuff I've read about the viability of wind turbines in built-up areas I wonder how much good they will do anyway, but it's still a very visible bit of greenwashing.
My first thought on seeing a picture of the NJ turbines was that they would have to be increasing the fuel consumption of passing cars, if only marginally. Perhaps they could be placed where people should be slowing down, e.g. off ramps and junctions, to actually slow the cars a little. I had a thought ages ago that junctions should be on raised ground so that cars are naturally slowed as they approach uphill and gain easier acceleration as they leave downhill.
Yeah, get rid of the shopping channels (never watch then) and the +1 channels (who needs to watch Friends an hour late?) and the there should be enough space for some HD.
Of course we will have to buy new boxes to watch HD anyway.
I checked my Google homepage when I first heard about it and found that it had reverted to defaults. Now, just as I'm reading the comments on /., I find that it's all back again :)
I have a single tab page with about a dozen gadgets on it. It's just a convenient way to see what's going on, especially as I can use it from home or work. I generally like the Google apps. I use their Reader (all the time), GTalk (well the Jabber part), Calendar (it's growing on me) and Gmail (not as my main account). Losing any of these would not be the end of the world, but I'll enjoy them whilst they are available and free.
Back then it was a case of trying to compress all the source for a project (in Turbo Basic) onto a single floppy for a quick backup. I vaguely remember that ARJ gave the best compression then. I suspect we were comparing with ZIP and LHA.
:)
We also went through various sorts of DOS (MS, DR) trying to find the one that gave us the maximum free RAM so we could compile the project.
Happy days
I would think that GeoURL has a different purpose as it has nothing to do with RSS. It's more about being able to see the location of whatever a site relates to. I know that a lot of sites have the GeoURL/ICBM data, but the main site has not developed over the last couple of years. That doesn't stop others from using the data for things like making their own Google maps. Even with my limited Python skills I was able to knock something up based on the members list on our LUG site. A few of us had the GeoURL coordinates on our sites, although some chose to reference a location other than where they live.
I'm still not giving up on the Semantic Web (whatever Web x.0 it may be)
You mean you can get a GPS signal down there? Do you use this?
http://gpspray.googlepages.com/
I'm really disappointed that cars have not become much more efficient in the last couple of decades. Instead they get loaded up with more weight and engines get bigger and more powerful. It's like there's a race to use up all the oil.
I've been keeping an eye on this car for over a year. Even the quicker one would use half the diesel that my Zafira uses. Most of my driving is with just me in the car, so space is not generally an issue. If they can produce it, at that price, I want one.
The facts that you have to lift up the front to climb out and the rear seats are in the boot/trunk, mean it's not going to be too good for transporting elderly relatives.
That's why people like the Long Now Foundation are looking at media that could be readable in thousands of years time.
Over a million killed worldwide on the roads! I believe it's around 40k/year just in the USA.
How many die in plane crashes each year? I expect it's in the hundreds on average. Similar for trains.
I think the news programmes should announce road death statistics regularly to give people some perspective on which is the most dangerous form of transport. I'm certainly more scared when driving than when flying even though I appreciate that a motoring accident is generally more survivable.
Read some Schneier for some sanity.
My 1200 Duron is still working fine, but I guess I would notice some difference if I went for even a low end dual core. It would not be worth upgrading my box, so it means a whole new PC. I know they are cheap these days, but I hate waste. It just seems ridiculous that people are buying dual core PCs just for everyday surfing/email/letters to granny. They will only really stress the PC if they play the latest games. I don't play many games, but have been getting addicted to Frozen Bubble lately.
Since I first read about the semantic web a few years back I've been hoping that some of it's ideas would take off. I've created my own FOAF file, but it's only recently that a couple of geek friends have created theirs that I can link to. I know a few social network sites generate these, but they may not be able to link to people outside that network. The project site does not seem to have been updated in a couple of years. There's the usual problem of nobody daring to publish an email address for fear of being spammed, although FOAF caters for SHA-1 checksums to reduce the risks.
I've also played with http://geourl.org/. I see a few sites using it, but, again, the homepage is not being updated.
Cory Doctorow wrote about Metacrap in 2001. Has much changed since then? There is the risk/certainty that companies/spammers will create fake metadata to attract the clicks, but perhaps someone can come up with a trust system to avoid that.