Scripting News

Sun, 03 Aug 2003 08:29:00 GMT

Sun, 03 Aug 2003 08:43:50 GMT

Chris Heilman: Summer in Southern California.

Sun, 03 Aug 2003 08:44:40 GMT

Bloggers who never flame anyone and don't have blogrolls (or don't make a big deal about them) may take a long time to become "important" -- but if they stand out because of the quality of their ideas, and the ideas they insipire, they can attain a kind of longevity that has value, like the giants whose shoulders Sir Isaac Newton stood on.

Sun, 03 Aug 2003 08:53:37 GMT

Another thought like the last one. Did you know that you can be intellectually sensual in your interactions with other people? It's virtually impossible to find anyone who wants to play this way, but a good university offers the possibility that other people came there who want to collaborate, truly. The sexual metaphors make some people uncomfortable, maybe most people -- but I kind of believe that God gave birds orgasms when they migrate in the spring and fall; and that's why I feel so good when I have an idea that mixes well with the world. I wrote this thinking about Betsy Devine. I have no doubt she fully understands what I'm talking about. Very few people do, and I think most of them (seem to be) are women.

Sun, 03 Aug 2003 08:57:45 GMT

Another one. I've been gently introducing technography to the Thursday evening weblog writers group. A scenario. I put up an outline and ask "How would we know if we were successful in New Hampshire." People start blurting out ideas. I note them in a projected outline that everyone can see. The conversation stalls after the list fills up (this always seems to happen, people get evaluative too quickly). I add a dozen blank lines in the middle of the list, after sorting it by the size of the idea (big ones go at the bottom, little ones at the top). Then the ideas start flowing again.

Sun, 03 Aug 2003 09:21:16 GMT

Another one. I've been discussing the two different ways of approaching XML. At XML Devcon, talking with Peter Drayton and Brian Jepson, I postulated that there are people who love XML for its technical intricacy, and people who use XML because it is a convenient way to move info between apps. Brian pointed out that the latter is the Worse-Is-Better philosophy or POGE, the Principle Of Good Enough. This evening I realized there may be another way of describing the dichotomy, people who think of XML as a programming space, and people who think of it as a literary space. I am generally in the latter group. It's why I retch when I see namespaces on an otherwise understandable-as-literature XML doc. There is no equivalent of a namespace in prose or poetry. Let's say you could step back in time and rename the Dublin Core, what could you call it so that it would read well in any XML document? Nothing. A colon has a completely different meaning in writing. Nothing you name it could make it read well.