Category Archives: Uncategorized

Twitter

I’ve been finding the Twitter phenomenon truly baffling. Why would I care to post an up-to-the-minute timeline of my life? Why would I care to follow such a timeline of someone else? And yet, lots of seemingly intelligent people are participating in this, and seem to think that it’s pretty cool, and, dare I say it, USEFUL. I’m not sure I need yet another thing to fill my already-too-busy time, and posting updates to a website so that strangers can read it just seems somewhat exhibitionist. Even more exhibitionist than having a blog.

But even weirder, it seems it’s supposed to be keeping your friends appraised of what’s going on in your life, without the inconvenience of actual interpersonal interaction.

Dunno. Perhaps I’ll give it a try, but I really can’t see myself sticking with this for more than a few seconds.

FTIC

Skippy posted some thoughts about FTIC which I found intriguing. About as close as I get to FTIC is, like Skippy, the folks with whom I interact via IRC. Although I keep in fairly close touch with Maria via AIM as well.

We tried, briefly, the text messaging thing. That was before either of us realized that text messages are billed PER MESSAGE, and the bill at the end of that month was rather startling. Presumably all the cool kids have unlimited text messages on their cell phone plans.

I’m also reminded of this quote:

I don’t own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone wants to get a hold of me, they just say ‘Mitch,’ and I say ‘what?’ and turn my head slightly.

Mitch Hedberg (1968 – 2005)

ApacheCon 2007 Europe early-bird rates end Friday

ApacheCon Europe 2007, the official conference, trainings, and expo of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), today announced the deadline for Early Bird registration ends on Friday, 23 March 2007.

With engaging plenary and keynote addresses, technical presentations, informal networking, peer discussions, Birds-of-a-Feather sessions, and entertaining social events, ApacheCon delves into the highly lauded community that develops and shepherds industry-leading Open Source projects, including Apache HTTP Server – the world’s most popular Web server software for more than a decade.

ApacheCon Europe takes place 1-4 May 2007 at the Moevenpick Hotel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Special Conference Package offers savings up to US$238; Conference passes range from US$450 – US $1,700 with an average savings of US$150 with Early Bird pricing. Trainings are US$350 for half-day sessions, and US$550 for full-day courses. Register today at http://www.eu.apachecon.com/.

With more than 100 sessions on groundbreaking technologies and emerging industry trends, conference participants meet, mingle, and exchange ideas with like-minded peers in a relaxed, community-focused environment. Highlights include:

“Abstraction and extraction: in praise of”: Keynote addresses from Steven Pemberton, Web Usability Expert at CWI and Chair, W3C XHTML and XForms Working Groups.

“Open Source: It’s a license, not a business model or a development model”: Keynote address by Dr. Margo Seltzer, Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University Division of Applied Sciences.

Full-and Half-Day Training Sessions taught by industry experts, offering hands-on instruction on Apache Projects Axis2, ApacheDS, Jackrabbit, Jetspeed, HTTP Server, Lucene, Maven, MyFaces, emerging initiatives from the Apache Incubator, and widely-deployed standards such as SSL and XSLT.

Popular Developer Presentations on flagship Apache and Open Source technologies, including Geronimo, Harmony, HTTP Server, Tomcat, AJAX, Cocoon, Databases, Derby, Eclipse, Jakarta, LDAP, Portlets, Roller, Security, SpamAssassin, and WebDAV, as well as a look into projects from the ASF Incubator and Labs at the new ApacheCon Fast Feather Track.

Business Track featuring panel sessions, presentations, and case studies that address core Open Source business, marketing, standardization, community-building, and legal/licensing issues, as well as explore broader areas such as the Semantic Web, Web Services, Web 2.0, and mobile technologies.

Sponsor Events and Expo gives attendees direct access to industry-leading organizations such as BlackHat, Covalent, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), and the Java Community Process, as well as “first-looks” at new technologies and products showcased by emerging players such as Hippo, Nexaweb, and WSO2.

Special Events include geeking, hacking, and relaxing in the Online Lounge, PGP Keysigning, conference and sponsor receptions, and out-of-the-box public speaking at the Lighting Talks!

Corporate Sponsorship, Exhibitor, and government participation opportunities are available; contact Delia Frees at delia@apachecon.com or on +1 707 765 0823 for more information.

Event media partners include: Apress, CMS Channel, CMS Center, DevTownStation, DigiMedia, European Web Association,
Free Software Magazine, Integration Developer News, Linux Magazine, LXer, Methods & Tools, Open Enterprise Trends, Slashdot, Software Development Articles Directory, Software Development Tools Directory, Software Development News, and Webtech 2007. To become a Media Partner, contact Sally Khudairi on +1 617 921 8656 or sk@apache.org.

23,000 unread messages

The mail client that I use has an “unread messages” feature, which aggregates the unread messages from all of my various mail folders. I have hundreds of mail folders and subfolders, and much of it is from mailing lists that I seldom, if ever, read. This morning I had 23,000 unread messages, roughly.

This morning, among other things, I got caught up on everything. This involved admitting that some of those lists will never get read, ever, and unsubscribing from them. For other lists that I occasionally read, I marked them read up to the present, and we’ll see how they go. Others, I remained subscribed, but had the rule that sorts them into folders also mark them as read, so that I can read them if I choose, but they won’t have a tally of how far behind I am.

And of course I deleted many thousands of messages that there’s no chance I’ll ever get to.

So, as of this moment, I am all caught up on email. I have no illusion that it’ll stay this way, but at least the unread smart folder will be slightly useful for a few days. At least, so I can hope.

Upcoming travels

In the last few days, I’ve received my itineraries for travels in May, and it’s suddenly seeming very close.

The last week of April I’ll be leaving for Apachecon in Amsterdam. I’m still frantically trying to get my tutorial notes done so that I can have them in by the deadline on Friday. I was dumb enough to submit a brand new tutorial for this ApacheCon, after giving the same tutorial every ApacheCon since 2000 in Orlando (with one exception – I was just so sick of it that I didn’t do it in Austin.) and now I have to actually prepare it. Just an enormous amount of time involved in putting together a half-day tutorial.

Two weeks after that, I’ll be speaking at PHP|Tek in Chicago – one of the few places in the world that I can fly to without changing planes. I’ve never been to a PHP conference before, and it’s a great honor to be asked. I’ll be giving my “intro to mod_rewrite” talk, and then I’ll get to hang out with all those cool PHP people for a few days. I’m really looking forward to that.

So, if you’re going to be in either Amsterdam or Chicago in May, do drop by and see me. And if you’re not, well, you should make plans to be. They’ll both be great conferences, and there will be interesting people there.

Chai

Chai
08-Mar-2007

It grew in the Kericho sun
watered by the rains that swept up from Lake Victoria
every afternoon at 4
like a heavy felt curtain.
Top two leaves and a bud
picked in the pouring rain.
Flapping black raincoats and hats,
bright faces and bright singing.
The emerald of the freshly washed leaves
almost hurts the eye.
Miles of smooth green hills
stretching to the horizon of my mind.

Dried on acres of wire racks,
the smell of them a liquor in the nostrils,
drowning in the thick black scent of it,
bathing in the aroma,
the smell of home and happiness
and warm rain running down my back
and black earth and blue skies.

Memories, packaged in a green box
and sent to me by kind strangers.

The margin is insufficient

The margin is insufficient
11-Mar-2007

I’ve long assumed that
Fermat had nothing –
no “truly marvelous demonstration”
for which the margin was too narrow.

But suppose he did.

When all you have is the margin,
there’s never sufficient space.
The margin is insufficient to express
ideas that the universe cannot contain.

We spend so much time
living in the margin
frantically jotting notes to each other,
unable or
unwilling to take the time
to fully express the
truly marvelous demonstration
on the page.

The margin is insufficient
for what I want to tell you.
I need the whole page, the whole book,
a library.
And years in which to sit undisturbed
and read to you.