Andy Carvin is asking people to help him decide how to lay out his and Susanne’s new apartment by downloading a copy of the apartment plan and uploading an edited version of it.

All I know is that he ought to hang Bradsucks’ guitar — decorated via a similar process — in a prominent place [Tags: open_source_design bradsucks andy_carvin]

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StopBadWare.org, an organization sponsored in part by the Berkman Center, has put AOL 9.0 onto its list of malefactors because

it installs additional software without telling the user, it forces the user to take certain actions, it adds various components to Internet Explorer and the taskbar without disclosure, it may automatically update without the user’s consent, and it fails to uninstall completely.

That’s a big, gutsy step. But don’t those same criteria mean that Windows XP should be on the list? [Tags: stopbadware aol ]

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In the new issue of my newsletter, I have a small review of RoboForm, a password manager for Windows that I’ve gotten quite attached to. It’s full featured and works without getting in the way. I like it a lot. But…

Among its features, it will generate obscure passwords for you, useful for the lazy ones among us (i.e., all but the 1% of us who are Data Saints) who use the same passwords everywhere. (Software like RoboForm thus brings us the “single sign-on” benefit that is one of the selling points of identity management platforms, but that’s a different hobby horse.) I haven’t been using the auto-password-generator, however, because RoboForm has no export capability. If I use it for a few years, I could have hundreds of finger-twistin’ passwords. If I want to switch to a different password manager, I’d have to type them in manually, an annoying, error-prone process.

(Mea Culpa: In my newsletter, I take RoboForm to task for not even having a way of printing out the passwords. I was wrong. David Teare, the creator of 1Password, a Mac password manager that imports from RoboForm, wrote to let me know that there is a way to print out RoboForm passwords. Then 1Password scrapes the html print file. David says 1Password is adding an export capability. PS: I’d sent the RoboForm PR person a message asking about this, but I only gave them two days to get back to me.)

I don’t mean to pick on RoboForm, for it is exceptionally friendly in its day-to-day use. Microsoft Word, which says it will support the Open Document Format but still doesn’t, is a more important target. Every app should make it easy — not just possible, but easy — for a user to break up with it. It’s our time and information. If there isn’t a standard format for the interchange of information for that particular application area, then a documented, comma-delimited file would be a big step forward. There’s also this new standard called “XML” I believe that seems to be catching on with the youngsters. But for Lord’s sake, let us have our data.

We should not have been allowed to advance to Web 2.0 until every app gave us that basic Web 0.0 way of moving data around.

We won’t love you unless you let us leave you. [Tags: roboform 1password odf]

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danah is compiling a list of people researching social network sites….

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I just published my novel for haflings (or “young adults” if you prefer), called My 100 Million Dollar Secret. It’s about a boy who wins $100,000,000 in the lottery, but (for reasons explained) can’t let his parents know and refuses to lie to them. In another sense, it’s about the boy’s growing sense of the moral obligations that come with having so much dang money. It’s also supposed to be a little funny.

I published it through Lulu.com, the on-demand self-publishing outfit. You can get a nicely designed paperback (thank you, Stellio!) for $13.90 plus shipping, or you can read it online there for $4.00. Or you can read it online for free at my site for the book. Or you can download a Word or PDF version for free. There’s also a Google group for anyone who wants to talk about it. (The book is licensed under Creative Commons, although I must have pressed the wrong button at Lulu because there it says it’s got a plain old copyright. I intend the CC rules to be in effect.)

Thanks to the people who read it and commented on it before I posted it!
[Tags: my100million novel kids_books fiction lulu]

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Say you’re a middle-aged man who’s just a little concerned that his heart is going to seize while he’s out on a run. Or that the bear that’s been clawing through garbage pails at night is going to wake up and decide to have a morning snack of Very Slow Runner. Or that you’ll accidentally step on the beloved Agamemnon of warrior ants and they will come tearing after you armed with tiny tridents and head-mounted lasers. It could happen, and if it did, you’d want help pronto!

You don’t want to carry your cellphone with you because, well, think of the amount of energy it’d take to throw your phone the length of the distance you run. Why, your little arms would be all worn out. No, what you’d like is an eensy-weensy, low-featured, clip-on phone, preferably shaped like the always-stylish lima bean.

Introducing the OOMPH — Out Only Micro PHone.

The OOMPH is the size and shape of a lima bean. It has no screen, no dial pad, and just two buttons: On/Off and 911. Press the On button and it calls a service center that charges you a buck or two to call whatever number you tell them to. (It’s got a tiny speaker. Maybe you stick the whole thing in your ear canal when you make a call. I haven’t thought this through yet.) Press the 911 button and it lets you gasp your final words to an emergency operator who is thinking about his next coffee break.

The OOMPH2 lets you record a voice message that gets played when you press the 911 button. You can even update it with oral notes such as “Just passed the TastiCreme on Ave. C. Mmmm. TastiCreme.”

The OOMPH3 does GPS so the EMTs know where to come to collect the body.

The OOMPH4 is the size of an iPod Nano and plays MP3s. In fact, let’s say the OOMPH4 is an iPod Nano with an OOMPH3 built into it.

The OOMPH5 has so many features that you have to tow it in a small cart.

OOMPH — The Lima Bean that Could Save Your Life!

(If I had a nickel for every million dollar idea I’ve had, I’d be rich by now!) [Tags: misc]

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In seven minutes, Feynman — considered by many to be one of the great teachers — explains the wavy world we live in. [Tags: physics richard_feynman]

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Mel, Mel, Mel. What are we going to do with you, my boy?

I do appreciate your apology and your offer to meet with leaders of the Jewish community. But I think you’ve got it wrong.

But so do the leaders of the Jewish comunity cited by the newspapers who say they first want Mel to go visit some death camps.

Here’s what I would do.

First, Mel, get yourself sober. Do the Twelve Steps. Keep them up. I have trust in your ability to do this. I know you love your family. dlo it for them. (The cited Jewish community leaders agree with this advice.)

Then, skip the death camps for now. If you’re really a Holocaust denier, you won’t be convinced, because you probably believe that some Jews were murdered in the camps, just not six million of us. Besides, the death camp tour is unseemly. Get your ticket stamped at six death camps and you’re cured of anti-Semitism? It don’t work that way. And, frankly, the cited Jewish leaders are confusing being a Jew with being a victim. Your beliefs about the Holocaust are secondary.

The conspiracy theory you use to explain why the rest of the world has been duped about the holcaust is, on the other hand, primary .What’s really dangerous, Mel, is your apparent belief that Jews are diabolical. Your portrayal of us in your pain-porn film did real harm in the world. Even worse is your belief that not only did my folks kill your G-d, but my folks are still the money-grubbing, law-without-heart, unevolved folks your folks outgrew.

So, here’s what I’d have you do, Mel. Screw meeting with Jewish leaders. Put off the death camp tour until it’ll mean something to you other than taking a private jet to a half dozen penitential photo opps. Instead, start going to shul. A little shul like the one my wife and son go to. Hang out there with a bunch of old Yids who wouldn’t recognize you if you came dressed up as Mad Max. They’ll notice you eventually. Explain you’re a Christian interested in learning about Judaism. They’ll half ignore you and half teach you. Maybe stay for some Torah discussion. Definitely try the herring.

Mel, this isn’t the religion you think it is. It’s not Christianity-without-Christ. It’s something really different. And really rather wonderful, even to an agnostic like me and, I’m confident, to a Jew-hater like you. [Tags: mel_gibson judaism anti-semitism]

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The Berkshire Eagle today explains how “the heat index” is computed. Saying it’s like wind-chill, the paper explains that it “combines air temperature and relative humidity to dermine how hot it actually feels to the body.”

…Except that wind chill calculates the cooling effect of wind, while the heat index does not. Presumably that’s because we’re interested in indices that make the weather out to be as unpleasant as possible: The wind chill lets us maximize how cold it feels while the heat index maximizes how hot it feels.

Boo hoo. Whatta bunch of babies we are! [Tags: weather self-pity]

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I met Murray Bookchin once. It was around 1970 at a national student political conference in Colorado. He had written a book, Post Scarcity Anarchism, that was important to us. I met him as he was walking into an auditorium to give a talk. It was a dark night. There were pines. He was to me a grownup; I know now that he was about fifty. I said something. I don’t remember what, but it was undoubtedly fanlike and self-serious. He seemed glad that I interrupted him. He looked me in the eye. He listened. He treated me like a person worth talking with.

All in all, maybe twenty seconds. But I never forgot his presumption that a long-haired kid he didn’t know was worthy of his respect. Unearned respect. It’s a lot like love.

Rest in peace, Murray Bookchin. [Tags: murray_bookchin]

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