disobey.com

It's absolutely nothing to shout about, and don't get any hopes up, but I fixed a few bugs in AmphetaDesk last night/this morning. Nothing exciting, mainly stuff you'd never run across in the first place. So much stuff to do, so little time. You can see a current changelog for the next release of AmphetaDesk here.

I've added four new, rather dumb, files to the 2002 section of Detergent - two are months-old webcam images of Aaron Swartz, and the other two are wave sound files of me acting all sexy. I'm actually reading a sentence or two from my next Apache article over at MacDevCenter.com, which may see light by the end of this year (if I'm lucky). Tell me you love them.

Man, I really need to fix DNN's stylesheet.

Small update on my Semantic Web 1-2-3 document:

2002-09-09: Added note about origins of the term "Semantic Web", added Making a Semantic Web, and A Rough Guide to N3, and clarified the reasonings why I didn't like RDF/XML in the first place (in an attempt to meet new readers on level ground, as well as to stress I no longer feel that way), and now correctly validates under XHTML/CSS.

A year ago, Winer proposed RSS 2.0 as a joke (of course, this was still a year after RSS 2.0 was originally discussed). A little bit later, I said we should screw RSS 2.0 and go right to RSS 3.0, as Aaron Swartz has done. Now, a year later, Winer's prepared for RSS 2.0, RSS 3.0 already has a one-line Python parser, and Dan Brickley (who registered the RSS 3 mailing list a year ago) has a nice long email on the topic.

You think this stuff is confusing now? Que sera - we went through this years ago, foolio. I just wish Winer had kept his original promise: "Once this issue has been resolved, I'm getting out of RSS work." (June 4, 2001). Please, Dave! Show us your integrity! Go bye, bye!

Chris Croome asks: "what do people think about Dave Winer's plan to issue RSS 2.0 tomorrow?". I replied simply: "I think he's rushing it, and everything is going to suffer." Since this is my blog, and I can flame in my own namespace (ha! get it? namespaces? RSS?! Oh, nevermind), I'll add some bite. Ultimately, I think he's rushing forward merely so he can one-up the RSS 1.0 people, much like they seemingly did with their "higher version is better version" back in 2000. Since 2.0 is larger than 1.0, he'll again be back in the dictator seat, much as he did back in the Netscape/RDF v0.90 days. It's a standard Winer power-trip.

First off, what a rude little monkey that Dave Winer is:

To write a review about news aggregators and to not include Radio, is wrong, and if you have a reason for doing it, it should be clearly disclaimed in your article so your readers understand. Already one BigPub has done this (with no explanation).

The fact that Winer did NOT have the first aggregator has already been proven in the past. This is typical Winer - in the past, he's complained about people not recognizing him as the first RSS desktop news aggregator (which was Carmen's Headline Viewer). Since Radio was out after CHV, he now suggests his My.Userland.Com was the first one - he's forgotten My.Netscape.Com, which appeared months earlier (to the same tune as CHV, which appeared months before his Radio).

The good part, however, is:

We don't file patents so other developers can compete with us. But please don't penalize us for our philosophy of generosity. Thanks.

Your philosophy of generosity? What kind of philosophy are you following when you applied for a trademark for RSS (search for RSS or application #78025336 at TESS). If you're so generous with RSS, and have been since time began, then why, a year and a half after your aggregators came out, did you apply for the trademark? Did your overriding, humble philosophy not yet take hold? Were you having doubts about your stranglehold on the RSS v0.9x format, since discussion of RSS 1.0 started in that same time period (as per the founding date of July 27th, 2000 for the RSS-DEV discussion group). It seems strangely coincidental to see you registering the trademark halfway between RSS-DEV being founded, and RSS 1.0 being released (December 6th, 2000). Or also that you started running a poll on "the future of RSS" the same week you filed the trademark application. This does not sound like a philosophy of generosity - what was going on through that little head of yours, Dave?

Speaking of the name of God, there was a proposal to add it to Unicode a couple of years ago. Now, according to Michael Everson, it can probably be handled by the ZWJ character. Heigh-ho.

Speaking of which, if there was a conspiracy theory concerning Jesus and God (see my earlier post), why in Lord's name would people want to prove it? Who cares about the stunning and uplifting revelation that they're the same people - wouldn't people be pissed off that JeGod was being all "sneaky"? That JeGod lied about having a son, and that the sacrifice "for our sins" was all a big hoo-hah? Oh, but I suppose the wonkers would say it was all part of his "divine plan" and "who are we to question" the gover... uh, Jegod.

Why should you return to New York? Not for the food, not for the entertainment, not for the feelings of pride (attribution knowingly removed):

"but I've really got to go to new york again and check the view from that apartment where I usually stay - now that they have a clear view of the statue again ;)