http://graycrane.net/daveblog dave frey's blog Wed, 16 May 2007 01:56:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Another welcome reminder that words are our friends, this time applied to the dogged, never as simple as it ought to be widgetification of stuff. Eighteen months into GTD, and still so much room for improvement. This simple verb chart is now at the top of my actions ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/11/19/words-and-the-widgetification-of-stuff/ I missed reading Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford this past June, but it showed up on digg a few days ago and I found it pretty good. Here's a text transcript and a youtube video (14:33). Being a confirmed story addict, I like his "just three stories" ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/11/07/just-three-stories/ The NY Times has a good portrait of another industry fighting innovation; this time, it's real estate. In February, [Redfin] introduced a Web site that automates the bidding process — and the commission rebates. The sale of a $500,000 house, for example, typically yields a 3 percent commission of $15,000 for ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/09/05/thousand-tiny-shackles/ From the Economist's obituary of Naguib Mahfouz: He was a perfect gentleman: self-effacing, tolerant to a fault, and a consummate listener. Into his 70s he prowled far across the city on solitary early-morning walks, typically ending up in one of the many cafés where he was greeted as a returning son ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/09/04/a-consummate-listener/ Simon Phipps has an excellent post on open data formats. Looking for a connection between a lot of new desktop tools, he notes: all of these tools have worked out that lock-in is the new lock-out And later: injecting the network into society removes the commercial benefits previously achieved by closed behaviour ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/06/29/open-data-standard-formats/ I've been listening to this music for twenty years, but like a lot of us I wasn't able to watch Coltrane or Evans or Wes Montgomery. Now I see YouTube starts to have some old concerts and TV shows. I particularly like this one of Coltrane's Quartet playing Naima somewhere in ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/06/08/jazz-at-youtube/ Nature is not afraid to experiment with a core process -- peer review -- that they believe is working well, to see what the internet might bring: they are piloting one variation of an open peer review process, and have initiated a web debate (good supporting content from those links). ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/06/08/nature-and-the-web/ I'm much more visual than aural, but podcasts are proving a really good channel for me, somewhat to my surprise. Here's one where Cory Doctorow discusses DRM and related stuff in "Europe's Coming Broadcast Flag" (thanks again IT Conversations), recorded at last year's European Open Source convention. Cory ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/04/27/modern-day-heros/ In a comment on another post, Barry points me to TiddlyWiki. This is an interesting implementation: it's very ajaxy and opens entries in the current page, in the context of the other entries you've already opened. Furthermore, all the data and code lives in a single html file ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/04/11/wiki-as-framework/ I found this interesting: there is a project to add semantics to MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikipedia and lots of other wikis. The goals page is clear and concise, and here's a sample of the kind of stuff they want to enable. There is a background page ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/03/22/next-up-for-wikipedia/ Okay, I've been bitten by the podcast bug. Listening, not creating. Now I'm trawling through old stuff I missed because I was still reading blogs. IT Conversations is proving valuable. Here's one I heard this weekend from Kent Beck on developer testing (recorded November 2004!). TDD and ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/03/21/podcasts-and-epiphanies/ From a short profile of an actor I like a lot, Forest Whitaker, who's just finished playing Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland: On the whole, though, I think we’re dictated by our structure, our past, our environment, our culture. So once you understand the patterns that shape a ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2006/01/07/forest-whitaker/ Jorn Barger coined the term weblog, sees its original sense being usurped, and so would like to take the term back. the unit-measure for blogging is the blogger http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2005/12/03/104/ I just read this NYT article from a few months ago; buyers in the bubble today are more than ever dependent on further appreciation: For new home buyers, prices in New York would need to rise roughly another 13 percent over the next five years for the average buyer to do ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2005/12/03/103/ I'd seen mention of the $100 laptop project but never thought much past the lowered economic barrier part; reading this Wired interview with Negroponte, it's much more interesting than that. From this BB post, I found this Clive Thompson entry; the pencil and the mathland analogies are important ... http://graycrane.net/daveblog/archives/2005/11/18/big-idea-small-price/