today i got to go to meet <a href=”http://ted.hyperland.com/“>Ted Nelson</a>, the inventor of <a href=”http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hypertext”>hypertext</a> and visionary behind <a href=”http://xanadu.com/“>project xanadu</a>, the “<a href=”http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html”>longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing</a>.”

he was at columbia giving a workshop on <a href=”http://xanadu.com/zigzag/ZZdnld/“>ZigZag</a>, which is… well… after three hours of listening to Ted and playing with it, i’m still not sure exactly what to call it. it’s sort of an advanced data structure that Ted believes can be used to hold any kind of structure whatsoever. sort of a relational database exploded into multiple dimensions. but also a basis for a document model, or possibly a filesystem.

the man is clearly brilliant, if somewhat out there. he literally sees software design as a branch of filmmaking. much of his work is motivated by the extremely non-linear way that he thinks and his hatred of hierarchies (i never did get the chance to ask him what he thought about BeFS and <a href=”http://www.namesys.com/whitepaper.html”>ReiserFS</a>) and the limitations of paper (and computer representations of paper). unfortunately, he isn’t a programmer himself and he seems to have had personality conflicts with many of the programmers that he’s worked with, resulting in a long string of half-finished projects. the personality conflicts i think were because he views himself as an artist and, like Orson Wells or Frank Lloyd Wright, insists on having complete control over every single minute detail of his creations.

i don’t really have a point. while he may never get around to actually producing anything directly usable, he has some really fascinating ideas, so i think he’s worth paying attention to.

Alright, how is it that when you increase your total viewership by 36%, you still get cancelled? First Firefly, then Buffy and now Angel. All I have left is Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Not to mention that I don’t think I can endure the thought of a season without ANY Joss Whedon shows on the air. Time to go drown myself in my Buffy & Angel DVDs…

i spent many years writing CGI applications in perl. lately, i’ve been writing more and more code in python.

even perl's detractors have to admit that perl has an amazing collection of high quality modules available for just about anything you want to do. as much as i've been liking python, when it comes to CGI programming, there were some niceties i missed.

in particular, the powerful combination of CGI, CGI::Application, and HTML::Template made writing well organized web applications with display logic and business logic cleanly seperated a breeze.

so, scratching an itch, i've ported CGI::Application to python, incorporating some basic CGI.pm like functionality and integrating with Tomas Styblo's HTML::Template clone.

if you haven't moved on to something more sophisticated like Zope or mod_python and just want to write simple CGI applications in python without a lot of hassle, check out my new cgi_app module.

let me know if you want an <a href=”http://www.orkut.com/“>orkut</a> invite. i’m only going to invite people that ask.

from what i’ve seen so far, it’s basically <a href=”http://www.friendster.com/“>friendster</a> and <a href=”http://www.linkedin.com/“>linkedin</a> combined and implemented by some programmers who know a little more about writing scalable, usable web applications than the people at friendster.

i’d also like to point out, for the record, that i built a web-based social networking tool for a columbia business school class in 2000 (that’s 3 whole years before friendster). it was basically a mini-friendster where the students in the class would enter their contacts (only among other students in the class) and they could then see their network visualized (using a nifty java applet), and it would show them various statistics about their network and about the aggregate class network. the prof would then use these networks to demonstrate various concepts.

i just wasn’t smart enough to get venture capital, dammit.

update (2004-06-12): i thought it would be obvious, but apparently it isn’t. the offer for orkut invites was intended for people that i actually know at least in some small way. the complete strangers who find this entry on google need to stop asking me.

Does anyone have pics from New Year’s? My desktop is still recycling through last year’s. Also: Nigel, your camera, etc. is here. If you give me an address, I’ll pack it up and send it to you. Tasha, we found your hat. Give me a street address and I’ll send it back to you. : )

Don’t ask me how (I don’t know), but my brain went off on one of its tangents today and started pondering Darwinian evolution theory in the context of today’s world. Now, this may seem like an interesting subject to you, but I was disappointed in my brain (strippers damn you! strippers!). Anyway, I figured it would be something of a waste if I didn’t at least share the thoughts I had. So here we go.

<p>Doctors these days seem to have this theory that they need to fix <span class="caps">EVERYONE</span>.  As such, the life expectancy of the average human has increased significantly over the past &lt;insert your favorite number&gt; years (unless you&#8217;re a black male&#8230;then the <span class="caps">NYPD</span> will still get you before you&#8217;re 25).</p>

<p>Now, previously when I&#8217;ve had these Darwinian tangents they&#8217;ve mostly centered around handicapped people and their effect on the gene pool.  I guess I&#8217;ll get today&#8217;s thoughts on that out of the way first, although I think they probably aren&#8217;t the most interesting.</p>

<p>Years ago, if someone had a disease that left them physically handicapped their chances of dying before they could procreate were much higher; thus preventing their genes (which may or may not carry the disease) from continuing on in the gene pool.  Now that doctors have found ways for these people to live more normal lives, they find themselves living longer and eventually they (perhaps) have children.  This throws a huge wrench in humanity&#8217;s Darwinian evolution.  The same argument can be made for people who are mentally handicapped (I won&#8217;t repeat it).</p>

<p>Poking around a bit today, I found some interesting comments/rants on this subject that made some compelling arguments about where we would be without people like Steven <a href="http://www.mchawking.com">Hawking</a> and others.  And, to a point, they&#8217;re right.  By using our technology to prolong the lives of these people humanity has indeed benefited.  But I still think it slows down the evolutionary process.</p>

<p>What I found most interesting about todays tangent was when I got thinking about issues that humans are probably <span class="caps">ALWAYS</span> going to have because of the way medicine has interfered with evolution.</p>

<p>I don&#8217;t know about you, but I was born with an appendix (I think).  I&#8217;m sure that out there somewhere there are people who weren&#8217;t.  Without the ability of doctors to keep us from dying from appendicitis, the people without appendices would eventually take over and humans as a whole (with the odd exception) would no longer have them.  Granted, this is a somewhat pointless observation by itself (because it really is so easy to just take it out), but it begs the question, &#8220;what else is &#8216;modern&#8217; medicine keeping us from evolving out of (or into)?&#8221;  More importantly, the fact that we now keep a large majority of people alive (well, large majority of white people with money in developed nations that support the evil American regime), is going to slow down the evolutionary process so that only the most extreme mutations (i.e. you were born without a head) are killed off by natural selection.</p> 

On my latest visit to this realm I was pleased to note that Markov has joined the ever growing ranks of people playing the Kick Anders Game!

<p>Well, maybe not&#8230;but he did mention that he&#8217;s been &#8220;&#8230;Kicking Anders since 1995&#8230;&#8221; :-)</p> 

How many of y’all actually pony up when MSSM shows you that toothless grin and shakes it’s donation cup? (Imaginary Gala? wtf??? please…)

i’m actually kind of excited about the impending snowstorm that’s supposed to be hitting nyc for the next couple days.

my poor old combat boots, which i’ve basically worn every single day for about 5 years (and they were used when i purchased them), are finally starting to show their age. the sole has started to wear through. if i’d taken much better care of the uppers it might be worth getting them re-soled, but i didn’t. plus, i only paid $30 for them, so it would probably end up costing me more to get them fixed than they are worth.

so i decided to retire them and ordered some <a href=”http://www.batesfootwear.com/Catalog/buydetail.asp?ProductID=8424”>Bates E00924 Boots</a> as replacements, which came in the mail today. they’ve gotten fantastic reviews and are apparently the boots issued to SEALs for training in.

so the snowstorm gives me a good excuse to really abuse them and see what kind of traction they’ve got.

they aren’t properly broken in yet, so i can’t say much about them. but they are amazingly light (i think my dress shoes weigh more) and the DuraShock soles aren’t as squishy as i’d feared (my old boots just had hard rubber between my feet and the pavement and i liked it that way). they kind of squeak when i walk on tile floor, but i’m hoping that’s just a new boot thing and they’ll quiet down. i’m also a little worried that the treads will track mud.

anyway, nothing like some sexy new combat boots to make a snowstorm more enjoyable.

we’ve been using <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWiki”>wiki</a>’s at <a href=”http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/“>work</a> for a while now with some real success.

last night, the power supply in my main machine at home blew, so that will set back the development of the new thraxil engine somewhat. to make up for delays, and keep people entertained while i work on it, i decided it would be interesting to set up a wiki for thraxil and see what people did with it.

so <a href=”http://thraxil.org/wiki/“>here it is</a>. go nuts. just don’t abuse it or i’ll take it down.