Category: Uncategorized

A bit chilly tonight

Portrait of an elderly John Adams by Gilbert S...

It’s a bit chilly tonight here in San Diego. I finished Robert A. Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” this evening. It was a good read. Sex, religion, money, art…cast with a SciFi backdrop. What is not to like?

I’ve also started “John Adams” by David McCullough this evening. I just learned this was the book used to create the HBO mini-series on John Adams. Given my propensity to disdain all things popular I would have selected a different biography of Adams had I known this. Me thinks: great, I’m reading the Britney Spears of biographies.

Truth be told, I actually quite like the book so far. I have recently thought that it important to read about the founders of the United States. For several reasons really. These folks were wildly successful. I figure it could be inspiring. Also, it’s sure to be a nice underdog story and I’m a sucker for the underdog. Moreover, I’m tired of the recent wave of zealotry alleging the United States was founded a Christian nation. I’m curious how true this is and to what religious dogma the founders actually subscribed. Finally, I think when times are rough it’s wise to look back and get perspective.

I sound like a total wanker

I’m pretty hesitant to post this. This is really really old (in MindTouch time, it’s actually only a year old) and is a throw back to when MindTouch was solely focused on building community and adoption. Well, we nailed that out of the park and have since layered atop our community-centrism a business and sales unit. Nonetheless, these are our roots and I’m sharing this Microsoft produced video against my better judgment, after all I think I sound like a total wanker…

I should point out that the message in the video about being the best open source wiki is qualitative and stale. In fact, MindTouch is the MOST popular open source enterprise collaboration platform in the world. MindTouch Deki enjoys millions of users and hundreds of thousands of installations…all in less than three years of a public product wow… According to Sourceforge.net (the most active open source repository) MindTouch Deki is the top .001% of all open source projects.

Here is the Bitrock video. I like there video better. 🙂 Daniel and Erica are wonderful…oh and they have a great product too.


UPDATE: For whatever reasons it seems Microsoft took the videos off YouTube. Got me. Here’s another instance of the MindTouch “documentary”.

WOA….T?

Steve wrote a fantastic article on Web Oriented Architecture (WOA) that was just published At DotNet Developer’s Journal. It starts like this:Description unavailable

WOA, or “web-oriented architecture,” has proven itself as a viable approach to building large-scale, worldwide web services. This article introduces the principles behind WOA, how it is applied, and why it should be used even inside the enterprise.

And ends like this:

We have covered a lot of ground in this article. We defined WOA and REST in broad strokes. Then we put theory to practice and explored how WOA would be applied to an image processing application.

The examples illustrated the benefits of using established representations, such as Atom entries and feeds. The conventions defined by the Atom protocol gave us a well-defined processing methodology. If other processes within our enterprise are modeled using Atom, we will automatically have an intuitive understanding of them. This understanding scales outside of the walls of the enterprise to online web services as well.

We also saw how easy it is to work directly with HTTP, XML, and XPath using a WOA-friendly .NET library, such as MindTouch Dream. Using nothing more than raw HTTP request and response for documentation, we were able to translate resource interactions into running code that required just a few lines. In short, we were able to write our agent code close to the metal and it remained simple.

If you’re technical I encourage you to read in between.

Books and books and books…

 

Stranger in a Strange Land coverAudible.com is so painfully slow. Nonetheless, it is the cheapest way to get audiobooks and I love me some audiobooks. Currently, I’m reading the classic “Stranger in a Strange Land” a recommendation from my buddy Darin R. McClure. I don’t usually read fiction, but this has been pretty good so far.

In addition to “Stranger in a Strange Land” I have on my iPhone:

I recently read “Guns, Germs and Steel“, which I thought was fantastic. For more information on books I’m reading or those that I have read recently look me up at www.Shelfari.com (I’m Roebot as usual). An interesting note about Shelfari, large parts of this site is actually built on MindTouch. 🙂

I'm Famous!!

This is so funny! I release my Flickr photos under Creative Commons Attribution. Many of my photos have been picked up by various reputable publications including the Wall Street Journal. My new favorite is Building, a publication based out of the UK. The article: “World’s tallest tower to have ‘gravity free’ terrace” used a photo of me from my Flickr stream.

Note the text:

Visitors – or astronauts as the backers of the scheme hope to label them – will need to wear special protective suits

As if this outfit I’m wearing, a child’s NASA costume, were this “protective suit”. LOL. By the way, This is an April 1 article.

A Little Buddhism

Tsangpa Monastery, McLeod Ganj
Image by Tianyake via Flickr

Four Noble Truths

1. Suffering exists
2. Suffering arises from attachment to desires
3. Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases
4. Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the Eightfold Path

Three Characteristics of Existence

1. Transiency (anicca)
2. Sorrow (dukkha)
3. Selflessness (anatta)

Hindrances

1. Sensuous lust
2. Aversion and ill will
3. Sloth and torpor
4. Restlessness and worry
5. Skeptical doubt


Factors of Enlightenment

1. Mindfulness
2. Investigation
3. Energy
4. Rapture
5. Tranquillity
6. Concentration
7. Equanimity

Video from OSCON

MindTouch recently attended the OSCON open source software conference in Portland. Steve and I presented a session on open collaboration that was very well attended. MindTouch also celebrated the two year birthday of MindTouch Deki (since product release).

Here’s some video of Ted and I having fun at the Sun/MySQL/Zend party. Ted is great.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any video of me attacking the Sumo wrestlers in the full bunny suit, kicking their asses, and then stealig a tricycle from some guy. I’m still hoping video or photos will surface.

Here’s an interview of me from Linux.com. As usual it takes me the first few minutes to lighten up and be myself (about half way into the interview 😦 ).

Also of note, resulting from OSCON, a lot of press for MindTouch. And my new tattoo (no, not my first) courtesy of SourceForge.net:

New tattoo

A few people have commented on the commitment to MindTouch this represents…euh…no shit. To those of you who do not know this. I started the company with Steve back in 2005 and gestated the idea with him in late 2004. He and I helped create the design of the logo (Chris, wherever you are–great work). No the logo doesn’t have cross bones; this was my addition. Arrrg. MindTouch has absorbed an enormous amount of my time and energy in the last three years. It will undoubtedly continue to do so for a few more years. Hell yah I’ll ink that on my leg. Now I don’t have to wear stickers. 🙂