The whole TCPA/Palladium outlook is rather bleak and depressing to me. Makes me want to go out and buy a Krispy Kreme franchise instead of spending all my time sitting in front of computers. For those of you who somehow haven’t heard about TCPA and M$ Palladium, read this overview.

But, instead of making donuts or moving to Utah, we could take a positive look at this. It may just be the final straw required for a lot of people to abandon the Wintel monopoly. The majority of users are still a very pragmatic bunch that will follow current trends like lemmings, so I have no doubt that Palladium will get a majority of the market. The big question is how big will the alternative market be. The nice thing about TCPA/Palladium is that there will be a very clear separation. You are either running TCPA or you aren’t. The bigger the side that reject the TCPA gets, the more power we will have. If we are big enough and we show enough perserverance that content providers won’t be able to ignore use as a market, then we will have beaten the TCPA. And in this I see opportunity. Today there are countries that have rejected M$ technologies because they are weary of having an American corporation with so much control over their critical systems. If M$ and Intel go all out with TCPA/Palladium then I think many more countries will object because by its very nature TCPA introduces external control. These countries and people will be looking for alternatives and in most aspects there are already very viable technological alternatives. People just need the motivation to make the switch (I sound like an Apple commercial) and I think TCPA/Palladium will outrage enough people into this switch.

Speaking of Apple, one has to wonder where it fits in on this. I would very much like to say I was sure that Apple would be anti-TCPA and would be standing by our sides in our defiance against seemingly insurmountable odds. But with their past history of actions, specifically the way they presented their iDVD product where they failed to mention anywhere that it is not a full-featured DVD writer but rather a cripple-drive not capable of writing the key-blocks needed to make backup copies of dvds or even copy-protect your own works.

Building copy-protection and big-brother like monitoring into hardware. Forcing the masses to use it through existing monopolies. Stifling any sort of reverse engineering and innovation through legislation such as the DMCA. These all contribute to make sure that innovation will grind to a halt and existing large companies will be able to solidify their positions and ensure longterm earnings without worrying about some troublesome little company coming up with something cool and innovative that might serve to threaten their strangehold on their customers.

The motivation for this is clear with respect to the large companies involved. They have to do what it takes to ensure profits for their shareholders. The legislation that supports and encourages this view of the world is much more troublesome. What is the motivation behind this? That our society as a whole has reached its technological pinnacle? There is nothing else to be invented? So we legislate away innovation and focus on ensuring corporate profitability based on existing technologies and the few things various large corporations might choose to innovate that doesn’t threaten their existing earnings? And this is presumably done to ensure a good economy so people will have jobs and lead happy lives. That doesn’t really sound plausible, but if that isn’t the motivation, then the only real answer is that the legislation is not focused on improving our society in any way, the government is not working for the people, but rather is merely implementing parts of the overall corporate policies of the companies with the most legislative influence.

Parrot internals mastermind Dan Sugalski fielded an interesting question at YAPC in St. Louis, during his pair of talks Wednesday morning on the development of Perl 6’s virtual machine.

(A virtual machine, Dan explained earlier in the talk, is a software layer that abstracts the details of computer hardware away from the developer, allowing them to write code for an idealized “virtual” machine that can then be run anywhere. Most dynamically-typed languages, like Perl 5, Python, Ruby, et al., underlyingly implement some form of VM, as do certain statically-typed languages, such as Java or C#.)

“How,” Dan was asked, “does the Perl 6 VM compare to Perl 5’s?”

He replied:

Compare in what way? It’s smaller, but then it’s not done. It’s cleaner, but then it hasn’t been loose in the world with hordes of people using it and breaking it for eight years. There were a lot of things we wanted to do in Perl 6 that were difficult to do in Perl 5. Threads, for example, or Unicode. You can’t add threads in after the project is done. Assumptions that are perfectly safe in a single-threaded case are things you curse four years later in a multi-threaded case…. Other stuff, co-routines. Perl 5 is a larger piece of software, it’s seven or eight years old, it’s lots of warts… er, endearing qualities. It was easier to just start fresh — there’s been another decade’s worth of CS research to build one. It was time to start fresh. So we did.

Such an effort seems almost immediately daunting in its scope, but the Parrot team have made remarkable progress, and demonstrate even greater promise. The code base, pumpking-ed first by Simon Cozens, and more recently by Jeff Goff, has by design the capability to support a wide variety of opcode tables — tables of functions that describe how a programming language is expected to perform basic operations, like arithmetic, string processing, I/O, etc. Already, a variety of languages are supported at least in part, including BASIC, Scheme, Jako (a C-alike), Cola (a Java-wannabe), and Parrot’s own low-level assembler language. Support for a whole slew of others is planned or already in progress, including Java, C#, Python, Ruby, Perl 5, Z Machine (yes, the RPG-building language), and, you guessed it, Perl 6.

But the really exciting thing about this is that Parrot’s notion of the “current” opcode table is lexically scoped, and can be loaded or reloaded on demand. Dan noted that this would allow piecemeal upgrading of Parrot components, but the part I find really fascinating is that it would permit the use of multiple supported languages in a single script. Imagine writing a program that defines one method in Java, another a Ruby, a third in Python, and then calls all three methods from Perl, all without ever leaving the Parrot interpreter. Look out, Inline.pm — here comes Parrot. The very possibilities boggle the mind.

There’s still an enormously long road to hoe, though. As the design of Perl 6 coalesces, the development of Parrot needs to proceed apace. Simon Cozens, speaking after Dan, related some of the difficulties of leading Parrot development. “You are trying to create a computer program,” he said, “A computer program is constructed out of code. It is not constructured out of email messages…. Code is better than talk. Firm decisions are better than talk. Even if they’re wrong.”

Well, now is the time for all good hackers… In his keynote earlier in the day, Larry noted that Perl has saved people and companies literally billions and billions of dollars over the years. He also pointed out that “a real hero has to be more interested in serving than in being served, in loving than being loved.” We need hackers who have benefitted from Perl 5 to step forward and give back to their community by volunteering on the Parrot project. And, perhaps even more so, we need companies who have benefitted from Perl — free Perl, Open Source Perl — to give back in the form of donations to the Perl Foundation, to support the people who are blazing new ground into the future of Perl itself.

I arrived in Saint Louis on Saturday, giving me a few days to acclimatize to the 90 degree heat. (We don’t get temperatures like that in the UK - ever.) I also got a chance to check out the town and the conference venue, and of course, to finish off writing my talks for the year…
In the meantime, of course, there was plenty of time to meet up with old friends and talk geek for a while.

The conference began this morning with an introduction from Kevin Lenzo - Kevin thanked the conference sponsors and acknowledged the amazing hard work of Sarah Burcham, Ben Hockenhull and many others who helped put the conference together.

Larry then took over, and in his unique style, took us on a tour of the illustrations to The Lord Of The Rings from an open source “hero”’s point of view.

Larry explained that while many people thought of him as a hero, the work of an open source hero isn’t really that heroic. He also talked about some of his personal heros, including Mahler, Tolkein and Jesus, and how each of them recognised heroism as sacrifice, and also how they made others into heroes.

Next he showed us the various styles of people in the Lord of the Rings - the elves as ivory-tower aesthetes, and the dwarves as hard-working pragmatists, for instance, and how these related to roles in the open source world.

Dan Sugalski took us on two half-hour tours of Parrot - first, “The Parrot Flies” showed us what Parrot is and what it can do, and then more details of how the system operates and performs. I then talked a little about the social and political aspects of Parrot, and what I’d learnt from being the maintainer.

After that, we had a lunch supplied by the conference sponsors, (Thanks guys!) and it was time for my 3-hour tutorial - which unexpectedly turned into a two-hander thanks to some much needed support from Gnat. After we finished, I managed to sneak into Damian’s “Programming Perl 6″, just in time to watch him demonstrate SelfGOL in Perl 6. Aieee, the tentacles, etc.

By then, the formal part of the conference was done for the day, and it was time for the social part to kick in - of course, we’re hackers, and I’m writing this at the back of a Template Toolkit BOF while helping reorganise the Perl bug tracking system. But maybe the social part will kick in later…

The
Ottawa Linux Symposium
was sold out six weeks in advance this year. In a poor economy, this
achievement attests both to the dedication shown by free software
developers and to the importance of this unique forum, which provides
a meeting-place for serious open-source programmers to get real work
done.

The annual
kernel summit
(an invitation-only meeting of people responsible for the Linux
kernel) is being held in Ottawa in conjunction with the symposium,
reducing travel costs. Some funding came from Usenix and OSDN, while
the organizers of the symposium handled logistics. Canada was also a
convenient location in light of many programmers’ refusal to travel to
the United States after its government’s invocation of the DMCA to
arrest Dmitry Sklyarov.

The Symposium is deliberately kept small, on the recognition that the
most important work goes on in the hallway or in meetings
after-hours. They hit their ceiling of 500 attendees in May. Organizer
Andrew J. Hutton says, “I was very impressed, especially given the
dearth of money for travel.” An article about the symposium is
available on
NewsForge.
Hutton has recently started a company called
Steamballoon
that does Linux embedded work and other consulting, and offers
RPMs for FreeS/WAN,
with the social goal of making the security offered by IPSEC tunneling
more widespread.

From the front page of soma.fm, formerly the hippest Internet streaming radio station:

“The final decision on webcasting rates have been published on the Library of Congress’s site. To say the results are disappointing is an understatement. While the rates were effectively cut in half, that still means that to stay on the air, SomaFM will have to pay about $500 a day in fees to the RIAA. Just to expose you to new music that you wouldn’t hear anywhere else. Just to help you buy more records. Do they just not get it, or is the RIAA just greedy?”

SomaFM was awesome — they played a wide variety of eclectic stuff, largely ambient techno, trance, jungle, drum n’ bass, and other kinds of nifty electronic music thoroughly ignored by mainstream broadcast radio. My personal favorite was their Secret Agent channel, which played, well, you know, secret agent music — 60’s era mood and lounge pieces, mixed with retro-tinged electronica, and interspersed, of course, with sound bites from James Bond films. Rob Flickenger enjoyed the channel so much that he even sent them a decent chunk of money.

The very worst of it is that I am now that proud owner of a Groove Armada CD that I’d never have purchased if not for having first heard them on soma.fm. How do you like them apples, Ms. Rosen?

So what does this imply for the future of Internet streaming radio? Are we going to be reduced to having Sony and Disney and AOL Time Warner et al. as the only providers of interesting content on the Internet *as well as* in broadcast TV, cable, radio, and most movie theaters? Here in Sebastopol, we’ve been contemplating hosting a streaming radio station on our community wireless network — does the RIAA expect to be able to police that as well?

It’s the RIAA, not SomaFM, that should be put down. It’s clear their sole motivation is thinly disguised greed made increasingly frantic in the face of technology that has already made them obsolete. What a godawful dark day for the Internet.

Is this the end of indie streaming radio on the ‘Net?

Yet another morning with the customary 1400 new emails. I grumble, hit freshmeat and see new versions of both Vipul’s Razor and SpamAssassin out there. I spend 20 minutes upgrading both with the bleak hope that tomorrow’s new batch of mail will be down to 1375 messages.

3 more questions from corporate PHP users whose lawyers want a guarantee that PHP is free of any patented code or algorithms. Explaining yet again that, as an open source project, we do not have any means to provide such patent indemnification. Perhaps an addition to the “no warranty” clause in the PHP license is in order here which explicitly states that we can not possibly provide patent indemnification.

This whole patent thing is getting out of hand. It is even popping up on the PHP mailing lists. Someone posted an algorithm recently and someone else piped up stating that he had patented that particular (obvious) algorithm years ago.

And another email asking whether the rumour that I didn’t write any of the O’Reilly Programming PHP had any truth to it. I wish I knew who started that rumour. Just for the record, I wrote big chunks of it, and reviewed, corrected and amended all the other chunks.

My current project is to upgrade the HTML-based presentation system I wrote years ago. You can see the old system in action at conf.php.net. The slides in the new system are written using a very simple XML format that are parsed and rendered using a variety of mechanisms. The main rendering target right now is actually Flash through php-ming. I think that with an XML-to-Flash system I will be able to emulate most of the features that people like from presentation systems such as PowerPoint without losing the ability to work in a sane ASCII format. Generic HTML rendering will of course also be available for people without a flash plugin, and some sort of Docbook-XML converter will be needed for printing purposes. I’ll probably add SVG support as well, but will need to bug someone at O’Reilly for a copy of SVG Essentials before I’ll be able to attack that part of the project.

I’ll stick the system into CVS sometime in the next week and see if I can’t motivate some people to give me a hand with fancy flash effects and navigation widgets.

If you follow Apple closely, you may have noticed that they have a new ad campaign. Call it, “Switchers.”

I guess you could say that I am a “switch-back, in-progress.”

Being the Marketing Manager for the O’Reilly Mac OS X Conference, I have Mac OS X and it’s audience on my mind. I got to thinking, “Why am I switching back after over 6 years on a Windows laptop?” Well, I decided to look back at my history with computers for an answer. Does this sound familar to you?

1st computer ever - Heathkit with an Intel 8008 processor
1st computer in a programming class - Apple IIe
1st computer that I paid for - Amiga (It was the blitter that did it.)
1st computer job out of college - using the Apple Lisa and the Wang VS 100 (We wanted a smart, less-expensive, box sitting on everyone’s desk, networking with the VS.)
1st 100 times I saw “The Bomb” - Apple Lisa (We quickly went to the Macintosh.)
1st five-figure computer lease - Apple PowerMac (The software cost as much as the computer.)
1st laptop - Microsoft hired and converted me.
1st and 2nd computer requiring no software purchases - the Heathkit and the iBook (so far)

And there it is; I can play around with this system for months (maybe years) without buying any software. Frankly, there are so many things that I want to do with my new iBook that I can’t decide where to begin. Fun or work. Fun or work. I’m having too much fun with iTunes and iPhoto to set up my email and networking. I can’t truly call myself a switcher until I do that much.

What information would help you with the switch? Maybe we’ll have a conference session about it.

Related link: http://www.cnet.com/software/0-3227884-8-20005816-2.html?tag=news-rr

When Mozilla 1.0 came out, C|Net gave it a rather bizarre review, in which they harp on Mozilla’s inability to render Internet Explorer-specific web pages. They claim that, since IE is the market leader, pages tailored for IE should be acceptable as Web standard; “That’s reality,” according to C|Net. That is absolutely insane, dangerous to the very structure of the Web, and biased toward Microsoft’s market share and against the health of the industry.

Let’s make this perfectly clear. There is one standards body for the Web. It is headed by the man who *invented* the World Wide Web, and its mission is to collect the best ideas of different companies, including Microsoft, Netscape, Sun, and research labs and universities, to foster the most useful, accessible and cohesive hypertext network possible. Microsoft is an enormous corporation, but they are not the owners, inventors or legislators of the Web. The W3C is the only standard that all browsers should follow, and anyone not writing web sites in standard HTML/CSS/XML/JavaScript takes on the reponsibility of alienating part of their audience and hindering the free exchange of free information. I wrote my book in part to show and prove this point, and C|Net is creating a huge disservice by propogating the idea that Microsoft-only extensions to open technologies should be followed merely because of Microsoft’s size.

On a sidenote, they also criticized the IRC client “ChatZilla” for not being compatible with AOL Instant Messenger or any other IM services. Of course, they missed the point; IRC is a unique system incomparable with anything resembling a “Buddy List” or AOL’s “Chat Rooms”. Don’t believe me? Check out the Quote Database - distilling disinformation for your comedic pleasure.

Should Mozilla and Netscape try to incorporate Internet Explorer-specific CSS or JavaScript extensions to make up market share, or should Mozilla follow its mission of complete W3C standards (CSS1 & 2, DOM 1 & 2, XML, XSLT, etc.) support?

Interesting article on idg.net about how countries around the world are adopting open source technology to save money and, say some, to increase security. The Open Source Convention will be a good place to be in this year of open source growth.

Friday Night, June 7

We cruised into downtown Ventura on a mission. We wanted a nice bar to watch game two of the NBA Finals between the Lakers and the Nets. Dr Debra, a New Jersey woman, is pulling for the Nets and is silenced every time LA David gives us the score update on his phone. Hey, Internet on the phone, and I can’t get a wireless connection on my pc!?

George finds us a fine restaurant and the 10 of us dine on the final night of our amazing ride. George asks the table for quiet and asks me to give a toast.

“Michael, you’re a writer, and a poet - you give the toast.” My mind is blank. To what do we toast? Do we toast to having some real food instead of the tent city swill? Do we pay homage to the rhomboid muscle God? Something comes to mind, and it went something like this:

“We’ve had a hard week, and had some great times together. I’d like to toast to our friendship, and to recognize that we are getting back what we have put in, spirit and heart.” Not bad, but not exactly a keeper either, a bit of a yawner in fact. By this stage we are burnt physically and emotionally. “Here’s to us” would have sufficed.

After dinner we stroll over to Ben and Jerry’s for ice cream. Yep, I get one more scoop of the stuff. When we’re all satisfied, we decide we should get back to camp.

The charter bus George flagged down wasn’t coming back so we were on our own. George claims the camp is in walking distance, but there is no consensus. With no consensus, George is in his element.

“This way,” he commands and begins to walk south. We follow slowly at first, but pick up speed and trek southward. After crossing through an intersection, the street darkens quickly. The street ends at a chain link fence overlooking a very busy, four lane thoroughfare.

“Now where?” asks Paul. “We can’t go walking on the freeway.”

Without a word, George sprints down the street out of sight. Apparently George needed to run off his dinner. He is back a few moments later and assures us there is a walkway we can take that will lead us to camp. There is dissention. Tessa, a lanky twenty-something, and Jorge turn west and we follow. George brings up the rear.

“Now where?” asks Paul. No one answers. George turns south again.

“It says bike lane down there. We can take that to camp.” Tessa and Jorge continue west. Near the bike path is an inn, tucked under very dark trees. George and Paul investigate, the rest of us follow Tessa and Jorge.

Within a few moments, Paul and George walk up without David, Debra, and Caroline. George had flagged a motorist down and negotiated a lift for Debra and Caroline, suggesting to the driver that David come along for company. Apparently the driver agreed.

I spy a cab and, in true urban fashion, fingers in mouth, I whistle loudly and put my arm out. The cab swerves three lanes over in response, stopping inches from my knees. George is disappointed.

“We could have walked there.” We pile in and head off for the 10 minute cab ride to camp, making it by 10pm. I dose up on Advil, and feel the numbing in my shoulder. Will I be able to ride tomorrow?

Saturday, June 8

Piece of cake.

I start riding at 7:20am, and am at lunch by 10:30. 40 miles in just over three hours. By my standards, I was cooking. My legs felt great and the pain in my shoulder was tolerable.

I arrived at the end by 12:20, making 62 miles, including the stop for lunch in five hours. There weren’t many in at that time, but those who were there gave each rider hearty woohoos. I had finished. The ride for me was over.

George, Jackie, and Paul called my cell phone to say they had also arrived in Santa Monica at 12:20, but had stopped for lunch at a restaurant. They were going to hang there until closing ceremonies at 4pm. In fairness, I started 40 minutes ahead of them, and made only one stop. That was my only hope of being anywhere near them at the end. What that means is that if I was cooking, they were nuclear!

As it turned out, I stayed and watched each rider come in, each one adding to the crowd, which made each woohoo slightly louder than the last one.

George and the gang finally arrived and we spent an hour or so finding our new comrades in arms, congratulating one another, saying goodbye, trading email addresses, and breathing a collective, exhaustive sigh of relief. We had made it.

It was then that I again thought of The Wizard of Oz. In the story, the search for awareness and knowledge takes Dorothy on a dangerous adventure, risking her life for one purpose, to get back home. In the end she realized that what she really needed was far closer to her than she knew. Her adventure showed to her that the strength and knowledge to survive in a hostile world was already within her, that she only needed the opportunity for it to blossom.

In a way, that is what the AIDSRide is about. Fighting AIDS seems so daunting, so mysterious, and is so misunderstood. Some beliefs about AIDS are tied to cultural assumptions and traditions that may block progress. Without the courage to engage these barriers to understanding, we are left much like Dorothy, scared and powerless.

I am tired and thinking of my family. As I stand on the field with the other riders, listening to the AIDSRide commencement, I am thinking of a single line from the film: There’s no place like home.

Peace,

M2

Thursday Night, June 6

I hooked up with Kelly, Cyndee, Ana, Cheryl, and Peter, all twenty-somethings (ok Kelly is thirty-something, but his childlike behavior makes him younger – more like 9!). We had pizza and ice cream (strictly off the diet, but I was on a roll!) and watched a bit of the Stanley Cup.

It is possible that Kelly is the funniest AIDSRider I have ever known. We laughed hard and long, working our face muscles into catatonia, perhaps venting some of the daily dose of ride emotion. It is a great night that almost didn’t happen.

I met the gang at the shuttle stop and they kindly invited me to dine with them. They were looking for Mexican food; I was looking for the Dodger game. I ungracefully uninvited myself when I saw the restaurant they chose (clearly no TV inside that fine family establishment). I really wanted to be alone with my thoughts and the game.

The group dismounted our shuttle and met for a brief meeting in front of the bus, blocking my escape. They changed their plans to be with me. I was humbled by their largess and embarrassed by my ingratiude. It was Kelly who broke the ice, laughing, “You really weren’t going to say goodbye, and now you can’t get rid of us.” I am very glad they decided to join me. It was without a doubt the best night I had on the trip.

Cyndee, Ana, and Cheryl said they are doing the ride because they felt it was important to contribute to raising AIDS awareness. It is refreshing that they - stereotypes of the directionless Y Generation - have, for the moment, found a direction and have become activists. From the legs and hearts of these young people flows the hope to those connected to the financial success of the AIDSRide. I am very proud of them for stepping up to the plate.

It is impossible to ignore or dampen the spirit at our table, especially with Kelly around (we all riffed on this very funny scenario Kelly invented – how many nine-year-olds would it take to beat up Kelly? My guess was one!), yet everyone is tired and ready for tomorrow’s conclusion.

The shuttle came by at 8:30 to collect us and bring us back to camp. George was in the tent when I arrived, having had an easy evening in our tent city with Paul, Jackie, and others. As we settled in George talked about how the trip has reinforced some basic beliefs, that life is too short to be lived in fear. Life is an adventure, he said, and is about taking risks, and having some fun. George’s confidence is infectious and just what I need to keep me going. He knows I am worried about my shoulder and riding tomorrow. He tells me to relax and that I will be fine. I hope he’s right. I take my nightly dose of 800mg of Advil and listen to tent city go to sleep.

Friday Morning, June 7

I am to help in the chiropractic tent today as I want to rest my shoulder one more day. The ride tomorrow is “only” 62 miles. I will work with Dr Caroline Reno and Dr Debra Pear (still feeling a bit under the weather from a bout with dehydration), part of the George gang. I will be the CA today (Chiropractor’s Assistant) handling the sign in sheet, getting patient information, getting vitals for new patients (I put a sleeve on their arm and push a button, a machine does the rest), and organizing the flow of riders desperately needing an adjustment. Many could not continue without this help.

I ride to the lunch stop with the medical crew, disappointed that I am not riding today, but feel it is the best thing. I do not want to miss tomorrow’s last ride. We arrive at the lunch stop around 9:30am, set up our gear, and wait for the riders.

Sally Misell walks into the chiropractic tent, slowly leans forward, finally resting her elbows on her knees, and lets out a long breath. Sally is on the crew for the lunch stop today at Storke Field on the UC Santa Barbara campus, 46.1 miles from our day 5 camp in Oceano. By 9:00am her face and hands are dirty from organizing the set up of tables and tents for medical and lunch services. Riders leaving camp by 6:30am will begin to arrive by 9:00am, so the area must be ready to accommodate all their needs. To do this, Sally began her day at 4:00am.

“Overtired, cold, and dirty,” Sally says when I ask her how she’s doing. Sally is a determined worker and her exhaustion is a measurement of how difficult the ride is on the crew. When I suggest that the crew job is in some ways thankless because of the focus on the riders, Sally and others agree with the point, but to a person they say that the ride is not about them. The ride, they say, it is about the courage of the riders and those battling AIDS. It’s the reason they volunteered to crew.

On one side of our tent is Physical Therapy and the other is Triage. One young woman arrives with a severe case of “road rash”. She is dirty, bruised, and bloody, wrapped in a silver mylar blanket to keep her warm. She winces as the Dr cleans her wounds with alcohol. She laughs when a friend asks what happened, “I got in a fight with the pavement and lost. At least I saved my bike!”

The weather is horrible for views but decent for a long ride. It is overcast and cold. One rider mentioned that without the sun, his mood was not as festive. The same is true in the pits. We saw 17 patients today, most with rhomboid muscle problems (same as me). At the end of the day Dr Reno told me to hop on the table and she was able to do what the interns at the camp tent were not able to do – loosen my rhomboid. She coaches me on a couple of stretches and I feel great and ready for tomorrow.

Back at tent city, George is organizing a last night out with the gang. I cannot get on line at the command center van to upload the story, so I decide to leave the blog and join them in downtown Ventura. George stops a charter bus leaving camp and negotiates a lift for us into town. We are off for one last adventure before the final ride, and with George leading the way we are confident we’ll find one.

Peace,

M2

Claire tells me that there are a few typos in the previous blogs. Sorry about that. I’m usually rushed to get these things on line, so forgiveness is requested. I’ll have a bit more time today, so I’ll make sure to triple check.

Tonight we’re in Lompoc, CA, home of Vandenberg AFB and the launching site for the Minuteman Missile – if you’re up tonight around 1am, and are anywhere nearby, I hear a launch in planned. Our bivouac is the cozy River Park. The place to be, it seems, if you are a gopher, is further north this time of year. George pitched our tent in a nice level spot and we should be more comfortable tonight. The ride today was 54.9 miles, a lot of hills, and some riders, feeling the effects of the previous 270 miles, did not ride today. I was one of them.

Well, I rode 6.9 miles, but most of that was with one hand. When I assumed the proper riding position, a knife entered my shoulder and made its way across my back laterally toward my spine in a kind of a backwards hari kari ritual. I could only ride with my right hand on the handlebars. I stopped to stretch at the first “grab and go” pit stop and kind volunteers in a “sweeper van” stopped to ask how I was doing. When I told them the trouble, they kindly suggested I not continue to ride with one hand. I took their advice and hopped in the van.

My left shoulder, actually the left side of my upper back, is now swollen to the point that I more closely resemble Quasimoto the bell ringer than I do rider 1532. Ice and ibuprofen are what Dr Davidson says I need, and rest, so I may not ride tomorrow.

I have to admit I am disappointed that the ride may be over for me, but I am not heartbroken. The ride is grueling. I rode for two miles with a woman who said she prays each day that she will just get through this. I thought that was a plausible scenario AIDS patients face on a daily basis. Our pain will end after Saturday.

The spiritual connection many of us are making to AIDS patients is directly related to the pain we have encountered on this ride. While we all have personal reasons for having raised money for the effort, this connection is ultimately what this event is about. Speaking to Palotta’s Brian Pendleton again today, he agreed. He said that people who do the ride are more likely to continue to talk about the experience and continue to raise the awareness of AIDS. This is a good thing.

We took the shuttle into town last night and had a fine meal with super-riders George and Paul, volunteer pit stop chiropractors Debra and Caroline, and a few others. George finally got the clam chowder he had been craving. We had a few beers (strictly forbidden during the ride, but well worth the risk) and after dinner we headed to the nearest sports bar to watch the Lakers trim the Nets. I couldn’t get comfortable as my shoulder was aching. When we got back to camp around 9:30 I took 800mg of ibuprofen and tried to sleep, but the pain was getting worse and sleep difficult.

This morning I went to the physical therapy tent and they tried to “work out” the tightness, and in fairness I felt somewhat better. A strapping lad named Mark drove his elbow through my back and out my front like a bad scene from a bad Alien remake. I took another 800mg of ibuprofen and hopped on the bike. It wasn’t too long before I felt the pain and it steadily worsened. By the time I made it to the grab and go, where I stopped to stretch, my ride was over.

The drivers of the sweeper van took me and two others already in the van, to pit stop one where we stayed until a chartered bus brought us to camp. The injuries today included (but were not isolated to) blisters (one person had the record with 10), very sore butts (the most common complaint), sprained knees (the second most common complaint), sprained Achilles tendons (tied for the second most common complaint), nausea, headaches, wrist dysfunction, and other logical maladies. Then there was Adam.

Somewhere around mile 5 Adam was headed up a hill, feeling strong. He downshifted to keep his momentum going when he heard something pop. He then felt the intense pain of a dislocated hip. He was able to put it back in place, but AIDSRide9 is over for him. He will be allowed to ride that last mile on Saturday along with the other casualties.

For some reason day 5 on the ride is red dress day. Everyone, men and women had on every conceivable combination of red sequins, lace, and spandex I have ever seen assembled in one place. The bus with the injured slowly made its way to camp and passed red rider after red rider. The mood on board was somber. No one spoke, a couple people were crying.

The entertainment tonight is dancing on the stage in red dresses, I suppose. George, Paul, and I and others are planning another meal in town. Hopefully I’ll heal overnight, but that is just a hope. The way things are now, I’ll rest again tomorrow and ride on Saturday to the closing ceremonies. There I’ll meet my son, and enjoy a very long, but very thankful ride home.

Peace,

M2

Ok folks some housekeeping. My wallet has been found. Jeff Gregory from the Cowell Theatre in First Mason said he had it safe and sound. He left a message on my cell and has connected with Claire for the details on getting it back to me. I understand it is on its way home. Thanks Jeff.

The kind folks here at the Oceano Airport are allowing riders a free email service through their dsl line with computers provided by Exploration Station. Clint Backes is IT Manager for Exploration Station and he set me up.

We are camped in Oceano this evening, just south of Pismo Beach. It is cool and the ocean breeze, as it has since this afternoon, cools us down from a very hard ride. Paso Robles to Oceano, 69.8 miles. I started at 7:10am and finished at 2:40pm. My feet were fine but I’ve tweaked my back. I’m going to see Dr. Davidson again in a bit to see if she can tweak it back.

Dr Davidson and her staff of volunteers come from The Los Angeles College of Chiropractic. They are really great, each intern sees 15 patients a day from around 2pm to around 9pm.

The Twin Peaks, the hills that promised “two hills on Hwy 46 that love to challenge riders”, bid not disappoint. The climb was very hard, but at the summit we saw the Pacific Ocean. The site was at once breathtaking and relieving. If you saw it it meant that you slayed the twin peaks and there would be no more major hills today. The next thing I saw after seeing the ocean was this sign: “6% Grade Next 5 Miles”. I, literally, did not pedal for those 5 miles, plus a bit more. It was a blast!

The interesting thing is, what got me up the hills, was me singing a song my good buddy Mark McLay wrote called “Cool Wind Blows”. The song’s chorus is “every time I’m thinking I can’t stand the heat, a cool wind blows in”. Sure enough at the top of that hill we got the cool wind of a lifetime!

Earlier in the day my Tinman/Lion metaphor revisited. I met Mark (not McLay!) and rode with him for a few miles. He is on the ride because he won a bike in a contest at Kiss FM out of LA. He didn’t train. He’s not a rider. He’s in a lot of pain. As we rode he talked a lot about why he is riding (his brother is HIV positive) and why he wanted to do something to help. He said he’d lived a life that was unexceptional, and that this ride is the most amazing thing he’s ever done. He continued and said it’s challenged him in so many ways, not only physically, but also spiritually. He has been arriving at camp after being on the rode for 11 or 12 hours a day.

Talking to him I felt a bit like the Tinman. I am a stronger rider than Mark, but Mark has amazing courage and commitment. The last 8 miles today I called on that strength from Mark because folks, I was spent, hurting, and just wanted to stop. Thinking about Mark the Lion pulled me through.

We lunched at an Army barracks, again outside, sitting on cardboard under 18 wheel trucks. As I sat and ate everything that is off my health eating menu, potato salad, potato chips, cream cheese, chocolate chip cookies (hey, I had just ridden 40 miles, gimme a break!) an elderly man came near me and said hello. Thinking he was a fellow rider, I invited him to share a wheel well with me. He wasn’t a rider. He was Rudy from nearby Morro Bay and a Gideon.

We talked about the ride and how he’s helped every year except last year. He handed me a Gideon Bible, which I accepted and he told me the story about how a guy went into a hotel to kill himself and found the bible in the drawer, which helped him overcome his reasons for wanting to kill himself.

Rudy flipped up his sunglass clips and fixed his blue eyes on me. “You see Michael maybe the bible can help you in the same way. When it is too hot to ride, or you need strength from within, maybe the bible can help you.”

I said, “Rudy, I died yesterday from the heat in Paso Robles, and I think heaven is right here under this truck.” He laughed and said good-bye, pulling out another bible and said, “Excuse me” to another rider.

I secured the bible in my pack, filled up with water, stretched, and hit the road.

Peace,

M2

I have all but given up on community wireless. It is too difficult to get into town. I failed to report that yesterday’s blog, and today’s if you are reading this, are courtesy of the fine IT department at Palotta Teamworks.

Matt, a twenty something rider from Santa Monica is riding a Schwinn Super Seven. If you are not familiar with this bike, think about a bike your great-grandparents might have ridden across town or a few miles out into the country.

At 10am today Matt pulled into pit stop two, about thirty miles out of King City, and the temperature was around 90. I asked Matt how he was doing. He looked at me, stretched in that cool way surfers might do when asked if they want another beer. He answered, “Yeah.”

Matt and the rest of the 700+ riders faced not only the “Quadbuster” hill today, but also at least 107 degrees F (one rider checked the surface temterature if the pavement at 115).

The 74.9 miles we rode today were immensely more difficult than the 104 yesterday - orders of magnitude worse. I am happy to report that I made the entire ride even though my hands and feet fell asleep every twenty minutes or so, slowing my pace a bit. I started at 7:15am and finished at 2:50pm and averaged 10 mph. Not bad for riding through hell.

The ride took us through rolling chaparral, quite lovely, but very dry. There were lush pockets of trees logically huddled close to the scant pockets of water. Flying in and out of view were the ever-present barn swallows. If not for the heat, I’m sure I would have enjoyed today. For decent coverage of the ride visit AIDS Project Los Angeles.

The so-called Quadbuster Hill is twenty miles south of King City. It has a gradual (2 or 3 miles) 200 foot climb to a steeper climb (about a mile long) to 900 feet. Fortunately I met this hill by 9am, so it was still cool enough to push over this hill if you geared down sufficiently enough. Yours truly made it with one stop half-way up to remove an outer garment. At the crest we were met with wooohooos galore and super water guns.

To show the damaging effect of the heat, two riders, Dan and Josh apparantly driven insane from the brain-baking, rode this hill three times. It was cool-ish that early, but really lads, no need to show off! In fairness they were helping people over the hill, so hats off guys, well done!

I have heard that there were two 24’ buses loaded with Medical SAGs (support and gear – basically anyone who cannot finish the ride due to the poor health of themselves or their bikes). Each of these buses will hold approximately 50 people. The heat wore down many, but at 6:21PM I still see some brave riders coming into our camp at the Mid-State Paso Robles Fairgrounds. It is a western theme fair with a “historic” main street made complete with buildings made from “genuine logs”.

My hands and feet keep falling asleep so I visited the camp chiropractor and later I have a massage (they think of everything). Chiropractic Services leader Angela Davidson, D.C., told me to ride with no socks to avoid intensifying the heat which contributes to swelling (I’m taking in a lot of salt so I can retain water) which squeezes my nerves, which … you get the idea. I lost my gloves on day one, so I’ll be buying new ones at the camp merchandise tent (I told you they think of everything!)

Day three is over. Tomorrow promises “two hills on Hwy 46 that love to challenge riders”. Oh joy.

Peace,

M2

A scene form The Wizard of Oz illustrates how many of us felt on today’s ride. At 101.9 miles, the ride from Santa Cruz to King City is the longest of the 7 day California AIDSRide 9 event.

Scarecrow, Tinman, and Lion aided by Toto climb step rocks to the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West whose army of flying monkeys abducted Dorothy and sequestered her within the castle walls.

Scene:

The three heroes CLIMB steep rocks. TINMAN holds onto LION’s tail for support.

LION

I hope my strength holds out.

TINMAN

I hope your tail holds out.

Our tails have indeed held out.

The course opened at 6:30AM and I was on the road by 6:45, feeling good, relaxed, and ready for road. The course today was broken down into 8 stops. 4 pit stops with food, water, Gatorade (they really push the stuff BTW, replacing the electrolytes, and the electricity in your body I have discovered), a medical tent, bike repair, and today, massage and chiropractic. Nope I didn’t get one the queue was way to long, and of course I was ready for road.

The course was nicely paced with the stops appearing at just the right moments.

So how hard is it to ride 104 miles? It is significantly more difficult than 90 miles, in fact the pain is not proportional to the number of miles as it is to the time in the saddle. The ten additional miles felt like 50. 150. Anyway I made it in 9 hours, maintaining my 11.5 miles per hour average. Not bad. In fairness, the last 30 miles were help by a very strong tailwind, helping to make the last leg almost bearable.

Ok the technology story. I interviewed Brian Pendleton, VP of IT of Palotta Teamworks. Pendleton came from the .com bust (Trafficstation.com) and found what he describes as a job that fit his professional and personal values quite nicely.

The front end is a browser, the back end is SQL2000, and no open source software. Pendleton feels that open source software doesn’t meet his ideal model for a critical business application tool. Open source software requires a “special breed” (read: geek) to manage effectively. I guess I won’t offer him a free pass to The Open Source Convention!

Ok, the event tonight is Bingo. I am thinking Palotta is really concerned that riders are not getting enough sleep and bingo is intended on ensuring that the the riders get to be early. Good for them.

Closing thought. There are many people out supporting us with food and cheering (”WHOOOOHOOOO!” is the ubiquitous greeting when we approach any gathering no matter how small). Just south of Salinas I stopped and talk to a few of them. I asked a 12 year old boy if he knew how many people died today from AIDS related diseases. He guessed “maybe 20″. When I told him 8,000 died today and that everyday 8,000 people die from AIDS, he shook his head and said, “Those are some stupid people.”

It is clear that education is a vital tool in fighting AIDS epidemic. When people like my young friend understand the details about the epidemic, then I think real change is possible. Without this understanding, denial implicit in the statement “those are some stupid people” will continue and hope will have something less than a chance.

Peace

M2

Related link: http://www.freesoftware.fsf.org/adeos/pr-2002-06-03.en.txt

Embedded systems are widely seen as the greatest area of opportunity
for Linux (and the more broadly one defines the term “embedded
system,” the more appropriate it seems for Linux). Furthermore,
real-time performance is a make-or-break requirement for many embedded
systems. So there’s good reason for anyone interested in Open Source
or free software to care about the state of real-time on Linux.

Linux is not in itself a real-time system, but it can be effectively
run with real-time tasks by inserting a layer beneath it to trap
interrupts and favor the desired tasks. The
software announced today,
ADEOS (Adaptive
Domain Environment for Operating Systems),
provides a way to accomplish this task that, its creators hope, will
spark a Renaissance for embedded and real-time Linux. ADEOS was
proposed in a
paper by Karim Yaghmour
(in PostScript)
as a general-purpose host for virtual operating systems.
(This paper and another are available as PDF files in the ADEOS
distribution.)
ADEOS was implemented for the Linux kernel on the i386 in a 1400-line,
GPL’d patch by Philippe Gerum.

Purely in the abstract, ADEOS is an interesting addition to the
tradition of abstraction layers like VMWare, and even the chips built
by Amdahl Corporation many decades ago to let its emulated 360
mainframes keep up with IBM’s changes.

ADEOS dictates that a fundamental hardware abstraction layer serves a
number of operating systems. The idle process on each operating system
calls the fundamental hardware abstraction layer to inform its
operating system does not need the CPU anymore. This abstraction layer
can now catch all interrupts and pass them to each of the operating
systems in turn. To enable real-time, the administrator places tasks
in a real-time operating system and makes it the first to be invoked by the
abstraction layer after each interrupt; all other tasks run on a
regular Linux system that is less favored.

The idea of a hardware abstraction layer already exists in the two
real-time projects that are available for Linux: RTLinux and RTAI.
In the current implementations, a conventional operating system hosting
non-real-time processes runs as the idle task of the real-time
operating system.

Unfortunately, a patent on the concept by the creator of RTLinux,
Victor Yodaiken, has at best confused the status of real-time on
Linux. Many critics of the patent, including Yaghmour and Gerum,
believe it chills development on alternatives (notably RTAI) and forms
a basic roadblock that keeps Linux from being widely adopted by
embedded systems developers. Others do not oppose this particular
software patent, because it makes special accommodations for
GPL’d development.

In any case, developers now have a choice. RTAI is going to use the
new ADEOS in order to be free of the RTLinux patent. The next couple
years will show whether ADEOS makes a difference.

Is real-time important to the future of Linux?

A recent report from the National Association for Security and Trust
Evaluation warns of an increase in serious security breaches known as
Denial of Responsibility (DoR) attacks. “Each attack is much more
dangerous than traditional security flaws,” says Warren N. Veighn of
the Association, “because the extent of the vulnerabilities is so
great, the time they affect deployed systems can stretch
out to decades, and getting the source of the problem to react appropriately is by definition very difficult.”

DoR attacks used to be of a simple, garden-variety type where a
computer manufacturer obscures the fact it has shipped a system with bugs
(sometimes known to the company in advance). More recent DoR attacks
include the inclusion of “cool features” that benefit only a few
curious experimenters but open the door to serious intrusions.

“And the new crop of DoR is even worse,” explains Veighn, “involving
requirements from governments or major service vendors that data be
stored in an insecure and easily targeted fashion. One never hears
them talk of the true effects of these decisions.”
DoR attacks are viral, in the sense that they begin in a governmental directive or software company, but spread rapidly to major customers who wish to minimize the risks created by the software flaws.

When asked what software vendors are doing to control DoR attacks, industry
spokesperson Heidi Vadanduck responded, “Our industry is committed to
a secure and trustworthy experience in every format, as evidenced by
the upsurge in customer-offering-based solutions embodying tested
protections and proven, standards-based reliability.”

Have you experienced a DoR attack where you worked?

Two good omens met us at the beginning of day one of the AIDSRide. First, a kindly person paid my toll at the Golden Gate Bridge. Second, when Claire and I arrived at Fort Mason with my gear, the lot was packed. We drove around the lot and turned toward the registration building and a parking slot opened like the parting of magical waters. As my trusty friend Martin would say, I was flucky. We checked in and with a tearfully sweet good-bye to Claire, I was off.

At mile 30, as I flew down the steep grade on Highway 92 toward Half Moon Bay, the metaphor of freefalling came to mind. When you are freefalling there is no sense that you are falling. The wind holds you up, your view is borderless, and all is wonderful. When the chute opens all is calm, serene. The ride today was similar in that I had no sense of the miles I’d ridden. I remember only the singular beauty of the California coastline, and the cool air. It was really quite peaceful - until mile 60.

At mile 60 I am certain riding this damn bike became the hardest thing I have ever done. The pain in several parts of my body was worse than the broken collarbone I sustained falling off the jungle gym in first grade. Worse than having my dog put to sleep. It took everything from me and left hunger, exhaustion, and the pain. Advil, be my friend.

How difficult is it to ride 90 miles? It is easier than finding a working wireless network in Santa Cruz! I sat at the café house Coffeetopia for an hour trying to configure my wireless connectivity. I was getting a double caf wireless signal, but every time I tried to open IE the system tried to connect through one of my dial-up accounts! This is probably a setup issue, but I’ve not the knowledge or experience to figure it out. The calvary arrived in the form of Calvin Fleming, PR Manager for the AIDSRide organizers, Palotta Teamworks. He has dropped me at Kinko’s from where I submit this blog. How did I get so flucky?

Palotta Communication VP Janna Sidley, former prosecutor and former Clinton Administration official, overheard me trying to convince Calvin that I needed to get to a wireless network or phone line and offered me use of, well, Calvin. We found Coffeetopia in my www.802.11Hotspots.com list, and he dropped me there and continued on to Kinko’s to make copies of tonight’s AIDSRide newsletter. The mocha was fine, but no Internet connection.

Ok, really, how hard is it to ride 90 miles in one day? Really hard. The last 30 miles we had the wind at our back which really helped. Even with the wind, I was dragging. I made the trip in 7 hours, 30 minutes. That included a twenty minute stretch period, twenty minutes for lunch and two other five minute stops. Not bad for a rookie.

The people. My tent mate, George the Firefighter Olympics Cycling Champ, made it to camp in five hours, fifteen minutes. He has the tent set up and sorted me out with the layout, where I could find my gear, and where I could find the shower trucks. Yep, these 18 wheel rolling bathhouses were just the ticket for getting the mixture of automobile exhaust and sweat off and getting me feeling slightly comfortable.

More people. Todd from Cleveland is an HIV positive rider, and has the T-shirt to prove it. He is strong; strong enough to ride after a year off the bike! We kept passing each other out and shouting encouraging messages to keep each other going.

Ok, nothing to report technology-wise, but I have a meeting with Palotta Teamworks IT Manager Monkey, which should be interesting. They have an Ethernet connection and satellite hookup in the “command center” and since I am a “reporter”, Janna assures me that they will do all they can for me to continue my road blogs. Groovy.

Ok, I’m bushed and hungry so I’ll close with this thought; the number of people who died of AIDS related diseases in the US last year was 8,000. That’s also the number of people who died from AIDS related diseases worldwide - today. That’s the number that will die from aids related diseases tomorrow as well. It occurred to me that in this time of heightened awareness of war and terrorism and the murder included in that gruesome mixture, death from AIDS must be the most overlooked statistic of all time. With our attention diverted to defending our shores, we may be overlooking a much deadlier enemy than Osama Bin Ladin, more efficient and much more difficult to fight.

Peace,

M2

Road Blog – Day Zero, San Francisco

Checking in at the California AIDSRide orientation with over 1100 (press guide estimates) extremely excited AIDSRiders, I am awestruck, and somewhat afraid. What am I doing here? What made me think I could ride 575 miles on a hybrid road/mountain bike, an interesting gift for wage-slaving away 10 years at Sola Optical? I lose focus. I begin to sweat.

I lose my wallet.

Yes, just when I had it all together, I lose everything on paper that identifies/connects me with everything important in my life. The AIDSRide planners are sympathetic to my human ways, and are very kind (the BIG theme of AIDSRide is: “Humankind. Be both”) but only allow me to register when my tent mate, fearless San Francisco Firefighter George Bruce, vouches for me. Now I am embarrassed. How could I be so stupid as to lose my wallet? Panic, dread, and self-deprecation set in (wanted to input immolation there, but what hope do I have of that with Geogre hanging around?). I am lost. George, taking my pulse and flashing a pen light in my face, cautiously reminds me that, regardless of this sudden tragedy, we have to view the safety video. He thoughtfully assists me to an asile seat in the modern Fort Mason theatre.

Just when I am on a role beating myself up, just when I am about to start whining real loud, considering calling Claire to come get me because I am an idiot and just don’t belong here, they begin the AIDSRide the safety video.

The video is simple. Ceneterd white words scroll slowly upward on a dark red background, accompanied by a lovely, but haunting, music score. The words devistate. Within 30 seconds, I feel fortunate to be sitting in the quite charming, quite protected Fort Mason Theatre in San Francisco’s Marina, and not living out a horrifying alternative in a place with no hope. I’ll not share the details; you know most of them anyway. If you’re interested, check out bethepeople.com; there you’ll find all the news that fits, and they’re likely to follow us down with, as my beautiful wife Claire might say, “news and a bit”.

Speaking of news, I got a press pass. I didn’t even have to show them this lonely weblog as journalistic proof (as if!). So now I have access to the press tent (and connectivity, huh?) and the juicy news, which, as your faithful correspondent, I will report post haste. That is assuming I can find a way to blog, especially (shameless promotion warning) and even better if I find an open source technology angle. After all, I am the marketing manager for the Open Source Convention. Fortunately I’ve done a bit of homework and have located what appear to be several free access sites as well as a range of boingo hot spots. We’ll see once I get to camp on day one.

The route is:

Day 1, Sunday June 2 – San Francisco to Santa Cruz

Day 2 – King City (read: hot)

Day 3 – Paso Robles

Day 4 - Oceano (sounds intriguing; a trip to the visitors center in mandatory)

Day 5 – Lompoc (near Vandenberg AFB)

Day 6 – Ventura

Day 7, Saturday June 8 - Santa Monica

According to www.80211hotspots.com/ there are wireless access points all the way down, but I don’t want to buy the boingo wervice; I want community wireless.

So, I’m off tomorrow at 6:30AM. Right now I am a bit bushed from today’s emotional ride and am looking forward to letting my body take over tomorrow, putting all this heavy thinking aside for a sweet while. I want to thank everyone who contributed money to the ride; I’ll list them all here once I get the final talley. Special thanks to Peter Wiggin for his friendship and coaching during my training.

Peace,

M2

Related link: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2002/01/01/cory.html

If his premise is correct (and I believe it is), he’s found tremendous benefit from organizing his data in public in weblog format. Unsurprisingly, he benefits from the network effect of other people doing the same thing, each with a different take on the subject. Cast your data upon the water, and you will find it after many days. (Solomon knew a thing or two about my inbox.)

How collaborative! I was struck with the similarities to another system I worked on: Everything. To keep things running smoothly, the editors and developers of at least the two largest sites (Everything 2 and Perl Monks) take advantage of the nearly-automatic internal linking features. Hey, there are even internal weblogs (a somewhat stripped-down cousin of Slash) and wikis, for collaborative discussions, development, and documentation.

Though I first came to all of this through Everything (version 0.3), the ever-prescient Jon Udell pointed out that the concept could be traced further back to Wikis. By Ward Cunningham’s recollection, that’s seven years ago.

None of this would be news to the brilliant fellows behind Xanadu project or the Semantic web. Collaboration, rich, multi-directional linking, and myriad other buzzwords that still haven’t lost their power. These promises all mean something that, hopefully, will someday come to pass.

So what’s the punchline? The web begat interactive sites which begat message boards which begat Wiki which preceded weblogs. I found Slash (weblog), worked on Everything (Wiki on steroids), added extended link tags to Slash, added a Wiki to Slash, and now worry more about finding the right information than about how to present it, just as the marketing people are starting to jump on the weblog bandwagon.

I’m living backwards! At least it’s nice to know I’m starting to ask the same questions as the really smart people. (Maybe someday I’ll tell the story of how I fumbled Jon’s 1999 idea of turning every desktop into a server. It followed Zope but predated Napster and .NET.)