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Monadnock Updates

December 31 2009

Over the last two months I’ve managed to squeeze in a bit of publishing over at the Monadnock Press. In addition to my work on the text of Ayn Rand’s Anthem, I’ve also republished the following public-domain texts: The original version of The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. The… read more

Routing Around Wikipedia

December 22 2009

As I noted on the jdev list yesterday, someone at Wikipedia is actively working to delete entries about various software projects that supposedly fail Wikipedia’s “notability” test. Pages about some XMPP software projects have already been deleted (e.g., Coccinella) and it seems that others will be deleted in the near… read more

Happy Bill of Rights Day

December 15 2009

Today is Bill of Rights Day, so it’s an appropriate time to reflect on the first ten amendments to the Constitution… Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right… read more

Server Migration Update

December 09 2009

I just posted at www.jabber.org about the impending migration of the jabber.org IM service. The current plan is to flip the switch next Monday (December 14th). Check out the post for all the details. read more

An Anniversary

November 30 2009

It was ten years ago yesterday that I made my first post to the jdev@jabber.org discussion list. Working on Jabber has been a lot of fun so far! And, no, we didn’t call it XMPP back then. :P read more

Feeling the Heat

November 28 2009

Back in 2006 I posted a series of entries about global warming: Overheated Conclusions, Hot Logic, and Taking a Look (indeed, at the time my views seemed positively shocking to some people, since I appeared to be in denial about the supposed consensus of the scientific community). Now it turns… read more

Anthem

November 18 2009

One of my favorite novels has long been Anthem by Ayn Rand; indeed it was the first public-domain text that I posted at the Monadnock Press website. Unfortunately, the Project Gutenberg etexts of Anthem contain numerous errors, only some of which are corrected in other online versions such as that… read more

Current Readings

November 16 2009

Here’s what I’m reading right now: J.J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception Alexandra Horowitz, Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics… read more

Music Shortlist

November 09 2009

Periodically I like to make short lists of books and recordings that I would not want to do without. It helps to focus the mind. Lately I’ve been thinking about the 25 albums (not individual songs or pieces) that I would want on a desert island. Here’s the current list,… read more

Okonomiyaki

November 09 2009

Last night I got my first taste of the local specialty in Hiroshima: okonomiyaki. (Did I mention that I’m in Japan right now? :) The best I can describe it is that it’s kind of like a noodle frittata or cabbage-stuffed pancake. You sit down at this huge griddle and… read more

XMPP Is Not Bloated

November 08 2009

I’m getting a bit tired of all the unsupported allegations from people like Anil Dash and Adam Fisk that XMPP is bloated or impossible to deploy. Now maybe I’m just a bit snarky at the moment because it’s 5:30 AM where I am in Hiroshima Japan and I got 3… read more

RhymBox Dispute Resolved

November 03 2009

Back in 2004, a controversy erupted in the XMPP developer community regarding the RhymBox instant messaging client. Through a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, the parties to an agreement regarding further development of that client went their separate ways in a rather public fashion, resulting in a cloud over the RhymBox… read more

Small Books

October 24 2009

I’m really starting to like small books. Yes, I recently wrote a book that’s 320 pages long, but in my own reading I’ve taken to books of under 200 (and preferably 100) pages. Oxford’s series of Very Short Introductions is a good example. Another might be the original 1855, 92-page… read more

Financial Thinking

October 14 2009

As mentioned, I’ve been reading intensively about personal finance since early May. While that doesn’t make me an expert (far from it!), I have drawn a number of tentative conclusions: When it comes to money, no one has your best interests at heart. Financial advisers, bankers, brokers, mutual fund managers,… read more

FTC v Blogosphere

October 08 2009

An instant classic from Perry de Havilland: The notion that the US blogosphere is going to allow the US state to require it to register certain content is something that has me wondering if some cunning conspiracy was not at work by a shadowy cabal of Good Guys (who inexplicably… read more