LookIt

Don't click links

There is a hilarious tech support article at Microsoft that says "Do not click any hyperlinks that you do not trust. Type them in the Address bar yourself." That article is full of links that almost no one could possibly type correctly on the first try.

I suspect some tech writer went home from Microsoft that day and either cried or laughed ironically for a long time.

Humorous editing at its best

OK, this is a cheap political shot, but I would have laughed if it had been done four years ago as well.

Looking for an adoption

No, not me. My friends Mark and Lisa are looking to become adoptive parents of a baby. They are really wonderful people, and would make great parents. If you know anyone who is looking to put their baby up for adoption, by all means send them to Mark and Lisa's adoption page.

(The whole potential-adoptive-parents-needing-web-sites story is not as weird as it might first appear. The web has made it easier for people who want to put their baby up for adoption to find out more about the family before contacting them. Instead of hearing a summary from an agency, birth parents can see sites like Mark and Lisa's and get a much better idea of the kind of people they are.)

What comes next for email

I just set up a new mailing list to discuss the next generation of email. It's initial description is:

There seems to be more discussion these days about replacing SMTP and/or RFC 2822 and/or POP/IMAP for a variety of reasons. The discussion seems to pop up on a few different lists and in a few different hallways, and it might be good to have a single list where folks can congregate. Thus, I have set up a mail-ng mailing list.

The first task probably is to determine what the next generation of mail should do, and how that is different than what SMTP/2822/POP-or-IMAP or instant messaging does. It is safe to say that we can ignore actual protocol proposals for many months (if not years) until we figure out what is needed. Once we do that, there are plenty of protocol people who can attack the decided-on requirements.

There is no expectation that there will be significant agreement on the list. It is likely that over time the discussion will split into camps of like-minded design goals. The list might then spawn different lists for the folks of the different camps (mail-ng-shoe, mail-ng-sandal, ...). The list is explicitly not yet meant to be an IETF working group yet (if at all), and is probably more akin to the IRTF. But at the beginning, it will most likely be talking, not research.

Two gone in one year

Another giant in children's television is gone. Last year, it was Mr. Rogers. Today, it's Bob Keeshan, better known as Captain Kangaroo. A wonderful guy with a nutty sense of humor (at least in the eyes of this five-year-old...).

Give this man a blog

Many bloggers go on and on about Dan Gillmor of the SJ Mercury, but if you get tired of all-tech-all-the-time, check out some of Brad Kava's columns. He covers live music and other local entertainment topics. Today's column on new things at NAMM covers a couple of wonderful non-electronic inventions from small inventors that will help people make music.

Revisited

About a year ago, a great blue heron dropped into my back yard to feast in my pond. This morning, another did.

Well, it might have been the same one; I have no way of knowing. And, of course, I may have been visited many times in the past ten months without having seen.

After taking a few pictures, watching quietly for a bit, and calling my girlfriend to tell her, I slowly tried to get a bit closer to the window. The heron got spooked, lept up, spread its huge wings, and flew away.

More photos

My weekends are lovely. Here's another example of where I get to be:

And here's a couple more from the past few days.

Geek dinner

Because I live in Santa Cruz, I don't get invited to many geek dinners. Actually, I didn't get invited to many when I lived in Berkeley, either. I guess you have to live near Silicon Valley. Anyhow, last night, I got to go to a typical geek dinner in Campbell that was incredibly fun. About 20 people showed up, and it seemed like the majority of people only knew about four other people there. This caused everyone to talk more and listen more (a great combination). I met some great guys (yes, it was all guys), learned about some really interesting companies and projects that are well outside of my normal scope of interest, and ate basic OK Chinese food.

Interesting people get more attention

Daring Fireball asks a great question and then answers it at the beginning of this article. "...why, if Apple only sells a small percentage of computers, the company receives such a disproportionate amount of media attention. The answer is simply that they’re selling the best computers, to the most interesting people." The rest of the article is a great explanation about why Apple's new software, which does about the same as software that have been running on Windows for at least five years, is going to be important.

More photos from Skyline

Crisp January afternoons become photos. Here's a few I took yesterday near Jikoji on Skyline ridge.

Where are the guns?

Man, I might burn in blogosphere hell forever for linking positively to Fox News, but this article about gun use is pretty good if you ignore the part about "media bias". The fact that media coverage of something as important as guns for protection is one-sided is important enough. FWIW, I don't own a gun, have never shot a gun, and until about a year ago had never handled a gun or rifle. I know folks who own them for protection.