TodaysNotes/ToFile - Raymond Yee's Wiki

I need to archive the old notes somewhere.

2004-01-02

I am going to start archiving notes in a DailyNotes section. For example:

Given my current intense interest in YasujiroOzu, how had I missed

ozuyasujiro.com, a "non-commercial online resource celebrating Ozu since 1998"?

In One Suburb, Local Politics With Asian Roots (NYT) about the increasing amount of involvement in the politics of Cupertino by Asians.

[DailyNotes/2004/01/02]

Revisited: Web Services are not Distributed Objects

2003-12-08

I'm at CniOrg/ForumMeeting2003b today and tomorrow and will try to blog what I'm learning there.

The end of the album because of downloading

Lots of talk about WalMart these days, including this Is Wal-Mart Good for America? in The New York Times

PyProtocols:

PyProtocols

Python Application Framework:

PAF is short for the Python Application Framework. It is a set of python modules designed to shorten the development period needed to create applications in Python. If you have ever created your own applications you will know that a lot of the work needed to create an application is spent on 'reinventing the wheel'. This makes application development a slow process. To remedy this problem a lot of solutions emerged. One of them is code reuse which is at the heart of every application framework.

[py_mpgedit http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=mailman.1070079965.7409.clpa-moderators@python.org]:

py_mpgedit is the mpgedit SDK python extension for Linux and Windows. mpgedit Software Development Toolkit (SDK) is a library exporting core editing, playback and indexing functionality. It edits and plays MP3 files (MPEG 1 layer 1/ 2/3, MPEG 2, and MPEG 2.5 audio files). Using this toolkit, developers can create their own MP3 editing applications.

2003-12-02

Time to just start archiving entries in TodaysNotes that are actually from previous days -- they are piling up!

A reference I found in Joel Spolsky's essay on software craftsmanship (that I blogged about today): Eric Raymond's Threads — Threat or Menace?

2003-12-01

Charles Myers is giving a talk Extend the Power of Business Processes. What is this "intelligent document"? XDP (XML Data Package)

CoverPages for XDP

2003-11-29

I discovered Wu Xing, a group of six musicians: 3 Chinese, 3 German, dedicated to "European Chinese world music". Some mp3 are available for download from the site; I particularly recommend Bo.

In culling through my pile of old issues of The New Yorker, I came across David Denby's review of Matrix Revolutions. The ending the essaymade me ponder my own misconstructed sense of helplessness, about which Tokyo Story actually has a lot to say:

In the first movie, the lifelessness of the humans’ speech made one doubt that humanity was actually worth fighting for. But if one ignores the wilder speculative meanings that have been drawn from the series (we are all wired together in a simulated reality), there remains something halfway palpable in these movies: in a period in which gigantic corporations and entire governments devote themselves to promoting made-up realities, people may genuinely wonder what world they are living in. The fact that so many intellectuals in particular found “The Matrix” fascinating suggests how impotent they feel to change anything around them. Movie critics, however, are fascinated by the aesthetic life or death in the object right before their eyes, and they tend to fight one machine or pod at a time rather than recast their helplessness as a theory of subjection. It’s better, perhaps, to win or lose small battles than to never start fighting at all.

I've not read any of John Updike's novels or stories, though I am familiar with his essays in the NewYorkReviewOfBooks. Louis Menand's celebratory piece of Updike in The New Yorker -- and then Cynthia Ozick's review -- have sparked my interest in reading more Updike.

Eight of us went to see YasujiroOzu's Tokyo Story last night at the PFA. I'm planning to see a lot more Ozu in the next weeks. I got a kick out of the beginning lines from the article about Ozu in The East Bay Express:

Tokyo Story

2003-11-26

It's just before Thanksgiving -- so, alas, it's tough to get focused. But let me note a few things:

The NsfItrProgram has issueed its RFP. Should we apply?
The CniOrg has posted the agenda for the Fall 2003 Task Force Meeting. It would be good for me to sort out the sessions I plan to attend.
It's important to keep my focus from the top-down. Programming is certainly fun. There is a profound sense of satisfaction that comes from programming. I was able to extract my blogroll out of SharpReader and post it to RyRssSubscriptionList, which is rendered on my IU blog.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/index.html looks interesting.
I missed Richard Atkinson's A New World of Scholarly Communication the first time.

MovableType security problem reported; fix offered. I applied to the fix to my personal blog.

2003-11-25

Great serious about OutliningPrograms: Outliner history, Outline features, Part 1, Outliner features, Part 2

Task Force Recommendation 2.3 Research and Design Review: Improving User Access to Library Catalog and Portal Information

Music biz should shift to flat-fee, P2P model - exec:

To act otherwise, to create digital tethers to creativity and information, would condemn much of the world's population to darkness, to outdated textbooks and third-hand inspiration. What's worse, it's the haves who will suffer alongside the have-nots, the former deprived of the creativity of the latter. Flat fees and feels free go hand-in-hand, creating a world of compensation and collaboration. We hold much more in our open hands than we ever could in the closed-fist of so-called intellectual property. Finding the balance is the key and pricing should be our focus.

Switched-on Bach:

Why that piece specifically? "Well, I've lived with the piece for years, and I recorded it, so I really know it very well. But it's still completely mysterious. Why did Bach at the end of his life decide to devote so much time to exploring every possible variety of fugue? Harry Birtwistle [the composer] says it's Bach showing off" - at this point she bursts into laughter, turning all the heads in the restaurant - "but, to me, that doesn't add up because I'm not sure Bach even wanted it performed. It's a totally private piece."

2003-11-24

Erik Duval and Wayne Hodgins co-wrote and co-presented a research agenda for LearningObjects. Duval and a co-author wrote about taking apart Powerpoint presentations and re-assembling them into new slide shows as a model for learning object creation.

StephenDownes wrote Resource Profile:

This paper describes the need for resource profiles, outlines their major conceptual properties, describes different types of constituent metadata, and examines the use of resource profiles in practice.

We need to exercise FairUse vigorously lest we lose to copyright extremists/extremism, those who falsely lay copyright claims to things they don't own.

MarkPilgrim has implemented his photo album in RdfSpec. Note his link to how some RDF advocates insist on RDFication of all data.

Geneology XML

2003-11-23

I've been looking for an issue-tracking system. Bugzilla is on the list of candidates. How about Roundup, based on PythonLanguage?

Why does China grows beholden to skin-deep beauty: Prosperity begets boom in cosmetic surgery business bother me so much?

I am enjoying Rough Guide to the Music of China. AiJing's catchy lead piece to her My 1997 album.

2003-11-22

2003-11-21

Keynote's XML Connections

2003-11-20

China Sees Rapid Growth in American Students Studying Abroad

I'm sitting down to really think through MODS.

2003-11-18

I will want to check in on the CETIS metadata mailing list, especially because there is discussion about representing bibliographic data in LOM. (via LornaCampbell)

The Insignificance of Statistical Significance Testing

DigiCult (thematic issues)

2003-11-08

Last Friday night, friends and I attended a performance by the CloudGateTheatre, a confluence of JsBach, BachInfluenceOnCulture, BachAndDance, FindingMyRoots and BachCelloSuites (among other things)
Last Wednesday night, two of us went to hear StudsTerkel.
I've been sucked into working with OpenOfficeOrg and figuring out the rich possibilties it presents for us in our ScholarsBox work
I updated StoryAboutKites. I'd still like to get back to working with Laura Shefler on co-writing a children's book, maybe adding to the literature of ChineseNorthAmericanChildrensBooks. A couple of days, I had a spate of recalling MyChildhoodMemories
LynnJones has been talking about the MetsSpec -- I'd like to respond to her questions.
I'm hopelessly addicted to BBC's AsTimeGoesBySeries
CliffordLynch sparked a lots of ideas and questions in me in yesterday's talk on Stewardship in the Digital Age
The NewYorkReviewOfBooks got me interested in listening to Eminem. As I listened to the Eminem Show (lyrics), I got more interested in wanting to finally attend the Lunch Poems at UcBerkeley. I'll be out of town for the next even on November 6 -- but I should be able to make December 4, 2003 reading of Robert Haas. (I know that this
I'm listening to talks on the modern OS by the head of Microsoft's research division. I'm not surprised by the developments afoot at M$ -- it actually has resources to carry out the vision. The question is how small groups like ours can be prepared for the advent of Longhorn. Is the OpenSource community ready for the challenge?
ClayShirky's The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview is highly critical of the SemanticWeb project. DannyAyers has responses: 1, 2. RolandTanglao points to Paul Ford's response. Would be nice to go back to sort out the arguments, especially in the context of my FiguringOutRdf