The Blog
03 Jun 2005 Johannes Ernst's Blog : Julian thinks "InfoCard will fall at the first fence"
Yet again the distributed conversation that is blogging fails because I didn't notice somebody blogging about something I wrote. Dammit. I've written here and on Kim Cameron's and Marc Canter's blogs that InfoCards is doomed because MS cannot implement a standard that is genuinely open. They're completely stuck in architecting something that relies on ActiveX, Internet Explorer and the WS-Stack of SOAP protocols. It's completely understandable why they do this. But it's also just about guaranteed to fail. The reliance on ActiveX and IE rejects macs, linux and firefox on the desktop. The reliance on the WS-Stack rejects PHP/PERL/Python on the server and it probably rejects Java as well because interop with plain old SOAP is patchy let alone the full stack. Basically, if you don't use an MS development environment you can pretty much guess it won't work. And compatibility or at least the ability to interop with things like SAML, PingID and Liberty is a noble goal, but I wouldn't bet money on it unless I could afford large numbers of Accenture contractors. So yet again, MS are trying to create a global standard, but a global standard that only works on their platform and so re-inforces MS Windows. I guess they can't do anything else. But frankly that means it's irrelevant to me. And I reckon it's irrelevant to at least 60% of the market and probably more like 75%. And given that it's going to be non-trivial to implement, we're probably back to a handfull of the huge players. At which point it's irrelevant to all of us. Who cares that you can sign in to Amazon with your Hotmail ID? Every player with very large numbers of accounts has the ability to create an Identity standard. But most of them rightly focus on their core business and this is just a distraction. However it's interesting to speculate about who else might pick up this opportunity. Google? Skype? That last one looks very interesting. Identity + Presence looks like being functionally rich. Back to Infocards. The touch stone for me now for any new Identity standard is whether Marc Canter and Ourmedia.org can use it. You can be sure Marc would want to as it's core to Digital Lifestyle Aggregators. And since Ourmedia is PHP, Drupal based, it's a good lowest common denominator. If it works there it will work almost anywhere. 02 Jun 2005 01 Jun 2005 Tonight's event features Stuart Henshall of Skype Journal If you're interested in the future of Skype and it's implications, you need to be there.
It also features Cory Doctorow If you're interested in why the media/entertainment complex wants to control technical innovation and make Open Source illegal, you need to be there as well. 30 May 2005 Phil Mon, 30 May 2005 06:51:47
>It was the mickey mouse short circuit, only Kagayama had raced on this one, >made passing very difficult, the track >suited the Ducs, nice to see Haga competitive again, Corser increases his >lead in the championship after Laconi >crashed out in race two. It's actually not a bad track in that configuration but it misses out on some of the more dramatic corners of the longer courses at Silverstone. But that's "not bad" from the rider's point of view. For the spectator it's complete and utter crap. I haven't been to Silverstone much over the years. Many, many times as a kid; once to see Sheene and Roberts at a F750 race; a few F1 races on hospitality in the early 90s; And yesterday. It was always flat and hard to see much but there were places where you could get reasonably close to the action and see something. But now the F1 safety issues and Ecclestone's demands have created a sterile, soulless track that exists to make money above all else and where there's so much gravel trap and fencing that you can't see a damn thing. While WSB was running on the short track, the other half of the circuit was running a car based hospitality day. Even with all the control and organization, they still manage to screw up. The PA on the pit straight was pathetic and several parts of the circuit which might have been good places to watch had no PA at all or it was turned off. The one Starvision big screen was pointing at grandstands across the whole Luffield complex so even if you were in line of sight, it would have been miles away. And yet at 90 deg to the way it was setup there were lots of spectators at good viewing points on both sides. Finally, there were no camping facilities *at all*. So no incentive to go for the whole weekend. And of course, no campsite mayhem. So we went up expecting to camp illegally in a field in the surrounding countryside and that's exactly what we did. On the good side, it was dead easy to get in and out, all queues were short and the toilets were clean (Donington, take note). Any road up, I won't be going back and my guess is that anybody who went the last few years won't go back either, so I expect the small crowd to dwindle further. Donington GP last year was like a police state. Now whether this was the effect of insurance or the "War On Terrah", I don't know. And although there are a few good places to watch, the racing is rarely close. Silverstone is utterly boring. So I think I'll only bother to go to Brands Hatch now and then just for the day. Or go to the continental circuits where they still know how to have a weekend to remember, loosely surrounding some decent racing. Warning. This is somewhat off topic and veers into areas that might be political. Mankind is a tribal species. And every so often the tribe needs to get together for a great festival. Get large numbers of people in a relatively confined area with a central event to provide the reason. Let them all get happy drunk, mashed or whatever and just let them get on with it. Inevitably a few people will get hurt in some way but the temporary autonomous zone will fulfil its purpose of bringing the tribe together. This seems to be a very basic need that keeps bubbling up. In recent history, the free festivals of the late 60s and early 70s. The Punk era. The rave culture of the late 80s and early 90s. Goa beach parties. Glastonbury up until the early 90s. The Berlin Love Parade. The Grateful Dead caravan. M/C racing events have been very much part of this and in the same spirit. From The Bol D'or to the TT to Donington (in year's past) to Assen to Jerez to Mugello. Motorcyclists got together and re-affirmed their membership of the tribe with a full on party. But somewhere along the line, central reality control in the form of Northern European societies (and those like them in USA and Canada) have decided that this sort of free form gathering is too dangerous. They need to be sanitised and controlled and preferably eliminated. If it's not the governments that do this, it's their cohorts; lawyers, insurance companies and petty bureaucrats. And if not them it's the bourgeoisie. The moneyed classes with so little sense that they can't work out that buying a house right next to a race circuit means having to put up with noise on a lot of weekends each year. Or it's the same moneyed people who may even pay to go some of these events just as long as it's not in their back yard. Some of my stand out memories, that I take out and polish every once in a while, are of these temporary autonomous zones. So it makes me very sad that in so much of the western world, these tribal gatherings are now basically outlawed. It's enough to make me want to emigrate to some country that's developed enough to have modern infrastructure but still anarchic enough to actually allow people to party en masse. But perhaps this is just the mid life crisis talking. I just have to make the effort to get myself to the great Southern European races where this still happens. And to go back to those parts of Asia where a few million people gathering for some reason in one place is normal and not a disaster in waiting that must be stopped. And right now. 28 May 2005 Open Tech 2005 - 23rd July in Hammersmith
NTK, BBC Backstage, UK Unix UG, together ... at last ... for a NotCon Sequel [from: del.icio.us] 25 May 2005 In my never ending search for better slogans and epigrams, I thought up another one.
Don't give me ads in feeds, give me a feed of ads. This is a reaction to Google adsense in feeds and the generally poor quality of adsense ads on blogs. I don't want to abuse my readers either here or on Ecademy even for money. But I do already take several composite feeds on specialist subjects from places like topix, del.icio.us, scraped Google News and so on. So why not have an associated feed of new ads from people working in those niches? BTW. My favourite bit of advice comes form matchboxes. "Keep dry and away from children". A perfect rule to live by for most of us. Today I noticed that my lighter was trying to tell me something as well. There in Caps is KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN. How can I ignore this? BTW2. So I edited this and AdSense has already targeted the post with the completely worthless:- News Feeds. Great deals on News Feed. Shop on eBay and save. Yeah, right. What is the point? I mean really, WHAT IS THE POINT? The next Ecademy Event features Cory Doctorow. Cory has very kindly given us a link on my long time favourite weblog, BoingBoing.
Places are limited for this event so get your registration in now. [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-May-05 9:42am ] Do you run Skype as well as an Instant Messenger like MSN Messenger, AOL, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger?
I bet you don't use the Instant Messenger any more. So why not just turn it off? [from: JB Ecademy] 23 May 2005 Roadcasting
links to last.fm? [from: del.icio.us] This system has some nice UI, but the thinking doesn't look to me as though it's any more clever than last.fm. And they're glossing over exactly how "you can listen to anyone in a 30 mile range" as there's no info about the broadcast technology. 22 May 2005 I've been playing with Google Maps. Along the way this web service kind of dropped out of the code.
Google Maps Address to Lat/Long convertor It's a demo guys. Please don't hammer it. Feel free to copy the code and do whatever you like with it. The trick is to request the javascript from google maps with http://maps.google.com/maps?output=js&q= and then look for the <center> tag which contains the lat/long. 21 May 2005 Fascinating idea just turned up on Tribe Social Software Intellectuals.
What if Google Adsense had an RSS feed of Ads by keyword? Wouldn't you love to have a feed of people advertising in your chosen niche? With a bit of RSS-Fu you could put a stream of Ads on your blog or site that represented your view of what your site was about as an alternative to Google's view. Looks like Publisher Driven Advertising to me. And the moment we mention keywords, surely tags are not far behind. There's something interesting in the intersection of folksonomy and adverts. Just not quite sure what it is yet. 20 May 2005 Been meaning to post this for a few days.
Marc's Voice: ID Gang : We discussed providing a governance and technical due diligence entity that could keep Microsoft honest in their upcoming identity standard efforts - InfoCards. I've referred to InfoCards as a "big momma identity backplane" - which enables any sort of identity system - to jack into a backplane - which all other identity systems share. ... Meanwhile all the other identity platforms were represented at the meeting, including Shibboleth, Liberty Alliance, i-names and Sxip - so you BET this standard is gonna have some traction. I'll make sure XFN, FOAF and other bottoms up technologies (like LID) are included as well. The one question we all have is - "will any of the big boys play along?" My question for you, Marc is "will any of the small boys play along?" By which I mean Drupal, MT, Wordpress, phpBB, Nuke and all that other open source, long tail, cheap and cheerful goodness. And there's a related question here. "Do you think Ourmedia.org will be able to use Infocards?" My guess is that IE only, MS Windows only on the desktop, WS-SOAP Stack based, and by implication MS Server only, will count you out. And it'll count me out as well. And it'll count out >60% of the market. And all that will be left is MSN, Hotmail, eBay and Amazon. Sound familiar? Is that the ghost of Hailstorm and Passport I can hear clinking outside the door? So Google is beginning the same journey to the My Google Portal page that all the other portals and their My Pages have done.
I can see the reasoning and this has at least some merit. But I can't help thinking that they've got this back-asswords. What I want is Google-About-Me, not My-Google. A page for *other* people to see everything I do, not a page where I can do everything. Or as Marc Canter would say, a Digital Lifestyle Aggregator 19 May 2005 HOW-TO: Make your own annotated multimedia Google map - Engadget - www.engadget.com.
[from: del.icio.us] Skype: be afraid: Corante > Get Real >
Why is Corante permanently broken? The comments forms don't work. The RSS is screwy. The site is slow. Anyway here's a comment to the above article in response to a whole load of misinformation. Let's try and get this right and get at the truth, please. There's a few too many half truths and "a competitor told me" stories in here. - If you stop an app and then uninstall it there is *no way* it could still be using resources, tcp sockets or connections. The only possibility is that it left behind a trojan or other malware. There has never been any suggestion that Skype does this. if it's failing to uninstall correectly, then that's a bug. I'm sure they'd love to hear the details. - If you're behind a firewall, you have a NATed IP address and you don't have large numbers of ports forwarded to your machine on your internet faceing router, there is no way Skype is going to make you a supernode. So any traffic is about your copy of Skype doing what it does in terms of displaying presence information and handling voice and chat calls. If you don't like it, sure uninstall. - *If* you are a full peer in the internet, then Skype *may* make you a supernode. In some circumstances, this can generate large numbers of connections which *may* cause your machine or router problems. You may also end up passing < 5KBps of switching traffic. You will *not* be passing other people's voice calls. I've got no connection with Skype beyond being a happy user who relishes the shake up they're giving the Telcos and IM companies. The detail above is true to the best of my knowledge and has been gleaned from scanning the Skype forums and talking to Skype specialists. If it's wrong, tell me. No matter what form of vehicle I'm using for transport all the other forms of transports are clearly being used by idiots.
- When walking, the bloody cars, cycles, motorcycles, and even other walkers seem to go out of there way to annoy me. Did you ever try and look in the non-existant rear view mirror while walking? Have you ever bumped into someone who started walking backwards or just stopped for no obvious reason? - When I'm cycling or motorcycling, the pedestrians seem to have a death wish, while the car drivers are all out to kill me or just plain get in the way. Why is it that Vans, 4*4s and especially the biggest Mercedes ae incapable of positioning themselves in the middle of their lane? - When I'm driving, the damn motorcyclists scare the hell out of me, appearing out of nowhere and then cutting across me with inches to spare. And the cyclists are just plain invisible. Seriously though as a cyclist the one thing that really winds me up is the car that accelerates to get past me before immediately braking hard to take a left hand turn. And as for horses, we don't ride or drive on the fields, what the hell are they doing on the road? And the same goes for pedestrians. I don't ride on the pavement, what are they doing in the road? The one that used to really excite me when commuting was people who play Frogger. Imagine the scene, It's the depth of winter, it's cold and wet and dark. The street lights are not all working. I'm coming down the outside of the traffic on my MegaScooter trying to peer between the raindrops on the visor and the flare from the badly adjusted headlights of the cars coming towards me. Standing in the middle of the road is a person of colour wearing a black coat, black jeans and a black bobble hat looking the other way waiting for the gap to appear in the traffic on the other half of the road so they can run across. This used to happen to me at least once a day in Stoke Newington when commuting from the City to the A10. If you routinely walk in London, please look both ways each time you walk into the gap between cars. That's next to each pavement AND the gap between lanes. The other wind up is people who start walking before you get to them as they judge the gap to end up just behind you as they pass. On a motorcycle they represent an obstacle to avoid so you pull away from them, so now they can walk faster, so you pull across a bit more, so they can walk faster, so you're now on the wrong side of the road with cars coming towards you. Having said all that, I really like riding cycles because you are almost completely anonymous, invisible and outside the law. You really have to wind up the police to ever get stopped and even then you'll only get a caution as prosecuting is just too much hassle. And I've only ever once been so under the influence that I couldn't ride a bike. Anything motorised and they have systems to deal with you. And as a pedestrian, you're at risk of the half hour stop and search or an overnight stay on sus. As good middle class citizens this probably no longer affects any of us, but it affects our teenage children and it's one to remember if you ever go on a march or decide to go somewhere vaguely illegal like Stonehenge at midsummer. Or Brixton/Toxteth/Handsworth. <victor meldrew>And there's another thing... </victor meldrew> Kim Cameron's Identity Weblog :
Kim believes that it has to be an entirely open system. My understanding is that Microsoft will find a license (I also understand they have not settled on one, in fact Kim is looking for input), that allows anybody to create any part or all of InfoCard themselves. Unlike some earlier rumors, InfoCard does not seem to be released as open source itself, but admittedly, that would really have surprised me. So: - User end requires Longhorn or an XP upgrade - Depends on SOAP and the WS protocol stack - Uses HTML OBJECT tag wth DLL support - Multiple commercial licensing but with probably no open, free, license. So that counts out Apple and Linux clients. It may well count out Firefox and other browsers. It almost certainly counts out PHP-Apache websites. Java/Perl server environments probably won't work because interop between MS implementations of the WS stack with Java/Perl implementations is extremely patchy. So >50% of the market is excluded. And *all* of the long tail of small and medium sized web sites. Which is exactly the same problem as with Passport. It ends up as an IE only, MS Windows only, client tied to a server system that only works with the very biggest players. And each one of them involves a huge sell with the corresponding bad press when they back out. What's sad about this is that Microsoft cannot separate the standards process from it's commercial business. It's completely unable to take a view that a larger market raises all boats. So I'm not at all surprised at the approach and I also predict loads of noise and very little implementation leading to another failure. I think the rest of us can safely ignore what they're doing. While at the same time borrowing from all the excellent work that people like Kim Cameron are doing on the fundamental analysis of Identity.     1681 to 1700 of 3860 |