Anders Jacobsen points to Rippy, a PHP-based server-side RSS aggregator.
I wanted something like that for doing a LiveJournal-style “friends” page. Looks very good on Anders’ site.
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Month: May 2003
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Singularity Flaws
A Public Service Announcement Regarding Singularity: The human race is counting on you, so don’t mess it up. Please plan on dying at the appropriate time.
But wait! Even if you won’t get saved by The Singularity, you might just get restored once the Omega Point comes around. Transhumanism isn’t an ideology, it’s a religion.
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Star Trek Humor
Happy Fun Pundit: Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek (via Cincom).
2. The Holodeck
I mean, it’s cool and all. But do you really believe that people would use it to re-create Sherlock Holmes mysteries and old-west saloons? Come on, we all know what the holodeck would be used for. And we also know what the worst job on the Enterprise would be: Having to squeegie the holodeck clean.
Anders Jacobsen, who has the only site that shows up on a search for dotan at Google’s weblog index (via cincom), writes about an offline weblog editor for Movable Type, SharpMT. However, his post suggests it’s not quite ready for use.
In the comments section, Adam Kalsey links to Zempt, a similar tool he’s written with Bill Zeller in C++ using wxWindows. And that’s what I’m trying to post in now. However, both of these tools seem to be just about posting (like w.bloggar). The big plus of a rich GUI desktop editor isn’t in replacing basic posting, I think, but in replacing the woefully inadequate tools for sorting, organizing and editing existing entries.
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William Gibson on Shadowrun, writing
William Gibson on Shadowrun: I’ve just been ignoring it for years, and hope to continue to.
(via Uncle Bear).
Also, Gibson on writing vs. blogging (which is another distraction, I guess, like roleplaying):
The culture of SF, particularly, seemed to me to be studded with truly scary examples of talented writers who had chosen to sublimate their energies in SF’s native (and relatively ancient) fanzine scene, the geniuses of which (and there arguably were a few) eventually (and perhaps inevitably?) evolved their own equivalents of blogging.
It’s the “conversational” aspect, I think, that keeps this kind of writing from really getting off the ground. You see the initial lift into heightened language, into intent, but when the wings begin to wobble (as they invariably will) there’s always the option of safe and instantaneous descent back into a fundamentally informal relationship with the reader. There’s no risk involved.
Unless, if you’re accustomed to playing for higher stakes, it’s the risk of some edge being taken off your game.