SpaceShipOne blog

I’ll be following this closely. In the long run this may be the most important news of 2004.

SpaceShipOne blog, part 4. Ground crew member Alan Radecki says:

Hi All, The FAA spaceport license came through today, and almost immediately, signs went up at the airport. Pics are now up on the Mojave Airport Weblog as well as a couple aerials showing the parking & RV areas that I shot this morning from our helo. For those who’ll be in the RV park, sounds like the NASA interns will be throwing a big party with a band and all.

Link to part 3, Link to part 2, Link to part 1. Handy overview photo that shows the Mojave Airport scene where the ship will launch on Monday: Link. (Thanks, Todd Lappin) [Boing Boing]

Faith and Mathematics

I sure do miss Calvin and Hobbes. Always full of deep wisdom.

Calvin and Hobbes Struck Long Ago.

Anatol tells us that the Los Angeles Times’s op-ed page is way behind the curve in its attacks on “secular thought” as a religion. The definitive such attack was made by Calvin and Hobbes:

Calvin: “Math is not a science. It’s a religion. Here is a bunch of numbers, and by some magic they become another bunch of numbers. You either believe it, or you don’t. As a math atheist, I demand being freed of this”.

Hobbes: “In public school, no less. Call a lawyer”

[Brad DeLong’s Semi-Daily Journal (2004)]

My two cents on Winer

I suppose I’d feel a bit paranoid if every action I took elicited the response that “Dave” gets. For all I know, I might well have one of those supposed 3,000 weblogs that momentarily have gone away. I chose to move on to my own site once I had developed a better sense of what I wanted to do.

I haven’t been a programmer for a long time and I was never as talented at it as many. But I do create things and I know that it takes real emotional energy to create. Far more than it does to throw stones.

I’ve used products from “Userland” as a major component of the creative work I’ve done over the last several years and I’ve paid for them, because that’s what you do to ensure that you have and will have the tools you need to do your work. I have never had anything but cordial and helpful interactions with “Dave” over that time.

I also agree with AKMA’s observations this morning.

The world is full of creators and critics. Spend your time with the creators.

What’s Wrong With Winer? / Pointless Battles.

I wish people would just get a hold of themselves on the Winer / weblogs.com thing… I mean all this ranting is just a waste of energy… it was a free service – it ended – stop complaining and using this as a bashing opportunity.

It also pisses me off when people write about Winer and, so-bloody-often, put in this ‘but if you know what he’s like’ type comment. Why do people think he’s so bad? I’ve been in this sphere for ’bout a year and a half now… reading widely… and I just don’t get it…

Pershunally I agree with a lot of what he says today. I wish people would expend their energy on more worthy issues!

[incorporated subversion]

The truth about RFPs

I spend way too much time in conversations like these.

Responding to RFPs.

Very very funny :o)

So, let s say I build houses and someone says.. Hey, wanna come and build me a house?

I say Damn Straight Brother what do you need?

They say Well, I really want blue walls how much will that cost?

I say Hmm.. well, I need to know more about the house you need how many floors, how big, will you need a basement? How many doors?

They say Well, you should know that s not important. What I really need is wood shingles. Now knowing what you know how much will the house cost? And don t try to screw me because I m going to hold you to it and I also have 50 other house builders bidding for the work

I say Um let s go with $250,000

They say Wow, that s a lot. Could you justify that based on my requirements?

I say Well, it s the blue paint that made all the difference… [Joel from Canada via SoulSoup]

[incorporated subversion]

Dropping the Register from my subscriptions

I agree, I’ve just unsubscribed from the Register feed as well. Besides finding little worth reading there, I find a headline only feed to be pretty useless anyway

Harvard man loses 3,000 weblogs | The Register. Dave Winer popularized Netscape’s RDF syndication format, which has since splintered into nine incompatible formats.

This is just troll bait.

I’m unsubscribing to the register. The news there has gone tabloid. Obliviously they’re after traffic for ads. Wankers.
[Steve Hooker: cyberSaps business]

Congratulations Alan!

Congratulations indeed! I used to wish that Alan would publish more, but I finally realized that Alan’s choice was an engineer’s choice to build stuff because it was interesting and not worry about where the credit fell. Nice to know that nice guys practicing old fashioned ways can still win after all.

Congratulations Alan!.

Congratulations to Alan Kay for winning 2004 Kyoto Prize in addition to the ACM Turing Prize and the NAE Draper Prize earlier. He’s really “cleaning up” this year. This is cool. He deserves it.

Hope this helps the Squeak project too!

more info on the Kyoto Prize

By Joichi Ito joi_nospam_@nospam_ito.com. [Joi Ito’s Web]