Regex Powertoy fixes

Some combination of Firefox updates in the 1.5.x range or perhaps Java updates had left Regex Powertoy in a state where it usually wouldn't initialize properly, leaving it non-functional.

It's been updated with a new way to delay initialization until the necessary background applet is surely available. Also, a couple bugs with replace backreferences and replace matchmarks have been fixed. If it's seemed flaky the last time you tried it, give it another whirl.

(For more background on Regex Powertoy, see this post.)

Labels: powertoy, regex, regexp, regular expressions, tool

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Gaming for hearts and minds

Video games can now involve a serious physical workout...

Economist (March 8): Let's get physical - Video games: “Exergaming”, which combines on-screen action with physical exercise, shows that gamers need not be couch potatoes

Or, no physical exertion whatsoever...

Economist (March 15): Mind games - Brain-controlled games and other devices should soon be on sale

Tags: exercise, exergaming, exertainment, video+games

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Eureka! Free Lotto!

A judge in northern California has ruled that you don't have to pay gambling debts in California:

A Daly City couple who allegedly wrote $43,000 in bad checks to casinos in California and Nevada got bailed out today by a judge, who said gambling debts are unenforceable in California courts.

Despite the state's increased acceptance and legalization of various forms of gambling, its courts will not recognize lawsuits by casinos that extend credit to gamblers, said Superior Court Judge Quentin Kopp, a retired jurist who heard the case in San Mateo County.

"Enforcement of such claims is prohibited as against California's public policy," Kopp wrote. He cited a 1993 ruling by a state appeals court in San Francisco that found what the court described as a "critical distinction between public acceptance of gambling itself and California's deep-rooted policy against enforcement of gambling debts -- that is, gambling on credit."

I'm planning to celebrate my state's principled stand against gambling by buying $43,000 worth of California Lottery Scratchers with bad checks and credit cards I'll never have pay down. Thanks Judge Kopp!

Tags: facetious, gambling, california, debt, lottery, hypocrisy

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Crossing Over, with John Edwards

Maybe Presidential candidate John Edwards and ghost-whisperer John Edward aren't so different after all. Encouraged by the opening question in an interview at BeliefNet, Edwards is now channelling Jesus:

[interviewer] What parts of American life do you think would most outrage Jesus?

[John Edwards] Our selfishness. Our resort to war when it's not necessary. I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually.

And just last week a Pastor in Florida helpfully answered the age-old question, WWJF? ("Who Would Jesus Fire?") Namely, Jesus would not employ a City Manager planning a sex-change operation:

"If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he'd want him terminated," said Pastor Ron Saunders of Largo's Lighthouse Baptist Church. "Make no mistake about it."

Edwards' Jesus and Saunders' Jesus might have some stern words for each other if they were to be jointly-booked on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Asked for comment, James Cameron's Jesus responded by pointedly not spinning in his ossuary.

Make no bones about it: if Jesus were here today, he'd thank everyone for speaking on his behalf while he was away.

Tags: facetious, Jesus, channelling, ghosts, James Cameron, John Edward, John Edwards, religion

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I, for one, welcome our Wii-trained sword-wielding... *swish* *slash* 'Ayyyyye!'

YouTube: WiiBot

We took an industrial robot, strapped a tennis racket and a sword to it, and put it under the control of a WiiMote. We ran very light pattern recognition on the WiiMote, so it would copy our sword swings.

Previously: I, for one, welcome our new... *rat-tat-tat-tat-tat*

Tags: scary, robots, wii, swords, save+us,+john+connor, youtube

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Flickr 'machine tags'... just don't call it RDF

O'Reilly Radar: Flickr Launches Machine Tags

Great idea from Flickr: extending server-side 'tagging' support to understand a wee bit more fielded structure. Plus, avoiding highfalutin' RDFishness, in name or format, by calling the feature 'machine tags' and reusing an ad hoc intuitive syntax already employed by many taggers.

You can surely guess what these tags mean:

geo:lat=45.110133335
geo:lon=7.67979417
address:street=Via Guglielmo Reiss Romoli 164
address:postalcode=10148
flickr:user=straup
flora:tree=coniferous
medium:paint=oil

Bitzi has been considering a similar semi-structured tagging feature; looks like I can tear up my syntax notes and get with a now-established program.

Not sure 'machine tags' is the best name, though -- they're not only going to be entered or interpreted mechanistically by software. Perhaps 'fielded tags' or even just 'named tags'?

Tags: tags, flickr, bitzi, rdf, syntax, metadata, fields,

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Adob2p: can Adobe do for web p2p what it did for web video?

GigaOM considers Adobe and its P2P Ambitions.

By adding just-good-enough video playback to its ubiquitous Flash plug-in, Adobe solved web video in a way that years of clunky software from Real, Apple, and Microsoft did not, making YouTube and its ilk possible.

Now Adobe is dropping hints a p2p engine, perhaps the Kontiki system now owned by Verisign, could be bundled with its Flash player. As the first commenter at GigaOM notes, Adobe's internet distribution power, via its installed base, is second only to Microsoft.

I've wanted a p2p distribution mesh well-integrated with the web for years. I thought it'd arrive via some open source server-side extensions ("ap2pache"?) and an enhanced browser (Firefox extension?) capable of seamlessly peerloading resources via location-agnostic identifiers. But I'll take ubiquitous p2p as part of a proprietary plug-in, if that's what it takes.

The interesting question is: would the resulting p2p distribution capability be open to anyone with popular content, regardless of license or commercial status? Or will Adobe/Kontiki charge a toll to participate? The barriers for anyone to use Flash video seem negligible -- a good precedent. However, I don't know the full details, and if by chance Adobe thinks it deserved more of a payback from Flash video's runaway success, it might try harder to charge for using its next new Flash-bundled functionality.

One plug-in to rule them all?

Tags: adobe, flv, p2p, adobp2p, ap2pache, kontiki, flash, video

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Summarizing scaling MySpace

Baseline Magazine: Inside MySpace.com

Nice article about how MySpace has scaled its website during its continuing hyper-growth. My summary in 256 characters (the del.icio.us limit for 'notes'):

2*web,1*db>N*web>master-slave dbs>db-per-feature>SAN>partition tables (but 1 login srvr)>ditch coldfusion for c#/asp.net>upgrade SAN>add distrib. caching, finally>go to 64bit DB/OS>fight MS limits>face cascading power outage>now: adding geo redund. to SAN

Tags: myspace, scaling, web

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"Post-Watergate Leader Calmed U.S."

That was the SF Chronicle headline last week announcing Gerald Ford had died. Not much of a epitaph, to be defined by what you came after, and as a sort of valium for the body politic.

Ford became President a few weeks after I turned four years old, and was the first person I can remember holding the office. (I only recall Nixon ever being referred to in the past tense.)

In our mock 1st grade election, where we walked to the back of the classroom one by one behind a blackboard to place a stick-on star under our chosen candidate's name, Ford was also "my" first presidential vote. Of course at that age any child's vote is just some weakly modulated form of their parents' and community's sentiments. I recall my parents saying something to the effect of Ford doing a fair job under difficult circumstances and deserving a longer term, while being unimpressed with Carter and his drawl, as might be expected of New Jersey suburbanites of the era.

Ford won New Jersey, but lost my classroom and, of course, the national election. So I got used to the idea of my candidate losing right away, excellent practice for many elections to follow.

Tags: gerald+ford, politics, reminiscing, 1976,

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