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.
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.
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'?
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.
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
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.
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