afongen

I just discovered that the official Scrabble dictionary is online. Annoying for its acceptance of words like “ar,” the spelling of the letter ‘R,’ but diehard Scrabble players do seem to like it (snobbish comment: Kiara and I prefer to play with the OED as our dictionary, just because we have it). And for those games that I used to play with two sets of tiles so the board was nearly full, every little two-letter word I can muster came in handy.

Aw, rats. A federal judge has upheld the decision against Microsoft in the Eolas matter, barring Microsoft from distributing Internet Explorer that infringe on the patent. It’s really looking like the only way this will be resolved in a way that doesn’t frell over the web is if the U.S. Patent and Trade Office accepts examples of prior art and invalidates the patent.

Business 2.0 has a piece comparing the price of the iPod mini not to other iPods, but to its entry-level competitors. Looking at those numbers, its pricing makes sense. Mind, I’d still spend the extra $50. Or better yet, take advantage of the deal on Amazon mentioned at the bottom of the article: 10GB iPod for $236.54.

Sadly, I still don’t listen to enough music to make even that worthwhile.

Something very cool out of the University of Minnesota, the 2004 Elections Project:

The purpose of the 2004 Elections Project is to provide timely, non-partisan information about the 2004 elections. A principal focus of the project will be on the Upper Midwestern states of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and South Dakota…

Okay, so that’s a boring summary. The point is, the project will focus on the issues, in contrast to most of the mass media that instead talk about little more than how candidates are faring in the polls. I’m particularly interested in the policy briefs. (I just wish that they’d more clearly identify what’s a PDF.)

I heard a story on NPR about how more and more young people are relying on entertainment programs like The Daily Show for their news. The reporter was so distraught, concerned that the information was incomplete. I’ll give him that, but neither is your average TV news much better. That’s one of the reasons I’m so interested in the U of MN’s elections project: bored as I am by the endless series of debates amongst Democratic presidental candidates, I’m hoping to find something a bit more engaging. It’s also why I turn to the Daily Show as my primary news source. :-) (That and NPR.)

The annoying thing about the NPR piece was when the reporter gave two examples of important events in the Democratic nomination bullshit process that people surveyed didn’t know about. Thing is, both of them had been covered on the Daily Show, so you can hardly blame the show itself. And face it, there’s very little reason to follow the Democratic debates, or (god forbid) actually watch them. No one says anything meaningful.

But hey, at least they played clips from a hilarious piece about Howard Dean’s alleged temper.

Seriously, though, the campaigning has been dull. That’s why I’m stoked about this new elections project.

If Patriot Act II couldn’t pass without uproar, why not quietly add its provisions to other legislation where it will pass unnoticed? It seems that’s just what the Bush administration has been up to, and now the FBI has new power to obtain records from financial institutions without warrant. Even better, financial institutions are defined to include not just banks, credit unions, etc., but also “businesses as insurance companies, travel agencies, real estate agents, stockbrokers, the U.S. Postal Service and even jewelry stores, casinos and car dealerships.”. Great.

And here’s the kicker: much as the Patriot Act forbids librarians from saying whether or not library records have been turned over to the FBI, this new law prohibits businesses from revealing to anyone that the government has requested records.

I can understand why most people don’t give a damn whether the government knows what they’re reading. I don’t agree, I think it’s short-sighted, but I understand. With any luck, people will show a bit more concern about their financial records being monitored and their having no way of knowing.

I went looking for free and/or open source coverage testing tools as alternatives to Clover and jcoverage and found Open Source Testing. Handy.

I’ll have to collect my thoughts later, but a quick few notes on the Government IT Symposium. I kinda hate to unceremoniously dump these notes here without taking the time to think things through, but some things didn’t make it into my written notes, so they end up here.

• The project management sessions were largely worthwhile. One in particular, on dealing with the people part of a project, was especially insightful and one I’ll write about later.
• During a spirited discussion at lunch, someone said they were trying to enforce use of only Internet Explorer at their agency because it was “the most secure.” I have to track this guy down to find out just what the hell he’s smoking. :) He said something about how IE doesn’t “punch through your firewall” like Netscape. Seriously, I’m going to find him to figure out what he means. That particular discussion was cut short because someone was afraid of a holy war in an otherwise civil conversation (a justifiable but unnecessary fear).
• One of the best lines of the day: “Outsourcing is good. Consultants are bad.” Yep, that’s the attitude out there.
• Another good line, but not tongue-in-cheek: “Business requirements should be kept separate from technical requirements.”
• Everything I heard today about best practices in project management flies squarely in the face of how a certain project that I have not yet ranted about here has been mismanaged from day one. Just like I and many of my colleagues been saying all along, but apparently to the wrong people.
• Project management is not about managing, it’s about leading.
• Even though it was never brought up today, I am even more convinced that agile methodologies like Extreme Programming are to be given serious consideration. I will definitely get back to that point someday soon.
• The wireless network was slow, and I was one of the few people there with a laptop. It didn’t turn out to be as useful as it has at other conferences, so it stays home tomorrow.

Okay, now off to sleep. More sessions tomorrow.

Starting tomorrow I’ll be at the Minnesota Government IT Symposium. If you’ll be there, drop me a line (sam at afongen dot com). Or just look for me: I’ll be the hostile-looking guy in the corner, wishing there weren’t so many frelling people.

I see that there will be a wireless network. Good; I was worried. In fact, “the network will blanket the RiverCentre and extend up to 30 miles away!” Show-offs. Now I can take notes with SubEthaEdit and see if anyone joins in. ‘Course, how much do you want to bet that I’ll be the only one there with a Mac?

The Symposium itself looks mostly worthwhile. I just couldn’t bring myself to attend the day-long seminar on government web sites (“Usability, Ethics, and Accessibility”): I would have been bored out of my mind. I figure the project management seminar will be more useful for professional development. I’m still trying to make my mind up about some of the shorter concurrent sessions. As usual, there are some times when none of the sessions grab me, others where I can’t decide between several.

Speaking of conferences, it’s been suggested that I submit a proposal to do a session on web accessibility at an upcoming conference. It’s a good idea ⅀ I’m all for faculty learning more about how to make their online course materials more accessible, and I know that I could do a compelling session — but I don’t think that I’ll submit a proposal. My mind is so very elsewhere right now, mostly immersing myself in the fun-filled world of Java web development. Maybe I’ll try to do something at ITeach, which comes later this spring.

I’ve been waiting for this for months, and here it is. Battlestar Galactica just started on the Sci Fi channel. I have only vague memories of watching the original as a kid, and they’re campy memories at that, so I can’t be too disappointed. Heh. No, I’m being unfair, it looks very cool. I mean hey, Cylons can have sex.

Macromedia have open-sourced Spectra, their ColdFusion-based content management system (originally Allaire Spectra). They’re no longer developing or selling it, so why not release the source?

Of related interest: FarCry, an open source CMS using ColdFusion MX.