Web 2.0?

What is Web 2.0? I've read/scanned a number of blog entries and articles on this topic, but still haven't seen a good description of Web 2.0!

Web 2.0 in three words says it's just the read-write web. The funny thing about this is that was the original intent and the original software on NeXT machines made this quite easy. Tim Berners-Lee's new blog points to this fact---see The WorldWideWeb browser for details.

Dave Winer (one of my favorite bloggers) wrote about TheTwoWayWeb about four and a half years ago. He probably won't get credit for this either, just as he has been removed from Podcast history (see Growing pains for Wikipedia for some background on the Podcast invention scandal), which is another blog entry itself....

So, from now on I'm going to think of Web 2.0 as The Web as it was intended.

Update December 19, 2005
Web 2.0? It doesn't exist is a recent piece on this issue. I saw this the other day, but didn't have time to post this, but noticed that Dave Winer points to it. I like Dave's summary:

He's exactly right, and what he says is kind of obvious.

Web 2.0 is a way for certain marketing people to claim they invented stuff that they didn't invent, without actually claiming they invented it. It's the kind of double-talk marketing guys love.

In a sense people are right when they say it's another bubble. It's dishonest like the bubble was. Yet the technologies they're hyping are honest.

Purgatory!

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

Top Geek Movies

It's alway interesting to look at lists of top-rated books or movies to see how many I have read or seen. A little earlier I stumbled on a link to an article about the best geek movies ever. Their list (see the link for details):

1. Blade Runner
2. 2001
3. Star Wars/ESB (Empire Strikes Back)
   
4. Dr Strangelove
5. The Matrix
6. Twelve Monkeys
7. Lord of the Rings
8. Aliens
9. Donnie Darko
10. The Terminator

I agree with their first choice, but think The Terminator belongs a little higher on the list. What about Tron and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension? There is at least one classic B movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still, missing also. The only movie I haven't seen, on this list, is Donnie Darko. Maybe we will watch it during Christmas break (Patrick Swayze is in it, so my wife might watch it).

Tags: Movies

S or M?

Are you a Sadist or a Masochist? How lethal? brought to you by Quizilla




You're a sadist, and love to hurt people around you. You go out of your way to hurt people, whether that means dumping some poor peer on the sidewalk after having a 'meaningful fling' or whether it's giving that particularly quiet person in class a horendous nick name. You like to play in sports like wrestling, football, or soccer, all of which have hand-to-hand (or foot-to-foot if you must) playing. Breaking a nose, collapsing a knee, or making them cry... it all does the same thing for you. When it comes to master and slave, you're always the master, and they're always pleading to be let go. But mercy means nothing to you, and that's how you like it.

Not sure what to say about this....

Debugging

Unfortunately, programs don't always work as expected, so programmers have to find the problems. This process is widely known as debugging and receives considerable technical attention, because programmers are always looking for faster ways to track down problems. Today, one such article popped up in my news aggregator: Signals as a Linux debugging tool

It contains some nice examples using a different technique than many of us often employ---the use of signals. It's been quite awhile since I've used them, so it was an entertaining diversion to work with them before one of my meetings this afternoon.

While reading/working my way through Signals as a Linux debugging tool, I found one of the references in it, Mastering Linux debugging techniques, to be very interesting. There is at least three hours of amusement in it.

I may use this material to create a lab or two for one or more of my classes. We could have squeezed in one more lab this semester, but we didn't have time to develop another lab.

Tags: Debugging