I just dropped ComputerWorld's SharkTank from my feed reader.  I've been cleaning up my subscriptions.  I have way more subscriptions then humanly possible to consume (and he's not human - so don't interrupt me).  When I started using Google's reader I had imported my feeds from another tool that organized feeds differently.  I ended up carrying a folder full of ComputerWorld feeds and never reading them.

It turns out there is a reason I don't read them.  The one feed I didn't immediately remove was SharkTank.  I remembered the stories were humorous.  The problem is the publisher insists on only publishing partial feeds.  I mean what's the point.  Each story is so short I spend more time navigating to the story then I do actually reading it. And then to top it off, this is user submitted material.  An editor somewhere is cleaning up this content but otherwise they are trying to monetize readers content and inconveniencing me.  Never mind.

Partial feeds can work but most of the time they are an inconvenience.  If you insist on shackling content then your hurdle is much greater for attracting readers.  I have got to want to navigate to your page and step out of the feed reader context. It's your prerogative but you are going to lose readers like me if you don't have really compelling material.

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

Nike Football Leave Nothing

Update: An anonymous friend has posted link to a live video of Dougie MacLean performing The Gael. In the interest of driving link karma his way I'll add a link to a web site selling his CD The Searcher from 1991.

My 17 year old daughter says "I don't get it" watching the latest Nike commercial.  The commercial, featuring Sean Merriman transitioning seamlessly between games with different opponents and different playing conditions.  She's trying to find the logic in the action.  There's no logic.  This is all about emotion.  It makes me want to get out and tilt at windmills - it's just motivating.  Lets go kick some ass!

I get it.  The commercial hits an emotional key few commercials reach.  The music in the background is "The Gael" by Dougie MacLean and is most familiar to everyone that enjoyed The Last of the Mahicans.  In fact, what really works is to watch the clip from the movie and then watch the commercial.

So go out and rent the video and reward Michael Mann for some really good work.  The cinematography, the music, the direction - he's done some good work and this is some of the best.  (And if you're inclined, rent The Kingdom - another movie of his that hits the right chords.  It's hard to believe this is the same guy that subjected us to not only the original Miami Vice series but had the cojones to bring the series to the big screen (no link recommendation for that POS).

The Gael

The Last of the Mohicans

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

I am intrigued by the concept of transclusion. Briefly, transclusion is defined as the inclusion of part of a document into another document by reference.  Ted Nelson conceptualized the approach in his 1982 book Literary Machines.  Ted Nelson is arguably one of the great visionaries of the field not only proposing transclusion but also the more fundamental concepts hypertext and micro payments.

Until recently, there have been limits on the adoption of transclusion. The biggest issue I have seen with the implementation has been the expectation that web authors are encoding their content with 'tags' to provide anchor points for copying blocks of text or images.  It takes effort to do so and serves no semantic purpose.  These tags take the form of "purple numbers" or sections.  Without a body of content built to support transclusion, the technique has limited adoption.

Over at Blue Oxen, they have introduced an AJAX based solution solution called Purple-Include which provides a way for web authors to bring in content from other web sites. The solution has two parts:

1. A server based back end which pulls the information from the target web site; and
2. A client side script (JavaScript) that parses the transclusion command and embeds the content in the page.

The Purple-include technique builds on implementations by supporting several syntax'.  Most valuable is the support of the XPath language.  The XPath language allows you to address part of an XML document.  XPath provides simple navigation through an XML document down to a specific paragraph.  While Purple-Include supports the ability to reference content by tag name, the XPath support effectively jumps around the the chicken and the egg paradox transclusion has faced to this point.

But this is a geek's solution.  The percentage of general population bloggers who understand XPath has to very small.  The implementation does not support the casual blogger.  A good deal of experimentation would be required to reference a single section of a web page.  The effort of tagging content for transclusion has been replaced with the consumer's effort to properly navigate through an XHTML document.  People who care and who are technical enough will invest the time, but otherwise it is too much effort.

We are so close to having a solution.  A single enterprising (and I'm certain technically gifted) developer can beat this problem.  I am proposing a mash up of several proven tools that would open this capability to general population bloggers.  Envision a tool embedded in any rich text editor which when triggered would open a series of panels.  Here's the sequence:

1. Set the insertion point where you want the transcluded code.
2. Press the transclude button.
3. A dialog box is opened with a prompt to enter the target URL. 
4. After pressing enter, the target page is opened in a new window with a floating tool bar to select the code to be referenced.
5. For casual users, the means by which text is referenced is not important.  More technical users can select one of several selection methods: XPath, DOM or named reference.
6. After selecting the text/images, the user closes the dialog box and the selected text is transcluded at the insertion point with proper attribution.

In fact, most rich text editors have the starting point for this solution in place already: blockquotes.  For some reason, the editors have not automated the selection of the referenced code.  The concept is the same except that instead of storing the content in two places, in a transcluded world only the reference to the text stored - not the text.

And finally, transclusion works one of three ways (to my knowledge):

1. Remote transclusion via proxy (Purple-Include)
2. IFrame inclusion
3. Frames

The latter two solutions are clumsy and ignore the simple solution presented by Purple-Include via Ajax style development.  RTE vendors aren't in the business of developing ajax solutions so asking them to produce this capability is not a natural act.  A better option are the vendors producing blogging tools themselves.  Blogger, Wordpress and Six Apart are all well positioned to provide this solution.  They have development staff to produce Ajax based editor solutions and a host platform on which to run the backend code.

I am hopeful this well placed missive will prod someone to scratch my itch.

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

A particularly timely quote from Theodore Roosevelt (via The Positivity Blog):

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

I haven't figured this one out yet.  Yoomba is supposed allow you to call an e-mail address.  From what I can see it is a call out feature.  I have installed it on my home machine and with everything else running on it now - the machine has slowed significantly.  I will play with is some more and see if it is indeed the new software or an environmental issue.

That being said, the installation is very nice.  You enter an e-mail on the registration page.  Yoomba sends you an e-mail with a link.  After pressing the link it starts sending you an executable.  The executable automatically logged in to my Yahoo account (not sure I like that - but I guess since I was already logged in - no harm done) and imported my contact records.  It did the same (asking for my permission first) with my Outlook contacts.

The idea is that it adds a plugin to both Outlook and IE so that when recognizable e-mail messages are displayed, it inserts a set of controls so that you can call that person.  So far, that's as far as I have gone with it.

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

Ok - just making a quick note here while I'm thinking of it.  Not that I have either of these fun gadgets - but wouldn't be interesting to blend the control concepts inherit in the Wii controllers with the iPhone and how it interacts with the physical world.  And while we are at it, lets add IR to the phone so that we can spawn a new industry which leverages the ability of the WiiPhone (not what you think) to control the physical environment.  Pervasive computing indeed.

Of course, there is nothing new under the sun

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

I have not tried the service, so unlike some of my other links here, I can not provide any assurance regarding the service.  That being said, I really like the idea of the Numbr service.  The idea is a simple one, you sign up for a temporary phone number.  If you do nothing the number expires one month after you sign up.  You also have the option of expiring the phone number.  They guarantee that numbers will not  be reused (I don't know how that could be true).  It's an outgrowth of Craigslist so there's a real business behind this.  I'm just not sure how they make money.

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

Becky just called me with the news that Matt had boarded the flight to Milan.  The Loerke clan had some passport issues but those apparently were resolved since everyone was able to board the flight.

Becky also passed along that the flight had been delayed 30 minutes.  Apparently, the airport in Milan - Lenate - is struggling with a horde of breeding rabbits.  The hares are a hazard to landing and departing planes.

This quote from BBC article indicates the extent of the issue:

Things have become so serious that officials have taken the unusual step of closing Linate for three hours - from first light on Sunday - while a team of local wildlife experts try to catch the 80 or so hares that have been causing the problem.

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

What's a saying or phrase that's never made sense to you?

"It is what it is" - not only does it not make sense, I can't stop myself from saying it.  It is a meaningless expression when you want to acknowledge that you have no way of influencing the way things are - so I guess the expression has meaning - but not much.

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

When was the last time you did something dangerous? 
Submitted by Ross. 

That depends on what you consider dangerous.  Many people consider white water rafting dangerous - but for the most it's just exhilerating.  No, to be really dangerous, you have to do something stupid.

When I was in High School I (driving an old van), I raced another high school senior down a local street.  About half way down the street we encountered a car facing away from us turning left.  Without room to do anything else, I passed the car on the left and my competitor passed them on the right.  Fortunately for all of us, the driver did not turn.

Stupid or dangerous - or both.  Both.

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

I ran across a few cool services I want to share with everyone. 

The first is Jott and it allows you to send email messages to yourself and others.  The process is very painless:

1. Set up your account including your cell phone number and your e-mail address.
2. Call the Jott toll free number.
3. Indicate who you want to send a message to by saying their name ("me" or "myself" for yourself).
4. If you sent the message to yourself then you have an e-mail with the text of the voice message and the actual voice message.  If you sent it to someone else - they have both.

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com

World Press Photo Awards for 2006

Originally posted on villiageidiot.vox.com