Status-Q

[Original Link] ...but I've never tried emulating one.

[Original Link] A wonderful collection of public pronouncements about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. (Thanks to Adam Curry for the link)

[Original Link] Dave Winer hits on what is, for me, a key attraction of weblogs:

"On my weblog no one can change what I wrote. In contrast, having written for professional publications, pros have to prepare for their writing being interfered with. Sometimes you submit right at the copy-edit deadline. Or you write exactly the required number of words so nothing can be cut. But in the end, the words that appear are an amalgam of what your organization thought should be said on the subject you're addressing."

Exactly this has happened to me, most recently writing for the Communications of the ACM and the IEE Review. The dear old CACM, for example, objected to my use of the phrase "three score years and ten", presumably as requiring too much education on the part of its readers. Sad to see such dumbing down in what used to be an academic journal. They admitted it, too, though with the qualifier, "...we call it 'mainstreaming'".

The Review editors, on the other hand, introduced typos, while cutting out entire paragraphs, with the result that I appeared to be arguing the opposite point from my intended one, and doing so incompetently. This was done at the last minute, of course, after I had approved another version.

In both of these cases, it's only really my wounded pride that bothers me, because despite their large distribution numbers, I doubt very many people actually read that sort of journal any more. I care less about the mangling of my words than that my name is still associated with them afterwards! I make lots of mistakes and stylistic errors too, of course, but at least here I can fix them before too many people notice.

[Original Link] I love the BBC.

[Original Link] Bruce Eckel on why Python programs, even fairly substantial systems, can work so well despite it being such a weakly-typed language. Python has been my favourite language for about six or seven years now, though when I want a GUI I usually use the web, and hence usually write PHP code because it's so tightly integrated with Apache. PHP, though, is just PERL with some of the more horrific parts taken out. Neither can ever achieve the elegance and readability of Python.

A friend sent me this image entitled "Frodo failed" - I think it's brilliant.

All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates.

(Woody Allen)

It's only as I start setting up a new machine with a hosting company that I realise how much I liked my old Cobalt RaQ. This new machine comes with Ensim's WEBppliance software, which is pretty good, but not as good as Cobalt's. I'm writing some notes which might help anyone else just starting with Ensim after being used to more regular Linux machines.

[Original Link] Perhaps the first non-Mac I might have in the sitting room?

[Original Link] Another good NYT article. This one is about how, as Google becomes the world's encyclopedia,

"...a high Google ranking can also have a lot of clout in the marketplace of ideas. It seems to confer "ownership" on a particular word or phrase ? deciding, in effect, who gets to define it. ... And when it comes to more specialized topics, the rankings give disproportionate weight to opinions of the activists and enthusiasts that may be at odds with the views of the larger public. It's as if the United Nations General Assembly made all its decisions by referring the question to whichever nation cares most about the issue: the Swiss get to rule on watchmaking, the Japanese on whaling.