The Truth About Love

Saw this on the rearview mirror of a rick I took to work:

Same love dont gives enjoy

Making Web Standards Work

More W3C Controversy

We should work on, and implement, the standards that we think are appropriate for Web browsers, and ignore the rest. We should spend our time improving what Web developers and users want, not waste our time improving what is less important or criticizing what isn't going to work in the first place.

+1

Random PHP stuff

Here's some random PHP stuff I stumbled upon:

htmlSQL

I had this idea while extracting some data from a website. As I realized that the algorithms and functions to extract links and other tags are often the same - I had the idea to combine all functions to an universal usable class. While drinking a coffee and thinking on that problem, I thought it would be cool to access HTML elements by using SQL. So I started creating this class... SELECT href, title FROM a WHERE $class == 'list'

Nanoweb

Nanoweb is an HTTP server written in PHP, designed to be small, secure, and extensible. ... Thanks to its very modular architecture, Nanoweb can also be used as a framework to develop your own standalone web based applications

PHP "raycaster" 3D renderer

I mentioned recently that I was looking for an interesting PHP project. This evening I remembered an idea I had a while ago to make a 3D renderer in PHP (and if anyone's tempted to ask - "because I can" ). I did a bit of reading on old 3D engines, as I didn't want something modern and slow, and found out that the "raycaster" rendering used in Wolfenstein 3D is ridiculously easy to implement. A few hours later and it's up and running

WinBinder

WinBinder is a new open source extension for PHP, the script programming language. It allows PHP programmers to easily build native Windows applications.

JavaScript interpreters in PHP:
PHP/JavaScript Interpreter
J4P5

Parkour

Ok, you can close your mouth now. Turns out the the guy in the video (which is a clip from the French action movie Banlieue 13, released in the US as District B13) is David Belle, the founder of Parkour.

Here is how David describes Parkour:

At the physical end, Parkour is getting over all the obstacles in your path as you would in an emergency situation. You want to move in such a way, with any movement, that will help you gain the most ground on someone/something as if escaping from someone/something or chasing toward someone/something. Also, wherever you go, you must be able to get back. If you go from A to B, you need to be able to get back from B to A. You don't need to do the same "move," but just get back.

There are a few more Parkour videos on YouTube but some of them seem more like Free running or Tricking.

Where do Americans get their news and who controls what they consume?

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are quickly rising, but are not included in this chart because they do not own--not yet, anyway--the major television networks, which remain Americans' #1 source of news

via the The National Entertainment State, 2006

Life Is Too Short

Life Is Too Short for JAVA, do|php :)

Lets talk about REST

Its great to see all this talk about REST. Now if only they could figure out the difference between a resource and its representations (the R in REST) and pry the XML off HTTP and discover media types.

*sigh*

A funny thing...

A funny thing happened to me on the way,
I was suddenly nowhere.
I stumbled upon some words,
brought back memories of those days.
The wind knocked off my prosthetic leg,
and I fell!

It's really all just about the ride

And the winner of the Firefox Flicks Video Contest is: <drumrolls> Daredevil, by Pete Macomber </drumrolls>


Watching that reminded me of Waking Life. The part where the girl in the Daredevil video says:

It's really all just about the ride.

reminded me of the man in the boat/car saying:

The ride does not require an explanation. Just occupants.

:)


The one part from Waking Life that keeps playing in my head these days given where I currently am in my life is something the now late UT Austin philosophy professor Louis Mackey says:

... So what are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that’s this: Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?

hmm...

Here's a synopsis and the script but I highly recommend watching Waking Life, if for nothing else but the innovative animation and rotoscoping technique that gives the movie a surreal feel in keeping with the protagonist's persistent dreamlike state.


Oh, and dont forget to check out the second place winner of the Firefox Flicks Video Contest "Wheee!" by Jeff Gill. It cracks me up! ROTFL! =))

Browser URL Size Limits

Via Rules for Bookmarklets:

Browser	Max chars
Netscape	> 2000
Firefox	> 2000
Opera	> 2000
IE 4	2084
IE 5	2084
IE 6	508
IE 6 SP 2	488
IE 7 beta 2	2084

The evolution of Web Design

• web2.0 logos!


• The Logos of Web 2.0 - A breakdown of the fonts used in some of the above logos.


• The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web - a practical guide to web typography

Totally tripping on the new new media

[Video] YouTube: Man dancing

That's an ex-programmer (Matt Harding) who quit his job and used his savings to travel around the world! Why?




[Audio] Odeo: Return From Madness - where have I been?

A bizarre adventure caused a long absence. I do my best to explain where I’ve been for three months, without mentioning any names. I lost myself and am only just now coming back from a deep emptiness. A little quote from Salvador Dali, an ad for “instant problem fixing cream”, and my “Theme to Forever”, a piece I wrote 25 years ago or more...

Thats by 1-800-Weirdos: A freeform exploration of original music and spoken word, including samples from the 1-800-Weirdos voice mail. Improvisational and interactive, the weirdest podcast ever!!




[Photo] Flickr: Browser clocks at Opera



:)

Yahoo unREST

Saying that they use REST is a misnomer. What they actually use is Browserland HTTP.

Case in point:

By default, Yahoo! Web Services return output in XML format. Some, but not all, of the Yahoo! Web Services can also return Serialized PHP. To get output in Serialized PHP format, use the output=php parameter in the request:

http://api.search.yahoo.com/ ImageSearchService/V1/ imageSearch?appid=YahooDemo &query=Madonna&results=1 &output=php

The RESTful way to do this is with an Accept Request header field.

I did point this out to Rasmus during a Web Services BOF at FOSS.in to which he said that it was easier to call it REST than call it HTTP. I don't buy this. A web developer will be much more familiar with the word HTTP (the thingy you see in the address bar of your browser and in the URI I've quoted above from Yahoo!'s own documentation) than with the word REST (an architectural style for distributed hypermedia systems described in a dissertation by Roy T. Fielding).

Now that that's out of my system, I really like what they are doing with PHP, especially this. I'm using Serialized PHP for representations as well in a web application I'm working on using Inertia with the following media type: application/x-serialized-php.

The V intro

Found this via the V for Vendetta guestbook

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

In simpler words:

Behold, at first glance a humble stage actor, cast against his will as both the victim and villain by the design of Fate. This mask, not just a layer of vanity, is a lasting token of the voice of the people, now gone, disappeared, as the once powerful public now honours what it used to denounce. Nevertheless, this brave return of a long-gone annoyance stands reborn, and has promised to overthrow the evil and corrupt who promote greed and protect the violent and total suppression of free will. The only choice is revenge; a committed struggle given as a prayer, not for nothing, that the righteousness of that quest will one day lead the watchful and the righteous to victory. But truly, this thick soup of words is becoming excessive for an introduction, so allow me to say I am most honoured to meet you and you may call me V.

The mind boggles!

All Things Web 2.0 - "THE LIST"

Browserland HTTP

All this talk about Lo-REST and Hi-REST is so misleading.

There arent two types or levels of REST. There are just Components that support HTTP to various degrees and that is where the problem lies.

For the most part we are trapped in Browserland HTTP:

• Availability of only a subset of the HTTP methods (GET and POST).


• Visibility/Awareness of a subset of the REST Data Elements (resource identifier and representation).


• Cookies!


• Limited or no control of conneg on the client side.


• Broken HTTP Authentication Interface.


• No true client-side state.

The people making the argument that Browserland HTTP is "what’s been proven on the web" and REST is just theory, "speculative", "unproved in practice, and unlikely to be a game-changer" haven't been paying attention.

State of REST

When you get REST and then go back to the drawing board to design your web application/service you realize that we've cornered ourselves in Browserland HTTP and that is the really tragedy of REST: The only protocol that follows the REST architectural style is crippled by its current infrastructure.

From Cure to Hypnosis

Watching the Cure (1997) by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (1955-) led me to Franz Mesmer (1734 – 1815). Mesmer is the guy who discovered Animal Magnetism (also called Mesmerism). Interestingly, Mesmer's name is the basis of the word mesmerization and the evolution of his ideas and practices led James Braid (1795-1860) to develop hypnosis first described in his book Neurypnology: or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep (1843). That's where Braid coined the words hypnotism, hypnotize, and hypnotist.

Howz that for a meme?

Ain't No Sunshine

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
It's not warm when she's away.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
And she's always gone to long.
Anytime she goes away.

...

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
Only darkness every day.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
And this house just ain't no home.
Anytime she goes away.

...

- Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers

Tonic

Came across Tonic via Mark's blog. Can't wait to wade through the code! :)

From what I've seen so far, this was very disappointing. I hate templating systems in PHP. PHP is a templating system! Why don't people get this? *sigh*

Man! I gotta find time to work on Inertia. Haven't touched it for a while now but checking out Tonic has got me excited again. :)

Evolution of Enlightened Society (sic)

While channel surfing I happened to see a speech by the President of India. I've never seen him speak before so it was fun watching him talk. What made this talk interesting was his "action oriented solution for evolving a happy, prosperous and peaceful society in our planet" which he called the Enlightened Society and the proposal for an Organization of Spiritual Glad tidings. He even lists out what could be the mission of this Organization! I find points 2 and 3 of this mission interesting:

2. Using the music as a binding force of violent hearts throughout the world.

3. Making fine arts as a part of the curriculum in the secondary and university education.

Here's the cool part: The President Of India has his own website and you can find all his speeches there.

Here's the one I'm talking about:

Evolution of Enlightened Society, Address at the valedictory function of the international conference on 'human values and ethics in the global scenario', Bangalore on 19-02-2006

Death Touch

Heard about a Chinese martial art called Dim Mak on a show where they showed someone knock people out only by touching them.

At first I thought to myself, "Nah! Can't be real. They seem to be faking it."

So I googled it and found some interesting stuff.

The Science Behind Dim Mak by Dr Michael Kelly
Dim Mak and Acupuncture by Paul Brecher
Dim Mak Point Strike Applications From The Taijiquan Chi Forms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_touch
http://www.dimmakworld.com/

Need to revisit this when I get the time.

Its such a Perfect Day...

Thanks to an upper air trough, I woke up to a beautiful day today.

Web Service = Web Application

If you get REST, you will get this.

The difference is only in the representation.

One Bye One

People move on.
Friends drift apart.
Life goes on...

You are not your work

Came across this quote by the Venerable Zen Master Lin Chi while reading Principle 13 from Ready for Anything by David Allen:

When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what i mean.

Can't help but smile everytime I read that.