Dumpty-dumpty!

It's time again to dump a whole slew of links ;

Tech

ElasticSearch : Another newcomer of searchy goodness, open-source and on GitHub. Yummy.

MQL : FreeBase's MQL query language tutorial. Good food for thought.

HTSQL : A really interesting take on that juction between SQL and NoSQL.

A plugin pattern : A JQuery development pattern and tutorial.

HTML5 logo : When you want to express how cool you are.

JSON-LD : JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a lightweight Linked Data format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate.

BackBone : This is one cool light-weight JavaScript framework. Backbone supplies structure to JavaScript-heavy applications by providing modelswith key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing application over a RESTful JSON interface.

Aloha Editor : A damn sexy WYSIWYG next-generation editor.

Lithium : Another sexy light-weight PHP framework.

Linux Sound Scopes : A nifty albeit somewhat outdated list of Linux sound gizmos and widgets.

Less Framework : Yet another less-is-more frameworks, this one for HTML5 and CSS templating.

Biology, science, philosophy

The Trouble With Testosterone : "In these essays, which range widely but mostly focus on the relationships between biology and human behavior, hard and intricate science is handled with a deft touch that makes it accessible to the general reader. In one memorable piece, Sapolsky compares the fascination with tabloid TV to behavior he's observed among wild African baboons. "Rubber necks," notes the professor, "seem to be a common feature of the primate order." In the title essay of The Trouble with Testosterone, Sapolsky ruminates on the links, real or perceived, between that hormone and aggression."

The Information, a natural history of information theory : "Gleick is one of the great science writers of all time, and that is, in part, because he is a science biographer. Not a biographer of scientists (although there is much biographical insight to scientists, mathematicians, lexicographers, writers and thinkers inThe Information), but a biographer of the idea itself, and the way that it ricochets off disciplines, institutions and people, knocking them into new, higher orbits, setting them on collision courses."

In memoriam: the x-phi debate : "The controversial new movement called experimental philosophy – 'X-phi' as it has come to be known – has generated both excitement and hostility in the philosophical community. Questions abound: Is experimental philosophy the wave of the future or just a passing fad? Can probing for the intuitions of the 'folk' tell us anything about philosophical truth? Are philosophers qualified to conduct empirical studies, or should this be left to the psychologists?"

Starting over - choosing my religion : "What form would the ideal religion take?" Interesting question, even though I strongly disagree with the conclusions.

A natural education? : A Christian take on the secular world of education. Again, good piece, but there's many flaws to be explored here, and I'll tackle that in my philosophy blog at some time later.

Miscellaneous

Tiburtina Ensemble : Here's a Czech vocal (mostly) ensemble that I stumbled upon by random, and boy am I glad I did. Pay especially attention to Hana Blažíková (which stars in a few of these productions, especially the "Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo", an oratorio by Antonio Caldara, one of my most favorite pieces of music) whom I posted a video of a few days ago; she's amazing, in no uncertain terms.

What movies do people regret watching?  Some of these answers are good, but I expected more like my own story. Quite a number of years ago now, I was doing a project that needed some old footage of people snuffing (with the old snuffbox) and smoking and cavorting, so a few good black/white fast-moving silent movies, that sort of thing. I popped in a search, opened a few random movies to see what I've found (this was many years before Google, YouTube and previewing anything), and one of the movies that came up (auto-play, no less) was this little snuff movie (of the non-profit kind) of a woman who got shot in the head. I seriously, absolutely regret seeing that movie. It was a very dark and horrifying moment in my life, also due to the shock and horror of it all.

What are the most underrated movies?  This is a seriously good list of films that are far, far better than their reputation and fame. Explore.

Ok, that's it. Enjoy, and I'll see you over the weekend.

Ubuntu 10.10

I had held off upgrading my computer to the latest version of Ubuntu, because every time I do, something screws up. Maybe the sound disappears, or the mouse accelerates, or Java goes missing, or the graphics gets botched. Always something.

But I shouldn't have worried. I went to update manager, hit that 'distribution upgrade', waited an hour or so (lots of downloads on a slow line), one reboot, and everything worked perfectly on the first go. Not a single hitch. Not even a small one. In fact, something's even improved, such as my internal microphone started working. It looks better, feels better, responds better, and the fonts are vastly improved. Everything is just, well, perfect. Color me impressed, and thanks to the Linux community, Canonical and the Ubuntu team for making this awesome operating system that frankly, for me, couldn't be improved upon.

Antonio Caldara: Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo (6)

I was very happy to find this gem today (and hopefully it stays up a while). I've been a huge fan of Antonio Caldara ever since that epic recording of his "Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo" with favourite soprano in the whole world Maria Cristina Kiehr, super-star counter-tenor Andreas Scholl and Gerd Turk from Cantus Koln (one of my favorite ensembles).

Hana Blazikova is a new find for me, but boy am I glad I stumbled upon her. Her singing is nothing short of fantastic, and as a bonus she's Czech which speaks to my half-Czech heart. :) But I truly love her version of Madelena, a more timbre version of Kiehr, more edgy, softer vibrato, and a rather clean ornamentation which I prefer. I wish I could find out more about who's playing and what event it is, though, but until I figure it out, let's make no mistake;

This video is amazing. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Options for an open-source project

I'm nearing completion of the next generation of xSiteable, which used to be a "website generator in XSLT using Topic Maps" but has evolved over the last 10 years into "RESTful SOA, event-driven developer-focused, less-is-more PHP framework and super-cool XSLT templating layer, with a Topic Maps engine, full-stack plugin architecture, life-cycle-based event model, shaped around HTML5, CSS and JQuery" kinda framework, a little something I've tinkered with to fit all my many needs over the years.

Now, in my current job I'm creating a document-control, intranet, social web app thingy for a health-care organisation, and we've agreed to open-source the lot. So, I could use some advice, but here's the current plan ;

• xSiteable is BSD licensed, and consists of the framework itself
• a yet unnamed application written using xSiteable is released with BSD license as well

How should I distribute the two? Are the licenses ok? What source repository to use? Google Code, GitHub, what? (We've got both in subversion on a local server right now) xSiteable is really a collection of reusable classes where some are dependent on others, but not completely. Where to document the API's? Where to document examples and guides? How to attract users? Should I create a blog for it? And on and on.

Thoughts or ideas?

Updates, clarifications, revelations, forgiveness

So, a little more time has passed, and what have I done to make sure that you, dear reader, still come back for more? Not a lot. So, here's a list of interesting tidbits one can ponder after the immensity of the Japan situation has eroded all sense of scale and importance of mere secular indulgences, without less of a technology angle this time to prove that I am, after all, human ;

Subnormality : Last week I ordered as a poster this fantaboulus comic which I fell in love with some time back, and it arrived in the mail a few days ago to much glee and satisfaction. My kids like it a lot, and it has been hung up in the best spot in the house where we mostly ponder the important things in life; the back of the toilet door.

Pigs Fly : A few months ago I was hunting beer at my local liquor store (Kiama Downs IGA on the corner), not expecting to find much more than rubbish Aussie beer (with a few exceptions, like Coopers), when the lady behind the counter surprised me with this treat from a local brewery (Bowral, home to Australia's perhaps most famous and loved cricketer, is in the Southern Highlands, about 1 hour north of here) called "Pigs Fly." I highly and absolutely recommend giving this a try; it is now officially my favorite beer in the world. It's that good.

Pictures : For Christmas I bought the "family" a new camera, since I wrecked our last one in an attempt to take pictures of water with a non-water camera (sorry, Julie!); A Panasonic Lumix G2, a four thirds system based camera that I'm starting to love to bits, allows me to really explore a more professional realm of photography. Apart from fabulous picture quality (pressing the right buttons, of course) there's a hack available to give you the option of doing 1080p resolution video in 60fps, which looks Awesome! I've dumped a few initial shots to my Flickr stream, but more to come as I refine skills and motives.

Sheltered objections : I've kinda decided to be a bit more pro-active on my old blog of philosophy, secularism and epistemology. It's been lying dormant as a rather busy life has rushed past, but things are settling down, and I want to start a series of analysis of various definitions epistemic notions people hold while talking about things in their normal lives. Oh, and I've been given a ton of various "religion X for skeptics" over the last little while, and I wanted to document not only what it means to be a skeptic, but also be a bit more explicit about why these pamphlets are failing.

Coffee : We've just got ourselves a nice little coffee machine, and I'm already quite good at making cappuccinos, mochas, and that Aussie favorite, long black (short black being a bit of an oxymoron). We got it at some garage sale for cheap because it didn't work properly, but I cleaned and fixed it up, and it works really good, and is quite fast and looks great. Come on over for a cuppa.

Pool : Did I mention that our house has a swimming pool in the back? Yeah? Well, you know what I love almost most of all when it comes to house maintenance? Grab my snorkeling gear, jump in, and clean that sucker out. The bubbles and quiet thundering serenity gives me great pleasure as I suck all sorts of grit into the cleaning tube, mix chemicals, and scrub walls. If you need a good way to dis-connect and revitalize after a busy week of work, this hits the spot for me.

Update!

Stewart Lee : A few months ago I stumbled over a link to Stewart Lee's documentary "Don't get me started", a smallish documentary on blasphemy, the religious conundrum of embracing and banning certain freedoms of expression at the same time, and his story about his musical "Jerry Springer: The musical" meeting with censorship and persecution of the religious. I've since gotten quite smitten with this comedian / writer / artist to the point of writing him a thank-you note to which I got a great reply as well (which now sits in my glory box, obviously).

I just wanted to show you this amazingly funny and fantastic clip where he's talking about "Top Gear" and their hosts. Tell me what you think.

Back to my roots

Lately I've dived back into document control, content management and intranets and data ware-housing in general, a swarm of concepts and technologies I haven't played with in a while. Taking these breaks from certain areas is a good thing; it allows me to return to it at a later stage and witness how they've changed, often for the better.

But my return to this field hasn't been the happy smooth ride I was hoping for. Put briefly, the technologies and intellectual concepts within seems to me to still, uh, suck. I'm constantly living on the edge between people and policies in various organisations, and there's nothing more frustrating(1) than seeing the divide between good intentions and good actions, ever growing despite that people should know better.

The first thing I notice is that the concept of persistent identification management is no further than when I left it. Documents are still named silly things, and identifiers in systems that tries to deal with it still apply internal identifier schemes, and have no external facility for managing them, either sharing nor changing them. It seems to me that most of the technologies in the DC / CMS / KM space still has no good solutions to perhaps the problem that sit at the core of each of them.

Some user interfaces have improved, but not in the way I was hoping. Sure, things look smoother and prettier, and surely the misnomer "web 2.0" have injected it healing juices into old battered ideas, but they're still bad ideas at the core no matter what. It doesn't matter that the buttons look good or are big and shiny if the functionality behind them are fundamentally flawed. A document without external identity is still an internal abomination, even when the buttons are easy to hit.

Workflows are still sequential stop-points along a list of basic logic that only triggers on what we might think of, never of what should happen. The ontological concepts are often completely missed, if present at all. Roles and permissions are all ACL where, perhaps, human organisations don't function that way. Maybe that ACL model fits your network, but does it fit how we humans deal with information and knowledge? We humans might have permissions and access through it, but they do not cover our roles and positions in compound situations. I would have thought this was done better these days.

Wiki's have come a long way. I'm excited about using Semantic MediaWiki with Semantic Forms and a few other plugins, for doing essential super-rapid application development, but the Wiki user-interface have not improved much. The concept of every page simply being a point to which to hang knowledge is still mostly if not entirely missed, even by Wiki makers. People still think a Wiki page is just a page, when it should be a point of data to hang our other bits on to, including, ahem, identity management.

And don't get me started on the various and numerous CMS out there. There's now simply too many of them, and they all do pretty much the same with minor differences. It's almost a bit embarrassing that the field haven't progressed beyond the basic model they pretty much all offer. Even Drupal which claim to be different still, to me, feels and works, well, to a poor model.

So let's talk about the models. They're still the same. They haven't moved. It's all still based around the concepts of content, structure, users and plugins, plopped into a relational model that have to have a specialized table for any ontologically interesting concept you want to introduce. I don't understand, are most of these systems being developed with bribed from the DBA association or something?

Where are the semantic options? Where's the ontology editors? Where's the conceptual modeling tools for content and knowledge management? Where's the persistent identification schemes implemented so we can actually do, you know, integration of systems? Where's the simple data mergers that allow distributed and / or federated reporting?

None of these things are tricky in and of themselves, not even when merged into larger systems, unless, of course, they're rooted in old and stale ideas. Where's the new ideas? The bright and new ways of solving some of these old problems? What have I missed?

Mr Mister : Pull

For those in the know, the 1980's and early 1990's was a period of music that was forever going to be synonymous with something, err, different, often so different that people that were into it now disown that thing; Ball sweaters, washed jeans, all of the hair-styles, leg-warmers, Milli Vanilli, Pat Sharp, Samantha Fox ... the list goes on. There was a certain plasticy fabric spun into our societies, often making things worse, but once in a while making it all heaps better.

I was a child of the 1980's, of course, and in my musical journey I was heavily into Al Jarreau, early fusion like Seawind, George Benson and some GRP productions, funkier Rufus and Chaka Khan, some rock and pop (bits of David Bowie, more of Toto, glimpses of David Foster and all his various incarnations, and so on), but slowly entering the underbelly of jazz and classical.

However. There was one band I was more into more than any other, and it all started with that well-known tune you still hear from time to time, "Broken Wings" by Mr Mister. Apart from being a good tune, there was something about the group that made them stick a bit better into my brain, something about the sound, the musicianship, the amazing lyrics (thanks, John Lang; you were loved!). I got the album it was off, of course, and the previous, and discovered that the groups frontman Richard Page was a already present in a lot of music I already listened to (especially David Foster and Toto stuff, Steely Dan, and so on). If anyone serious needed a backing vocal to create that special feeling, Richard was brought in. So I had a connection, and I followed the band quite closely, being nothing short of a fan. I loved the dynamic punch, the textures, of course Richard's brilliant voice (through the times has been offered to be vocalist to both Toto and Chicago, no less), the fabulous textures of Steve George, and, as a drummer myself, loved all the crazy in-your-face punctuations that Pat Mastelotto came up with.

They released their third album "Go on" which changed both sound and direction of the band. Less poppy, more progressive, a bit darker, but still distinctly Mr Mister, I loved it to bits (and Pat Mastelotto came out as a awesome drummer, now with real drums[TM]!). However, the record company was not too happy with the sales nor direction it had taken, and lead guitarist Steve Farris left (due to musical differences we have been told). The three Misters went into the studio, borrowed a couple of amazing guitarists, and made a fourth album anyway. And there it stopped. The record company didn't release it. The misters had gone from a poppy chart-topping act to being too serious for record company executives, and with little options at the time (it was the beginning of the curse of grunge) the band disbanded, and their album entered that mystical place of rumors, hearsay and myth, the record company vault.

They all moved on. (Ah, puns!) Richard page did bits and bobs, but mostly as a songwriter and the odd studio work (including a solo album that I love to pieces, but never got much traction outside of those in the know. Not sure if it was another record company slip?), including a couple of songs for Joe Zawinul (of Weather Report fame).

Meanwhile Pat Mastelotto joined none other than King Crimson (1994? - and is still there) and a few other cool gigs. A cool connection to another part of my music world is fellow King Crimson bandmember Trey Gunn (who use Pat a lot) also had another favorite of mine, the completely unknown Bob Muller as drummer for a while (and maybe still?), and Bob again is married to the amazing yet unknown Happy Rhodes (which I've written about before). The circle is complete.

21 years passed.

A couple of months ago that album was released. The mythical fourth album was to be heard, for some for the first time ever (there were a couple of dreadful bootlegs around, but I had resisted all those years) by Little Dume records (Richards' record company). I downloaded my copy a couple of days ago, and it's been sitting in my headphones ever since.

The anticipation and mythical status of something like this is sure to lead to disappointment, with a 20 year build-up to every expectation that "Welcome to the Real world" to the "Go on" progression mustered, so what's it like?

Well, I wouldn't write this long had it been anything short of great. But it's more than that. It superseded any expectation I had. It is simply that good, a true masterpiece. It's basically a step back from "Go on" towards a brighter, more progressive sound, with some of the tunes bringing back some of the best of the early 80's with the coolest sounds the 90's could offer. There's less guitar focus, and certainly tighter, more drums, and definitely more and better singing. Hmm, hard to explain, I know, but the album sounds as if it had been released now it would still sound fantastic. Now, I normally wouldn't do a song-by-song review, but I feel compelled to do so, not only because they all deserve the attention, but to bring some closure for me personally through the music as well; this is the fourth album that needs the context of the earlier three. Here goes.

1. 'Learning to Crawl' starts exactly like a song that builds on "Go on" should start, the piano work and darker tone, and progresses exactly like a song that's from "Welcome to the Real World" does, with various added twists like the layered singing, fresher drums, that catchy chorus, haunting backing vocals that drones away something that ends up in a cacaphony of a grungy "I wear the face." The perfect start.

2. 'Waiting in my dreams' start like other good tunes from the mid-80's acoustic era, quite Toto-ish of the time. But then something happens, the chorus turns terribly Mr Misterish, and turns that all upside down. Another round, and after that a progressive section that blows me away every time, starting with some cool harmonic vocal that leaps into a progressive section of drums, emphasized piano chords and, uh, pan flutes. Yeah, that sounds wrong, but it works. This also have some of the coolest triplet-based syncopated breaks from Pat yet.

3. 'Crazy boy' has some minor / major key swings that a really cool, a snazzy drum-track, and some very interesting guitar layering. This is a somewhat typical Mr Mister tune, I think, with a slightly edgy Richard singing in there as well.

4. 'Close your eyes' is a direct descendant of "Go on" with a twist, with a mid-section around 2:50 which simply screams for a Chicago or Seawind horn treatment! (I betcha if a horn section was available, this would be the bestest tune they ever did!) It has a great drive, and a fantastic refrain that takes me back to "I wear the face", with a few interesting synth twists worthy of Gary Numan.

5. 'Lifetime' is fast becoming one of my favorites, with some excellent guitar work flowing through what is essentially a grungier "Welcome to the Real World" tune.

6. 'I don't know why' is a curious one, taking a few steps back to "I wear the face" with blobs of "Welcome to the Real World" push, only this time with real drums, less guitar, and cooler singing (even to the point that they here sing about falling, too. 32, anyone?)

7. 'We belong to no one' is a real stand-out, a teenage child of "Broken Wings", with a great refrain and sexier drums, until I get my senses blow around 2:10. Beautifully done, with bridge dipping straight for a progressive refrain, building up to a great climax where Pat gets off really well.

8. 'Burning bridge' is another slower tune that starts as you expect a Mr Mister tune to start, and then something amazing happens! This is my favorite tune of the whole album, with singing that reminds me of Doobie Brothers, Kenny Loggins, Chicago and Steely Dan, a laid back track with just takes me away days gone by. Listen out for 2:10, a great cut. There's layered singing here that I simply love to pieces! Oh, and some really cool bass playing as well that you'll miss if you blink.

9. 'No words to say' is "Go on" legacy, with dreamier keys and perhaps the strongest lyrics on the album. Progressive, layered guitars, beautiful verse. Great tune.

10. 'Surrender' starts expectedly Mr Misterish, but then turns into a early Toto-esque ballad of sorts, before leaping into "Welcome to the Real World" drive with a "Go on" setup. And then excellent chorus singing through a progressive finish.

11. 'Awaya' Here Mr Mister is doing a Toto, by at the end putting in a mostly instrumental piece, with great drive, all musicians coming together for some fun time. A perfect ending to an amazing album.

What an odd thing; well worth the 20 year wait, still sounding as if just released (well, you know what I mean), and perhaps Mr Mister's absolute best. And most people will never know. But you should. It's that good.

Simply put; this is an awesome album, better than I thought it could have been. I'm in love again.

Happy guacamole!

So, a new year is here. Again. I'm getting a bit sick of this straining repetition, but apparently the rest of society thinks it is quite alright. So.

A lot of stuff have happened. We've sold one house, bought and moved into another (and I'm sure I'll write more on this later), and various events have come and gone. I've gotten a new camera for Christmas which I'm excited about (a Panasonic Lumix G2), and I'm reading Bill Bryson's latest "At Home" which is brilliant as usual. Oh, and Mr Mister have released their album "Pull" after 20 years (!!), and it is AWESOME!

I'm writing a book. And I'm enjoying it, when I get the time to do it. I'm some 70 pages in, and it's about ... uh, part technology, part human and cosmological evolution, some laser shooting which defies the laws of physics, project management, opinions on the strong need for secularity, on music, and some more parts technology, programming and development, syntax and language, lots about language, and about libraries and culture, and then some. Yeah, so not your average book, but some people are interested, and I'm taking advice on publishing, format and schedule from anyone.

I'm opening ThinkPlot again, an organisation for people who care about the well-being of the human race and the world we live in in an intelligent fashion, to promote education, science and rationality amongst the people that live near you. Our patron "saint" is the late great Carl Sagan. I'm definitely talk more about this later.

Work is good. It's intranets all the way, interspersed with UCD, IA, UX, hacking, supervision, PMing, and all other goodies, and it's in the health-care system doing important work. So, yeah. Good stuff, and enjoyable. In fact, one of the things I've noticed is that in the few years since my last stints in the Intranet world not much have improved in terms of content and document management. The old systems that sucked have been overtaken by systems that also sucks, just in different ways. Enterprise systems of various kinds follow suit. There's so much bad software out there, even from people who should know better. So, yes, I've decided to make something funky from scratch in the Intranet space, using REST, Topic Maps and simpler development tools readily available. We'll see where it takes us.

Kids and wife doing fine. Kids winning awards, playing violin brilliantly, and growing up fine. (Crossing fingers!) Things are chugging along. Oh, and we've just been introduced to and getting hooked on Carcassonne, so now you know what we often do in the evenings. The beach is down the road next to the shop and cafe, and the pool in the backyard is a favorite past-time, so do come over. Things are good.

PS. Send more salty liquorice.