SOA: Like Ludwig Did It

What are the qualities one wants from federated aka, 'mashup' pages built over services?

• Seamlessness: no big glaring boo boos in format or behavior.


• Reliability: no piece mysteriously failing and causing the other pieces to look bad


• Composability: pieces can be assembled together quickly and intuitively

Web components should fit together as neatly as Ludvig Von Beethoven's music and assemble as easily as Adobe Audition. Music tools are always about a decade ahead of the rest of the software industry; so if like other aphoristic models of technical development (see Moore's Law), I should get this eventually.

For my Christmas card this year, I recorded Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" doing all of the characters (except the Cratchits: my wife and kids took those parts), narration, sound effects, etc. I used Adobe Audition to do that in case that is interesting. Audition is good easy to use multitrack recording and mastering software with plenty of clean effects and an intuitive interface. But the real serendipity was choosing to use Ludvig Von's music over composing my own.

Why?

Beethoven and Dickens are close in era, so in timing, tone and theme, they are quite composable and reliable, but the delight is that Beethoven's works are seamless. I avoided the 'hits' (say Fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata, opening of the Fifth, etc.) and grabbed bits of lesser known pieces and inner pieces of the symphonies. Some of these were composed years, even decades apart and recorded by different performers in different periods. Using various recordings both vinyl and CD, I had to do some serious click and pop removal but, that is what Audition does well.

They fit together seamlessly. The effect is as my wife says, 'enchanting'.

Web Services Should Work Like Beethoven's Music: you can slice it and dice it and it just works. The level of knowledge of keys, transitions, melodic development, chordal progressions, dynamics and orchestration required are enormous yet almost all of his works are memorable, hummable and accessible. When he applied technical virtuosity, it was in service of the dynamic perceived by the user as emotional anticipation, fulfillment and release, not the performer's angst about playing fast and accurately on the device of the day. It's a high standard for musicians and I wonder if there are similar prodigies in the world of software services.

That is the challenge for the mashup component builder. When someone puts the services together, they have to just work. I can get that fromBeethoven.

The question would be, what would be the experience if I tried that with Beethoven and Mozart and Bach and Schumann. The challenge of today's software behemoths is exactly that: what happens if I take your components and mash them together? Will they just work? Will certain melodies stand out garishly in bad taste where taste matters? Or is it a matter of taste where taste is knowing what to choose or to stick to one company just as I stuck to Beethoven even with that Mozart CD staring at me like Marley on the knocker?

If we are to pick common formats, we should choose based on the ability of the web service builder to compose, mashup, and serve up without seams, without glaring bugs, and with the ease of putting together slices in sequencing/recording systems that are to web pages what Adobe Audition is to audio production. If Enterprise Engineering is to come to the Service Oriented Architecture, that's what we need for productivity.

Having discovered the joy of working with dead collaborators who don't object to me remixing their work, I plan to work with more famous decomposers in the future.

The Meaning Of Life and What We Can Do About It

Life has meaning. As soon as the intellectual property issues are settled, the Americans will license it to the English so they can sell books about it not being worth discussing, the French will claim the meaning is really different or at least not what the Americans are selling, the Russians will implement it faster, the Japanese will improve it, the Germans will write precise algorithms for identifying it on sight, the Indians will sell services for it and the Australians will live it.

If there is someone I managed not to offend with that, I apologize in advance.

Kate Bush: Aerial

There it sits on the desk in front of me, opened but unplayed. It was twelve years in the making. The last time I had a new Kate Bush album, I weighed a lot less and had a lot more hair. I lived in a different neighborhood, worked for a different company, drove a different car, had different friends, still had my band, well.... lots of things were different.

What hasn't changed: my utter fascination, admiration and adoration of the music of Kate Bush. I won't explain that. It's like explaining a nicotine addiction to people who have never smoked cigarettes. You won't understand and I don't care. She simply is the one real genius of modern pop for the last fifty years. Every disposable tart act out there stands in her shadow, and so do most of the modern songwriters. It isn't that she is perfect. Kate takes some getting used to if you were as I was raised in the American South on country and blues and whatever the radio served up in the Sixties. On the other hand if like my son, you never are too far from your Pink Floyd mp3s and have a slightly cynical attitude toward whatever the machine is serving up this week, well then you might understand. I dunno. If you understood, you'd have this CD.

And maybe like me, it would be sitting there open and unplayed. You see, when I get a new Kate Bush CD, my mind goes away for awhile. It's like getting a sugar straw full of liquid LSD. It makes me doubt my talent, my skills, my music, my romances, my life, my job.... it makes me weak kneed and slobbery. For you readers who think this is a sex thing, well... you are right about that. She is 47 and I am 51 and so the f**k what.... she is Kate Bush. No one does it better; no one ever has.

I've simply too much to do to risk losing it to this sultry delicious maddening woman. I may have to stare at that soundwave profile of a bird call for another month until I've completed mixing my own album and finishing this production of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". If I listen to that album, I'll stop working, start analysing and comparing, and dammit, another silly season will be done before I've the guts to get back to my own work.

.... it's just too risky.... it's like... well... you know what it's like.... but i just gotta... too weak... too overcome by.... KateLust.

Bye bye focus... hello Kate.

The Secret Poobahs

I saw this earlier at Kurt Cagle's blog and that is a nice compliment. I'm not an important person in the world of XML nor was I ever important in the world of SGML. And I am not an expert in 3D. Just a hacker. Think of me as a fair witness, but not a contributor, and like Marley, I will fade backward out a window that opens magically into a world of nothing.

So I'm not a hero but I've seen some. Like Jim Mason and Lynne Price, they take care of young people, they see to it things connect, and even in anonymity, wield incredible power over world events by working for those who share their values.

I've seen a lot of office politics, proven performers, up and comers and all the rest. They don't impress me. If you pick a target and shoot often, you hit something. Who cares? That is the question. Shared values are the keys to the suite of the secret poobahs who change the world.

So I ask you, what are your values and who do you share those with?

No matter what games you learn to play, your ultimate impact on the world will be determined by those values and who shares them. Some people want to run the place, and they can get what they want. Some people actually want to change the world and the rules for doing that are quite a bit different.

Winning is not owning.

You discover the closer you get to the top, the less real power you really have because you are too closely watched and the system is too sensitive to your every mood. When that happens, you have to spend so much time controlling yourself, you can control very little else. That isn't much of a victory, I'd say.

So you must always ask, qui bono? Who benefits? If it is just you, that is a very small kingdom. True power is knowing where the system is sensitive and thumping it just a little even at risk to your own career because if the values are right, the results will be right and in the long term, you will win.

Dare to do but do that for those who share your values. That is all you need to know.

For those of you who celebrate it, have a Happy Thanksgiving. For those of you who don't, have a Happy Thanksgiving.

All The Gold In California

Dave Pawson sends the URI for Paul Graham's blog about what Web 2.0. is. I know what it is. My question: qui bono? Who benefits?

iTunes is Web 2.0ish in this sense. Finally you can buy individual songs instead of having to buy whole albums. The recording industry hated the idea and resisted itas long as possible. But it was obvious what users wanted, so Apple flew under the labels. [4] Though really it might be better to describe iTunes as Web 1.5. Web 2.0 applied to music would probably mean individual bands giving away DRMless songs for free.

Paul Graham

Notice that this is one big monolithic corporation taking over the turf of other big corporations. In the old days, it would be iTommyGuns.

If you are on the production side of music instead of the consuming side, you notice that the last sentence is right precisely and only because iTunes will sell you individual songs, BUT they don't accept songs from individual artists.

Good for you. However, those hoping for freeing the artists from groveling to the record labels take note: now they grovel to Apple or one of Apple's designated MiddleGuys.

That's right. If you are an independent artist who wants to get a few shekels for your work and you see iPods as the new transistor radio, take note of Apple's policies: artists deal with middleGuys who deal with Apple. The middleGuys only deal with artists who make CDs (no submission of individual tunes) and have representation in the form of a label that represents many artists and they do this for tadaaaa: a percentage. Now I ask you, as iTunes proves, why should we be making CDs when they are selling individual songs?

Qui bono? The guys in the middle taking the bite are also selling CDs. And taking a bite. The artists, ahem, the labels still have to produce CDs and kids, that ain't cheap.

So that's Web 2.0 for the artist: the bad old business model reconstituting itself on the web and Apple making sure that happens. Volitionally. Good guys? Think again. These are business people with a market to conquer. Apple and their "contributors" take lots of little bites making one big bite into the product with no value added but to say 'yes'.

Umm... excuse me but that is exactly what we were doing before the web, during the web, and now Web 2.0 comes along to tell us no 'natch for the content makers without representation. Wow. Some victory....

So for you dweebs out there dwelling on how good it all is, Web 2.0 is good for programmers, venture capitalists, and people who believe the cost of software should be an item on their phone bill. Big artists are still a product of marketing. Street musicians and garage bands are still street musicians and garage bands. The only real improvement is they can pick the corner. The cost of recording is time and a few thousand bucks for gear. So sure, the good artists can record cheaper but that is about it. They are still on the street, on their own, out of luck and out of the money.

So if you pass one of them, toss a few coins in the hat and they'll toss back a few DRMless mp3s which by fact of having given them away, reduced their economic value to zero.

So artists are what they always were: meat. Smart ones build their own Web 2.0 web sites and have Paypal or its ilk anyway. The rest of us do it for boo.

What does Web 2.0 mean? It means exactly what the market always means: the same people get to make money again for the same software except this time it will be cheaper, come in smaller boxes, and do less than it did last time which means you will buy/download/subscribe to more to get the same. But this time, when it gets obsoleted, you will change like it or not. You may not notice, and you won't have to hunt through your old CDs for the backups but if you lose your credit card number, it won't matter anyway because they don't know your name, just your credit card number.

The Web 2.0 is the next version of progress for the same reasons for the same people: items based on scarcity may not be interesting to investors, but scarce capital is everyone's problem. The ownership society never acknowledges that and that is Graham's social network.

"All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else's name..." The Gatlin Brothers.

XML 2005: Document Formats

As chair of this session, it seems appropriate I provide personal notes. First, let me compliment all attendees on the tremendous and evident respect they brought to the discussion and each other. You are clearly leaders and deservedly so. While none, I think, believed decisions could be made in the town hall, your seeking common understanding in respectful debate was a marvel to experience. Thank you.

The following are questions that were in my opinion, pivotal in the discussion with my personal opinions about the issues arising from them.

1. What is open?

A clear consensus for this question did not emerge. All sides have valid arguments for the technologies they sell, specify and standardize. Questions of the open and closed market models resolve to company choice.

Opinion: The participation agreements of the consortia make adoption and participation separable. While there is an emerging consensus on the qualities of openness, their is no policy or means of enforcement without a clear means of identification. It may be sufficient to say that open is best defined in accordance with the policies of the publishing authority such as OASIS or the W3C given an ontology of concepts for that term and the provability of assertions of duty in the records of authority for the obligated parties. It will be well for the market if such ontologies are sharable among consortia and government alike. This is a significant challenge.

NOTE: Tim Bray made the valid point that the participants in the discussion are not legal experts. IANAL.

Opinion: It is clear that all sides have market ambitions. Mutual interests are likely to converge around costs of sustaining loss leader technologies. A specification represents opportunity; a standard represents market reality as costs to producer and consumer. The advantage of a standard to the vendor is that development costs can be shared and components are interoperable. The advantage to the consumer is that costs can be controlled. A clear shared interest is cost control.

2. What is open enough?

Given item one, there is no consensus here. However, this is where the most progress is being made. XML provides the opportunity to create a common markup for word processing document types and much technology is being provided for systems to share formats. At issue is sharing semantics such that the rendering and behavioral qualities are predictable and reliable for the end user as far as possible.

Opinion: The concern expressed by Microsoft was early adoption of standards such as XSD are costly and if not well liked, contribute to premature obsolescence. In my opinion, this is a risk all early adopters take. The vendor is expected to evaluate a specification and the process of its development. Thus, this is not simple a question of open enough, but also, good enough. In the market, I expect consumers to understand the relative development maturity of software and to choose wisely. It works for cars and other consumer goods. All sides assume this risk.

The concern expressed by open software advocates has both practice and egalitarian appeals. They assert that open specifications developed by all of the market vendors provide the best software, a position sometimes known as, the wisdom of crowds. However, XSD. It is a workable technology, but is it the best or good enough? So in fairness, this wisdom does not always work as advertised. If the best advice is to create as few languages as possible, parties must create very good ones or this strategy saddles the market with mediocrity.

Again, this is a risk of early adopters. RelaxNG is a viable alternative. The problem of the market is sales cycle. A vendor does not see a customer again for some time. The question of standardization can vary by application. The strategy of specification over standardization is to give the market time to decide. Given this, for specification of new products, it is prudent to standardize as little as possible to enable decisions to be made more granularly and timely.

The winning strategy is found in reducing the complexity of the application itself, such that the end user is receiving only those components clearly needed by role and task or preference. This is where the question for egalitarian positions is: given the disadvantage accrues to the vendor with the most legacy, how does the vendor adopt an open specification if the immediate results break fiduciary duty to the company ownership?

But is this question that cut and dry?

Metaphorically, legacy is to market what mass is to momentum and distance traveled over time. If one suddenly cuts the mass, the distance over time can beat the speed of light. An example as Matt Fuchs pointed out over breakfast is XML itself. The task of refactoring SGML for web applications cut mass. Then the market achieved momentum and distance.

So, if the answer to what is open enough is, the market chooses and what the market chooses becomes the standard, then a specification must achieve enough mass in terms of users to achieve momentum. The conundrum is the vendor of a product with sufficient legacy releases a large number of customers as well as software support when legacy is terminated. So the vendor will wait until the software components and the language achieve a point of inflection.

Analysis of Outcome: The open document community must keep up the pressure. Microsoft will implement openDoc as part of a strategy to move their customers from their loss leaders to lower cost software that enables a switch to service systems. The question is timing and the complaint is that this is not an open market. This is not as open a market as some need or think more provident to more companies, but it is an opportunity to do this better than the current marjority market leader.

Because a standard becomes a game model where the evolutionary stable strategy is a Nash equilibrium, it is best to defer standardization until need is clear to all parties. Disruption isn't always good, but winning need not be defined as owning.

Offtopic Lessons Learned at XML 2005

Bloggers with technical training and technical assignments are blogging the important lessons of XML 2005. I am neither. I've never contributed a single topic or technical item of any importance to XML or the web in general. I am a pundit, an observer of the mammals, and really, just a poet/songwriter. Life among the mammals fascinates me and I do pay attention to that. In a technical world of technical assignments, that is offtopic. Let those who care to read, read, and otherwise, must-ignore applies here.

Lessons learned:

Once a greased pig is let loose, no man or woman is its master. There may be a profound lesson about XML and/or the web there.

To keep coyotes away, kill one and nail its corpse to the fencepost. Texans have known this for years. That explains the career of the Dixie Chicks.

In the American South, addressing a woman as "mad'm" is a gesture of respect. In other parts of the world, it's a putdown. Tolerance is best.

Science often gives evidence for things best ignored in polite conversation. Let the world work out the consequences for that which it cannot admit.

Snakes fear their handlers. Understanding that is the key to keeping them as pets.

At every markup conference I've attended, there is a group of contractors and civil servants telling the audience that the lack of interoperability among Tri-service (think DoD) systems nearly caused the last war to be lost. This problem either has no solution or the lack of a solution is profitable. Since the web is an existence proof that whole continents of festering souls have achieved communications over systems that interoperate, it may be time to look at that second possibility squarely and meanly.

On the other hand, in a world where keeping secrets and only giving information within a legal framework designed to protect human rights and freedom, it is very hard to interpret the law and apply the technology while still doing those jobs. Future-proof seldom is.

I am told that at the last three markup conferences I've attended, I've 'chatted up' at least one brilliant beautiful woman. Guilty as charged. No remorse. Brilliant beautiful woman are not only fun, they can be the best friends a po'boy ever has. It's not about one-nighters; it's about life long friendship with someone I wish to care about because they are capable of caring even if they don't. As the song says, "I can't make you love me if you don't.", but I can get to know you in that short time granted. That is treasure enough and a good reason for what others might consider, bad behavior. As a friend said to me, "You can never know what goes between two people". It is possibly less than you think and more important than you can know.

It isn't always best to sit at the front table. The informative conversations are often with people who's acquaintence was a random accident. I crabwalked my way into my career and that is a design pattern.

The music industry is corrupt because of its origins in the nightclubs and speakeasys of the early part of the 20th century. The book industry is not corrupt because of its origins in the patronage of nobles some centuries earlier. The people managing the room make the difference. The reason for the success of the web and XML is because of the values of the very small groups of scientists, technicians and humanists who created these. That they cohere and persist are the driving and shaping forces. As these people fade from the scene, the only guarantor of future success, that this *stuff* does as little harm as possible, is the persistence of those values. For that reason, even though there may be no technical contributions, it is important that stories be told, examples made, and that these people be both honored and remembered. I was most glad to see Jim Mason honored and to converse with some of the other SGML cognoscenti. They took care of me when I was younger and just as dumb as I am today. It is about the people, not the stuff. If you really intend to "do no evil", remember that while you are building these marvelous toys.

If the room staff accidentally breaks your $50 Norelco, it is good luck that it happen in an expensive hotel that replaces it out of the overpriced gift shop with a $100 Remington. ;-)

Kids always like the t-shirts you bring home. Dad's live for the hugs.

The Goblet of Fire

After a long drive, a nap and a cup of coffee, I went to see Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire with Dana, Buddha and the Boo. It is excellent. The makers really got this right. It is not for younger children but for anyone else that likes this kind of thing, this is that kind of thing. The special effects are purposeful and stunning. The action is fast and the plot is not belabored as it is in the book with foreshadowing details.

Because the main characters are well-established at this point, they play no more time on the screen than necessary to keep the plot moving. Yet, the movie does take all the time needed to put the values the author says are so important to the stories front and center: loyalty, courage, tenacity, inventiveness, friendship, love and learning. When Hermione chews Ron after the dance, we see that magic or not, the struggle to grow up is what establishes those values, and at the end, change will come; so we best value what we value, fight for it and understand life is not without loss no matter how strong we are, how magical, how clever, or how well loved.

Well done. Go see. Enjoy.

XML 2005: Y'all Come

Off to Atlanta this week for XML 2005. I am looking forward to spending the time with friends and being tutored on the latest developments in XML and the Web. These are exciting times. Many years of work have blossomed and the world wide open communications we dreamed about years ago have come into being. Many of the people who made that happen will be there.

This is fun. This is real. And it makes a difference. Since this year XML 2005 is being held in a great Southern city, as we say here in the South, Y'all come.

Sam (For Liz): Video

For giggles and an experiment, I made this video of pix and music. It's a lovely thing at full size but that is around 22mb, so this reduced version is on the web.

Sam (for Liz)

The music has been up at my web site for awhile. The pix are gathered off of download sites. Many thanks to the people who provided those.

I miss her too.

The Sociopaths in The White House

The paper cited below is about the sociobiology of sociopaths and their social strategies. The media talks about culture wars. This isn't that. My theory is this: the Republican leadership at this time is made up of sociopaths, and given their prominence, they created an environment that made it attractive to the sociopath in each of us.

http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.mealy.html

A sociopath is typically created by early childhood experiences plus genetic disposition in the case of primary sociopathy. The emergence of that personality feature is frequency dependent particularly in secondary sociopaths.

As Linda Mealy puts it, the sociopath becomes "apparent at a time when immediate environmental circumstances make an antisocial strategy more profitable than a prosocial one." and that is exactly what the strategies of the Republican and evangelical right have done: made cheating advantageous. Karl Rove is the exemplar.

What is fascinating about the sociopaths in charge at this time is how much emphasis they place on morality while pursuing immoral ends. That is almost the clinical definition of sociopathy at the extremes. America saw this once before during the administration of Nixon and Agnew.

I've been explaining this to my son who wants to know why things are as dark as they are and why we are seeing a sudden upsurge in student violence here in the South where the solid base of support for the Republican agenda is. I am noting smaller examples of it in behavior of some who now confronted with the evidence of the sociopathy of the administration are in deep denial and actively hostile toward anyone who was not historically supporting the hard line conservative position.

But the damage and concern are much greater and more insidious than what we do to ourselves. In effect, unless the moderates of both parties pull toward the center, we are poisoning our children for at least a decade much as we were poisoned in the late Sixties and early Seventies. The impact on our lives varied by environment (parents and other social advantages/disadvantages) but they are there.

We've seen this movie before. It is long, fatiguing and ends with the sound of children screaming followed by a terrible silence.

XML: When We Wuz Fab

Innovation is when someone folds the universe, taking two distant points and connects them. Otherwise, it is incrementalism. The vision for innovation is most always outward seeking. That means someone knows just enough about something to try or say something they won't if they know too much. I'm writing a course on XML this week and had to get XML for Idiots to do it. It isn't that I don't know enough; it's that I know too much. Even then, I keep looking up pointsto be sure I'm right. So the chances that I will ever innovate on XML are pretty slim.

That's Ok. XML is mostly done and the undone parts are undone to keep us honest. Otherwise, we'd cheat and take LISP and a Volkswagen repair manual and come up with something really cool and totally obsolete. But reallllly efficient.

And that would die. Why? Too hard to innovate on that... and the heater wouldn't work. You have to leave something undone for the next guy. Otherwise, he won't take possession and get passionate about innovation. When something becomes plumbing, everyone thinks they can do it, and where's the fun in that?

When XML was SGML and not well-liked by the programming community, the documentation and hypertext communities that did like it conceived of many extraordinary uses for it. When SGML became XML and was well-liked by the programming community, most of those extraordinary uses dwindled as the programming community was as it always is, absorbed in the minutiae of tools and syntaxes, content to treat it as bits on the wire, not as a fertile ground for extraordinary uses. Thus to the world at large, XML became plumbing, a dull subject and mostly one that is well understood.

I cannot conceive of a commercial like the one for faucets where an attractive venture capitalist is shown a software firm. She places a chunk of XML down on the table in front of a CTO and asks, "Can you design a business around this?"

But I think perhaps someone will. I want to work for that guy or live with that girl.

The Rules of Sex For Men

So many serious subjects; so little bloggin' time.

Tonight, the rules of sex for men.

Not wanting to blog about topics I have no expertise in, these are the rules for Hetero-mutual sex for men. Women may have rules but they don't tell. That may be a rule. Men need help.

Not the how; there are no rules for how. That is a topic for scrupulous study and experimentation, so take it to the lab and make careful observations. Watch some films. Or do both at the same time. It's all ok as long as it's mutual. Oh... and ask questions when in doubt... laughter is not no. No is no.

Anyway, the rules:

Rule #1: Everybody gets their cookie. Otherwise, it ain't mutual.

Rule #2: Women come first. Otherwise, given nature's machinery, men break rule #1.

There may be other rules, but those will get ya by until she tells you what they are. She can break the rules. Men... don't. Rule number one is there to make sure you get enough chances to master rule number two in case you break it.

That's all. That's enough rules for a lifetime for men. We are simple creatures and too many rules will make us forget rule number one.

Take It To The People

If you are keeping up with the Massachusetts decision to require OpenDoc, you possibly know that a bill has been filed to require any such technical standard to be approved by a four member panel appointed by the Commonwealth Senate to contravene this decision. The politics of special interests over the interests of the people of the Commonwealth are clear.

The decision to adopt OpenDoc was based on thorough research into open formats by people who are experts in this field: The State IT staff.

I am extremely impressed that IT professionals are stepping up to the challenge. The profound possibilities and dangers of the World Wide Web aren't fully understood, and because they evolve with the technology, we will never have such assured understanding. IT professionals get this. Others only see business potential and as a result, the Web continues to be fielded witlessly by some, greedily by others, wisely by a few.

The best minds I know in the business all agree that regardless of what transpires in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the future for large interoperable and cross-referenced systems is open formats just as the past has been for HTML, SVG, X3D and the SGML application languages that preceded XML. Markup professionals for the most part understand why: cost control and preserving the rights of individual expression. This is not a trivial issue nor one that can be neglected by the States and even the Federal government.

To the Patriots in Massachusetts: take it to the people. Make sure the Senators who are sponsoring the bill in question are fully engaged by the press, both in the Commonwealth and world wide. Be there to answer and be there to explain to the people what they are losing when such bills become law.

And point to the Senators.

Power corrupts. The only cure is consequences. Take it to the people. One lesson learned on the Internet is that crowds are not always right, but they are often wise.

Patriots

Rewritten for parsability. Thanks Norm.

len

Issues of legal expression surround the relationship of vested authority to a namespace. Ownership rights obtain to the authority over changes to the definition of the namespace and the semantics by which it is enabled.

XML moves the data but XML is a syntax for formats. The legal rights of expectation obtain to compliance to the XML 1.0 and 1.1 specifications but not semantics. Format rights are negotiable, but experience says closing these limits their growth if closing them means

1. Syntax changes of labeled values and structures can only be made by the owner

2. Extensions by relationship to semantic definitions cannot be made by the user of the format.

The ecosystem favors open formats. Open formats that evolve in collaboration with the environment faithfully track the requirements of the environment. That closed formats exist in the ecosystem is undeniable and is also the right of the owner, but that systems which support public work do not support open formats, the closed format acts to remove rights of ownership from the public. Authorities who close formats obtain not just the rights of the syntax, but of the expression because they own all rights to the implementation that enables it, that is, the semantics.

The decision in Massachusetts to impose open formats asserts the right of the owners of expression, the content, in the case, the people of the Commonwealth. The decision is an assertion of State sovereignty over the means and manner of fulfilling the obligation of the State under law to best fulfill the sacred contract between those who have such authority and those whom they serve, in whose authority rights through governance obtain, to provide the most ownership, therefore, the most freedom to the people.

Massachusetts is to be saluted for once again, showing the leadership born in the Boston streets, demonstrating by example that most essential American trait, Yankee ingenuity and just a touch of revolution. They drink sassafrass and dump the King's tea in the river rather than pay a Stamp Tax.

We call them Patriots.

"SALUTE! THANK YOU!"

It is our country, and in my corner and yours, a value shared as Americans is our patriotism. Patriots know when the people are the most free, they are the happiest, the most fruitful, and the most tolerant. Thereby, they obtain the most love, for the duty of patriotism is not love of country, but of making a country safe for love of country.

Outing the White House Spinmeisters

Watching the Tim Russert round table on NBC this morning, one would conclude that the only wrong done was failing to keep good notes of conversations.

Raise your hands: how many of you know that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent?

All of you. Enuff said.

March of the Intelligently Designed Penguins

The conservatives are touting March of the Penguins as an ode to monogamy. It confirms what I've always thought: it's for the birds. They also say it confirms intelligent design. So an intelligent creator dresses you in a tuxedo and makes you walk hundreds of miles to find a mate, then after sex, you have to stand around rolling an egg between your toes while she goes fishing.

Ok, I get that last bit. I live in Alabama. But I don't fish in a tux. It scares the bait.

VRML and The Numbers

The deal for authors of content on open source software should be that the content is open. Trust works better than technology.

If the programmers accept this deal, I don't see why the content authors believe they have to get a better deal.

But it keeps VRML from being adopted by the $ content paid for by employers that pay the salaries of engineers for 3D content. CAD. So far, no one has invested the $ into a VRML project that it takes to assemble and maintain a team to create a very compelling VRML-based game for online or single-download play.

Worlds, yes.

Look at the price difference though: say $35 to $40 to belong to a chat site, vs $35 to $40 to download a single copy of a game. Downloading worlds is having the band come to play for you instead of buying their records except they come for pennies a gig and someone else has to own the club. So while online worlds are where much of the best VRML content is, cost per gig has to increase to pay the band and the bar.

Or the teams that build both have to sell both. Gigs and games. This takes serious chops and serious chops earn serious money.

If someone with serious shekels to bet wants to make a bet, funding a team to build an open format online game with all of the secondary add-in sales is even money tonight. Maybe better. VRML has numbers and technology. By the way, when I say VRML, I mean X3D too. The differences are mostly in the minds of the browser makers. They are for the most part, the same thing.

Except X3D has encryption and some other baubles, but encryption stands out.

Lack of encryption denies some vendors access to markets that can buy far more copies of software and services. While computer scientists know that anything you can compile, I can decompile, it is nonetheless believed it constrains theft to only those smart enough to pull it off.

Sorta true. It gets rid of the bleachers.

When I saw the first diskcracker in the 80s that started with "Ho Ho Ho! A pirate's life for me..." I gave up on encryption. If it's cool, they'll get it. If it's not, who cares. If they get busted for stealing the Bewitched movie, they are dorks-for-bucks anyway.

Who cares?

If they are stealing to learn, that is a different story. That is a compliment. Encryption slows those who can be slowed, but the players hungry for it get it anyway. Might as well smile and accept the compliment.

It comes down to the variables you believe you can trade-on with your partners. I want to make money from content, but I will make content anyway. Copyright is good enough. My songs are in mpgs and wavs. Anyone with a speaker wire can copy that; so tell me what good those are except to stop another musician from learning my licks and he can do that by listening? Or buy my midis, but all that is saving you is typing time. If you want them, we can talk.

How exactly does encryption help me? Nada. Copyright is good enough.

So it comes down to how you pick the variables you trade on.

This blog is a part of an email response to a Google survey Viveka Wiley did. It showed that VRML use is growing. Other entries to the 3D market such as Adobe's new PDF 3D are entering the market, but VRML by dint of history and community has grown fourfold in the last year. 3D interest is increasing. Why? It's generational. Dominance isn't the issue. PDF coexists with HTML. it is an issue of who gets good numbers, not who is the last browser standing.

I believe VRML gets good numbers because of the variables selected as it emerged. They shape it. They are deep parts of the networks of selected variables now. In the genes.

1. PDF with 3D is a done deal. What you use it for and who chooses to use it remain to be seen. I note only that so far, the success of 3D has not been a function of its format but of the difficulty of authoring in the medium and imaginative use of it for one-off downloads. PDF is still a slow loader for anything complex or deep. Hardware happens, but it floats all boats. It comes down to content and reach just as it did for Flash.

2. VRML's numbers such as they are are increasing because VRML has been adopted by research universities who understand the rationale of the choice to keep VRML open:

Students can afford it.

Students are still young enough and loose enough to want openness in their relationships. What loves them, they love. Mathematics departments get it. Archaeology departments get it. Navy scientists get it. As long as the code is open, people are learning it. As long as people are learning it, it is alive. Life is learning; VRML's choice of variables chooses education.

Don't need no stinkin' badges.

3. A tipping point in 3D on the Web is approaching. The frequency of new entries into 3D plus the history of VRML in creating 3D presence on the web are coupling to the entry of younger 3D-proficient users onto the web. The first generation of native 3D users has begun to arrive in increasing numbers.

Pick up your prize. If you pick up mine, send me an email. If you pick up something I was paid to do, it will be encrypted and that makes it the problem of it's owner. Not mine.

Call Ray: The Recording

Most songs I release are produced. That means I spend a lot of time in my home studio working on an arrangement, writing out the midi, recording tracks, fixing bad notes, etc. etc. onward to the slickness that technology affords.

For Call Ray, I sat in front of a mic and sang it one time with my guitar. No retakes, no overdubs, no synths, no technical magic; just the song and the emotion.

So warts and all, this is as honest as it gets. Why? This one needs to be honest.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/mp3/CallRay.mp3

Someone else might produce it and give it slick but I'm not of a mind to do that. Of all the people I've known, things I've done, honors good, bad or ugly, the honor closest to my heart has been to be a member of the tribe of musicians that play rock, blues, folk, country, and classical in bars for people who came to hang their blues on the tab, leave a tip, and be with other people just like themselves. It has always been a privilege. So for all of you who spent time with me particularly in the very early days before I had anything but long hair and a guitar, just my songs, here is an honest song.

We miss ya, Ray. Happy trails, Man.

Katrina and Public Safety

While I am glad to see the individuals pulling the online resources together in response to Katrina, I reiterate Rex Brooks' post that getting more professional and informed resources into the specification processes for the public safety and justice systems is a very positive response.

Had CAP and EDXL been online, the response effort could have been better. Among the systems that gather name information, we have location and address, phone numbers, classes of registered vehicles, and named relationships among these. Between your Utility and other public safety agencies, there is sufficient information to warn you and organize the recovery.

It comes down to cost. What doesn't?

Sign up lists for notification are optional and through the receiver of your choice as long as it conforms to the specifications for the system and the standards for the data.

Interoperable asset cataloging and management is needed.

Interoperable dispatch systems integrated with wide area and broadcast communications are now possible and being implemented.

Standards are lacking but emerging.

While large scale sensor systems are vital to homeland security, we are seeing in Katrina the results of overfocusing on one source of hazards to the neglect of more probable ones.

"Fear is the mindkiller." Frank Herbert.

We have to face this squarely. This stops. From 9/11 forward we have been operating in a climate of fear and distraction, somewhat normal given the enormity of that event, but ever since being played as a card in the game of political distraction.

Officials using the destruction of the Gulf Coast by Katrina as the means to push agendas for left or right political causes are not doing their jobs to serve the people. Turn them off for now and remember them later at the ballot box.

The media is not excused either but frankly, they were in fast and providing real time data.

We all failed. Too many people are dead, dieing, homeless or grieving to believe otherwise.

Beware the blame game. It doesn't helo people off roofs.

From my desk, it is clear that the call list systems were inadequate. Call lists are part of the major incident response protocols that enable resources to be brought on line quickly and efficiently.

It is likely that inadequate provisions were made for rapid mandatory evacuations, and just as obvious that some people don't heed warnings even when the evidence is in and time is short. It is obvious that some people even with adequate warning do not have the resources to evacuate. That is a very tough problem to solve logistically. When the danger is coming fast, there are no magic helicopters or fleets of ships. It comes down to school buses, flat beds, tractor-trailers, Wal-Marts and Lowes.

Remember that.

Think hard about what is on their shelves and which parts you want on the street the morning after. Pass laws.

A top-down response is always combined with a bottom-up response. There are plenty of lessons to learn for everyone involved. It is obvious that we must step up the pressure to implement a well-thought through and fearless National Response Plan. It is obvious that State and Local protocols must be improved NOW to cope with the need to interoperate at a national level.

For you XML geeks, it's just the message set, D'oh!

While local and State control of resources remain standard procedure, requests from these officials are not required to mobilize national assets under the NRP.

Old habits can be bad habits. New habits save lives.
Old habits can be good habits. New habits can kill.

What do you know about your location and what is near you?

Do you have a plan to find family members fast if your cellphone callist is unavailable?

Do you know your neighbor's name? Do you know their children's names?

Do you have an evacuation plan that all of these people know?

Are there large chemical plants or nuclear reactors near your home? Do you know about plumes and prevailing winds?

Do you have alternatives?

Act.

If you see a Cat 2 or 3 enter the Gulf in August, you don't need much analysis to know time is wasting. The engine of a hurricane is hot water.

As a member of the public safety industry watching my company stock climb even as I know public safety systems are inadequate in the face of a Cat 4/5 hurricane, I have that same sick feeling I had on 9/11: making money on misery. On the other hand, I know these systems save lives. And more can be saved.

Public safety is an industry where ego-driven competition kills people. It is the industry that in the face of this disaster, must come to the standards table.

The amount of senseless local deviation in your dispatch and records management systems to keep your local response officials nice-to-your-mayor or unions will get you killed. Kick their heads until they implement GJXML, NIMS, CAP, EDXL and other document protocols that work Just-In-Time.

Regionalize. Immediately.

Train your cops and firemen on computers. There is NO excuse for a computer illiterate in a cruiser or any other first responder vehicle.

There is NO excuse for software that is so hard to operate that a college degree is required.

Know what the real problems are and don't let your public safety systems become political footballs. In my experience, it means you cutover slower and often pay the same money multiple times for bad procurements.

Coverage and technology are not the same thing. Choose wisely particularly with respect to scale. LANs rule; WANs fuse.

Networks don't fight floods, fires, or CBRNE but they can place a lot of the right calls to the right people at the right time. At the very least, fix the callLists by event type and support subscription-based notification on any eligible receiver.

Buy wisely. Pay attention. Act.

len (speaking only for myself and not my employer)