Ultranormal

  • Church

    My mom asked if I was just blowing off steam when I blogged last week about the church. While that was part of it (writing is cathartic), I am also serious about this. I understand the church’s position on preaching out against gay marriage, but to enact a law? That is just wrong. Not only does it go against the idea of ‘Separation of Church and State,’ it also goes against the church’s 11th Article of Faith: We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.\
    After every change within the church, members have fallen away, unable to accept the change. This may be true of me now.

  • Microformats for APIs

    There was a fun discussion at Mashup Camp about Microformats for APIs. It started as a question about using microformats for documenting APIs, which I think was resolved fairly quickly by deciding to try it using XMDP. There’s a short example on the wiki now that I came up with. It’s not complete and doesn’t contain eveything I think should be in it (error codes, response format, etc), but its a start. (Christine Herron posted some notes as well)\
    The discussion turned into a plea (from me) to start thinking about using microformats instead of coming up with new XML languages for APIs. There are already competing formats that replicate, in entirely new markup, structures available in HTML. Why not just use XHTML?\
    For example, instead of the various formats returned by the different search engines (and I’ve used several by now), why not return this (inside an XHTML document)?

    <code>
<ol start="1">
<li><a href="http://url">Document Title</a>
<p class="description">Description goes here</p>
<blockquote>Snippet goes here</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
</code>

    You could, of course, add more, but that’s basically what you get back in any search API. Why does it need to be any more complicated than that? For sites who want something simple, they wouldn’t even need to parse the result, just display it. They could even use javascript on the client side once it’s displayed to come up with the proper next/previous links.\
    I think there’s a lot of room for discussion here, and I don’t think that we can reasonably replace all XML-based APIs with microformatted XHTML, but it’s a discussion worth having.

  • Ummm, I Work For Who?

    Christine Herron blogged about our Microformats and API’s panel at Mashup Camp and only got one little thing wrong… I don’t work for Yahoo, never have. I work for AOL and am quite happy here. Maybe I need to get a tattoo…

  • Mashup Camp: An Apology

    I’m at Mashup Camp (well, I was earlier, now I’m trying to figure out just how early I can go to bed and not wake up at 3 AM), and I’m not all here. I feel really bad, but I’m just exhausted. I skipped the afternoon sessions because I didn’t think I could contribute, and there’s only so much that caffeine will do for you.\
    I’ll try to be “present” tomorrow. I had a really good time this morning, but faded quickly. I think my body is just tired of traveling. It’s tired of adjusting to time zones weird beds, bad chairs and ridiculous rental cars.\
    I’m going to try to go to bed early tonight and hopefully I won’t wake up at 5AM again (I’ve gotten about four hours of sleep the past two nights). If I met you today, I’m really sorry if I gave you the impression that I’m not passionate about what I do, or not interested in what you’re doing. I am, on both accounts. Mashup Camp is full of people doing extremely cool things. I’m just too worn out to see them right this minute.

  • Best Podcast Ever

    I’ve mentioned it before, but Episode 79 of Radio Clash is the best podcast ever. Tim’s put together a retrospective of early mashup/bootleg remixes, and it’s priceless. If you’ve ever been interested in what mashups are all about, this single podcast will turn you on and blow you away. Owner of a Lonely Butt will make you shake it and laugh it off all at the same time (and enya vs. prodigy is great too… I remember listening to that a long time ago, nice to have it back).\
    Bravo, Mr. Bearcub, bravo.

  • Revenge Of The Coolest AIM Pages Feature Ever

    The web page as service thing I talked about before is live now, and I’ve built my first module that uses it. If you go to my profile, you’ll see a little module in the left-hand column called shared buddies (if you want to see the source) that, if you’re logged in and have a profile, will grab the buddy gallery and see which buddies we share. Isn’t that cool?\
    I’m looking for other ideas for modules to mash up people’s pages, so be on the lookout for other cool stuff. If you’ve got ideas, please post a comment!

  • Searching For The AOL Blogfather

    For a while, I thought that I might have been the first AOL employee to have a blog. I know that can’t be true, but I’m curious as to who the AOL Blogfather is (term stolen gracelessly from Reid, who is one of my blogfathers).\
    If you’re an AOL or Netscape current or former employee and you have a blog whose first post is older than 7/20/2000, please let me know (you know, post a comment). It would be nice if the blog was still active.\
    Why do this today? Well, another great AOLer has started a blog, Jacob Rosenberg. Jacob’s a great guy and one of my favorite operations folks. His second post is a short history of the many web servers that have come out of AOL. I’ve used all of them at some point, and remember them (mostly) fondly.\
    Only nine days until this blog’s sixth birthday. I still haven’t decided what to get it yet.

  • Guess what?

    You have to actually open your e-mail program to see if your wonderful-but-traveling husband sent you something before he went to bed. It’s true. ::Nods sagely::

  • Doctor Who?

    I love my doctor! He called in an antibiotic prescription for me without making me come in for an exam! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.

  • Mash It Up

    Hello from sunny and sleepy Northern California. I’m here for Mashup Camp, and presenting tomorrow on AIM Pages and ModuleT. My presentation’s done, I’m wearing a screaming pink shirt and I got four hours of sleep (thanks, United – delayed flights are awesome). I’m ready to mash it up!\
    I rented a car, and was expecting to get to drive another G6. What did Avis have available? I ultra-awesome. Chevy HHR! It looks like an almost-butch PT Cruiser and drives like a brick. It feels like I’m sitting in a submarine. The pillars on either side of the windshield are so wide that it looks like a small porthole, not a windshield, and it’s almost at 90 degrees (as is everything on the dash), so it’s a very strange driving experience. I don’t recommend it.\
    But, whatever. I’m here for the mashups, not driving, right?