Copyrighteous

One benefit of having a blog is that you don't have tell the same stories over and over to all of your friends and acquaintances.

One drawback is that you can't.

I have a sore throat today and I asked Mika if she had any Fisherman's Friends. She asked what they were. I said "fish."

I was making a joke. After all, calling a fish a "fisherman's friend" implies a relationship that is beyond the realm of even dysfunctional friendships. Of course, this also makes one wonder about the term "friend" in the context of a throat lozenge that hardly fairs any better than the fish in the same company.

I've been reading First Monday for several years now. It's probably the only academic journal that I take the time to scan every single time a new issue is released. As you might imagine, I was felt honored to be asked by Sandeep Krishnamurthy to submit a set of reflections on Free and Open Source Software's from a "where have we been, where are we going" perspective for a upcoming special issue of First Monday on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

First Monday has published or republished some of the most important articles on FOSS -- both academic and non-academic -- over the last few years and this issues tries to highlight many of the best pieces.

The issue was released today and can find the whole issue here. You can jump direction to my reflections on free software past and future as well.

Overall, Krishnamurthy puts together a solid collection. My only critique is that I felt that at least one piece from someone on the Free Software side of the Open Source/Free Software divide would be essential to a complete collection. I found it conspicuously missing.

Thinking along these lines, I could not help but remember that Eben Moglen's Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright was published in First Monday early on and I'm sad that it was no included. I understand that Moglen's piece is more radical and less "academic" than others but I'm not convinced it would be any more out of place than the Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar which was included. While less visible, Moglen is at least on par with Raymond in terms of the impact and importance of this thought in the FOSS world.

Moglen's piece was one of the two articles that first brought FM to my attention and, whether you agree with it or not, it is a controversial and important piece. The other article on FOSS that I an think of in relation to FM was George Dafermos' Management and virtual decentralized networks. Looking at again, I'm not sure it's aged very well (or perhaps I haven't aged well in relation to it) but I was happy to see that it make it in.

I was talking to Eben Moglen a couple days ago. In addition to saying many insightful and inspirational things, Eben used the word "physical" metaphorically.

I am looking for suggestions on sensible way to use the word "metaphor" metaphorically.

While some people think it's fine to soak their contacts in water overnight, it is my opinion than water is no solution.

In a paper on computer supported collaborative work I was reading recently, I read this line in the opening paragraph:

This has partly to do with the fact that in recent years the importance of understanding human computer interact ions in social and cultural context has increasingly been acknowledged.

I spent longer than I should have trying to figure out what "interact ions" were before I realized that there had simply been an extra space inserted into "interactions."

I still think "interact ions" sounds like an excellent Media Lab project.

Mika tells me that Greg Pomerantz -- who still refuses to have his own blog -- once bought a book called A History of Mathematics. He was looking for a book like it and this volume was sandwiched between several others sharing the similar name The History of Mathematics.

Greg went with A and he made the correct choice. It's clear that the authors of the latter books got at least one thing wrong that the former got right.

I recently bought A Tour of the Calculus.

At the lab, I share an office with two folks working in Push Singh and Marvin Minsky's Common Sense Computing artificial intelligence research group. The group has recently been looking at finding new corpora of data for helping to teach computers common sense. Recently, someone had the idea of using blogs as a source. My officemate, Dustin, decided to try out Livejournal.

Now LJ has something of a reputation for being a place where angst-ridden and depressed teenagers vent their spleen. From a small random sampling of data, Dustin seems ready to conclude that:

1. LJ's reputation is not as fully undeserved as some might hope.
2. LJ is probably not the best source of data on which to build the future's artificial intelligences.

These snippets are from the first 5-6 random posts:

Certain people think I suck, but others don't. Feel free to be the judge.

...

And I'm going to slaughter the person who gave me whatever it is that I have right now. As soon as I find them. And I'm about to be one of those people who go to work sick because I need money.

...

My thoughts of late have been pretty scattered and off the wall. But the last few nights have been very rough on me. My dreams, actually nightmares, have been of death, violent death. Death of myself, both body and soul. As a result, I am in the process of making a will. I don't want to sound morbid but I feel that this is something I have to do. I'm not sure why and maybe I'm just in a wonky mood.

The Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy anyone?

It seems that the new exclusive Cambridge, Massachusetts social space The Acetarium is having it's grand opening at the same time and in the same place that I'm having my house warming party.

Both parties are tomorrow (Saturday September 17th) at The Acetarium.

If you're interested in coming to either event, contact me. The time to show up is 8pm or later if you're interested in just drinks and earlier (4pm on) if you're interested in making or eating sushi.

The MTA runs the subway, buses, and some commuter rail lines in New York City. It runs 24 hours a day and every day of the year. I can say without hesitation that is the best public transportation system I have ever used.

In addition to all of those things, the MTA also runs a beta version of a Weekend Service Advisory notification service. Because the subway does not close at night, most maintenance work is done on weekends and there are always strange service changes or interruptions (e.g., subways may run only local or express, be replaced by buses, etc). Normally, you find out about these by reading the signs posted in the stations.

The MTA Weekend Advisory System aims to put an email interface on all of this. You can log in with an email address and select the train lines that you want to know about and then changes made to those routes are emailed to you every Friday. From a technical perspective it sounds pretty simple.

If you visit the advisory site you will see uninterpolated VBScript at the top. You will soon understand how absolutely appropriate this is.

After the two weeks where the site didn't allow me to sign up, I got my first email. It began something like this:

Dear NYC Transit E-mail subscriber:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

It's basically it's been that way every since. Every week I get an email full of what looks like Microsoft specific uninterpolated XML variables. I've been wondering for months how they can send these out week after week and not notice that they are completely unreadable.

I think I've discovered why. The advisories use a multipart/alternatives mail and the HTML looks file. The reason that I (and everyone else I know) has been seeing the garbage is because we all read text/plain if it's available and the brokenness is hidden if you read the HTML. Apparently, the MTA developers have not ever read their own text/plain advisory.

I would unsubscribe from the advisories now that I have moved away from New York except that:

1. I'm sort of curious as to how long it will take them to notice and fix this (I reported the bug weeks ago).
2. I have absolutely no faith that I will be able to do so successfully.
3. I somewhat enjoy the chuckle I get each week as I read this error.

Thanks to Andres, Ari, and Alana, I'm mostly moved into the Acetarium. People's who name did not start with "A" were also invited to help but, for a number of reasons, universally failed to do so. Mika, Micah and myself (Mako) helped load the truck in New York. Andres also helped in New York. This was unfortunate for the purposes of alliteration but was appreciated in general.

So far, it is treating me quite well. Mika arrives tonight.

There are three things that relate to my home that I think I should mention.

First

Some people have asked me about the name of The Acetarium. In Latin, acetarium means salad. Clint has was taken back and asked if I lived in a salad. Of course, this would be ridiculous. I don't live in a salad. I live in the salad.

Second

It turns out that I was incorrect in my previous post. The building that I live in does have a name and that name does include a definite article. This is above the building's threshold:

In fact, the full name of my apartment is:

The Acetarium at the Cantabrigia

The presence of two definite article makes me happier than many might imagine.

Third

If you live in Boston, there are a couple upcoming events at The Acetarium you might be interested in. The first is a Grand Opening (i.e, house warming) which will be on the evening of Saturday the 17th. Mika and I will be making sushi so if you want to help or learn, you should show up early. This is an open invitation and I would love to meet new people in the area but please call ahead and please make sure I know you are coming.

We're also planning a party for folks displaced from Seattle. Perhaps with geoduck on the menu and certainly with other Pacific Northwest drinks and dishes. If you have live in Boston and miss Seattle, you should come.

Please watch the website or the rss feed for information on these and other events.