Advogato blog for grisha

24 Dec 2002

Tue, 24 Dec 2002 20:25:12 GMT

Started browsing the web in search of material relevant to an honor based micropayment system and an hour later somehow ended up on advogato, so why not make an entry?

In my web search I didn't find what I was looking for and I conclude that the Internet has turned from the cathedral and bazaar into a bizzare junk yard of abandoned well intentions. I saw numerous projects from p2p trust framewroks to entire languages, many written in java (I'm still not convinced its any good, btw), and all seemingly abandoned... Mailing lists with noone posting, source code not updated for the past year... It's like the technological progress just collapsed on itself - all this innovation and no good coming out of it. I still use pine to read my e-mail, and the way I pay my bills hasn't changed since 1997 when my bank started web banking; my phone system at work (am I not lucky to actually have a job) is a clunky nt meridian and is not integrated with the network whatsoever; my fridge is not connected to the internet, and, frankly, my internet connection is still kinda lame and expensive... My music is still on CD's, I don't download it because I'm too confused about what's legal anymore, and I'm not even going to get started on video... And what happened with convergence? I pay for phone because I have no choice, I refuse to pay for cable, and I think I should get both for a fraction of the price of either... Needless to say I'm disapointed. I'd like to change the world, but I don't know where to start.

So there is my diary entry.

29 Dec 2000

Fri, 29 Dec 2000 05:29:05 GMT

Time for a diary entry... I'm sick as a dog and so is the rest of my family. The kind of cold that I would expect in Moscow, but not in DC doesn't help either.

Is it just me or has slashdot become a complete bore?

17 Dec 2000

Sun, 17 Dec 2000 05:22:31 GMT

Released mod_python 2.7. I'm quite proud of this one... Other than that, just another crazy day.

14 Dec 2000

Thu, 14 Dec 2000 06:16:11 GMT

I am now at a point when I think mod_python documentation actually looks pretty good. When compiled as PDF it turns out to be a 55 page document... I'm quite proud of it, tough it deserves some more work. This is all in CVS only for now. I think 2.7 will be the last Apashe 1.3 release, after that, I'm going to start focusing on Apache 2.0.

On other fronts - not much going on (well... considering that we have a three month old Michael and a full schedule at work...)

As a Christmas present I'm considering getting myself a nice synthesizer... Any suggestions are welcome.

P.S. Saw a cool sig today:

"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban

Still, my favorite is:

Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.

2 Dec 2000

Sat, 2 Dec 2000 04:39:02 GMT

Just got my new Apple airport working with a Lucent WaveLAN card. This is really nice. I can now sit by the fireplace with my trusty Vaio running FreeBSD and type advogato diary entries. If you live in a house and have a laptop you must get one of these things, they rule and the price is right.

If only I could figure out a way to supply power wirelessly....

I now have the Python documentation in LaTeX all figured out. Mod_python documentation now looks really great with an index, pdf ability and everything. It's not in CVS quite yet because I still have some LaTeX typing to do, but by mid next week I should have it.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Connecticut to bring my wife and and kids back home on Sunday. My "vacation" is over....

28 Nov 2000

Tue, 28 Nov 2000 03:59:00 GMT

OK, this is my first entry here.... For the past three days I've been learning LaTeX. So far so good.