Jonas Beckman

I posted a message to the Radio Userland discussion group. Unless you use Radio Userland and recently had problems with OPML editing, it won’t make much sense.

I am debugging a small Python-program. It would be very easy, if I didn’t have so much fever.

In this state, the least interesting part (application-specific position-counting) takes forever, generalization never happens – and background material (on fascinating subjects like Unicode and XML) suddenly seem incomprehensible. In a funny way, fever just makes more obvious what goes on during any extended strech of bad programming.

I drink lots of fluid and keep trying – not much else to do.

Getting yourself confused with a programming language isn’t a sane
thing to do.

One of many great quotes from Why I Hate Advocacy. Link via FlyingChihuahas

Getting yourself confused with your name is probably stupid, too.
But I liked this online analysis of my name. Of course, I am skeptical about these things.

For cable and DSL users who worry about connection speed, this page on SpeedGuide.net may be worth a look. Link from my brother. Thanks, Fredrik!

I’m breaking through on the Python front! My little weekend-hack has now turned from proof-of-concept into something we can use for real next week: a very nice way of massaging a customer’s weird data into XML. And tighten up their workflow a lot.

My business partner (whose original code I ported from Delphi) is home with his one-year old daughter. We spoke briefly on the phone and agreed we were ready for the next step.

My body is still not quite alright (to put it mildly)… but my head works fine. And Aila is here feeding me delicious things – so overall I’m having a very good time.

Lots of Python today: I am happy and feel as if I could hack forever. But I still have fever and a bad stomach – so I’ll be smart: sleep now, stay at home tomorrow. I want to get completely well this time.

The day before yesterday I ate some bad food in a restaurant. Not until today am I well enough to write (or do much of anything). Shit happens.

Do you like to read books? So do I, but I won’t download Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader yet. Wes Felter was alert and noticed this:

“If you are a software programmer, you should note that the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader’s security implementation does not allow program debuggers to be executed on the machine while the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader is running.”

This could be the first step towards something very bad: Adobe controlling how we read our books.

In fact, this is an not limited to books. In general, not permitting the use of debuggers means a company is afraid to tell what their software really does. Nobody ought to trust a company that says: we promise this is what we sold you – but we’ll take you to court if you try to see for yourself.

Yes! Another morning down at Eriksdalsbadet. I’m slowly increasing the length and intensity of my swimming, but I’m still more focused on maintaining a good stroke than anything else.

I’m sad and tired this morning. But reading my usual weblogs I clearly see that life goes on and good things happen – I’ll try to contribute to that feeling in a little while.

The Register: Gates talks big on small IE6 cookie move. MS says they want to protect your privacy. But talk is cheap… Opera has already implemented better ways of checking cookies than we’ll ever see in IE6.

Garret is back! There are so many different good links on DangerousMeta, I have a hard time selecting just one or two. Go see for yourself!

Alwin is having coffe with Patti. This is good writing. And the site layout gets better and better, too.

Martin is brave and shares a recent catharsis with us. Thank you!

Greg Franklin has fun making a new site and reflects:

I could have reorganized this ETP site to better highlight different themes of mine (see the FAQ), but it’s just easier to plop down a new web site as an interface layer.

Greg may call what he is doing “lazy Microsoft-style programming” – but that’s just him being Japanese. This way of thinking about sites is exciting and demands new skills: trying it out right now is a very smart move.

James Vornov:

I’ve enjoyed rereading what I’ve written in the past. This is a weblog. A continuous, unified work. I like to go back and create loops in my creation.

… We ought to be rereading and refining our art here.

Amen. This is what I am trying to do, too.

It’s no longer very early Sunday… it’s evening and I just came home from swimming and some steam sauna. I feel good!

Richard Baldwin has written an amazing amount of tutorials about Java, XML and Python.

I just noticed some stuff Martin found a few days ago: ASD Dream time articles online and a little intro to Senoi dream technique. I’ll try this at home real soon Good night!

Maybe I will switch browsers this time: Opera 5.0 still feels really good.

I imported my bookmarks, changed some prefs for toolbars, windows and startup – and it looked almost like my usual browser. But pages loaded quicker, hierarchical menus worked better (and “z” as shortcut for Back is brilliant). So I paid 39$ online and got rid of the ads – they didn’t really bother me, but I wanted to buy it.

Shockwawe and Flash work: use the latest installer for Netscape. Acrobat works, too – but after installling you must copy the file “nnpdf32.dll” from Adobe’s plugin folder to Opera’s plugin folder and then go to Preferences/plugins. Realplayer works fine (as a separate application).

I’ve never really felt good about Java. Hyped as the solution to everything for everyone, we now know it was just another so-so programming language. And even die-hard fans think Java programs are too hard to install.
My personal installation routine for most Java programs is simple: I don’t. Link via HackThePlanet.

Aila just showed up and pointed out it was dark outside… I’ll take a break… we’ll go and buy some food.

“It’s grey all over this country. No snow, no sun, no nothing!”

Aila doesn’t like the current Swedish weather, either.

I’ve been down for two days with another bad cold. But yesterday evening we had to empty our downtown office (which will soon get a complete facelift). So I did several hours of carrying and sweated the cold right out of my body – not a cure I recommend, but this time it worked.

Tomorrow I’ll do an introductory XML course for developers, today I’m setting up the course website. It won’t be public until I have tested it live a few times – and so far it’s in Swedish..

Dave Winer is now working on slideshows for Manila. Once Userland releases this functionality, I’ll use it. In fact, I’d use it tomorrow if I could!

There is a free version of Opera 5.0! I’m using it right now, and it feels good. When Martin started posting about it I had to try.

Yesterday, it was one year since Editthispage.com started. It’s now an important part of my life – many thanks to the writers all over the world who make it so special. And to Dave Winer for creating it!

Alwin writes a lot about the anniversary. He also articulates what some of us have started to suspect: Hal is on hiatus from hiatus.

James Vornov does ETP re-runs! Here is the very first post of On deciding better.

Garret and Sandra have finally made it to their new house. Congratulations!

Martin links to Forgetfulness as filter. Interesting metaphor! Martin, you are right: this is yet another good reason to cherish our stupidity.

AIDS Day: Susan writes beautifully about a dead friend. There is a lot to learn from this story. Thank you for sharing!

David Rogers:

There seems to be some desire on the part of some scientists and philosophers to deglamorize consciousness, to debunk the notion of free will. I’m really not sure what’s up with that. I think that comes from a particular fear of their own.

I had exactly the same reaction when reading some articles about dreams a few days ago: these people are jumping to conclusions. We just don’t know enough yet.

Me and Aila are up early. She has baked bread, we’re having breakfast while going over some bookkeeping.

Things that go bump on the Net – a flora & fauna of security risks. Via Wes Felter.

Past lunch in Stockholm and it’s raining. Writing proposals and going to meetings… well, some days that’s what I do. Well, I’ll soon hack Python and read more about etruscan history again – but now it’s time to go!

The meetings turned out well: an old customer is back with a new interesting project – of course it’s all about XML, but this time we can probably use Python. Fun time!

When Aila left early this morning (for yet another course – JC, she works harder than I do!) she said: there is sun today. Why don’t you go out?

November is always awful in Sweden – and this November saw the most rain in recorded history. So I will now go outside and check if that yellow thing in the sky is really there.

It wasn’t – but at least it was warm and didn’t rain. And parts of the sky were actually blue for a few hours.