I am so done with it all.

People who publicly bash my projects as evil or malicious, while privately asking me for the source code. (and I don't mean Jikto)

People who write entire articles dismissing my contributions as irrelevant, but at the same time are so frighten by them that they purchase Google ad words on my name to ride on my success.

People who publicly question my integrity from moral high ground, and then offer me a beer like nothing has happened.

Instead of feeling hurt or angry, I just feel plain sad. Because once you’ve been sued for doing the right thing, once you’ve been tarred and feathered for being smart, you really don’t care about impressing much of anyone. But for some reason folks sure feel the need to feel more impressive than you.

I’m a curious hacker. That’s what I do. The fact that someone wants to pay me to be curious is just a happy coincidence for me. Lawsuits and mud-raking and “drama” and two-faced “friends” and the many other things I’ve seen so far, and all the things I’m sure to see in the future really don’t factor into it for me. They aren’t going to change what I like to do, what I’m damn good at, and what I’ll continue to do. They are, if anything, unfortunate, sad roadblocks.

I stand by my achievements, whether they are appreciated or not.
I stand by who I am.
I stopped caring how people accept me a long ago.

Drama

Hot off the presses: Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling [PDF] on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here is what matters most:

[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights.

That's Aaaaall, Folks! The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". That's the ball game. There are a couple of loose ends, but the big picture is, SCO lost. Oh, and it owes Novell a lot of money from the Microsoft and Sun licenses.

Groklaw - Court Rules: Novell owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights! Novell has right to waive!

Development of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) stopped in 1999 with HTML 4. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) focused its efforts on changing the underlying syntax of HTML from Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) to Extensible Markup Language (XML), as well as completely new markup languages like Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), XForms, and MathML. Browser vendors focused on browser features like tabs and Rich Site Summary (RSS) readers. Web designers started learning Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and the JavaScript™ language to build their own applications on top of the existing frameworks using Asynchronous JavaScript XML (Ajax). But HTML itself grew hardly at all in the next eight years.

Recently, the beast came back to life. Three major browser vendors—Apple, Opera, and the Mozilla Foundation—came together as the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WhatWG) to develop an updated and upgraded version of classic HTML. More recently, the W3C took note of these developments and started its own next-generation HTML effort with many of the same members. Eventually, the two efforts will likely be merged. Although many details remain to be argued over, the outlines of the next version of HTML are becoming clear.

New elements in HTML 5

In a time deluged by ideology -- when everyone is urged to take a side and join the political battle -- Shakespeare offers a different message: that the most important and dramatic choices are made in the human soul. Some steps, once taken, cannot be retraced. Some appetites, once freed, become a prison.

But the plays are not simple sermons. Fate can be indifferent to our best intentions. Even the purest love can lead to disaster. All our explanations of suffering are incomplete.

We watch the struggling souls in Shakespeare's plays with uncomfortable self-recognition. In their raw honesty we see our own nature, even those parts that are despairing and lawless. And as these characters are transformed, we see ourselves differently as well.

but then Shakespeare lived in an age far more consumed by idealogy even more than our own -- the religious conflicts, the wars, threat of foreign invasion and coup d'état (Richard II was used to incite rebellion)
Shakespeare rocks
The Tempest
Caliban says of Propero

'tis a custom with him
I' the afternoon to sleep: there thou may'st brain him,
Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log
Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,
Or cut his wezend with thy knife. Remember
First to possess his books; for without them
He's but a sot, as I am,

50 lines later this would be murderer, attempted rapist and rebel (traitor to his master in Elizabethean terms being a heinous crime)
has the most beautiful lines in the play and some of the best in Shakespeare -- like an uber Mike Tyson saying something so beautiful it makes you cry

Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak'd
I cried to dream again.

part of Shakespeare's genius is that he demonstrates that just when we may think we have the measure of a character, there goes the rug from beneath your feet, you can never measure a person's soul

Michael Gerson - Ourselves in Shakespeare - washingtonpost.com

Experts on language - the real ones, not those of us who merely use it - are having an intense debate about which species can talk.
...
In a new book called "The First Word," Christine Kenneally catalogs the complex debate over language and includes one particularly revealing experiment in which scientists put two male apes who knew sign language together. One might have expected these guys to start grousing about their keepers. But, no, they started madly signing at each other, a manual shouting match, and in the end, neither appeared to actually listen to the other.
...
With a hot August and a long political season ahead, we might venture that what really separates human from ape is not the ability to talk in complete sentences. It is our underused capacity to listen.

We never talk anymore - International Herald Tribune

vaguely disturbed to see someone Adam uppercase "a" blogging with my name
not a big deal but i came on the site and i'm like i didn't recommend that article and it took me a second to realize ah uppercase
so time for a name change
online cognomen time

SCI FI Channel will revive its popular original show Farscape as a Web-based series of short films on SCIFI.COM's SCI FI Pulse broadband network, part of a slate of new original online programming.

I love Farscape so to me this is cool depending on how short short is

SCI FI Wire | The News Service of the SCI FI Channel | SCIFI.COM

Harry Potter novels and films have been praised by a church in Kent as a way of promoting Christian values.

an example of how "the church" in Engalnd is far more sane than religion US style
edit
personally i'm counting down the last few days to the new book which i have on pre-order

BBC NEWS | England | Kent | Church praises Potter philosophy

This rocks. some Australian guys build a Trojan Horse full of people dressed like Greek solders, and then try to get it past security into various places in Sydney. The only place that denies them access is the Turkish Consulate.

YouTube - Trojan Horse Test

Two people are sitting in a room together: an experimenter and a subject. The experimenter gets up and closes the door, and the room becomes quieter. The subject is likely to believe that the experimenter's purpose in closing the door was to make the room quieter.

The Evolutionary Brain Glitch That Makes Terrorism Fail