Elonka :)

[ So so true. I once looked up "Alexandria", the only reason for which being that my big media disk -- my "library" if you will -- is named Alexandria, and i wanted to see if i could find a name for a secondary drive used to backup that one. I was looking for ancillary libraries to the "great" one of Alexandria.

3 hours later I was reading all about the entire history of the Greek and Byzantine empires, and then Persia and all manner of ancient history among other things. The comic reminds me that at the time I considered positing a Wikipedia Investigative Growth Law, which states that each Wikipedia page you visit will result in no less than 2 subsequent page views of linked pages, and as many as 10 or more. Thus, the number of open tabs in your browser will increase exponentially until a) your browser crashes b) your eyes fall out of your head or you fall asleep from exhaustion or c) you have to leave your search due to unavoidable work, spousal or child-related duties.

I had a similar experience starting from a look at the page on Heraldry. Dear god, I lost most of a Saturday.

Oh, yeah, the hard drive got the name Serapeum. Click, if you dare ;)

-k ]

'The Problem with Wikipedia' - Webcomic

Via Acidus:

Brilliant!

We thought it sure would be handy if life came with status codes, but since it doesn't, we did the next best thing and printed them on stuff you wear. But not just any old stuff - we had to try something different, and print them on undies. So we bring you HTTPanties for the discriminating woman who would prefer a web-savvy and somewhat-direct approach in the romance department.

Feeling frisky? Well then don the black "200 OK" panties and see where they take you. Alternatively, the white "403 Forbidden" style sends a very different and hopefully clear message. New for 2005 we bring you two more styles: 411 Length Required and 413 Requested Entity Too Large.

And now, in what will surely drive a "Not Safe For Work" flag, your moment of zen.

As some of my co-workers noted, there are many more HTTP code that could be pantified:

300 Multiple Choices
305 Use Proxy
402 Payment Required
406 Not Acceptable
415 Unsupported Media Type
417 Expectation Failed
501 Not Implemented
502 Bad Gateway

Fucking awesome. And yes, I think the above codes need to be printed up asap. "305 Use proxy" in particular cracked me up.

Also, best ThinkGeek "Customer Action Shots" section ever. Usually that shit is full of, well, not attractive ladies showing off their panties, that's for sure.

ThinkGeek :: HTTPanties

] Solipsis is a pure peer-to-peer system for a massively
] shared virtual world. There is no server at all: it only
] relies on end-users' machines.
]
] The shared virtual worlds of nowadays MMORPG strongly
] rely on privately owned servers. These servers are an
] expensive bottleneck that limits their scalability. In
] addition, these servers bound the freedom of the virtual
] world inhabitants and the imagination of the
] world-builders and developers. Solipsis solves these
] problems with a free and open-source system.
]
] Solipsis is a public virtual territory. The world is
] initially empty and only users will fill it by creating
] and running entities. No pre-existing cities, habitants
] nor scenario to respect...
]
] Solipsis is open-source, so everybody can enhance the
] protocols and the algorithms. Moreover, the system
] architecture clearly separates the different tasks, so
] that peer-to-peer hackers as well as multimedia geeks can
] find here a good place to have fun !
]
] The best approximation of what could be Solipsis in a
] near future may be Neal Stephenson's Metaverse.

Interesting.

Development is being lead by France Telecom's R&D division.

Solipsis: A peer-to-peer system for a massively multi-participant virtual world

i want some more details, but there's nothing implicitly wrong with this model. I worry that the DRM which it requires will not be feasible under non-windows OS's or won't be as widely supported as they claim in various classes of device.

also, of course, the files will be broken, that's impossible to avoid, but if this model provides enough value to users to not want to break it, that's the real point...

opinions? is a referral bonus gonna be an incentive for you to adopt such a system? what other value-added features would be?

New Scientist

Brief James Gosling interview at red herring. a couple of good tidbits, but it looks like he's having some of the same thoughts i've been having regarding the use of the internet as a tool for increasing the representative part of our democracy.

RED HERRING | The Business of Technology

H2G2 entry for l33t sp34k.

BBC - h2g2 - An Explanation of l33t Speak

] RATE radio is a collaborative filtering client/server mp3
] player/downloader. The iRATE server has a large database
] of music. You rate the tracks and it uses your ratings
] and other peoples to guess what you'll like. The tracks
] are downloaded from websites which allow free and legal
] downloads of their music.

I give them a couple more weeks before they get smacked with a lawsuit.

iRATE radio home