I'd Rather Fight Than Switch

Anil Dash, responding to Don Park's take on the Atom 1.0 launch:

Don, you raise a lot of really good points, but surely you can't argue that changes like clarifying the RSS 2.0 spec, transferring ownership to a neutral party, and embracing namespaces weren't at least partially motivated by the existence of Atom? Even if you don't like the feed format (and I'll gladly concede the API is much more interesting), Atom's the best thing that's ever happened to RSS, no?

No. If you compare today's RSS 2.0 specification to the one in July 2003, back when the Atom project was launched, you'll find only minor edits.

The Atom Syndication Format's an intriguing, well-specified protocol, but in the time it took the world's most democratic spec-drafting team to finish Atom 1.0, RSS 2.0 has grown at an astonishing rate. One of the reasons is that it was left alone: Dave Winer froze RSS before passing the spec to the Berkman Center, then helped RSS Advisory Board members fight the urge to thaw it.

And when I say Advisory Board members, I mean me. I still want to take an icepick to that thing.

As a syndication and weblog API dork, I like Atom, but I don't understand why it took longer to create Atom 1.0 than it took to invent XML 1.0 (approximate count from first announcement to recommendation: 450 days for XML, 725 for Atom). This is a syndication format, not a space shuttle. I knew they were in trouble when the project became mired in a three-month-long bikeshed discussion over what to name the format.

Still, as someone who knows the pain of getting anywhere near a specification, I congratulate the developers who emerged alive from the two-year struggle to create and standardize Atom. And I for one welcome our new syndication overlords.

Rss · 2005/07/15 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Robert Wilonsky: Fully Loaded

Dallas Observer film critic Robert Wilonsky:

To damn Herbie: Fully Loaded as soporific crap, as lazy profiteering, as yet another needless and cynical remake in a season populated by such con artists, would be as pointless as the movie itself. If you had any hope for it, you're either a Walt Disney executive or Gordon Buford, author of the story "Car-Boy-Girl" that birthed five prior features, including 1969's The Love Bug and the 1997 made-for-TV redo with Bruce Campbell in the Dean Jones role, and a short-lived TV series.

I've seen Fully Loaded recently with my kids, and the idea it's being subjected to serious criticism cracks me up.

I'd like to know who Wilonsky envisioned as the readership of that review. Does he think Observer readers debated between seeing the sixth Herbie film and drinking their way up and down Greeneville Avenue?

When I saw the film, kids adored Herbie for the same reason I loved it as a kid, the same reason my grandkids will love another Herbie remake in 20 years -- a beaten-up Volkswagen comes to life, surprising its hard-luck owner! Hilarity ensues! A lovable mechanic makes him new again! The car squirts oil on a dastardly villain! He wins a race just when you thought he was going to lose!

Expecting Disney to deviate from this formula is like going to Hamlet and hoping for a happy ending.

I wrote briefly for the Observer in the late '80s, though I don't think I met Wilonsky. I'm concerned for him. No one on the far side of 35 should be able to offer an informed opinion on the relative quality of Lindsey Lohan's three Disney films.

Television · Movies · 2005/07/15 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Political Site Slow to Disclose Credit Card Theft

There's an ongoing dispute between the right-wing group ProtestWarrior and a left-wing "hacktivist" accused of breaking in to their servers and accessing the credit card information of 5,000 customers of the group's online store.

While that allegation is under investigation (no charges have been filed), ProtestWarrior makes an unusual admission: They discovered the possible theft of customer credit cards in February, but didn't tell any customers until July 5.

The reason we haven't made this announcement earlier is that our customers were already protected and we didn't want to jeopardize the ongoing FBI investigation of Jeremy and his "hacktivist" army.

ProtestWarrior customers weren't protected. They've had no chance to cancel their cards or check bills for fraudulent charges. Making matters worse, many credit card providers only let you challenge a charge for 60 days.

Additionally, any ProtestWarrior customers in California must be informed personally of this security breach under a credit card disclosure law passed in 2003. Failure to do so exposes a merchant to civil liability for damages.

Security · Politics · 2005/07/14 · 17 COMMENTS · Link

Poker? I Barely Know Her

I'm not much of a Texas Holdem poker player, which I blame on my obsession with the slang terms for different hands. I'd rather draw a well-named hand than a winning one.

Yesterday I was trying to explain to my wife why a six and nine of the same suit, "6-9 suited," is called a prom night. She wasn't getting it at all, even when I offered to draw a picture.

While playing last week with a poker fanatic brother-in-law, we began discussing athletes on my junior high basketball team who quit to become cheerleaders.

When I told him their reason -- they did it to spend more time around female cheerleaders -- the look on his face matched the one Ross got on Friends when he repeated his parents' claim that the family dog had been sent off to a farm.

My in-law's skepticism led to the coining of a new poker term for a hand that's not-quite-straight, with four cards in sequence.

I hope this doesn't get back to my old teammates at Pauline G. Hughes Middle School in Burleson, Texas, but we're calling it a male cheerleader.

Jargon · 2005/07/14 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

President George H.W. Bush in a 1999 speech:

We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country.

Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

Politics · 2005/07/13 · 18 COMMENTS · Link

The defenders of Bush's leaky brain are getting desperate:

My only comfort is that probably about 80% or more of the American people don't know who Karl Rove is. And probably 90% or even more don't know who Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame are. Remember, only about 20-25% can name even one Supreme Court [justice].

This was written by Betsy Newmark, an Advanced Placement teacher of U.S. government and politics at a North Carolina high school.

How many Americans knew Archibald Cox's name in 1973, teach?

Politics · Journalism · 2005/07/12 · 27 COMMENTS · Link

Infantryman Randy Cadenhead in Iraq

One of at least two Cadenheads serving in Iraq, infantryman Spc. Randy Cadenhead, turned up in an interesting Iraq Pictures weblog. I don't know him personally, but I suspect one of the genealogists in the family could show me that we're fourth or fifth cousins.

I've yet to hear from a Cadenhead who wasn't related to me, including one in Houston who hoped we weren't kin because of something I published on the web.

War · Iraq · Cadenhead · 2005/07/11 · Comment · Link

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