Getting semantic with Tantek

Tomorrow night, Tantek and I are talking at SDForum about Semantic XHTML:

Can your website be your API? - Using semantic XHTML to make your structures clear

XML formats gained popularity as a backlash against the messiness of HTML mixing structure and presentation, and leniency for sloppy markup. With XHTML+CSS now widely supported in mainstream browsers, and gaining converts even amongst those most focused on representation, these objections lose their force, and the resistance to more and more ad-hoc specialized schemas grows. How far can we get specifying structure in pure XHTML -valid XML - styling it with CSS for presentation, and making it parsable for meaning?

4 million served

Technorati just passed the 4 million blogs indexed point. We get about the same number of posts a week.

Sharks in a tank

We went to Monterey Bay Aquarium on Sunday and saw the baby Great White shark they have in the tank there - video below:

They say this is the only Great White to eat in captivity, and that the longest any lasted previously was 16 days. How annoying for the Bond villains with the shark tanks to have to restock every couple of weeks, and then to have the sharks refuse to eat when they drop victims in.

The tip if you go to see it is to go in the Members' entrance (membership is a good deal if you go even twice a year) and go straight to the 'Endangered Wildlife' section, which leads to the bottom of the Outer Bay tank, where the shark spends its time. If you go upstairs to the auditorium seating part of the Outer Bay tank upstairs you are very unlikely to see the shark clearly past the crowds.

Audio misunderstandings

IEEE Spectrum has an article on audio compression that manages to combine some useful info with sloppy misconceptions and questionable assertions. I annotated it to point these out. Do join me in correcting it for them.

Can't give money away

I'm told by James and Jim of VoteOrNot that the chances of winning $100,000 are good as their sign-up rate is lower than they expected.

Vote early and vote often.

Unacknlowedged legislators

I'm guest-blogging over at Many2Many; this is my first effort.

Shelley wrote that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, and this dream lies behind a lot of blogging, though the literary archetype is perhaps Peter Wiggin rather than Byron.

The challenge for social software is to construct frameworks for people. Suw and Adina have recently discussed the analogies with architectural spaces; Joel about how having lots of people involved changes design.

I spent the holiday weekend building sandcastles, watching waves closely to decide which one to jump into, and reading Churchill's description of how political organisation evolved in the UK.

What I hope to do while guest-blogging here is to talk about how we build enduring frameworks that enable people to grow new, surprising institutions together.

Dewey dubiety

David Weinberger partially defends the Dewey decimal system. I see his point, but a system that gives Phrenology a top-level number (139) but sues people promoting it is doomed to an early death when there is a free and open alternative to refer to topics easily.