Torso

Help put the Scarlet Knight on the cover of NCAA 09 Football

2008-02-29T22:58:12Z

The creators of NCAA Football video games are having a contest. They will place the college mascot with the most votes on the cover of their new video game "NCAA Football 2009" for the Wii.

So, Everyone please vote once a day until March 14th!

Go to http://www.easports.com/ncaa09/ and get voting!

read more | digg story

Proposition 3-17: Make St Patrick's Day an Official Holiday

2008-02-29T22:48:30Z

Proposition 3-17, supported by Guinness, is a campaign to make St Patrick's Day an official holiday in the USA.

If they can get 1,000,000 signatures by March 16 (the eve of St Patrick's Day), they will bring the petition to Congress. Even if they don't get them all, it will make us that much closer to getting a holiday at some point.

There is also a Facebook group called Make St. Patrick's Day an Official Holiday! Proposition 3-17. Join it and invite your friends to do the same.

Sorry for those non-Americans, but Guinness is only doing this for the USA right now. Maybe you can start your own petition and we can make it even broader. So, all of you Irish-Canadians that don't live in Labrador or Newfoundland, lets get the party started :D

read more | digg story

Gun Control on YouTube

2007-07-17T05:05:24Z

One of my favorite shows is Penn & Teller Bullshit even though I no longer get Showtime. Here goes a show on Gun Control in 3 parts:

Here goes a video from the NRA stating how ballistic fingerprinting doesn't work. There are a bunch of inconsistencies in it like "no supercomputer in the world could handle it" but there are also some interesting points like the cost effectiveness isn't worth it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAlixegkf0o

ABC's John Stossel "Myth: Gun Control Reduces Crime" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_YTM_eAWn

Even Archie Bunker makes the same, good arguments - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8fXMMCuLew

Distributed Profiles Tags (WIP)

2007-06-26T07:54:02Z

Tags with attributes in alphabetical order
# 4 spaces to a tab
# Courier New; 10pt

<birthdate>:        ISO standard birthdate

<blazoo>:            container for the profile
    updated:        unix timestamp of when the profile was last updated
    version:        protocol version

<books>:            books the person likes to read
    delimeter:        a series of characters

<comments>
    <comment>:        the comment
        email:        email of the commentor
        name:        name of the person making the comment
        timestamp:    when this comment was posted
        url:        url to the commentor's profile
        website:    website of the commentor

<dislikes>
    delimeter:        a series of characters

<education>
    <school>:        name of school
        date_from:    when you started the school
        date_to:    when you finished the school or 'present'
        type:        high school, middle school, college, elementary, etc

<email>
    title:            an alternative to displaying the email address

<employment>
    <job>:            job title
        date_from
        date_to
        employer:    company you work(ed) for

<feed>:                url to the feed
    type:            type of feed such as RSS and ATOM
    version:        the version of the feed protocol

<friends>
    url:            an external friends page instead of inline
    <friend>:        name of friend
        image:        an image representing this friend
        url:        url to the profile of this friend
        relationship: text describing the relationship

<gender>:            male, female, transgender, or unspecified

<groups>
    <group>
        image:        image representing the group
        joined:        date/time joined
        updated:
        url:        url of the group

<im>
    <aim>
    <icq>
    <gtalk>
    <jabber>
    <msn>
    <yim>

<language>:            a ISO standard language definition

<likes>:            a delimited list of likes
    delimeter:        series of characters

<location>:            if sub-tags are used, the location will be represented by them. Otherwise, use the string.
    <city>:            city
    <country>:        ISO standard country
    <postal_code>:    postal code
    <state>:        state or province

<music>:            music the person likes to listen to
    delimeter:        a series of characters

<name>
    <first>
    <last>
    <middle>
    <prefix>
    <suffix>

<networks>
    <network>:        a network this person is a member of
        image
        joined
        url

<online>:            yes/no if the user is online or offline

<pgp>:                a public PGP key

<pictures>
    <picture>:        url of picture
    # a lot of meta data
    album:            name of the album this picture belongs to
    comment:        comments on this picture
    filesize:        raw filesize
    file_type:        ie gif, jpg, jpeg, bmp, png, etc
    tags:            tags associated with this picture
    time_taken:        timestamp of when the picture was taken
    time_uploaded:    timestamp of when the picture was uploaded
        <people>
            <person>: name of the person tagged in this picture
                box_size
                box_start
                url

<quote>

<signature>

<song>:                url to a song to be played when viewing this profile
    # a lot of meta data
    album:            album this song comes from
    artist:            name of the artist
    genre:
    image:            artwork from this song
    name:            name of the song
    track:            a number of the track

<status>:            what this person is currently doing (like twitter)

<stylesheet>:        url of a stylesheet (not allowed to be inline)

<technical>
    <date_format>
    <delimiter>

<timezone>:            ISO standard timezone

<username>

<videos>
    <video>:        url of video
        # a lot of meta data
        <people>
            <person>

<website>:            url to a website

Distributed Profiles (WIP)

2007-06-26T07:48:16Z

Distributed Profiles
Draft 1
Joshua Dickerson

In this document I aim to provide a layout of how a distributed profile system is to work in theory along with some early draft examples of it.

Why?

The modern web user is registered to a multitude of websites and applications. Each of those applications has it's own profile system. Along with registrations and profiles such as www.simplemachines.org or www.google.com there is an ever-growing number of social networking sites and even more people that use them. The problem here is that there is too much centralization. There are two key players in the social networking scene right now – Facebook and MySpace. Although, recently Facebook revolutionized the way closed source applications are going to work with each other, there is still the problem that a user doesn't have access to all of the back-end. They have limited control of their information. They can't do a lot of things because of this. MySpace is an excellent example of what happens when we let the users do whatever they want with their pages. We get poorly built pages using invalid Javascript and CSS. As well, the controlling company inundates us with ads every chance they can get.

How are we going to change that?

We are going to change that by giving the user viewing the profile the pure data in a XML format and creating applications that can handle this “pure data”. The user no longer has to worry about advertisements or poorly created pages. They will now have a “viewer” with options. No longer will the power be in the hands of those that have created the networking site. Now, the power will be in the hands of the users with help from profile hosts and profile search engines.

Who's who?

User: Person visiting the webpage, attempting to view the profile
Viewer: Application used to view the webpage (browser or another webpage)
Identity: Person that the profile is to “explain”

What can this be used for?

I envision that there are many uses for a distributed profile system. To start, when I register to a forum, I don't want to have to keep that profile up-to-date with all of my other ones. At the same time, if I did want to be someone else on that website, I could do so easily by changing my profile address. Another thing I envision is a distributed social network. People will use websites to view pages to formulate the XML data that is distributed all over the net or even downloaded applications and browser extensions in to something that a human would understand. Using stylesheets, one could create their own page, but if the user didn't want to see the identities background graphics anymore, they could easily turn that off.

The flow of information

The protocol

First and foremost, the protocol is meant to be open and versatile. A user and identity can request and accept as much information from each other as they choose. The identities are made to be expandable and little is set forth in the way of requirements. The fact that a human maybe reading your profile from it's source is always kept in mind. Tags are formed to be human readable.

Applications

Now we have to come up with ways to use this protocol. Although the documents should be readable to humans, they aren't pretty. I imagine the first things that will pop up are management websites which will host and create applications that will help the user create their profiles. As well, the management websites will most likely offer a viewer. By decentralizing the profiles, we are now opening it up to all developers and we will probably see a lot more applications built. There is the possibility for desktop applications to view and edit your profile just as LiveJournal has. There is also the very likelihood that someone will create browser extensions that will deliver feeds directly to you. When a person updates their profile, you may receive a notification on an instant messenger.

There will also be feed readers that do the same as they do in the blogosphere. They will read an identity's history and give the user an update. Along with those feed readers and profile readers, we can broaden the searching possibility with search engines. Much the same as the current social networking sites, a person can search for a friend or a group.

Security

One of the best and worst things about the current profile setup is security. Can you trust a website with your information? Do you trust that website to give you access to control who can and who can't see your information? Is there a permissions system? In many cases, one would expect a decent level of security. Although, when Facebook decided to release their mini-feed feature, many people were very angry when there were no controls for who can and who can't see your history. With a decentralized system, you have full access to your information and can make it as public or as private as you want.

A possible way to do permissions is by allowing the identity to setup groups that they want to put users in or by doing permissions based on each user. Each user would then use an identity system, such as OpenID, to authenticate themselves with the identity. That identity could possibly give the user a cookie so they no longer have to login.

Revenue

The world requires money to make things happen. This is understandable and has been thought of. Of course, with any new idea there are infinite number of off-shoot ideas that may come. Some possible ways that a company may profit from this.

This protocol does away with viewing ads on the identity's page... sort of. A feed can still include an advertisement just as any blog feed does now. That will certainly help the host with the costs. Those ads may still not be enough and there may be software that can find those ads and remove them. So, we come up with other solutions. The most important type of revenue to be made is through viral marketing. We are developing a social network which transcends all other websites. It brings together those people that like one social network but don't like another, those people that don't like social networks at all, and those people that don't even know about it.

As an example of a way to market to this distributed network I will use a fictitious company called Josh Inc. Josh Inc has a new product that they want to market. They create a group and give away one of their products each week for a period of 10 weeks. The marketing geniuses in their marketing department invite their friends and invite everyone in the company to invite their friends also. Before, the giveaway even starts they have 50 people (the number of people in the company) inviting all of their friends to join this group which is giving away a $100 product for 10 weeks. Every time a person joins this group, all of their friends see that they have joined the group on their friends' feed. Even when a person leaves the group, all of their friends will be notified. If they started the promotion at the very start of the giveaway (which is idiotic) and 3 friends of each friend joined every week, they would have a market of 1,476,200 that really read in to the product that they were possibly going to win. The cost of Josh Inc employing this strategy is $2,000 ($100 product X 10 weeks X 2 people per week).

There would also be search engines and caches that would store information to be found. Those could all have advertising. Then there is also the profile management websites that would host and create software designed to help the common user edit and manage their profile.

Version Control 'proposed' command

2007-05-06T05:17:23Z

Just thinking about how much easier it would be if there was a command to propose a change to a version control system (cvs, svn, etc.). It would run on a permissions system where you would make a proposed change and then someone with the permission to do so would commit it. That person could still be you. I came up with the idea to make it easier for a group of people to review code. With a proper viewer, you could easily see the changes and catalog them. Maybe at another time you want to revisit the changes or you want to hold off on committing the changes because you want to let the code develop more. All of which makes perfect sense in development. Especially where you have a product line with many versions.

The commands would be slightly different. The new command 'propose' would need to be added and that would work like a commit. The commit command would be changed to allow for a server to server commit. I guess it would make sense to have a secondary branch of proposed changes or something.

Documentation Software

2007-02-27T10:57:45Z

Has anyone ever noticed that there is no decent, free, PHP powered documentation software out there? I have. If you look at MySQL documentation, they have the right idea. It isn't a wiki. Wiki being a Web 2.0 word. The idea behind a wiki - allowing users to edit content - has been around for a very long time.

What is needed is something that has a MVC architecture. The backend is powered by a RDBMS like MySQL. The rest is powered by PHP. The themes are powered by PHP. It also needs to be completely translatable. Everything from the application text to the content. There needs to be some way to include documentation for your software per branch. It also needs version control so you can see the changes that have been made and revert bad changes.

Below I have posted a basic pseudo schema. Note that I haven't included things like members and groups since they could be controlled from an outside source. I am hoping to make this work with SMF

pages
	ID_PAGE			-> The ID of the page
	ID_GROUPS		-> A comma delimited list of groups allowed to edit this page
	ID_TAGS			-> A comma delimited list of the IDs of the tags
	ID_BRANCHES		-> The IDs of the branches this document refers to
	redirect		-> Instead of content, this page redirects to another url

page_content
	ID_PAGE			-> The ID of the page this is referring to
	version			-> The version of this content
	ID_LANG			-> The ID of the language this is referring to
	pname			-> The name of the page
	content			-> The content of this page
	approved		-> A flag to signify if this page has been approved

tags
	ID_TAG			-> The ID of the tag
	ID_LANG			-> The ID of the language this tag is in
	name			-> The name of the tag

branches
	ID_BRANCH		-> The ID of this branch
	ID_LANG			-> The ID of the language this branch is in
	name			-> The name of the branch

languages
	ID_LANG			-> The ID of the language
	def_lang_name		-> The name in the default language (usually English)
	name			-> The name of this language

I could add to this by including a member table, permissions table, and a groups table. You add members to groups so you can more easily change permissions.

Some of the permissions that you would use would be: can create page, can create tag, can edit pages, can edit page content, can revert page content, can add/edit/remove branches, and can add/edit/remove languages.

Related pages would be done by doing a search for keywords and/or tags.

I also think that a table for comments would be good. A really quick makeup of that schema would be: comments -> ID_COMMENT, ID_PAGE, ID_USER, date, approved, comment

Another update to the Powerbook

2006-12-08T06:58:09Z

My Brother suggested that I try to see if my PowerBook even works. To be honest, I have been a bit scared to even try to charge the battery since it might start a fire. So I plugged it in to the outlet in the bathroom since it has a ground fault disconnect and would trip if the computer shorted out. It didn't and booted up. The screen is extremely broken. I took it to the livingroom and plugged it in via a HDMI cable. The HDD works, the CPU works, the ports work, the battery works but the screen doesn't. So I have to sit directly in front of a 52" screen. It sounds pretty cool but it actually sucks. I need to get a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Rutgers vs Louisville

2006-11-10T23:00:35Z

One of the best experiences of my life yesterday. My Sister and Brother bought me a ticket to the game for my birthday. It was an unplanned thing. One minute I wasn't going, then she made some connections with the help of Kevin and then I was going. We loaded my Durango up for the tailgate which we started at around 1. The game didn't start until 7:30. Naturally, we were all pretty drunk by the time we got in to the stadium. Rutgers ended the first half with 7 to LU's 25. It wasn't looking good. Lousville returned a kick for 100 yd touchdown. Then after the half we came back with avengence. The record crowd of 44,111 was getting more in to the game. The entire stadium was twirling their towels and screaming their heads off. I lost my voice and was suffering from some severe headaches but I still yelled and banged as loud as I could. We tied the game up and marched down the field. Ray Rice was phenominal. When our offense came up you could hear a pin drop from the other side of the stadium. When our defense was up you couldn't a bomb blast 10 feet from you. It was Piscataway pandemonium. Ito was up to kick a 28 yard field goal. He missed it! The entire stadium thought he nailed it, but then the "NO GOOD" hands came waving. Shocked, confused, saddened. Then there was a little yellow flag on the field, everyone was waiting for the call "Offsides on the defense!" Ito gets one more kick! One more chance to seal the fate of the #3 team in the nation! He nails a perfect kick and gives a "1" at the sky cam. The entire stadium goes insane! Rutgers sends it back. With one second remaining on the clock the fans rush the field. The entire stadium is in an uproar. So much so that they can barely hear the announcer, fans, players, and police telling them that there is another second on the clock and they need to get off the field. As fast, if not faster, than they ran on the field they ran back off. Waiting in the endzone for the last second of game play. Rutgers make the tackle and end the game! Rutgers wins 25:28! Rutgers is now 9-0!

So I rush the field with the masses. Standing in a scarlet sea, watching the Cardinals casually walk across the field as thousands of fans come running past them to get a high-five or a shot on tv with Teel, Schiano, Rice, Ito or any one of the Rutgers players. I find my Sister after about a hour or more. After a few more minutes dancing with the band we decide its time to leave. The exodus of people was intense. I think every bus that RU has in its massive inventory was at the game to drive people back to their campuses. We got to the car, everyone had another beer or two or three and some shots. We began to drive off only to get stuck in the best 2 hours of traffic I have ever been in. We only needed to go a few miles. All of New Brunswick was going insane. Easton Ave was completely blocked off. Most roads surrounding the stadium in Piscataway were either one way or blocked off. We didn't get back to Kevin's house until around 1, maybe 1:30. We partied it up some more after that and then the night was done. People must have been too tired from tailgating from noon (over 12 hours of debauchery).

More on the game: http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/6156056

"In the birthplace of college football, on a Thursday night for all times and seasons, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, with a belief beyond all telling, created a gridiron memory that will never, ever die."

Firefox removed ALT functionality

2006-10-26T19:36:38Z

Why did you need to break websites?

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=122411
------------------------------------
Now that Firefox 2 has officially been released, I thought I'd post this before we start getting a ton of posts about this...

When you upgrade to Firefox 2, you may notice that ALT+S suddenly opens the history menu and that ALT+P no longer triggers the preview button.

This is due to a new change in how Firefox handles accesskeys. Since both browsers and websites may want to use the same accesskeys, the developers decided to split the configuration option that specified what key to use for accesskeys into two different ones:

ui.key.chromeAccess - specifies which key (or combination of keys) triggers browser accesskeys
ui.key.contentAccess - specifies which key (or combination of keys) triggers website accesskeys

For whatever reason though, they felt that it was more important to make browser accesskeys override website accesskeys. Therefore, the default functionality in Firefox 2 has website accesskeys assigned to alt+shift. What's even more surprising is that the folks in charge didn't feel that it was important enough to mention in the release notes or the known issues.

Anyway, to fix this, open up a new tab, type about:config in the address bar and hit enter.
Welcome to the advanced Firefox settings area! Lots of nifty stuff here.
Type access into the filter bar
Double-click on ui.key.contentAccess and set its value to 4.

This will make browser and content accesskeys have the same alt+key combination, but will make the content accesskeys have more precedence than the others.

For more information on possible values for this setting, see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Ui.key.contentAccess#Possible_values_and_their_effects

groundup @ 2006-10-18T16:32:00

2006-10-18T20:39:40Z

What a day yesterday. It was pouring rain the entire day. I had work from 5-10, which is never actually 10, more like 11. I didn't stop running cars the entire night. It was pretty busy for a Tuesday with only 3 guys. Luckily, we made a good amount of money in tips. So as soon as I got off of work I called Evan because he needed me to pickup some dishwasher detergent as well as some other things from the store. He told me that Lindsay's house just burned down. I was imagining the entire thing to be charred remains. I immediately asked if she was alright and if there was anyone else in the house. No one was hurt, thankfully. Unfortunately, Michelle's cat died. All of the people were safe. The tenant on the first floor (directly beneath my Sister's room) plugged way too many things in to an outlets (3 strips full on one outlet). His room was destroyed. His roomate's room was pretty much okay. Lindsay's room was okay barring some smoke damage. I didn't look any of the other rooms besides the upstairs kitchen - which was okay with a lot of smoke damage.

We got Lindsay's valuable stuff. Lindsay slept at Kevin's house and I took her dog back to my house.

Wheeling Yesterday

2006-10-15T20:13:53Z

After a long Saturday night, we went home and slept. Bryan woke up about 5 hours later and woke Evan up. We went to eat, which I didn't eat anything, just slept in the car. Then we went back to my house and they decided they wanted to go 4-wheeling. I tell them that it isn't the best of ideas. Evan has no tow points on his Jeep (at the point) and they have never been to where they were going. So I went back to sleep. About a hour or two later I get a call "come get me, I'm stuck." At this point I didn't even want to move and I didn't really believe them that a Ford Ranger and a Jeep XJ (Cherokee Classic) couldn't get unstuck. James calls me up about 30 minutes later to tell me what is going on. Apparently Evan was stuck in a rut/puddle/pond - whatever you want to call it - over his hood!

So, I have to go out with James and buy a rear class III receiver (3500lb tow rating), get tools, and get clothes. I get out there and start wheeling. I made it through with some ease. I bottomed out a couple of times, but nothing major. Once I got to where he was stuck, I noticed how stuck he was (see pictures). They already started a fire going to keep warm. They were soaked and muddy. We got the tools and receiver out. As well as an energy drink for everyone. I started up the chainsaw and started work on making the fire bigger and last longer. James was being a pimp.

Trying to put a receiver while the car is under water and muddy is not something that should be done for fun. We had to take the bumper off as well as some other stuff. The bolts were practically seized, but we managed to get them off on one side. We only used 1/2 of the receiver to pull him out because it was dark, cold, and late. Suprisingly, the couple of bolts held up nicely.

The Durango pulled the XJ out with ease. I wasn't even applying the gas 1/2 the time in 4WD LOW. I pulled him through the trails in the swamp until I got stuck. I just managed to slip in to a rut and I my differential was holding my rear axle off of the ground. My front tires didn't have enough traction in all of that mud to get it out. So, Bryan's Ranger pulled me out backwards. It was kind of funny that the Ranger wouldn't even budge the Durango unless I was in reverse and helping out.

After all of that, Evan called Kelsy and she talked to her Dad. He brought jumper cables to the opening of the swamp. We put the XJ and Ranger up to each other and it started right up. Despite the fact that there was over a foot of water in the interior as well as many other places the air filter was dry as a bone. Thank God that thing started up because I pulled him as far as I think I could have without getting majorly stuck. So we wheeled our way out, drove carefully back home without a bumper or plates on the XJ, and crashed.

Pictures: http://pics.livejournal.com/groundup/gallery/0000d1pe

Got a job

2006-10-08T07:29:20Z

I am currently working as a valet in New Brunswick. It is a job that doesn't require any brains, just the ability to run and drive a car.

Traveler Gets 1st Amendment Right Denied

2006-09-29T00:51:16Z

Robbed from daveman692 - http://daveman692.livejournal.com/274153.html
Original story - http://www.flyertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=606142
My reply - http://daveman692.livejournal.com/274153.html?thread=761577#t761577

You must show ID to vote.

2006-09-22T16:28:48Z

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060921-123316-5086r.htm

I don't understand how you can oppose this. You have to prove who you are for every other thing in the USA - buying cigarettes, buying beer, getting in to a club, etc. Yet, you don't have to show ID to do the most important thing as a US citizen? Something is wrong with that picture. I think it is perfectly logical for you to show ID to vote and I hope the Senate passes this bill.

The Damage

2006-09-21T19:44:52Z

Here goes the wreckage at the junk yard - http://pics.livejournal.com/groundup/gallery/00003x40

Bjorn

2006-09-21T04:41:01Z

Bjorn came up from Florida last Thursday. I saw him the next day on Friday. He just left today for Norway for the next three years. He is going to be inspecting metal there. I guess he apprentices for 3 years then he starts working normal. He hopes to come home to the USA and work for the oil companies. I think it would be a great thing for him. Best of luck!

Wrecked Cars

2006-09-15T19:30:12Z

So I just woke up a little while ago to find out that Evan just wrecked Bob's car. He was driving while on his lunch break at work. He was minorly injured from glass. I don't know much, just that he is in the hospital. I am going over there.

He has destroyed a car and I have destroyed a car. I don't know if Lindsay has destroyed a car, but she has enough problems driving, she doesn't need to.

Americans losing faith in U.N., survey finds

2006-09-12T19:59:17Z

I am not losing faith. To lose means to once have and now have not. I never had any faith for the UN. The organization requires so much and gives back so little.

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20060911-103335-8448r.htm

WHO

2006-09-12T19:51:37Z

http://www.nzz.ch/2006/09/11/eng/article7051323.html

Suicide rates could be reduced if countries would limit access to pesticides, guns and medication and do a better job of treating people with depression, alcoholism and schizophrenia, Mishara said.

What an excellent idea Mishara. Lets limit access to pesticides, guns, and medication. Why stop there? Lets limit access to water, food, clothes, and even people. Its not suicide if its homocide. You people are the World Health Organization and all that the world's minds can come up with is to limit access to some basic things?

Next time the WHO comes out with a press release, could you give us a little more than what is already common sense?

Blue Laws

2006-09-12T19:37:18Z

I don't know where this country decided that it would be totally hypocritical about separation of church and state when it comes to Sunday. I am referring to blue laws. What makes Sunday more important than any other day? Who are you to tell me that I can't buy a car or buy a kayak on Sunday? Someone, please tell me why it is illegal to hunt in 11 states - all on the east coast - on Sunday?

I can understand employees rights to religious observance, but if we observe Sunday as a holy day why not Saturday or even everyday? Muslims and Jews have a right to religious observance too. Those that don't have the time during the week and Saturday have the right to buy their goods and partake in whatever they see fit as entertainment. Or maybe I am reading in to this too much. Maybe I don't understand the Constitution of the USA when it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" Too me and most other Americans that means that there should be NO law that gives preference to a religion or any religion. Yet, it still gives the right to practice as you choose. Thus, it includes your right to practice without persecution and businesses' rights to commerce.

Ground Zero

2006-09-12T06:51:27Z

I went to NYC today (actually 9/11 - 9/12) with my brother. I walked from NY Penn Station to WTC. A whole lot of blocks which equates to around 3.5 miles (google). The towers of light were beautiful. I will get some pictures up later. Hopefully they came out. Towers of light don't come out too well with a digital camera in the city. At least, they didn't look good on the LCD display.

On a side note - I figured I can take the Path from WTC straight to Newark Penn Station which was a joy after walking.

Open Source Social Networking

2006-09-09T19:11:34Z

- Completely open source (maybe GPL)
- PHP, XML, RDBMS based (RDBMS may be done with ADODB instead of strictly MySQL to allow for even more scalability)
- A closed network or an open network
- Open networks based on OpenID architecture
- Interfacing between networks done with XML
- Each network sets what can be accessed
- A "master" (or "parent") site for the open network
- Master site controls which networks are trusted
- Master site may choose to disallow networks
- Master site may control users
- Master site will also be open source so that people may make their own master sites. Those master sites will also be allowed to interface with the master site
- Each "node" site requests the master list of trusted networks based on a set interval by the node
- Each node controls everything about its own users and its site (theme, ads, etc)
- Private nodes don't interface with the master node, but can request it at any time
- Mods are acceptable, but the interfacing must remain the same. Fail-proof interfacing so that if a modification is done, the other end doesn't need to rely on it
- Very scalable
- Node based permission/membership system
- Node can request as little or as much information from user as they want.

- All common features of a social network: groups, photo albums, video albums, blog, wiki, bulletins, comment/wall boards", 6 degrees of separation, polls, message boards, newsletters, calendar, messaging, email, friends system, permission system, customizable homepage
- User's permission system uses several levels (don't want to get too complex like SMF)
- Node may allow the user to select a "remote" application for features. For instance, if they want their blog to be hosted by LJ they will have that option. If they want their group's message board to be hosted at boardnation, etc etc etc.

- Begin by basing most of the code on common things in SMF such as the theme system, language system, and certain security features

- Development site will have CVS, forums, documentation, mod and theme vault
- Development site will sustain itself financially by ... donations? ads? memberships? (to what?)

Diff

2006-09-08T05:01:35Z

PHP DIFF PSUEDO CODE

* Split into a numbered array. Clean up whitespace.
* Walk the array until a difference is found
* Split the line into an array of words
* Walk the line array until a difference/similitary is found. Continue on until EOL.
* If the entire line (>90% of words) is different, it is a new line
* * Add to array of changes: array( (int) KEY, (bool) NEW_LINE = TRUE, (string) VALUE )
* If there are some similirarities
* * Add to array of changes: array( (int) KEY, (bool) NEW_LINE = FALSE, OFFSET, (string) VALUE )
* Do that for each line that is different.

I hope that makes sense and in theory, work.