According to this press release TiVo might just be able to stick around a bit longer. I hope so, but I much preferred the Apple buyout rumors.

Seems that the new AOL Terms Of Service has introduced a trivial modification that essentially gives AOL the rights to do anything it likes with your instant message conversations over AIM. (I have not read the new TOS in detail so if this turns out to be nothing but alarmist nonsense, I apologize)

See this post for more details.

Wouldn’t it be nice if this finally brought the capable, extensible and open source Jabber into widespread use? It won’t, but it would still be nice.

Turning the table

Whoa. I found my old turntable buried under a bunch of crap in the basement. What the hell, let’s hook it up and dust off some old records.

First up. Rush - All the World’s a Stage. Oh baby, here comes 1976 all rushing back at me. All I can do is dig Neal Peart and remember sprawling out on the floor with some big-ass headphones. Bitchin’.

I love databases. Mostly this love is poured into MySQL these days. Used to be that everything I did was in SQLServer but thankfully those days are nearly gone. Yesterday I was lamenting the fact that I don’t know PostgreSQL well enough. I hear great things and if you’re looking for an “academically correct” implementation without the (mostly theoretical) shortcomings of MySQL, Postgres is the way to go. Well Jeremy overheard this and today brought me a big fat PostgreSQL book. Crap, you just know I’m gonna hafta read it.

When developing real world web applications, it’s rare to need more than what MySQL provides. And truthfully, many times even that is overkill. Enter SQLite. From their site…

SQLite is a small C library that implements a self-contained, embeddable, zero-configuration SQL database engine. Features include:

• Transactions are atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable (ACID) even after system crashes and power failures.

• Zero-configuration - no setup or administration needed.

• Implements most of SQL92. (Features not supported)

• A complete database is stored in a single disk file.

• Supports databases up to 2 terabytes (241 bytes) in size.

• Small code footprint: less than 30K lines of C code, less than 250KB code space (gcc on i486)

• Faster than popular client/server database engines for most common operations.

• Sources are in the public domain. Use for any purpose.

I’m guessing it doesn’t get nearly enough credit and I’m pretty sure it will get used by me quite a lot - now that I think about it.

What I’m not doing right now is learning to develop with Ruby and Rails using as many of the (stupidly-named) Ajax techniques as possible. This is a mistake. One I intend to rectify as soon as possible.

If you didn’t know better you’d think I was on some sort of anti-email crusade. Not true, just food for thought

“…But my incoming e-mail is important,” you cry. Don’t fool yourself. Time how long you spend at your inbox. Multiply by your per-minute wage to find out just how much money you spend on e-mail. If you can justify that expense, far outa€”you’re one of the lucky ones.”

I’ve been secretly in love with Tori Amos for more than 10 years. It started the first time I heard “China” (Little Earthquakes, 1991). She pauses–… breath…–then resumes with a whisper-like, soft and altogether unique voice that still gives me chills. It continued through the harsher Boys for Pele with “In the Springtime of his Voodoo” and then with “She’s your Cocaine” on From the Choirgirl Hotel. This is when our relationship started to get wierd. Her next couple of records seemed flat and uneventful. We just didn’t seem to know each other any more. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention to her in those days. Fickle, she was. Well, her new release, The Beekeeper, has brought us closer than ever. She has calmed a bit with age it seems. Haven’t we all? Some will criticize the seemingly adult contemporary feel to this latest effort. Ignore them. It’s beautiful, my dear. Welcome back.

For the record and with much disappointment I must admit that in real life Tori and I would last about 20 minutes before I bored her to death or she drove me nuts. Bet I’d love the first 19 though.

Hand me my leather.

From The Morning News, How Many Names Hath God?”

I found it pretty much hilarious…

“Jimmy. The archangel Gabriel was summoned by the will of God. Gabriel bowed his head and replied, a€oeHow may I serve you, Jimmy? I mean, Lord?a€? Thus followed the awkwardest silence in the history of heaven.”

and

“Zagbrobbagaghra. Used by missionaries in those foreign lands where respect for a deity is earned by a fearsome-sounding, multi-syllabic name. God knows how to play ball.”

Dan Benjamin writes a centered, thoughtful piece on Rails, and the dangers of learning Ruby as a first language. My favorite bit is his description of PHP…

” … PHP, which itself seems destined to the life of an over-implemented, omni-present scripting language embraced by new, overzealous programmers who create low-quality code they barely understand.”

It doesn’t matter that this article about SUV ownership is satirical. What’s disturbing is that it could easily have been serious.

“Think of it this way: I’m not destroying the planet, I’m saving the species. And when my older son turns 16 I will turn the keys over to him. I’ll feel much safer with my teenage son cruising around in a four-ton vehicle. Won’t you?”