I've been running a public wiki for
almost three weeks now. What, might you ask, is a wiki? Not having done a comprehensive
search for a definition, I nevertheless recommend the following from wiki.org,
which I will quote here:

Wiki is in Ward's [Ward Cunningham]
original description:
The simplest online database that could possibly work.

Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and
edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and
has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal
pages on the fly.

Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the
organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.

Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and
subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any
page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the
Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users.

Continue reading →

I remember The Timmins Public Library as divided between two floors. The basement held the children's collection, but the top floor was the adult section. I started out as a child borrower with a library card that indicated such a status. One day, while still a kid, for some reason I can no longer remember, I was given adult borrowing privileges. It seemed that my avid reading habits advanced me prematurely into the top floor. A new world was open to me, one that beckoned to me every Saturday morning for years and years to come.

Of course, I did not immediately become an adult reader in the full sense. I still remember learning about Margaret Laurence's The Diviners, specifically the controversy about its handling of love and sex. Being the curious child that I was -- and perhaps bolder than I ever thought I would be -- I approached the reference librarian to ask about the book. I don't recall her exact words, but apparently, she found a gentle but effective way to ward off my request to get my hands on the book.

hello

In the middle of a meeting with a group of undergrads last year, the phrase "baby faces" occured to me as I looked at the students around me. This is odd, I thought -- when I was undergrad myself at the University of Toronto, I certainly didn't see myself and my peers as "kids". The guys, we were men, fellow sophisticates. And those attractive coeds who lived in the dorms next door -- they were the most beautiful women in the world at the prime of their lives.

Somehow in the 17 years that have since elapsed, I've become one of those old fogies who think of undergrads as kids (in spite of promising myself never to call university students kids). The students do get younger every year, don't they?

Not surprisingly then, my friends -- and I -- look basically the same way to me as they did the day I first met them. It takes hard photographic evidence to make me see that the receding hairlines, new wrinkles, rounder features that are invisible to me on a daily level.

If this is the way that I see others, then could it be that those older than I have the same self-centric way of gauging age? In other ways, when I see only weathered faces, gray or bald heads, tired eyes, do others see the reality of a past that still lives on? The present is only skin-deep.

Re: Genesis 2:19-20. There are some days I'm rather impressed with Adam. I have a hard enough time coming up with categories for my blog.

A fine long day was topped of by dinner and a night out with friends to see the local institution Beach Blanket Babylon. BBB was fun, but would we have seen it if we hadn't been going out together?

Each book on every shelf has a story to tell. Should I listen to the dozens
of stories awaiting to be recounted? Or should I self off those books as quickly
as half.com can snap them up?

I can't seem to let go of A
Guide to Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem or Mass
Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition. Some books (such
as a copy of The
Best American Essays 1996 (Serial)) actually belong to friends with whom
I've more or less lost touch. And in the desire to master both Mandarin and
Cantonese Chinese (i.e., to Read
and Write Chinese) in my copious free time, I purchased Concise
English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary and Let's Talk Cantonese.

What
Should I Do with My Life? My goal is still Creating
a Life Worth Living. If only I could follow those simple formulae: Do
What You Are and
Live the Life You Love by Getting
What You Came for .

I'd like to have it all, I suppose. I want to experience The
Joy of Work that emanate from The
Effective Executive leaders all around me. Love would be wonderful too.
However, as one of those Singles
at the Crossroads, struggling with Boundaries
in Dating, I'm comforted that at least my would-be lovers are Caring
Enough to Confront me by saying, "I
Only Say This Because I Love You."

Maybe I don't need the love of a good woman. I just need to love humanity at
large. All I have to do is to start Making
Room in my heart, eating enough Bread
for the Journey. But as it ought to say in The
Activist's Handbook, we must work Peer-to-Peer
to spread what must be My
Only Comfort (or is that Wishful
Thinking?), that the Good
News About Injustice is that there will always be work for us do-gooders,
regardless of attempts at any Bridge to Understanding.

In the end, Finding
Faith in God and practicing our faith in the great God
in the Dark will answer the cry of the heart, "Please
Understand Me!" and that refrain, "Please
Understand Me II!"

Don't forget How
to Read Slowly. For you'll see that what started as an attempt to poetry
ended up to be Something
Like an Autobiography, full of Good
Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste.

It's five minutes until 11 pm. I have been getting back into some Python programming for two reasons. First, I've always thought that I should keep my programming chops up even if I'm not doing heavy-duty programming. There are enough ideas that I want to play with that having the ability to whip up a Python script to represent the idea is terribly valuable.

The second, and more immediate, reason is that the little hobby project that I want to demonstrate has to do with Biblical verses. Since it is nearing my bedtime, I can't go into length about what I want to do. But suffice it to say that I've been intrigued by the possibilities opened up by the intersection of "second-generation web technologies" and the presentation/representation/dissemination of the Bible. See, for example, the discussion at blogos and The Journal. Observe that one can generate, for instance, a RSS 2.0 feed of that great Superbowl verse John 3:16.

More later....sleep is important.

Thanks, Lynn, for your very kind words about me:

I've been thinking about Raymond's drawer of dull knives. This proverb makes me sad, because it denigrates some of Raymond's true talents-- the ability to realize that there are connections between apparently unrelated things, and to pull together people who didn't know their work had anything to do with each other's. The ability to build tools to make these connections work.

Your response sparked all sorts of thoughts and feelings in me about interdisciplinarity, C. P. Snow, crossing community boundaries, wanting to be all things to all people, sadness about not fitting in the usual boxes, the desire to know that I'm doing ok....A more well-thought out response on my part to come.

Just to say that I'm keeping a close watch as Chris' stories unfold (with photos, no less). From a place to work, nothing fancy 080303 Galway [Christopher Ashley] (formerly "a place to write"):

The details and reasons aren't necessary. I only need say that the circumstances of my family have created in me a deep nostalgia for happy moments in my life. I often daydream very clear, specific, and powerful faraway memories.