Blog posts

Back home and almost caught up on email… One of the many things on my to-do list for Grand Rapids WiFi is to switch from the current system of having separate URLs for the RDF representations of resources to something based on content negotiation. In order to do that using PHP I needed a couple of functions to extract the relevant headers. A quick web search didn’t turn up any appropriate libraries, so I threw together a couple of functions that should cover everything. For those not familiar with content-negotiation it works by having a user agent (web browser, newsreader, etc.) add an “Accept:” header specifying what types of content it can manage and which it prefers. For example, Firefox might send something like: ...

Trevor posted a link at sarahmasen.com to this piece by Rowan Williams in the Independent. As should be expected of Williams it’s both a powerfully succinct summary of the degree of the problem and a source of wonderful soundbites such as An economics that ignores environmental degradation invites social degradation - in plain terms, violence. and Religious belief claims, in the first place, that I am most fully myself only in relation with my creator; what I am in virtue of this relationship cannot be diminished or modified by any earthly power. In the environment there is a dimension that resists and escapes us: to reduce the world to a storehouse of materials for limited human purposes is thus to put in question any serious belief in an indestructible human value. ...

Having had some problems using the Four Friends network this morning, I decided to have a go with one of the areas being used to trial the service of a possible Grand Rapids Citywide WiFi vendor. Since I was close to the 60 Monroe Centre location for FreedomNet’s service that was my first port of call. The range was good (I discovered I could actually detect the network from outside Four Friends), but unfortunately I wasn’t able to use the service. My laptop picked up the network and (after quite a while) directed me to the FreedomNet homepage to log in, but on trying to log in I was presented with the message: ...

We arrived back in Grand Rapids yesterday evening after a long, cramped, but uneventful journey. The time in England was certainly worth the travelling and while every meeting was too short, we were glad to be able to catch up with so many friends and family members. Steve and Jude even blogged the occasions. I’ll be back for Greenbelt and hopefully we’ll both be back in September. And since email catchup went remarkably well today, I may even have new content for this blog tomorrow! ...

I’m taking a few days off, home in the UK visiting family and friends. I may be posting, but have no fixed intentions. While I’m gone, I’d recommend checking out the first steps Gavin has taken in establishing socialdocuments.com.

We arrived at Heathrow airport this morning, 377 days after I left the UK. It’s good to be home. The next few days promise to be a whirlwind of catching up with friends and family. This evening began it all at a relaxed pace at home with family, watching Channel 4 News.

I’d been meaning to pick up Dan Gillmor’s " We The Media" ( amazon | read online), so the copy I received for my birthday last month was much appreciated. I’ve enjoyed reading Dan’s blog for quite some time and it was good to hear his thoughts expounded in longer form. For those who are well versed in the intersection of blogging, journalism, and politics, most of the book will have a familiar feel. The first two-thirds of the book is largely a summary of events that have led to the current state of play with grassroots media, moving deftly through phenomena and events such as indymedia, ohmynews, bloggers’ reports following September 11 2001, the Trent Lott scandal, and many others. While initially I worried that the familiar material would be too much, it was a well paced summary and is certainly likely to be an informative read for anyone who has not been quite so immersed in the development of that key part of blog culture. ...

I’ve referred in the past to the wonderful websites They Work For You and Write To Them. Built by a group of volunteers, these sites provide search tools for Hansard (the British parliamentary record) that allow users to keep track of the activities of members of parliament, monitor the occurrence of topics in parliament, share comments on sections of the transcript, and then contact any of their elected representatives (at local, national, or european level) to initiate or continue discussions with them. ...

I’ve referred in the past to the wonderful websites They Work For You and Write To Them. Built by a group of volunteers, these sites provide search tools for Hansard (the British parliamentary record) that allow users to keep track of the activities of members of parliament, monitor the occurrence of topics in parliament, share comments on sections of the transcript, and then contact any of their elected representatives (at local, national, or european level) to initiate or continue discussions with them. ...

Our introduction to the Decemberists was back in September on their last trip to Grand Rapids. Displaying a delightful eccentricity, deeply literate lyrics, and a panoply of instruments, they left little doubt that we’d be buying at least one album before too long. From Thursday night’s showing it’s clear that we weren’t alone in being impressed as 725 people flocked to the Intersection to catch the band out supporting their new album Picaresque. ...