The U of C's connection to the commercial internet has been packet shaped for years. Back in the Napster days, they added something that makes any file ending in ".mp3" be transferred at about 2 bytes per second. The shaping filters have slowly been added to, winding up with something that basically says "is this file some form of media? then it's going to be slow…"

The latest case in point - I just tried to watch Stephen Downes' video commentary on his Group/Network whiteboard braindump. After about 25 minutes of downloading, I've managed to view the first 35 seconds of the video.

Stephen Downes' Whiteboard Braindump Video

All of this hype over "new media" and "broadband connections" is basically lost on campus. Anyone wanting to use this type of media, whether for research or other academic purposes, is completely left out. Unless the content publisher has the good grace to publish on an Internet2/CANet4 network.

We're seriously at risk of being left further behind, here. If we can't use media on campus, why bother? Should I be asking Stephen to send me a DVD via FedEx so I can see the video? By the way, he was able to post the video while travelling in New Zealand. I can't view it while sitting at my desk here in the office. That seems a little backward, no? 

I seem to be the only person on the planet not getting into the whole Talk Like a Pirate thing. I’ve got a problem glorifying piracy. The world has enough pirates right now.

I know I’m overreacting, and being overly sensitive about this. But, what’s next? Talk like a rapist day? Talk like a murderer? Kidnapper? I mean, those are all pirate-related activities. How about Talk Like a Decent Human Being Day? I’d be up for that one…

btw, I’m not totally humorless about this - Evan’s upcoming birthday party is pirate themed. But, without swords. Arrrrrr.

Ronald Moore and his crew have been consistently doing amazing, high quality work. They’ve “gotten it” in a whole bunch of ways, from podcasting show commentaries as episodes air, to blogging, to video blogging behind-the-scenes stuff. I’m so totally, perhaps unhealthily, hooked on this show.

But they totally dropped the ball on the Season 3 webisodes. There are 10 mini-episodes leading up to the season 3 premier, viewable on the scifi.com website.

But, only if you have an IP address located in the USA.

Fans in Canada should be able to go to spacecast.com to view the webisodes, but apparently scifi.com wants the scoop. Meaning everyone outside the States is shut out.

Someone posted a copy of the first webisode to YouTube - an obvious copyright infringement - and that was promptly pulled down at the request of NBC.

I’m looking forward to BSG season 3 - more than I’ve ever anticipated any show. More than Lost. But, because I live North Of The Border, I can’t view the free, ad-sponsored webisodes. I don’t understand that.

Ron, please kick the studio’s ass for us non-US fans. They’re being really stupid about this.

I’m doing a couple of projects that involve writing some custom code and deploying it on Other People’s Servers. The code works great locally and on my server. I can run through the entire thing, and it works great.

Then, I move it to Client’s Colocated Server That Is Managed By A Third Party. It’s completely locked down. Like I can’t even use which to find commands in bash. Like I had to grovel for MySQL command line access (and was eventually granted mysql - but not mysqladmin access). Want a text editor? Yeah… We haven’t enabled your account to see any of those. Want to run your custom code? Yeah… It’ll fail for some unknown reason. Access to the error log so you can debug it? Nah…

I don’t know if I’m just a total control freak, or have been totally spoiled by having my own servers for so long (or both) but I feel like I’m hobbled. I can still do the project, but every little task takes at least an order of magnitude longer as I have to find workarounds or wait for things to be “enabled” for our use. Frustrating.

I could install the entire frakking project on my Dreamhost account with more than enough bandwidth, disk space and bandwidth to spare. And it would run perfectly without these silly and arbitrary “security” precautions getting in the way. But the terms of the project won’t allow that.

If Dreamhost can let me hammer away on a shared server with full access to any service and command that I can think of, why on earth is it acceptable for this other server to be so locked down? If I had the cash, I’d pick up an XServe or a Blade or something and just host the damned thing myself. It’d be easier and more efficient in the long run.

</rant>

I’ve gotten absolutely sick of hearing about how wealthy Albertans are. On the news tonight, every other story was about how we’re so stinking rich. We’re buying everything in BC. We’re buying new cars. We’re buying so many new mansions that there aren’t enough tradespeople to build them.

Janice and I walked through the showhomes in our neighbourhood on the weekend to see what’s up. These are the same builders we used when we built our house in 2000. Except, now the price of the lots are higher than what we paid for our whole house package. The “starter” homes in our community now begin at $450,000 - almost 3x what ours cost just 6 years ago. That’s absolutely insane. We fell in love with one of the homes - but at $650,000 it’s not bloody likely. But someone’s buying this stuff.

But, here’s the thing. I don’t know anyone that’s gotten rich off of oil. An old family friend spent decades in the oilpatch, and did OK, but he retired before things got insane. My closest connection to the oilpatch is through my brother, but he’s living in Asia, not Alberta. He did help start an oil company, and sold it a few years ago. He had a nice Porsche and house, but he left the province for greener pastures. Most of his small personal fortune was made in the insurance industry, not the oilpatch.

So, now there’s a majority of the population being affected by the few who struck Texas Tea, driving up the prices of everything. And making the rest of the country envious of the “wealthy Albertan” - but I’d like to meet one of those.

I obviously move in the wrong circles. Someone’s obviously able to afford all of the irrationally extravagant stuff. Escalades and Hummers are rolling off city lots. These McMansions are being sold faster than they can be built.

Our provincial government was able to pay off the debt due to unbudgeted and unpredicted revenue surpluses of billions of dollars every fiscal quarter. Something like $20B per year that just falls into their lap. A trained chimp could balance a budget with these surpluses. And yet we don’t have enough schools, or hospitals, or public transportation. They’re building new super-ring-roads like they’re going out of style, though. Gotta have someplace to drive those Escalades…

I’ve been biting my tongue on this whole Blackboard-patents-the-LMS brouhaha that’s going around. I did add my 2 cents to the Wikipedia VLE Prior Art page, with a link to one of the two LMSes I’ve been involved in building before Blackboard applied for this patent.

What follows is a largely stream-of-consciousness rant about some of the issues involved.

I find it completely unfathomable that such a basic and well established classification of software could be summarily handed to a single company. I’m planning on taking some time to actually read the patent, to see if it’s as general as everyone says, or is it really (hopefully) a vaguely worded description of their particular implementation. A cursory glance at it suggests that they’ve managed to throw in utilities ranging from online storage of user data, to storing files on a server…

However, the greater problem isn’t this particular case, but rather the more general issue of software patents as a whole. These intentionally vaguely worded litigation factories only benefit one group of people - shareholders in the patent holding company.

Here’s what’s driving the whole patent engine - public companies are held legally responsible to maximize profit for their shareholders. To the extent that if they fail to generate profit (or acceptably sufficient profit) they can be sued by shareholders. The board of directors is liable. Which drives public companies to squeeze every possible gram of cash out of any possible revenue stream. If they failed to get the patent for a product, and someone else managed to get it - and then came after the company - shareholders would be pissed. So, software patents are conceptually an arms race. Companies are filing patent applications for anything they can think of in order to both protect themselves from others doing the same thing, and to maximize profit by handing the patent to their lawyers and owning a market segment as a result.

But - the patent office should be acting as a filter, preventing these blatant patent grabs as being invalid before getting rubber-stamped. If the patent office can’t properly vet applications, the office should be closed as ineffective or worse.

If Blackboard wants to recoup some karma, they should sign the patent(s) over to an impartial body, ensuring that the patent is used only as a first strike protection to prevent evildoers from obtaining said patent and obliterating an entire marketplace.

So… Who’s the best candidate to be handed the patent? IMS? IEEE? Creative Commons? UN?

I participated in a meeting on campus today that wound up dealing with politics more than anything else. I was having a really hard time trying to figure out why the problem being defined was worth such extreme polarization and strategy worthy of a Pentagon scenario, or at least an episode of Survivor. Actually, I still haven’t figured that part out, but will do my best to contribute to the group as appropriate.
Oy.

I’m so sick and tired of people and companies slapping “Web 2.0″ stickers on their websites/products/blogs/resumes to show how kewl and innovative they are. I saw a website for a design company that mentions “Web 2.0″ a whopping 5 times on their home page alone, and once more in the title of the page. I get it. You’re innovative. I should worship you.

Here’s an idea. Just do cool stuff. Be innovative. Stop trying to brag your ass off by buzzwordifying everything. It’s starting to come across like some kind of high school clique - jocks, preps, bangers, and the “Web 2.0″ gang. If you’re not in the Web 2.0 Gang, you suck. Whatever. I was an outcast then, and I’m happy to be one now.

Yes, I know “Web 2.0″ is shorthand for a whole suite/syndrome of stuff, and it’s faster to just say three syllables that are buzzword compliant than to have to explain innovation. And “Web 1.0″ is a handy shorthand for the “old web”. But, really, who do these shorthand terms help - other than “Web 2.0″ consultants and design firms?

I think everyone that will be “presenting” to a group should have to be familiar with Levine’s Law before they take the podium.

Start with the demo

- Alan Levine, 2006

I tuned into what promised to be an excellent session on flexible, organic, dynamic ePortfolios using social software, only to find myself holding back from screaming “Levine’s law! For the love of God, Levine’s Law!!!” as bullet point after bullet point was dutifully addressed.

The session wasn’t bad, and the back channel discussion in the Elluminate chat room provided some interesting opinions, but a demo (or two) would have brought everyone onto the same page in under a minute, leaving time to discuss implementations, issues, and practical details rather than hashing over bullet points. I would have been much happier to see screenshots (or live demos) of these social-software-driven ePortfolios.

I may be co-presenting a session at Interface 2006, on our ePortfolio project being used by our Faculty of Education, but if the session is accepted, I plan on using exactly 0 bullet points. Probably no PowerPoint either. If I do wind up using a PPT, it will be in the modified-Lessigian style, with no bullets and lots and lots of images to support what I’m saying (rather than just providing a script for me to follow).

Start with the demo. Stay with the demo. Think on your feet. To borrow a quote from D.M. Shaftoe in The Cryptonomicon: “Show some damned adaptability.”

wiki.ucalgary.ca has been under a sustained spam attack all day. What started out as a minor irritation has grown into something that is impossible to ignore. The spammer is somehow getting around both Bad Behavior and Spam Blacklist extensions (I’ve blacklisted their URLs, but they keep getting edits into the system). This is one of the more frustrating aspects of trying to do things in an open manner. If there is the slightest possibility that something will be subverted for spamilicious purposes, it will be. And most likely it will happen before more than a handful of legitimate users are able to take advantage of a service.

These cretins are being rather clever (or, they’ve gotten some good Script Kiddie l337 tools) because they’re coming from many different (and changing) IP addresses, and each edit is accompanied by its very own account creation. So I can’t just block IPs, or roll back all edits by a user. So, I’ve had to disable account creation for now until I can figure out wtf to do about this.

To the spammer(s): may you rot in the most insidious inner circle of hell, reserved for parasites like yourself who find it necessary to suck energy and resources from (otherwise) free and open educational resources.

wiki.ucalgary.ca got hammered by a vindictive wiki spammer last night. But, here’s the thing - the spam prevention blacklist worked perfectly. The spammer wasn’t able to add any of their own links to the wiki. So, they decided to punish me by vandalizing 50 of the most popular pages on the wiki with an apparently random (and invalid) spam URL.

The software they used to do this evil deed automatically created a new account for each edit, and the whole thing took them less than 10 minutes to do. It took me 45 minutes to undo, even with rollbacks etc… because of their insidious creation of 50 separate accounts for 50 separate edits. I would have just reverted back to a nightly database backup to blow them all away in one fell swoop, but we had actual valid users making actual valid edits, and I won’t blow any of that away. Better to manually remove the detritus than to lose a single valid edit.

I’ll be installing Bad Behavior today, when I get a chance It’s not like I have anything better to do than to play a game of Wiki Detente with a cretin who would vandalize an open academic resource because I wouldn’t let them add their link to their ViagraCasinoPenisEnlargement Google Juicer website factory…

The signature used by this roach shows up on a few sites on a quick Google. This is insane.

Update: I just installed Bad Behavior for MediaWiki - took a whopping 60 seconds to install and configure. I’d tried a previous version, but it got a bit, well, overeager about blocking stuff. To the point that even I couldn’t view or edit anything. Had to kill it last time. Hopefully this time will be better…

The local evening news had a special virus warning tonight. Not especially unusual - they occasionally warn people about a Big Windows Virus that went around the week before. But Nirmala began the segment “This is the first virus to infect Apple’s Oh Ess Ecks… It’s spread through the ‘I-Chat’ instant messaging application… Be sure antivirus software is installed and up to date…” (I-Chat was in big letters on the side of the screen)

OK. So, first of all, I’m screaming at the TV “IT’S NOT A VIRUS, YOU MORONS! IT’S PRONOUNCED ‘TEN’ - YOU MORONS! That’s ‘iChat’ - YOU MORONS!”

Second of all, it’s not a virus. It’s an archive of an application, disguised as a jpeg (by cleverly using the super secret hacker technique of employing command+v to trick Mac Oh Ess Ecks users into infecting their systems). It’s not spread BY iChat - some schmoe may send a file that way, but if you’re stupid enough to double-click an unexpected file sent to you via IM, well, Darwin is at work… It’s not as though simply viewing a jpg image in a browser would infect your Mac, unlike some other systems out there. You actually have to explicitly accept the download, expand the archive, double-click the application, and provide your username and password before any damage can be done.

I know it’s a bunch of silly nits to pick, but I can already hear the mouthbreathers spouting off “so, did your Mac get hit by that IChat virus?” I wonder, if this is how lax they are about checking facts related to “virus” outbreaks, what else is slipping past them?

Lamest. Game show. Ever.

Not even the pretense of requiring skill or intelligence. Pick a bunch of random numbers, and try not to be a bumbling greedhead. About as much of a “game” as Keno or Bingo. All you have to do is pay attention (a little). And the “banker”? Just some clown sitting in front of a simple odds calculator to give Howie a chance to ham for the cameras.

At least they have 26 hotties in fancy dresses to hold the random numbers. They almost make it worth watching. Now, if Howie Mandel pulls out the rubber gloves and starts inflating them over his head, they might have a show…

And, yes, I’m aware that by watching it I’m only encouraging them

Over the weekend, wiki.ucalgary.ca got hammered by a(n apparently) coordinated and distributed spam barrage. Hundreds of pages hit, new pages created, talk namespaces crapped into, etc…

I think I saw part of it happen in “real time” - I was watching a movie with Evan, with my Powerbook plugged into our TV (the only DVD player in the house), and every now and then I heard the system beep. After the movie ended, I saw the Watchmouse monitoring page for wiki.ucalgary.ca saying there was trouble connecting, and the main wiki.ucalgary.ca page was showing a MySQL connection error. Reloading the page made it go away, so I didn’t pay much attention.

Paul and I just spent the better part of an hour going through the wiki and delousing it, and I sure hope we didn’t inadvertently nuke a “real” edit, or spank a “real” user. The last thing I want is collateral damage in this silly battle against spammers.

I just can’t put into words how frustrating this is - we run a service for the use of the University community, to enhance the practice of teaching and learning online - and spammers run repeated drive-by-shootings spraying their crap all over it. It’s not just simple vandalism, though. It diminishes trust in the resource - why would a prof put stuff in it, if they can’t protect it from spam?

There has got to be a better solution to protecting a wiki from spam. I’ve got the Spam Blacklist extension for Mediawiki installed (and keep adding my own regex patterns, and periodically grabbing the blacklist from meta.wikimedia.org) - but that only helps protect against known spammers. I’ll be adding Bad Behavior (thanks to Paul for the link) to see if that helps.

Is there a tool available to go into a wiki and nuke any spam it finds? If spam keeps getting through the filters, there should be a way to yank it out again…

This is the one where I rant/vent about my flight down. I’m blogging this from 30,000′ for therapeutic reasons… It wasn’t a bad trip down at all, and I’m seriously not complaining about being sent to San Francisco for a couple of days of meetings, but man some people are just ignorant enough to deserve a full-fledged ranting…

OK. I wake up at 3:20am - alarm’s set for 4 - and realize with a shudder that it’s only 2:20am Pacific time, but I can’t sleep the morning I have to fly anywhere. Get ready, sneak into Evan’s room to say goodbye while he sleeps, and then head downstairs to catch the cab at 5am. I arrive at the airport at about 5:20. Through checkin in about 5 minutes, then into the lineup for US Customs. It’s moving smoothly, and I’m through in about 20 minutes. I head for the lineup for the security check, and notice people starting to shove. They’re trying to follow the flight crews through the expedited lines, and they’re trying to shove their way through the remaining lines.

One very sweaty nervous little man nudges his way behind me, and quietly asks “do you mind if I ask you when your flight is? mine’s at 6:30″. I tell him mine is at 7:something, and there’s lots of time to get through security, that it won’t take any more than 15 minutes (it’s 5:55 when he asks). I decide to be an asshole (it happens occasionally). He’s got lots of time, and he’ll be through with 15-20 minutes to catch his plane if he waits patiently with the rest of us, so there’s no real emergency - just his sense of sweaty panic because he’s a moron in a suit, who can’t tell time or refuses to plan ahead. He decides he doesn’t like waiting, so makes a fuss with the agents, and is promptly rushed through the line, ahead of people that got there early enough to wait in line. Other people in line chuckle that he must have a very important meeting to be so nervous about missing it. I’d be a bit more nervous if he was running a company I was involved with - pretty obvious lack of planning skills.

10 minutes later (say, 6:05), and I’m third in line, starting to prepare my stuff to go through the X-Ray screener. A big Texan in coveralls, carrying a big duffel bag, marches through the line, to the staff side of the security checkin counter. I half expect him to open up with a hearty “WaHOO!” and pull out his dual six-shooters, all Looney Toons style. Instead, he blurts out “My flight to Dallas is at 6:30. I can’t wait in line. I need to get to my flight now!” The agent calmly replies “Well, sir, it’s not up to me. You’ll have to ask the people in line [gestures to the ~150 people in the waiting area] - maybe they’ll let you move up.” Several people in line calmly mention they’re on the same flight, but they don’t rush to the front because they know there’s lots of time left.

Texas turns to the person who’s next in line, and asks if he can join him through the security checkin. And then proceeds to remove the rope barricade so he can muscle his way into line. He then turns to us and says “This is my first time doing this - I’ve never gone through it before” - uh, Texas? how the f#ck did you get here in the first place? You’re talking with a Texas drawl, wearing a hat that says “Freer Texas” and are pretty obviously Not From Here, but you somehow managed to get up here with all of your crap without traveling by plane? And didn’t bother to pay attention when you’re told to show up at the airport 2-3 hours ahead of boarding time to deal with your own country’s security protocols? And have no problem muscling your way into line, acting like an ignorant buffoon, and making ~150 people wait while you throw a little tantrum to get your way?

Obviously, rules and lineups are for suckers. Only losers wait in line, and plan ahead.

Finally, I’m through, and find my way to gate 31 - it’s hidden in the new area - and relax in the waiting area. Lots of time. They start boarding, asking us repeatedly to board by sections (I’m in section 4, the last to board). When they call my section, I happen to be the second person to come forward. I get through to my seat, and find a woman already sprawled out in the window seat next to mine. Her coat is draped over her, as well as my seat, and she’s pretending to sleep. She must be tired. Maybe she got up early this morning. That would be rough. Oh, wait. Every single person on this plane got up early. I initially attempt to find another seat so she can continue her sprawl undisturbed, but decide that I could really use the extra leg room the exit seat provides (not to mention dual seat trays - one in front, and one in the armrest).

We take off after a short delay, and I get to see an absolutely amazing sunrise a few minutes after takeoff, once we rise above the cloud cover. It’s overcast the whole way to California, but fluffy cloud-tops are cool, so that’s fine with me. There are some pretty spectacular cloud formations off in the distance for most of the flight, with funky shadows being cast all over by the rising sun.

Sprawling Neighbor Lady eventually falls asleep for real, and repeatedly pours her bulk over into my seat. It’s fun editing XML files with a 50lb arm pinning your left arm to the armrest. I subtly nudge her a couple of times. No movement. I softly tuck her coat sleeve back over her so it’s not flapping on my keyboard. I cough, hoping the slight jarring might send a hint that she’s not exactly confining herself within one seat, and she’s not alone on the plane. She eventually takes a hint, and if I lean a bit to the right, and fold my left arm thusly, I can sort of simulate having enough elbow room to edit the 1431 xml files for the Mavericks website that I need to FTP back ASAP after landing (it launches officially tomorrow, so they need time to put it on their server). Actually, I get the files edited in record time thanks to the Glorious Wonder of BBEdit. Love it.

I finally give up on getting comfortable, and fire up Team America: World Police in iTunes. Might as well relax a bit