Abbe Normal

Signs of peace on the cease-fire front: LTTE Official visits army-held areas. Of course there are many tracks of peace besides between the leadership of warring factions (see MultiTrackDiplomacy) also see LankaLinks, recently updated Sat Dec 29 21:01:50 2001

Rare Visit In Lanka

GigaWire is Apple's new high-speed wireless Firewire. No word on when it will be available though. (via DayPop) For you Mac heads who miss your customizable apple menu, a partial solution has arrived with FruitMenu? from Unsanity Software -- http://www.unsanity.com/haxies.php I'm running it now. It lets you insert any folder-worth of aliases etc. in the apple menu, adds a sub-menu for the System Preferences (thank you), and lets you re-order everything that was already in the apple menu as you like. Sat Dec 29 14:36:44 2001

Apple Wireless Menus

As i basically wait for UserLand Radio 7.1 (having briefly messed with some other Macintosh RSS readers, and deciding they weren't there yet), i finally saw and tried MulleNewz and SlashDock -- two docklings that read RSS feeds (see RssReaders). They're handier than the Mozilla sidebars i was using because they're always available. Until i get a 'full' (merging/sorting/categorizing/etc. feeds) reader, they'll do the trick. The only drawback is you have to edit the preference files "by hand" (MulleNewz implements preferences but Apple hasn't coded up to all the hooks yet). I know, Radio works as a content management tool, but for some reason i just can't commit to it (yet?). I probably "should" learn more about Frontier, if i want to know the field well, learn from a known product. Sigh. And ZoPe of course. But hey. At least my machine can run them both. Simultaneously. Once Radio 7.1 comes out. (John's main machine is a Mac PowerBook? G3 with MacOsx 10.whatever) If you have no idea what RSS is, see RssSyndication. Sat Dec 29 13:58:08 2001

Waiting For Radio

The latest Vanilla (an alternative wiki-weblog to PikiePikie, which runs this wiki-weblog) has arrived: http://www.langreiter.com/space/vanilla-release-notes-0.5.1 I'd summarize some of the changes, but frankly i'm not familiar enough with it. More to explore (see WikiWeblogs). Fri Dec 28 10:19:15 2001

New Vanilla Released

I was thinking of words for a non-omniscient narrator ... ascient or agnoscient? Not sure what they'd mean though. Fri Dec 28 09:49:36 2001

Non Omni Science

In Sri Lanka, the first mutual cease fire in more than five years begins -- including a partial lifting of the government's economic embargo on Tamil-controlled areas. In January, representatives from 60 peace groups will meet LTTE leaders. See LankaLinks for many more links about what's going on there. Wed Dec 26 09:18:08 2001

Cease Fire In Lanka

I don't read as much ScienceFiction as i used to, and when i do i try to branch out. Here's a Slashdot article/thread with lots of links to Russian science fiction (including complete stories/novels). Mon Dec 24 14:24:59 2001

Russian Science Fiction

We have now killed well over 3,000 Afghani civilians. That's civilians. More than died in the September 11 hijack attacks (which involved zero Afghanis). Can we find a way to be safe without killing innocent people? without killing any people? I don't even think i'm any safer now -- i have visions of packed al-Qaeda recruiting sessions. Wasn't this exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted? Sun Dec 23 09:16:48 2001

Whos Killing Whom

Nicole asked me some questions as part of Blogger Insider, Keith Berman's mutual interviewing webloggers' thing. You can read my AnswersToNicolesQuestions, or her answers to my questions (scroll down to Wednesday) on her site (i'll also save them here as NicolesAnswersToMyQuestions). Sat Dec 22 14:09:15 2001

Blogger Insider Interview One

Is it just me, or does winter in the San Francisco Bay Area really stink? I mean, i'm from Massachusetts, so i can't say that it really gets cold here but it's wet too much, and cold enough, yuck. Anyway, i've updated my sidebar a little bit, adding Bill Seitz (an interesting one-person-wiki, using ZWiki), a few good weblogs on the ongoing US/World conflict (i can't follow all the best articles, though i'll still try occasionally). If totally computerized and automated multihull kayaks with deployable wheels sound interesting, check out TechNomad. The kayaks are pretty much ready to go so they'll be touring for the next few years no doubt. Of course they'll always keep tweaking, as Steve Roberts did when it was just him and his recumbent bike. Thu Dec 20 17:05:04 2001

Pot Pourri

I met Kaliya Young on my trip to the U.S. Northwest; she wants to host a group to develop a pattern language of nonviolence. (well, that will go straight into NonviolenceResources) Oh, what's a pattern language? Try Wiki:PatternLanguage Tue Dec 18 11:18:09 2001

Nonviolence Pattern Language

Mahesh had an interesting thread on RssSyndication. I'm increasingly thinking it's a powerful tool for spreading BuildingActivities, and that evangelizing it to that community might be a good use of some of my time. The wiki community is also going great guns with RSS. Besides several projects' efforts to add feeds for their recent changes (and in the case of PikiePikie, it's weblogs), there is now an extension to RSS 1.0 being discussed for including wiki-specific meta-data in RssFeeds (see RssSyndication for some background). Specification: Meatball:ModWiki Discussion: Meatball:ModWikiDiscussion Mon Dec 10 20:06:08 2001

Syndication For Mutual Benefit

Dave Winer has the quotes on what the states are offering in the Microsoft settlement. They are substantive remedies. Whether they're sufficient only time will reveal, but they're substantive. Sun Dec 9 10:41:44 2001

States Propose Microsoft Remedy

Now it turns out there's a twenty-year-old Euro-American guy among the Taliban and al-Quaeda. He's from Marin County. His story will be told in detail. As the story of no other victim of this war yet has been told. Heard this by physical then virtual ( Flutterby) word of mouth. Sun Dec 9 01:56:42 2001

American In Afghanistan

It looks like the UNP has won the polls in Sri Lanka, despite the widespread violence and rigging (perhaps the worst election violence ever -- and still there was a 70% turnout!). The formerly-opposition UNP do not have a majority in parliament by themselves, but are close enough that they will probably have a fairly solid alliance. This was not a presidential election, so Chandrika Kumaratunge of the PA is still the president. The four-party Tamil National Alliance also did well in the north and east (13 seats?), despite many Tamils being kept from voting. Of course it's impossible to tell what will happen now. The PA has accused the UNP of making "secret agreements" with the LTTE throughout the election, so it may be politically difficult for the UNP to quickly restart peace negotiations. Given the way that the U.S. and U.K. are responding to non-state terrorism these days, it would be easy for politicians to not take international pressure to negotiate seriously. We shall see... Thu Dec 6 10:02:25 2001

Sri Lanka Election Results

Violence in Sri Lanka's upcoming elections continues everywhere, particularly between the two main parties. In the north it's also erupted between the EPDP and the Tamil National Alliance. The EPDP is a coalition member in the current People's Alliance government; the Tamil National Alliance is several other Tamil parties that have banded together for this election. Hopefully there won't be a return to the violence of the 1980s when many different Tamil separatist groups fought regularly. There are no generally agreed upon numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if nearly as many people have died in intra-ethnic fighting (Tamil-Tamil and Sinhalese-Sinhalese) as between Tamils and Sinhalese in the last two decades. I'm trying to take this as motivation for me to get to work on signing people up for the March 2002 Nonviolent Communication IIT (international intensive training) in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Sun Dec 2 13:27:22 2001

Election Violence Among Tamils

Yesterday was World AIDS day (also Rosa Parks day!), and there's a move to get webloggers to post about it. I'm a day late, but here goes: Apparently the spread of AIDs? is now fastest in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It's still ripping parts of Africa up pretty bad though. There's lots of other webloggers writing on the Africa connection. More generally, there's AIDS 101. Pondering as usual for positive angles, AIDs? is helping us to consider how limits on intellectual property rights are often a good idea (i.e., to make medicine available to those who can't afford high profit-taking prices). It's also pushed allopathic (mainstream western) medicine to learn more about our immune systems, and to explore other traditions' theories and treatments. Sun Dec 2 13:06:49 2001

World Aids Day

There's a car share program in San Francisco that's just expanding to the East Bay: http://www.citycarshare.org/ Amtrak was so-so on the 24 hour trip up here to the U.S. northwest. I talked with people a little, but was glad i brought a good book. OlafStapledon just recently won the 2001 Rediscovery Award (for underappreciated science fiction writers), so i brought and finally read his Odd John (written 1935, we're talking old ScienceFiction). If you like Vernor Vinge or Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books, you'll like this. Anyway, the train was three hours late, partly due to the fact that freight train companies own the tracks. If we want public transit that runs on time, the public transit agencies want more right of way on the tracks. So if we want public transit agencies to want more right of way on the tracks... Of course Amtrak is a for-profit corporation, not a public transit agency. The late train meant instead of getting a ride to Port Townsend from Olympia, i was stuck in central Seattle with no plan at 1am. Green Tortoise came to the rescue (see #BringBackTheGreenTortoise), in the form of their hostel in Seattle, open 24 hours, so i got a four hour nap before free breakfast and catching the 7am ferry to Bellingham. Youth hostels and ferries are very interesting bits of our public transit system. A synchronicitous taxi ride split with three guys workng a Hollywood film shoot about two hundred yards from the DynamicFacilitation? seminar. Train, ferry, feet, hostel and taxi. What would Odd John and friends do today about public transit? Sat Dec 1 12:15:05 2001

Public Transit Green Tortoise And Hostels

I've been in Port Townsend (in Washington state) at a Dynamic Facilitation training, and too busy in the off-hours to get net. Now i'm in Seattle for a few days visiting friends, and will be stopping through Portland and then Eugene on my way back home. The training was great, both for itself and for connecting with a bunch of interesting folks, including several directly or indirectly from Tom Atlee's mailing list (which is where i learned of the discounted training), including one woman who wants to do a PatternLanguage? on nonviolence. You can look forward to (or dread :-) more frequent postings from me from now on again. Speaking of nonviolence, NonviolenceResources has been upated, including a couple of moving poems, one describing what a successful radical nonviolent action in the middle of a war might look like. Remember, i said radical -- it may seem unrealistic to some. Fri Nov 30 23:09:17 2001

Where Has John Been

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