I don't remember when I was first exposed to the story of the Holocaust. Certainly when I was young, in elementary school, at hebrew school. I have studied it on and off throughout my life. I always though it was a bit sick exposing a child so young to the holocaust but what choice was there? As a Jew, as a human, you have to know what man is capable of. If you don't know, you can't stop it. I just finished the book "rethinking the holocaust" by Yehuda Bauer, the head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. This book is amazing. It helped to take the ocean of facts, figures, stories, legends, etc. about the Holocaust and tie them together into a coherent narrative that gets as close as I have ever seen to answering two critical questions: Why did the Holocaust happen and why does it matter to the world? For me personally the most powerful sections dealt with the question that I've never had a good answer to until now, "Why didn't they run/fight?"
Red Lights
I suppose the question one has to ask about the lies, violations of civil rights and common sense alleged in this article on red light cameras is: a) the public being victimized in a crass display of lies or b) is the author pumping up a simple story into a 5 part extravaganza? Unfortunately I suspect the answer is yes.
OpenNic
This web page is available via http://www.goland.geek. IANA's incompetence and bad faith has reached legendary status in the Internet community and we desperately need an alternative. I don't claim that OpenNic has the solution but we have to do something. I now point my PC's DNS resolution to http://www.opennic.unrated.net/personal.html. Yes, this has obvious privacy ramifications but I'm willing to live with it. Thanks to Simkin for hosting my .geek DNS record.
All's Well In Germany?
The German police apparently feel it would be better were Jews not to identify themselves. But hey, they apologized.
Jews in France
Time for Jews or anyone else who isn't seen as being pure white to get out of France. That anti-Semitism and general racism can be so widely supported lets us know that the cycle begins again. Numerous incidents demonstrate where France is. I just wonder how fast it will spread. Yes there is hope, but history councils caution.
Microsoft and GPL
http://news.com.com/2010-1075-882846.html is a great article on what Microsoft is trying to do to stop GPL/LGPL. I wonder if Microsoft has finally become insane enough to want to enforce their patent portfolio. If they do I suspect it will be the final straw that forces the government to take drastic action against them. At least it will lead to massive changes to our loony patent law system.
My XML Wish
If I were XML king for a day and could make any change I wanted to XML it would be to add length encoding. Length encoding would provide an order of magnitude better performance in handling XML messages, make XML proxies practical and finally rid us of MIME.
Royalty Free/Reciprocal
How can something be a de jure standard and still not be open and freely available? When it's license isn't Royalty Free/Reciprocal.
Continue reading Royalty Free/Reciprocal
Solid Resumes
When I read a resume I look for key attributes such as:
- Brevity. No more then 1 page (10 point font, liberal use of white space) per decade of experience. Publication/patent lists can be attached separately.
- Clarity. Resumes are your chance to demonstrate your communication skills.
- Modesty. Truly talented people can communicate their ability without arrogance or pretension.
- Focus. If it isn't relevant to your job performance please feel free to not share.
New Job
Today I started my new job at BEA as a "principal technologist". It looks like my main focus will be on work flow web standards.