Ordinary fool

Design by Steven Lenton

June 7th 2005 8:00pm

St Patrick's Church,
Soho Square,
London

Prophono

Mark Leicester — Conductor

For reasons unknown I was reminiscing today about my Intermediate School years. Intermediate School is what New Zealanders call the dislocating experience of a wholly separate school for children aged eleven and twelve. I remember Ms Burke, my Form One teacher. I remember her hippie appearance: wild red hair, wild eyes, and her orange cable knit jersey that offered little support to her otherwise unsupported breasts. I admired her, but feared her occasionally violent mood swings.

One day, instead of normal lessons, she taught the class a salient lesson in the effect, and effectiveness, of the media. She asked the class a simple question about a recent war. It was 1982. I was an 11 year old boy, and a voracious reader in the field of war machines. I thought I knew it all. I knew about B-52s and battleships, napalm and NORAD. However, Ms Burke asked us, "Who won the Vietnam war?". Hmmm. Actually, I didn't know that. I wisely kept quiet and left it up to another 11-year-old to venture tentatively, "America?". No. "The United States of America?", asked another 11-year-old, who understood the difference. No.

What followed made it clear Ms Burke had anticipated our response. She proceeded to harangue us with a precursor of the conversation (here's the audio) between Archie (John Cleese) and Otto (Kevin Kline) in A Fish Called Wanda:

Otto: We did not lose Vietnam. It was a tie.
Archie [going into a cowboy-like drawl]: I'm tellin' ya baby they kicked your little ass there. Boy, they whooped your hide REAL GOOD!
Otto: No they didn't.
Archie: Oh yes they did.
Otto: Oh, no they didn't.
Archie: Oh yes they did.
Otto: Oh, no they... Shut up!

I was shocked, but I knew immediately that Ms Burke had done me a great favour. Thus it was easier in 1991, when I found another long-held (mis-)belief challenged. In the late seventies and early eighties I had grown up watching the news. Over the years I'd got it into my head that Iraq were the good guys, while Iran were the baddies. How? I knew all about war machines. While Iraq fought with western weapons, Iran fought with weapons bought from those dastardly Russians. It had to be that way! No again. By 1991, thanks to Ms Burke, I knew the difference between perception and reality. It made the about-turn brought on by the Gulf War much easier to cope with. So, here's to you Ms Burke, you helped me more than you will know.

P.S. Ms Burke, if you're out there somewhere I have a confession to make. Once, after my Dad had visited Los Angeles, I told you that he had been to a McDonalds and bought "hash" for breakfast. You seemed very excited by this fact, and quizzed me further. "Really?", you asked, breathlessly. I said it was so; after all, my Dad would never lie. Still, you seemed so surprised. Later, when I discovered the difference between "hash" and "hashbrowns", I knew why.

P.P.S. I've just realised what may have caused your mood swings.

Got to love this Internet. I've hooked up with a Montreal-resident French speaker named Sébastien Arbogast. He's a fellow Cocooner, and we're working together on growing Planet Cocoon, a site to support the Apache Cocoon development community (really, it's for geeks only).

Anyhow, the time difference between London and Montreal (coupled with our late night working habits), has meant that we've spent quite a bit of time chatting online over MSN. Apart from walking the geeky walk, we've been examining the catalogue of English idioms: "we're in the same boat", "the jury is still out", and plenty of parting phrases like "see ya round", "ta-ra, chuck", "spot ya" etc. (the explanations tend to drag out the farewells).

What's more, it's good to know the pot isn't exhausted. Today, while reading the Drupal mailing lists I came across another one: "clue bat". As in, "Let's work him with the clue bat.", or "We should not worry over such people. We should not even work them with the clue bat. Waste of time." Got to love English.

My hobby is musical directing, conducting if you like. I direct a vocal ensemble called Prophono (the name could be construed as mock Latin for "for sound" I suppose). If you're anywhere near London on Tuesday June 7th then I'd like to invite you to come along to a fun evening of English music in St Patrick's Catholic Church on Soho Square. It'll be fairly short (an hour and a quarter or so), leaving plenty of time afterwards for a pint in one of the local Soho taverns. The show is baby, family, friend and work colleague friendly. It's also fairly pocket friendly at £4. I'd love to see you there! Here's the press release and the full programme details. Oh God, I'm singing too.

Those of you who suffer my posts regularly will know I have a strange predeliction for "tagging" things. I'm not referring to the act of creating graffiti, but rather folksonomy. Never mind the thoery now, this is a site for everyone! So, drumroll please... The award for the best practical application of folksonomy goes to... Kitten War, may the cutest kitten win!

Found via the excellent The Librarian in Black.

Last weekend, Nicola and I took a rental car to Bristol, with Danielle and her new guy Mike, whom she met at The Church (that's another story better told by Danielle).

On the way down the M4 we stopped off in the village of Bray to read the menu of The Fat Duck. Michelin voted The Fat Duck the world's best restaurant in 2001. The waiting list is four months long. The set lunch menu, without wine, sets you back £97.50 per person (written out "ninety seven pounds fifty" as if to underline its extravagance). Maybe on my birthday. Needless to say we ate scampi and chips at the local pub instead.

All I really knew about Bristol was that it sported a fabulous old suspension bridge designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. I had no idea it was such a gorgeous town. We had a great night out in the regenerated dockside, a blissful breakfast of fish 'n' chips with Cornish caviar (mushy peas) beside the Severn, followed by a lovely Sunday walking over the bridge and through the parks of Clifton. It was beautifully sunny. All this confirmed Bristol as a place to return to with a bit more time.

Unfortunately, that weekend, I left what any photographic talent I have back in London; here are the results anyway.

This 43 Things is quite a lark. I dropped by again today and found that number nine on the average Londoner's "popular goals" list was "learn to raise just one eyebrow". I mastered that a long time ago - a goal achieved if you like - so, by way of encouragement I decided to offer up my own eyebrow raising story:

When I was seven, Steve Austin (Lee Majors) was my inspiration. I yearned to be special, just like the Six Million Dollar Man. I realised sadly that no-one was going to let me crash an experimental aircraft (“we can rebuild him”; how I wanted to be rebuilt…) No one was going to give me two shiny new bionic legs that would go tink-tink-tink as I leapt from tall buildings. Then one summer’s evening, just after bathtime, as the opening credits rolled, I saw my chance! Steve Austin could raise one eyebrow, and so could I! I was special too! Mr. Austin, if you’re reading this, your bionic eyebrow changed my life!

I ticked the "worth doing" box - I'm sure eyebrow lifts have come in very handy - but, as generous as I would like to be, I wasn't sure how I could honestly tick the "Would you be willing to help others with this?" box.

A particularly heart-warming feature of 43 Things is the "Cheer this goal!" button. Every day 43 Things users get 6 cheers each. A cheer is way to spread encouragement to other users, urging them on in their quest for self-realisation. It's the button that says "I care". If you also care, you can get a regular status report on my own quest for self-realisation over on the right hand side of the screen. What about you? Go on, sign up.

Nicola and I spent a week and a half in Rome, Florence and Pisa. In theory, the four nights accomodation in Rome were a honeymoon present from my father Nigel and his wife Melitta. When we booked back in the middle of last year we were pretty sure we'd be married by now but... we aren't. Anyhow, thanks guys!

We managed to arrive in Rome just after the funeral, and we left for Florence just before the elections. Good timing, with the only drawback being that the Sistine Chapel was full of cardinals and off limits to tourists like ourselves. No matter; it's a great excuse to return to Rome, the sun, the piazzas, the food, the wine...

Update: I've posted slideshows for Florence and Pisa too.

Ah-ha! My evil intentions are unmasked! Seriously though, I'd like to have a damn good go at improving the marketing and documentation of one of my favourite Open Source projects. I posted this to the mailing lists:

Let me start by saying I have no desire to precipitate a fate such as this for the Cocoon community.

Instead, this is what I want:

I want to find richer and better ways for online communities to interact. I want to experiment with what I (and other energetic souls) can offer the online Cocoon community, utilising the wealth of new approaches to online communication.

One example: Cocoon developers are writing more and more in blog form. It's great stuff! Sylvain, you write about Cocoon 2.2, how it "will rock!". I want to everyone to hear it. Posts like this one give the community vitality and, crucially, a vision. People make projects. I think Cocoon's bloggers should be front and central on the Cocoon project site. Feed aggregation is a feature of PlanetCocoon.

Another example: Sarah Burri Windler writes "Based on the very useful and well written tutorial 'Write a Custom Generator' from Geoff Howard I'm on the way to my first ApplicationGenerator and it's a great feeling!" She follows this up with two remarks noting her experiences and what needs updating in the tutorial. A respondent then invites Sarah to add a patch to bugzilla to help update the documentation. Know what? Sarah did! This, despite the fact that there are more instructions for Bugzilla than for the zero gravity toilet in 2001. Don't get me wrong, Bugzilla works, but there's got to be a better way for documentation patches. With PlanetCocoon, comments can be submitted to book pages. Authors can be (automatically) subscribed and notified. It's easy, like a lot of the rest of the web.

So here's my vision of a site devoted to the marketing of Apache Cocoon:

• high search engine visibility;
• a repository of Apache Cocoon success stories;
• a catalogue of live Apache Cocoon web applications;
• an environment to discuss issues of visual identity;
• a repository of press clippings;
• site-wide search;
• a collaborative space to help formulate press releases;
• a noticeboard to raise awareness of community events;
• accessible, standards based design - maximum inclusion;
• a way to publicise key personalities and participating organisations.

Here's my other vision, of a site devoted to Apache Cocoon developers, offering:

• high search engine visibility;
• multilateral expression through rich means such as blogs, forums, pages, polls;
• responsiveness to issues - with a personal touch - caring if you like;
• the ability to collaboratively author structured documentation;
• attractively formatted code snippets / recipes;
• aggregated newsfeeds, drawing on the personal blogs of notable Cocoon developers;
• site-wide search;
• taxonomy / folksonomy, modern information classification, management etc.;
• integration with other community sites such as del.icio.us, flickr, 43things, upcoming etc.;
• accessible, standards based design - maximum inclusion;
• XML feeds for all content.

I sense a fragility about Cocoon that I like. I want to help look after it, and help its community to grow. I want to get this line rising.

If you like my vision too, why not sign up to either site, or both even! If you've written to either users or dev in the last few weeks your account has already been created. Use "Request new password" to get a password. Then you can customise your account how you wish (even enter your birthday on the personal pages if you like). Finally, why not take a look at the tool I'm using to build the site: It's not Cocoon. But then Cocoon is not Drupal. I find lots to admire in both.

Please be amused, not suspicious.

Best regards,
Mark

Frustrated by your goals? Take them public with 43things. 43things asks, "What do you want to do with your life?", and you reply "go to Barcelona", "drink more beer", or perhaps "swim with sharks".

Much like Flickr, 43things knows what's hot. While Flickr tracks the most popular tags, 43things tracks the "zeitgeist", that is, the day's most popular goals. You may not be surprised by what you find here—"lose weight" is permanently at number one—but it's interesting all the same.

Perhaps more interesting is the ability to track the zeitgeist by city. Compare the goals of Wellingtonians with the goals of Londoners. OK, so a small sample size means a large margin of error, but the idea is there for all to see. Fascinating.

In setting out to achieve a goal it's nice to be able to draw on other people's experience and advice. 86 people have the desire to get a PhD. Five out of six people who have achieved this goal thought it was "worth doing". One achiever is even willing to help! Can one person have enough time to help 86 people with their PhDs? No matter, Google's ad-sense offers links to "Easy American Degrees".

I've signed up: here I am. Those of you who share my excitement about Flickr will notice something very cool. My 43things page shows my most recent Flickr photos. For someone who can still remember the days when the various shards of Microsoft Office didn't even share the same address book, this is very, very nice.