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Words of the moment: StigMergy, onomatopoeia

Welcome! In this WikiWiki, JohnAbbe (& other RecentVisitors and old-timers) write about TheNextSingularity, a technological elephant, SriLanka, and whatever else is in the text box when one clicks "Save".

My old personal weblog is archived below. ObBlog is the new one, though these days my attention is refocusing on the nascent NcddWiki and the larger wiki world (especially SisterSites and other InterWiki possibilities). So i'll be writing in AbbeNormal & OtherWikis more than ObBlog.

The "Edit Text" link at the bottom of every page allows you to write and edit here. Even AddingNewPages is pretty easy. Please read around the wiki a bit - here are some StartingPoints - before writing/editing extensively. That said, please write anywhere you see have something to contribute. To play around just to see how things work, try the SandBox. The EditingTips list the formatting rules. If you plan to read and write a lot here, you might want to make a wiki HomePage.

Young Eyegor brought an AbbeNormal brain to the YoungFrankenstein.

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Continuing notes on NcddWiki.
Wed Dec 31 23:51:41 2003

Goodbye AbbeNormal the WebLog, after more than two years. In the end, it's nothing against WebLogs, i just haven't found a way to blog and wiki well at the same time, and i miss wikiing. WikiWiki is a different way of thinking, slower, generally less concerned about what happened yesterday, and with blogging it's too easy for me to let myself get dragged into trying to be part of the RecentChanges of the web. Who wants to be popular?

I'll be reading and writing here in AbbeNormal, which has succeeded as a WikiWiki to some extent. I've written and collected some things i can refer to in passing (SriLanka, LakeVostok, ScienceFiction, TheFirstSmiley, actually, every link in this post) and you can get something like my perspective on all of them just by clicking. I'll also be in the new NcddWiki (once it's up), and in MeatballWiki, the OriginalWiki and elsewhere. I'll still post a bit on MacOsx and Apple on GettingOsxGoing, and if i feel an unstoppable urge to blog otherwise, on ObBlog. Maybe i'll just start a diary like Meatball:SunirShah , who knows. In any case i'll be trimming my list of weblog reading as much as i can bear. i don't know about NewYearsResolutions?, but i'm definitely wanting more focus, to be doing things that i can believe will make a difference.

If you're not used to wikis, remember that no page is really the FrontPage. That said, you could take a look at FindPage and navigate from there, or if you must see the latest, see RecentChanges (wiki's traditional weblog-like page). Create your own HomePage here or in any wiki with links to the pages you find interesting and watch them change over time. Hm. Maybe i'll start an occasional blog on wikiing to help the more linearly-inclined folks get a grasp of it. I could stop writing on-line any time. No, really ;-).

I'm leaving the SanFranciscoBayArea to go back to SriLanka soon. Naturally i'll still be on the Internet as much as possible, just like last year. I'll be at MacWorld Expo.

There's so much i want to say. I leave you with these words -- Listen! Hope! Imagine! Do! Learn! And don't forget to just be there. See you in the intertwingularity...

Wed Dec 31 23:51:40 2003

In an egregious breach of some people's ideas of WebLog etiquette, if i don't get to my final post or three tonight (likely) i will pre-date them to appear as 31 December 2003, otherwise PikiePikie (the system i'm using here) will show only the new month's posts.
Wed Dec 31 23:51:25 2003

As anyone who's been reading probably knows, i don't have a church, either in terms of a local congregation or MyReligion. But i was talking with a friend a while ago and at some point we got to a term i'd never heard before, ChurchShopping. I went to GooGle of course, read ChurchShopping and you'll see what i found.
Wed Dec 31 21:57:32 2003

Today is the last day for AbbeNormal as a WebLog. AbbeNormal the WikiWiki continues. Details later in the day.
Wed Dec 31 15:55:51 2003

Thanks to everyone who responded, blogged, or forwarded to mailing lists my request for programmers (over the last few posts). I got an enthusiastic response from Lucy (hi Lucy!) and we met yesterday, we're considering WikkiTikkiTavi now, 'cause it looked fairly simple, has SisterSites, and is PhpLanguage? & MySql, which Lucy knows.

I'll respond to any e-mail y'all have sent over the next few days.

Wed Dec 31 15:51:52 2003

We haven't settled on a wiki engine or even a language yet. WakkaWiki, the top current contender when i got involved, is PHP, and other promising wikis so far have been mostly that or Python or Perl. Our general inclination is toward simplicity (for accessibility and other reasons -- e.g., one wiki engine was rejected for being loaded with JavaScript). Specific features that are important to us:

The 'basic' wiki features -- easy page linking, minimal markup, human-readable URLs?, BackLinks

Other typical ones: search, RecentChanges (RssFeeds would be nice but that's not urgent), and handling of edit conflicts (when two people try to edit the same page at the same time)

For accessibility to people new to wiki, a comment box at the bottom of each page. WakkaWiki has this, but the comments are stored separately. I'd prefer the way Bill Seitz has done it on WebSeitz, where the comments are appended to the end of the wiki page.

Clean enough code so that things can be easily fixed and extended.

Also see Wiki:WikiDesignPrinciples . Your input is welcome.


Me being biased and all, I'd recommend my own. ;) Oddmuse -- http://www.oddmuse.org . It is a UseMod?-descendant, has SisterSites and RSS feeds out of the box, it has multilingual features, is simple to extend for programmers, installation is just one Perl script, I'm personally interested in multilingual wikis and features, as well as usability for non-geeks) so I'm prepared to invest time in improving the wiki engine where it is lacking. It also has comment pages. For an example, see the manual at the URL above; at the bottom of the page it will link to "Comments on this page". The HTML output has been gaining classes whenever necessary in order to make layouting via CSS as powerful as possible, without hard-coding layouting into the script. -- Alex Schroeder [http://www.emacswiki.org/alex ]

Mon Dec 29 14:34:53 2003

TomAtlee recently ran across the best compilation he'd seen yet of creative and hopeful large group practices (he maintains a list of such compilations). Even better, he's gotten their agreement to copy the information to a WikiWiki, and the NationalCoalitionForDialogueAndDeliberation's agreement to have this be part of their soon-to-be wiki. I'm getting all this going, and i want a real programmer (i.e., not me) in the project*, and there's even some $$ for it. Interested? Please e-mail me!

* Even if we find a nearly perfect wiki, we'll want to tweak it in various ways (e.g. comments, SisterSites). Also, wikis (being a creative and hopeful large group practice of dialogue and deliberation) is definitely on-topic for the new wiki, and so i'm recursively excited for us to join the on-going conversation of wiki features.

Stay tuned to find out more...

Mon Dec 29 03:18:31 2003

(as this blog is about to get a little more serious, if you want to see more frequent, short random stuff from me, see ObBlog)
Tue Dec 23 20:52:26 2003

The first wiki i started was intended to be a group wiki, and the topic was unclear but emerged to be "an incomplete and informally written living history of the social and personal practices that people, groups and cultures use to better stay in touch with, and carry out, their deepest value"

CreationMatters remains almost entirely incomplete. I started using it as a personal wiki, realized that it probably wouldn't work well that way, and went off hunting WikiWeblogs for a personal wiki, which found me PikiePikie, which runs AbbeNormal, which you're reading now. I always intended to rename CreationMatters to PracticeMatters, get more people involved and bring it alive. I bought a domain name and everything but other things took precendence in my life and it all just sat as it has.

The next couple posts will be about a new life for this idea...

Sun Dec 21 19:46:47 2003

The first weblogger i met in person in SriLanka was loki. Last month, she made a rare post on religion, and it's a good example of the kind of writing i go back for:

Out of the million voices in my head one used to be God. Somewhere along the way he went missing or maybe I lost him.

I grew up without him it seemed, then found her/him/it/whatever over time (still working at it).
Fri Dec 19 15:05:12 2003

Well, it's just obviously religion month here at AbbeNormal, so let's not resist it. Bryant has offered the Gospels as this week's MondayMashup. Some interesting responses, but all pretty straight fantasy. How about a space opera version? Traveller or GURPS Space, whatever...

The GameMaster starts with rumors of messiah-types with weird similarities showing up among many (eventually all?) species. The different messiahs' stories could reflect the differences among the gospels (check out the apocryphal ones to get more ideas). Increase the rumors until the characters decide to investigate (or you decide to get them directly involved.

The messiahs really do miracles, gain followings (size depending on the spiritual tendencies of their species), etc., and declare that they are all facets of the same son of the same one God. Technology gets weird readings, some theories could emerge about what's "really" going on (for the secularists), but no satisfactorily complete explanation. Some of the player characters might become followers or investigators, dragging the others around. Eventually the messiahs start meeting and merging (with appropriately spectacular special effects), creating controversy among some of their followers (especially any xenophobic species). But doubt fades for those who are ever in any merged-messiah's presence. The PCs? could get dragged into all kinds of small or large fighting in this.

Governments & other large-scale agencies become concerned and involved at some point, working with or against the players depending on what the players have done. In the end, a "Pilate" high mucky-muck of some boring secular government or other group) is present at the final merging and, (paid off by high priests of various religions losing their followers), has the messiah killed on the basis of an ancient, little-known galactic law authorizing this in times of extreme religious frenzy.

Player character attempts to stop this almost succeed, but fail tragically in the end (the messiah of course doesn't cooperate with all of their efforts). If it makes sense, pull one of them into the Judas role, otherwise, have it be one of the earliest, most earnest followers they meet. Of course there are rumors of the messiah's appearances a few days later (maybe one or more of the PCs? get to see him), and many new religions are formed.

Update: A deeper angle to take this would be to emphasize the political consequences of the messiah's radical NonViolence (read Walter Wink's EngagingThePowers?).

Fri Dec 19 15:01:06 2003

Due to technical negligence, those of you who have subscribed to AbbeNormal have not been getting your e-mail. This has been fixed. Those responsible have been sacked (by a m00se).
Fri Dec 19 03:11:53 2003

Text_Wiki is a PhpLanguage? project to make it easy to exchange text among wikis that use different markup.

Ward Cunningham hired by Microsoft (add your Wiki:TipsForWardAtMicrosoft )

PC Magazine article on wikis (extremely brief overviews of six wiki systems)

(from Many to Many and WebSeitz)

Sun Dec 14 20:24:33 2003

I've been writing about religion and AnArchy some lately, and my friend (I)An-ok has pointed me to FreedomTalk, an anarchist weblog. What's up over there? Religion! I commented on his suggestion to start a church of Liberty.
Fri Dec 12 02:51:56 2003

VoodooPad is a WikiWiki that rather than connecting with via the web, you primarily use through a GraphicalUserInterface?, on MacOsx (and it can sync to iPods). It can be made web-accessible as well, and they have published vpwikispec 0.1, an API for interacting with other wikis (there's at least one other API, i may post about all that later). There's an interview with coder Gus Mueller.

I just started using it, and it's really neat to connect with a wiki this way. I very much look forward to regularly using the same wiki in my GUI, browser and PDA/phone! A few features i'd like to see:

  • menu of BackLinks

  • let user create key commands which open pages (they could go in the Go menu as well)

  • syntax to create web search links, etc. (preferably using the InterWikiLinks syntax as MeatballWiki does -- Google:some+search+terms, Daypop:ephemeral+fish)

  • contextual menu when you click on links to pages has option to go directly to first URL in linked page. Have option-clicking (or some combo) also do this (this lets you follow a link, say VoodooPad, to either the in-wiki page on VoodooPad, or go straight to the VoodooPad web site (assuming it's the first URL on the VoodooPage?).

  • merge completely with SubEthaEdit :-)

  • user-configurable regular expression for WikiWords?

  • integration with DropDrawers -- I want to be able to click on WikiWords? in DropDrawers, and open the appropriate VoodooPad page (in VoodooPad or DropDrawers, by preference i guess). Equally important, i want to be able to have any page in the wiki be treated like a text thingie in DropDrawers -- both places accessing the database (could they use vpwikispec?). DropDrawers already has key commands for pasting such snippets (MacOsx-wide, not just in DD or VoodooPad).

Bonus wiki link (from wiki@TE): Preschool Wiki
Thu Dec 11 13:54:22 2003

My AnArchy friends tell me that Fifth Estate is a fairly nonviolent anarchist paper.
Wed Dec 10 23:03:56 2003

Did you know that human activity can increase biodiversity in their area? Read 1491. (thanks to Nexus)
Wed Dec 10 15:22:04 2003

Wed Dec 10 00:53:31 2003

I'm quite bummed that i missed this demo of the JhaiFoundation's work developing and deploying low-cost WireLess technology in Laos.
Sun Dec 7 21:22:04 2003

I've been struggling for months now, in a very sporadic, casual kind of way, with the idea of devotion. It's a big deal in many religions, in the form of prayer, sacrifice, gifts, promises, etc. I've never understood this -- when i was young because i was an atheist. Now, i believe in something like a god (see MyReligion), but when i contemplate praying, the idea comes up that for me or anyone to actually address god is impossible because god would have to be smaller than god is. Suddenly the ubiquitous anothropomorphication of all kinds of spiritual energies (gods, angels, devils, ancestors) makes more sense, but i'm not there, and i don't see another way over my stumbling block. Well, on purpose -- there have been times when i just don't think about it, and notice a bit of conversation with god going through my head, but let's not go there just now.

What got me going on all this was hearing this:

the first step to recovery of my faith was just to come back the next day, and the days stretched into months and weeks, and i had time to work this out, and i discovered that faith is about being faithful

That's Real Live Preacher in an excellent interview with Chris Lydon. It rung a question in my head -- faith having something to do with devotion? When i was younger, i thought faith was blind belief, so that would've made sense to me. But now my understanding is that faith is about how much hope or trust one has (and to some extent a choice as well). Many people's faith is supported by belief in something(s), and there are other ways to support faith. RealLivePreacher again:

Doubt does not mean that you can't have faith.

If i understand him right, he's suggesting that being faithful to god ("committing one's body" to doing good) could be a source of support for my faith, my willing trust of the world? I'll have to sit with that a while.
Sat Dec 6 18:54:30 2003

The Distributed Library Project -- everybody lists their books; when you borrow or lend you'll also be meeting someone new!

Same thing but for other media as well - http://www.mediachest.com/

Thu Dec 4 17:55:11 2003

Somehow, i missed the Kooch before :)

Re: the election, i've been listening to some MP3s of HowardDean and his campaign manager Joe Trippi (who says he talked with Jerry Brown about how to get TV to be more two-way before Jerry started the 800 number thing in 1992). I really wish Dean would stop saying that all of his opponents went along with Bush on the war. He's either lying (knowingly by now), or discounting Kucinich unfairly.

Anyway, Dean obviously has a much greater following than DennisKucinich at this point. I appreciate the style of the Dean campaign, in particular from what i gather their willingness to work with others to a much greater degree than has been typical in political campaigns. If this translates into public input being creatively used in the administration (e.g. CitizenDeliberativeCouncils) it could be as important to me as any policy positions (on which i'm more in line with Kucinich than Dean).

Thu Dec 4 16:40:33 2003

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Welcome to AbbeNormal, my WebLog. It's one page on AbbeNormal, the WikiWiki. My name is JohnAbbe. See #Welcome for other interesting pages on this wiki.

To Comment: click any entry title, then click "Edit Text" at the bottom of the page; add your comment wherever seems right, and click "Save". Or E-mail me .:. The title of each entry is a PermaLink. More PikieDocumentation. Scroll to #Earlier #Subscribe #Search #Welcome

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