Sunday, March 16, 2008

Blast from the Past: on badgers, mushrooms, snakes and giraffes; Notability schmotability

Lately I have been watching good old (?) goofy Weebls produtions, such as BadgerBadgerBadger and Giraffe in my Loft. Having kids certainly changes many things: and in this particular instance there is just something more than meets the eye. Both of flash animations linked have some kid-mojo in them, much in the way Teletubbies have. I have no idea why Giraffe one, for example, is clearly superior to most of the other animations at the site in their minds (for example, I like some other goofy ones myself, such as "Trevor", but my kids overwhelmingly just request more of the 2 top favorites... go figure), but that's the way it is.

On a semi-related note, this also affirms my love of Wikipedia (in its inclusive form): WikiPedia actually knows a plenty about BBB. And while it may not be specifically Notable, it really is Interesting, which to me trumps notability more often than not, when browsing the Internet. Further, it can lead one to other related thingies, such as Bananaphone. And it has some information regarding author, surrounding phenomena, and really serve as a portal to finding as much information as one wants to. So what is not to like? Without digressing too much into "inclusionist" vs "deletionist" debates, it is clear to me which one is the Right Way about. I can see how a "sandbox" of sorts could be built, which only includes "noteworthy" entries, allowing multiple views to exist. But I can not see anything of use to come about from deleting material that does interest people. Besides, if it does not interest them, it does not get viewed, causing little if any harm. But all (and more) has been said on the subject at various places. I am just happy that these nuggets still exist.

Friday, March 14, 2008

XML 2.0!

No, version 2.0 of the xml standard has not been released (well, 1.0 update 5 tries to do something similar but that's another sad sad story...). However, Norm Walsh has some insightful and interesting musings on the subject here. I like to read Norm's suggestion in general, given his sensible and pragmatic approaches. It certainly beats reading through streams of nonsense at mailing lists like xml-dev. Granted, chances for getting xml version 2.0 (or, any sensible improvement beyond 1.0, it seems) can be estimated to be in the range between slim and none. But without good suggestions and proposals, chances are even weaker.



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