Brett Stilwell's Blog http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett architect and computer geek Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:32:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Hello world! http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2007/09/18/hello-world/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2007/09/18/hello-world/#comments Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:28:55 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2007/09/18/hello-world/ Welcome to Weblogs at Harvard Law School. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2007/09/18/hello-world/feed/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Wikimania 2006 in Boston http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/10/24/wikimania-2006-in-boston/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/10/24/wikimania-2006-in-boston/#comments Mon, 24 Oct 2005 04:38:10 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/10/24/wikimania-2006-in-boston/

Boston won the bid to host Wikimania 2006. Now the planning continues at the next Berkman Thursday and Boston Wikipedia Meetup.

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/10/24/wikimania-2006-in-boston/feed/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Flickr Creates API Explorer http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/09/15/flickr-creates-api-explorer/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/09/15/flickr-creates-api-explorer/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:23:09 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/09/15/flickr-creates-api-explorer/

Yesterday Flickr released a nifty API explorer.  Each method page of the API docs has a link to the API explorer, which has an HTML form to enter arguments and call that method. The explorer provides REST responses as well as the REST URL of that call.

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/09/15/flickr-creates-api-explorer/feed/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ voo2do Demo at Berkman Thursday http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/08/25/voo2do-demo-at-berkman-thursday/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/08/25/voo2do-demo-at-berkman-thursday/#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2005 01:12:25 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/08/25/voo2do-demo-at-berkman-thursday/

Shimon Rura gave a demo of his newly released voo2do. It has spread through delicious and word of blog, with 1500 confirmed users in the first week. voo2do appears well suited for web-based Painless Software Schedules. Shimon blogs that Voo2doTray is the first extension built on the voo2do API.

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/08/25/voo2do-demo-at-berkman-thursday/feed/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Blogumentary 8/2 and Geek Gathering 8/4 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/08/01/blogumentary-82-and-geek-gathering-84/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/08/01/blogumentary-82-and-geek-gathering-84/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2005 21:44:44 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/08/01/blogumentary-82-and-geek-gathering-84/

The Berkman Center is screening Blogumentary this Tuesday, August 2.

And on Thursday, August 4, there is a CSS-related geek gathering in Cambridge.

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/08/01/blogumentary-82-and-geek-gathering-84/feed/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ GSD Further Disambiguated http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/07/30/gsd-further-disambiguated/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/07/30/gsd-further-disambiguated/#comments Sat, 30 Jul 2005 18:18:01 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/07/30/gsd-further-disambiguated/

Many gsd-tagged photos with a third possible disambiguation have recently appeared on flickr. This time GSD apparently stands for “Gundam Seed Destiny” anime.

No gsd-tagged photos have yet appeared from the Gilbraltar Social Democrats.

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/07/30/gsd-further-disambiguated/feed/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Google Maps Visits the Moon http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/07/21/google-maps-visits-the-moon/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/07/21/google-maps-visits-the-moon/#comments Thu, 21 Jul 2005 04:39:49 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/07/21/google-maps-visits-the-moon/

If you visit Google’s home page today, you’ll see this Google Moon logo:

And it clicks to here:

The text reads that Google Maps, Moon Edition, is “in honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969.”

Perhaps qualifying as an Easter Egg, the fully zoomed in view shows that the Moon really is made out of cheese.

Perhaps the movie was accurate, after all.

However, the fully zoomed out view shows a tiling error. 



Google Maps also has a similar tiled view issue.

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/07/21/google-maps-visits-the-moon/feed/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Disambiguation of GSD http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/30/disambiguation-of-gsd/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/30/disambiguation-of-gsd/#comments Thu, 30 Jun 2005 19:00:48 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/30/disambiguation-of-gsd/

Homonyms are frequently mentioned in the “tagging is crap” argument. Recall the recent Berkman Thursdays moderated session on tagging.

Perhaps the reason homonyms have not caused tremendous problems yet for del.icio.us and other social bookmarking sites is that del.icio.us tags use relatively specialized geek vocabulary. Apple on del.icio.us overwhelmingly refers to apple as in Macintosh, iPod, etc. Whereas Wikipedia actually defaults Apple to the fruit and then links to the many disambiguations of apple. (Ironically, MediaWiki requires that the first letter of a title is capitalized, suggesting the uppercase Apple Computer company instead of the lowercase apple fruit.)


GSD Studio Works
Originally uploaded by brettstil.

When I tagged my recent flickr photo gsd, for Harvard University Graduate School of Design, I noticed that many gsd tags referred to German Shepherd Dog. Apparently the “Dog” is preserved as a more literal translation of the German Deutscher Schaeferhund.

But the disambiguation continues. GSD now prefers the name Harvard Design School over the deprecated name Graduate School of Design. However, the acronym GSD remains in use instead of the potential acronym HDS, which could also conflict with Harvard Divinity School and might too similar to HBS.

When in doubt, read the Wikipedia disambiguation guidelines. Or make up a new word.

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/30/disambiguation-of-gsd/feed/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Debian Sarge 31r0a http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/12/debian-sarge-31r0a/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/12/debian-sarge-31r0a/#comments Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:48:19 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/12/debian-sarge-31r0a/

With 35 months between Woody and Sarge releases, Debian tripped on the release date. Debian just put out a complete new set of cd/dvd images (31r0a) to replace the June 6 set (31r0).

Ubuntu groks both releases and Debian.

]]> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/12/debian-sarge-31r0a/feed/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Berkman Bloggers: All Your Thursdays Are Belong To Us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/07/berkman-bloggers-all-your-thursdays-are-belong-to-us/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/07/berkman-bloggers-all-your-thursdays-are-belong-to-us/#comments Tue, 07 Jun 2005 18:30:44 +0000 brett http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/brett/2005/06/07/berkman-bloggers-all-your-thursdays-are

The Berkman Bloggers group has organized a series of moderated discussions this summer.

I snapped a few photos of the Voice of America camera crew filming Shimon and Lisa at the start of the Live Journal talk.

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