Atom authentication and the extensibility of HTTP auth

Interesting article about the use of WSSE (Web Services security) UsernameToken profile in Atom. It came as news to me that HTTP authentication was extensible per RFC 2617 i.e. not limited to Basic and Digest options.
Of course, this sort of open-ended extensibility is the two edged sword that father Darwin keeps well sharpened for us. If "compliance" to X is open-ended via an extensiblity mechanisn, then "X-compliant" means very little when it comes to interoperability. This is the constant struggle of interop, how not to stifle innovation and yet avoid babelization?

IronPython on .NET and a hint to, for example, IBM

IronPython. If this gets traction perhaps it will re-invigorate jython.
Hint to IBM - you guys are perfectly positioned to give Jython the shot in the arm it needs. It is a shot in the arm that the Java platform itself needs. In an SOA/Web Services/asynch. messaging world, dynamically typed languages offer a significant increase in programmer productivity. Jython is a gem of a dynamic language combining the best of the static and dynamic in one fantastic JVM based package.
(Substitute "IBM" for your favourite Java company and see what you get.).

Dylan Thomas goes public domain in Canada

[Via Lawrence Lessig's blog]. If your country, like Canada has a 50 year rule, rejoice. If not, don't.

"It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courter's-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea."
-- Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas

New year resolutions

• In my copious spare time in 2004 I will:
  
  
  
  • write (or at least make a very big hole in) a science novel about the relationship between computing, language and creativity.
  
  
  • write (or at least make a very big hole in) a non-fiction book challenging some of the self-serving mores of the IT industry as constituted at the start of the 21st century.
    
  
  
  
  I also undertake to get my hair cut more often, eat less fatty food and chew my way more quickly towards what is, at this stage, a brobdingnagian backlist of books and interesting URLs.
  

Aggregating feeds with Bloglines

I've just now created a couple of folders to better organize by feeds in the excellent bloglines, server-side aggregator. When you click on a folder, you get a page with the new posts from *all* of the feeds in that folder i.e. a merged feed. Excellent for infrequently updated blogs as it (a) saves a bunch of clicks to get to the chewy stuff and (b) reduces roundtripping to the server which makes for a snappier reading exeperience and an injection of warm-n-fuzzies for being a better netizen.