Jim Roepcke's weblog have browser, will travel (est. 1999)

TENNIS *G*O*L*D* FOR CANADA!

Words can't describe how exciting and inspirational it is for a Canadian tennis player to see Daniel Nestor and Sebastian Lareau win the gold medal in men's doubles tennis. Cheryl and I watched it live on the CBC. It's so weird to have TSN news-anchors doing the commentary on CBC, but I think it's great how they're collaborating on the coverage of the games.

Earlier this week I predicted Nestor would win a medal. I'm so happy for Canada, as a nation we needed that win so badly! Thanks!

ICE – Information Content Exchange

Very Interesting -- the recent RSS "developments" seem to have led UserLand toward the ICE protocol for content management and syndication (it's too early to tell for sure though). I remember being on the ICE list back in early 1998, which was hosted by Vignette. There were contributors from Adobe, NewsCorp, and CNet as well.

The list was very technical, very spec-driven, and not very conversational. I didn't feel comfortable asking questions on that list so I left.

Home Page: ICE - Information Content Exchange (original outdated link)

UserLand seemed to be fighting for simplicity in RSS; but ICE is a lot more complex than RSS. Why the sudden extreme shift? I have an opinion, but I'll keep it to myself.

However, here's an interesting message on the UserLand DG about ICE, from March 1999.

Dave Winer: ICEing RSS

"Further, RSS looks great to me, with just a little more icing on it, simple stuff based on XML-RPC it will be able to do everything ICE can do, without requiring a $50K tariff to Vignette.

If you guys are serious about working with us, we'll take another look, but you're going to have to stop trying to steer this industry unilaterally."

Now it appears O'Reilly has acted unilaterally on behalf of RSS. I think you can figure out the rest of the story from here.

AIM/ICQ linked

WSJ: Instant Message Services
At AOL Are Quietly Linked -- "Though AOL hasn't yet publicized the capability, it now is possible for many users of ICQ, which AOL purchased two years ago, to sign on to AOL Instant Messenger and communicate with other ICQ users. The compatibility suggests that AOL may be on its way toward creating a world-wide instant messaging system with 138 million potential users."

Vignette slapped with StoryServer lawsuit

INSIDE: Tesh Suit Sings Sad Song About Vignette's StoryServer -- "The suit alleges that Vignette and Busby misrepresented the capabilities and functionality of the firm's StoryServer software. "

Ironically, INSIDE uses StoryServer... I wonder what they think about Vignette StoryServer?

A-Channel

We got a StarChoice Digital Satellite System last week. 183 channels for less money than we paid for about 40 or 50 channels with Shaw Cable.

The #1 reason I got the Satellite is that I can now watch the local channels from Edmonton, home of my favourite hockey team, the Oilers.

Specifically, A-Channel, who holds the local broadcasting rights for Oilers games.

Oilers A-Channel 2000/2001 TV Schedule.

Last year, I might have seen 5 Oilers games, before the playoffs. This year, I should be able to see about 40 Oilers games alone, including games telivised on the CBC. I receive CBC channels from Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver.

Torso Twist

I went to the UVic Rec Centre again last night with Nainesh. We did weights and cardio.

I finally got to use the "Torso Twist" machine, which targets stomach and side muscles. It's always in use. Oooh that feels good! I'm working on my stomach a lot, doing curl-ups and other stomach exercises during the day whenever I take a break.

My mass (126.65 kg) hasn't changed since my last checkup, which has me a little worried. I feel like I've lost (fat) weight, I know I am slimmer. Everyone is telling me the weightlifting and exercise is adding muscle mass which is offsetting the lost weight.

I hope so. I've been using my mass as the metric for my progress since I started this fitness crusade -- it's just... uncomfortable to not be able to trust that metric anymore.

AppleScript & Mac OS X

AppleScript and Mac OS X

This page shows how Create, a cool 10-year old Cocoa-based DTP application (which has been released on every version of NeXTStep, OpenStep, Rhapsody, Mac OS X Server, and Mac OS X ever made) is scriptable on Mac OS X. Cool feature in Create -- "Save as AppleScript"... yup, it saves your document as an AppleScript, when you run the script it recreates the document.

Xtools, a mixed blessing

Tenon Intersystems Press Release: Xtools: An Aqua X Window Desktop for Mac OS X

I think it's great that OS X will have XWindows capabilities with this product, but... in some ways I wish it didn't. I predict a lot of Linux developers will now "port their software to OS X" by just making their X version run and saying "use Xtools to run it", just like Windows developers have told Mac users to run their software by installing Virtual PC, and before that, told OS/2 users to run their software by running it in WinOS/2, the Win3.1 emulator that IBM included with OS/2.

I'd rather see "pure ports", to Carbon, or much preferrably, Cocoa.