My site has definitely changed a bit recently. The most obvious part was probably the complete change in the appearance of the site, but there are some pretty fundamental architecture changes as well. First and foremost, I switched from a MovableType platform, with static pages, to a Wordpress platform with 100% dynamic content. The downside to this is that there is a hit to the database with every page hit. The upside is the complete lack of “rebuilds” where a bunch of pages get rewritten each time a template changes. The other upside is the plugin-friendly design of Wordpress, which allowed me to set up a better anti-spam system (without a CAPCHA for each comment) and a tags system to replace my stale category system. Not to mention the completely open-source nature of Wordpress, which allows me more liberties with the design along with the guarantee that it will always be free. Watch for more improvements to the interface as I play around with some javascript to clean up the presentation, and get ready for some other web apps I’m playing around with (MediaWiki and Mambo are ready to go, I’m still deciding if there’s really a market for them at this point).

Update: The newest change was today’s addition of expand/collapse sidebars to clean up the presentation of links and such. You can now click the [+/-] on the sidebar items to expand and collapse the sections. You can also now feast your eyes on the Deep Thought of the day. Come back regularly to see a new Deep Thought.

Google is coming to the Dalles. They’re planning to build a facility which will employ 50 to 100 people. I suspect the number will be closer to 100 because they have bought a decent-sized 30 acres of land. I like this, not just because Google is a really cool company and certainly welcome in Oregon, but because I want to work there! Get me a job there, o loyal horde or readers. Googlebot, if you’re reading this, put in a good word for me. Seriously. I would be happy to spend my first year there scrubbing toilets.

I’m really kind of dissatisfied with my blog’s current state of affairs. I’ve been checking out tags and have been coveting the classification system that del.icio.us offers with tags. I was also checking out the new web app design paradigm offered with the use of XMLHTTPRequest objects, web standards, XML, XLST, and JavaScript to put it all together. This group has been identified and labeled as Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML), and can be seen in the form of Google Suggest and Google Maps. I’m seriously considering migrating my blog to the new, completely open-source WordPress 1.5, which offers these features via plug-ins. The tradeoffs are basically zero; there’s even a capcha plugin to keep my comment spam in the neighborhood of…zero. The other bonus of using WordPress is the complete lack of a need to “rebuild” the site after template changes are made. Every change goes live, immediately. The other advantage of switching to a new platform: the opportunity to change my URL format to eliminate cruft. I can replace “http://mullingitover.com/archives/000943.html” with “http://mullingitover.com/2004/2/16/SUV_Owners.html”, which is very appealing from a design perspective.

While physician-assisted suicide is under attack in our country, Hunter S. Thompson reminded us that gun-assisted suicide is practically enshrined in the constitution.

What’s up with Firefox lately? It’s looking like the spammers have cracked through the barricades, because I’ve noticed several popups in the past few days. Other people are noticing it, too. I’m guessing that the problem will be squashed fairly quickly but it’s still kind of sad. I really didn’t miss those damn popups.

Update: An example of this problem.

Update 2: It’s not really Firefox, but Flash’s ability to open a browser which causes the problem. The solution: the FlashBlock extension.

Ok, so I guess it’s not necessarily secret just because it isn’t advertised. I stumbled onto some discussion about the my favorite web app, del.icio.us. No big deal, lots of people are talking about it. What makes this one different is that it’s a discussion with Joshua Schachter. He is the creator of the app, and the discussion about features and ideas goes back to December of 2003. I’ve been reading it all day learning about the reasoning behind the design. I must admit that del.icio.us has a certain genius to it in terms of design. Reading the notes is like being backstage at a great play, and hearing the director comment on his reasons for the choices he made. I really wish he’d open up the source for del.icio.us, but at the same time, for security reasons I can also see why he’d probably prefer not to. I’ve been sitting around in my spare time at work trying to figure out a good model for it so I can homebrew my own version. It will take time and I’m hoping to fire up a java-based solution with Struts and Tiles, but it’ll be interesting to see what the schema looks like. Joshua said in a recent interview that he’s using mod_perl, HTML::Mason, and MySQL. I’d sort of like to try running a del.icio.us clone in java just to how it stacks up with load testing to simulate the 50k+ users that del.icio.us has.

I stumbled onto a humorous indictment of groupware. The post starts out discussing how the author was kicking it with Nat Friedman, who announced the release of Hula (a calendar and mail server) the other day.

I’ll spare you the details. I just liked the part where he says,

Your “use case” should be, there’s a 22 year old college student living in the dorms. How will this software get him laid?

Nice.

Why does iSnoop.net dominate so much? I don’t know, but I hope it doesn’t stop any time soon. There are lots of neat little 1337 tools, but for the n0n-1337 there’s also a nice gmail invite spool, and they have a couple hundred thousand invites available. I bet all those people who paid for their accounts with kidneys, firstborn children, and their virginity are kicking themselves right now.

Oregon is mulling a change to their tax scheme which would eliminate per-gallon gasoline taxes and replace them with per-mile taxes. The plan being researched by the Oregon Department of Transportation would be implemented by installing a GPS device in every vehicle registered in the state, tracking each vehicle’s every move. Can you say “Orwellian”? I knew you could.

This smacks of a gross violation of the constitution on privacy grounds, and the only other way to implement such a plan (using the odometer) would violate the constitution as well. Can you say “Regulation of interstate commerce”? Good job. Because that’s what this plan would accomplish. How could the state verify that you’re driving all your miles in Portland, Oregon and not in Vancouver, Washington? They couldn’t, so they’d have to tax you for miles you drove out of the state.

Of course, I’m not even mentioning the fact that this is basically another subsidy for SUV owners. Yes, because we don’t have enough pollution, we need to remove any kind of penalty for driving a Hummer instead of an electric car.

The speed at which this tax is taken off the books by voter referendum going to give the state legislators whiplash.

Tulsa, Oklahoma software developer and blogger Michael Bates is being threatened by his town’s newspaper, the Tulsa World. The charge? Excerpting copyrighted material (not illegal), and linking to the newspaper’s web site (again, not illegal). Wow. Can you say, “Stupid?”. The blog world is a bit irate over this, understandably. I think the Tulsa World didn’t really have a clue about the hornet’s nest they knocked over. They probably said to themselves, “What’s up with this hornet’s nest? This one doesn’t look that bad. I bet my friends would think I was a badass if I gave this a good kick. Maybe my second cousin, Susie, will even go to the dance with me. Maybe I could even make it to second base. Yep.”