John Wright | Software Developer | Los Angeles

Photo:eirikso

[This article ponders just a small bit of the pros and cons concerning Net Neutrality. Understand that I'm absolutely pro Net Neutrality as a policy, but I'm a bit divided on whether or not government should impose regulations to protect Net Neutrality. In the end, it seems like government regulations may be absolutely necessary to protect Net Neutrality, but whether the government will decide to regulate is another issue. Considering all this, Net Neutrality could be a potentially sticky issue for some time to come.]

My simple definition of Net Neutrality is…

“ISPs don’t touch the bits and bytes flowing through their pipes”

In other words, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) remain neutral concerning what internet traffic flows through their networks (or their “pipes”). ISPs just provide dumb pipes for the traffic to flow through. They remain neutral by not actively doing anything to the traffic, like filtering it or blocking it in any way. This is the way the internet has operated since it’s beginning (for the most part).

An example where an ISP acted in a non neutral way is when Comcast actively blocked BitTorrent traffic on its networks. In many ways, this is a fairly small thing they did. All paying customers of Comcast who did not use BitTorrent didn’t notice a thing. Comcast+BitTorrent users on the other hand, we’re stuck and would have been forced to switch ISPs in order to continue using BitTorrent, had the FCC not intervened.
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Photo: Stuck in Customs

A few days ago an analogy regarding social networks and their future crossed my mind. The analogy is “The Digital Home” as a distributed social network platform.

The idea is that big social networks are kind of like massive communes where you have your own room (for instance my room on twitter is http://twitter.com/wrightlabs). Read more »

Photo: sclopit

SPARQL allows you to query a semantic web (i.e. RDF) data source. This post will cover some basics of SPARQL but it will mainly focus on how to run a SPARQL query in code. The code I’m using is PHP and JSON but the overall steps are the same using any language.

Here are the overall steps…

1. Constructing our SPARQL query
2. Preparing our REST URL
3. Make the HTTP request to the URL
4. Parsing the response
5. Using/Displaying the results

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(DISCLAIMER: My recollection of what was said and what was meant may be flawed. For the best record, find the sources mentioned and listen for yourself)

During the Semantic Web Meetup discussion about social networks Joe Devon made a prediction that all the current major social networks (Facebook and Twitter) will go the way of MySpace. This is because when the semantic web has matured, everyone will have control of their own (profile) data and that data will be more freely movable around the web due to common open standards. This discussion reminded of a similar discussion (Semantifying Social Networks) I listened to via a recording from the SemTech 2009 Conference. In this discussion the same vision of everyone controlling their own data and (by choice) sharing it securely via open standards was the ideal. Read more »

I’m starting a new blog today, January 1, 2010. I’m a bit reluctant to start one because I tried blogging when I first discovered it (and WordPress) back in 2005. Overall my experience back then was good. But the problem I had was keeping everything organized and the overall maintenance involved with a blog. I think I tried to make it more than I wanted to get into, realistically. And eventually, I abandoned it.

Blogging can be a lot of work. Being a tech geek I would easily spend more time working on my blog than actually blogging. So I’m trying to avoid that with this blog by keeping it as simple as my tech instincts will allow. But not only is building and adding to a blogs features a lot of work, just writing a well written blog post is as well. So overall it can be a lot of work to maintain the kind of blog I want.

Despite all the work, I think the benefits of a blog well done are attractive. Even in 2010 the impact of the web on our world is still impressive. To think that I or any other common person can make a publication that can be accessed by virtually the whole world is still an impressive reality. Just 100 years ago it would have taken so much more work/effort/sweat etc to do what we can do with the click of a few buttons. The printers and publishers back then had to print paper copies on a large printing machine. Bundle them up and ship them out. And yet rarely if ever would the distributed paper copies be available all over the world. These days, you or I can type something up, click a few buttons and it’s worldwide with virtually unlimited copies, archived and available for the future. And it’s only getting easier.

With that said, now I’ll tell you what kind of blog I anticipate this will be. In general it will be the occasional blog post (possibly very occasional) about mostly tech and society. Ideally I’ll be writing some technical programming articles. At times I get the itch and inspiration to write some thoughts that would best fit a blog post, so those thoughts will go here as well.

And the conclusion, it’s just another blog. Welcome!

Political Leaders

Barack Obama

Although his presidency is barely a week old, some of Mr. Obama’s work habits are already becoming clear. He shows up at the Oval Office shortly before 9 in the morning, roughly two hours later than his early-to-bed, early-to-rise predecessor. Mr. Obama likes to have his workout — weights and cardio — first thing in the morning, at 6:45. (Mr. Bush slipped away to exercise midday.)

George W. Bush

Mr. Bush has always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy, and he typically arrives at the Oval Office by 6:45 a.m., Ms. Perino said, for briefings from his national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, and chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten. He holds regular secure video-conferences with various world leaders, among them the president of Afghanistan and the prime minister of Iraq.

Winston Churchill

Dinner was the focal-point and highlight of Churchill’s day. Table talk, dominated by Churchill, was as important as the meal. Sometimes, depending on the company, drinks and cigars extended the event well past midnight. The guests retired, Churchill returned to his study for another hour or so of work.

Benjamin Franklin

The precept of Order requiring that every part of my business should have its allotted time, one page in my little book contained the following scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural day.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Briefly: Napoleon’s daily routine was perforce limited. Marchand awakened him early and served coffee in bed. One or more of the valets washed him and helped him shave, then rubbed him down with a coarse brush and doused him with eau de cologne (which soon ran out and was replaced with homemade lavender water) and finally helped him dress, an elaborate process that required one or two hours.

Celebrities

Fred Rogers

he steps on a scale in his bathing suit and his bathing cap and his goggles, and the scale tells him he weighs 143 pounds. This has happened so many times that Mister Rogers has come to see that number as a gift, as a destiny fulfilled, because, as he says, “the number 143 means `I love you.’ It takes one letter to say ‘I’ and four letters to say `love’ and three letters to say `you.’ One hundred and forty-three. `I love you.’ Isn’t that wonderful?”

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Photography: shark or dolphin by schloppy

Check out this amazing story of a surfer, Todd Endris, who was attacked by a great white shark and lived with the help of God, friends, dolphins and many more…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21689083/

Truly incredible!

“This picture is not related. It was taken in 2003 at Albatros beach in Jeffreys Bay and the man was unharmed.” – matt

Photography: Brain tree? by gothandy

I’m very fascinated by life and biology, but the human brain is extra-ordinary even in the extra-ordinary world of biology. It is the organ and system that is surely most responsible for the human experience. I have read casually on the ideas of how the brain works and it never ceases to fascinate me.

I recently came across a site and book dedicated to the idea that the brain really isn’t so impressive. I thought it was odd. The author seemed to know what he was talking about so I considered what he said. But I also found this article 10 Unsolved Mysteries Of The Brain and I have to stick to my position, the brain is one of the most impressive systems known to man.

You may have seen this before circulated around in an email or elsewhere. Can you read it?

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs dgig it or use aentohr srecive wtih the sarhe it btotun bloew!

If you can’t read it, it basically explains that for many people the brain does not read words as letters sequentially from first to last but it takes in all the letter symbols at once. And it seems that as long as the first and last letters are in the right place, it doesn’t matter where the other letters are placed in the word. Your brain will still be able to recognize the word! It works for me as I can read the above and it is fascinating to get this little bit of insight on how the brain works from this demonstration.

“Is there a name for this? Like the…affect?” – Emily

I don’t know, if someone knows please tell us in the comments.

Origami + Tessellations = WOW!

This is truly a unique and amazing art. (Actually it’s the combination of two unique and amazing art forms.) In fact it is also a way to see/experience a 3D tessellation, which mathematically and spatially is a very interesting concept.