Ho John Lee’s Weblog

• rentzsch.com: rsspipe: Pipe the command line to RSS
  (tags: rss hacking python programming software tools blogging)

 
I’m in Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh, India for the annual review of the Kuppam i-Community program. Here’s a view of the main street from the webcam on the roof of the local CIC (Computer Information Center), which is connected to the regional wireless broadband network that’s been deployed as part of the program.

The performance on the interior of the network is pretty reasonable, but access to the public internet can still be problematic, mostly due to high latency on a satellite link to the upstream provider. Typical ping times to the US are in the vicinity of 700ms. The proxy cache helps for most normal users here, though.

We’ll be travelling around the area to various program activity sites for the next couple of days, it will be interesting to see how things have progressed.

I’m semi-offline, travelling in India this week, but had a little time to check out Google Earth, which just launched. This is basically the Keyhole software, integrated with Google. It provides a 3-d interface to satellite imagery and GIS data for the whole earth, including terrain, 3-d building models in a few metro areas (such as San Francisco) and is free for personal use.

The main downside is that it’s a fat client (10MB to download), and requires an internet connection to log in on the image server. It’s great fun to play with though, and I can see a new round of interesting applications similar to the Google Maps hacks that have been emerging over the past few months.

• GeoTags Location-Based Search Engine
  (tags: gps geotagging search tags mapping)
• MapServer Homepage
  open source GIS mapping from University of Minnesota
  (tags: mapping maps gps opensource software web tools)
• GeoConnections
  Canadian geospatial data service
  (tags: mapping maps gps opensource)
• Hackers Tap Into the Functionality and Simplicity of Google Maps
  topical article on google maps hacking with links from o’reilly
  (tags: google maps mapping software hacking)
• Google Maps Hacking and Bookmarklets
  (tags: google maps software programming hacking)
• GoogleMapsHacks - An Unnamed MoinMoin Wiki
  (tags: google maps mapping gps software hacking)

• del.icio.us direc.tor: Delivering A High-Performance AJAX Web Service Broker :: Johnvey
  prototype of a better UI for del.icio.us
  (tags: del.icio.us software tools ajax)
• XE.com - The Universal Currency Converter
  web calculator for currency conversion
  (tags: global finance travel tools)
• Blogger API: blogger.newPost via XML-RPC
  example of minimal XML-RPC blog post request
  (tags: blog software tools hacking)
• XML-RPC Home Page
  (tags: software xml-rpc programming)
• worldKit :: easy web mapping :: MapProxy
  map generator for worldkit, input street addresses or lat/long, output maps or satellite imagery
  (tags: map mapping tools gps hacking)
• Project Honey Pot: Distributed Spam Harvester Tracking Network
  (tags: blog blogging software web tools security)
• plazes.beta
  web service which associates network addresses with physical places entered by users
  (tags: geotagging mapping network web tools social software)

Today’s lunch at the Poorna veg restaurant in Koramangala: South Indian mini meal (thali). Rice, curd, sambar, beans, and flat bread. Price = 18 rupees, or around 41 cents US. The least expensive lunch option was 8 rupees, the most expensive lunch on the menu was 30 rupees. This is a sort of fast food place, in that you place your order with the cashier, pick up your food from the cook counter, and eat while standing at one of the metal counters.

• worldKit :: easy web mapping :: Home
  (tags: gps geotagging maps mapping rss tools)
• SuperSeva-Bangalore City Map
  (tags: bangalore india map travel)

Lunch today at the Udupi Upahar restaurant in Koramangala after arriving this morning in Bangalore.

This is called Bisi Bele Bath:

Bisi = “Hot”
Bele = “Lentils”
Bath = Sauce mixed with rice

• Global Sources: Manufacturers and Suppliers from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the world
  (tags: global business china)
• Global Trade & Technology Network
  formerly sponsored by USAID
  (tags: global business china india)
• Alibaba Manufacturer Directory - Suppliers, Manufacturers, Exporters & Importers
  (tags: global business china india)

• China’s CNOOC confident in $18.5 bln Unocal offer - Yahoo! News
  largest overseas acquisition by a Chinese firm, bidding cash against lower Chevron cash/stock offer
  (tags: china global energy business)
• ongoing · Puzzling Search Study
  comments on TNL’s post comparing yahoo-google-technorati search - who has time to look at pages of results?
  (tags: google yahoo technorati search blogging)
• Grokker - A New Way to Look at Search
  mapping relationships between search results, backended to yahoo search
  (tags: yahoo search visualization)

I usually fly on United Airlines, but today I ended up booked on ANA from San Francisco to Tokyo. I haven’t tried ANA in several years, so it was interesting to see how their service compared. On this trip I was also upgraded to business class at the last minute as the flight was oversold in coach. This flight was on a 777-200.

• Comprehensive Listing of Del.icio.us Tools, Plugins and Add-ons for Social Bookmarking » ‘Change, Culture, Creativity, Communication’
  (tags: del.icio.us tools)
• Om Malik’s Broadband Blog » After Yahoo, Google takes on eBay
  (tags: business marketing strategy ecommerce google ebay yahoo)
• Google Sightseeing » Post Archive » Forbidden City
  satellite view of the forbidden city in beijing
  (tags: china google maps travel)
• PIMCO Bonds - Everything You Need to Know About Bonds
  good overview of how bond investing works
  (tags: investment finance bonds)
• The Geek Gazette - Sipura SPA-3000 Review
  (tags: voip asterisk)
• MIT Weblog Survey
  (tags: blog internet mit)
• Newspapers: Playing Defense Won’t Be Good Enough
  on the effect of craigslist and google on newspaper ad revenue, business models
  (tags: business marketing google craigslist publishing)
• The Business of Blogging
  technology review article on blogging and related businesses
  (tags: blogging business marketing)
• Great Site Ranking in Google The Secret’s Out
  Google recently filed a US patent which reveals a great deal of how they rank your web site. Some of it you could never have guessed at…
  (tags: google search hacking internet marketing)
• notes from the Piper Jaffray Global Internet Summit, June 14-16, in Laguna Beach
  (tags: business finance investment internet media)
• Notions of Expenditure
  open call for designs for human powered generators, treadmills, bicycles etc
  (tags: ruraldevelopment power fitness)

• Technorati Yahoo and Google Too
  comparing performance characteristics of search engines
  (tags: google search blogging business yahoo technorati)
• Treknologies
  blog on travel and expedition gear, tech, etc
  (tags: global travel ruraldevelopment ict)
• Avian Flu - What we need to know
  (tags: global travel health china singapore asia)
• Twenty Myths and Truths About IPv6 and the US IPv6 Transition
  (tags: ipv6 internet networking)
• CommonTunes - a community directory of freely available music
  (tags: opensource media mp3 music community)
• maps.1.js
  google maps source code with annotations
  (tags: google hacking maps web)
• iPodlounge | The leading independent resource for all things iPod
  (tags: ipod hardware hacking mp3 music photos)
• iPod Hacks :: The Latest and Greatest for Your iPod
  (tags: ipod hacking mp3 music hardware photo)
• Darknet: Story: The tech exec who broke federal law (and why the law is broken)
  intel vp shows home video demo at hearing, breaks current federal regulations
  (tags: dmca drm)
• Comprehensive Listing of Del.icio.us Tools, Plugins and Add-ons for Social Bookmarking » ‘Change, Culture, Creativity, Communication’
  (tags: del.icio.us tools)

 
Awesome. I love reading about people like Kozo Haraguchi. Most people would feel pretty good just making it to 95. I hope I’m able to run at all when/if I live as long as this guy, who just set a record in the 95-99 year old male running bracket. Plugging his 22.04 second 100m time into McMillan’s equivalent pace calculator, he would be doing something like 92-second 400m or 7:28 miles or a 4:12 marathon, which is around what I did in my first marathon a couple of years ago.

From Sports Illustrated:

“It was the first time for me to run in the rain and as I was thinking to myself, ‘I mustn’t fall, I mustn’t fall,’ I made it across the goal,” Haraguchi told reporters.

Japanese media reports Monday said that Haraguchi had beaten the world record of 24.01 seconds for the 95 to 99 age group set by Hawaii-resident Erwin Jaskulski in May 1999.

Point and counterpoint around Mark Fletcher’s (CEO of Bloglines) post last week, “Stealth Startups Suck“.

Here’s a sample of Mark’s post:

Why go fast? Many reasons:

First mover advantage is important.

There is no such thing as a unique idea. I guarantee that someone else has already thought of your wonderful web service, and is probably way ahead of you. Get over yourself.

It forces you to focus on the key functionality of the site.

Being perfect at launch is an impossible (and unnecessary and even probably detrimental) goal, so don’t bother trying to achieve it. Ship early, ship often.

The sooner you get something out there, the sooner you’ll start getting feedback from users.

…
Some people think that they need to stay in stealth mode as long as possible to protect their exciting new idea. I hate to break the news to you, but unless you’re Einstein or Gallileo, your idea probably isn’t new. I have this theory. The success of a web service is inversely proportional to the secrecy that surrounded its development. There are exceptions of course. But I also think this can be applied to other things. Segway, anyone?

Google Maps has added a limited outline view and wide area satellite imagery of the world outside North America. A summary of changes is posted here. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more detailed coverage before too long. Google is apparently already working with Map24 in Europe. (via Slashdot)

From the Extisp.icio.us site by Kevan Davis:

extisp.icio.us images displays a random Yahoo images search result for each of a user’s tag words (excluding those which they’ve only ever used once). Despite the best intentions of the Yahoo API, and extisp.icio.us’s further attempts at filtering, however, some tags will occasionally be assigned images which are not work safe.

See extisp.ici.o.us and a corresponding Flickr group.

Another interesting service strapped onto Google Maps, building on transportation tracking services built at the University of Washington Intelligent Transportation Systems Research Program .

BusMonster builds on the ITS services which in turn rely on various sensors and system monitors which already exist in Seattle, so this isn’t something that can easily be rolled out for an existing, uninstrumented transportation system, but it shows some of what is possible.

via Jeff Nolan

Gyeonggi Korean Cultural Night, June 16, 8:00pm at Elizabeth Theater, Santa Clara Convention Center,

From the event program:

Sponsored by the Kyunggi Province Bureau of Tourism and The Korea Times, San Francisco. The performance includes traditional dance and music featuring Ansung City Farmer’s Band as well as performances by popular singer Eun Jung Oh and actor Jun Ho Chung, Kyunggi Province official P.R. Ambassador. The event will be MC’d by “Popeye” (Sangyong Lee).

Took a while to get through the celebrity introductions and Korean tourism pitch at the beginning, but I did enjoy the traditional farmer’s dance ensemble. A bit like taiko drumming crossed with marching bands and break dancing with a ribbon attached to a swiveling car antenna on your hat, with a few spinning plate tricks thrown in for good measure. Loud and exciting, my ears are still ringing.