Coding In Paradise

I'm going to EuroOSCON! I just found out!

I will be talking about the Englebart project, HyperScope. Right now, in August, we're doing the rest of the development for the project, and then in September at EuroOSCON I'll be presenting the entire architecture of the system, finished and ready to go.

The great thing is all of this is open source under the GPL. Its got a really interesting architecture. It is fully client-side using AJAX and DHTML. We extensively use Dojo, client-side XSLT, and XPath.

HyperScope is a really sophisticated application that's bringing entirely new addressing and viewing capabilities to the existing web. You'll be able to use all of this without any browser plugins. You can just drop it into your web server. It is a bunch of static files on the web server, because everything is client side. The file format for HyperScope is simple OPML.

I'll be talking about all of this at EuroOSCON, going through the architecture, what we've done, why this is important, why it matters, etc. Essentially, we're bringing all of the capabilities to the contemporary World Wide Web that existed in Douglas Englebart's, one of the co-inventors of hypertext, original system. He first implemented hypertext, but in a much more sophisticated way than what we have on the web, and now we're going to have these abilities broadly available. It's really cool and I hope you can make it if you're in town.

I'm definitely getting addicted to Europe. It is a really cool place. EuroOSCON is actually in Brussels, which I've never been to. E-mail (bkn3 ATATATAT columbia.edu) me if you're going to be out there, if you live out in the region and you want to meet up and hang out.

I haven't posted on this blog much the last couple of months. My life has been tremendously full though during that time. I thought I'd share a little bit about what's been going on.

I'm actually not typing this post; instead, I'm dictating it through a Bluetooth headset into my cell phone as I drive on the highway using an amazing service named Copytalk. It's a phenomenally affordable service that gives you unlimited dictation every month, month to month. It's really opened up dictation to me. If you sign up through this link it's cheaper for you and I get a free month ;)

Here's what I've been up to the last few months, from a high level:

• I lived and worked from Paris the last month with my girlfriend who is a musician.


• Talked at the Ajax Experience conference a few months ago


• Worked really hard on the Douglas Engelbart project.


• Talked at Ebay on Dojo.Storage.

The big thing is I just got back from living in Paris for the month of July, where I lived with my girlfriend. I subleted a place for the month and sublet my place here in San Francisco. It was a wonderful, crazy experience. I was working remotely for Engelbart during that time. We had an apartment we rented in Montmarte in Paris. It was the first time I've ever been to France or Paris, and it was great. We went grocery shopping at the local grocery stores to save money, and just sort of lived like a Parisian. Ate stinky, ugly, beautifully tasting French cheese and bread, and lived and worked.

It's a phenomenal place. I found the French actually very nice. I found the magic words were to simply say bonjour. Just be friendly. We got a free place to stay for a couple days down on the French Riviera near the Mediterranean, and went swimming in the deep, blue, cool water. We actually went hiking over in the nooks and crannies and skinny dipped into the Mediterranean where there were no people.

The art and history in Paris are amazing. I went to the Louvre a bunch of times. They've got everything there. They have the code of Hammarabi, which is the first written set of laws in recorded history. They've got all of the great master pieces of everything, such as Venus de Milo; phenomenal works of art. I also went and fulfilled a life long dream of seeing Monet's Water Lilies, a tremendously beautiful set of paintings that he did at the end of his life. I stayed there for hours and wept and took them in. It was stunning, I could feel his spirit in the painting. It's hard to explain, but I could feel the tenderness and the sensitivity and the level of love he had for the subject that he was painting.

The cafes were amazing. I went to many cafes that were famous for great literary figures and artists, where Picasso and other great thinkers used to hang out. It was phenomenal to drink cappuccinos and espressos and work on the Engelbart project from these cafes.

I also went to Notre Dame de Chartes, which is in a medieval village. I went to Berlin for a few days, saw the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie.

It was a full month of working, thinking, creating, living, experiencing, and romance with my beautiful girlfriend Bekka.

I'm back in town now, battling a nine hour jetlag. There's been all sorts of other amazing things but I will share those in the future.