Here are some updates while reading the news in the SOLISC speakers’ room: Yesterday’s session on DBE went well, with Anahuac doing the translation. The session was held in a slot shared with Izabel’s GNOME talk. After the days’ programs we returned to the Dolphin House for dinner.

Some interesting blog posts found in my NetNewsWire summary while waiting for tonight’s beach barbeque and tomorrow’s OpenBeach…

Jon Udell is dreaming about Peer-to-Peer air travel:

Fallows invites us to imagine a fleet of air taxis – essentially winged SUVs, safe, ultra-reliable, highly-automated, super-efficient – that redistribute some of the traffic away from our failing hubs to a network of smaller airports. If this is going to work, the air taxi itself, which companies like Eclipse Aviation are busily inventing, is only half the technological challenge. The other half lies in the information systems. You’d need to be able to aggregate demand in real-time, so that if two passengers in Keene, NH, two in Rutland, VT, and two in Albany NY are headed to LA (say, to Pomona’s Ontario airport) on a given day, you can allocate an air taxi to make those three pickups and then fly direct to the destination. These air taxis would need to be able to steer clear of conventional air traffic, as well as each other.

Could make a very interesting DBE business case.

Joe Suicide wants to route next summer’s Death Monkey tour through the Pamplona bull run:

…Just by moving our starting date by four days, we will be able to run with the bulls at Pamplona. Some of us, including all current full members, have already done it at least once, but since the adrenaline rush you get by running is incredible and we happen to be there at the right time, we will do it again.

Last time at San Fermin all my dirty underwear were stolen by spanish while our group slept in a park. 2006 I will be prepared. I won’t take any underwear with me. That should solve the problem.

Tommi Rissanen from DBE is talking about Christopher Columbus -style management:

In short, SME Business Management is sadly similar to Christopher Columbus deeds:

• He left but didn’t know where he was going
• He got there, but didn’t know where he was
• He came back but didn’t know where he had been
• And he did it 3 times in 7 years.

Pekka Pekkala from Helsingin Sanomat is analyzing some blog reader statistics (in Finnish, sorry):

Uskollisia lukijoita löytyy esimerkiksi yhtiöistä Andritz-Ahlstrom, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa, Raha-automaattiyhdistys, Suomen Lakimiesliitto, Amnesty International, Alliance Capital Limited, Patentti- ja rekisterihallitus, Smartner Information Systems Oy, Hantro Products Oy, Sampo, VVO-Yhtyma Oy ja Verohallitus (hui!). Eli ainakin joku on onneksi löytänyt säännöllisesti seuraamisen arvoista sisältöä täältä.

Obviously, the Google Analytics stats are not very accurate for blogs, as they do not carry information on RSS subscribers.

Edd Dumbill is thinking about opinionated software:

Desktop environments – GNOME 2.0: The move from GNOME 1.0 to version 2.0 was highly opinionated (Mac users, think OS 9 to OS X). Complexity of user interface was thrown out in favour of sensible defaults.

Web standards – CSS, RDF, XHTML: not only is there a right way to do things, but it turns out to be better too! I don’t automatically fall in love with everything that emerges from the W3C, but some things are so obviously the right way it’s impossible not to love them – warts and all.

Good stuff to think about as we prepare for Midgard 2.