My wife and I were at Target here in Springfield and wondered about the large construction tent outside. A quick check of the city building permits and a chat with a Target worker told us what we needed to know: remodel!

Our Target is getting new produce and refrigerated cases plus an air conditioning upgrade. The goal is to convert our store to something called ‘PFresh’, an internal designation that corresponds to a larger grocery selection. Based on some quick research on Wikipedia this was an effort started a couple of tears ago.

This could be in response to a new HyVee store that opened in 2011 plus two Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market stores opening later this year.

I read this and now realize why open software and systems are so important.

We all stand on the shoulders of the generation before. This is true in EVERY medium. Writers, Artists, Programmers, Engineers. The trend in the last few decades to lock everything down… be it with rivets and welds, or with patents and copyrights that never expire… we’re crippling the next generation. The joy I felt being able to gut a PC, from the hard drive to the kernel during my formative years… you’re right: an iPad is amazing. I own one and love it. But what I got out of my first PCs in the 80s was more than what my kid will get out of an iPad today. I’m not trying to wax nostalgic, but there’s a potentially dark future out there. We’re crippling the next generation in the name of quarterly profits. Creativity and innovation requires more balance.

Your iPad may be awesome, but will the technology children of this generation have a desire to build one for their generation?  What will be the iPad of 2020?

Attribution:  Found at Webstock via Pinboard.

So Richard Stallman (RMS, father of the free software movement) publishes some guidelines about booking him as a speaker.  The “rider” is excessive in it’s detail and that is pushing several people to poke fun at it.  Before you jump on that bandwagon, try writing down your requirements in the same level of detail and see if it reads the same.  Write every preference, situation and detail you can think of, colored through the lens of your staunch beliefs.

That said, does it sound so odd anymore?

So I have a long history with UserLand Frontier, a scripting and database environment that runs on the Mac and Windows.  I spent some time in 2004 as a product manager for UserLand, trying to shepherd the Radio UserLand blogging tool in the fledgling community.  I wrote my fair share of UserTalk scripts for UserLand and myself and shipped some nice code–at least for my skill level.  I worked with some great people with big ideas and even met some big people with great ideas.

One of those people was Adam Curry, long time Radio UserLand blogger, podcaster and former MTV V-jay.  Adam still uses the software and it’s cousins (OPML Editor by Dave Winer) to produce a website and RSS feed for his regular podcasts.  That’s an oversimplification, but for the few readers of the weblog, it will have to do.

Adam’s looking for some help with Frontier–the core of what has become many similar products–to make it run on a new platform and a new environment.  He’d like it to run under Linux for a few simple reasons, mainly to prevent vendor lock-in and give him control of his future PC environments.  I get that.  He’s reached out to the community that’s left looking for someone to take on the Herculean task of creating another “cousin”–Frontier on Linux.

While I know the source code structure and have a basic understanding of how it works, I’m not fluent in the kernel programming environment.  But, since I’m an architect for technology and some of that knowledge will carry over, I’ve decided to approach this problem from that direction.  I’ll jump in the pool again with both feet, trying to architect a direction forward.

Sometimes it’s easier for people to point out a mistake in someone else’s plan than to come up with one on their own.  Maybe my plan will get some people thinking and sharing and finding a way forward.

PS–I’m doing this for fun.  Let’s all have fun together! 🙂

Harold Ramis (Recruit): “What happens if I don’t get on the bus?”

Sean Young (MP): “Aww, you look like a sensitive, intelligent guy.  Don’t make me have to shoot you.”

John Candy: “I hope this is the mess hall–How ya’ doin’ Eisenhower?”

So I’m super excited about MW3. 10 short days away and from what I’ve read, there’s plenty in it for me as a normal player like me. I’ll be picking up a pre order midnight for sure!

Dave Winer: “I don’t ever want to be in a position where to participate in a community you have to support an undocumented API that’s implemented by a single vendor. I’m sure by now we all understand why that is too fragile a foundation to build on.”

via Scripting News: The RSS community wakes up.

John Gruber: “Apple’s priorities — simplicity, beauty, excellence — are becoming the industry’s priorities. You don’t have to be a former Apple employee to get on board this train, though.”

via Daring Fireball Linked List: The Apple-Fication of Everything.

Tammy is having some fun with Siri, the built-in assistant in the iPhone 4s. Today’s discovery was that she could ask it to ‘call my husband’ and Siri asked her to confirm it was me. It even offered to remember that in the future! Tonight I’ll show her how to post to her blog using Siri and email…