blog dds

2008.09.24

Web Services Come of Age

For years I've reacted to the hype surrounding web services with skepticism. I found SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI to be too complex and brittle for wide deployment, and I also wondered what types of services could be better provided over the web rather than locally. A new excellent developer site, Stack Overflow, answers both of my concerns.

Continue reading "Web Services Come of Age"

Last modified: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 10:47 am

2008.09.16

Central Planning Hurts Research

Today I was invited to contribute to the European Commission Information Society's public consultation that will be used to draft (in the Commission's words) a new strategy for ICT research and innovation aiming is to put European ICT industry, especially SMEs, to the fore of the race for global competitiveness. I believe that the Commission's approach towards research planning and funding is fundamentally wrong.

Continue reading "Central Planning Hurts Research"

Last modified: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 3:07 pm

2008.09.11

Unzipping Files in Order

Over the past couple of years I've enjoyed listening to the audio edition of the Economist newspaper. The material is superb (although I occasionally get the feeling of listening to the Voice of America), the articles are read in a clear voice, the data's encoding is plain MP3, unencumbered by digital rights (restrictions) management silliness, and the audio format is convenient to listen on the metro or while jogging. Unfortunately, the articles in the audio edition's zip file are haphazardly ordered, which, until today, marred the enjoyment of my listening.

Continue reading "Unzipping Files in Order"

Last modified: Thursday, September 11, 2008 6:05 pm

2008.09.06

Daring Youth: Then and Now

My friend and colleague Stephanos Androutsellis-Theotokis pointed me to two amazing YouTube videos (here and here) of Parkour and Free running. He commented that it's crazy what these people can do, and with how much flow and speed.

Continue reading "Daring Youth: Then and Now"

Last modified: Saturday, September 6, 2008 2:16 pm

Creative Commons License Last update: Thursday, September 22, 2016 9:56 am
Unless otherwise expressly stated, all original material on this page created by Diomidis Spinellis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Greece License.