These are some of the comments and replies which I thought deserve being hoisted up into a post.

Optional Core Elements

"Don: Those "core" elements are *optional*. There's not anything wrong with not using them and the spec says absolutely nothing about it being wrong. Using Dublin Core -- the ISO-Standard which is *not* related to RSS 1.0 -- in RSS 2.0 is perfectly valid usage, as any RSS validator will tell you." - Tomas

"Tomas, have you wondered *why* those elements were made *optional*? Anyone who browsed through the RSS discussions will know that those elements were made *optional* for user's convenience, and not for RSS 1.0 crowd to lay Cuckoo's Eggs within RSS 2.0." - Don Park

Frozen means Unmeltable?

"Don, none of the specific 5 points Ben mentions are resolvable because they would all need changes to the spec, and that's frozen.  In an ideal world perhaps these and other changes could be included in an RSS 2.1, but this isn't an option." - Danny

"Danny, the spec is not frozen even if Dave say it is because he is not really in full control of it. If he was, we wouldn't have all this argument.  [snip]  If you think you can change the world as a person, changing a spec should be easier than changing the world. If you really want something wholeheartedly, you shouldn't know how to stop going after it nor stop short of begging for it. If Dave seems like an unstoppable force, it is because he throws his whole being into it and not like some intellectual college debate." - Don Park

"The spec can be changed, and even rewritten. I think that's what Rogers Cadenhead's group is doing. The people who want to see theselves stopped by the spec are lawyers not developers. If they were writing apps they would have been done with this kvetching a long time ago." - Dave Winer

"My understanding of the situation is that Dave will not prevent people from refining the spec itself for clarity and encourages people to add namespace-based extensions to RSS 2.0 that *supplements* without *replacing" the core elements.  Knowing Dave, I will even go further and guess that Dave will embrace good ideas and incorporate them into the core spec.

What was done can be undone. The man who wrote the word 'frozen' is still around, thankfully, so taking that word and using as an absolute truth against the man who wrote it originally makes zero sense to me." - Don Park

Thanks to Danny, Tomas, and Dave for the guest appearance.  The star of the show is, of course, yours truely.  I particularly like the Cuckoo's Egg bit.  Joy of writing is appreciating one's own words like a baby without a diaper discovering a new toy, warm and soft, when he turns around.  Until the next episode of "As the Bowel Churns", goodbye.

Dave sent me a link to what he means by funky.

"A feed is funky if it uses extensions to provide information that can be expressed by core elements.



"If everyone strives to not be funky, then it becomes trivially easy to write aggregators, and new entrants to the market can get in quickly and at low cost, and users get more choice.



If we were to go the opposite way, with every source of feeds inventing their own replacements for core RSS 2.0 elements, the cost to enter would become increasingly high, and it becomes more likely that programs will express compatibility in terms of products, not formats. So "funky" is anti-interop; and "not funky" is pro-interop." - Dave Winer

He also adds:

"I never wanted to have to define this, because I hoped the issue would go away, quickly. But the people who could have done something about it refused to, so the wound festered. The problem, imho, isn't the term, but the practice. People should try to follow the spec, and if they don't we should ask them to explain why.



BTW, I don't think it's cool to repeat information two or more times in a feed. That makes it more complicated to understand. Keep it simple. That's the value of RSS. Anyone who can understand a little HTML can understand RSS. That's important!" - Dave Winer

I still like my Funkyness Illustrated post better.  Words are so...tiring.  I wonder how much exercise value Playboy foldouts have on its readers.  FYI, I am talking about neck tilting and stretching in case you were thinking other things.

UPDATE: Unless I misunderstood his words, Dave and I disagree on whether an RSS feed can have both <pubDate> and <dc:date>.  I think it's harmless.  Dave don't think it's cool.

To make up for all the boring RSS posts, here are some pictures from my backyard.  Here is a shot of a rose to lure you in.

My roses are fatter than your roses, Tim.

Google's AdSense is cool, but I want what I would call AdSelect for my blog that allows me to pick and choose which ad I want to display out of a set filtered by Google advertisers' criterias.  This would allow me to post ads about products or businesses I have bought or am a customer of like Casio Exilim EX-Z3 or Sharper Image.  I don't want ads that I have nothing to do with.  All right, I'll be frank.  I don't want ads that I have nothing to do with unless they pay me more money.  Better?

My first broadband at home was @Home which started a not so jolly adventure in which I felt I was at the receiving end of a gang-bang.  After getting bad service from @Home, and more of the same from AT&T, I am now in the hands of Comcast.  June 30th was the switch over from AT&T to Comcast which was confusing to say the least.

Their Transition Wizard did nothing for my setup except do annoying things like changing my browser home to www.comcast.net.  And then I had to dig around Comcast site to find the POP3 and SMTP addresses which are:

POP3: mail.comcast.net

SMTP: smtp.comcast.net

Your username and password remains the same.  You can't change any of your mailbox settings just now because Comcast.net website won't let you login using those username and password just now.  Customer service guy told me to give it 24 hours out of which I have only 8 hours left as of this post.

One major bad news is that USENET support is now provided by GigaNews, but with 1 gig per month cap.  Getting started ain't easy either.  You have to login to Comcast.net website (which you can't at the moment) and turn it on somehow and then wait for GigaNews to send you the password (I think the username at GigaNews is your Comcast login name prefixed with "gn".  BTW, GigaNews newsgroup server address is:

news-central.giganews.com

Update 1: A little more on newsgroup situation.  Old AT&T newsgroup server is still available at 'netnews.comcast.net' although I don't know how long it will last.  Another part of Comcast.net website indicates that the Giganews newsgroup server address is:

news.comcast.giganews.com

although I couldn't login yet just like Comcast.net website.  Phewy.

Update 2: I was finally able to login.  Newsgroup server address is indeed news.comcast.giganews.com.  Hurrah!  BTW, GigaNews username and password has no relation to Comcast username and password.

Struts 1.1 is finally here.  Download is a little troublesome thanks to idiotic text truncation.  For your convenience, here are the direct links to ZIP and GZ files.

ZIP: Source (11.7mb), Binary (16mb)

GZ: Source ( 9.5mb), Binary (16mb)

You might also be interested in Struts Console 4.0.1 which was also recently released.

Dave had this to say about me this evening:

"There are very few people in the world who I trust to add none of their own bullshit.  [snip]  People sometimes bend over backwards to appear to be fair and say things that are wrong. I think I caught Don Park doing that. Hey Don, is <dc:date> really better than <pubDate>? That sounds like bullshit to me. Sounds like you're trying to get someone to think you're reasonable. Weren't you the one who told me to never be reasonable? That was good advice."

Dave was referring to this bit in my Watch Your Six post:

"Ben of Six Apart explains why Six Apart has pledged support for Echo.  Unfortunately, his list of reasons are mostly resolvable technical complaints against RSS.  For example, Ben writes that Dublin Core elements are technically superior.  I'll agree with that."

Just before getting married, I told my wife of my Selfish Pig Rage Rule which is:

• Wait your turn

For eleven good years, that rule worked well for us.  I also use the rule with friends.  So Dave, I apologize for upsetting you and how I will upset you when my turn comes unless I forget to.  Chances are, I'll just forget to get pissed off since that is why the Rule really works.

Now, I will say these "designed to make you feel guilty" words though.  Dave, the operative word was 'technically.'  That word may be interpreted in many ways, some bad, some good.  Frankly, I am surprised that you, a friend, chose to interpret it in a way that leads you to sum it up as bullsh*t.

Also, my advice to be unreasonable was my attempt to address your habit of bending over at the wrong time and getting shafted badly, which just builds up emotional stress in you until you blow up seemingly for no reason, catching most people unaware and upset at you.  Since you obviously missed what I was trying to point out to you, here it is:

If you can't handle the big waves of emotional ups and downs, make the waves smaller.  I have similar problems so I made the waves smaller by being unreasonable more regularly and in smaller magnitudes.  I also use humor to minimize stress on people around me.

What I wrote above is not some attempt to be reasonable or clever.  This is how I survive being me day to day, Dave.  You can find your own solutions if this doesn't fit you.

I wanted to play with AdSense so I applied for it just now and started obfuscating four letter words in my blog so Google won't think I am a porn site.