I like Silicon Alley Insider’s take on Google App Engine, and I agree. The implementation is distinctly different than AWS; it’s more designed to allow quick, scalable, lightweight application development leveraging Google’s infrastructure. It imposes constraints on the developer, but in turn really gives them a leg up, making things like authentication, interop with other Google components, etc. almost transparent. Definitely more of a direct Facebook competitor than a AWS one (though at least indirectly, it does compete with any cloud-based system).

Don’t get me wrong…I think App Engine is a Very Big Deal. I do, however, agree with SAI that the initial blogosphere focus was on the wrong comparisons. Thanks to Silicon Alley Insider for some cogent analysis here. The article is definitely worth giving a twice-over.

Just a quick note (it’s a hectic week)…I am very interested in Google App Engine, and I think it’s a intriguing addition to the big name cloud computing services like Amazon’s AWS suite and Microsoft’s SQL Server Data Services. Google’s entry here slants a little differently; it is less decoupled than AWS…more take-the-whole-thing approach than the S3, SQS, EC2 etc. options that Amazon provides for various tasks. So you have to like Google’s choices…luckily, they picked Python, with a side of Django, so I’m in good shape. Basically my web development platform choices, sucked up into the Googleplex, and backed by BigTable and GFS. Hell yeah!

So….I’m on the waiting list, and planning on downloading the SDK while I wait. I’m in the process of building a new Django-backed app right now, and I may very well port this thing over, and see how she flies…

Just trying out the embedded video clips from Fora.TV. This is the video of the Nassim Nicholas Taleb presentation that I mentioned a few days back:

Let me know if this works ok, and what you think. Great, GREAT presentation…

Thanks, and keep up the hard work: ’03 U.S. Memo Approved Harsh Interrogations — The thrust of Mr. Yoo’s brief has long been known, but its specific contents were revealed on Tuesday after government lawyers turned it over to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sought hundreds of documents from the Bush administration under the Freedom of Information Act.

Nothing particularly surprising here, but that’s the sad part, really. We’ve known for a long time how screwed up we let things get in our zeal to fight the Global War on Nouns…but it’s still disheartening to read the actual flimsy justification behind this. How small we were; how small we are. We’ll answer to history, as always. Go out and buy John Adams on DVD, folks, ’cause the documentaries made about our statesmen from this period aren’t going to be quite as inspriing.

I just finished listening to what turned out to be quite an engrossing Technometria podcast; an interview with David Ulevitch from OpenDNS. OpenDNS is an improved DNS system, with both performance and functionality enhancements compared to the classic, boring old Domain Name System. Ulevitch makes a good case for his service; ISPs (the traditional provider) don’t usually consider DNS a core competency, and often lack the resources to properly scale their DNS service as traffic and users expand. (Anyone who’s had DNS troubles with their cable or DSL provider will be familiar with this). OpenDNS devotes dedicated resources, development support, and infrastructure to optimizing their system. Makes sense.

In addition, they offer capabilities that are simply above and beyond what normal DNS provides. First out of the box is phishing protection; you can get this by just using their DNS resolvers (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220) without even setting up an account! OpenDNS runs the PhishTank anti-phishing site, and uses this data to detect and block DNS requests to known phishing sites (say, from accidentally opening a phishmail purporting to be from your bank). Great service; especially for less Net-savvy types. If you set up an account, they can go far beyond the defaults, allowing site blocking by domain name or by type (adult, gambling, etc.), URL shortcuts (help –> http://helpdesk.yourdomain.com, stock FOO –> Yahoo stock info for FOO), etc. Stats are available and allow deep analysis of your DNS use, and account management is flexible enough to handle either a single machine/NAT, or a large network.

Really quite fascinating. Like Phil and Scott on the podcast, I think I’m sold. It’s easy to try out…just change your DNS settings to the addresses noted above (OpenDNS gives very straightforward directions for just about any configuration). I went the next step and created an account, mainly for purposes of stats analysis. I’m not interested in domain blacklisting (other than phishers), but your milage may vary.

And with all that, OpenDNS not only stays free, but even has a business model! They offer ads on selected “domain not found” pages, monetizing some misspellings and typos (though they also fix the common ones transparently and without the ads). Pretty low impact, and apparently, they are profitable.

Thanks to Phil Windley for a fascinating podcast (as always), and to David Ulevitch for offering such an interesting service for free.

(Note: be aware that DNS-based internet filtering is just as imperfect as any other type is. There are multiple ways around it, and it shouldn’t be considered a panacea. Used with awareness of the strengths and weaknesses, though, it’s pretty useful, and certainly easy to manage.)

So, Farthing went from really, really good to holy-crap-can’t-put-it-down good about 15 pages after I stopped to post yesterday. I don’t want the book to end; I stopped at the bookstore on the way home today to pick up Ha’Penny, the sequel, but it wasn’t in stock. *grr*

So it’s wending it’s way to me on the wings of Amazon angels (at 2/3rd the price, as well); I should have it Monday. Luckily, I can switch back to the Temeraire series (book 3: Black Powder War) while I wait.

I’ll have a paperback copy of Farthing by Monday as well, for any IRL folks who want to give it a whirl. Recommended.

I felt amazingly fortunate today. During my ride to and from work, and while I had free time otherwise, I was able to listen to an great podcast and read an awesome book…both free. Vive la Chris Anderson!

The podcast was a Long Now SALT presentation by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, perhaps best known for the book The Black Swan. I’ve followed his work for a couple of years now, and this talk was vintage Taleb; uncompromising, challenging, and unabashedly controversial. Great, great stuff. I keep bumping in to authors and lecturers that help me crystallize beliefs from intuition; Nassim Taleb is one of those people.

The book is Farthing, by Jo Walton. I was lucky enough to catch it as a free ebook (for my N770), given away by Tor Books as they drum up interest in their new website/fiction portal (an ebook a week, folks…check it out!). Farthing was already on my wishlist, and I will definitely be buying it (for the author’s sake, and as an evangelizing borrow-book).

It’s an old-fashioned English murder mystery…set in a alternate history post-WWII Great Britain where Churchill was deposed and a Nazi offer for peace in 1941 accepted. Germany controls the continent, and an increasingly fascist-leaning Britian grapples with the tensions and intrigues of THIS new world order.

The background is revealed naturally, as the novel progresses. The pace is great, the characters are cast beautifully into the English class system, and the story seems to be progressing well (I’m 3/4 through). I can’t wait to finish…and this is book one of an at least three book series. Joy.

Both the podcast and the book are some of the best works I’ve come across in recent memory; to hit high points in both my primary mediums at once is a great thing. Thanks very, very much to both Nassim Taleb and Jo Walton for their great work and their generosity in making it available gratis. I predict that you’ll find it well worth it.

I love Boing Boing. It’s a great aggregator, which is a important function on the Web, but I also have a great deal of affinity for many of the topics they favor. Civil and cyber liberties, for example…

• US customs bar fashionista druggie writer for moral turpitude — Sweet Mercy…can we please find some better things to do? It’s one thing to turn someone away for convictions, illegalities, etc. (albeit still something worth arguing about; I disagree with many of the drug-based [victimless crime] indictments). But it’s entirely another to toss out phrases like moral turpitude on an entry denial. As our friend John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey says: Everybody who wants to live in the 21st Century over here. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800’s over there. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that. (By the way, pause and read the Kung Fu Monkey post. The man’s a genius. I’ll wait.)
• WWII Bomber: Trademark Infringement — *growl* I hate these bastards. Abusing legislature like the DMCA that’s already crazily overbroad is simply inexcusable. Read Cory’s comments here…he knows his stuff (used to work for the EFF, on exactly this sort of thing). These people are happily taking advantage of the common conflation of 3 different sets of law…trademark, copyright, and patent. They’re different, folks, and different rules apply. Each of them was developed with specific balances in mind, and to take the parts of each that are most advantageous to you is wrong, unethical, and deceptive. Makes me crazy, and it’s the reason I dislike the term intellectual property, which promotes the confusion.

Interesting! Amie Street provides a RSS feed of my music purchases that I can share. Sounds like a good idea! I just bought Sick of Being Stoned today, and it friggin’ rocks.

My Amie Street purchases RSS feed (link removed, see UPDATE 3 below)

And, what the hell, the player for Sick of Being Stoned…

UPDATE: I edited the RSS feed link above; trying again. It appeared to act strangely (WAY too many results) in Google Reader. If it did the same for you, try dropping it and re-add the edited one. Fingers crossed.

UPDATE 2: Thanks to their Amie Street spotlight page for this link: LOLCat video for Sick of Being Stoned. Excellent!!

UPDATE 3: After watching Google Reader wig out on this feed twice, I’m removing the link for now. Something is being constantly updated, metadata-wise, and the feed isn’t working as intended. I’m going to touch base w/ Amie Street on it…they’ve been very open to suggestions and willing to communicate on things in the past. I think a feed of my purchases would be a great idea, and I’m sure they’d like it to work as expected. Hopefully I’ll have good news soon.

Wow…I mean, I’ve always found the notion of papal infallibility cool and all (well, ok, Coke-through-the-nose funny, really…but cool sounds better), but it’s got NOTHIN’ on the President. Secrecy News links to the text of a recent Congressional floor statement where Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) described the contents of three Office of Legal Council opinions that he had been able to review. Among the gems:

• An Executive order cannot limit a President. There is no
  constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new
  Executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms
  of a previous Executive order. Rather than violate an
  Executive order, the President has instead modified or waived
  it.
• The President, exercising his constitutional authority
  under article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful
  exercise of the President’s authority under article II.

Awesome! It’s like superpowers!!

PS: Yes, all my Catholic compadres, I am aware of (at least generally) the nuances of papal infallibility. I was fascinated with it at one point in time, and spent some time researching the subject. Fun stuff.