Month: June 2006

Mr. Gallaway gave his blessing, so JAMWiki has been born. It’s still in its very early stages, but jamwiki.org and the Sourceforge project site are now up and running. For anyone who didn’t believe me when I’ve mentioned the total lack of excitement around here lately, this monumental event should be proof that I really wasn’t kidding.

Still alive, but no excitement to report. I’ve been working on an open source project called Very Quick Wiki intermittently over the past few months, but due to some differences of opinion with the guy running the project I decided to work on my own version about a week ago, and have been putting in a ton of hours on that since – I actually didn’t sleep a few nights ago while trying to get some coding done. The end result (hopefully) will be a Java clone of the MediaWiki software that runs sites like Wikipedia and Wikitravel.

The development of the code is going well – I should have it running on this site in a week or two – but I need help with the name for the project. I’ve been calling it “Java MediaWiki”, ’cause, well, that’s what it is and I’m not creative, but I’m fairly sure there are trademarks around “MediaWiki”. After drinking some wine Audrey and I came up with “JAM Wiki”, which sounds like an acronymn for “JavA MediaWiki” and has the added benefit of being pronounced “Yahm VeeKee” in Swedish, but after sobering up again I’m not so sure about that one. And no, Centrificon is just not gonna work this time. So if anyone has suggestions I’d love to hear them, and if I use your suggestion then you’ll not only receive fame and glory, but I’ll either buy you a beer the next time I see you or else send you a picture of a squirrel on waterskis (up to you). Things to consider:

• The domain name (or something reasonably similar) needs to be available.
• Ideally the name would convey the idea that the project is a MediaWiki clone written in Java, but that’s secondary to just sounding cool.
• Examples of “good” names for other products include “Google”, “MediaWiki”, “Mozilla”, and “Tivo”. Not-so-good names include “Mind Rockets”.
• The domain name will probably need to be 6-10 characters, so the name should either be short or truncate nicely. For example, “Java MediaWiki” truncates easily (and obviously) to “jmwiki”.
• I may not actually be the photographer of the squirrel on waterskis photo, so you shouldn’t plan on using it commercially.

Suggestions are welcome, the comments link is below…

There isn’t much in my own life worth writing about right now, so here are a few tidbits from the lives of others that might be interesting:

• Since 1986 there has been a moratorium on commercial whaling, although in the past few years Japan has been hunting as many as 900 whales under the claim that it is doing so for scientific purposes. In addition, they’ve been getting small island nations to join the International Whaling Commission and offering them aid in exchange for a vote to end the commerical whaling ban. The US has been sadly silent on this matter, but apparently Brazil has stepped up to the plate and is making a huge push within the IWC to declare the South Atlantic a whale sanctuary. I’m suddenly a bigger Brazil fan than I was before.
• Steve and Linda Henry, the ship’s doctor and nurse on the 2004 and 2006 Antarctica trips, have posted some of their photos on photo.net.
• The Bellagio Fountain, recreated using Mentos and Diet Coke (this one is all over the internet right now, but I’m sharing ’cause I’m trendy).
• A really, really cool Honda advertisement (this one was all over the internet six months ago, but I’m sharing ’cause I’m retro). Also, the snopes article that explains how the commercial was made without any computer effects.

Last of all, a pretty picture for good measure: