The Butt Ugly Weblog

Looks like from the original plethora of Java-based wiki engines, only Confluence, JSPWiki and XWiki remain - Confluence being the non-open source alternative. Some others still linger, but looks like the last releases have been in 2006-2007, so I don't know whether they are still really alive or not (hope that they are!)

Phew.

It feels good to have survived such a long time (seven years now, w00t!) with the presence of such awesome competition. We are now beginning a whole new era with becoming an Apache project and JSPWiki v3, which will signal the first major overhaul of the entire software since v2.0 in 2002. We've got a bunch of good committers (with a new one added this weekend - welcome, Florian!) and a bunch of pretty exciting things we want to do. And more the merrier, so please join up! Someone could for example design a cooler-looking template for 3.0... We've been looking the same since 2001 ;-)

Ohloh estimates that the total effort put into JSPWiki is worth $1,037,267 - that is, if you had paid someone to make a software with similar features, that's how much it would've taxed your wallet. You could also think of it in another way - I and others could've made a million if we hadn't used our free time to write this software (and mind you, all of the current developers are doing this on their free time, which I think is getting a bit exceptional these days for a medium-sized open source project).

But you can't really pin a monetary value to passion. Because that's what it's been - a passionate affair - throughout these years. And I hope to be spreading that passion even further in the future :-)

After a couple of years of silent, on-off development I finally launched http://www.priha.org. Priha is a JSR-170, aka Java Content Repository implementation, available under the Apache Public License. Compared to luminaries like Jackrabbit, Priha is a single JAR file (at the moment; might have to use Lucene for search later), not very optimized and not yet a complete JSR-170 implementation. But it's simple and easily embeddable, so welcome others to join in the development :-)

(Yes, all this was prompted in the desire to make JSPWiki v3 backend to use JCR. Which is probably going to happen pretty soon.)

[Yeah, and I don't think most of you really care, but I need to give it some Googlejuice ;-) ]

We're happy to announce the immediate availability of JSPWiki 2.8.1, a security and bugfix update to 2.8.0. It is available for download at the usual place, and the change log is also available.

Uuden lapsen nimen valinta on kyllä kiitettävän hankala tehtävä. Nimisarjan pitäisi olla kaunis, rimmaava, kunnioittaa sukua ja mielellään sellainen, mikä ei aiheuta spontaaneja lumipesuja yläasteella. Useat hyvältä kuulostavat nimet torppaavat siihen, että toinen on tuntenut aiemmin samannimisen henkilön, jonka luonteenpiirteet eivät houkutelleet. Toistaiseksi olemme kuitenkin saaneet aikaiseksi seuraavia työnimiä:

• Per Samuel
• Päivi Ulla Unelma
• Yrjö Kalevi Sulo
• Iida Suvi Orvokki

Voi, kuinka olisikaan hienoa nähdä sitten väitöskirjassa komealta kalskahtava "Per S. Jalkanen".

Something I didn't realize until today, watching an episode of ST-DS9: Whenever they hail someone, everybody responds immediately? That, or "They're not responding, sir!" And that's always a big sign of trouble.

What if the other guy has his mouth full of food or something or is just taking the crap?

You know, the next time I call you on your cell phone and you don't answer after the first ring, I'm just going to assume that you're dead. Must be right, I learned it from Star Trek.

The doorbell rang.

"It's just the car with the blinkenlicht, don't answer", called Outi from the couch. (In Finnish, obviously.)

"A car with the blinkenlicht?" I replied. "This I gotta see."

I opened the door, and there were TWO cars waiting. We live in an apartment block, on the second floor, so seeing cars queuing up behind your door isn't exactly a common occurrence. There was a low sports car, pink (I think), and a black minivan. The minivan had an orange blinkenlicht on it. They're not full size; just maybe up to my chest. And they're made of obviously scrounged material.

"We take your garbage out, ten cents only", said the sportscar.

I look around and I see a young girl, about ten years old, standing next to my door. And next to the minivan stands a boy, maybe eight. They look very serious.

"Wow. How did you guys get those cars up here?" I ask, still a bit stunned. They point at the elevator. Duh.

"Did you build these yourself?" I query. The girl looks down, and mumbles something, which I take to be a negative answer. But the boy exclaims proudly that he had built the minivan all by himself. I suspect that he got a bit of adult help, but...

Good enough for me. I grab our pitiful garbage bag (which could easily devour a few more days full of trash), and the biotrash, and pass it to them, trying to hold back a laugh. Not a derisive one, mind you, but just simple joy at the idea and just the whole situation.

I thank them and give them the money. They shuffle off, obviously feeling suddenly very important. I watch them go, and suddenly wish that I will be able to raise my child well and keep it out of trouble.

Part of me hasn't really realized that I'm going to be a dad in less than three months. The rest are pretty much torn between confusion, fear and joy. We had our first family training ("perhevalmennus" - essentially a free service which teaches you to function like a cohesive family, and also teaches you about the basic things about child care) yesterday, and it was nice to see how pretty much everyone felt the same way.

So I suppose this is all good and normal.

But I have to admit that buying our first pram has made me really aware of all the other prams out there. They're bloody everywhere - how didn't I notice it before?

I've always been interested in the heavens above - but I've never really been one of those people who hunt for the clearest skies and have the most expensive telescopes in their back yards. I've so far been rather happy with these guys taking the pretty photographs which I can then adore in my own comfortable (and warm) living room. You see, skies are only really dark and clear in Finland during winter time - and unfortunately that tends to be mighty cold as well.

Anyway, the life for the couch astronomer has never really been better. NASA and ESA and JASA and, well, almost everyone, is happily putting all their cool stuff on the web for people to see. Computer programs like Stellarium and Celestia allow you to watch the night sky - even from different planets!

For example, take a look at these zoomable panoramas from the Spitzer space telescope (I highly recommend the "The Infrared Milky Way: GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL" set). For me, these celestial images stir something deeply within myself. I find them beautiful and exhilarating - and for me, knowing more about these only increases the wonder.

We've got an extra fridge/freezer combo after our kitchen renovation; 190cm high, 59cm wide Rosenlew Wähäwirtanen Ekosystem. About 13 years old, still works well. Since we don't have a car, getting rid of it is kinda complicated, so if any of my readers are in need of one, drop me an email and agree to pick it up from Espoo.