I have named some of the love aspects above, but that isn’t the topic of this post. The topic of this post is about what I really don’t like about v8. Here are some off these things:

• Ooodles of static variables!
• What would you want threads for?
• Deterministic variable destruction, what for?

Static variables abound in v8; they are everywhere; they are so many and so wide spread that even v8’s developers claim that they are so many to find that they consider it nigh impossible to find them all. Well that makes it hard to fix the other problems with v8.

One of those other problems is that it’s nigh impossible to compile a dynamic library with it. (Actually it may not be impossible, but really harder than it should be.)

It’s pretty obvious that the people at Google don’t really care much about the usability of V8 for anything other than the Chrome web-browser. And in all honesty, that’s OK! Yet it is still disappointing; I would so much have liked to use V8, now I ‘ll have to rethink my project using SpiderMonkey.

I moved to New York in the year one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety after supposedly some poor lady gave birth to revolutionary in a barn.

Well no more. Form now on I will count my years with a slightly more relevant and slightly more sane point of reference. I will use the Darwin-Era notation for all my date related activities. And as a first start I have created a little Wordpress Plugin.

I hope some of you may find it helpful

What the hell is geographism, I hear you ask. Geographism is the habit of companies and individuals to discriminate against people like me solely due to their outdated perception of where I supposedly live.

It starts with Apple not setting prices with the formula that 1€ = 1$ and goes on with hulu.com only streaming to the US, Flip only selling to the US & UK, or audible.com restricting book-sales to certain geographic locations.

Tell me, what’s up with that? Who says that just because I bill some things to my German credit card doesn’t mean I live in Germany. Just because I have a UK IP-address doesn’t mean I live there, just because I … I think you get the drift.

I truly believe that this concept of geographic location and the associated consequences is fully outdated. In our current globalized world geographic location has become more of a temporary inconvenience than a basic fact of life. In the middle ages people defined themselves using their geographic location. They described themselves as “Leonardo da Vinci”, meaning Leonardo the one that comes from the village of Vinci.

These days people define themselves differently. They define themselves as “Pete of Mashable” or “Steve of Apple” or

1. Direct communications with personal friends
The first usage I have for Twitter is to stay in touch with personal friends of mine. Here I want to read all those “meaningless” tweets about lunch, the kids, and the puppies. This is also the category where I want to engage with people intensely. For this usage Twitter is really just another medium like the phone or email.

2. Staying aux current with my topics of interrest
There are a few topics where I want to stay current on any developments. Since these are not classical newspaper topics, it’s tough to get the news. So by following other activists in the field, I have a good way to stay up to date as well as keep those interrested up to date on my own activities.
This is a less directly engaging way to use Twitter. It’s more about sharing mutually interresting news.

3. Getting information from leaders
There are and always will be those whose opinion I value on a diverse array of things. For that reason I want to hear what they have to say. I want to be informed when they write a new blog post or similar. I really don’t care as much whether they ever read anything I write. Or whether they ever interact with me in any way whatsoever.
This usage of Twitter is completely unidirectional and non-engaging.

These three major usage categories create different patterns in what I want to gain from Twitter. It’s hard, but I have found a way to have all three. I just group my real friends into one group. These I don’t filter at all then I have a group per topic. Here I filter out all @replies unless they are replying to me. And then I have a group for my category three people. Here I filter out all @replies and filter the individual people through a topical bayesian filter.

This way I can actually follow many more people than I would otherwise be capable of. By severly filtering Twitter depending on my usage patterns. I think unless someone filters like I have come to do there is no way that it’s possible to keep up with more than 500 people.

Dominic Jones(@irwebreport) is considering and has suggested to unfollow people that follow more than 2000 people. I think he has a points. However I think he is ignoring what Twitter is used for by different people. If you group and filter aggressively it may well be or become legitimate to follow a lot more people than 2000. I think a year from now I will be following closer to 20000 as I discover people and as more people join Twitter internationally. I hope @irwebreport will reconsider his position and take into account the possibility that filtering and grouping may well increase his limit.

• Cloud- Services are globally accessible
• Cloud-Services are scalable on short notice
• Cloud-Services outsource to shared cost operations
• Cloud-Services reduce the initial investment

Cloud- Services are globally accessible

Contrary to many internal IT-Systems cloud services are reachable from anywhere in the world. Now that may not be important to someone spending their day in a cubicle, but it is crucial to someone that needs access to their data on the go.
Unfortunately this also means that this data is reachable from any crackers computer as well. However the security measures in place are usually sufficient to alleviate that risk, especially if your own usage habits are in tune with the security requirements imposed on you. Also, as Bruce Schneier tirelessly reminds us, most security breaches are not perpetrated by outsiders, but by insiders. And then there is the saying that “most data leaks occur not because someone breaches your security, but because your communications partner discloses information”.
Taking all of this into account, the decision can become one based on a risk/benefit analysis.

Cloud-Services are scalable on short notice

IT-Infrastructure costs money. That’s a well understood fact. And that means businesses all over the world hate to buy IT-Infratructure; unless that is they really need it. The problem is that when they need the infrastructure, they usually need it yesterday. They need it the moment their existing capacity reaches its limits. So prudence would dictate, that you have at least some additional capacity in store to meet the demand when it is required. Well I guess it has become obvious that this directly conflicts with the presumptions that ” businesses all over the world hate to buy IT-Infratructure”.
Cloud-Services provide a bandaid to this vicious circle by shortening the time from the emerging need for new infrastructure elements to their deployment to hours instead of days or weeks. How do they do this?

Cloud-Services outsource to shared cost operations

Well they do that by creating “cooperatives” (yeah that’s the stuff you learned in social studies when doing the Soviet Union ). Simply put they share the cost of buying new infrastructure among multiple customers. So they’ll always have enough spares to put up when their customers need them, presuming that not all of their customers will need to upgrade at the same time.
And because the term “cooperative” has been so damaged by history they simply call it cloud computing and sell it under that name. And since it turns a tidy profit, it’s a very good demonstration of capitalism at work.
The downside to this is that if you run at average usage, you are actually paying more for your computing power than you would if you were to own the equipment outright.
But at that point it becomes again a simple cost/benefit analysis that can lead you to a decision.

Cloud-Services reduce the initial investment

That analysis has another component to it that comes into play especially when you are a cash strapped start-up. Your initial investment in infrastructure becomes significantly lowered. You can therefore also lower your risk. Now if you don’t have the cash to buy your own, Cloud-Services enable you to still start your own venture. So while you are paying a bit more for your computing needs than you otherwise would, you are actually able to do so at all.

Up front I will admit that Italy has coffee of superb quality. And if all that was needed to claim coffee as a cultural asset Italy would be a clear leader in the field.

However just having good beans and producing a pleasant brew is by far insufficient. What Italy lacks is a clear understanding of the beverage. An understanding of the distinct notes and how they can be used to achieve different and pleasing effects.

To an Italian there seem to be basically two types of coffee, which I will describe by their appearance as black and white. Either coffee is served black or with an inordinate amount of milk. Although there exists in theory, a cafe macchiato, an espresso with very little milk added, it is served in thimble cup sizes that take any pleasure that could be derived from its consumption and moves it squarely into the realm if fiction.
Any attempt by the wary connoseur to increase the serving size inevitably leads to the serving of a cappucino, a drink though famous and enjoyable in its own right, quite distinct from a cafe macchiato in a non bonsai size.

In depth discussions with several barristas lead to the inevitable conclusion: while Italians have and work with the most excellent resources, they lack the fundamental understanding of what can be achieved with them.

So my opinion of Italy in terms of coffee has wilted in the face of reality. At the same time my opinion of Vienna as th coffee capital of the world has only been increased.

I declare Vienna the reigning undisputed coffee capital of the world and hereby challenge any other city to scratch at its supremacy. The world can only become a better place for coffee lovers as a result.

A while back I was involved in a twitter conversation with a few friends about a petition to secularise Austria. The very minute I wrote a tweet containing the word “god”, my phone went crazy telling me about new followers just about every minute. At first I thought: “Cool, there seems to be a lot of interest in the topic!”. And then I learned a new hashtag: #tcot or Top Conservatives On Twitter.

“Whoa” I thought. “What the heck is happening here?” within 48 hours of writing “god” in a tweet I was being followed by scores of TCOT people. Now if I were also a member of the ultra-religious ultra-right ultra-conservative scene, I would probably have been excited to finally have made the connection to “my crowd” on twitter. But here’s the thing: I’m neither religious, nor conservative. In fact I am a staunch atheist! Not one of those that just neglects to go to church type atheists, but one that is actually vocal on atheism.

I’m one of those atheists that is a member of Think-Atheist, the social network for atheists. I’m one of those Atheists that is a member of AG-Athe, the Austrian Association for Secularism. If I never hear the words “god bless you” again, it would be a day too soon for me!

So being followed by the TCOT crowd, was like being under constant observation by the “enemy camp”. But then I am attempting to never tweet stuff that I would not tell my mom, my wife, and my boss anyhow. So it’s not that big of a deal. But it did get me thinking.

It seems like there are people out there doing twitter-searches on specific words they care about. Then these people band together to magnify their collective voices. So I decided to start a little experiment. I tweeted about how sad I was to have missed a Vodka-Party. And guess what, within minutes I had couple of new “Vodka Followers” with twitter-names like “vodkatwits” and “baconvodka”. (Now that’s my kind of people )

“Yes It Works!!!” I thought and went off to my think-tank to contemplate the implications of my new discovery. Now I realise that all of you experienced twits (or is that tweets? I can never keep it straight) already knew all of this, but it was new to me. So like a little boy that has discovered dad’s porn collection I started scheming on what my next step would be.

The Plan

And here it is:
1. “Create a new hashtag” #taot (Top Atheists on Twitter)
2. Start collecting atheists all over the world to join the crowd
3. Magic Happens Here
4. World domination of godless creatures

I mean if “they” can do it why can’t “we”? (Intentional Polemic Phrasing here)

So here we go: If you are an atheist or agnostic, and you are on twitter. Please send a tweet with the hashtag #taot ! I will have a look at your tweets and follow you! support the cause!

Now I realise that it takes more effort to organise people that don’t believe in something than those that believe, but hey, if we don’t give it a try we are bound to fail.

Take it from here

I’ll keep you all posted via twitter, this blog and think-atheist. So stay tuned.

So this is my plea to all bloggers, posters, commentors and twitterers: be honest in your statements and disclose your affiliations.