Facebook & OpenId

So, one can login to facebook using an OpenID http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=246 which at the surface level feels like a great step in the right direction. I feel that it's actually a step that furthers Facebook's Goal of wanting _everyone_ to have a facebook account. Now, I don't fault them for having this goal, but unless they do a bunch more things to open up their walled garden I don't want this to happen.

One large step that facebook could do towards opening up their systems is to allow their users to use http://www.facebook.com/lakin.wecker as an OpenID login for other sites. I really doubt Facebook will ever do this themselves as having this feature would be in direct competition with Facebook Connect. Althought, to be honest, I never understood why Facebook Connect _wasn't_ just an OpenID implementation?

As a developer - if you could support a single authentication system, Say google's Friend connect that includes OpenID, Twitter, Gmail - and it also includes all Facebook users - that would be an obvious choice. It would make Facebook Connect mostly obsolete except for those people who want to support _only_ facebook users.

My best guess is that Facebook is trying to do the opposite - that is, they want to convince developers to _only_ use facebook connect, and convince users to sign up for a facebook account via openid in order to use these facebook only services.

Awesome Graffito

Found on reddit's funny section today:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Saucy+illicit+sign+points+Constance+charms/1776726/story.html

That's brilliant.

Twitter Spam

The other day I replied to a twitter user that is following a few of my friends. I didn't even think twice about it, a few days later they replied. It was kinda neat.

I was thinking about what had happened and then it hit me! I had just sent an unsolicited message to someone on twitter - and they received it. Uh-oh, I wondered when the spam would start.

Well today, I got my first spam message in a reply form. From these guys:

Theconcreteboyz

I'm not making that a link above cause that would somewhat defeat the purpose. If you know how twitter works and want to check it out go for it. I wonder how long until I can't use twitter for all the spam.

Makerbots and Printcrime

http://blog.makerbot.com/2009/04/20/cory-doctorows-future-is-full-of-3d-printers/

Great read.

World of Goo - Linux

World of Goo is a GREAT GAME. And it's coming to linux now [1]. I highly recommend it. It's available for the Wii and for Windows/Mac/Linux. I've already bought it for my Wii so I'm not sure if I'll buy it for linux or not. I mean, I want to - and probably will, but I'm broke right now so it's unlikely to happen for a few months. In the mean time I highly recommend the game. Did I mention that already?

[1] - http://2dboy.com/2009/02/12/world-of-goo-linux-version-is-ready/

Projects Update

So we finally got around to updating our projects page [1]. I'm proud that our projects list contains so many local arts, journalism and education partners. Let me know what you think, both of that page, and the projects!

[1] - http://www.structuredabstraction.com/projects

Greatest Tennis Players Ever?

I'm sitting here, bleary eyed and somewhat surprised at myself for managing to get up at 2am and then managing to stay up until the tennis match was over, but I'm glad I did. It may not have been as good as the Wimbledon final - but it was great to watch, and I'm glad Nadal beat Federer.

Most of the talk around the greatest tennis players ever surround Roger Federer. Nadal isn't even included. Now, that's fair at this point because Federer has 13 titles to his name, and nadal only has 6. But let's plays "What if" for a few.

What if there were 2 clay court majors in tennis instead of two hard court majors? Let's say the US Open was a clay court tournament. Now let's assume that Rafa won the past 4 years there as well as in the French Open.

That would put Rafael at 10 major titles (including this one). Federer would have 3 less, putting him at 10 as well.

WOW, that would make for an even greater rivalry between these two - they'd be tied for titles and competing for the 1-2 ranking as well.

Man, Rafa has solidified himself as my favorite player. But despite that I will be cheering roger on at the French Open. I think Roger probably deserves the moniker of the greatest ever, and I think that winning at the French open would really help his claim to that title.