After all these years, we have finally reached the point where we've separated page organization from presentation, and now we're about to embark on the same mistakes again, but this time with presentation and semantics.

I've been following the issues associated with the vocabindex Drupal module, including one where the person submitting the bug stated the vocabindex use of UL was incorrect. We're supposed to, MXT writes, use definition lists rather than unordered lists for any lists of terms with associated definition.

At first glance, it does seem as if the vocabindex module is using the unordered list incorrectly. After all, look at any of my category pages (such as the one for the Semantic Web)—what you see is a list of "terms" and their associated definitions. An obvious candidate for definitions lists.

Look more closely, though. In my sidebar menu I list the vocabindex terms as links to web page URIs, but there is no definition attached to any item. The description, if one is given, is, instead, added as a title attribute to the item and displayed only when the item has cursor focus. Yet, it's the same data. Does this mean, then, I'm somehow not properly displaying my menu items? Should I have a huge sidebar, with the item description given underneath?

More importantly, whether I have a given text description for each item is purely optional, some do, some don't. Yet the items in the list have meaning without any associated description. In fact, each item in the list is really nothing more than a label for a bucket to hold content. I could just as easily use foo, bar, silly, putty as labels, except that I'm trying to use "meaningful" labels in order to enable you all to better find past content.

In the absolutely ancient W3C page where lists are covered a list of ingredients is given as an example of an unordered list:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup oil
• 2 cups flour

However, I don't see that anyone would have a problem with adding parenthetical information to this list in order to further clarify the items:

• 1 cup sugar (light brown granulated by C & H)
• 1 cup oil (canola or corn, but not olive)
• 2 cups flour (white or mixed white and whole wheat)

This is really nothing more than what the vocabindex is doing with the vocabulary index terms within both the index pages and my sidebar menu: a listing of items and a (parenthetical) description to clarify what that item is. However, it's only when the description is displayed as a "tooltip" that one sees the item as a clarification phrase, only. When presented in the index pages, it "looks" like a definition list, and so we want to have it marked up this way— mixing up semantics and presentation.

A definition list is assumed to have two pieces of information; the term or phrase and an associated definition. Even when not present, the definition is still assumed to be forthcoming at some point— not having it is the exception, not the rule. An unordered list is just that: a list of items. They can be a list of items to buy at the store, select from in a form, or click on in a web page. There's no assumption that any additional information is necessary for the item. If there was, Drupal would make this information mandatory rather than optional. The application and associated developers would definitely discourage the use of the items in a tag cloud or other format where only the term is given because the term, by itself, would be meaningless.

Yet we look at how the terms are portrayed in a page like the vocabindex page I linked above, and that's enough for us to say we should use one form of markup over another because it's more "semantical". Further exploration online at other sites who attempt to define the differences between unordered lists and definition lists shows the same thing: if we see two pieces of data, we're assuming a definition list, because that's what it looks like—not what it is.

The HTML5 document adds another key element to the discussion of definition lists by stating that definition lists are name-value pairs. From this can we deduce, then, that the name has no meaning without the value. That's my interpretation: that a definition list is the proper semantic markup only when data is defined within a context of names and associated values, both of which are meaningless without the other. If, however, *HTML5 allows us to list the names without values, or the values without the names, than the HTML5 document is imprecise, and we should just use whatever we want to use— semantics can not be derived from imprecision.

Currently in Drupal, vocabulary terms are discrete labels, nothing more. Any description is for clarification not definition, and isn't essential to the meaning of the term. Forget how the vocabindex pages "look", and focus on what the data means. If we can't do that, then this whole semantic markup thing is a bit of a farce, really.

*Confirmed: it doesn't

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I have written before about my satisfaction with my Kindle, and even hope to write a couple of book reviews on new discoveries. However, not all is well in Kindletown at the moment, and reason is prices for Kindle editions.

I've been wanting the second book in Mercedes Lackey's Obsidian trilogy, but Amazon only offered the first and third books. A few days ago, I noticed that the second book, To Light a Candle was available...for $22.63, which was equivalent to about 300% the price of the paperback (currently at $7.99).

I was astonished and more than a little peeved at the price, and posted a note about it in the Kindle forums. Not long after my note, another reader noticed that another Tor book by Mercedes Lackey, The Phoenix Unchained was also set to a price more expensive than the paperback ($16.61 as compared to $7.99). What's even more odd about The Phoenix Unchained, it was originally set to a discounted paperback price of $6.29, and the price only jumped in the last week or so.

Today, To Light a Candle was reduced to $7.19, which compared to $7.99 for the paperback was an acceptable value. However, The Phoenix Unchained is still set to $16.61, effectively 150% the cost of a paperback. Though incidental to this discussion on books prices, I also noticed that the third volume in the Obsidian trilogy has vanished from the Kindle lists, which is odd considering that it makes no sense to "sell out" a digital book.

What seems to be happening with The Phoenix Unchained is that the Kindle volume is being offered at a discounted value...discounted from the hard cover price, not the paperback. Not for all of the books, either, but enough to generate some concerns.

In addition, I noticed my own Painting the Web has a discount of about 9% for the Kindle version, which is different from O'Reilly's 20% discount it offers for the eBook bundle at the O'Reilly site. However, my paper book is discounted by Amazon, while the Kindle book is given less of a discount, so again, we're talking about difficult to understand variations in Kindle pricing.

Another reader mentioned wanting to read the Janis Ian Autobiography, but the Kindle price is $16.01, while the hard cover is $17.79. Both are discounted from the retail cost of the book, which is $26.95. However, what happens when the paperback of the book is offered? Will the Kindle then become discounted from the paperback cost? Or discounted from the original hard cover?

Chances are, the pricing issues we noticed with the Tor books are related to Amazon being a bit overwhelmed with trying to load books, and making mistakes in the pricing. I can't see how a publisher would expect to charge more for a Kindle book than a paperback, though I'm not sure I should make this assumption. Without any understanding of how the pricing schemes work, with books appearing, disappearing, and then appearing again, as prices vary significantly between publishers, we readers have become the ebook version of a Wall Street trader: forced to continuously check book prices, and be ready to scream out "Buy!" when the books we want hit that sweet spot (as O'Reilly has defined it).

I never knew book buying could be such an adventure. Or so stressful.

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Hank Williams responded to the recent ECMAScript Harmony announcement with a post titled, Ru Roh! Adobe Screwed By EcmaScript Standards Agreement. In it, he writes:

Adobe provided support to the standards body in helping to define the standard, and most importantly, in creating an open source virtual machine called Tamarin that would run EcmaScript 4.0. But they did all of this before the standard was officially sanctioned. EcmaScipt 4.0 was nothing more than a draft proposal. But Adobe needed to make this bet because they needed a better language than the early ActionScript was, and the existing template, JavaScript, hadn’t moved substantively forward in years.

And so Adobe released Tamarin, the EcmaScript 4.0/ActionScript 3.0 running virtual machine, and a raft of products based it...Unfortunately, while the technology of EcmaScript 4.0/ActionScript 3.0/Tamarin is compelling, the politics sucked.

Adobe and Microsoft are bitter rivals, and the last thing Microsoft would be willing to accept is wide-spread adoption of a language that is strategically critical to a competitor...And so this meant EcmaScript 4.0 was stillborn.

At the end of his writing, Hank summarizes Adobe's plight, now that it has been betrayed:

the interesting question is what will Adobe do now. The technology they have is no less impressive today than it was a few days ago. But they are now totally on their own, which wasn’t exactly the plan.

Poor, poor Adobe. Lost in the wilds of the web, all alone.

Balderdash.

Hank is correct with his assessment of the politics and rivalry, (though not all decisions were political in nature). But he's incorrect about his assumption that ECMAScript 4 is dead. Certain pieces of pre-existing ECMAScript 4 effort are not being pursued, true, but there will be an ECMAScript 4, they same as there will be a 5, 6, and on and on, as browsers and other applications that support ECMAScript evolve over time.

That's really been the issue all along: there's a group within the ECMAScript community that has been pushing a much more aggressive course in the development of the next specification release than other players have been comfortable with. By other players, I don't mean only Microsoft— Google, Yahoo, Opera, Apple...all of the companies impacted by ECMAScript have agreed, with relief, that an interim specification release with full browser company support is the wisest course, with more cautious development in the future.

In addition, Hank also overplayed the nobleness of Adobe's contribution of Tamarin, as well as the company being "screwed" in this decision. For one, Adobe agrees with the Harmony effort, while managing to get its digs in about the superiority of its offering, as implemented in Flex et al.

Make no mistake: Adobe knew it was throwing the cat among the pigeons when it contributed Tamarin. In 2006, I expressed my concerns about Tamarin:

So what do I think of all of this? I think it's exciting, I love the canvas element and I'm interested in many of these other innovations, it's good to revisit HTML, but I wouldn't be me if I also didn't note concerns: HTML element bloat; confusion as to direction of standards and where people should be heading; vastly incompatible web pages as browsers desperately try to keep up with all the changes; frustrated web page developers and designers also trying to keep up with changes; and a growing dominance of Mozilla/Adobe in regards to JavaScript and whether this could lead to a non-neutral ECMAScript 4.x, which does no one any good.

In a way, Hank's biggest misunderstanding is his assuming that any of the other organizations involved with ECMAScript are somehow more "noble" than Microsoft in their involvement. Frankly, that's a naive assumption. The best we can interpret all of the organizations' involvement in the development of the ECMAScript specification—any specification, really— as being based on enlightened self interest. I wouldn't trust any organization that says otherwise.

No, Adobe took a gamble, and the gamble didn't pay off. It will now shrug its shoulders, reflect on the ubiquity of Flash, and continue its merry course. Forgive me if I don't greet its noble stoicism at being stood up at the prom, with tears in my eyes and murmurs of "poor baby".

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Interesting comment in the Adobe post in answer to another comment:

Unfortunately, standards aren't also the smartest things. Dumbing down is often a fact of standardization. We haven't let that stop us from innovation in the past; we won't in the future.

Yes, trying to establish a standard that is implemented in all the major browsers is really a dumb thing to do. What we should be doing is picking a winner in this little contest, and then celebrate by increasing the number of torturous cross-browser hacks for the next two decades. That's the ticket: let's show everyone how really smart we all are by continuing our worst practices. As long as we call it "innovation" why, it's all right.

Yes, it's all right.

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"If I had asked my customers what they wanted," the great car making pioneer Henry Ford once said, "they would have said a faster horse."

Kevin Gamble points to Twitter's recent decision to cut outgoing SMS for UK clients:

On Wednesday, we announced that Twitter has suspended outgoing SMS to our UK number. The blue in the chart above illustrates the percent of outgoing SMS we stopped sending. 2% of our user base consumed 4% of our outbound SMS over the UK number at a price which disproportionately impacted overall operational cost.

Kevin concurs with this decision, writing:

Twitter has been taking a bit of a beating over this, but when you examine the metrics it makes sense. Every feature consumes time, money and resources. Twitter is making a conscious decision to remove a costly feature that is used by a small number of users.
... I can think of tons of things that if you really examined your customer's behavior you would deep-six. This should happen a lot more.

I don't agree and I point to the recent discussions on broadband capping as an example where basing a decision on "typical" customer behavior doesn't necessarily lead to good decisions for long-term growth.

The broadband companies want to add caps so that heavier users are "blocked" from using more of the service. They give as an excuse that 5% of the people use 90% of the service, and thus feel justified by caps.

The problem with this approach, though, is that it's providing a short-term solution for a short-term problem. People's habits change, and though only a percentage of people watch video over the internet today that number will eventually increase, generating more demand, as well as increasing dissatisfaction with draconian bandwidth caps. Additionally, schools and colleges are now offering long-distance teaching for rural communities, leading to a very real possibility that these same communities will legislate against such caps—not to mention the possibility of anti-trust actions if such capping is seen as anti-competitive.

If people's usage really is impacting on the whole, the companies could implement throttling during busy times, while working to improve the infrastructure. Another approach would be to use tiers, but they have to be reasonable, not the obscenely small caps I've seen bandied about. If tiers are used, the excess bandwidth fees, in addition to other profits, should go into improving the infrastructure— not into shareholder pockets. Infrastructure improvement funds should never be diverted to profit sharing.

The companies could also work with communities to see if they would buy into effort where the cost is distributed between companies and community, though in this case, any infrastructure improvements should be accessible by all broadband providers.

The point is that companies should look to make a long-term strategic decision even if it might cost more in the short term. This applies to broadband companies, and also applies to a company like Twitter.

Unfortunately, the problem with Twitter is that it doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up, so all the strategic and management decisions are reactive—hit-or-miss changes based on immediate short term cost cutting or performance goals, rather than based on long-term plans and interests.

If Twitter sees SMS as an integral part of its service, cutting SMS for part of its customer base is only going to create a level of uncertainty that not only will impact the UK customers, but all customers.

An alternative approach could have been to begin to talk with its customer base about premium memberships, which may include services such as outgoing SMS. Outgoing SMS is not an integral component of Twitter, and therefore people won't be deprived of any essential Twitter service. By making a long-term strategic decision—yes, we'll support outgoing SMS, but you'll _all_ need to pay a tiny premium for this service— the company may risk grumbles across the entire customer base, but it will also have made a long-term sustainable decision that won't leave customers in a continuous state of alt.

Adding service, removing service, adding service, removing service...This is the hallmark of a company that isn't keeping its eye on the horizon.

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No Squid Friday this week, as I'm bringing you all the latest on Bigfoot. Or I should say, the press conference held by the slickest Georgians to ever hit California.

I wasn't going to point you to one of the *techs covering the story for more detail, as they are little more than cryptozoologists-come-lately. I'll point you, instead, to coverage by Loren Coleman, probably one of the most well known cryptozoologists. Of this find, he writes:

Others would have you call this thing by a name that is tied to the egos of the alleged discoverers’ names. Perhaps it should be called Biscardi’s Folly now, but I wanted a sillier name for this. Why? Because this body has little to do with Bigfoot and everything to do with a Sasquatch costume that someone developed after watching too many gorilla movies. The nares/nostrils are modeled on a gorilla and the mouth on the mask looks more human-like, while the teeth that seem to have been placed in the mouth could be my late mother’s false teeth.

This about sums up most people's reactions on seeing the "body". To me, the real mystery is how CNN could actually allow itself to be so taken in that it televised the Bigfoot press conference.

This Georgia peach of a hairy story is not the only Bigfoot tale on the loose today: Pink Tentacle reports that a group of Japanese explorers is on a two month quest to Nepal searching for the ever elusive Yeti.

With all due respect to the Japanese researchers and Mr. Coleman—who I've chatted with in the past and is both interesting and genuinely skeptical of claims like those of our Georgia boys—there is no Bigfoot, and I doubt there is a Yeti, as we would think of Yeti. My reasons for my disbelief are related to the giant squid, so I guess this story is apropos for Squid Friday, after all. However, since it's late and I'm tired, I'll leave you to figure out why the proof of existence of the giant squid would also make a reasonable proof that there is no Bigfoot.

*However, the comments at Techcrunch are rather entertaining.

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Earlier this week I made a mid-day visit to the zoo to see our five newest St. Louis citizens: the five new Amur (Siberian) tiger cubs. They're only allowed out a couple of hours a day, but in that time they manage to cover ever inch of their not small habitat at least a dozen times.

The habitat is viewed from above, as the side view is blocked by the zoo train. Needless to say, the numbers of people were many and access to get a clear photo, limited. However, you don't have to have a good photo when you're taking pictures of tiger cubs.

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This is Missouri's week for tigers, but not all the tiger tales are happy ones.

Today, the St. Louis Zoo will introduce five Amur tiger cubs to the public for the first time. The Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger, is one of the rarest tigers in the world. At one time, they numbered only about 50 in the wild. Thankfully, rigorous conservation has increased this number to close to 500 tigers in the Amur district in Russia.

Breeding programs like the one for Amur tigers at the St. Louis zoo also help add to the numbers. Unfortunately, though, Siberian tigers raised in captivity don't typically survive when released into the wild. The only hope for conserving the wild Siberian is to maintain strict conservation.

The St. Louis Zoo is an accredited and highly respected animal preservation center, but the same can not be said about two other animal parks in the state, also in the news this week because of tigers. The tales from these two parks, though, are not happy ones.

In Branson, a 16 year old is in critical condition after being *attacked by three tigers while he was in the cage taking photographs for visitors.

I am amazed that this park would encourage its employees to enter a tiger enclosure just to take a picture for some idiot tourist. I hope the young man lives and sues the park for everything it owns. And I hope our state closes this park down.

Not as much, though, as I hope it closes Wesa-A-Geh-Ya, near Warrenton. The day before the Branson attack, a tiger jumped a fence at Wesa-a-Geh-Ya and attacked a worker cleaning her cage. The worker lost his leg below the knee, but is expected to survive. The animal farm people actually tried to cover up the nature of the attack, saying the man was attacked by pit bull, rather than a tiger. Of course, the attacked man is not supporting this lie.

This exotic animal farm has been under investigation in the past, and has had its public display license revoked. PETA and others have been critical of the establishment, because of the animal enclosures.

Supposedly the owner has offered to give up their animals and have them euthanized (animals from these establishments typically can't be integrated into zoo populations), but then has changed her mind. The decision should not be up to her, if her cages are such that animals can escape that easily.

I absolutely loath and despise these "roadside zoos" and believe, strongly, they should be closed. Most are poorly managed, and the animals badly cared for. I also do not agree with having exotic animals for pets. We have domestic cats and dogs needing homes that would make wonderful pets; exotic animal pets are nothing more than ego trips for the owners.

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update The Branson folks are claiming that the tigers did not attack the boy. That they were trying to help him, after he fell and hit his head, which is why he has severe puncture wounds to his neck.

I hope I will be excused for greeting this with a great deal of skepticism.

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GigaOM has been spending considerable time lately covering issues of broadband congestion and possible broadband capping—not without some overt hostility expressed by regular readers, who seem to think the issue is one of "selfish" users impacting on the quality of broadband for all. Previous entries are Yo FCC! Are You Doing Anything About Metered Broadband and Warning Sign: Metered Broadband Already a Hassle.

Today, Stacey Higginbotham points to a new report by Free Press that addresses the reality of broadband congestion, as well as providing good alternatives to the caps that current ISPs are considering using.

According to the PDF report, how much congestion there is in broadband is open for debate. For instance when Bell Canada started application throttling it admitted during an investigation of its practice that there was "almost no congestion...". I would not be surprised to see the same with networks here, including ATT with its talk of the use of caps being "inevitable".

In addition, the report also provided some very real, effective solutions that are much better than capping—including throttling during peak usage, whereby a person's bandwidth speed would be reduced to a certain level during congested hours. This is a superior solution because, as the report expresses eloquently, caps will impact on everyone's use of broadband:

Compared to limitation pricing, limitation throttling also makes better sense for ISPs. Limitation pricing (especially with low caps) will modify the behavior of almost all users. With everyone watching the meter, this pricing model will inevitably lead even casual users to spend less time online or to avoid applications that use high amounts of bandwidth—the very applications that are response for the increases in the perceived value of broadband access of customers.

This pattern of changing behavior will inevitably cause the marginal customer to question the need for the connection in the first place, leading to a possible slowdown in the growth of new customers for ISPs.

The report also covers the issue of caps in other countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, and Canada, but explains that much of the traffic in these countries is asymmetric, with traffic one way. This is more expensive than what we're facing in this country, where we produce most of the online material we consume. As it is, most other countries also have much more competition among providers than we do in the States.

In addition to capacity issues, the report discusses the US's declining position as technical "leader" in the world, a position that could only be degraded if we were to throttle an essential resource like the internet.

At issue is not that broadband companies are becoming overwhelmed, but that the same companies providing broadband are beginning to perceive that online video offerings such as Netflix WatchNow, Hulu, iTunes, and so on could become an eventual threat to their bread-and-butter operations: offering entertainment packages. Capping broadband use to prevent competition is against the law in this country. If this is the situation, when reason fails, the courts will then need to become engaged. I have to think the ISPs know this, and such knowledge will give them pause.

From GigaOM:

There are other participants, some that are well known, like HP with its HP MediaSmart Connect, or TiVo. And some are upstarts, like Vudu, Zv, Verismo and Sezmi. But the future belongs to Amazon, Netflix or Apple. It’s still too early to tell which one will win the race to your big-screen TV, but they all have the right combination of size, recognition and content to get there.

The move to stream video to your TV from the Internet it too new to declare a winner. For instance, of the set top boxes the author of the article mentioned, he forgot a major one: your PC.

When the prices of computers drop into the 400 dollar range, and even Apple sells the Mac Mini at a reasonably affordable price, expect to see more computers hooked to TVs. Through our computers we can not only get iTunes, Unbox, and Netflix WatchNow, we can also access cbs.com, abc.go.com, Hulu, and a host of other video streaming sites.

The opening shots in this battle have just been fired. We ain't seen nothing yet.

We've been lucky this summer and had relatively mild weather. However, this week our luck has run out, as we contemplate heat index readings over 110 degrees (45 celsius) 115 (46).

Stay cool.

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