.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;} Searching for the Moon
My original blog - I have moved to http://shannonclark.wordpress.com so this remains only as an archive.
 
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Searching for the Moon
by Shannon Clark
 

Friday, February 28, 2003


New York Songlines: Walking Tours of Manhattan Streets

Very cool site - will definitely try to get linked to this via a wireless device of some form next time I'm meandering through NYC. "Songlines" for most of Manhattan - walking guides to lots of cool stuff.

It is also one of the better examples of a navigation scheme online that I have seen (literally a navigation scheme)

2/28/2003 12:55:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, February 27, 2003


M'ris writes about something sparked by a post of mine a few days ago about how entering college at a young age was a mostly negative thing for me (my post) - in contrast, it was a great thing for her.

My life indeed has not sucked (well perhaps the being single part...) and it is good to read optimism - February seems this year to be a month on hold.

2/27/2003 04:26:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, February 26, 2003


Cannot find Weapons of Mass Destruction

quite amusing (thanks Heather) - even for those of us not (as so many of my friends appear to be) firmly on the side of the protestors.

2/26/2003 08:55:00 PM 0 comments
Salon.com Technology | Artificial stupidity

Part one of a series (linked to printable version - but do support Salon by looking at their ads, I may not always agree with them on all issues, but they publish a lot of great stuff)

This article covers something that, as a research into AI albeit obscure branches of and in a non-academic setting, I am very interested in. That is, the odd disconnect betwee the "AI establishment" and reality and practicality.

While personally I am not sure that the Turing Test is the be all and end all of tests (there are plenty of humans with whom a conversation might be rather stilted), I do not think that dismissing the practical attempts to test it points to a very professional approach on the part of the "establishment".

Further, I personally don't think that LISP based approaches to AI are the way to go - rather I tend to view "AI" as needing far more complex approaches than the rules based approaches of LISP.

In my own work, which is very narrowly focused, I look at building systems that are self-modifying - that is, they are literally built by a reaction to the information and task at hand (literally in terms of the code that is run in many cases). I would argue that this approach, combined with some "learning/memory" based on the past, as well as a focus on what needs to be done is a highly productive approach to AI development.

Here the goal is not fully autonomous systems, but rather to build systems that automate repetative human tasks - my usual target being 80-90% of a given task. This allows the systems to speed up humans on their daily tasks and/or free up time for more important work (so either more work of a given type can be performed, or attention can be shifted to more value added tasks).

If you are reading this and are interested in learning more about my research and software,f feel free to contact me - I would be happy to point you to some demos and/or discuss what I am working on.

2/26/2003 06:58:00 PM 0 comments
BlogTalk - A European Weblog-Conference

If I could attend it would be good, as it is, I will be at WisCon that weekend in any case.

But for those of you who will not be as WisCon, the conference will be in Vienna, and if you submitt a paper topic before Feb 28th (Friday) they might (if they accept it) cover some of your costs to attend!

2/26/2003 06:12:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, February 25, 2003


Ecademy - Six Degree: The Science of A Connected Age - a review

My review of Duncan J. Watt's book on the new science of the connected age, the science of networks. One of the best books I have read in a very long time.

2/25/2003 02:28:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, February 21, 2003


A discussion on Diversity in Politics

Last night I attended a meeting of Cafe Society, a great group (more on them later) which met at Filter in Wicker Park.

I have created the following discussion group to follow up on the discussion of last night.


Discuss Diversity it Politics


2/21/2003 06:05:00 PM 0 comments
Has Slashdot Changed?
or have I?

Today on Slashdot there is a very active (over 700 messages at last count) discussion on "What would you tell your nerdy 12 year old self?" most of the advice being something along the lines of "play sports and have sex."

Okay. First - When did the Slashdot audiance because Sports players? Something has changed.

Second - "have more sex" all well and good - but also, what universe were these people in? Certainly not the one that I live in.

At age 12 I was just entering high school (yup, skipped a grade, does that to you) - I was 12 as a Freshman, 16 as a senior - turned 17 a few days later). Certainly interested in sex, but had no opportunities throughout all of high school (and not really any in college for quite a while either).

So, what advice would I give my 12 year old self.

1. Graduate early - but then take time off, perhaps one maybe two years - spend it traveling and/or studying abroad.

2. Entering college at a more regular age (18 or 19 instead of 17) perhaps the whole experience would have been a richer and better one.

But on the whole topic of sex - tough one, hasn't gotten any easier for me yet.

2/21/2003 05:48:00 PM 0 comments
I am now looking at what other changes to make to my Blog.

In looking at other's I think my first change will be to the template for the posts - will probably change it to show more metadata more usefully (post by name, date, "archive link" type formatting)

I am also now considering whether or not the paid version of Blogger offers value to me - between the ad free blogspot hosting and the paid version of the software.

2/21/2003 01:08:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, February 19, 2003


I've added a subscribe box to my Yahoo! Groups Searching For the Moon group. I started this many years ago and then did nothing with it. In looking it over, I has a mailing list archive capacity of over 500 meg, so I may start using it for something!

2/19/2003 10:47:00 PM 0 comments
Changes changes changes

Well it is not massive, but I have made many small changes to my site template - hopefully the blog will be a bit more readable and useful. Your comments and feedback are very welcome - try out my new discussion board.

I have moved the Ryze Blog trib to the right, and have done some reformating of the main window to make individual entries more readable and hopefully make it easier on to read my posts.

I'm not sure about the colors and overall look and feel - may need to add something below the Ryze blogroll (a border for example), and I may want to add some further links and resources. Suggestions are very welcome.

2/19/2003 06:35:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, February 18, 2003


Why Nerds are Unpopular

A bit long (and I agree with Anil Dash - could use some editing) but very much on point.

I was a nerd - I think had it even worse than the author of this piece - and in many ways my "nerdiness" continued even into college, helped in that path by entering college at too early of an age.

2/18/2003 12:27:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, February 17, 2003


a piece of writing may be up soon

well it is non-fiction and unpaid - but still, it is a solicited contribution to a high volume, high traffic website run by someone I respect and admire - and who's print publication I have been following for years - so pretty cool. More when I know that the article is going up. It's just about 600 words - so not very long - but on a topic I have been thinking about for many months.

In other news, I am also talking with another online correspondant about writing an article - we just went through 8 rounds of emails as a followup to two rounds of posts on the same subject - very calm, cohesive, and interesting posts back and forth. In the end, we arrived at what I think is a very cool vision of the future, and one which might address a real problem online.

So, we are going to start talking about taking our mishmash of notes and emails and writing them up as an article of some form - where we will then look to publish it I do not know - but I think that it would be good content for any number of online (or off line for that matter) magazines. Again, non-fiction, very business oriented, and semi-technical (though not all that technical - it is more about the business aspects of online content publishing).

In fact, I may suggest it to the same venue that might publish my first piece - or more ambitously to the editor's print publication for which it might be even better suited.

So all in all a good day for me from a writing perspective.

(oh, did I mention here yet that the Webrats invited me to join them... very cool - more on that shortly)

2/17/2003 08:02:00 PM 0 comments
Network Theory

One of the first times I have seen someone link to me using the name of the Blog! Cool! (SearchingForTheMoon in case you didn't notice).

I like this site - but can not find links to an archive - which tends to be what I look for when first visiting a personal blog - an index which I can then look through and get a sense of who is behind a particular site.

2/17/2003 06:21:00 PM 0 comments
Functions not (yet) Documented

(note - were I on Movable Type - this would be category "Technica", possibly category "Ubergeek")

A link to PHP's undocumented functions. Last updated in Sept of 2002 - but still very interesting stuff to the php programmers out there - I'll be looking it over when I have some free time....

2/17/2003 05:50:00 PM 0 comments
On the breaking of expectations

or how a mailing list breakdown is really irritating me this morning

Sometime last week, I think it was Wednesday or Thursday (but as you will see figuring that out is actually not so easy) I started to notice that I was not recieving all of the message to one of the many mailing lists to which I belong. I noticed this because I was getting replies to a message I had not read.

I sorted and searched and reorganized the messages, looked at my deleted messages to check, but nope, I had not gotten the message at all.

So, I looked at Yahoo! (http://groups.yahoo.com) and discovered, yup - the message that I had not seen was indeed in the archives. So I read it there.

Then I started counting - and noticed that I had missed a couple of other messages.

So I posted a note to the group about this, which I then did not get a copy of myself.

And so it began.

I attempted to contact Yahoo! customer support - via their less than useful help system - sending in two different but reports.

A day later I got a reply to one of them - asking me for more information which I sent to them.

A day after that, I got a request from them to complete a customer support survey - I did, giving them terrible marks as the problem was still unresolved.

And then came this weekend - in just one group to which I belong, 100 messages were sent out this weekend.

I got 52 of them!

I started checking, while last week it had not appeared that any of my other groups were effected - now it appears that ALL of my groups are effected, in that most of them there has been at least one, sometimes more than one, message that I did not recieve over the weekend.

The most puzzling, one of the groups to which I subscribe I subscribe via digest. In the digest from this weekend (2/16/2003 to be exact) the digest shows ONE message.

The archives show TWO messages, the one I saw in the digest, and importantly a REPLY to that very message.

So, if you have had any problems with Yahoo! Groups this weekend - could you please both contact Yahoo! Groups, and drop me a line about it.

I tried, in a minor way, to "pull rank" - I've contacted a friend of mine who is a Yahoo! executive - a few years ago he and I had a great conversation and discussion about Yahoo! Groups - so I hope he is interested in hearing about this problem that now seems to plaguing Yahoo! Groups.

So, to return to my subject - I have been irritated all day, and I realize it is because I am no longer getting ALL of the messages that I expect to get.

You see, I archive group messages into different folders - and then from time to time I catch up on a given group. This works very well and is part of how I am able to participate and monitor so many different groups. But now that I can no longer trust that my email account has indeed gotten all of the messages that should have been sent to it - I am finding myself wondering what else am I / have I missed!

I get close to 250 emails a day (to just my main business account) - not being able to trust that I am getting all of the messages that have been sent to me is a very disheartening thing.

2/17/2003 02:56:00 PM 0 comments
Fantastic Metropolis: Essays: Writing Rules I Like to Break

okay, it is a link to the second page of a 2 page essay (so go read the first page) - but I really like Carol's point "...but if I plotted ahead of time I'd never bother writing. It wouldn't be scary and fun and have a sense of being about to fall into the abyss."

That about sums it up for me - if I "know" what I have to write - I rarely can write it, if I do not, but instead just start writing - then it is much much easier to write.

2/17/2003 01:24:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, February 13, 2003


That time of year again

can we just skip right to Saturday and forget about tomorrow?

Okay, the one year out of 28 that I had a date on Valentine's day was rather nice - though the restaurant we chose was only so-so - and something important about the nature of that whole relationship was revealed that day (though I was complimented by a friend on my choice of girlfriends which was good, I guess).

Tomorrow's expected up to 8 inches of snow may help my mood, but only slightly.

Each year that goes by reminds me of just how alone I live and have lived most of my life. Yes, I am close to my family. Yes, I have always had good friends - but they have always (basically) been just that - friends. And every year they are less and less prone to getting together, to doing things, to just hanging out - and so, more and more, I spend my time alone.

While there is certainly an introspective streak in me - I truly don't think that for all that I am and have been, I'm made out to live a life alone. I need human contact - but have not had it in a very very long time.

And yes, while I am referring in part to sex et al., I'm also referring to just simple human contact of the hold hands, pat on the shoulder, good firm hug, kisses kinds of contact. I truly can not recall the last time I kissed someone on the lips - but I suspect strongly that it was in 1998.

Hard as that may be for many people to believe. Most people, it seems, go in and out of relationships with ease - and most people actually enter into them.

I'm not most people clearly - and I need someone to break me out of this mode - not how I want to live the rest of my life, let alone the rest of the year (or month for that matter).

I know that not drinking does not help me - especially here in Chicago where social life and bars/nightclubs seems to be hand in hand. So the chances of me meeting someone keep diminishing (and online sources do not seem to work for me either, nor do friends - I have been set up on ONE date in my ENTIRE life, and that was over 8 years ago).

The types of woman I am most attracted to probably don't help either - they tend to be very smart, very driven woman - so they rarely have time - and it seems, usually are already in a relationship (not infrequently one with another woman - I'm generally attracted to woman who are very liberal and openminded, not infrequently bi-sexual.)

I am not "smooth", I don't have "moves", I don't have "lines" - and I have very very little practice with anything having to do with dating or relationships. While my friends ten years ago were already bored with the basics and experimented with a bit of everything - I had not yet done the basics, let alone more complex elements of relationships.

Even here, in my journal where I tend to be pretty open about everything, I hesitate to talk about or write about sex or things sexual. Mostly because I am truly basicaly without experience.

And as a 28 year old American male - this is very odd and unusual.

In my office I share space with someone who is 24 - in the past four months he has been here, he has picked up more woman in bars than I have done anything even remotely sexual with in my entire life, let alone in the past four months.For him it seems perfectly natural and normal - for me I don't get it at all.

I'm sure I'm old fashioned. I'm sure I'm very inexperienced - from the simplest kiss to the act itself.

And I am afraid that it will only get worse and worse for me - though I was told when I was 21 that most likely my 30's would be a very good decade for me - but that my 20's would probably not be. That even then, I was probably not the type of guy woman in their 20's would be interested in, but that when I was in my 30's I would almost certainly be the type of guy they were interested in - i.e. a "nice" guy who can cook, who likes kids, who's successful, who doesn't drink etc.

I'm certainly not a small man - but neither am I "fat" - and I have been loosing weight this year, almost 20 pounds so far (and loosing a pound or two every day or two so I'm making progress). I dress reasonably well - though not as well these days - need to do more replenshing of my warddrobe.

I don't think I'm boring when on dates - but clearly I don't know how to progress a date to "the next step" - since I have not, basically, ever done that in my entire life.

In the non-relationship/sex aspects of my life I know tons of people, I talk to people all the time on the phone and online - I correspond with people across the globe. My professional career is taking off at the moment - but I can't seem to match up my professional life with my personal.

So - I am always open to blind dates on or offline.

2/13/2003 07:19:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, February 11, 2003


and.doxdesk.com: parasite
Useful site for detecting "parasites" that may be infecting your machine (windows machines with IE only)

2/11/2003 05:34:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, February 10, 2003


Yahoo! News - Airlines to Help U.S. Move Troops to Gulf

Interesting - what puzzles me somewhat, is why they are not turning to some of the many dozens of planes that have been mothballed in the past few years in the dessert. (though perhaps they only need the planes for a short period). Wonder what this means for commercial traffic this month...

2/10/2003 05:49:00 PM 0 comments
Depleted uranium

In contrast to the many sites online posting scare stories about depleted uranium, both in Iraq and the Balkans, I think this is an important document for people to know about and read (from the World Health Organization - available in many languages).

2/10/2003 04:41:00 PM 0 comments
Globalization is Tested

Important article - also read his article in this month's issue of Esquire (not available online at the moment unfortunately - but a very good reason to buy the issue)

2/10/2003 02:33:00 PM 0 comments
Globalization is Tested

Important article - also read his article in this month's issue of Esquire (not available online at the moment unfortunately - but a very good reason to buy the issue)

2/10/2003 02:33:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, February 05, 2003


Publishers Weekly | Reed Business Information - article on Buying books through libraries

Saw this from a link from Anil Dash. Made me think - why don't libraries do something even more radical.

All libraries buy books - on a regular basis.

Why not offer to include patron's orders alongside the library's order?

This offers a number of advantages - bigger orders means breaks on shipping, possibly higher discounts from the distributers.

Patrons would get the books at a discount - while possibly also making a donation (i.e. the library might get a 40% discount, pass along 20% to the patron and keep 20% towards books for the shelves).

Patrons would also have reasons to keep returning to the library - and possibly some incentives to donate books.

Note that this would work equally well for DVDs, CDs or other mediums libraries stock as well.

2/05/2003 03:10:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, February 04, 2003


Movies, life, work, play

all in a days work

It has been a while since I posted something personal here.

Very busy year so far - busy and potentially very good - but hard to say at the moment.

Lots of possibilities - nothing yet definite however. My various networking is starting to pay off - some consulting possibilities, some serious software sales possibilities, some project possibilities - lots of possibilities - nothing definite and nothing which pays my bills yet.

At the same time, partners of my company are starting to require more of my time as well (which could be a good thing - but still up in the air).

On a personal note, lots of friends - nothing romantic however - the story of my life.

Last night I took myself to go see Adaptation - very good film, if a bit hollow and unsatisfying by the end. Fun, and I was somewhat inspired to write after seeing it (not a bad thing at all).

So tonight, I plan on taking my laptop home with me for the first time in a very long time - and after I grab something small and quick for dinner, I plan on sitting in a cafe (probably Starbucks) and write.

Good news - I'll be writing.

Bad news - my plan is not to write my fiction, but instead to write a presentation that I need to complete by the end of the week on software my company has recently developed. Not that exciting in some respects, but amazingly so in many others - done well it could be the launching point for my own success! Three years after starting my company I may finally be on the verge of something really good - both technically and financially.


2/04/2003 06:03:00 PM 0 comments
Ecademy - What does it take to get VC funding?

Very good summary in some of the comments here about what it really takes to get VC funding - useful (and I should refer back to this in the future...)


2/04/2003 01:15:00 PM 0 comments
Think Secret - Microsoft to add OneNote to Mac Office

Interesting software coming from MS of all people - not sure how well this will work, but the concept echoes what "mindmapper" type software does... wonder if this data will be open enough for other apps to refer to and use?

2/04/2003 11:12:00 AM 0 comments
www.TheOneRing.net | Movie | Scrapbook | Ringer Spy HobbitGrrl

U of C writing program posters with a LotR's theme.

Very clever.

However, "U of C Goes Geek" - as the u of c skiffy list pointed out - since when was the U of C NOT geek???

Not anytime that I can recall - even my Granmother's generation from the sound of it was fairly geeky (heck my Grandmother graduated from the place before she was 20 - not exactly non-geeky now is that...)

2/04/2003 11:06:00 AM 0 comments
 
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Shannon John Clark (email me), b. 1974.

Male (to hold off the assumptions), currently in Chicago, IL.
I am active on many other forums and sites around the Internet. If I am online, feel free to Skype me.
You are also welcome to connect with me on Omidyar Networks on LinkedIn or Ryze.com and my blog on Ecademy or see more about me at MeshForum or my corporate site, JigZaw . I also maintain piecing IT together, as my corporate blog for JigZaw Inc.