It seems that JSDoc is easier to use than PhpDocumentor or Doxygen, especially when using custom tags. I just came up with the stellar idea of using JSDoc to generate PHP documentation. PHP’s reflection API includes a way to read the JavaDoc-style comments on each function. What I will do is take these JavaDoc-style comments and make fake JavaScript functions to go with them, and then parse the new ‘JavaScript’ file in JSDoc.

I’ll provide details and tell you how it works in a later post.

I have updated the open-source actionscript SVG library. It now has an Adobe AIR application example application that allows you to try it out.

What’s the library for? It lets you define vector graphics in a common format and render them in flash. Actually, you can already do this at compile time. But if you want to change the graphics programatically, for example changing the colors and styles used for fills and pens, you are out of luck with the Adobe’s current SVG offering. This program lets you do that at runtime

Big news. The runtime SVG parser and renderer for Actionscript 3.0 is working, sort of. The newest version of the library is available here. For the path mircosyntax, I used the lexer and parser from the Batik project, which is released under the Apache Version 2.0 license. The path is drawn correctly but the colors are not being rendered properly. Right now there is just code; I’ll be posting a swf and some test svg’s later.

I have completed the cue point navigation portion of the cue point project, and put up a new demo and source code browser. You can get info on the project here.

I have started work on a SVG interface for Actionscript 3.0. I will be able to render SVGs at runtime and do some editing of SVG’s at runtime. The project is hosted on google code and is licensed under LGPL.

I’m trying out Bee, which is a blog posting application by Adobe. I tried ScribeFire, but it added a “powered by ScribeFire” advertisement at the bottom of my posts.

More than two years ago, arXiv.org implemented trackbacks. In theory this is a clever way to allow the community to post comments on papers; a commenter would write a blog entry with a link to the paper that they wanted to comment on, and the trackback system would create a complementary link on the paper’s website to the comment. To reduce exposure to trackback spam, there is some sort of moderation system in place.

However, it seems that this hasn’t caught on. The early suggestion was that it would, once researchers started blogging (with standard blog software that supports trackbacks). Researchers would be enticed to blog because of arxiv.org’s support of trackbacks.

Whether or not researchers have embraced blogging technology en masse is an open question. However, there are cultural assumptions that went into the trackback standard that make it really inappropriate for the letters-to-the-editor usage desired of it. First, trackbacks are merely a statement that the blog entry has something to do with the link. I could say that Ron Maimon is a friend of mine and wrote http://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0503028, aren’t I proud of him? This is not a scientific commentary on the paper. Secondly, the blog entries appear on the blogger’s site; a technical discussion of esoterica in a particular paper might not be what the blogger wants on their blog. On a similar note, letters-to-the-editor are threaded; comments on an arxiv.org paper appear out of context on many different websites. Comments on the blog entry, a rational response, would exist out of the timeline of the original commentary. Finally, discussions of the process of critiquing scientific wikipedia entries have led me to believe that researchers desire a collaborative effort on commentary, especially when widely-held views are at odds with the paper.

I have in the back of my head that it would be really interesting to combine writing and computer science, especially literature. I finally got around to thinking hard about this, and why it’s easy to combine art and computer science. Computer science can be used in art as a tool; most of the current art that uses computer science either generates visuals or is used to make a custom interface (e.g. motion sensors etc). Computer science can also be used in the understanding of art, as it has been used in the understanding of music.

I’ve been told that this is a good time to get into digital art — there’s just not a lot of artists who are skilled in computer science.

So that brings me to literature. There have been programs to generate literature, in which words are combined with some attention paid to grammar and the compatibility of the words. But this approach takes the artistry away — all that’s left to do is for the artist to look through the output and select interesting texts. On the other hand, there are ways to use computers to enhance the study of literature — researchers claim to have a program that can distinguish male and female writing. There’s the innovation of hyperlinking and easy text chatting. There are helpers — word processors, grammar checkers, word processors, etc.

I could imagine being able to input plots, themes and emotions into a computer and have it output a story, but this seems a long way off and how much fun, and how much a personal expression, would it be anyway. Perhaps such things already exist.

I think I will give up on the idea of a connection between literature and computer science.

I heard that the free dating website Plenty of Fish brings in 3 million dollars in advertising revenue per year, and I thought it would be interesting to make a more techno-savvy approach to personal questionnaires. I had the idea of letting people tag themselves, and then presenting a taglist ala del.icio.us. Then I had the idea of an interactive body type diagram, using the outline of a person (a curve) that could be manipulated, and clothing templates that would conform to the contours of the outlined body. This could be fun and could bring in some ad revenue from clothing sites.

I then realized that I could define a parametric space from a small set of obtained body images. This is more complex, and there has been research in this area.

I like that the first proposal is simple and abstractly oriented.

There’s been a lotta talking about community on the web. Seems that some people have the idea that creating an appealing, nurturing, challenging, warm community is difficult and requires a new set of web-based social cues. These people would be right.

There’s a lot of psychology research into the dynamics of attraction and intimacy. One thing that has always stood out for me about attraction is what I term the danger level – the danger of intimacy. Often I think that for people with avoidant-ambivalent attachment styles, interacting one on one is easier and sometimes there is something to be said for transgressive behavior. I almost got involved in editing and expanding some silly original analysis on wikipedia of the movie American Beauty — and it felt sort of comfortable. You’re not supposed to put original analysis on wikipedia.