First, the more serious resolutions inspired by the tsunami tragedy:

• treasure loved ones and the short time we get in this life;
• give more;
• be more humble about the affairs of Man

Second, the fun ones:

• do a 3 minute free-dive (my personal best is a 2:51 dive in September, but I haven't come close to duplicating it);
• get barreled;
• grow, harvest, mill, and roast my own coffee;
• consistently throw a golf disc 120 yards;
• memorize the field marks, common, scientific, and Hawaiian names of the 50 most common reef fish in every developmental phase;
• write a distributed genetic algorithm;
• write a game for the Tablet PC

Third, the professional ones:

• "Get Things Done" between 6AM and 2PM;
• release at least two significant Web-based training resources;
• make at least the same amount of money I did this year;
• maintain professional competence in in C++ (/CLI!), C#, and Java;
• become professionally competent in Python
• evolve Pynk to the point where it's a reasonable way to program with a pen;
• release Pynk as OSS;
• evolve my shape-recognition library;
• implement a domain-specific language for mediating between OTA requests, business rules, and at least 2 major Global Distribution Systems (Sabre and To Be Named)

I am working on “Weka Wiki”: an ink-based Wiki (”Weka” being the Hawaiian word for “squid ink”). All pages will be rendered on any machine (as bitmaps on mundane machines), but the only way to edit ink-based pages will be with a Tablet PC. My question for the inkernet: when it comes to editing, is it important to stay within the browser, or is a smart client acceptable? Essentially, there's a lot more flexibility in terms of interface and editing in a smart client. Thoughts?

P.S. No one's even mentioned the initial release of Pynk, the ink-based Python IDE? Given the interest in Python in the community, I thought it would cause a little bit of a stir...

Journal Reader Component for Tablet PC SDK 1.7  via [Microsoft Download Center]

Note that the documentation contains samples that read " Dim jntReader As New Microsoft.Ink.JournalReader()" and similar. In fact, you can't construct a JournalReader object, you'll use the static (shared in VB.NET) method ReadFromStream() to generate the stream. The results are pretty cool, as shown in this screen clipping: the text box contents are in RTF, and you get both the recognition string and alternates on the ink.

Because CPU speeds have topped off recently even though I/O speeds continue to increase, Herb Sutter posits that the Moore's Law free performance lunch is over via [Marquee de Sells: Chris's insight outlet]

Concurrency is at the stage that memory management was about a decade ago – popularly believed to be intractable at a pragmatic level, but in fact, something where relatively simple language extensions can provide a great deal of relief. COmega’s chords may be a taste of what is to come.

I've not yet found any links specific to the disaster that's struck around the Indian Ocean, but here is the link to the Red Cross' individual donation page: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Forms/webforms.nsf/F_DON?OpenForm&ParentUNID=BA9B14845AF1638FC1256E2B00394093&action=Operations%20most%20in%20need

I'm stumped. If anyone can help me, I'd appreciate a pointer.

In an ASP.NET page, I'm embedding a Windows Forms control by use of an <object> tag. My challenge is getting the state of the embedded object during postback, and maintaining / restoring the object after postback. Since the object tag is not server-side, I can't figure out how to retrieve its state in my Page_Load() event.

The tactic that I was (mostly) pursuing was a client-side event-handler for the onblur() event of the <object> tag, which would grab the state of the object (by way of reading a property, i.e., document.forms[0].myObject.MyProperty) and write it to a hidden <INPUT> tag, which I figured I could retrieve on the server-side by looking at the Request object. So, basically, very non-ASP.NET-y in approach.

I don't know if this is the right approach and it certainly seems error-prone (at least, I spent the whole day today trying to watch the process by writing Javascript alert() functions -- a side question is 'how the heck do ASP.NET programmers debug Javascript?'). Any feedback appreciated.

Am I doomed to handle the state / postback issue by writing separate HTTP POST/GETs within the embedded Windows Forms object?

Forget the death penalty – if you want to alter people's behavior, sic a mime on them:

Another innovative idea was to use mimes to improve both traffic and citizens' behavior. Initially 20 professional mimes shadowed pedestrians who didn't follow crossing rules: A pedestrian running across the road would be tracked by a mime who mocked his every move. Mimes also poked fun at reckless drivers. The program was so popular that another 400 people were trained as mimes. Link via [Boing Boing]

Sys-Con is running  a poll on “The Top 20 Software People In The World” which is silly but harmless. The funny thing though is that Don Ferguson, head of IBM's Software Group Architecture Board, has garnered more than 3300 votes so far. Oh, okay, so how many does, say, Alan Turing get? 538. Well, he is dead, so let's say... Tim Berners-Lee? 266. Roy Fielding: 80. Danny Hillis: 30. Nathan Myrrhvold: 13. (Now that's just mean). What do you think -- memo going around IBM, an intern at their PR firm, or an ill-considered afternoon from a advertising sales rep?

I'm so happy to have moved somewhere where I don't get winter blues...

I'm still getting jkontherun in my aggregator, but his page's are showing up without content when I click through (doubly troubling since he only aggregates summaries). I can't find a contact link on his site (maybe it's in the missing content). Anyone else having trouble with him? If anyone knows him, shoot him this post. (I'm using IE 6 on a Tablet, but can't think of any new blocking software or anything like that that I've added recently...)

My Developer Evangelist Thom Robbins has laid down the Code Camp Manifesto. This is yet another proud example of the NE Area Community leading in the world of .NET and Microsoft related community activities. Bravo. BTW, here is the Code Camp site.  via [Sam Gentile's Blog]

Hmmm…I wonder if I could organize something like a Code Camp in Hawaii. The Geek Cruises seem to have done alright for themselves, maybe there’s room for a land-based code-and-tan conference.

Hmm, David Ansen of Newsweek is starting a monthly moderated discussion of his favorite movies. Ansen isn't my favorite movie critic, so I'm not particularly interested in the particulars of his group, but it does seem to me that the explosion of interest in blogs, wikis, and podcasts has, perhaps, changed the sorts of 'moderated discussions' that one could have.

Might be an interesting way to get feedback on my writing...