Brain on Fire Tim McCormack, distilled.

When a GET hits your server, your RESTful webapp should not alter the database. Why not enforce this at the permissions level?

In my quest to bring the features of Livejournal (and other proprietary social networks) to the open, public internet, I'm stuck on how to properly implements friend groups. Friend groups determine which users are allowed to see your more sensitive blog entries. I've pulled together a description of several alternative models, and I'd like some input.

People are getting pissed at SixApart for their stupid modifications to LiveJournal, apparently in the name of cracking down on child porn. (They're doing it wrong.) The problem is that people want to move away from LJ to a decentralized system (such as the way email and web hosting works), but blogging software does not yet generally support locked posts. (Locked posts are blog entries that only selected friends have permission to read.) I'm thinking that OpenID could help with this situation.

Sorry for the disjointed, skimpy post: I just want to get these ideas out there for discussion.

The five-second rule surely owes its existence to the popularization of germ theory. People who abide by the rule must believe (at some level) that pathogenic microbes are tiny little beasties crawling about on the ground, with nothing better to do than to clamber onto dropped potato chips.

In Chemistry class today we talked about forms of energy. I've always been a little irked by the notion that there are two main forms of energy, kinetic and potential, but it's never been annoying enough to grab my focus. Today, however, I formed a definition of kinetic energy that puts it squarely within the realm of potential energy.