Welcome to Orcmid's Lair, the playground for family connections, pastimes, and scholarly vocation -- the collected professional and recreational work of Dennis E. Hamilton

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Congratulations ODF, OSI Draft International Standard 26300
 
Weight Loss and the Cravings
 
Party on the 10 island! Aftermath
 
Party on the 10 island!
 
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Novels
 
Serious Camp Fu 2.0
 
Happy Birthday, Ted
 
We have a great future behind us
 
DRM as Destroyer of Markets
 
Must DRM Go Away?

Congratulations ODF, OSI Draft International Standard 26300

Bob Sutor: An ODF Thanks.  As of May 3, 2006, The OASIS Open Document Format (ODF) has achieved stage 40.60 in the meticulous ISO procedure for establishment of international standards under the ISO imprimatur.  This is heralded as a major milestone in the establishment of formal standards for open interchange of office documents.  ODF joins the historical development of Open Document Architecture (ODA), Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), Extensible Markup Language (XML), and other initiatives designed to foster interchange and interoperability with data and text in electronic form.

{tags: ODF Open Document Format OASIS OSI orcmid}

History shows us that achieving a standard specification is not the same as achieving a standard.  Nevertheless, this is an important way-point on the journey toward the open-documents world that is the promise for ODF and related initiatives.  There are many further milestones yet to arrive.  Further steps can now launch off of the foundation established with this strong level of international recognition.

For all of that, congratulations ODF.

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The current specification is registered as ISO/IEC Draft International Standard (DIS) 26300, Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0.   This stage is the result of the acceptance of the OASIS submission by ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 34 (Joint Technical Committee 1, Subcommittee 34: Document Description and Processing Languages), shepherded under WG1 (Working Group 1: Markup Languages).  This is one of ten specifications wending their way through WG1 and 22 through SC34, including work on topic maps, font information, and Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL). You can purchase and download the just-balloted 2005-10-19 document.  However, apart from some interesting cover materials on the fast-track Publicly Available Specification Procedure that applies to this submission, the content material is literally the May 1, 2005 OASIS specification which can be downloaded without purchase.  The OASIS submission to OSI is attached to the end, and the schemas are also included in the OSI package. 

There has been no technical work on the specification and, unless there have been comments that must be resolved, it seems that there could be no difference in substance whatsoever between the OASIS ODF 1.0 specification and its OSI-ratified form. So far this is not a technical-committee process, in contrast with the original OASIS work and the work of ECMA TC45 on Office Open XML Document Interchange.

posted by orcmid at 5/06/2006 03:24:34 PM

Weight Loss and the Cravings

Creating Passionate Users: The strangest, easiest way to lose weight.  Kathy Sierra posted a remarkable experience on changing her physical-weight “set point” using Seth Robert’s Shangri-La Diet: The No Hunger Eat Anything Weight-Loss Plan.  Based on Kathy’s account and on observations made on the Freakonomics blog, I have ordered the book.  To achieve the no-shipping level, I had Amazon toss in Freakonomics, a book I’ve not yet read.

{tags: diet exercise health food craving Freakonomics Shangri-La Diet Kathy Sierra orcmid}

In Winter 2004–2005 I successfully brought my weight range from a high of 168 to a comfortable-for-me 155.  Along with the exercise and diet regimen, I also brought my cholesterol levels to the best they’ve ever been in the 20+ years that they’ve  been monitored and medicated.  I relaxed out of that, and lately my weight is stuck around 160 and is not budging. 

I have become careless about exercise, so I’m putting daily exercise practices back in.  I am working with an e-mail “vitality buddy” and reporting my weight, exercise, and other actions I’m taking every day.  This seems to have stabilized the creeping weight-gain, and it is extremely valuable in having me perform in this area.  But I have pretty constant cravings and I respond by wolfing down snack foods.  There are baby carrots in the refrigerator, and I must put that in.  That’s not where I look when I want a quick snack fix.  I will make snacking on carrots, fruits and other vegetables an addition to what I account for with my vitality buddy and I’ll put that into practice right now.

Meanwhile, I am looking forward to the book.  I will also getting a cholesterol check-point in a month or two and it will be interesting to see if I have reclaimed any or all of my prior victory.  I know that exercise was a big factor, and it was the only way I’ve ever managed to raise my HDLs into the desired range.

My vitality buddy has been cutting back on caffeine, and I know Jeff Sandquist stopped drinking caffeine when he managed the weight reduction that inspired my previous victory.  I started doing the same, and I’ve managed to reduce my intake to 1–2 cups of lip-smacking French Roast drip every two days.  I learned something that I should have known.  Caffeine works for me in managing my regular occurrences of sinus inflammation.  So, in addition to becoming more lethargic than I was willing to continue, I found that caffeine was the best treatment when low-level allergy/sinus symptoms kick-in.   That’s my story.  I don’t think it is caffeine withdrawal. 

Unfortunately, while in Mountain View on May 1–3 I became great buddies with the barista at the IIW2006 workshop and now must go into recovery.  That’s working, although I find that I have begun to crave coffee too.  I also see, in reviewing my previous experience, that I no longer measure calories and that I lost my original coach’s attention after that success.  

At the bottom of all of this, I must embrace this effort as a journey and not as an end-point.  I will never not be managing my weight, exercise, and overall health and vitality.  Now it is time to click post and get on the rowing machine.

 

posted by orcmid at 5/06/2006 01:20:11 PM