A little while ago I posted about an idea to create a good online database of places that offer WiFi. My motivation for this is that, as I have no real office, it's often nice to work from a cafe or something like that. This is especially true during the summer as those places usually also have air-conditioning that I can take advantage of as well. Additionally, while there are any number of sites that claim to fulfill that purpose, none of them do a good job at it. I've been unhappy with every such site I've tried for pretty much as long as WiFi has existed. So now I'm going to do something about it.

This project is also a good opportunity for me to learn some more web development skills. Up till now the web development that I've done has been almost entirely in PHP. It's also been coded 100% by hand. I like doing things that way because it means that I know exactly how everything is working under the hood, and have no qualms whatsoever about going in and changing things. Now, however, I'd like to expand a little beyond that. I'm comfortable enough with the way web programming works that I no longer feel the need to be completely in control of everything; it's time for some shortcuts. Fortunately, frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and Django exist to provide exactly those sorts of shortcuts. Being, as I am, a huge fan of Python I've decided, with a little input from Jesse Legg that I'm going to create my WiFi database site with Django (I've got another project planned for the near future that I plan on using as an opportunity to learn Ruby on Rails as well).

I've just finished installing Django on my web server, so development for the WiFi project will be beginning shortly. The way I see it, the key to creating a successful site as opposed to the ones that have existed previously, is to make sure that all the relevant information that people might want (information such as available bandwidth, number of outlets available to customers, whether or not you need to purchase a coffee to get a code before you can use the internet, &c;) is available, make sure it's presented in an easy to use way, and, most importantly, make sure that the list is complete enough and the site good enough that users actually want to contribute. This will never work if I just try and make a list of cafes with WiFi that I maintain myself; it absolutely needs to allow for contribution by users. People need to not only be able to find out that the Boloco in Davis Square has free WiFi, they also need to be able to add the Grand Prix Cafe to the list as well if it's not already there. They need to be able to let other visitors to the site know if they've had problems connecting to the network with Vista or OS X or Linux, or if the staff at that particular cafe tends to be rude with people who spend 'too much' time using the WiFi. There's a whole lot of information out there that someone looking for a place to get WiFi could use, and the only way to make sure that all that information is available is with some sort of community participation.

Basically, this is probably going to turn out to be a pretty large project. It will be interesting to see if and how it grows. It will also be interesting to see how much data needs to already be on the site before it hits that critical mass point and becomes useful enough for people to want to add more data on their own. It should be fun.

Prior to now, I've never really been a fan of Facebook. I had an account because it was useful to have, but I never logged in except when I got an email saying that someone was requesting an interaction of some sort. Recently I've actually been spending a fair amount of time on Facebook because the whole application thing intrigues me and I want to see how people are using it and what it's capable of. Yesterday, a friend of mine pointed out an application to me that has finally justified the existence of Facebook.

For the past few months I've made extensive use of Scrabulous, a site that lets you play Scrabble online for free. One of their better features is 'Email Scrabble' which lets you play Scrabble with anyone else over email. It works very well, and is convenient for someone who, like me, doesn't usually get big chunks of free time all at once, but often has a minute or two here and there. Now, however, they have a Facebook app. The way you play is pretty much exactly the same, except that now the board is inside a Facebook window. However the integration with Facebook has lead to some very cool new features. For example, when you invite someone to a game you don't need their email address any more you just start typing their name in and it auto-completes it based on your Facebook friends; up to four people per game (only two for a regular email game). It also keeps track of your statistics and puts them on your Facebook profile. And I now have a link on my profile so that anyone can challenge me to a game of Scrabble. And if you like Scrabble, I welcome the challenge.

According to The Somerville News, Somerville is being considered as a site for a new soccer stadium. This stadium would become home turf for the New England Revolution. At the moment, I have mixed feelings about this.

There would certainly be advantages to having a sport stadium in Somerville. For one, having it would bring a lot of attention and money to the city. Just the fact that we're being considered for the stadium I'm sure will help raise people's awareness of Somerville which, in turn, will probably bring some increased investment in the city. Not to mention the tax revenues on everything that's sold at a stadium, parking, and incidentals bought by fans while they're here. And certainly Somerville has a large soccer fan base. There's even a grocery store called 'Gol!!!' on Somerville Ave., not too far from our condo. Obviously a sports stadium can be a big money maker for the city.

But there are also negatives to this. First and foremost, we're basically in Boston here, and Boston sports fans are ...an interesting bunch. I don't know how much overlap there is between Revolution fans and Sox fans, but just ask anyone who lives in Kenmore Sq. how they like their neighborhood on game nights. I sure wouldn't want to see the same thing happen to whatever neighborhood in Somerville gets the stadium when the Revolution has a home game (and I'm sure the people who live there have even stronger feelings about it). There's also the question of where the funding is going to come from. A whole lot of professional sports stadiums are subsidized by the cities they're in, and I really don't have any desire to pay more taxes just so that we can have a soccer stadium. Then there's the issue of space. Somerville isn't that large of a city, and unless they're going to pave over some park land, building this thing will require demolishing some existing houses and/or businesses. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but what if the people in the proposed spot don't want to leave? Will the stadium simply go away, or will eminent domain be exercised to force them out? And what about traffic? I don't think there's a single city in Massachusetts with well designed roads. Can we handle the influx of traffic that a stadium will bring? Or is Somerville going to have to basically shut down the roads to everyone but fans on game nights like certain areas of Boston?

So, like I said, I have mixed feelings on this. My general inclination is that that bad would outweigh the good, but I don't really know enough about the issues to make any sort of real determination. Seems like it would be a good topic for a municipal referendum, if such a thing is possible.

Jessi and I are currently the proud owners of two cars. One, a 1983 Mercedes Benz 300sd, which you probably already know about. The other, an '06 Mazda 3 Grand Touring Hatchback with just over 14,000 miles and an extended warranty good until 100,000 miles. Although we did have to finance the Mazda, we got an absolutely fantastic deal on it (about $5,000 under Blue Book).

The Mercedes is currently having a new engine put in. It simply wasn't selling as a two ton paperweight, and we were able to find someone who could get us a new engine for much less than the previous quotes we had been given and have it installed by the end of this week, so we decided to go for it so that we have a chance of actually selling it and recouping our losses. The good news is that the new engine has only 100,000 miles on it. The old one was just shy of 300,000 when it gave out, and these engines regularly exceed 500,000 so I'm confident that the Mercedes is in about as good condition as a car of this vintage could possibly be.

Sadly, it's just not realistic to keep it along with the Mazda, and we definitely want to keep the Mazda rather than the Mercedes, so the Benz is still for sale. If anyone is interested please let me know. All the same stuff is true about it now as before: body is in great condition with some minor rust on the rear, driver side fender (and I have a replacement fender that will go with the car), minor electrical issues (radio, sunroof, passenger power seat), and a ton of spare parts including an extra set of wheels with some very nice snow tires and two extra rear differentials (one for a gasoline model that will get you better mileage if you use it on a diesel).

The Mazda even comes with an amusing name. I'm not really one of those people who's into naming my car (I mean really, it's just a car...). This time, however, the car definitely has a name. When we were getting into it to drive away from the lot we discovered what appears to be the only remnant left of the previous owner (well, probably lessor considering the low mileage and recent model year): an SAT vocab flash card. The word on the card? 'Recalcitrant'. Considering the huge amounts of trouble, stress, and anxiety we've gone through with this whole car ordeal leading to us buying the Mazda in the first place (and, really, continuing until the Benz sells) we decided that it's the perfect name for the car. So our nice 'new' Mazda 3 shall now be known as The Recalcitrant ('recalcitrant' just sounds like a ship name to me, so it was either that or U.S.S. Recalcitrant... or, I suppose, HMS Recalcitrant).

I just received a phone call from an 866 number. It's not the first time this week that I've gotten a call from that number, but the other times, for some reason, whenever I answered, the person on the other side hung up. This time they didn't. It was a woman telling me that I'd been entered into some sweepstakes to win $25,000, a BMW, or some other prizes.

I've gotten calls like this before, but I was a little bored so I just played along. I answered a few basic questions (no personal information), and then they came to it: they wanted to give me a free diamond watch, and free magazine subscriptions for 60 months (5 years?!?). And in exchange all I had to do was sign up TV Guide at $3.99/week.

I have no real desire to get TV Guide—it wouldn't do me a whole lot of good seeing as we don't own a TV—and I wasn't particularly interested in the other magazines either since I can get all the content they offer online. So I told the women that I wasn't interested because I don't really read magazines. Her response to that? 'Well, I understand. Some of us aren't as avid readers as others.'

What?!? Seriously?!? Did the telemarketer just accuse me of being illiterate? I hadn't realized that reading magazines was a sign of being cultured. Obviously I should replace my bookshelves crammed full of actual books with magazine subscriptions!

Amazingly enough, she said that I was still entered in the sweepstakes. Usually they disqualify you when you refuse to subscribe to their magazines in exchange for a diamond watch (yes, it's always magazines and watches). I'll happily take their money or their nice car, but whatever little chance there ever was that they'd get a single penny from me is now gone. They're certainly not going to get the $200+ they want for a fairly pointless magazine that I have no interest or use for.