RSS, The Acronym . . . to Search

I originally wrote this entry on August 30, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.

Acronyms often have multiple uses, and I have been wanting to write something about the multitude of things for which "RSS" stands.

I first ran into "RSS" as "Received Signal Strength." It is still used in that sense. For example, in Anthony J. Weiss' "On the Accuracy of a Cellular Location System Based on RSS Measurements" published in Vehicular Technology, IEEE Transactions on , Volume: 52 , Issue: 6 , Nov. 2003.

Then there is "RSS" standing for "Radar Support System." For example, see B. O'Hern, et al.'s " The Radar Support System (RSS): a tool for siting radars and predicting their performance" published in Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, IEEE , Volume: 12 , Issue: 12 , Dec. 1997.

There's also "RSS" as in "Resource Sharing System." I won't bother with an IEEE citation. I think by now you trust it can be found.

Last but not least is "RSS" as in Really Simple Syndication, possibly the most favorite use of the acronym for those of us who spend a good deal of our lives on the web.

Acronymfinder gives IBM as the user of RSS as an acronym for "Retail Store Solutions." How Acronymfinder got that fact into its index remains a puzzle. Perhaps, they used the same investigative techniques that they employed to associate "Remote Surveillance System" with Tom Clancy. Frankly, I've read absolutely nothing from Clancy. But why was I not surprised to learn he gets a kick out of generating acronyms? Perhaps, they make his novels more "real," at least for some people who must matter. I do know some people who live through his novels, and can testify that they do love acroynms but my sample size is quite small.

I just wrote this weblog because I don't think everyone out there really uses RSS in the same way as the blogging community does. It's important to know about such differences and variations.

I'm sure there are a number of other things "RSS" stands for.

Now, here comes the catch--a question about search.

If I've heard RSS used in one of these senses and do a search on Google, how do I get what I want? Try it yourselves. For example, try to see if you can find any mention of RSS as received signal strength in a context associated with AT&T Wireless.

Devices Profile

I originally wrote this entry on August 26, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.

Quite a number of my friends working for mobile device vendors (or with Sun partners who are mobile device vendors) have approached and asked me what I thought about Microsoft's Devices Profile for Web Services.

My immedate reaction is that I'm not sure if the approach connects to a good idea.

Why invest such amount of effort at the Web Services protocol level when many high-market-share device vendors believe their devices will soon be able to handle the whole WS protocol stack? Second, I point people to JSR 172, where Java APIs such as JAX-RPC and JAX-P have been "profiled" for use within J2ME environment.

JibJab: Kids Love Comedy

I originally wrote this entry on August 25, 2004, and published it on blogs.sun.com.

Last year, when I ran into the works of Mark Fiore, The Village Voice web cartoonist, I immediately showed it to my 10-year-old daughter who loves comedy.

Now, she is becoming a web cartooning aficionado herself.

This summer, she was attending a language camp in Germany, where everyone seems to have learned or already known about JibJab.com. JibJab's This Land cartoon and parody has become a world-wide hit, and its owners will probably make a good deal bringing even more comedy to the web.

Ineffectiveness of automated translation on the Web

I originally wrote this entry on August 18, 2004 and published it on blogs.sun.com.

On the Lessig Blog, Tim Wu has written about the Balkanization of the Web, and in a later post, he writes about the ineffectiveness of automated translation to solve the problem. As I noted earlier, what is needed, practical, effective and possible is not automated translation but multi-lingualism and multi-cultural upbringing, or one that has a built-in tolerance for the other. This naturally occurs in some cultures. Others have a way of avoiding it with a great pull to conformity of ideas. For example, if one watches 10 hours of television a day in a particular language from a particular culture, it is highly likely that person will grow with a great degree of identification with his own culture and language as learned from the television environment, particularly when the programming is (mechanically) designed to be highly attractive. Whether a culture which is primarily propagated through television could be an authentic culture or not is a serious matter for consideration.

A London Blogging Directory

I originally wrote this entry on August 18, 2004 and published it on blogs.sun.com.

Writing weblogs has a tendency of drawing one to other blogging communities.

It's a form of participatory, or popular culture rather than a mass culture.

Personally, I'm still trying to understand the role of blogging directories (see here) such as the London Bloggers which organizes blogs on different dimensions, including their "originating" tube station sites.

Perhaps, someone can explain the significance of associating blogs with the tube stations on the London Bloggers.

Of course, there are other blogs that are devoted to life on the London Underground. Presumably, this would be best readable if it were easily accessible through mobile devices. Perhaps it is. I have not checked it.