Well, with the privacy stuff live, I suppose I should do some "real" work on the site. Given the loud cry for improvements in the forums, it looks like that'll be where I spend the next couple of weeks.

ugh. Adding/fixing features is never as much fun as "new" development. especially for code that hasn't been looked at in about a year, which is where the forums stuff is now. On the plus side, as I stated when they went live, they're fairly closely based on where slashcode was at the time, and with the changes jon wants this will be a fairly drastic departure from that start.

The online privacy class I wrote about yesterday was only half a semester. The second half was another class that was fun for a geek posing as an MBA, "Computer & Network Security". This half was taught (also primarily) by Patrick McDaniel, who I'm also (tentatively) working on some projects with. For whatever reasons, he seems to be of the opinion that I should skip that whole "employment" thing, and return to grad school...presumedly to pursue a PhD in CS...I'm of the opinion that I should earn some money.

Brad DeLong has a good post up today on "Tough Love for Ph.D.s". It pretty much explains why I look competent in a tech class for MBAs, but why I'm not convinced that more grad school is the best next step.

One of the classes I took last semester, which was fun for a geek doing an MBA, was "Online Privacy". It was taught (primarily) by Lorrie Cranor, of AT&T and chair of the W3C's P3P working group.

Anyway, for a final project for the class, I implemented a web based translator of P3P into English. She expressed an interest in using it for testing "recommended language" for what the various P3P tags do, but asked if I would rewrite it so that it could more easily have additional languages plug into it.

I have a test bit that I write up and sent to her, and being the geek that I am, I though it would be a shame if I didn't also put a version of this on Goats for useless purposes. I'm working on that now, so if you're interested, watch here to see when I'm done.

Update: well...it's live, but I think i'll wait to announce it to the actual Goats readers until I put together our own P3P policy.

Precommencement is over.

I'm officially done.

time for dinner & drinks.

ok...so it's not as fancy as finishing a thesis or anything, but I just finished my last paper for my MBA. 3 hours of class tonight, and then I officially have all my stuff done, and can actually enjoy myself tomorrow.

odds are, I'll just program or something, though.

Now, this is somewhat hypocritical, because obviously I never update either, but I think it's funny that the last post on John Robb's weblog was the same time as mine, May 5 and consists of:

Time to move to a one hour interface on weblogs.com.

My initial thought is that he's attempting to solve the problem personally.

A new news item up for a change. On the benefits of Thujone.

T-9

T - 10 days.

Read this:

Three years ago, before the bloodless coup d'etat that made George W. Bush president, America was a far-from-perfect nation. Yet there was the possibility, almost gone now, that our country might evolve into a place that lived up to its loftiest democratic rhetoric. Today, I live in an America that makes my stomach hurt and fills me with terror. A nation run by greedy, frightened, violent bullies. It is time to take our country back before it is too late.

is a good bit, but the whole thing just summarizes, really well, a lot that needs to be said.