Vlad is right. Vlad the Deployer is a new take on a new take (Capistrano) to an age old, in Internet years, problem: deploying Web apps. I didn’t try it, so I can’t tell if it works any better, but I’m going to give the Vlad team two thumbs up for two killer feature

• Clever is bad. Period.
• Ships with tests that actually pass.

The simplest thing that could possibly work. Bill de hÓra:

“I’m wondering how would one produce a URL space for a blog style archive, using Servlets+JSP, and do so in a way that isn’t a CGI/RPC explicit call?”

Bill follows with suggestions from his readers, most of which, if I understand won’t work. Either way, let’s not discount the simplest thing that could possibly work. A solution you can implement quite quickly, without digging deep into all the relevant specifications and handler APIs, one that just about any JSP page pusher can come up with. It’s not elegant but it solves the problem. As illustrated by Daily WTF.

GeekID. Jan Miksovsky reviews the OpenID experience:

The process of selecting an OpenID provider will stump the average consumer. They’re being asked to pick an ID that they will, in theory, use everywhere and forevermore to gain access to everything they own. They’re supposed to obtain this ID by making an effectively random selection from a group of providers they have never heard of.

Scathing words, but oh so right.

Global networks. Apparently there’s work going on to solve the technological challenges arising from the need to social network interoperability. I’m with Dare Obasanjo on this one. I’m still oblivious to the need:

From my perspective, I’m skeptical of a lot of the talk about social network portability because the conversation rarely seems to be user centric. Usually it’s creators of competing services who are angry about “lock-in” because they can’t get a new user’s contacts from another service and spam them to gain “viral growth” for their service. As for the various claims of social network overload only the power users and geeks who join a new social network service a month (WTF is Dopplr?) have this problem.

Understatement of the year. Verizon customer fakes his own death to get out of the contract! Being a Verizon customer for three years, and I can’t imagine life before EV-DO, I’m left wondering: how does one get a death certificate?

Turns out that:

Such desperate attempts are “compelling evidence that the wireless carriers have failed to address the desires of the market”.

You don’t say.

_{If you get tired of Lolcats, here are some more signs to check out.}