In January, I wrote about framework classes I was working on, and how I wanted to simplify the Inner Drive Extensible Architecture™. I followed up in February with a conundrum concerning how to model the problem. It turned out to be tricky, and time-consuming, and considering I wrote most of it at The Peddler's Daughter in Nashua, N.H., there was a lot of Smithwick's Ale[1] involved.

But today, at last, I've got a new demo.

The demo page has a lengthy explanation of how the new version works, and includes a bunch of source code showing how simple the stuff is to use and to extend. I still have a little polishing to do, but I'll probably be putting the full SDK documentation for the IDEA™ up on the Inner Drive website later this month.

I think this is some of the coolest stuff I've ever written.

[1] I would have linked to the official Diageo site, but it's so annoyingly badly written—it whisks you away to a page requiring your birthdate and it tries to cookie you—that on principle I won't have that as the primary link to this product.

One final quick hit for the morning: I completely forgot that yesterday was the 25th (25rd?) anniversary of President Reagan's attempted assassination. It's hard to grasp that it was that long ago.

I got a mailing from my undergrad alumni association exhorting me to go to the "23th Annual Dutch Festival." I last went to the 9rd one, or maybe the 10st, so I may just have to visit.

One of my fans sent me this Passover-themed link. Share and enjoy.

I'm back in Chicago for the weekend, where today it's 20°C (68°F) and sunny. To some readers in other parts of the world (see, for example, this list) that may not sound like anything interesting, but for me it means I seem to have a number of errands to run in the neighborhood...

The next North American total solar eclipse will be in 2017. Today it's Africa's turn.

Well, this is interesting. MSNBC is reporting this hour that White House Chief of Staff Andy Card has resigned, to be repleced by Budget Director Josh Bolten.

There's a privacy bug in Mozilla that has ended at least one relationship.

By Joyce Appleby and Gary Hart.

Joyce Appleby is professor emerita of history at UCLA and co-director of the History News Service. Gary Hart is a former U.S. senator and Wirth Chair in the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado, Denver.

From today's Washington Post:

Sewage Tested for Signs of Cocaine

Fairfax Participating In Federal Program To Assess Drug Use

Earlier this month, [Fairfax County, Va.,] agreed to participate in a White House pilot program to analyze wastewater from communities throughout the Potomac River Basin for the urinary byproducts of cocaine.

No, uh, kidding.

Back in the day, when computer pointing devices had little spheres that rolled around table tops to move the on-screen pointer, I used to joke about "dirty mouse balls" requiring a thorough and intimate cleaning of the afflicted device.

Apparently mouse balls are much more important than I thought. Maybe I should re-think my switch to optical pointing devices...