About This Site

This web site celebrates the marriage of Dan and Mary Connolly and the family we're building.

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Mark 10:9

Peers in a Fractal Society

In the closing panel discussion at the first WWW Conference in Geneva in 1994, I said that one of my dreams for the Web was to automate the mundane tasks in life; I said I wanted to renew my driver's license over the Web. Just a few years later, this dream is nearly a reality:

The department of motor vehicles in a handful of states -- including Virginia, Loisiana, Utah, and Georgia -- offers online services for new or renewed driver's licenses, traffic school courses, and license plate renewal.

Americans' everyday use of the Net reflects a comfort that is bound to grow as more people pay bills and buy stocks online.

"The naysayers got it wrong about the Internet," analyst Vonder Haar says. "It's not about creating content for consumers to gorge on. It's about making their lives simpler."
Web sites to click when you want to save ; Despite the dot-com bust, Net still thrives Jon Swartz; USA TODAY; Nov 18, 2002; pg. E.02

The Kansas Division of Motor Vehicles is just one of many organizations that the Web can help me get along with. As TimBL writes in The Fractal nature of the Web, the Web helps people get along at many scales:

family and friends
church
- Grace Fellowship, where we go to church (monthly newsletter, weekly program, ...)
  (Jan 2003: started working on it)
school
- Blue Valley School District
  - school lunch fees
  - snow day notices... mixed reliability
- hmm... I wonder if the Valley Park PTA has a newsletter...
- former schools
  - Bishop Miege, where Dan went to high school
  - U.T. Austin days (alumni email forwarding service, Dean's scholars reunion, ...)
  - St. Ed's, where Mary went to school
sports
- Blue Valley Soccer club (schedule, rainouts, ...)
city, state, country
- Overland Park (pool schedule...)
- state representatives (Vratil; KS district 11)
- CivicDuty
- IRS, webturbotax
- FCC
  - Aug 8 2001: I got a letter from Sprint PCS saying they used to be required to file their rates with the FCC, but now they'd be required to put them on their web sites. Sprint Rates, Terms and Conditions. The letter is signed Dan Alcazar, Vice President, National Consumer Organization.

Technology, Services

This web site is hosted on people.w3.org, a personal outlet of some folks from work. See also

InternetRealEstate about choosing and setting up your own internet domain
WebMasterTraining, my emerging notes about making a good web site
DebianLinuxJustWorks regarding my software platform of choice
AboutThisWiki regarding the scribbly bit of this site.

For authorized personnel only:zope management interface

Dan