Then, Jeremy Keith, our unofficial rabble-rouser, excoriates the cognoscenti about a certain “lack of imagination.” Chris Wilson, finally at liberty to blog and tweet about his responsibilities as web platform guy for Google, responds conversationally.

Browser wars always delivers. Thank you, Brendan (“Dart? Good luck with that!”), Charles (who conducted a much-needed straw poll: “Who knows what vendor prefixing is?” to which many hands went up, underscoring the fact that SxSW is really our favorite audience), Chris (“Do you ship VBScript?”), and John (“Chromeless — my favorite word.”).

The panel always coincides with my birthday. I won’t get mawkish, but I will say that there’s something interesting about growing up with web browsers professionally. When I was with Netscape, I talked a relentless amount of smack about IE and railed against closed-source stacks. That kind of talk is antiquated now, really. Flash fallback (for video) notwithstanding, there are open sourced stacks that confuse the web platform landscape. We talked about some of those during the panel, chiefly Dart (though SPDY and VP8 got some mention, along with Native Client). At some point, I found myself moderating a panel where browser vendors agree about the importance of DRM, and its inevitability on the web platform, at least as far as video goes. Times have changed. Have we all grown up? There used to be visceral auto-immune responses in some circles to any kind of mention of DRM whatsoever.

This time, SxSW was bigger than ever. Long lines. LOTS of long lines. And after-after-after parties for people that scorn sleep. Of course, I allowed myself some minor peccadilloes this year at SxSW. Like how I found myself on Snoop Dogg’s tour bus at 4a.m. one night, somewhere on the way to San Antonio. But that’s another kind of story. You’ll have to ask me about it in person.

Update: You can follow the H.264 conversation on the hacks blog also if only to be exposed to a different comment stream.

I can’t seem to stay away. This is a vibrant space, and the very smart people I will moderate during Saturday’s discussion are the forerunners of it: Brendan Eich, who invented JavaScript, and is Mozilla’s CTO; Chris Wilson, who worked on every version of IE till IE8 and now works on Chrome for Google (we’re thrilled to have him back, following a brief moratorium); Charles McCathie Nevile, Opera’s Chief Standards Officer, back again this year; and John Hrvatin, IE’s Program Manager and a veteran from last year.

The technologies that we steward here have profound implications for society, and an hour is tight. Recently, Microsoft protested about how Google circumvents privacy in IE and Safari (showing, amongst other things, that two players, Google and Microsoft, are at loggerheads frequently).

Then, there are interesting questions about content itself. Should web video have DRM, or is that the real anachronism? Content protection measures in HTML5 Video proposed by Google, Microsoft, and Netflix have been dubbed unethical; parties within one company clearly don’t agree about how to take it forward, but that’s really how the web works (and big organizations like Google).

And then there’s those Angry Birds. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web, called for installable web apps to become more widespread, something which Ian Hickson (editor of the HTML5 specification) dubs “anathema.” What prevents Angry Birds from being an HTML5 app on mobile, and what exactly are the application stacks the web is in competition with? Some of our panelists and their organizations have been moved to call us to arms.

Throw in the vendor prefixing controversy (now as seen in the popular press!), SPDY, VP8 and other “non-standard” well-meaning projects, along with the Metro environment’s use of HTML5, and I think we’ve got ourselves enough wheat and chaff for a panel. As usual, audience participation counts for at least one-third of the panel, so come with questions. I look forward to seeing you all there, and to a Saturday night out in Austin after the panel. That’s an institution with longevity, too.

Even if you feel the kind of fleeting compassion that trains foster between passengers, the truth is, you are probably glad to get out of there when your stop comes around. Rotting flesh smells really bad — menacing and putrid and full of despair — and you want to run from it. What can you do against that, really, other than flee?

Recently, I read one of C.S. Lewis’ counterblasts to agnosticism, “The Screwtape Letters.” This is admittedly weird reading material and is not very zeitgeist at all, given Christopher Hitchens’ untimely demise (author of “Why God is Not Great”). That, and the fact that Lewis’ book is a bit of Christian propaganda. But rest assured, I read it for the literature value only, and maybe to see how Lewis would have approached the matter of the smell. Charity, devilish Uncle Screwtape would have us (not) believe, is a daily attitude shift that starts at home. Then, the Dalai Lama’s “The Power of Compassion” is a series of lectures on the subject of compassion that an old friend once sent my way. I certainly didn’t set out to write a book review, and find each book I’ve mentioned pleasing in its own way; I’m also not about to launch into a propaganda piece about compassion in general, and how we could use more of it. If anything, I have ambivalent views. I once set aside a Buddhist tract on the subject with frustration because it counseled us to “love our children a little less” and “love our spouses less” all in order to achieve a more transcendent kind of compassion: the kind accompanied by true detachment. That may be fine in the Himalayas, but it doesn’t resonate in NYC, where the intensity of every day experience is amped so high. Detachment itself seems like a goal that’s hard to achieve. Anyway, love seems to be the good stuff in the universe, so why not love your child or your spouse as much as you can, helplessly and without restraint and to distraction? And there’s still the conundrum of the smell on the train; reading doesn’t help with that, unless your book is so engrossing that you forget the stench between stops.

Last year ended on a high note for me. In December, Samosapedia was asked to speak at a conference in Jaipur called INK. My business partner Vikram gave a well-received talk, and attending the conference brought us inspiration and opportunity. Like TED, the INK Conference is the kind of venue that eludes categorization; you bump into exceptional people from different fields — scientists, dancers, artists, actors, humanitarians, entrepreneurs, musicians, technologists, doctors, and historians, amongst others — and then, after a day of talks, you go out on the town and experience synergy. At INK, I saw someone speak that gave me a radically new perspective on compassion. Just knowing someone like that even exists is inspiring.

I saw Prakash Amte being interviewed about his life. Prakash is a man who has dedicated his entire life to providing medical care for tribes in a poverty stricken part of India, in a way that verges on mythical. He set up shop as a doctor in an area so forgotten by time that human sacrifice was still practiced there by a malnourished populace, seeking cures from witch doctors. Amte and his wife slowly introduced modern medicine to the area, often uncovering extraordinary human courage coupled with devastating tragedy. There’s the story of a man attacked by a bear in the forest, who was carried through the forest for 48 hours till he reached the make-shift hospital. The man’s face was horribly mauled; his scalp hung off his skull like a loose bandana, and he had lost both his eyes. Amte cleaned up the wound, and stitched him up without anesthesia, giving the man over a hundred stitches in front of his family. The man didn’t even flinch or cry out once as his scalp was stitched back on, showing extraordinary tolerance to pain. He was sent back blind, but alive. And the story may well have ended there, with Amte as a local hero. But when Amte asked after the man’s fate some time later, he found he had died slowly of starvation. His blindness prevented him from feeding himself properly.

You can watch the talk to learn of how he performed a cataract surgery straight out of the manual for the first time, and how he helped someone recover their eyesight, or about what it is like to raise leopards, tigers, and lions, and watch your children play with poisonous snakes. He was asked by the interviewer why he feels no fear around wild animals; he answered with a word, predictable and saccharine, yet so affirming: “love.” I thought of sadhus in ashrams, mystical men surrounded by a coterie of big cats, radiating peace. I found it inspiring, and deeply moving. I glanced around the room, and saw a few damp eyes. This wasn’t just the love you give your children, or the love you give your spouse. It was something bigger than that, something that encompassed other beings, whether they were humans or animals or the environment you live in. Do a search for Prakash Amte on the web. One of the images that comes up is of him with his hand in a leopard’s mouth.

Towards the end of the talk, he was asked what he might demand of the audience. Here, you could imagine a solicitation for donations, but instead, all he asked was for us to visit places that give you perspective, like the remote forest village where he works. To go to places where people live so differently than you do, that you gain a bigger understanding of the world you live in, just by having having that experience.

Which I suppose brings me back to the F train. I had to come back there somehow, didn’t I? A city like New York is like Mumbai or Sao Paulo, maddening with contradictions. In the same city as last night’s venture capital event, someone with a gangrenous wound, huddled by themselves, isolated beyond recognition, is sharing my ride. Now I suppose I’ll gesticulate adamantly into the ether, saying we have to have a health care system that doesn’t let this happen. I didn’t promise to solve the problem; I’m just calling it out. But I know that by leaving the house, on my way to a place I’m supposed to get to, I’ve ventured to a place that gives me perspective. The year’s still young; taking the NYC subway might not be what Amte means, but it’s all I’ve got for you now, really. Every day gives you a chance to be “conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.” DFW said that to a graduating class; I’m going to crib my New Year’s greeting to you from him, too: I wish you so much more than luck.

I spend a substantial amount of time either thinking about or working on Samosapedia, which is not surprising for any co-founder. Software alone is not really what keeps me busy. The very smart Braxton, who joined us because he loves the concept, stewards the code (Ruby on Rails straddling Heroku) really well, and puts up with our proclivity to IST with humor, which cemented our bond. The big questions to me include the editorial oversight needed to build the world’s largest cultural dictionary.

Let’s first touch very briefly on the imperfection of calling it The Definitive Guide to South Asian Lingo, since in choosing to call it that, we reveal something about ourselves as editors. One of the most priceless reactions we got to the term “South Asian” was “Aren’t South Asians Filipinos?” It turns out the term “South Asian” causes a small modicum of irritation and confusion. Other observations were that we shouldn’t use the term South Asian at all, but instead say “desi” or “Indian.” On this one, we’re sticking to our guns. There are enough commonalities linguistically and culturally, and enough radical differences, for us to be geographically inclusive on the site. The term “South Asia” may come from a taxonomy generated outside South Asia itself, but we can’t find a better, more inclusive term that matches our aspiration for a giant cultural dictionary. We’re ceasing to worry about labels. The existing one has been well received so far — thanks to our users, we have over 6000 entries now, and we’re going to keep on growing.

What becomes interesting is that sometimes, definitions aren’t merely objective. We don’t really want them to be objective, which is why we allow for multiple entries for a given term. Take for example entries like the one for the Jan Lokpal Bill, which as of this writing, still features prominently in popular press in India. One user’s idealism may test another user’s opinion on the whole approach taken by the bill, with the result being controversy. We welcome it — the lingo we’re collectively cataloging is multifarious, and controversy is the by product of engaged users. By that same token, one user’s humor may offend another. Here, we’ll traipse as lightly as possible, because we want to allow maximum self-expression, liberating language and encouraging our users to be creative and playful. Soon enough, we’ll also want to have users help with moderating words. It’s not just a dictionary we’re building here, but a community, responsible for its own editorial oversight, without the founders being gatekeepers.

Samosapedia has rapidly become a small anthology of South Asian writing, and makes people laugh, bringing delight and nostalgia (nostalgindia?). I am really excited about it, and about all the things we’re going to do with it in the future.

HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript Demos

• The Web O’ Wonder Website works in browsers that support the latest web standards.
• The Beauty of the Web site showcases a bunch of different things with a bit of an IE9 slant.
• HTML5 Rocks showcases a lot of great demos, which work best in Firefox 4 and the latest Chrome (but the site uses feature detection, so much of it will work in IE9 and Safari.).
• FourSquare Playground has a strong IE9 bias, but showcases HTML5.
• IE Test Drive. Need I say more about bias? Showcases HTML5, with the promise of some demos that may work cross-browser.
• Here’s a presentation I gave, which may actually have a Firefox bias, given that I showcased technologies that were “Moz” prefixed (e.g. MozOrientation). Still, shows off some great demos in a variety of arena (Geolocation, etc.).

WebGL Demos

To get maximum mileage out of these, you’ll want a fast PC with the latest Chrome or Firefox.

• The CopperLicht Stuff from Ambiera blows my mind every time.
• Flight of the Navigator is a really compelling mix of different elements.
• Remixing Reality is really compelling demo of the use of models.
• The WebGL Demo Repository at Khronos contains demos that are classic GL ones (that 3D programmers are all well familiar with).

Resources

• Can I Use provides incredibly useful feature matrices to determine which browser supports what in the HTML5 and CSS arena.
• Quirksmode is the go-to place for compatibility tables.

• Hacks is Mozilla’s showcase for articles, demos, and API updates.
• HTML5 Rocks features great stuff about HTML5, and includes code snippets and documentation for developers.
• HTML5 Now is Tantek Celik’s book on the subject.
• HTML5 for Web Designers is Jeremy Keith’s book on the subject.
• Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp’s HTML5 Lands
• Learning WebGL and the WebGL Cookbook are great sites to learn WebGL

Let us also say you’re vague on the answers, mumbling something about a startup, about Sanford Meisner, about films, and about some writing that you intend to do. You like what Woody Allen said about how much of life and success is just showing up, so you show up a lot: you’re seen loitering at TEDx events; you attend meetings at generalassemb.ly; you fidget in the background at writer’s meet-ups in Brooklyn; at the New York Public Library, you find the quietest reading room possible and skulk there with your laptop; you hang out with web developers at a hackspace, doing something; once, you’re even seen on stage in an off-off Broadway scene. The vagueness doesn’t bode well, since it doesn’t douse the curiosity about your structured sabbatical, and certainly doesn’t help answer the hardest questions of them all: are you happy and do you like NYC? To complete this picture, let us also say that on Big Love Day in mid February, you aren’t certain that you even want to go out, really. You don’t like Valentine’s Day, owing to circumstances beyond your control.

But you do go out, in the end. Your buddies Dave and Dhruva — the guys behind Sub Swara — tell you it’ll be a cool house party, and something about staying in by your lonesome smacks of concession to the winter (you resolved earlier on that you wouldn’t bail on things because of the cold). Before long, you’re in the Village, and you find yourself in one of the nicest apartments you’ve ever seen. You look around and have some questions. Like, why is everyone at this party so tall? And who is the host? And who are these people? The food’s really good, though, and soon you’re in line waiting for a shot at the punch bowl. A really intense young woman plays piano and sings her ass off about heartbreak. She’s a friend of the host’s, and you’re impressed with her song. The host has musical friends, and an incredible record collection.

“GORDON is going to sing soon! Right after Joan!” someone tells you.

Oh, you say. You politely nod. She seems a bit nonplussed by your attitude, and walks over to someone else.

“Do you even KNOW who Gordon is?” she says to no one in particular.

So you feel embarrassed. You want to ask her how you can possibly know who Gordon is, since you’re new around here? Or who Joan is. You just walked in, and you only know the two people you walked in with. You want to point out that her irritation is unreasonable, and express that you wish she wasn’t so snooty, but then, you’re afraid you’ll seem unreasonable, and you’re not actually unreasonable. You lose yourself to the punch bowl for a while, and make small talk with people.

You soon discover that you’re surrounded by musicians, and by music. And then, when Joan finally does sing a lovely song with a piano accompaniment, you realize that Joan is Joan Osborne (who is demonstrably one of us — unlike God — but with more ethereal beauty). The Gordon mentioned haughtily earlier is actually Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes.

You find yourself enjoying yourself at this party now. You marvel at the fact that you could have stayed in, but you chose to go out. When Gordon actually sings, you know you’d recognize that voice anywhere, really, given enough context. He’s really short, and he’s losing hair (but so are you) and you flash back to long discussions about his unique voice in college. You remember listening to Blister in the Sun and Kiss Off and Gone Daddy Gone and you remember a beer-sodden conversation once about how much Gordon was in all your favorite music at the time: Gordon Gano from the Violent Femmes, Gordon Downie from The Tragically Hip, and then the album Gordon by the Barenaked Ladies. Dave is playing drums at the party while Gordon is singing, and it is all improvisational, and you suddenly feel awed by circumstances beyond your control.

It dawns on you then that this year, with her fluoridated water and her ad hoc punch bowl and her frigid winds and impatient snootiness, New York City is your Valentine, and you resolve to court her for some more time yet, as best as you know how.

Of course, soon after I left, the Giants are making a World Series run, making me long to be near Willie Mays plaza. I love San Francisco, with its micro-climates, improbable topography, and draconian parking inspectors. I spent one third of my adult life here. I worked with inspiring people to advance the reach and capability of a massively hyper-connected world; I played enthusiastically (if not adeptly) in the magnificent outdoors; I got up to all the usual urban shenanigans in my twenties, even getting my heart broken and wizened; and — at the great risk of courting the obvious metaphor — I emerged from the fog of a prolonged adolescence into what I hope will pass for maturity. I’ll miss the City by the Bay. There’s no place like it in all the world.

Within reason, I relish change, and seek it out whenever I feel I’m getting lulled into complacency. I’ve wanted to explore non-technical projects for a long time now, and the best way to do that was to leave the epicenter of technology for a while. My childhood brought with it much travel; I was raised in India, Hong Kong, Ethiopia, Russia, China, and France, with some time in Canada. I often dodge direct questions about where I grew up, preferring the quick version of the story, but I am sticking to the facts when I tell people that San Francisco is the longest I’ve ever lived in any one place. So why, then, New York?

I’ll spare you my romantic observations about cities. E.B. White (of Strunk and White and Charlotte’s Web fame) said it much better than I ever can back in 1948 (but you should read him in 2010, since his words have aged so well). A small snippet:

“There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last — the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.”

For the next conceivable while, then, I’ll be a settler. I’ll bring to New York my “what if” questions, and see what happens when I pursue the answers with passion.

The transition does mean I’ll miss the people I worked with over the years, particularly at Mozilla, a project I grew up with almost right out of college. Few things compare to the thrill of contributing to something that you really believe in. Mozilla paved the way for what is now the triumph of open-source on the web over a closed-source monopoly. Not working on it full-time means that I’ll no longer be associated with some things, like being the Chair of the WebGL WG or being front and center for developer relations. But it also means I can take on some manageable tasks and make sure they get chaperoned through to completion.

I’m in what seems to be a a bigger pond now — a chaotic, crowded one with four seasons and a subway and even more draconian parking inspectors. The Fall is lovely here, and I am optimistic.

Tantek and I first met as competitors in 2002 at an event called Meet the Makers (organized by Jason Calacanis and Brian Alvey), where he was the IE guy and I was the Netscape guy. Along with Doug Bowman (who had just redesigned the Wired news site with pure CSS), we were on a panel at that event discussing web standards with a bunch of web developers. And while at that time we each worked for organizations whose fierce competition characterized the early evolution of the web (*sigh with Netscape moving from underdog to extinction), I was struck by how motivated Tantek was to get standards right.

It is remarkable what the passage of time can do. Not only are we furthering common goals for the betterment of the web, as we have in the past, but now we’re both working in various capacities for Mozilla. Tantek will help us out with the CSS3 Flex Box Model, figuring out what the right thing to do with respect to stylable HTML5 form controls are, and help us with fundamental questions of identity and the open social web in connection with the account manager initiative in Firefox.

Update 1: here’s a bit on C|Net about Mozilla working with Tantek.

Update 2: here’s a Belorussian translation of this blog post.