I just got spammed by Apple to take part in a Web Survey which although ironically amusing:
Our records indicate that you have purchased a PowerMac in 2001 . Do you still use this computer?
Which of the following best describes your current employment status? (Please select all that apply)
went on to ask lots of detailed questions about the Calendar software I use both at home and work.
It didn't give an opportunity to say what I did like about iCal (open file format, easy calendar publishing, easy to incorporate conference schedules) or what I dislike (UI is still really clunky and frequently messes up on my intentions), but asked lots of 'competitive analysis type questions.
Wednesday, 19 November 2003
Tuesday, 18 November 2003
Candidates should endorse a free internet
Dave Winer:
I previously blogged how 'pirate' Radio Caroline swung an election in the UK in 1970 and issued a call for copyright focused campaign weblogs.
Good to see Doc, Dan, Donna, Glenn, Cory and Jeff picking up on it this time round.
I would love to see their candidates make an impassioned plea to keep the Internet free of interference from the entertainment industry. I would welcome this for two reasons.
1. First, I'm part of a constituency, like many others, who are looking for a candidate to vote for who supports our primary issue. Nothing unusual about that, easy to understand.
2. But as important, it would signal that the candidate is not beholden to the media companies. I would happily give money to candidates for ads that warn that the media industry is trying to rob us of our future, and explains how important it is to protect the independence of the Internet. Use the media industry channels to undermine their efforts to the�control channels they don't own, yet.
1. First, I'm part of a constituency, like many others, who are looking for a candidate to vote for who supports our primary issue. Nothing unusual about that, easy to understand.
2. But as important, it would signal that the candidate is not beholden to the media companies. I would happily give money to candidates for ads that warn that the media industry is trying to rob us of our future, and explains how important it is to protect the independence of the Internet. Use the media industry channels to undermine their efforts to the�control channels they don't own, yet.
I previously blogged how 'pirate' Radio Caroline swung an election in the UK in 1970 and issued a call for copyright focused campaign weblogs.
Good to see Doc, Dan, Donna, Glenn, Cory and Jeff picking up on it this time round.
Liz: familiar stranger
Liz Lawley:
Virtual shared public spaces need to get fairly large for this to happen, but it is happening. As fewer people travel by public transport or congregate in public spaces, these can perhaps re-kindle a sense of others around.
The Familiar Stranger is a social phenomenon first addressed by the psychologist Stanley Milgram in his 1972 essay on the subject. Familiar Strangers are individuals that we regularly observe but do not interact with. By definition a Familiar Stranger (1) must be observed, (2) repeatedly, and (3) without any interaction. [...]
In presentations at conferences (and to students) lately, I've been talking about the importance of technologies like zero-conf networking, particularly as evidenced in OS X Rendezvous-enabled tools like iChat, iTunes, and SubEthaEdit (formerly Hydra). [...]
When I open iTunes these days, I often see shared music libraries from people I don't know;mostly students, some colleagues from other departments. The same people often show up in my Rendezvous iChat window. I don't know them, I don't interact with them, but I see them regularly, recognize their virtual presence.
In presentations at conferences (and to students) lately, I've been talking about the importance of technologies like zero-conf networking, particularly as evidenced in OS X Rendezvous-enabled tools like iChat, iTunes, and SubEthaEdit (formerly Hydra). [...]
When I open iTunes these days, I often see shared music libraries from people I don't know;mostly students, some colleagues from other departments. The same people often show up in my Rendezvous iChat window. I don't know them, I don't interact with them, but I see them regularly, recognize their virtual presence.
Virtual shared public spaces need to get fairly large for this to happen, but it is happening. As fewer people travel by public transport or congregate in public spaces, these can perhaps re-kindle a sense of others around.
Monday, 17 November 2003
Technorati dactyl
Reading through Making Light
Teresa asks for help
wishing she heard more from
Technorati
We're adding more servers
to help one find websites
serendipitously
linked back to thee
Blogospherically
adding nine thousand to
one point two million
every day
Improves your chances of
getting that egoboo.
New infrastructure will
keep you au fait.
Teresa asks for help
wishing she heard more from
Technorati
We're adding more servers
to help one find websites
serendipitously
linked back to thee
Blogospherically
adding nine thousand to
one point two million
every day
Improves your chances of
getting that egoboo.
New infrastructure will
keep you au fait.
Wednesday, 12 November 2003
Tuesday, 11 November 2003
Remembrance day
Patrick Nielsen Heyden: Things that don't change
Teresa Nielsen Heyden: Ghosts of the Great War
I remember in 1982, when at school in the UK, there was a vogue for wearing white 'peace poppies' that funded CND. On November the 11th, my history teacher, Mr. Evans, came in wearing a red poppy, and noticing some of the white ones, scrapped his lesson plan and told us about the Somme.
The part that sticks with me is him saying "The machine guns on the front used soft lead bullets about 4 inches long. They flattened and spread out on impact, making a hole the size of a soup plate on the way out of the soldiers body. Money given for the red poppies goes to care for the soldiers who survived this."
Teresa Nielsen Heyden: Ghosts of the Great War
I remember in 1982, when at school in the UK, there was a vogue for wearing white 'peace poppies' that funded CND. On November the 11th, my history teacher, Mr. Evans, came in wearing a red poppy, and noticing some of the white ones, scrapped his lesson plan and told us about the Somme.
The part that sticks with me is him saying "The machine guns on the front used soft lead bullets about 4 inches long. They flattened and spread out on impact, making a hole the size of a soup plate on the way out of the soldiers body. Money given for the red poppies goes to care for the soldiers who survived this."
Sunday, 9 November 2003
Google lies about search terms
I was trying out searching for Rosie's Science Club
If I google for wonder why science , Rosie comes out number 2, but the text at the top says
"why" is a very common word and was not included in your search.
If I google for wonder science , I get a completely different result set and Rosie is nowhere to be seen.
I think this is another example of Google weighting <title> tags above PageRank, but the disclaimers haven't caught up.
If I google for wonder why science , Rosie comes out number 2, but the text at the top says
"why" is a very common word and was not included in your search.
If I google for wonder science , I get a completely different result set and Rosie is nowhere to be seen.
I think this is another example of Google weighting <title> tags above PageRank, but the disclaimers haven't caught up.
Thursday, 6 November 2003
Moral Syndromes
Jane Jacobs: Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics
Jacobs identifies two moral syndromes - a Guardian one and a Commercial one - takers and traders. You need both, but you shouldn't mix moral messages from each group.
Jacobs identifies two moral syndromes - a Guardian one and a Commercial one - takers and traders. You need both, but you shouldn't mix moral messages from each group.
Monday, 3 November 2003
Where is the real security problem?
Ian Grigg: Ladies and Gentlemen, there you have it. The Internet Threat Model (ITM), in a nutshell.
It's a strong model: the end nodes are secure and the middle is not. It's clean, it's simple, and we just happen to have a solution for it.
Problem is, it's also wrong. The end systems are not secure, and the comms in the middle is actually remarkably safe.
(Whoa! Did he say that?) Yep, I surely did: the systems are insecure, and, the wire is safe. [...]
...in practice, we can conclude, nobody much listens to our traffic. Really, so close to nobody that nobody in reality worries about it.
But, every sumbitch is trying to hack into our machine, everyone has a virus scanner, a firewall,
etc etc. I'm sure we've all shared that weird feeling when we install a new firewall that notifies when your machine is being port scanned?
A new machine can be put on a totally new IP, and almost immediately, ports are being scanned....
It's a strong model: the end nodes are secure and the middle is not. It's clean, it's simple, and we just happen to have a solution for it.
Problem is, it's also wrong. The end systems are not secure, and the comms in the middle is actually remarkably safe.
(Whoa! Did he say that?) Yep, I surely did: the systems are insecure, and, the wire is safe. [...]
...in practice, we can conclude, nobody much listens to our traffic. Really, so close to nobody that nobody in reality worries about it.
But, every sumbitch is trying to hack into our machine, everyone has a virus scanner, a firewall,
etc etc. I'm sure we've all shared that weird feeling when we install a new firewall that notifies when your machine is being port scanned?
A new machine can be put on a totally new IP, and almost immediately, ports are being scanned....
Friday, 31 October 2003
pythonmac.org - Mac OS X Python Resources
pythonmac.org is a great place to go to get information about Python on Mac, and the MacPython iChat room is even better...
Saturday, 25 October 2003
It's about barriers to entry, not power laws
Sandhill Trek: A Public Space Frank quotes Betsy quoting me at Bloggercon. Here's what I was trying to say:
The net extends the range of the power law distribution.
If you look at relative popularity on the web, using something like Technorati, you get a power law curve that goes all the way down smoothly, to the bottom where you see pages that got just a single link.
If you look at popularity in the publishing world - movies, chart music or books - the curve starts out with a power law, but soon drops like a stone.
That's because in order to get a movie made, a recording contract or a book published, you have to convince somebody that you're going to sell a million tickets, a hundred thousand CDs or tens of thousands of books.
You end up in a zero-sum game, where people pour enormous resources into being number one, because number two is only half as good. The promise of the net is that the power of all those little links can outweigh the power of the top ten.
Tim Oren is saying much the same thing, with a different metaphor.
Update:
Hear my original comment. It starts about 59 minutes into this stream.
The net extends the range of the power law distribution.
If you look at relative popularity on the web, using something like Technorati, you get a power law curve that goes all the way down smoothly, to the bottom where you see pages that got just a single link.
If you look at popularity in the publishing world - movies, chart music or books - the curve starts out with a power law, but soon drops like a stone.
That's because in order to get a movie made, a recording contract or a book published, you have to convince somebody that you're going to sell a million tickets, a hundred thousand CDs or tens of thousands of books.
You end up in a zero-sum game, where people pour enormous resources into being number one, because number two is only half as good. The promise of the net is that the power of all those little links can outweigh the power of the top ten.
Tim Oren is saying much the same thing, with a different metaphor.
Update:
Hear my original comment. It starts about 59 minutes into this stream.
BBC - iCan - MP3 Downloads from the BBC
The BBC iCan initiative is designed to help you campaign for things you want.
I want the BBC to release radio programs as MP3's instead of streams, so I can listen to them without a computer with a live net connection.
Speech radio programs don't go with using a computer to read and type.
I want the BBC to release radio programs as MP3's instead of streams, so I can listen to them without a computer with a live net connection.
Speech radio programs don't go with using a computer to read and type.
Friday, 24 October 2003
Amazon and the fat tail
Gary Wolf::
All of Amazon's important innovations - starting from the concept of a Web bookstore - have suggested a profound change in the bookselling business, a change that makes it possible to earn a profit by selling a much wider variety of books than any previous retailer, including many titles from the so-called long tail of the popularity curve. 'If I have 100,000 books that sell one copy every other year,' says Steve Kessel, an Amazon VP, 'then in 10 years I've sold more of these, together, than I have of the latest Harry Potter.'
So digitise and index all books - brilliant.
All of Amazon's important innovations - starting from the concept of a Web bookstore - have suggested a profound change in the bookselling business, a change that makes it possible to earn a profit by selling a much wider variety of books than any previous retailer, including many titles from the so-called long tail of the popularity curve. 'If I have 100,000 books that sell one copy every other year,' says Steve Kessel, an Amazon VP, 'then in 10 years I've sold more of these, together, than I have of the latest Harry Potter.'
So digitise and index all books - brilliant.
Monday, 20 October 2003
Streaming bugs
Apparently QuickTime 6.4 broke the playback of edited streams I relied upon to parody Jobs in the post below - now I get timeouts and 'waiting for media' countdowns.
Sorry about that.
Sorry about that.
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