Author: Alderete

What’s Next?

Dave Winer is at the heart of all this energy, he’s involved with or creating every one of the major elements that make up this exciting soup.

Dave Winer is at the heart of all this energy, he’s involved with or creating every one of the major elements that make up this exciting soup. He’s written a bit about what he thinks is next:

Before this release, from Google’s point of view, we were all users. Now some of us are developers. We get another chance to define what that means, based on what we learned being developers for Apple, IBM, Apple again, Netscape, the Internet, Microsoft and now the Internet again. It’s a good time for a fresh start.

We’re at the Hello World stage again. It’s like the hobbyist period of personal computing, or MacWrite/MacPaint in 1984, or the early days of the Web when the blink tag was a minor miracle. Same idea.

DigitalConsumer.org

DigitalConsumer.org is a new organization whose purpose is to promote a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights, to “positively assert a consumer’s rights to fair use, […] and guarantee [the] ability to use digital media in the way that you choose.”

DigitalConsumer.org is a new organization whose purpose is to promote a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights, to “positively assert a consumer’s rights to fair use, […] and guarantee [the] ability to use digital media in the way that you choose.”

So what does this mean for you? It means it’s now extremely easy for you to let the politicians in Washington know that you don’t want to lose the ability to download music you’ve purchased on CD to your MP3 player, or the ability to play CDs on your computer, etc. DigitalConsumer.org can fax your letter of support for the Bill of Rights to your elected representatives, simply by entering your name and address on a web form.

Do it today!

Go Mo Fo!

MoFo is suing a spammer for sending their employees lots of spam, and is likely to cost the spammer a lot of money. If nothing else, seeing one of their own get sued by a world-class law firm has got to put a little fear of god into those slimy spammers.

How often do you think kind thoughts about lawyers? Well, if you get as much spam as I do, you’ve got to think well of Morrison & Foerster, fondly known as “MoFo” by those in the know — or those who look at their URL.

The reason is simple: MoFo is suing a spammer, for UCE sent to MoFo itself, and is likely to cost them a lot of money. If nothing else, seeing one of their own get sued by a world-class law firm has got to put a little fear of god into those slimy spammers.

Go, go, go MoFo!

Magic Numbers

For years I’ve lived with hundreds of unanswered e-mail messages sitting in my Inbox at home, which causes me to ignore most of them. With a little motivation from some magic numbers I’m getting ahead of the situation.

For years I’ve lived with hundreds of unanswered e-mail messages sitting in my Inbox at home. Since e-mail is my preferred form of communication this is a real problem, because basically anything “below the fold,” that is, not in the first screen of my Inbox, gets ignored, often indefinitely.

Periodically I would get into a groove and file some, delete more, and answer or act upon others, without ever really getting the situation under control. But recently I’ve been on a roll, hitting magic numbers that provide new motivation. Last weekend it was getting under 300, on Saturday it was 200. After last evening I’m under 150.

My Inbox displays 26 messages in one screen, so theoretically my final magic number should be 25. For now, though, the only number I’m looking at is 100.

Now if only I could make this happen at work…

Shoveling

An ode to a startup, and what it’s like to be inside, shoveling.

One month before our web site went live, and about 10 months before we went bankrupt, one of my co-workers at Cymerc sent this around:

You ever feel like you are in the engine room of a submarine?
And you are shoveling coal into the engine.
And building the ship at the same time.
You are not sure where you are going.
And you haven’t seen the sun for some time.
But you are pretty sure someone is steering
Because you haven’t hit anything yet?

I still love it!

(Note: I don’t know if it’s original, but I’ll credit it to Clark Weber until I hear differently.)

New Channel: Haightlife

Rochelle has a firm belief that people who live in San Francisco should have to justify living here, by taking advantage of unique aspects of living in the city on a regular basis. This new channel will cover some of those unique things, or other random stuff that we do on our days off, that would otherwise end up in the Miscellaneous category.

Rochelle has a firm belief that people who live in San Francisco should have to justify living here, by taking advantage of unique aspects of living in the city on a regular basis.

This new channel will cover some of those unique things, or other random stuff that we do on our days off, that would otherwise end up in the Miscellaneous category.

Today one of those unique things is going on at the Toronado, SF’s best beer bar. That’s right, it’s Belgian Beer month, and today is the kickoff.

You should be here.

Odd Todd

Odd Todd is probably the funniest of the various “I’m unemployed and have lots of time, so I’m going to document what’s it’s like to be unemployed on the Internet” sites.

OK, here’s another one. Odd Todd is probably the funniest of the various “I’m unemployed and have lots of time, so I’m going to document what’s it’s like to be unemployed on the Internet” sites.

The weirdest thing about this one is that the narration is in a voice that sounds a lot like one of Rochelle’s co-workers, who I met just after viewing the cartoon. It made it very difficult actually hear what he was saying, instead of just marveling at his voice…

Anyway, there’s a couple cartoons, and while the visuals are very stick-figure, the narration and audio is terrific. Recommended.

Unemployed Theo

Unemployed Theo is an amusing little web site that lets those not in the technology industry see what the life of a dot.bomb victim is like.

Unemployed Theo is an amusing little web site that lets those not in the technology industry see what the life of a dot.bomb victim is like.

Rochelle and I were doing this ourselves, about a year ago. Not coincidentally, Rochelle will be getting her Masters in Tequila later today, and mine should come in another month or so. If we’d stayed unemployed, I’m sure we’d be getting ready to receive our doctorates instead…and living in the basement on macaroni and cheese…

Panic Room

Jodie Foster’s Panic Room is a very solid, very tense thriller. Recommended.

I saw Jodie Foster’s Panic Room yesterday. Very solid, very tense thriller. Jodie is awesome, Forest Whitaker is his usual excellent self, and Dwight Yoakam, of all people, is the scarier of the two psychos in the movie.

The writing is excellent. This isn’t a movie filled with jack-in-the-box surprises that make you jerk in your seat (or scream), but does have plenty of “faster, faster” moments where you’re trying to help out by leaning into where you want things to go. The movie plays fair: no tricks or rabbits out of a hat to end the picture — something that happens all too often in this kind of film. Highly recommended.

Consensus at Lawyerpoint

A new EFF weblog with the aim of being a true account of the undertakings of the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group. If you care about technology, this blog is virtually guaranteed to make you angry.

Consensus at Lawyerpoint is a new weblog by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which aims to give ordinary people access to information and visibility into the process of decision-making and deal-brokering by the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group.

In other words, this blog aims to give you a day-by-day, blow-by-blow description of how Big Entertainment really is trying to take away our digital rights. If you care about the future of technology, this blog is virtually guaranteed to make you angry.

Which is why you should read it. Get angry now, while you can still do something about it!

Borg Journalism

We are the Blogs. Journalism will be Assimilated. And journalist John Hiler thinks it’s for the better. (He’s right.)

John Hiler has written a great article about how weblogging is changing the face of journalism. While he uses the Borg metaphor, it’s pretty clear that he thinks the changes will be for the better.

Funnily enough, Rochelle’s had some experience with something like this. Chowhound.com, a food-oriented discussion site where Rochelle frequently participates, seems to spawn a mainstream food story every couple of weeks. For example, there was a vibrant discussion about taco trucks, with many people telling about their favorites. And sure enough, the Chronicle soon ran a story about taco trucks in the Bay Area, an article we read and enjoyed.

The best journalists credit their sources and inspiration, because it means they’ll get more of it. Right now weblogging and online communities of all types are very new, but it’s clear their impact on and integration into mainstream culture is something we’ll be noticing for some time.

Microsoft’s Whining Competitors

“The whole point of the [Microsoft antitrust] case is that Microsoft’s abuses of its market power have damaged competitors, and any remedies the court imposes should be designed to correct that situation.”

Microsoft has repeatedly asserted that the trial is really about their competitors whining about losing, and that those trying to add restrictions to the proposed settlement are just competitors trying to gain extra advantage.

Duh.

As Henry Norr writes, “The whole point of the case is that Microsoft’s abuses of its market power have damaged competitors, and any remedies the court imposes should be designed to correct that situation.”

Since the proposed settlement won’t correct the situation, the damaged parties continue to try to create a settlement that will. Which is exactly what they should do, and what the law should help them in doing.