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Tuesday, December 31, 2002
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 Tuesday, December 31, 2002
started 12/31/2002; 1:19:24 AM - last post 1/1/2003; 5:32:46 PM
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Doc Searls - Tuesday, December 31, 2002 
12/31/2002; 5:19:24 AM (reads: 9165, responses: 5)
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So how is it so far? 
| | In most of the world it's already 2003. Here on the Last Coast of the Lower Forty-Eight, it's still seven hours away. |
| | Time to shower, put on my white tails and top hat, and head off to a party. See ya next year. |
| | Meanwhile, here's Halley, who's got a three-hour jump on the future. |
Two wheel drive
| | Among the finer graces of Santa Barbara are its bike trails, and it's pro-bike culture in general. |
| | We discovered this today when the boy and I went for a ride around the tidewaters of Goleta, on a perfect day. It rained last night, and today the mountains shed these puffy clouds, like the Blue Ridge does after a thunderstorm, back in North Carolina. We pedaled for hours, pausing to look at herons, egrets, frogs, ducks and other pretty vermin. Nice. |
Old Audio Gear Love
| | I'm playing it through a 1979-vintage Yamaha CR-1040 receiver, which is just as lovely and features an FM tuner of comparable quality. Too bad so much upward of 92 on the dial (these old things have real dials) sucks. |
| | I'm hoping to get a directional FM antenna above the office here, so I can get the good shit from L.A. and San Diego with minimal static cling. One of 10,000 projects for 2003. |
Snow off the waters
| | Here are some questions maybe one of ya'll can answer: What are the differences between water softening and water filtration? and Is softening always a Good Thing? I ask because, frankly, I can't stand showering or cleaning things in softened water. It seems to leave a film of soap or ... something. Yet softening advocates tell me that the "squeaky" clean feel of skin (or metal, or porcelain) cleaned with hard or otherwise ordinary water is in fact the feel of deposited minerals. That seems to be what the USGS suggests. There seem to be a lot of variables involved. I'm just looking for relatively simple answers here. |
Mydentity & Ourdentity vs. Theirdentity
| | Rather than take them all on, I'll give you some thougts that came to me after reading something Eric said in that first post above: |
| | I think there's a misunderstanding around a T2 identity here. A T2 identity is (for instance) the title that you have a job. So let's say you're: |
| | Doc Searls
Senior Editor, Linux Journal |
| | and along with that title (and the accompanying benefits of it), you were issued a corporate credit card. These identities were issued to you and are temporary and conditional -- ie, if you get fired, you no longer have those identities. |
| | Compare that with a T1 -- that's your own individual identity....and therein I think Mitch is absolutely right -- we own it. period. |
| | T3 is the aggregated "identity" that is gathered via the marketing complex....I'm Eric Norlin, 31, holder of an Amex card, likes snicker's bars and drives a 1990 Acura Integra. Who owns this identity? The corporations will tell you its not you......probably some gray area here. |
| | For those unfamiliar with the Tier 1-2-3 (T1, T2, T3) thing; the way Andre expalined it to me in the first place (or at least the simplifieid way I understood it) was this: |
| | Tier 1 (T1) is personal identity: This is me, the first person singular. Simple. Fundamental. Identity starts here. I'm in charg of it. |
| | Tier 2 (T2) is conferred identity: This is the identity given to each of us by the DMV, the Social Security system, the bank, the credit card company, the gas company, the membership organization. It is, with few exceptions, an exclusive thing, given and governed by the conferrer's terms — not ours. |
| | Tier 3 (T3) is marketing identity: This is lttle more than an address on a mailing list, and involves very inefficient guesswork about what whole populations might want to buy. |
| | So I'm suggesting three additional names for the three tiers, and an explanation for each: |
| | - Tier 1 is Mydentity. It's the central and sovereign self-made and self-actualized polyhedron of my very self. It's as exposed and anonymous as I want it to be. It is on the various facets of this core ID that I allow others, with my consent, to paint the next layer...
- Tier 2, which is Ourdentity. It doesn't belong to me alone, nor to those who confer it upon me. My title with Linux Journal exists by mutual agreement. So do the IDs on my credit and membership cards. Some say David Searls. Others say Doc Searls. Each embodies a relationship that is open to change, and to other relationships that may suit both parties. As for the ownership issue, it's a bit of a red herring. Look at it this way: who 'owns' a contract? Or a marriage? Or a friendship? We're talking about agreements and relationships here. Until we build out a Mydentity-based DigID system, we'll continue to content ourselves with multiple Ourdentities (library cards, credit cards, bank accounts, etc.) which are each central to a relationship with just one company or other entity (DMV, local public radio station, coffee shop, whatever), and generally on the terms provided by the other (conferring) party. So far there is nothing that allows me to manage that relationship from my end, for example to selectively share aspects of my identity and its preferences with parts of the world other than those with whom I have any one given relationship. Nor are there ways to assert myself as an actual or potential customer ("I've got a Jabber XML session here that says I'm present in your zip code, Starbucks, and ready for my usual double cappuchino when I get off the exit in about five minutes") and make it persist across multiple relationships and categories ("Hey, coffee and wine shops, I'll be in town for the next day with a laptop and a PDA that are wondering who's ready for my business."). What we have no is built for consumers, not customers. We need to change that.
- Tier 3 is Theirdentity. This is about educated guesswork by marketers who, while they may have my name, generally know little more than a few demographic facts about me (e.g. age and zip code) — just enough to risk sending me, and 5,000 others they think are just like me, a piece of junk mail that stands less than a 1-in-20 chance of snagging me. When we have relationships between Mydentities and companies interested in the rich possibilities of Ourdentities, Tier 3 Theirdentities start going away. And another implementation stage of Cluetrain is underway.
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| | As Andre put it to me when he blew my mind with the whole three-tier thing in the first place (just a year ago), When T1 identites have real customer relationships with T2 partners, T3 goes away. We will have the final defeat of Marketing as Usual. Each of our wants and preferences — and our identities themselves — will be selectively communicated to other entities (not just the conferrers of today) with which we are willing to relate (and not to producers from which we are willing to consume). |
| | My thoughts at midnight, anyway. |
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David Williams - Re: Tuesday, December 31, 2002
12/31/2002; 4:48:07 PM (reads: 566, responses: 0)
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Doc,
RE: Soft water.
Well..I grew up in a house with well-water, and it was softened, so I didn't have a frame of reference until I left.
Water-filtration should filter out most of the "hard metals" without adding salt (that's how they "soften" water, and the salt isn't NaCl salt, it's some other, I think, like Potassium-Chloride).
Now that I have un-softened water, I actually feel clean. I don't think trusting your personal judgement/feelings (IE..I feel yucky when I wash w/ saltine water, I feel cleaner with unsoftened water) should be ignored....
~Dave W.
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Michael Bernstein - Re: Snow off the waters
12/31/2002; 10:51:50 PM (reads: 648, responses: 0)
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Well, I'm far from being an expert, but Las Vegas (where I live) has some of the hardest water in a US metropolitan area, so I'll use that as a accreditation.
Water can have a lot of crap in it, and what you do about it depends on what you're going to use it for.
Water softening replaces 'hard' salts in the water (magnesium and calcium salts) with 'soft' salts (usually sodium, aka table salt, occasionally potassium).
An explanation of the process can be found here:
http://hermes.ecn.purdue.edu/cgi/convwqtest?fs-8.me.ascii
The advantages of softening your water include not getting that hard white 'scale' buildup in your plumbing and appliances (especially the water heater and dishwasher), which will save you money in the long run (reduced energy costs and wear), especially if your local water supply is very hard.
Hard water can also increase your chances of kidney stones if you have kidney problems, but softened water has extra sodium, so that may not be any better for you if you need to reduce your sodium intake for your heart. A softening system that uses potassium salt instead supposedly doesn't have this problem. If you're going to install an RO system as well as a water softening system, make sure your kitchen sink cold water bypasses the softening system. Using reverse osmosis as well as a water softener on the same water is kind of pointless and wasteful.
Now, your water likely also has plenty of other stuff in it, such as chlorine, microorganisms, organic compounds, heavy metals and who knows what else. None of these are removed by a water softener. That's where various types of filtration systems come in, usually a reverse osmosis (RO) system of some kind, perhaps along with an active carbon filter as well (note: some water softening systems *do* include active carbon filtration).
Reverse Osmosis systems remove contaminants by using a heck of a lot more water flowing past a semi-permeable membrane. Between 7 to 20 gallons of waste water will be thrown away for every gallon of filtered water the system produces. For this reason an RO system should really only be used for creating drinking water. The other filters in a filtration system will have to be replaced at various intervals, and you might want to check whether a standard sized filter canister you can buy at Home Depot will fit, or whether you will be stuck buying proprietary filter replacements from the company.
More on RO systems here:
http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/h2oqual/watsys/ae1047w.htm
RO filtration systems are expensive, and may not pay for themselves over buying bottled water for drinking and cooking purposes. Also, they won't deliver water very quickly, so if (for example) you're in the habit of cooking up large batches of pasta, trying to fill the pot from an RO system will require patience.
Non-RO filtration systems don't remove as many contaminants, or require far more frequent replacement of the filter, but don't restrict the water flow.
As I mentioned earlier, some water softeners (generally the more expensive ones) also include a carbon filter. These generally trap organic compounds (such as benzene or gasoline) and chlorine. Since you probably don't want to drink the softened water anyway, and it doesn't matter to your appliances, you would mostly care about these while showering (when you would be breathing these in from the steam), You can get carbon filters for your showerhead instead of getting a more expensive water softener that includes a carbon filter.
I couldn't find any particularly good sources of information on your local water (http://ci.santa-barbara.ca.us/departments/public_works/water_resources/), but maybe you will find my local resources helpful:
Main water quality page: http://www.snwa.com/html/wq_index.html
Especially a 1997 Consumer Report on water filtration systems: http://www.snwa.com/html/wq_home_cons_reprt.html
Ultimately, more specific advice depends on what exactly is in your home's water, so you'll need to get it tested by an independent company. Some contaminants may get into your water locally, where it can't be detected by the water company. I hope this helped some.
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Marie - Re: Tuesday, December 31, 2002
1/1/2003; 12:45:37 AM (reads: 574, responses: 0)
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Hi Doc. Re water softening versus water filtering, I think softening is a treatment one would give to well water as it enters one's home. Filtering is the treatment the water gets at the water filtration plant. If you want to filter out some of the additives from the plant, you can put an additional filter on your tap. As a city dweller, I'll take filtered water over softened water any day. There's a small motel about an hour south of Chicago where I've stayed that has softened well water. Even with the softening, the water reeks of sulfer. Well, that's beside the point. Just thought I'd mention it. Marie
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David Williams - Re: Tuesday, December 31, 2002
1/1/2003; 5:28:17 AM (reads: 591, responses: 1)
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How about some pictures of the mountains puffing out clouds?
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Doc Searls - Re: Tuesday, December 31, 2002
1/1/2003; 9:32:46 PM (reads: 657, responses: 0)
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I biked cameraless. Next time...
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