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Monday, March 31, 2003
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 Monday, March 31, 2003
started 3/31/2003; 8:13:14 AM - last post 4/1/2003; 1:01:04 AM
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Doc Searls - Monday, March 31, 2003 
3/31/2003; 12:13:14 PM (reads: 8777, responses: 10)
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Wanted: blue collar Linux example 
| | I'm in the market right now for an example of Linux (and/or LAMP) working on the job, saving money, providing an livid example of the applied intelligence of those putting it to work — in a manufacturing setting. The older and rustier the manufactured product & setting, the better. But that's not a necessity. A pharmaceutical or some other modern manufacturing setting would be fine, too. Think photo-op here. |
| | If you've got something, or can point me to an example, I'd be much obliged. Thank you. |
Birth of Cobloggeration
| | Dave points today to this piece by Jim Moore. When I saw that I thought, Hmm... Is this the same Jim Moore who wrote The Death of Competition a few years back? Jim was one of Jerry Michalski's original retreaters, back in August, 1996. His book had just come out, as I recall. We had some deep conversations there. That was also the retreat where I first met Chris Locke, who was also dubbed RageBoy that very same weekend. |
| | Small world. Smaller 'sphere. |
From the HomeWeb Security Office...
Brotherly Blog
More Cluetrain effects
| | I just booked a Ramada Limited in Silicon Valley with free high speed internet and a bunch of other pleasantries for $65 or so per night. Not bad. Also got a Ford Focus (my favorite rental car) for $35.99/day from Budget. Could be worse. |
| | I'm finding that the Internet tire-kicking services have really pounded down the prices of hotels and related services. |
| | By the way, the Cluetrain site is now more than four years old. |
The embedded front
Blog Ops
| | ...a well-known techie. But in an earlier life, he was a USAF Special Ops soldier. He's not an armchair pundit, in other words, but someone who knows what death is like, close up. The mainstream media has no room — and no appetite — for his views. But thousands of people on the net do. And now they can hear his voice, and add their own to it. The internet, said a US judge in a landmark judgment, 'is a never-ending global conversation'. So it is: and, boy, do we need it just now. |
| | Also this from a veteran who served with a different branch (guess which one?): |
| | USAF Special Ops are folks who fly Army special ops types. They deliver the "package" do insertion, retrieval. The USAF has no on-the-ground combat troops. Not to say the guy hasn't seen a lot, but he is USAF - the service that came into being by selling Roosevelt and Churchill on the value of saturation bombing. |
| | Take it with a dose of salt, or of salt water, anyway. |
| | Semi-related: Your Word also reminds me how blogging — especially in time of war — serves as one big fact-checking system, regardless of the politics involved. |
| | I love all the 'stans in The Agonist's blogroll. |
Springtime in Webland
| | This flowering wouldn't be possible if the Net hadn't progressed beyond its basic protocols to the point we've reached: a permission-free zone where anybody with an idea can launch a web service without a preliminary buy-in by existing vested interests. This freedom to innovate is the third leg of the Net's NEA stool: Nobody owns it, Everyone can use it, Anybody can improve it. If the Net's open protocols weren't in place and agreed upon, we could never improve it with the more highly abstracted, software-only, permission-free improvements, social software really, that we can now imagine together. |
Eyeblog
| | The administration does not have a perception"? Individuals saying what they think? |
| | Does this mean he's aboard the cluetrain? |
Value-Addvertising
| | I just went back to the page to quote more of the ad, and the new placements were for Reuters Iraq Updates and "Peace e-cards." |
| | So a problem is starting to show up here: You run the high risk of losing one link out of two when you click on one. After I clicked on "Reuters Iraq Updates" (which went to the Reuters' main page, not to an Iraq subdirectory), I went back to find "Peace e-cards" replaced by The Threatening Storm. After going there and coming back, the Reuters ad was still there, but the other was replaced by Crisis in Iraq. |
| | Not sure what the algo' there is, but it's got a small flaw in the way it de-persists one link out of two. |
| | Otherwise, it's a remarkable system: advertising you might actually like. |
Dive into Peace
| | Mark Pilgrim has a boffo Peaceblogroll. He says, People who say they can¹t find evidence of a peaceblogging movement should probably try harder. A big thanks to Mark and Tim for making it easier. |
| | While we're on the subject, heres a scary piece from Washington Monthly that claims the Administration's real objectives go far beyond Iraq. Kinda reminds me of a Wiford Brimley line from Absence of Malice (a movie Brimley steals in just one scene): Are you that smart? I kinda don't think so, I dunno. |
| | What they've got going for them is that our maladroitness politically and diplomatically has put us in a real bind. There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein is an unpopular guy in Iraq, but he's running against George Bush. If you're an Iraqi, you've gotta decide who you're going to vote for here. |
| | I hate it when military plans are made with optimistic assumptions of that kind. I never made a plan that relied on the courage of my own troops. You hope that -- and they generally will -- fight bravely. Your plan ought to be predicated on more realistic assumptions. |
| | And if we sent the 3rd Infantry up there naked, by themselves, because somebody assessed that they'd be throwing bouquets at us, that's the worst thing you could say about political leadership, is that they made optimistic assumptions about warfare... |
| | When we started bombing Kosovo, everybody in the world saw that -- how painful that decision was. They knew we weren't there to make Kosovo the 51st state; they knew we didn't go into Afghanistan to put George Bush's face on the money there. When we act with legitimacy, it gives our military actions a source of strength. I mean for me this is an aspect of the political maladroitness. I mean you just have to say that you wonder if there's anybody in the White House that's an educated adult. |
| | That's from Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak, retired U.S. Air Force chief of staff. By the way, he says the war is going "remarkably well," considering. |
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Shelley - Re: Monday, March 31, 2003
3/31/2003; 4:55:09 PM (reads: 1372, responses: 6)
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John Robb also said that Saddam Hussein would be more successful now if he had continued his invasion of Saudi Arabia back in the first gulf war. Let's now assume that we bloggers -- regardless of our background -- don't have our own blinders and biases.
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Doc Searls - Re: Monday, March 31, 2003
3/31/2003; 5:44:34 PM (reads: 845, responses: 5)
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Got a link to where he said that? What was the context?
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Shelley - Re: Monday, March 31, 2003
3/31/2003; 7:08:14 PM (reads: 916, responses: 4)
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This page http://jrobb.userland.com/2003/03/23.html first item. Quote:
"I would like to point out that Saddam was defeated easily during the first Gulf war due to a failure of strategy. He failed to take Saudi Arabia. He had the means and stopped short. He also attacked without a nuclear weapon in hand. His strategic defeat so demoralized his military that a golden moment was lost when we didn't push for regime change (which was our strategic blunder)."
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Doc Searls - Re: Monday, March 31, 2003
3/31/2003; 7:29:35 PM (reads: 1038, responses: 3)
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Okay, so maybe I'm missing something. (It happens. A lot.)
I'm not sure what's wrong (or right, or whatever) about what John said, or about what I said or didn't say about what John said, or ... what point you're making, exactly. I assumed you were pushing back, but maybe you weren't.
You said "Let's now assume that we bloggers -- regardless of our background -- don't have our own blinders and biases."
Is your point that we have bliders and biases and don't acknowledge them? If so, I would think that goes without saying, but maybe it doesn't.
Anyway, forgive me. I'm a little lost.
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Tyler - Re: Monday, March 31, 2003
3/31/2003; 9:38:20 PM (reads: 1296, responses: 0)
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lou josephs - Attack of the Script Kiddies
3/31/2003; 9:49:06 PM (reads: 1517, responses: 0)
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Chinese hacker groups are planning attacks on U.S.- and U.K.-based Web sites to protest the war in Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security warned in an alert that it unintentionally posted on a government Web site today.
The hackers are planning "distributed denial-of-service" attacks, which render Web sites and networks unusable by flooding them with massive amounts of traffic. They also are planning to deface selected Web sites, according to the alert, though the government said it did not know when the attacks would occur.
The Homeland Security Department said it got the information by monitoring an online meeting that the hackers held last weekend to coordinate the attacks.
The department sent the alert to government and industry officials over the weekend, but accidentally posted the link this morning on the homepage of the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC). The alert was pulled early this afternoon.
Homeland Security Department spokesman David Wray said the information was not supposed to be released to the public. "This was an inadvertent release and the information -- while not classified -- is sensitive," he said.
(washington post tech news)
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John Robb - Re: Monday, March 31, 2003
4/1/2003; 12:49:40 AM (reads: 1162, responses: 1)
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Shelly, thanks for the pushback (intelligent pushback is always good), but I am a little confused as to why my statement was wrong. I certainly didn't say that I wanted Saddam to win or that his success would be a good thing. I did say that he stopped short of his objectives in 1991 and thereby set himself up in a situation that was indefensible. Given that, his defeat was easy and inevitable. However, my point was that we shouldn't assume that he would be (or any Arab state) as much of a pushover in the future.
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Matthew Thomas - Re: Monday, March 31, 2003
4/1/2003; 1:21:59 AM (reads: 1062, responses: 0)
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You said “Let’s now assume that we bloggers — regardless of our background — don’t have our own blinders and biases.”
I think it likely that Shelley’s “now” was supposed to be a “not”. Viz:
“Let’s not assume that we bloggers — regardless of our background — don’t have our own blinders and biases.”
Cancel the negatives:
“We should assume that bloggers — from all backgrounds — also have blinders and biases.”
But after all that, I’m in the same boat as John Robb — if there’s a particular blinder or bias Shelley is finding, I can’t see it.
— mpt
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Shelley - Re: Monday, March 31, 2003
4/1/2003; 1:31:23 AM (reads: 1200, responses: 0)
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No you didn't imply that it would be good, and I don't think that's what I said earlier -- but John you did say that the main reason Saddam Hussein failed is that he didn't continue into SA when he had the chance. That he had the means to do this. John, he never had the means to fully invade SA. I helped create the software to ensure that.
He never had an intention of invading SA. The invasion of Kuwait had a long history to it that had nothing to do with SA. The main reason he entered across the border of SA was because SA hosted the army that was invading him. It was pure bravado from a person who lives on bravado and who is incurably optimistic about his capability.
You were special ops, but that still doesn't mean that you don't bring your assumptions into the discussion -- blinder and bias if you will. I have no doubts of your bravery and your capability and intelligence, you couldn't have been special ops without these (Air Force or not -- I read the other comment). But that still doesn't necessarily give you an 'inside' track into the secrets of the war, strategy, or outcome. I think it's important that people not lose track of that within the magical aura that is 'special ops'. In other words, when it comes to outcomes and strategy, your guess is as good as mine about what will happen in Iraq with this war.
Especially with Rumsfeld directing all the troop movements.
And I mis-typed earlier -- it should have read "Let's not assume we bloggers..." Sorry Doc. Typical Bb typo.
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Ian Evans - Hotel internet access
4/1/2003; 5:01:04 AM (reads: 642, responses: 0)
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You were lucky to have had high-speed access in your room. Here's an example of how Holiday Inn needs to buy a ticket for the cluetrain.
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