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Friday, November 21, 2003
Journaljism 
| | John C. Dvorak (home site here) crapped on blogs back in early '02, and a torrent of rebuke ensued. Now a sort of intra-Ziff volley has commenced upon another rip by John, this one against The Threat (nay, the Inevitability!) of Big Media co-optation. Steve Gillmor replies. Steve's colleage at Extreme Tech, Jim Lynch replies, several times (as well as on his blog). Then John replies. All in the spirit of ... I was going to say something mamby like "constructive engagement," but it's more like wise-ass kids passing notes in the back of the class. Me, now, of course, included. Meanwhile, I'm also on Free PicturePhone (iChatAV) with Steve, while he's on another IM of some kind with brother Dan. And here I've been trying to tell people we're all busy hardworking journalists and don't really have all that much time to blog. |
| | What happens at 5:45pm on a Friday, waiting for the kids to come home, is my excuse. |
| | Fun reading, in any case. If tempests are your tea of choice, this one's a great pot. |
Peelings
Cruise on
| | My third report on the recent Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise is up. The series starts here. It's not just tech. There's travel writing in there too, if that's your cup. Here's a sample: |
| | Our companions on the outbound lanes were container cargo ships that provide a useful lesson for the software business, which has traditionally loathed the "threat" that commoditization poses to vast profit margins. Yet the Port of Seattle, like all the ship and freight depots of the world, abundantly demonstrates the fecundity of commodities as a base ecology of business. |
| | Sure, bits by themselves may be as free as air -- or even more free, since it's a cloneable commodity -- but that doesn't mean there's no money to be made in storing, shipping, managing or building with them. Tempting as it is to look toward Microsoft (especially in Seattle) as a prototypical software company, the better view is toward IBM, Oracle, SAP and Computer Associates -- all of which are constantly adjusting to take advantage of Linux as a building material, and open source as a building method. |
Rethought of the day
| | I just finished Ed Cone's piece, which seems to be missing one critical point: anything perceived good guy Howard Dean can do with technology can be replicated by his enemies (it's possible I glazed over this part, it's long article). Team Bush has $200 million and six months to play catch-up. It also has talk radio, the Fox Network and all the warbloggers on its side, plus the population's inherent tendency to side with the current prez during wartime. The Web knows no politics, it just offers politicians another way to get people to the polls. All Dean's "he gets it!" cheerleaders are gonna have some crow to digest if somebody really repellant uses all these tools to get elected in the future. |
No con Apachecon
| | One difference between my report and theirs: I was there for the whole thing — from the Hackathon on Saturday and Sunday through the closing plenary on Wednesday night. |
| | It also rolled smoothly, with no grandstanding by anybody, huge respect for everybody's good efforts, and helpful sponsorship by vendors whose agendas never got in the way. It was collegial, relaxing, challenging and fun. In those respects, it reminded me more of Bloggercon than any of the other conferces I've been to lately (and those number quite a few), even though it was much larger and different in many ways. People learned lots of stuff. The world moved forward. It was a Good Thing. |
| | What's more, two of the biggest take-away stories (for me, at least) were blogging (again, check the links in Suitwatch) and syndication. Chris Pirillo gave what I thought was an A-1 keynote on RSS. |
| | I can't think of a single bad thing to say about the event, aside than the usual (and totally tolerable) quibbles about glitches, which are par for every conference course. |
| | Kudos to Ken and everyone else involved. Well done. |
Exhaust
| | My plane from Las Vegas to Santa Barbara yesterday followed Michael Jackson's by about fifteen minutes. As I left baggage claim in Santa Barbara, TV helicopters were hanging in the air like yellow jackets. |
| | When I arrived in Las Vegas last Saturday, I went straight to Fry's (a geek cultural necessity), where I caught a bit of a Jackson DVD being played on one of those $6000 flat TV screens. The performance was from back in his Billy Jean days, when he was at the top of his game — an amazing performer — even though he had already begun to surgically distance his looks from those God gave him. |
| | In his mug photo yesterday he looked like a homeless woman in bad makeup. Or Gloria Swanson playing Nora Desmond. |
| | Aside from whatever tragedies may have been visited on his aleged victims, it's probably gonna suck that Santa Barbara will be the center ring of the Media Circus from now through the trial. Hope they change the venue to Bakersfield or somewhere. |
| | I don't care if the audience eats this shit up. They'd eat up public hangings and cats being thrown out of skyscraper windows. We have to be above their basest desires ... that's why we pass up on the better-paying gigs at the National Enquirer. Well, isn't it? |
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