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Thursday, October 14, 2004
The Big Bang, cont'd 
| | There will be much talk, in the coming months, about how podcasting will blow up old fashioned radio. I disagree. I think it will save radio as we know it today, by returning it to the people who know and love it best. Think of all the archives that can be freed up. Think of all the subscription business models that can grow out of syndication-the-way-it-oughta-be. Think about what happens when somebody hacks an easy voluntary payment system into the whole thing, so listeners can support broadcasters the way they do now, very informally and inefficiently, with public radio and TV. Think about what happens when some kind of open source micropayment system, perhaps borrowed from the cell phone industry, such as the one R0ml Lefkowitz of AT&T Wireless offered at the Open Source Business Conference this past Spring, gets worked into this thing. Think about what happens when your 'pod is a Linux-based cell phone. |
Big Media + Blogs
| | Versus is more interesting than Plus, for the simple reason that all fights have OR logic, and all peace has AND logic. And fights make better stories, if not better markets. (Or so it seems at 3:20 on a Thursday afternoon.) |
| | There is a lot of information and conversation in the tail of the media power curve that goes well beyond what is available from larger media organizations. |
Casualties
| | Friedman supported the war in Iraq -- hell, created a doctrine to support it, a doctrine he convinced me to support. But now he tries to slink away from that. He doesn't quite deny it; he just conveniently ignores his active role in this policy. But you can't back away, Mr. Friedman; the fact that you, in The New York Times, gave liberal justification for getting rid of Saddam and creating a beachhead for Democracy in the Middle East surely was a factor in the White House's decision to go ahead: Hell, they said, if even a Times liberal agrees.... |
| | No, I don't long for the day when terrosim is a nuisance. |
| | I long for the day when terrorism is history. |
| | Terrorism is neither, however. It was, and remains, a methodology: a set of what we used to call "guerilla" war practices, now being improved, by many trials and errors, in the laboratory we have made of Iraq. |
| | How do you make war against a methodology of war? Declaring a "war on terrorism" allowed us to feel right and justified in carrying out a more-or-less conventional war against a rogue dictator and his armies, only to find ourselves on the verge of defeat by the guerilla forces that spread into the power vaccum that developed between our largely clueless occupying military force and the belligerent and well-armed "insurgents" that knew far more about how to fill it. |
| | John Robb writes more knowingly, and dispassionately, and chillingly, than anybody else out there, about what's really going on in the real war we woke up to on 9/11. He calls our enemy Global Guerillas, which is a more accurate term than just "the terrorists," or "the evildoers." |
| | This statement sums up the rogue regime approach of the Bush administration. BUSH: "Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban." |
| | In this statement, Bush demonstrates that he fundamentally doesn't understand decentralized guerrillas. If the scorecard on victory is the elimination of rogue regimes, we will lose (and badly). |
| | I'm not sure Kerry gets it either, when he tells us Bush screwed up by losing his focus on Bin Laden, and shifting the focus of our anti-terror strategy to Iraq. The problem is bigger than Bin Laden, bigger than Saddam. It's decentralized, and it's improving its techniques every day. It also doesn't draw the line, as we do, at killing civilians. Unlike World War II (Hiroshima, Dresden) and Vietnam (napalm) we now (at least officially) only tolerate "collateral" civilian casualties. Those deaths are acceptable, perhaps, but not intentional. The bad guys kill civilians on purpose. |
| | How should we deal with that? |
| | I don't know. But I trust John Robb's opinions on the matter more than I do those of either candidate for President. |
| | As for John's background, there's this: |
| | USAF pilot. John served in a tier one counter-terrorist unit that participated in operations with Delta and Seal Team 6. John participated in operations on four continents as a mission commander, pilot and planner. He also managed the unit's daily operations and scheduling when not flying or planning missions. Numerous medals for exemplary service. |
The Big Blang, cont'd
Hope so
| | This is cool, but Windows-only. So are Picasa and the Google Toolbar. I understand why, but the strategy ignores the big influencers who happen to be on a platform that's in a minority — but only with the masses. Does Google have any plans to make this stuff work with Linux and OS X desktops? |
| | [Later...] Thanks to Don for reminding me about projects Beagle and Dashboard, which work on Gnome/Linux. |
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