The Doc Searls Weblog : Sunday, February 20, 2005

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Previous topic

Next topic

Sunday, February 20, 2005
started 2/20/2005; 10:33:51 AM - last post 2/25/2005; 2:27:11 AM

Doc Searls - Sunday, February 20, 2005

2/20/2005; 2:33:51 PM (reads: 6540, responses: 5)

Hubble bubble

Here's an amazing collection of Hubble photos, with music and captions, from news.com.au. This is the same Hubble for which no repair money is offered in the Bush budget. What we've learned from it is incalculable.

Don't lick the yellow ink

Kombinat! has a manifesto. A sample:

Listen. Kombinat! gives birth to conversations for no other reason but to dispose of them right after birth. It is by the constant generation of conversations Kombinat is able to make profit from the noise of conversations. The conversations themselves don't matter at all. It is only imortant that they get born and then die. As to how they live Kombinat does not care. We treat all conversations equally. It matters not if they are inspirationals or full of hate. As long as Human Beings vomit language out of their mouth Kombinat is profitable.

Slogan: The pen is mightier when it's filled with piss.

A sign

I got so hooked on listening to podcasts in rental cars with mp3 CD players that I went to a car audio shop yesterday to see what the aftermarket had to offer. When I told them I'd want a unit that allowed fast-forwarding and rewinding within selections (the players in the Ford Foci I've been renting only jump from file to file), the salesguy showed me a bunch of Alpine units that do exactly that. Some also support the customer's choice of Sirius and/or XM satellite radio, rather than just one or the other (imagine a radio today sold with AM or FM, but not both), which is nice.

But dig what happened when I brought up the reason I need fast-forward/rewind: "I listen to a lot of —"

"Podcasts?" he said.

"Right."

"Yeah, they're the hot new thing. All the makers are starting to pay attention to podcasting."

More of what you won't read or hear in an analyst briefing. Or anywhere but here. Wherever we are.

In a plane flying from Boston to L.A. last Friday, I had just finished listening (for the Nth time) to Dr. Weinberger giving an outstanding talk to the Library of Congress (on the iPod I left on my seat an hour or so later), when I read the emailed version of Chris Locke's The Scobleization of Microsoft in Chief Blogging Officer. Chris is always funny, provocative and deep. This time, unusually so.

Or maybe I just understand this one better, because it describes my own experiences as well. Chris and I arrived on Earth in the same year, and have oddly similar, sometimes converging, experiential arcs, shall we say.

Anyway, dig it. (Xenoverse agrees.) And listen to the podcast at the second link from the top of this post. More than once. It's that good.

Bonus link: Jon Stewart on blogs, CNN and much more. Very funny shit.

Vocab question

How come "crabbid" isn't in the dictionary?

Bonus word: Uberous. Which I learned reading John Simon, the most caustic critic who ever lived, snarking about an unfortunate actress' "uberous left breast."

discuss

Fcb - Re: Sunday, February 20, 2005

2/20/2005; 7:30:12 PM (reads: 554, responses: 0)

More to the point, perhaps: Why is Chambers Scots Dictionary not on-line?

Where I come from, the word is "crabbit". And here, not a million miles from Santa Barbara, it is "crabby", which just does not have the same ring to it.

discuss

Kombinat! - Re: Sunday, February 20, 2005

2/22/2005; 2:40:40 AM (reads: 623, responses: 3)

Doc, It's nice to reconnect again after all these years. I notice you still have a link to my old soapbox blog on your blogroll Thanks for keeping me there in a good company between Chris and Tony even if I stopped blogging 2 years ago. So now onto Kombinat! Thanks for the link and please update me on your blogroll, I will not disappoint you. Thanks. Marek J

discuss

Doc Searls - Re: Sunday, February 20, 2005

2/23/2005; 3:01:59 AM (reads: 658, responses: 2)

Dude! I didn't even know that was you!

Will do.

discuss

Kombinat! - Re: Sunday, February 20, 2005

2/24/2005; 11:11:30 AM (reads: 788, responses: 1)

Surprise, I am back,

Gonna write post cluetrain thinking on that blog. Conversation as Space and Location, physicality of conversation etc...

Thanks for keeping things alive.

discuss