Home

Bio & Disclosures

Discussions


xFruits

2007 Events

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Author:   Doc Searls  
Posted: 7/14/2005; 8:55:31 PM
Topic: Thursday, July 14, 2005
Msg #: 5807 (top msg in thread)
Prev/Next: 5806/5808
Reads: 6855

Well, duh. 
 Mr. Internet says World of Ends is stupid.
 Next time you want to write an op-ed about me, at least give me a chance to voice my opinion on the matter. I mean, I'm The Internet. I'm right here. I know everything you say.
 
Fly 
 Guess who's behind each pimp name...
 Treacherous D. Quick
 Silver Tongue Rock Wicked
 Stealth Maestro Dave Dazzle
 Sheik J. Large
 
Building understanding 
 Steve Lewis, a terrific writer and photographer (as well as my oldest friend in the 'sphere) has been covering architecture. The real kind. A sample:
 Stairways bear the marks of the generations of people who have climbed and descended them. As a child, I often sat on the stairs of my grandparents' apartment on Morris Ave. near Fordham Road  in the Bronx, in New York. The depressions in the stone steps revealed to me the presence of tenants and visitors, remembered and forgotten, whose collective tread had slowly worn the steps down and polished them.  Years later, in Sofia and Prague, I photographed stairways as much as a homage to the lives, joys, triumphs and failings of the absent as a portrayal of the stone, steel, brick, and glass of which the buildings themselves were made.
 Another:
 Cities grow by increments and are as much the products of layers of anomalies, anachronisms, and eccentricities as they are of rational visions. I am fascinated by the accretions of seemingly absurd and obsolete elements that survive amidst changing urban infrastructures. They are repositories of the concerns, efforts, and daily realities of lives long past. They also provide aesthetic the backdrop of cities as they appear today. 
 This posting features images of five seemingly random details from the millions of details that comprise the spectular amalgam of hills, seas, buildings, streets, people, work, religiosity, power, and feeling that is Istanbul. For me, their textures and patina are parts of the character of the city.
 
Carrot vs. stick 
 Dean Landsman takes exception to this piece by Andrew Orlowski, for whom any stick one can bash blogging with is a good stick.
 Bonus link: Shelley Powers on the whole thing.
 
What she says 
 Sheila Lennon has an informative, copiously linked and sane take on the Plame Matter, and the hot seat on which the White House now finds itself.
 So does Chris Nolan:
 It is of no interest whatsoever to anyone living outside the Washington, D.C. beltway or off the island of Manhattan. It is a high-stakes game of inside baseball gone public. And it is boring.
 It is boring because it is predictable. Even I have been having trouble getting interested in this mess. It's that much of an inside game. Of course, Rove was the source. And of course he denied it. And of course the White House is embarrassed. But this whole mess is just another good example of why most folks think that the national press and politicians deserve each other.
 Her bottom line:
 Things aren't going to be any different for Novak. Or Rove. Or politics in general. It's sad, really. But it's the way things are in the tiny insular village of Big Media and Serious Politics. It's fun to visit but you wouldn't really want to live there, would you?
 
Customers and vendors, digging together 
 Don Marti's Upside-down "buyer's guide" is the smartest, coolest, most hopeful and (near as I can tell) most do-able market hack I've seen in years.
 I'll have more to say about it later in IT Garage. In the meantime, go dig it.
 
Mind fuel 
 The latest in Lyle Estill's Energy Blog includes this quotable item:
 In my mind's eye I always equate Toronto with the Peter Ustinov quote: "New York run by the Swiss," but this visit squares with Jane Jacobs vision of a run-down city short on services and vision.
 Lyle, who works out of Pittsboro, NC, has been on the road lately, talking to many about biofuels, and his reports make good reading.
 
From a mother who knows best 
 This is the best brief against terrorism I've read in years.
 
The ball keeps rolling 
 Lots of follow on What's Up With Technorati and its whole category, which includes Daypop, Popdex, Bloglines, Feedster, PubSub, IceRocket, BlogPulse...
 Here's Dave Sifry, Tom Foremski, Stephen Baker in BusinessWeek, Robert Scoble, Hans Mestrum, Jeneane Sessum, Geodog, Paul Chaney, Susan Mernit, HexLex, Padawan, Rick Segal, Stephen Pierzchala, Mike Sanders, David Weinberger, Adam Penenberg in Wired News, Jason Dowdell... The list goes on.
 The most important is Tom's, because it was his original post that started the showball rolling. His latest includes points and feedback from others who were there at the event where Tom and Technorati's Peter Hirshberg were on the same panel.
 Rick Segal's comes from the perspective of a knowing veteran, a user and a VC. An excerpt:
 Technorati is a great poster child for what¹s happening with "free" becoming the norm and people¹s reactions to it. Over the air TV, like watching ABC with your rabbit ears is free. If you think a program stinks, you don¹t think ah, whatever, it was free. Nope, you complain. Your time was wasted, you had to sit through commercials, whatever, but you bitch about it and feel totally fine doing the complaining.
 In reading all the complaints about Technorati, I¹m struck by the fact the people doing the complaining, complain with the zeal of somebody who paid for it or otherwise has an expectation of service/delivery that is, in my view, somewhat disproportionate to "free." I understand all reactions people are going to have to that remark, I really do.
 I wonder if Technorati had Beta slapped all over it or "don't use in production" warnings, would it make a difference.
 I'm not sure it is all that healthy to have an environment that is so, almost caustic, when it comes to new companies being so open/public (and free) as they try things out.  In order for the participatory model to work, you¹d think some level of civility and 'cut em a break' thinking should be entering the mix. Maybe not, maybe this is just the wild west 100 years later and frontier justice is going to continue for awhile.
 My 2 cents: It is healthy. The best medicine isn't just the kind with sugar.
 
The gang's all there 
 Kaliya's IdentityWoman blog has a new home and URL. I like the sidebar that lists participants in the Identity Ecosystem.


There are responses to this message:




Copyright 2008 The Doc Searls Weblog

Membership : Join Now : Login

Create your own Manila site in minutes. Everyone's doing it!

Click to see the XML version of this web page.

Blogroll

 
Search archives

Santa Barbarians
Edhat
SB Independent
SB Newsroom
Kevin Barron
Blogabarbara
Craig Smith
SB*Free Press
Joe Andieu
Patrick Gregston
John Quiimby
Das Williams' dad
Katy Pearce
Taymar Pixley
Lisa Gates
Cookie Jill

Everybody else
Spot-on
RageBoy
MysticBourgeoisie
David Weinberger
Miscellaneous
Dave
Berkman
John Palfrey
IT Garage
Bret Fausett
Susan Crawford
Bruce Sterling
Steve Lewis/Bubkes
Hak Pak Sak
Brad Kava
Brad Templeton
Sheila Lennon
Don Marti
Steve Urquhart
Wes Felter
Brad DeLong
Tom Evslin
Brian Oberkirch
Dean Landsman
Hugh MacLeod
LAist
Jeremy Ruston
Geoff Jones
Vaspers the Grate
Sig Rinde
Chris Albritton
Ronni Bennett
Thomas Hawk
Kevin Bedell
Howard
Bryan
Deep Fun
BoingBoing
edhat
Terry Heaton
Jay Rosen
Kim Cameron
George Lakoff
Scott Rosenberg
Larry Lessig
Jim Thompson
Jeff Jarvis
David Isenberg
Stephen Johnson
Tim Oren
Geoff Moore
Rex Hammock
This is Broken
Max Sawicky
Stuart Hughes
Dave Pentecost
John Perry Barlow
Mary Hodder
Dan Gillmor
Steve Gillmor
Dean Landsman
John Stodder
Seth Finkelstein
Renee Blodgett
misbehaving.net
Ruby Sinreich
Ed Cone
Julie Leung
Ted Leung
Ken Coar
Flemming Funch
Mike Sanders
Marc Canter
Joi Ito
Ethan Zuckerman
Doug Kaye
Jon Lebkowski
Judith Meskill
Allen Searls
Esther Dyson
Christopher Lydon
Russell Beattie
Tim Bray
Brian Millar
Mark Pilgrim
Michael Hall
Backup Brain
Frankston, Reed
Britt Blaser
Brent Simmons
Loic Le Meur
Leslie Winer
Mike Taht
Eric Raymond
Volokh Conspiracy
Steven Levy
Lisa Rein
Skywave
Epeus' epigone
Glenn Reynolds
James Taranto
Frank Paynter
Ross Mayfield
Dana Blankenhorn
Ken Bereskin/Panther
Daily Wireless
Filchyboy
OxBlog
Bryan Field-Elliot
Rajesh Jain
Oliver Willis
Gary Turner
Michael O'Connor Clarke
Jennifer Balderama
Kevin Werbach
Amy Wohl
Phil Windley
Fulcrum
Real Joe
Greater Democracy
Mitch Ratcliffe /biz
Mitch Ratcliffe/soc
Wayne Robins
VivaCapitalism
Cut on the bias
Howard Greenstein
The Poor Man
Mickey Kaus
Dave Sifry
Buzz Bruggeman
Ben Hammersley
Matt Jones
Paul Andrews
John Robb
Schoolblog
Tom Shugart
Matt Welch
Blur Circle
Denise Howell
JY
BlackHoleBrain
Chris Pirillo
Marek
Tony Pierce
Chris Nolan's
Spot On

Wil Wheaton
Meg
Brian Linse
Dan Pink
Dawn Olsen
Craig
Yoz
The Head Lemur
Ev
Jeremy Zawodny
Susan Kitchens
K5
Anu Gupta
Jonathon
Fishrush
Dave Ely
Euan Semple
Eric Norlin
Paul Boutin
James Lileks
David Williams
Mary Wehmeier
Bruner Blog
Halley Suitt
Webword
Ann Salisbury
Om Malik
Moxie
J's Notes
Meesh
NUblog
TBTF
Cam
Seth Finkelstein
Tom Matrullo
Chip Hoagland
Deborah
Fortboise
J.D. Lasica
Photodude
Phil Wolff
Andre Durand
Eric Hansen
Mike McBride
Jeneane Sessum
Chris Nolan
Gonzo Engaged
Michael Mussington
UseTheSource
Wes
Adam
Sam Ruby
Miguel
Frank Field
Rebecca Blood
Joshua Allen
Cluetrain
JOHO
EGR
Searls site
Scoble
AKMA
Kottke
Tomalak's Realm
Tim O'Reilly
Mitch Kapor
Bill Quick
Dan Bricklin
Lou Josephs
Alan Reiter
N.Z. Bear
Todd Morman
Zeldman
Glenn
Joshua
Rex Hammock
Matthew Thomas
Brian Dear
Baylink
Burningbird