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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
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 Tuesday, November 29, 2005
started 11/29/2005; 8:02:30 AM - last post 11/30/2005; 8:23:38 PM
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Doc Searls - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 
11/29/2005; 12:02:30 PM (reads: 6498, responses: 7)
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From the Fresh Acronym Dept... 
Let that be a liaison to you
| | Andre Durand (among many others) points to Goodbye to America, the latest post by Hoder (Hassein Derakhshan), a leading blogger and Canadian citizen from Iran who was exiled from his New York home because of his own blog. Or by overstaying his visa and making that fact discoverable by border offers on his blog. Also in his suitcase. Anyway, I had no idea googling people at the border had become a routine, he writes. |
A profusion of amateur producers
| | What do you see when you look on Flickr or 23, are you looking at the work of "consumers"? Or of producers? |
| | But he keeps talking about amateur photographers as "consumers" and "the consumer". I'm thinking, whats wrong with "amateur"? |
| | Habit, mostly. Producers are accustomed to talking about their reciprocals as consumers. The problem in the market category we call photography is that the producers are no longer just consuming. They're producing and reproducing like microbes. Since they're not doing it for money in most cases, the term "amateur" is a lot more accurate, and less degrading. |
| | Of course, readers familiar with my writing (and ranting) know that the c-word has been a crab up my butt since long before Cluetrain. I should point out, though, that my issue is with accuracy, not manners. When somebody is performing as a customer, or as a citizen, or as a producer, the term consumer is not a synonym. It is either inaccurate or inadequate. |
| | I wanted to bring this point up before the end of the show, but there was some kind of technical glitch and the show ended a little bit early. |
| | By the way, Riya has a business model, and a variety of uses that are extemely interesting. Check out the show when it comes out. Plus the links above. |
Hunting, fishing and radar experiments.
| | A private email thread has followed Chris Locke's wish for a Christmas firearm (mentioned two posts down). Rather than confine my own contributions to email, I thought I'd just cc it to the world. Here goes... |
| | My father was an infantryman in WWII. Before that he worked on the railroad in Alaska, where an encounter with a grizzly came when he was unarmed and regretting it. |
| | He brought a "30-30" (no idea what that was, excatly) rifle back from the war. It used huge jacketed bullets that weren't available to civilians, so he eventually sold it or gave it away. I remember that he buried his few bullets in the back yard of the old family house on Hoyt Avenue in Fort Lee — property that has since been replaced by a city street. |
| | Pop was also a hunter who used a double-barrell 12-guage Beretta, mostly to blow up birds. He gave me a single-barrell something-or-other to start out with when I was twelve. The first and only thing I killed with it was a groundhog, near my Uncle Archie's garden in South Jersey, which was then very rural (it's still bucolic). My first shot, from about 25 yards away, rolled the groundhog over, but didn't kill it. My second wounded it. When I walked up to it to finish it off, my already minimal enthusiasm had waned to zero, and I missed. So my father finished the job with one shot that produced a large red circle on one side of the animal, which it was then my job to bury. As sporting instruction goes, this was right down there with "you clean your own fish." As aversion training went, it accomplished with gore what fishing accomplished with bore. While I enjoyed Pop's company when we went fishing, staring at water for hours at a time wasn't easy for a hyperactive kid like me. |
| | I don't know what happened to either shotgun. My guess is that they went the way of the old rifle. |
| | Meanwhile, I remember that Pop entered WWII in 1944 at age 36 and the rank of corporal in the 29th Infantry Signal Corps. He was a re-enlistee, having served in the Coastal Artillery in the mid-30s. I just looked up the Coastal Artillery and Sandy Hook, where he served, and found this declassified report on early radar studies done there. Has me wondering if that's why they put him in the Signal Corps. Maybe another family member can fill me in. |
Fed up
| | The spam situation is out of control. After neglecting it for the last several days, I just took about three hours to weed my way through a haystack of spam in search of a few needles of actual mail. |
| | (In the last sentence I first wrote "sperm" instead of spam. Coincidence?) |
| | I have SpamAssassin on my searls.com addresses, and that or something like it at my scc.com address. It helps, but not nearly enough. |
| | Meanwhile friends are telling me spam is a "solved problem". Can't wait. |
| | Meanwhile, if you're not getting through, maybe it's because a bunch of email babies are going out with the spam bathwater. |
(G)locke'd and loaded
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JTH - Re: Tuesday, November 29, 2005
11/29/2005; 6:16:27 PM (reads: 627, responses: 0)
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Doc:
Had sent a couple messages, likely lost in your spam-purge
Mostly lightweight (was in boston same time as you but doing the "grandpa" thing)
Also on homebuilding
Remodled in '99, strung a bunch of D5 Ethernet
Now mostly WiFi(Apple Airport) ... bridged (Airport) to my folks summer home couple hundred ft away.
Charter "HighSpeed" cable internet for access.
Works for me and Shirley.
Here's one on your "Saving the Net" piece:
Doc:
Getting caught up
Read through Saving the net first time, need to re-read, and re-read.
Not sure if you caught this :
Politicians and "Pipe Providers" in bed together.
Taxes
I flashed back to a time when I was involved with "Economic Development" (served some 10yrs on a Mid Michigan EDC Board, 5 as Chair)
Early stages of Fiber rollout.
Lansing Mich could have been on the leading edge of development (lots of unused evening capacity - State Govt, Michigan State University, General Motors). We had meetings and meetings over policy.
The heartbreaking theme (heartbreaking to me) was the collusion between the phone company (Mich Bell at the time) and State Utillity Regulators.
Mich Bell : we only have so much right of way, don't think we have room for that fiber stuff to be strung along it (such BS).
Regulators : yeah yeah, that's right, and besides, if somebody is going to be able to make money (home business???) we have to be able to tax it.
There's the rub.
Politicians want to be able to tax activity/transactions/property.
How can you tax an open and free net?
You can't.
But if you have toll booths, you just impose tax there.
Piper Providers become tax collectors.
Aren't we still paying for the Spanish American War via the Phone Company(s)???
End result of the Lansing meetings... Malone's TeleCom Inc went elsewhere, the chance to be a leading center of innovation was lost.
Shortsighted officals, swayed by State Bureaucrats and Phone Monolopy Snake Oil Salesmen smothered the baby in it's crib.
I saw a model where you encourage innovation, experiment, commerce.
OK, so you couldn't tax the transactions, but those engaged in online commerce would generate income, and spend it.
The taxes would be on the secondary effects, not the primary.
Sales taxes, municipal income taxes, real estate taxes (all assuming that you have created a desirable place to work/live.
That whole model is too much for polticians to grasp.
They need to see money in thier hands now, not tommorow.
Aside : from the same Era, I had lunch with the City of Lansing's Director of Development and laid out how telecommutingn could solve parking problems (merchants leaving because clients would get parkeing tickets)... he about had a a heart attack.
Dumb me
I did not know that the city had structured it's finances so that parking tickets would be a major part of paying off bonds on parking garages .... arrgh
Note that I'm now in Northen Michigan, and do some work with "Michigan Land Use Institute" on planning issues.
Lately have been interested in small town / seasonal resident WiFi services...I'll be passing along your work.
Keep up the good work(s)
Ciao
Chip
And this one:
Doc:
re: Saving the Net
Steve Levy had pointer to http://www.edge.org and, in particular to
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dyson05/dyson05_index.html
Combine with Dark Fiber rumors and maybe bypass the whole Telco/CableCo mess ???
http://looneydunes.blogspot.com/2005/11/doc-on-attempts-to-fence-in-open-range.html
BTW - just made the connection (your comments section which led to sub-thread on the Civil War)
Alan Ladd "The Virginian" siding with settlers vs the evil cattle baron
States Rights vs Federalists ???
Maybe reading too much into that.
Was working on idea of homesteaders (on the net) and personal freedom
Ciao
Chip
Earthy.com
Where Great Chefs Shop
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Joey deVilla - Re: Tuesday, November 29, 2005
11/29/2005; 8:27:12 PM (reads: 562, responses: 0)
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Hey, Doc! Joey "Accordion Guy" deVilla here.
Give me a ring at 1-800-371-6992 x1287. I can hook you up with Tucows' Email Defense service. It works quite well for my Tucows email account ( which is published on my blog); my spam is down from a torrent to a trickle.
-- Joey
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Frank Koehntopp - Re: Fighting Spam
11/29/2005; 8:49:21 PM (reads: 577, responses: 0)
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Hey Doc,
I have had excellent results by simply forwarding all my accounts to GMail and letting them sort it out. I'm now back to 3-10 spam emails per day, with > 200 filtered out by GMail. Nearly no false positives at all...
Regards from germany,
Frank.
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Bruce Fryer - Radar and WWII
11/30/2005; 1:09:16 AM (reads: 566, responses: 0)
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Small world. My grandfather Oscar Fryer went to radar school at Norfolk Naval base. He then was assigned to set up an installation in Los Angeles. They set up on San Pedro Hill.
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James Zimmerman - Consumers and Producers
11/30/2005; 1:47:35 AM (reads: 661, responses: 0)
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We all have to produce something to have an exchange. I also object to the term consumer. It is, as you say, needlessly vague. Furthermore, it shapes the paradigm of the transaction in a demeaning way to the 'consumer' who is, in fact 'producing' cash in 'exchange' for goods/services. In theory the person had to produce goods or services to obtain the cash. In any case, the goods/services of the 'seller' should have the same value as the cash being exchanged by the 'buyer'. So, in a system where we are all producers, the meaningful relationship in the marketplace is Buyer::Seller
I don't believe you should try to control how people use language. What I do want is for people to have enough self-esteem to know when they are being pigeon-holed and to reject it. To be discerning buyers so that you aren't sold junk or poor service. My feeling is that companies who don't express the value difference between 'buyers', 'partners', 'patrons', 'customers', 'users' and 'consumers' are trying to game the system. And individuals who don't recognize the difference accept the role of the modern serf, because they don't assert the value of their own production the way companies do.
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Andrew Leyden - Glocks & Shotguns
11/30/2005; 6:52:00 PM (reads: 3239, responses: 1)
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Judging from the hazmat suits and radiation detector, it seems he might be looking for a Glock as part of a home defense situation. I think he can do much better.
Shotguns are very frequently recommended for home defense over handguns, for a variety of reasons. One is aim, in that you are more than likely to get a hit with a spread of shot than a small 9 mm slug, the other is safety, in that a couple of sheets of drywall and insulation can eliminate collateral damage (i.e. a 9mm slug can pass through a few walls, and possibly bystanders, before stopping). Glocks also have a "light trigger" which might be problematic.
I'd hope he would read some reviews of weapons for home defense.
http://personalsecurityzone.com/Shotgun_for_defense.htm
http://www.outdoors.net/site/features/feature.aspx+Forum+Firearms+ArticleCode+111
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Doc Searls - Re: Glocks & Shotguns
12/1/2005; 12:23:38 AM (reads: 970, responses: 0)
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My response, to this and other subjects, is here.
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