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Today's blog
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 Today's blog
started 8/2/2001; 12:23:54 PM - last post 8/3/2001; 3:18:59 AM
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Doc Searls - Today's blog 
8/2/2001; 4:23:54 PM (reads: 5723, responses: 10)
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Turns out it was worth what she paid for it 
| | I hadn't been to eBay for quite a while before I looked up the item below, and I was impressed at how slow it was. Every search took forever. |
| | Then I noticed a bunch of suspicious stuff in the bottom of the browser window. I'll try to get the thing to repeat the sequence. Let's see... I'll look up "Nordmende Portable" (an old German radio that might be for sale). Okay. I get a blank page. At the bottom of the window it says "Sending request for /html/9306234/362212895/aol." The page is sitting blank for so long that I have time to spare for copying the whole number sequence down.... Okay, now the page is finally loading, and the browser says "/file/adsEnd.js." .... Okay, now it's done. I'd guess the whole loading process took the better part of a minute. Over a T-1 line. |
| | Do you guys get the same thing? If so, is it nuts or what? |
| | Whatever is happening here, it looks like Meg didn't take my free advice when news of eBay's advertising deal with AOL went down last Fall. |
| | Ah well. I cared about eBay then. Now I could care less. Literally. |
One more link in the postmortal value chain
| | Now that Webvan's stock is worth $0, its stock certificates are fetching up to $530 on eBay. |
| | (Thanks to Michael Stern, CEO of Information Markets Corp., for that one. A proud disclaimer: I'm on the board of the company — which, in spite of being a genuine dot-com, is also a genuine business. Michael deserves extreme praise for making it work. I'm constantly amazed.) |
It's easier to give bull than to take it
Still no beer for Dmitry
| | Dmitry Sklyarof is still in jail for alleged violations of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), one of the worst speech-strangling regulations ever lobbied through Congress. |
| | I'm not much of a joiner or a marcher for causes (kinda got my fill in the Sixties), but I'm in favor of everything we can do to spring this guy and turn the whole mother around. |
Reset to T1 time
| | Thanks to Andre Radke for getting me to check my TCP/IP settings one more time. Turns out I had a typo for the main name server, so the machine was going out and consulting a much less responsive server, apparently. |
Earth to Globe: free the fishwrap
| | Eric Norlin (below) also quotes a fine Jon Katz piece in the Boston Globe. Since it's in the Globe, you can't read the original unless you pay the paper $2.95 to "retrieve" it between 6am and 6pm EST, or $1.50 at less bothersome times. |
| | Like many newspapers, the Globe suffers the illusion that its "content" becomes more valuable once its print versions have migrated from racks to landfills. |
| | What they don't understand is that their only real product — the daily paper, which is worth its cover price for exactly 24 hours and nothing thereafter — becomes more valuable as an authority when its archives are exposed where others can point (or, in research parlance, refer) to them. |
| | Does anybody know how much, say, the New York Times makes by selling its archival stories? Even if it's a $million per year (which I doubt), I believe the loss in authority-building opportunity far exceeds that sum. |
Young love
| | In his latest bulletin from the leaning deck of our cultural Titanic, Eric Norlin clues us thusly: |
| | The challenge is to connect with the young. |
| | We see in them the ascendency of the amateur. |
| | Whilst the world of business struggles to keep from freezing in the cold waters of our current economy, a large undertow has formed beneath them. Spiraling toward the surface, this inescapable current is the amateur, the young, the kids — napster, rap music, the internet. Survive the "recession" and *gulp* — what the hell is that tugging on my leg? |
Delayed gratification
| | Here's a minor tech support question. I've got three boxes on one hub, all routed to the Net over a T-1 line. When I click on a link I get instantaneous response from two out of the three machines — the G4/500 desktop with Mac OS X and the G3/333 desktop with OS 9.1. The third, a G4/500 Titanium laptop, waits about 10 seconds before it even looks for the site. Otherwise it's as fast as (or faster than) the other two. (Unrelated: the Linux box is off line right now, though it should be back shortly.) Any idea what's up? |
Untangled up in blue
| | I now have 7 votes in favor of linky writing, none against. One response: |
| | Too linky? Naw. Fuck 'em. |
| | It gives people a sense of where you're coming from, saves time when writing, and gives the reader the option of going right to the original source. |
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Peter Harbeson - re: Untangled up in blue
8/2/2001; 5:17:14 PM (reads: 613, responses: 0)
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My vote: Not linky enough! There are (at least) two layers of meaning added by links: the information pointed to by the links themselves, and the more subtle meaning provided by the writer's choices about what to link and what NOT to link.
For example, here are two versions of one of your postings with a "medium" link-density. The first shows your links, the second shows an alternative set of links. Even without following the links, they read slightly differently (at least to me). Note that the "links" are fake; they're just formatting:
Did Norlin get married? I think I scanned past that part the first time I read about his dog's health problems. I have no idea what perspective to keep on the matter, especially now that the dog is fine. His name is Norman, by the way. I'm talking about the dog. I don't know about the wife. All this is in keeping with the spooky nature of the Norlin's background.
Did Norlin get married? I think I scanned past that part the first time I read about his dog's health problems. I have no idea what perspective to keep on the matter, especially now that the dog is fine. His name is Norman, by the way. I'm talking about the dog. I don't know about the wife. All this is in keeping with the spooky nature of the Norlin's background.
Links represent a kind of emphasis that says something -- sometimes a lot -- about the author's intent. This is probably a good argument against any kind of automated linking system such as Microsoft's (temporarily?) abortive smart tags idea.
Related question: what's the next step beyond the kind of linking we have today? Maybe "sidebar" windows that automatically open some links through some sort of mechanism? Maybe more than one kind of link, indicating another layer of meaning (for example, "reference" links, "story" links, and "disagreement" links)?
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Andre Radke - Re: Delayed gratification
8/2/2001; 5:55:59 PM (reads: 867, responses: 1)
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Are all three machines using exactly the same DNS settings in the TCP/IP control panel?
On the TiBook, do you have the browser configured to use a proxy cache? If so, is it the same as on the other two machines?
HTH...
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Dave Winer - As many links as please you
8/2/2001; 6:34:13 PM (reads: 555, responses: 0)
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Don't let anyone tell you how to write your blog.
That would probably be my first rule of weblogging.
Write what pleases you.
Write what you have to say.
Filter critics to the trash.
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Dan Lyke - re: Untangled up in blue,
8/2/2001; 6:45:55 PM (reads: 541, responses: 0)
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More linky!
But this might also be an opportunity for you to help put in a new set of standards! If we could agree on classes of links (ie: word definition, trademark, company name, person name, important link) then we could set up both personal and site style sheets that would let us make different links more or less intrusive on the visuals.
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Doc Searls - Re: Delayed gratification
8/2/2001; 6:47:51 PM (reads: 674, responses: 0)
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Thanks!
I just discovered the problem wasn't a proxy cache (none uses one), but name server settings. The Ti had four name servers listed, but the first had an typo. When I corrected it, the lookup became instantaneous, just like the other guys. I guess the secondary name server was seriously elsewhere.
Thanks for getting me to look at those control panels one more time. You've just made my life a lot easier since I seem to be living on the Ti these days (by far the best laptop I've ever had).
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Jay Allen - Re: Today's blog
8/2/2001; 8:11:27 PM (reads: 604, responses: 3)
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Hey Doc,
I'm glad that Dmitry is on your radar, but boycotting Adobe, I think, is a poor use of your time. Yes, Adobe messed up. Adobe used a bad law to try to cover up its own mistakes but they also relented and asked the Attorney General to drop the charges. Unfortunately, since this is not a civil matter, but a criminal one, it's out of Adobe's hands.
To make things right, not just for Dmitry but for everyone, we need to readjust our targets from Adobe and to this horrible law. The legal battle will go on, but I think it imprudent to sit on our hands and wait for a good test case to finally get to the Supreme Court. What we need is to create enough pressure on the legislative and executive branches of the government to induce action.
Congress needs to eventually understand that what they have passed is not a law against piracy but a law against free speech. A law which tilts the balance of power dangerously in favor of the corporations and away from the rights of the citizen.
Unfortunately, none of the three branches of government are going to listen to the Slashdot crowd, whom they most likely (and unfortunately) see as the chief reason for having the law. To get action, we either need a massive outpouring of support for revising the DMCA or we need strong support from key players who have the lawmakers' ears. Lawrence Lessig's recent op-ed piece in the New York Times and Richard M. Smith's thesis move us toward that goal, but it's not enough.
We need big players. Someone recently (and I can't for the life of me remember who) said that the two most likely were IBM and Sun. Our efforts should be directed at going up the chain and getting support. We (the little players) can help in that grassroots effort.
Doc, you and I and everyone else are part of the solution here. Keep the pressure on...
Jay Allen
http://www.openwire.com/web/
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Dan Lyke - Boycotting Adobe
8/2/2001; 8:52:32 PM (reads: 650, responses: 2)
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Adobe could start to atone for their sins by offering to fund Dmitry's defense. They could continue that task by offering a hundred thousand or two to the EFF to fight the DMCA, and testifying on Capitol Hill on the topic.
Someone at Adobe is directly responsible for a man languishing in a jail in a foreign country, far from his family, friends, and support system. "Whoops, sorry" is not a sufficient response.
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Jay Allen - Re: Boycotting Adobe
8/2/2001; 11:24:32 PM (reads: 800, responses: 1)
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Someone at Adobe is directly responsible for a man languishing in a jail in a foreign country, far from his family, friends, and support system. "Whoops, sorry" is not a sufficient response.
I agree completely and I also think that Adobe should pay "reparations" to Dmitry's legal defense. However, I still see so many people focusing on Adobe and that focus only indirectly helps to get the DMCA changed or off of the books altogether.
While we need to support Dmitry (and Dr. Felten, 2600 magazine and all of the DeCSS vicitims--which of course in some cases is a bit too sympathetic--of the DMCA), we need to make sure that the lawmakers (and any big boys out there who are able to help) understand that this is definitely about the law itself and not about the particulars of any one case... They need to see that the worst effects of this law have not yet even begun to take place.
The judicial process will take its own sweet time, but we shouldn't sit around and wait for the verdict. We really need to focus our attention squarely on the law and the people who put it there.
Jay Allen
http://www.openwire.com/web/
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Danny Butt - Archives
8/3/2001; 7:18:59 AM (reads: 633, responses: 0)
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New York Times able to add over $1m in "authority-building" by shutting down a serviceable revenue stream? These ain't the dotcom days any more Doc. You can't mortgage the bottom line against off-the-cuff brand-building. I believe that archives is only 5% of nytimes.com revenue, but in these ad-unfriendly days I'm sure that they appreciate it.
The content *is* more valuable the older it gets, because it's more scarce. Pretty straightforward information economics there. Especially for the nytimes which is at the top of the market in that kind of content. I don't really see how they can become that much more authoritative - or how that authoritativeness converts to revenue inthe online marketplace.
Now if you're a small newspaper covering some of the same kinds of issues as the NYT, then sure a free archive is going to give you a legup in page-views (though you probably wouldn't make content freely available which you were the major source for).
Respectfully, I remain a fan,
Danny
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Dan Lyke - Re: Boycotting Adobe
8/3/2001; 4:03:24 PM (reads: 831, responses: 0)
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Yep. The legislative branch is handing out the pipe bombs, Adobe and the MPAA are just the first two neighborhood punks to blow craters in our lawns.
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