Top > Dave's World > Weblog Archive > 2001 > December > 22Previous/Next


Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.
 
Permanent link to archive for Saturday, December 22, 2001. Saturday, December 22, 2001

DaveNet: A Weblog Manifesto

Oh no O'Reilly has yet another new book out. Geez those guys have been busy! 

Shane McChesney is SkippingDot.Net

I watched Merchants of Cool, narrated by Douglas Rushkoff, who I got to know in Copenhagen. Interesting show. Of course I wondered how weblogs are going to play into the commercial domination of teen culture. Maybe it already has for all I know. But Viacom hasn't bought Blogger yet. Will we see that day? Yeah, I think we will. What do you think Evan? (He met Rushkoff too.) I can just see Ev on the World Wrestling Federation. No I can't.  

Greg Ritter pushes back on my rant about Lessig's fantasy about software and source. There's a lot of truth to what Greg says, a lot more than there is in Lessig's dream. The glitch in Ritter's rant is the assumption that people would respect the copyright on the source. I doubt they would. Competition is good, but let's have some barriers to entry. Otherwise why work so hard. It'd be more fun to take up pottery. 

BTW, there's something very Atlas Shrugged about Lessig's pitch. Lawyers. Oy. Lawyers use software too. I wonder what software Lessig uses. He should have a talk with the people who wrote the software, and explain what features he wants and what bugs he wants fixed, and then tell them after they do all that work, that they have to give their source to their competitors. I have a feeling he'll leave the meeting without getting what he wants.  

Looking for a good link on Atlas Shrugged, and it's all BS. Let me try to synopsize. It's a story of creative people who work hard who get pissed off at all the niggling little idiots who try to tell them what to do, so they create a haven to hide in while the world outside falls apart. Then they come back, and everyone says how much they missed them. It's not a great book, for adults -- it appeals to the adolescent pov, basically They'll Miss Me When I'm Gone. (The sad truth of adulthood is that they won't. Sorry I didn't make the rules.) But it's not a worthless book. It's just that people try to attach so much meaning to the story that just plain isn't realistic, it isn't how the world actually works. No one is so pure as the heroes of Atlas Shrugged. And the whole "objectivist" rant is arrogant. Oh I see, if I were objective I would see it your way. Feh. That gets in the way of the fun of the story.

802.11b: Why Software Matters. "Boingo is not a software platform locking users in. In fact, it's a standards-based tool that relies on only standard protocols to ease the process for its users. Other companies will be able to come along, using different or identical protocols and still transit TCP/IP data on the Internet. They'll have to negotiate their own contracts with wireless infrastructure providers, but that will be the case in any vision of the future of Wi-Fi." 

Steve Silberman: The Geek Syndrome.  

Brent Simmons: "I'm 200, You're 200."  

12/22/98: "It's a good time to be hibernating. Music on the box, more sad James Taylor tunes. He misses everyone, even before they're gone!" 

     

Last update: Saturday, December 22, 2001 at 9:14 PM Eastern.

Dave Winer Mailto icon
 

Click here to view the OPML version of Scripting News.

Morning Coffee Notes, an occasional podcast by Scripting News Editor, Dave Winer.

December 2001
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
 
Nov   Jan


Click here to see an XML representation of the content of this weblog.


          



© Copyright 1997-2005 Dave Winer. The picture at the top of the page may change from time to time. Previous graphics are archived.


Previous/Next