Monday, December 22, 2003

Dowbrigade: "Dean has reached the Pact-with-the-Devil stage of his political ascension, and how he handles it will go a long way toward determining the ultimate impact of his campaign, if not its objective success." 

Sun pulls the plug on Cobalt. Coincidentally, Scripting News is no longer served on the Qube. For the record, it was a revolutionary breakthrough product. A computer that didn't have a keyboard or a screen, but did have HTTP. It was the inspiration for Manila, it showed that real applications could interface through the Web. Too bad they sold out to Sun, that form factor with that kind of software had a big future, imho. 

NY Times profile of Elizabeth Spiers.  

As an experiment, I put Google AdSense ads on the weblogs.com home page. Immediately it makes me laugh. "Handmade Leather Journals." The perfect gift for the blogger who has everything.  

I started a moderated mail list for people who use RSS, either as a publisher or reading feeds in an aggregator. The list is moderated to keep it on topic and away from personal issues. It's just about using RSS, not debating its merits or other formats that may be like RSS. I wanted to have this list to get ready for the session I'm doing at RSS Winterfest, below, and of course if it's an active resource it'll be around for a long time after that. 

Scott Rosenberg: "Our office tower just started swaying. Stopped now. Seems like there was just a medium-size quake in the Bay Area." 

AP: "An earthquake estimated at magnitude 6.5 rocked California from Los Angeles to San Francisco on Monday, collapsing downtown buildings in one town near the epicenter, causing several unspecified injuries in the region and a widespread blackout." 

Reuters: "Ralph Nader said he wants to make another White House bid in 2004 and will announce a decision next month." 

You can tell Ralph to run, or not, in this Web form. 

In Salon, Scott Rosenberg explains how Microsoft is using weblogs to spawn a culture around the Longhorn version of Windows, in development. You have to get a free day pass or buy a subscription to read Scott's column. 

RSS Winterfest is a two-day conference, Jan 21-22, for people who use RSS. An audio conference that you participate in over the telephone. No charge, but registration is required. Should be very interesting. I'm doing the opening session, from a conference room at Harvard Law School, with people who are using RSS, and we'll talk about what they want to do with RSS, what they like about today's software, what they don't like; products and services they might want to buy. How do you feel about ads in RSS? How can schools, businesses, the government, better use RSS? Comment here. 

Lessig's on a roll. Lots of interesting posts today. Go get em. 

Taegan Goddard reports on a poll showing Dean leading narrowly in a crowded field in South Carolina. "Dean leads with 16 percent and is followed by Wesley Clark at 12 percent, Al Sharpton at 12 percent, and John Edwards at 11 percent. " 

Jon Udell: "XML documents, flowing through XML plumbing, can now deliver very real and tangible benefits." 

The Clarkbot is a "Perl script written by Rick Heller. It searches the Feedster RSS search engine for references to "Wesley Clark" To be picked up by the Clarkbot, a blog must generate an RSS Feed, and that feed must be listed with Feedster." 

I went to see Dean speak yesterday. I wonder how many people who support him have. Then I stumbled across an essay I wrote in 1998, about the Vietnam War and Clinton, and how we got to this place where we elect people who are "Successively better airbrushed, more and more tuned to polls, fighting for the center, telling us what they think we want to hear, trying to nudge the numbers up, but not relying on the minds of the electorate. They were smart not to rely on our minds, because there was no evidence that we wanted to use our minds." That was totally consistent what I saw with Dean last night. There were 150 people in the room, mostly it was about lies, bedtime stories, telling people what they want to hear. No minds activated. Some good lines, a glimmer that minds may have played a role in the Dean campaign at one time, but not today. Now they're trying to get elected, and I believe in doing so are guaranteeing that they won't. If you're looking for an airbrushed guy, Clark is much stronger. I don't know why people care how much money Dean has raised, that's just going to buy commercials. I'd love to see one of the pols use their money to solve some problems now, win or lose. Put some teeth behind We Love The Internet and The Internet Loves Us.  

Ed Cone: "North Carolina should be a great proving ground for Internet campaigning at a state level." 

Two years ago today Brent Simmons said: "I'm 200, you're 200." It's cool because you have to know HTTP to get it.  

The Guardian's A-Team blogger list. 

Phillip Pearson: "I wrote a Python script that downloads a web page, then examines all linked pages to try to find their RSS feeds." 

Back from New Hampshire with pics of Dean and Lieberman. 

Jessica Baumgart's notes on yesterday's trip to NH.