Scripting News

Thu, 10 Oct 2002 01:28:53 GMT

Slate: "First movers get creamed more often than not, but they leave behind much-beloved corpses."

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 22:18:48 GMT

NY Times report on Eldred v Ashcroft.

Thu, 10 Oct 2002 01:44:04 GMT

Jim Seymour, a long-time contributor to PC Magazine, died yesterday. Best wishes to his family and colleagues.

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 23:53:34 GMT

Here's a new version of Doc Searls's RSS feed, it's based on the OPML version, and it should work, fingers crossed, knock on Murphy, praise wood.

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 22:21:29 GMT

InfoWorld: Microsoft eases copy protection in XP.

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 18:30:14 GMT

Microsoft's XDocs product, announced sometime this week, sure is confusing. Isn't stuff like this supposed to happen in the Web browser, so it can be cross-network, cross-browser and cross-platform? A News.Com report doesn't shed much light. eWeek reports that XDocs comes from NetDocs, which we remember hearing about a couple of years ago before it was swallowed up in the Office group at Microsoft. Screen shot of XDocs on Microsoft's website.

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 18:48:54 GMT

Sidenote. It's interesting that the Google News search for XDocs didn't turn up the FAQ page on Microsoft's website.

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 18:51:17 GMT

Don Park: "Microsoft's XDocs sounds very similar to the product I have been building."

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 18:33:13 GMT

Organica crawls weblogs and "makes statistics on what's popular right now, related sites, who links to who, which tools are being used, webservers being used for weblogs and so on."

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 18:14:31 GMT

Alan Reiter: "The hardest substance on Earth isn't a diamond, but the thick, dense skulls of wireless data marketing executives at cellular companies."

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 17:40:34 GMT

Thanks to Cory Doctorow for the link to the Yale LawMeme report on the US Supreme Court argument in Eldred v Ashcroft, earlier today in Washington.

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 17:27:40 GMT

Thanks to TiVO I was able to catch up on the season premiere of Law and Order. The new District Attorney is played by a sitting US Senator from Tennessee, Fred Thompson. A real politician playing the role of a politician. Hmmmm.

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 15:57:51 GMT

BBC: "The number of users taking advantage of illegal file-sharing on the net is on the rise, according to new figures from analyst firm Jupiter Media." Illegal?

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 16:02:07 GMT

NY Times: "ABC, CBS and NBC may not have covered the president's speech in Cincinnati on Monday night, but it was still one of the most-watched television events of the evening."

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 15:16:13 GMT

You say potato and I say potato. You say tomato and I say tomato. Potato, potato, tomato, tomato, let's call the whole thing off!

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 15:17:23 GMT

Lots of great suggestions for the software designer nomination for Wired. Thanks.

When I was a kid

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 17:00:48 GMT

My parents had two friends Alice and Ralph (not their real names). Alice was from Missouri and Ralph from France. They were married and had three kids, two boys and a girl, and lived in the same apartment complex we did in Queens.

Ralph was a wannabe magnate. He was going to pattern his family after the Rothschilds, who like Ralph were from France and Jewish. Now I was just a kid, but I thought he was silly bordering on pathetic. I wanted to tell him, hey schmuck, you live in an apartment in Queens. You aren't a Rothschild. You aren't the alpha male in a dynasty of rich French Jews. But I didn't say it, because who was I to piss on his dream. I was just a kid. Back then they slapped kids with attitudes. Heh.

I hadn't thought of him in this way for many years until I was reminded by another almost-broke Jew with dreams of grandeur. It's okay to have dreams, but don't get arrogant about it until you achieve them, and even then, there's nothing worse than a sore winner.