A friend sent a link to this Daniel Pinchbeck article, Mission Possible, after a long conversation about mainstream media and how it is being affected by the blogosphere. Pinchbeck calls for us to "...deepen our commitment to transformation..." rather than flinch away from the disaster looming in our future. But the "transformation" he calls for is a spiritual one, not a technological one. Indeed Pinchbeck seems to have greater faith in the possibility that mainstream media can be used to change the way people think and live on this planet, then that technology can help correct or mediate the imbalances that we have created on our planet.
I found this disturbing for a number of reasons. First, and perhaps most importantly, I don't believe that we as a species have enough time left to convince people to think and live differently. There are too many of us, we are too dependent upon destructive technologies just to eat every day (much less everything else we need and want to do), and the underlying compulsion to consume is too powerful. Thus I believe that for us to save ourselves, we have to invest in and use technology to fix our world.
But I also found it to be paradoxical that Pinchbeck is arguing that using one of the tools that humans have invented (mass media) can be a successful strategy to correcting the worlds problems while using other tools (science, technology) will fail. I tracked Pinchbeck down to ask him about this. As a side note, shame on the Seattle Conscious Choice website for not making this easier. But I did find an email address by simply googling him.
Pinchbeck writes back "Every potent new technology has unleashed a deeper level of damage. The law of unintended consequences: biotech now kills the honeybees, what will nanotech destroy?"
Well, the latest news out (LA Times article) suggests that it is actually a fungus affecting bees, not biotech. And we wouldn't know this without science, much less have the ability to find a way of solving the problem.
Let's face facts -- we have already passed a key tipping point. Human beings now have the responsibility to manage the ecosystem, it is no longer self managing in a way that will sustain the health and well being of our species. We need more technology and more management of the ecosystem, not less. Just arguing that we should all become earth friendly in the way we live will not pull us back from disaster that is now brewing in our future.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Engaging the Author
Having tracked down Thomas Claburn -- the author of "Media Companies Confront Mortality" -- I have engaged in a spirited conversation with him about CMP, his article, blogging vs. journalism, etc. With his permission, I repeat some of that conversation here.
Claburn points out that it is CMP and not he (or any individual writer) who (1) doesn't provide "community" tools and (2) and does spread articles around their network without attribution to the original author. So to be clear - my criticism on this point was not of Thomas or of his article -- but it was of CMP.
Regarding the specific comment, Thomas writes: "Your point is well-taken. It was certainly snarky and perhaps an unfair characterization of the state of the companies present."
But he goes on to point out that I was snarky back in calling his comment "ugly." We then debated whether there is a difference between blogging (which I characterized as editorial) and writing a news article for Information Week. I contend that there is a difference -- my expectation is that something labeled "news" will be presented with an attempt at conveying an objective perspective. Snarkiness is fine in an editorial, where it is clearly an individual's perspective. This blog, for example, is unapologetically my own perspective. And while I recognize that journalists are people too and have their own perspectives and biases - I expect that news will be written in a way that doesn't broadcast those perspectives.
But the most important part of this for me is that when I did track down the author, he did reply, was accountable, was engaged with the topic and the audience. So kudos to Thomas for being the kind of journalist that can make a difference in the media 2.0 world -- even if his company is following far behind in supporting him.
Claburn points out that it is CMP and not he (or any individual writer) who (1) doesn't provide "community" tools and (2) and does spread articles around their network without attribution to the original author. So to be clear - my criticism on this point was not of Thomas or of his article -- but it was of CMP.
Regarding the specific comment, Thomas writes: "Your point is well-taken. It was certainly snarky and perhaps an unfair characterization of the state of the companies present."
But he goes on to point out that I was snarky back in calling his comment "ugly." We then debated whether there is a difference between blogging (which I characterized as editorial) and writing a news article for Information Week. I contend that there is a difference -- my expectation is that something labeled "news" will be presented with an attempt at conveying an objective perspective. Snarkiness is fine in an editorial, where it is clearly an individual's perspective. This blog, for example, is unapologetically my own perspective. And while I recognize that journalists are people too and have their own perspectives and biases - I expect that news will be written in a way that doesn't broadcast those perspectives.
But the most important part of this for me is that when I did track down the author, he did reply, was accountable, was engaged with the topic and the audience. So kudos to Thomas for being the kind of journalist that can make a difference in the media 2.0 world -- even if his company is following far behind in supporting him.
Here's What's Wrong
UPDATE - See bottom of article...
Dear CMP Media, thank you for your recent coverage of the Web 2.0 Expo. I enjoyed your article covering the panel I spoke on. Your article, "Media Companies Confront Mortality" demonstrated what is wrong with mainstream media very effectively.
#1) There was no byline. The article was written by "Staff Writers" -- since it wasn't written by a specific person, there is no accountability, no ability to respond, no knowledge of whether the person writing the article actually knows anything about the topic that he/she is writing on... So this is just a pronouncement from on high -- big media saying "this is what you should believe about what happened and you should believe because we are in charge."
#2) There is no comment mechanism. I read the article and then I have no ability to discuss the article with other people reading it, no trackback mechanism so that I can link to the article from my blog and point out problems or discuss issues...
#3) With the appearance of objectivity, the article puts ugly opinions into the public sphere. Where does CMP Media get off saying that our opinions were "...coming from a panel full of poorly capitalized Web startups..." How do they know? Did they bother to inquire with any of the four of us about our capital structures?
No need to read CMP Media any more, they discredit themselves through their practices, behavior, and poor reporting.
UPDATE: It occurred to me that the version of the article I was seeing was picked up from somewhere else within CMP, and sure enough the original version is in Information Week -- here.
I have written to author Thomas Claburn - let's see if he replies!
Dear CMP Media, thank you for your recent coverage of the Web 2.0 Expo. I enjoyed your article covering the panel I spoke on. Your article, "Media Companies Confront Mortality" demonstrated what is wrong with mainstream media very effectively.
#1) There was no byline. The article was written by "Staff Writers" -- since it wasn't written by a specific person, there is no accountability, no ability to respond, no knowledge of whether the person writing the article actually knows anything about the topic that he/she is writing on... So this is just a pronouncement from on high -- big media saying "this is what you should believe about what happened and you should believe because we are in charge."
#2) There is no comment mechanism. I read the article and then I have no ability to discuss the article with other people reading it, no trackback mechanism so that I can link to the article from my blog and point out problems or discuss issues...
#3) With the appearance of objectivity, the article puts ugly opinions into the public sphere. Where does CMP Media get off saying that our opinions were "...coming from a panel full of poorly capitalized Web startups..." How do they know? Did they bother to inquire with any of the four of us about our capital structures?
No need to read CMP Media any more, they discredit themselves through their practices, behavior, and poor reporting.
UPDATE: It occurred to me that the version of the article I was seeing was picked up from somewhere else within CMP, and sure enough the original version is in Information Week -- here.
I have written to author Thomas Claburn - let's see if he replies!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Technorati
Over a year ago, when I was just thinking about starting The Personal Bee, I sat down with Dave Sifry (CEO of Technorati) to chat. I felt then that the work I wanted to do was a perfect complement to Technorati.
While the timing wasn't right then for us to bring these ideas to Technorati, Dave and I maintained a friendship and communication over the 9 months that we built the first beta version of Personal Bee. And after we launched that beta, in September of last year, Dave and I agreed that we should have another conversation about bringing the two companies together.
I am happy to announce, as Dave has on his blog, that as of today The Personal Bee is a part of Technorati.
All of us on the Bee team are excited about the opportunity to participate in the evolution of Technorati, and to Be of Service to Technorati's many constituents.
While the timing wasn't right then for us to bring these ideas to Technorati, Dave and I maintained a friendship and communication over the 9 months that we built the first beta version of Personal Bee. And after we launched that beta, in September of last year, Dave and I agreed that we should have another conversation about bringing the two companies together.
I am happy to announce, as Dave has on his blog, that as of today The Personal Bee is a part of Technorati.
All of us on the Bee team are excited about the opportunity to participate in the evolution of Technorati, and to Be of Service to Technorati's many constituents.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Grokking Twitter: Presence, Scope, and Permanence
Should we care about twitter? I addressed this question back in February over on my IP Inferno blog but I think I did a lousy job. Since then I have used (and thought about) the service a lot more. And I have increasingly found myself in conversations with my fellow over-40 digerati trying to explain why they should care about twitter...
And in the last week both the San Francisco Chronicle and USA Today have published articles about twitter and neither of them really get to the heart of why twitter is important and why we should care.
Stowe Boyd offers an amusing rant on the USA Today article but while he correctly points out that author Andrew Kantor does not "...understand the benefits -- or even the possibility -- of moving to a flow state of interaction..." Stowe doesn't explain what this means or why it is important.
So in the spirit of Time Magazine's Person of the Year I have taken it upon myself to explain twitter...
As the Internet has moved from obscurity to a staple of our society over the past two decades there has been an explosion in new communications tools. A useful way to think about this explosion is to think about communications around three characteristics: presence, scope, and permanence. Each of these characteristics, as I will go on to explain, has a continuum of modalities and each communication tool has optimized for performing within a particular part of that cube.
PRESENCE
Is it necessary for the participants in the communication to be present at the time the communication is created? For example if you are taking a class, you need to be present in the classroom to get value from the lecture. But you can read a book thousands of years after it was written. The recipient must be present to receive the lecture but is usually not present when a book is written. Similarly, a phone call is a synchronous form of communications -- both speaker and listener must be present. Voice mail is asynchronous -- the listener need not be present at the time the recording is made and the speaker need not be present at the time of listening.
SCOPE
Classrooms engage a defined group of people in a conversation, newspapers engage an undefined group, a phone call typically involves just two people. Scope is about the number of people involved, the relationship between those people, and the privacy of the communication.
PERMANENCE
Information has a shelf life (or even a half life). Some information is valuable for thousands of years, other information is valuable for only a moment.
Think about the kinds of communications tools that we commonly use, applying these three characteristics:
PHONE CALL
Synchronous communication (presence required), the scope is typically one-one, and (short of a recording) it is a medium best used for information of little permanence.
EMAIL
Email is asynchronous, allowing for long delays between exchanges. The scope can be one-one or one-many but there are few facilities for managing complex many-many communications on a topic. As information can be stored and retrieved for later use, it can be used for topics with some permanence though various limitations generally cause users to move to another medium for longer term storage of documents or issues of more permanence.
IM
Instant messaging is mostly synchronous, though it can have delays in replies. It is typically a one-one communication and the information usually has a very short period of value.
BLOG
Like email, a blog is asynchronous. The scope is typically one-many although commenting facilities can make them into more of a conversation. Information of value for a long time (though perhaps not decades) can be stored on blogs and accessed by a wide variety of readers.
So what is twitter? It is asynchronous (although there can be more value if both speaker and listener are present); the most valuable uses are when the communications are within a particular defined group (friends, a company); and the information has a very short term value.
Examples:
I might tweet "Headed out for a soy chai, anyone want to go?" -- this emphasizes the value of presence, the fact that I am broadcasting to people within a defined group (my office), and has a very momentary value (miss it by 5 minutes and I am already gone).
Another example (from Stowe Boyd) Chris Pirillo points to an article written by Paul Graham claiming Microsoft is dead: http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html -- this is completely asynchronous, anytime I find out about it, it is valuable to me. There is little definition in the group (other than perhaps interest), and the information has some permanence.
So two things that emerge in looking at twitter in this way -- First it has an interesting ability to be useful over a range of states but tends toward group communications that are impermanent and where presence can add value but isn't necessary. Second that it complements other communication types without replacing them -- indicating that there is a place in the ecosystem for this type of communication.
Another interesting thing that you can ask about twitter is whether you can compare the role it serves in online communications with some similar off-line communication. Within every social group there are adhoc communications that serve the same purposes that twitter serves in an online world. Announcing that I am going out to get a cup of chai tea, or people sharing an interest in an article happens all the time within social groups. The difference online is that time and space become less of a constraint for allowing these group communications to occur. This is the role that twitter is serving.
And in the last week both the San Francisco Chronicle and USA Today have published articles about twitter and neither of them really get to the heart of why twitter is important and why we should care.
Stowe Boyd offers an amusing rant on the USA Today article but while he correctly points out that author Andrew Kantor does not "...understand the benefits -- or even the possibility -- of moving to a flow state of interaction..." Stowe doesn't explain what this means or why it is important.
So in the spirit of Time Magazine's Person of the Year I have taken it upon myself to explain twitter...
As the Internet has moved from obscurity to a staple of our society over the past two decades there has been an explosion in new communications tools. A useful way to think about this explosion is to think about communications around three characteristics: presence, scope, and permanence. Each of these characteristics, as I will go on to explain, has a continuum of modalities and each communication tool has optimized for performing within a particular part of that cube.
PRESENCE
Is it necessary for the participants in the communication to be present at the time the communication is created? For example if you are taking a class, you need to be present in the classroom to get value from the lecture. But you can read a book thousands of years after it was written. The recipient must be present to receive the lecture but is usually not present when a book is written. Similarly, a phone call is a synchronous form of communications -- both speaker and listener must be present. Voice mail is asynchronous -- the listener need not be present at the time the recording is made and the speaker need not be present at the time of listening.
SCOPE
Classrooms engage a defined group of people in a conversation, newspapers engage an undefined group, a phone call typically involves just two people. Scope is about the number of people involved, the relationship between those people, and the privacy of the communication.
PERMANENCE
Information has a shelf life (or even a half life). Some information is valuable for thousands of years, other information is valuable for only a moment.
Think about the kinds of communications tools that we commonly use, applying these three characteristics:
PHONE CALL
Synchronous communication (presence required), the scope is typically one-one, and (short of a recording) it is a medium best used for information of little permanence.
Email is asynchronous, allowing for long delays between exchanges. The scope can be one-one or one-many but there are few facilities for managing complex many-many communications on a topic. As information can be stored and retrieved for later use, it can be used for topics with some permanence though various limitations generally cause users to move to another medium for longer term storage of documents or issues of more permanence.
IM
Instant messaging is mostly synchronous, though it can have delays in replies. It is typically a one-one communication and the information usually has a very short period of value.
BLOG
Like email, a blog is asynchronous. The scope is typically one-many although commenting facilities can make them into more of a conversation. Information of value for a long time (though perhaps not decades) can be stored on blogs and accessed by a wide variety of readers.
So what is twitter? It is asynchronous (although there can be more value if both speaker and listener are present); the most valuable uses are when the communications are within a particular defined group (friends, a company); and the information has a very short term value.
Examples:
I might tweet "Headed out for a soy chai, anyone want to go?" -- this emphasizes the value of presence, the fact that I am broadcasting to people within a defined group (my office), and has a very momentary value (miss it by 5 minutes and I am already gone).
Another example (from Stowe Boyd) Chris Pirillo points to an article written by Paul Graham claiming Microsoft is dead: http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html -- this is completely asynchronous, anytime I find out about it, it is valuable to me. There is little definition in the group (other than perhaps interest), and the information has some permanence.
So two things that emerge in looking at twitter in this way -- First it has an interesting ability to be useful over a range of states but tends toward group communications that are impermanent and where presence can add value but isn't necessary. Second that it complements other communication types without replacing them -- indicating that there is a place in the ecosystem for this type of communication.
Another interesting thing that you can ask about twitter is whether you can compare the role it serves in online communications with some similar off-line communication. Within every social group there are adhoc communications that serve the same purposes that twitter serves in an online world. Announcing that I am going out to get a cup of chai tea, or people sharing an interest in an article happens all the time within social groups. The difference online is that time and space become less of a constraint for allowing these group communications to occur. This is the role that twitter is serving.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Cult Of The Amateur
Perhaps it is the poet lost inside me, aching to be free. But I find this post, at so many levels, to be the perfect response to Andrew Keen's hopeless "cult of the amateur" and a subtle message to the industrial media complex about what they don't get about how the Internet is changing everything...
http://illuminaught.livejournal.com/29278.html
Get it?
http://illuminaught.livejournal.com/29278.html
Get it?
SF Chronicle You Have Our Attention
A case of cause and effect? Just a week ago, Tim O'Reilly was opining that the SF Chronicle was "in trouble." Noting that he hates to "...play Valleywag..." Tim goes on to say that Phil Bronstein (editor-in-chief at the Chron) held an emergency meeting with staff in which he stated that the "news business is broken, and no one knows how to fix it."
And then this week, he started to fix it.
What is it that local journalistic endeavors can do better than anyone else? Provide coverage of whatever makes their own local scene special and different. The San Jose Mercury News could have (but hasn't) made the tech industry their special beat. But in the last week, the SF Chronicle has been making this weird thing called "web 2.0" and what author Andrew Keen is calling "the cult of the amateur" their special beat.
Today it was a story about something just 11 days old -- justin.tv -- which is capturing the interest of the technorati but who would of thought that mainstream news readers would be interested? The Chronicle made their story on Justin and his fellow nerds front page news.
Crazy? Or brilliant? Sure, most San Franciscans are like people in the rest of the country -- interested in the Iraq war, local politics, and weekend sales. But what makes this area DIFFERENT from the rest of the country is people like Justin and the crazy new companies that get created from their ideas. This is the future of local journalism -- uncovering and writing about what is special and unique about their local area.
As one of my old journalist friends used to say "three is a trend" -- the article about Justin.tv wasn't the only interesting piece in the Chron this week.
On Monday it was Dan Fost's article on phenom twitter.
On Thursday it was Dan's coverage of Kathy Sierra.
For me, this kind of coverage makes the Chronicle relevant again. It makes me visit their website and talk about them and maybe even spend $.25 to buy the paper as I make my way onto BART in the morning (the current discount for BART morning commuters).
And I think it shows the way for other local papers -- dig into what YOUR region is known for, or what you think is special. Maybe you can build an online audience, maybe you can get your local readers interested again, maybe you can be relevant again in a world where you can no longer just re-run AP articles that we are already getting on our Blackberrys...
And then this week, he started to fix it.
What is it that local journalistic endeavors can do better than anyone else? Provide coverage of whatever makes their own local scene special and different. The San Jose Mercury News could have (but hasn't) made the tech industry their special beat. But in the last week, the SF Chronicle has been making this weird thing called "web 2.0" and what author Andrew Keen is calling "the cult of the amateur" their special beat.
Today it was a story about something just 11 days old -- justin.tv -- which is capturing the interest of the technorati but who would of thought that mainstream news readers would be interested? The Chronicle made their story on Justin and his fellow nerds front page news.
Crazy? Or brilliant? Sure, most San Franciscans are like people in the rest of the country -- interested in the Iraq war, local politics, and weekend sales. But what makes this area DIFFERENT from the rest of the country is people like Justin and the crazy new companies that get created from their ideas. This is the future of local journalism -- uncovering and writing about what is special and unique about their local area.
As one of my old journalist friends used to say "three is a trend" -- the article about Justin.tv wasn't the only interesting piece in the Chron this week.
On Monday it was Dan Fost's article on phenom twitter.
On Thursday it was Dan's coverage of Kathy Sierra.
For me, this kind of coverage makes the Chronicle relevant again. It makes me visit their website and talk about them and maybe even spend $.25 to buy the paper as I make my way onto BART in the morning (the current discount for BART morning commuters).
And I think it shows the way for other local papers -- dig into what YOUR region is known for, or what you think is special. Maybe you can build an online audience, maybe you can get your local readers interested again, maybe you can be relevant again in a world where you can no longer just re-run AP articles that we are already getting on our Blackberrys...
Friday, March 09, 2007
New Communications Forum
Listening to Shel Holtz wrap up the "New Communications Forum" event in Las Vegas. By all accounts the Society for New Communications Research has put on a great show -- numerous attendees have said to me that it is the most useful and interesting conference that they have attended in years.
A few attendees, however, have said to me "gee, not much new here." An observation -- there are two kinds of attendees at this conference: a group of people eager to learn about social media and a group of people who are already engaged in inventing social media. For the first group, this was a great conference and exactly what conferences should be about -- getting enthusiastic experts in front of eager learners. But the conference didn't do as well at serving people who are already engaged and who want to take ideas and debates deeper by interacting with their peers.
This last point does not detract in any way in my mind from the value of the conference and the high quality speakers, sessions, and organization of the event. But rather, it is an observation that as an industry we still are struggling with how to create the right kind of event for experts to cooperatively advance knowledge and initiatives in their industries.
FooCamp, BarCamp, and Social Media club are good experiments, but here is a challenge to conference organizers -- can a single show serve both audiences? I would argue that it HAS to in order to work -- because you need the experts in order to have interesting content for the learners. But the experts then have to derive value from their participation.
A few attendees, however, have said to me "gee, not much new here." An observation -- there are two kinds of attendees at this conference: a group of people eager to learn about social media and a group of people who are already engaged in inventing social media. For the first group, this was a great conference and exactly what conferences should be about -- getting enthusiastic experts in front of eager learners. But the conference didn't do as well at serving people who are already engaged and who want to take ideas and debates deeper by interacting with their peers.
This last point does not detract in any way in my mind from the value of the conference and the high quality speakers, sessions, and organization of the event. But rather, it is an observation that as an industry we still are struggling with how to create the right kind of event for experts to cooperatively advance knowledge and initiatives in their industries.
FooCamp, BarCamp, and Social Media club are good experiments, but here is a challenge to conference organizers -- can a single show serve both audiences? I would argue that it HAS to in order to work -- because you need the experts in order to have interesting content for the learners. But the experts then have to derive value from their participation.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Elimination of Time and Space
Great post by Doc Searls on what he calls "giant zero journalism" but which might be better understood by saying that the Internet is in the process of eliminating time and space as issues for journalism, get used to it.
Ostensibly the piece is about citizen journalism -- is it good, bad, or just different. But really it is about the mechanism by which the Internet as a technology disrupts existing businesses by changing the very laws of physics by which they operate.
In other words, when time and space are issues in the gathering and dissemination of a news product, the role of professionals and institutions is much more important than in the world we are moving toward... one in which every person can report instantaneously to everyone else on the thing that is right in front of our faces.
So what is the role of the professional and the institution when space and time drifts into inconsequential inconvenience rather than defining dominance for an industry? At best, it is a role that will change dramatically...
Ostensibly the piece is about citizen journalism -- is it good, bad, or just different. But really it is about the mechanism by which the Internet as a technology disrupts existing businesses by changing the very laws of physics by which they operate.
In other words, when time and space are issues in the gathering and dissemination of a news product, the role of professionals and institutions is much more important than in the world we are moving toward... one in which every person can report instantaneously to everyone else on the thing that is right in front of our faces.
So what is the role of the professional and the institution when space and time drifts into inconsequential inconvenience rather than defining dominance for an industry? At best, it is a role that will change dramatically...
Monday, March 05, 2007
China Basin
Just walked through the China Basin building down on Berry Street (down by AT&T Park in SF). The last time I was there was in 1996 when I was working for CMP Media on a project called NetGuide Live:
"Building off NetGuide Magazine's reputation for expert information and quality delivery, CMP launched the first true guide to the Internet, NetGuide Live..."or as we fondly called it back in 1996 "Project Gulliver." Ah, a trip through memory lane indeed. Whatever did happen to Beth Haggerty? Google says... InfoSeek, president of InfoRocket, CEO of LiveAdvice, and then it sort of runs out... Newt Barrett? SCORE Volunteer, Senior Vice President of the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce... He had left CMP to buy and run Southwest Florida Business Magazine, which he apparently sold to Gulfshore Media in 2001. So many other folks from those days. Still in touch with Dan Ruby and Dan Brekke anyone else out there reading this?
Friday, March 02, 2007
2 Stars for Peace
Just heard about this incredible idea -- make Israel and Palestine into US States... Here is a brief article explaining the idea and pointing to a book by Martinne Rothblatt -- The Case for Using U.S. Statehood to Achieve Lasting Peace in the Middle East
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Party like its 1999
One of the things that is different this time around is that Silicon Valley has its own party venues... during the bubble we had to crash established silicon valley or san francisco haunts with our Internet craze... now people like Jonathan Abrams have started bars like slide... leading to Internet parties like the one I attended last night for Revision 3 (some sort of "new" Internet TV thing)... But some things stay the same. A bunch of geeks standing around in a bar trying to talk about technology over loud music looks the same in 2007 as in 1999...
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Matt Damon == Capt Kirk ?? WTF!
Please say its not so. Please say that they have it wrong... Could it really be true that they have cast Matt Damon as Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise!!?? Ahhh... he hasn't been cast yet! Shooting hasn't begun!! Its not too late for us to launch a "please not Matt!" campaign... IGN writes:
Titanic boy [oops Dan reminds me this is Leonardo...] Good Will Hunting Boy [doesn't have the same ring to it] doesn't necessarily get to sinkshoot [huh?] the Enterprise... and what else did they say? King Kong's Adrien Brody as Spock!? WTF!!?
Confirming rumors that have been making the rounds for some months now, IGN has learned that Oscar winner Matt Damon is indeed in talks with Paramount about playing the role of Jim Kirk, previously immortalized onscreen by Emmy winner William Shatner.In TALKS... ok. Deep breath.
For the part of Kirk's Vulcan first officer Mr. Spock, IGN has been told that none other than Oscar winner Adrien Brody (King Kong, The Pianist) is in talks with Paramount to play the role. If cast, Brody would succeed Leonard Nimoy in a role that forever marked Nimoy's career.OK... "if cast" the said... deep breath... OK now the campaign is "Please NOT Damon and Adrien!"
Jim Zumbo Dixie Chick'd
I am not a hunter. But I respect their right to hunt. And to express their views about hunting. That seems to be what sets me apart from the "mainstream" of the gun culture in this country.
Jim Zumbo has been a lifelong hunter and a spokesperson for this sport. Recently he decided to express his opinion about assault rifles. On his blog (on Outdoor Magazine's website but here is a link since that site has been removed) he wrote:
What happened to an America in which we are willing to accept differences of opinion, embrace diversity, defend each other's right to free speech?
This week my wife and I watched "Shut Up and Sing" - the documentary on how the Dixie Chicks were treated by the country music industry when Nicole, their lead singer, said on a stage in London that she "...was ashamed that our President is from Texas." The personal attacks included death threats. Worth watching, by the way, if you want to see an ugly side of America.
I am personally very disturbed by this lack of tolerance. I believe it is the greatest threat to our way of life -- not "terrorism."
Jim Zumbo has been a lifelong hunter and a spokesperson for this sport. Recently he decided to express his opinion about assault rifles. On his blog (on Outdoor Magazine's website but here is a link since that site has been removed) he wrote:
I call them “assault” rifles, which may upset some people. Excuse me, maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity. I’ll go so far as to call them “terrorist” rifles. They tell me that some companies are producing assault rifles that are “tackdrivers.”Because of his comments, reports the Washington Post, Jim Zumbo has been attacked by the hunting community, he has lost his job as a writer for Outdoor Magazine, Remington has canceled their business relationship with him, the Outdoor Channel has canceled his show... and the NRA has severed its ties to him.Sorry, folks, in my humble opinion, these things have no place in hunting. We don’t need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them, which is an obvious concern. I’ve always been comfortable with the statement that hunters don’t use assault rifles. We’ve always been proud of our “sporting firearms.”
What happened to an America in which we are willing to accept differences of opinion, embrace diversity, defend each other's right to free speech?
This week my wife and I watched "Shut Up and Sing" - the documentary on how the Dixie Chicks were treated by the country music industry when Nicole, their lead singer, said on a stage in London that she "...was ashamed that our President is from Texas." The personal attacks included death threats. Worth watching, by the way, if you want to see an ugly side of America.
I am personally very disturbed by this lack of tolerance. I believe it is the greatest threat to our way of life -- not "terrorism."
Friday, February 23, 2007
Why People Wear Suits
Blog Maverick Mark Cuban has hit a nerve with his post "Why I Don't Wear a Suit and Can't Figure Out Why Anyone Does!" I know I couldn't help but respond but I was shocked to see that I was comment number 328... So I thought I'd post my comment here as well:
A few years ago, after the dot com bubble burst, I was in New York City and someone there said to me "I hear that people are wearing suits in Silicon Valley again." He said it in a very smug superior way, as if this was proof that some deviant culture (Internet, Silicon Valley, tech folks, etc) had been entirely wiped out by the civilized world. So I think you are dead-on that wearing a suit has become, for some of those that wear them, a symbol of superiority.
But there is another simpler explanation -- inertia. Suit wearing evolved in an age when most people had to do hard physical labor that would destroy nice clothes -- so people that wore them were saying "I don't have to do hard physical labor." Clothes as an indicator of class. Over time, suits became the uniform for office workers and as these ranks grew, the reason changed from the initial objective of differentiation to one of assimilation.
What is interesting is that in whatever culture you visit, people tend to dress alike -- Its what the anthrophologist Victor Turner calls liminality. Human beings want to be included. There is safety in being part of the pack. So we dress alike (speak alike, eat alike...) in order to show that we belong and are not dangerous outsiders.
I bet your employees dress like you.
A few years ago, after the dot com bubble burst, I was in New York City and someone there said to me "I hear that people are wearing suits in Silicon Valley again." He said it in a very smug superior way, as if this was proof that some deviant culture (Internet, Silicon Valley, tech folks, etc) had been entirely wiped out by the civilized world. So I think you are dead-on that wearing a suit has become, for some of those that wear them, a symbol of superiority.
But there is another simpler explanation -- inertia. Suit wearing evolved in an age when most people had to do hard physical labor that would destroy nice clothes -- so people that wore them were saying "I don't have to do hard physical labor." Clothes as an indicator of class. Over time, suits became the uniform for office workers and as these ranks grew, the reason changed from the initial objective of differentiation to one of assimilation.
What is interesting is that in whatever culture you visit, people tend to dress alike -- Its what the anthrophologist Victor Turner calls liminality. Human beings want to be included. There is safety in being part of the pack. So we dress alike (speak alike, eat alike...) in order to show that we belong and are not dangerous outsiders.
I bet your employees dress like you.
Internet Explorer Losing Ground?
As someone who has struggled to make web pages look beautiful on Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari, I found this story on ars technica hard to avoid reading... "Internet Explorer loses ground to Firefox, Safari... but "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey liked to say is that there are conflicting numbers from a variety of tracking efforts and so no one really knows...
Suffice to say that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still somewhere around 80% of the market for browsers. The introduction of IE 7 hasn't helped them, but they are still the dominant player.
But in a related note on the ars technica site there is data that shows that Firefox isn't growing either. So who is gaining marketshare? Safari.
How could that be? The only people that use Safari are Macintosh users. Could this be an early indication that Apple is finally gaining marketshare? And how long before these users abandon Safari -- I like to complain about Internet Explorer but Safari's support for W3 standards is even more abysmal.
On a related note, I have some advice for people trying to decide which browser to support when working on their web site compatibility tests. Don't forget to test Firefox on Mac. Just testing Firefox on Windows isn't sufficient. And while the total number of users of Firefox on Mac OS X may be small - they are a very influential group. I just met with a company yesterday that has a very popular website and they have done NO testing on Firefox for Mac OS X. How can that be, I asked? And I showed them a very nasty bug that they have in their product -- just on that platform... They thought they were done when the tested on Windows. Don't get caught in the same trap!
Suffice to say that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still somewhere around 80% of the market for browsers. The introduction of IE 7 hasn't helped them, but they are still the dominant player.
But in a related note on the ars technica site there is data that shows that Firefox isn't growing either. So who is gaining marketshare? Safari.
How could that be? The only people that use Safari are Macintosh users. Could this be an early indication that Apple is finally gaining marketshare? And how long before these users abandon Safari -- I like to complain about Internet Explorer but Safari's support for W3 standards is even more abysmal.
On a related note, I have some advice for people trying to decide which browser to support when working on their web site compatibility tests. Don't forget to test Firefox on Mac. Just testing Firefox on Windows isn't sufficient. And while the total number of users of Firefox on Mac OS X may be small - they are a very influential group. I just met with a company yesterday that has a very popular website and they have done NO testing on Firefox for Mac OS X. How can that be, I asked? And I showed them a very nasty bug that they have in their product -- just on that platform... They thought they were done when the tested on Windows. Don't get caught in the same trap!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Twitter: An interesting experiment
I have been playing with a new web service called "twitter" today -- http://www.twitter.com
The interesting (obvious?) idea behind this service is that people want to blather about what they are doing all through the day and that other people want to know... So you can create a stream of your comments, thoughts, or reports on your activities and this creates a stream. Here is mine:
http://www.twitter.com/tshelton
Then other people can subscribe to your stream and get reports on what you are up to... you can even "nudge" other people who haven't updated and find out what they are up to
The interesting (obvious?) idea behind this service is that people want to blather about what they are doing all through the day and that other people want to know... So you can create a stream of your comments, thoughts, or reports on your activities and this creates a stream. Here is mine:
http://www.twitter.com/tshelton
Then other people can subscribe to your stream and get reports on what you are up to... you can even "nudge" other people who haven't updated and find out what they are up to
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The Road Ahead (Looking Back)
At Davos this week Bill Gates predicted that broadcast television as we know it today will be radically transformed over the next 5 years. It reminded me of something Bill said about technology and predictions...
Looking back at the book today is interesting though. Elsewhere in the book he wrote:
Does this mean that 5 years is too short or too long? Either way, if I were in broadcast television today, comments like this from Bill Gates would scare the s** out of me. Even 10 years isn't very long to rethink your entire industry.
"People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years and underestimate what will happen in ten."So said Bill Gates at the beginning of the Afterword for the revised edition of his mid-1990s book "The Road Ahead." It was in part an apology that some of the things he had predicted in his book hadn't happened... yet.
Looking back at the book today is interesting though. Elsewhere in the book he wrote:
"Within twenty years virtually everything I've talked about in this book will be broadly available in developed countries..."With few exceptions (electronic wallets anyone?) the predictions made by Bill turn out to be too timid 10 years later. So in half of the 20 years everything he predicted has come about.
Does this mean that 5 years is too short or too long? Either way, if I were in broadcast television today, comments like this from Bill Gates would scare the s** out of me. Even 10 years isn't very long to rethink your entire industry.
Berkeley Local News
At the Personal Bee we are experimenting with local news aggregation. Here is a first experiment, for Berkeley California:
http://www.personalbee.com/berkeley%20buzz
http://www.personalbee.com/berkeley%20buzz
Monday, December 18, 2006
Pumpkin Launching: Time's Person of the Year
Since Time has named me (and You) the person of the year for all the great videos we have uploaded, I thought I'd better do my part, so here is a video of Andy's Halloween party:
http://one.revver.com/watch/123185
Yes, that is a trebuchet - we built it the weekend before the party. It is designed to have as much as a 1000 lb counterweight, able to hurl small pumpkins 700 feet! We never achieved the optimal configuration (couldn't get enough weight) but still were hurling pumpkins between 500 and 600 feet...
http://one.revver.com/watch/123185
Yes, that is a trebuchet - we built it the weekend before the party. It is designed to have as much as a 1000 lb counterweight, able to hurl small pumpkins 700 feet! We never achieved the optimal configuration (couldn't get enough weight) but still were hurling pumpkins between 500 and 600 feet...
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