Tuesday, July 16, 2002

Flying leap

I'm wrapping up in Seattle and flying home early tomorrow. See ya there.

Standing up for the little guy

The Onion: Anti-Spam Legislation Opposed By Powerful Penis-Enlargement Lobby. One point:

"If this legislation passes, the government would, for all intents and purposes, be taking three to four inches off America's cocks," said Denny Garner, president of the National Association of Penis Enlargers (NAPE), speaking to reporters Monday.

Put your money where your geeks are

I'll be on The Linux Show in a few minutes talking about GeekPAC and the American Open Technology Consortium, which are now open for business — which is to say, ready for funding, among other things. Details at 6 (pm, Pacific Time).

Good company in a company town

Had a great lunch with Paul Andrews today here in Seattle. Paul's column in the Seattle Times yesterday visited this irony:

At a time when the technology sector needs to attract new users and persuade existing customers to expand use of products and tools, businesses seem more intent than ever on restricting access. The lesson of the personal computer industry's first two halcyon decades can be summed up in one word: empowerment. Yet today's practices suggest a trend toward the opposite.

Brier Dudley had another good piece in the same paper about customers' near-unanimous resentment of Microsoft's new and more expensive "software assurance" contracts, which will replaced upgrade discounts on July 31.

Found

Sheila Lennon has discovered Public Knowledge, a new advocacy group "dedicated to fortifying and defending a vibrant "information commons'."

Hello, my face is ______

Thursday is blog meetup day in 277 cities. Having been at no less than three gatherings of bloggers in the last Month (London, New York, Los Angeles), I can tell ya that these people turn about to be a helluva lot more 3-D than you'd guess from their blogs, good as the latter may be. Definitely worth the trip.

Location, location, location

Nick's gettin' bits off his windowsill.

By the way, I'm still cringing about having complimented Nick for writing what turned out to be somebody else's blog. I did this, to his face, at a party I attended in New York a couple weeks ago.

So my own face is still lost somewhere in that apartment on Greenwhich Street.

More L.A. blogbashery

Eric and Dawn have been decompressing from their trip through the Premised Land, including their retrospective takes on the party at Brian's house. I'd give ya the permalinks, but they don't seem to be working right now (which may be what has Dawn in a bit of a lather, understandably).

Semi-related: Dawn's interview with Tony. And here's Tony's letter to the kids of Afghanistan, which comes up in the interview.

Semi-unrelated: Matt Welch's old blog points to a new column. (Connection: I met Matt at that same party.)

See?

Maddie points to Tony Pierce's latest photo essay. It's brilliant.

Here's Tony on the L.A. blogbash where we failed to meet.

And here's Maddie's phessay (inspired by Tony). It's brilliant too.