Monday, June 23, 2003

Caught between a ®ock and a hardon

It's the idol worship of the phallus and the idol worship of the corporation , combined. I've been struggling to compress everything I know about these two topics into a set of definitions that make sense and, well, I keep getting distracted by real life.

(Earlier on the phone, Dean Landsman was talking casually about "powercrats." Another fine word. Possibly related.)

The McPhallicism line comes near the end of a highly interesting bit of history that ties together a whole bunch of threads: Mike's Linux Wireless LAN (13.1 miles!), the Linux Router Project, MontaVista, Kerbango (the death of which still annoys me, because the world still needs one of those damn radios) and the Clinton and the Intern Haiku Series. Interesting shit. Even more interesting context.

Better to blog the light than curse the darkness

Chris Lydon makes the case for Emerson as A God For Bloggers:

Here's my point. When we talk about this Internet and this blogging software, this techno-magic that encourages each of us to be expressive voices in an open, universal network of across-the-board conversation, we are speaking of an essentially Emersonian device for an essentially Emersonian exercise.Starting with the electronics. "Invent a better mousetrap," as Emerson wrote, "and the world will beat a path to your door." Well, here we are.

Was The Dial the first group blog? Chris thinks so:

Emerson was himself a sort of group blogger in The Dial, a magazine he founded with Margaret Fuller in 1840. He designed it as a compendium of the "good fanatics," like Thoreau, Alcott and Channing in his Concord circle. “I would not have it too purely literary," he wrote to Fuller, venting a blogger's ambition. "I wish we might make a Journal so broad and great in its survey that it should lead the opinion of this generation on every interest and read the law on property, government, education, as well as on art, letters, and religion."

Makes sense. I also think the first blogger was Benjamin Franklin, and the first blog was Poor Richard's Almanac. (A sample.)

In any case, The Enlightenment continues.

They have ways of making us not talk

Seems my ISP (Cox High Speed Internet) is blocking outbound SMTP traffic to mail servers other than its own, which I don't use. New thing. I'm checking on it.

Meanwhile I can receive email, but not send it. Been this way since Thursday, my wife tells me.

Anyway, if you've been expecting to hear from me but haven't, meet my excuse.

[Later...] It turns out that Cox did indeed start blocking Port 25 last Thursday. The workaround is to use their mail server. PITA, but I understand the issues.

Trouble-shooting it cost half a day of time.

Now I'm finally around to catching up on stuff.