Thursday, July 14, 2005
Well, duh.
Mr. Internet says World of Ends is stupid.
Next time you want to write an op-ed about me, at least give me a chance to voice my opinion on the matter. I mean, I'm The Internet. I'm right here. I know everything you say.
Fly
Guess who's behind each pimp name...
Building understanding
Steve Lewis, a terrific writer and photographer (as well as my oldest friend in the 'sphere) has been covering architecture. The real kind. A sample:
Stairways bear the marks of the generations of people who have climbed and descended them. As a child, I often sat on the stairs of my grandparents' apartment on Morris Ave. near Fordham Road in the Bronx, in New York. The depressions in the stone steps revealed to me the presence of tenants and visitors, remembered and forgotten, whose collective tread had slowly worn the steps down and polished them. Years later, in Sofia and Prague, I photographed stairways as much as a homage to the lives, joys, triumphs and failings of the absent as a portrayal of the stone, steel, brick, and glass of which the buildings themselves were made.
Another:
Cities grow by increments and are as much the products of layers of anomalies, anachronisms, and eccentricities as they are of rational visions. I am fascinated by the accretions of seemingly absurd and obsolete elements that survive amidst changing urban infrastructures. They are repositories of the concerns, efforts, and daily realities of lives long past. They also provide aesthetic the backdrop of cities as they appear today.
This posting features images of five seemingly random details from the millions of details that comprise the spectular amalgam of hills, seas, buildings, streets, people, work, religiosity, power, and feeling that is Istanbul. For me, their textures and patina are parts of the character of the city.
Carrot vs. stick
Dean Landsman takes exception to this piece by Andrew Orlowski, for whom any stick one can bash blogging with is a good stick.
Bonus link: Shelley Powers on the whole thing.
What she says
Sheila Lennon has an informative, copiously linked and sane take on the Plame Matter, and the hot seat on which the White House now finds itself.
It is of no interest whatsoever to anyone living outside the Washington, D.C. beltway or off the island of Manhattan. It is a high-stakes game of inside baseball gone public. And it is boring.
It is boring because it is predictable. Even I have been having trouble getting interested in this mess. It's that much of an inside game. Of course, Rove was the source. And of course he denied it. And of course the White House is embarrassed. But this whole mess is just another good example of why most folks think that the national press and politicians deserve each other.
Her bottom line:
Things aren't going to be any different for Novak. Or Rove. Or politics in general. It's sad, really. But it's the way things are in the tiny insular village of Big Media and Serious Politics. It's fun to visit but you wouldn't really want to live there, would you?
Customers and vendors, digging together
Don Marti's Upside-down "buyer's guide" is the smartest, coolest, most hopeful and (near as I can tell) most do-able market hack I've seen in years.
I'll have more to say about it later in IT Garage. In the meantime, go dig it.
Mind fuel
The latest in Lyle Estill's Energy Blog includes this quotable item:
In my mind's eye I always equate Toronto with the Peter Ustinov quote: "New York run by the Swiss," but this visit squares with Jane Jacobs vision of a run-down city short on services and vision.
Lyle, who works out of Pittsboro, NC, has been on the road lately, talking to many about biofuels, and his reports make good reading.
From a mother who knows best
This is the best brief against terrorism I've read in years.
The ball keeps rolling
Lots of follow on What's Up With Technorati and its whole category, which includes Daypop, Popdex, Bloglines, Feedster, PubSub, IceRocket, BlogPulse...
Here's Dave Sifry, Tom Foremski, Stephen Baker in BusinessWeek, Robert Scoble, Hans Mestrum, Jeneane Sessum, Geodog, Paul Chaney, Susan Mernit, HexLex, Padawan, Rick Segal, Stephen Pierzchala, Mike Sanders, David Weinberger, Adam Penenberg in Wired News, Jason Dowdell... The list goes on.
The most important is Tom's, because it was his original post that started the showball rolling. His latest includes points and feedback from others who were there at the event where Tom and Technorati's Peter Hirshberg were on the same panel.
Rick Segal's comes from the perspective of a knowing veteran, a user and a VC. An excerpt:
Technorati is a great poster child for what’s happening with "free" becoming the norm and people’s reactions to it. Over the air TV, like watching ABC with your rabbit ears is free. If you think a program stinks, you don’t think ah, whatever, it was free. Nope, you complain. Your time was wasted, you had to sit through commercials, whatever, but you bitch about it and feel totally fine doing the complaining.
In reading all the complaints about Technorati, I’m struck by the fact the people doing the complaining, complain with the zeal of somebody who paid for it or otherwise has an expectation of service/delivery that is, in my view, somewhat disproportionate to "free." I understand all reactions people are going to have to that remark, I really do.
I wonder if Technorati had Beta slapped all over it or "don't use in production" warnings, would it make a difference.
I'm not sure it is all that healthy to have an environment that is so, almost caustic, when it comes to new companies being so open/public (and free) as they try things out. In order for the participatory model to work, you’d think some level of civility and 'cut em a break' thinking should be entering the mix. Maybe not, maybe this is just the wild west 100 years later and frontier justice is going to continue for awhile.
My 2 cents: It is healthy. The best medicine isn't just the kind with sugar.
The gang's all there
Kaliya's IdentityWoman blog has a new home and URL. I like the sidebar that lists participants in the Identity Ecosystem.