Noah and Evan’s Odeo launches – a turnkey service for publishing and subscribing to podcasts. I’ve had a sneak peek and it confirms two things: 1. Blogger was not a fluke success, 2. Evan only works with really good people like Noah. Odeo is a beautifully designed application.
It seems like a small thing, but day after day I can’t help thinking that there is a distinct pattern to the business model of things such as the Associated Press going more and more down the route of using open syndication rather than traditional distribution partners. Wikipedia vs. Brittanica Writer Branded Blogs vs. Media Brands Tags vs. Taxonomies Slashdot vs. Peer Review Metacritic vs. Critic What all these things do is place ordinary people or individual nuggets of information as nodes in a non-hierarchical web rather than a series of disconnected pyramid hierarchies. The way the web looks to the end user, the way it looks to publishers and the way it works in terms of money flow are starting to look the same as the underlying technology – a non hierarchical web. And the really interesting thing about webs, is that is how the real word works –…
So Kottke has set up in an garret in Brooklyn to become the first full-time Blogger with Left-Bank style freedom – which is great news, good luck Jason. What is irrational is that people somehow think that having patrons, as opposed to a day job or corporate sponsors is selling out. Er… patronage is what traditionally separates artists from employees. Van Gogh had a patron, he was not a ‘for-profit’ enterprise. Take this nonsense in the Guardian: “For me, a more serious concern is that, like the rapper who runs out of things to write songs about when he becomes a celebrity, Kottke.org’s “voice” will become lose something from becoming a for-profit enterprise.” Give me a break! Guardian Unlimited | Newsblog | Paid to blog
Clearly Apple is doing much better having brought back the visionary CEO that they originally fired. And he was fired for exhibiting all the things that he is now lauded for: creating a culture based upon vision and uncompromising design. The opposite of this is what is taught at business schools – i.e. to create a culture of products based upon understanding the market, rather than vision and innovation. Apple is a great vindication of ballsyness rather than MBAness. Jobs is our generation’s Frank Lloyd Wright. That Apple is doing well is also a great vindication of everyday people over faceless corporations. When companies buy laptops they buy boring thing like Dells on the assumption that they are reliable, not Apple’s which look too flashy. What Apple owners know is that their product is plain better. So Jobs is a star and Fiorina out to pasture. Perhaps there is a…
Global warming is fact. As of this week we now know that global warming as a man made phenomenon is a fact. That the effects of global warming will cause death and destruction is a fact. Given these facts, government avoidance of action to reduce global warming would now be criminally negligent. The final proof: global warming is a man-made disaster
I am moving to New York at the end of the month, to continue working on a product which I hope to launch next week. The product is somewhere between Flickr and delicious and, amongst other things, will build upon the concept of tagging, to allow ‘metatagging’, where anyone can create their own types of category: restaurant, location=ny etc. While I’m really looking forward to it (I am still an architect at heart and NY is an architect’s wet dream), I will miss San Francisco. For me, San Francisco is a model of a 21st century city, it is at the heart of an area which is the world capital of both science and liberal thinking. As such, it is one of the few places where engineering is taken to a truly creative level, becoming an art as much as a science.
One of the most memorable things that I have done since living in San Francisco is see Jimmy Smith play at Bimbo’s, with my good friend Nick Rossi, who is also an awesome Hammond B3 player. Jimmy Smith was a true genius, taking an instrument normally associated with church services and inventing a sound worthy of its spiritual origins. R.I.P Jimmy Smith. Jimmy Smith dies
It turns out that the reason there has been 1000 times more complaints to the FCC isn’t just because activists are spamming them in general. It is because a single group – the Parents Television Council – is responsible for 999 out of 1000 complaints. Activists Dominate Content Complaints Thanks Nick – and yes, this may be a shoe on the other foot scenario, but in my opinion its the right, not the left, that tend to be most vocal and indignant online.
An eloquent argument for US style free speech over European style regulation from Blackadder comedian, Rowan Atkinson. Current laws prevent ‘Incitement of Racial Hatred’ it is proposed that they be extended to prevent ‘Incitement of Racial or Religious Hatred’ Rowan Atkinson says: “race and religion are fundamentally different concepts, requiring completely different treatment under the law. To criticise people for their race is manifestly irrational but to criticise their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticise ideas – any ideas” Atheism Central for Secondary Schools – Rowan Atkinson speaks to the House of Lords on proposed Incitement of Religious hatred legislation: “I question the inarguable nature of the phrase “religious hatred”, afforded by the use of the highly emotive word “hatred”. So I thought I would modify the name of the proposed measure, by changing the terminology but retaining the meaning and use the…
The FCC obscenity complaints stats show: Number of complaints and fines in – year: 2000, complaints: 111, fines: $48,000 year: 2001: complaints: 346, fines: $91,000 year: 2002: complaints: 13,922, fines: $99,400 year: 2003: complaints: 202,032, fines: $440,000 year: 2004: complaints: 1,068,802, fines: $7,928,080 There have been 10,000 times more complaints in 4 years and 20 times as much in fines. If complaints are as representative of Americans’ feelings as 4 years ago, and 10,000 times more people really are offended by broadcasting, then the FCC is 500 times less effective (since its obscenity guidelines are governed by popular consensus and fines levied accordingly). If the fines are legitimate and comprehensive, and that there is therefore 20 times more obscene material being broadcast now than 4 years ago then the FCC has to spend 500 times as much in tax payer money to deal with unwarranted complaints (if it deals with…
Google Video Search, boing boing : … Eh-oh! Hee Hee! [Humming] dipsy! Hee Hee! Hee Hee… Whee! Wow! Yay! Ha Ha! Dipsy! Hee Hee! Ooh! Look! Yay, dipsy! Narrator: Circle. [Boing boing] [boing boing] [Boing boing] [boing boing] [squish] [squish] Hee Hee! Laa-laa Ball! Hee Hee! Uh-oh! Hee Hee! Ooh! Oh, dear! Hee Hee!…
‘Intelligent Design’ in the Schools (washingtonpost.com): “Many school boards are arguing about whether to include “intelligent design” in their curriculums, The Post’s editorial said. If they are serious, the appropriate way is not to have scientists trying to discuss intelligent design in classes such as biology or physics…As the editorial said, such discussion is legitimate, however, in a history or philosophy class.” Ford said – ‘history is bunk’. If you can relegate discussion of meaningless nonsense away from science to philosophy and history classes, then you prove him right. (Oscar Wilde described fox hunting as the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. My dad always describes philosophy as the unintelligible in pursuit of the unanswerable.)