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Sunday, July 14, 2002 |
SYMPATHY IS HARD TO MUSTER
But, desperation can be an ugly thing
Silicon Valley Without Trimmings. Having already gone from boom to bust, many dot-commers are coming to something worse. Now, in Silicon Valley, a part of the dot-com class is being defined by what it needs to return. By John Markoff and Matt Richtel. [New York Times: Business]
9:33:21 PM 
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LEADERS WHO KNOW WHAT TO DO AND LEADERS IN TITLE ONLY
Guiliani is the gold standard from now on
MATT WELCH WRITES that the FBI and Los Angeles' Mayor Hahn failed the truth test after the LAX shooting: Well, at least now we know how Mayor James Hahn and the local FBI leadership will treat the public during a time of violent crisis: Like children, who need to be lied to. . . .
It is one thing to be reluctant about jumping to conclusions -- a perfectly normal and admirable tactic in high-profile law enforcement. But it is quite another to cross the line into actively encouraging a rattled public to conclude that it wasn't an act of terrorism. . . Residents of L.A. need to trust that their leaders, when under fire, will shoot straight. Hahn and company have failed their first major test. [InstaPundit]
5:57:54 PM
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FOUR STARS OR FOUR THUMBS UP * * * *
On Being a Sensualist. The world that lieth in wickedness, the sensualist, has no taste nor relish for that bread which cometh down from God out of heaven, and nourisheth the soul up unto eternal life. Thomas Lechtworth, They that wait upon the... [Burningbird]
5:52:44 PM
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THE BANKS DIDN'T FREEZE THE CASH
on Friday, but they meet again on Tuesday with the court. This company's stockholders won't see a dime. Worldcom will be faced with deciding what business(es) it wants to emerge from bankruptcy with. Otherwise, the creditors and the court are likely to break the business into pieces and sell them in an attempt to recover some of the money. The company's sales in 2001 totaled $21.3 billion. That's a fair amount of telecom market share to throw up for grabs.
Court Won't Freeze WorldCom Assets [Wall Street Journal]
5:45:26 PM
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AN INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE
Dave is back - I mean really back; it's great!
As with any product or service, the novice simply has to dig around, experiment, ask questions and watch others to learn why one product or service is good or bad or better or worse for the need or want. Take digital cameras as an example. A novice user of a digital camera would probably be overwhelmed (or would seriously undervalue) the features of a truly high end digital camera.
The same is true with weblogging. Radio Userland may be the right software for hackers or programmers or whatever they want to be called. Movable Type may be the right choice for some other skill level or interest level or whatever. How can the novice determine that? Just this morning I heard of another tool for weblogging that I've not even seen mentioned in six months of fairly intensive weblogging. Somebody ought to take a minute or two and elaborate on the lines of dileniation between all these products. We novices could then stay out of the hair of those who have contempt for us!!!
I found Rebecca Blood's book worthwhile. I am a novice. I admit that. However, novices need resources such as Rebecca's particularly if they are coming from some field other than software development, website development and whatever other spins people want to put on the names for those people and industries involved in computer work.
I owe every bit of my weblog to Dave Winer and the people who are users of the Radio Userland product. There are things about the tool and the "community(?)" I don't like. Those things don't prevent me from learning more, using the tool more and wishing for the stuff that I don't like to change. It is easy for me to see how a pioneer in the weblogging area we're talking about might not need the same resource that I need. Does that then make that resource bad? I don't think so. You really need to read all of what Dave had to say this morning. Some of it has been edited since I first saw the beginnings of the post in the news aggregator. Here's an excerpt:
It's the software. In 2002, we're beginning to get to a category of software, with lines of delineation -- Movable Type is different from Manila, and Radio is different from Blogger, if one wanted to study a category, the products are lining up to accomodate. Other than that there's little that each blog has in common with other blogs. It's like trying to figure out what word processing documents have in common. People did try to do that in the late 70s and early 80s, but then the market exploded, and that ended all speculation.
Of all the books in process, I hold the most hope for the BlogRoots folks: Meg, Matt, and PB. They put enough time into it (the O'Reilly book was a rush job) and they (appear to) have the right premise. It would have been possible for a philosophical book to have lasting value, but to do so, they should have gotten a social butterfly to edit it, one who crosses all the lines with ease, someone who likes everyone and who everyone likes, but somehow doesn't have to kiss ass to do it. (Note: I am not that person, as you can see I don't suffer fools without complaining, I don't write to make friends, and I know it.) [Scripting News]
10:25:39 AM
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ROBERT'S EXCITEMENT IS CONTAGIOUS
When was the last time you were this enthusiastic about a purchase?
More great Nikon Coolpix 5700 images. Think digital cameras aren't there yet? Look at these shots, taken and posted yesterday. The Nikon 5700 is looking like a very awesome $1200 camera. In particular, look at this image. Along the bottom, you can see the full image as it came off of the camera. These are unretouched images. Awesome. I have this one on my desktop right now (I applied a little sharpening in Photoshop, and also increased the contrast slightly to accentuate the color -- I cut off some of the darker pixels by using Photoshop's adjust levels tool). If this is the kind of thing we can expect to see, we're going to see a whole new age of photography. Ansel Adams would be thrilled. Oh, by the way, http://www.pbase.com is awesome for sharing photography with others. I'm going to send them some money to help them stay in business. [Scobleizer Radio Weblog]
9:44:20 AM
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HOW MANY BLOGGING TOOLS ARE THERE?
And to think, some people still handcode their entire weblog
Sunlog and uni.tb. The new Sunlog 2.2 is now ready for download. It's blogging software based on PHP and MySQL, and (as far as I know) is the first blogging package to support... [PapaScott]
9:30:54 AM
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I THINK HE'S RIGHT
New L.A. Daily News Column From Me: It’s on the LAX fiasco. I argue that we should be very worried whenever the FBI bends over backward to avoid using the word “terrorism” in connection with cases involving Egyptian or Saudi nationals. [Matt Welch's Warblog]
9:17:32 AM
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SUMMER READING
Reading list. I'm not quite sure why, but I haven't been documenting what I've been reading for the past few months. Laziness [kottke.org]
9:13:08 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Steve Pilgrim.
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