19 May 2002

Dave Winer's Main Points at ETCON 2002 Dave Winer made some really good points in the O'Reilly Emerging Tech Conference, some I'm repeating here. How XML-RPC came to be Networking software on Windows and Mac in 1998. Use XML as encoding, HTTP as transport. Collaborate with Microsoft. Spec finalized in April 1998. SOAP continued the process Work continues with Microsoft. Other big companies come in the loop. The vision remains constant. Simple cross-platform scripting. The Web as a scripting environment Simple, low-tech, ubiquitous. No one owns it. Bootstrapping Doug Engelbart coined the term. Lay a thin cable, use it to lift a slightly bigger cable. Start simple And stay simple. One step at a time. Nothing in the technology industry ever gets accomplished by committees. Only the bootstrapping method works. 25 percent cash register, 75 percent writing. Most of what goes on on the Web is reading and writing. Writing is too hard. Decentralization Moore's Law continues to rage. Centralized resources are dear, as more work moves on to the Internet. Move as much work to the edges as possible. Get Moore on our side. Demo Post an item to my weblog. Route it to a category. Look at the XML. See the "cloud". There's a very simple Web Service. How do you find the services? Look in the XML. Sent via Garringreen ISDN. ref: 26121

Niggling Questions from Dave Winer [ETCON 2002] Dave Winer fielded some niggling questions during the O'Reilly ETCON 2002 Conference. What Do You Think? How will we prevent lock-in by vendors when they start patenting and copyrighting schema, etc? Why do tech companies assume that users will gladly trade in purchased software, where they can use it as long as it works, for the vendor wet-dream of subscriptions? It may make sense in some cases, but it's plainly not in our interest in others. Privacy seems to be an absolute afterthought. What will protect us? The copyright owners, i.e. Hollywood, loathe peer to peer technology, a key part of Web services. Could they stomp it all out? Sent from Garringreen over eircom ISDN. ref: 26121

Convert OPML into SWF We need to convert OPML into SWF. Useful Links Daily news: http://www.scripting.com/ XML-RPC: http://www.xmlrpc.com/ SOAP: http://www.soapware.org/ OPML: http://www.opml.org/ RSS 0.92: http://backend.userland.com/rss092 Frontier: http://frontier.userland.com/ Radio UserLand: http://radio.userland.com/ Sent from Garringreen over eircom ISDN. ref: 153

Liggers at The Ragg Tipperary has two winners today. It's senior hurlers topped Clare and its senior politician topped the polls. So that means plenty of free pints at The Ragg, just outside Thurles, County Tipperary. The Ragg is Michael Lowry Country. People who couldn't stand the drama of the counting room nursed their Guinness in The Ragg, watching RTE coverage or text messages on their phone. The RTE coverage was quick because Michael captured 10,400 votes on the first count. Michael told attending journos, "Don't be looking around corners that don't exist," as he savored his moment of triumph. There's still the matter of a tax compliance certificate that he must present to comply with the Standards in Public Office Act. But for now, this is "the best day I have had in politics," as Michael bought dozens of rounds for well-wishers at The Ragg. The Progressive Democrat Bill Dwan was eliminated on the first count, with just 1,446 votes. According to Michael's people, those were Lowry votes, the 1,200 votes that separates the 2002 Lowry victory from his 1997 run out. Sent underway in The Ignis between Thurles and Urlingford, using TransNote Radio, Nokia Cardphone and Vodafone HSD. ref: 17

Sinn Fein, Greens Major Winners Sitting in The Hibernian and reading the Sunday papers. Sinn Fein has made sensational gains here in Ireland, and is set to be a significant force in the new Dail. The Green Party has also polled exceptionally well, and will at least double its representation. The Greens seem to be tapping into issues that concern the biggest chunk of the voting public -- gridlock, environment, and housing. You can tackle gridlock by constraining private autos and you can help the environment by articulating rational waste management, like the issue promoted by Lusk People. Sent after 2 Irish coffees and four newspapers from The Hibernian, Kilkenny, Ireland. Using TransNote Radio, Nokia Cardphone and Vodafone HSD. ref: 17

Smokestacks Over a Treasury Holding I'm getting dozens of views on the Topgold Blog ever since starting to cover Treasury Holdings in Ireland. Local townspeople in Lusk, County Dublin claim they want to preserve their treasured landscape from an incinerator. They've taken on Treasury Holdings, Ireland's biggest property development company. The dispute centres more on the use of the domain name, rather than the use of agricultural land. You cannot underestimate the power of cyberactivism. And the No Incineration in Lusk Campaign has an edgy activism sharpening the issues. The cause is helped by the advice of professionals from two political parties and coverage from The Register. I think people need to become more informed about these issues, perhaps by reading the plans proposed by Treasury Holdings, track records of Herhof Waste Treatment plants and fact sheets from ECo, a waste management concern. LuskPeople.com point to a few relevant links. Sent via TransNote Radio UserLand in Kilkenny's Hibernian Hotel using Nokia CardPhone on Vodafone HSD. ref: 17

Managing Your Links List in Radio Here's how Rick Klau manages bookmarked links. I want to sort out these kind of useful things and cull the best of them for the Openweb Course. Upstreamed from Radio TransNote from Kilkenny Train Station, using Vodafone HSD and a Nokia Cardphone in Ireland. ref: 125