Sunday, December 12, 2004

Tracking Back Through the Ether Thought it would be an appropriate note to post this CNET trackback ping regarding RSS and the Ethernet business model. 10:16:51 PM

RSS With Your Newspaper? Newspapers with RSS: A List. Here is an excellent list of U.S. newspaper sites now offering RSS feeds (compliled by themediadrop.com). Good to see so many on the list, though it's a shame all newspaper sites aren't offering feeds by now.... [CyberJournalist.net] 10:08:47 PM

Univa, Grid Computing Fathers of grid computing form start-up. If you want to invest in a grid project, hiring Univa would be like paying Tim Berners-Lee to set up your home page. [CNET News.com] 10:01:15 PM

Big Air, Crisp Shirt Extreme Ironing. Extreme Ironing! Climb that mountain, then have a nicely pressed shirt for on the way down! [MetaFilter] 9:40:57 PM

Responsible Parenting Parents: Give In. ...to the iPod holiday season phenomenon. That’s the advice of one analyst: ”If I were a parent, I don’t think I’d even mount a charge—I’d give in and get the Mini,” she said. “If you have a teenager who’s really technically inclined and a little ahead of the curve when it comes to peers, you could maybe venture out and go for the Creative Zen Micro. There aren’t going to be any snickers—it really is a cool player. But if you have the kind of teen who likes to go with the flow, the Mini is the best bet.” Truth is, the iPod is far behind the curve, and it’ll be interesting to see if its dominance will have held up by Holidays 2005. This Chicago Tribune article (use BugMeNot sign-ins here), to its credit, points out the ridiculous battery situation that Apple offers, and provides a jpartial rundown of alternatives to the iPod. But you have to agree with the sentiment ejxpressed above. If your kid wants an iPod, that doesn’t mean s/he wants an MP3 player, or even the best MP3 player. It means s/he WANTS AN IPOD, DAMMIT! This is not the year for parents to get smart. [The Digital Music Weblog] 9:36:25 PM

Recommended Andrew Grumet Audio Podcast for 2004/12/09. - Upon us all a little rain must fall - Andrew Grumet talks about the Boston music scene and plays a beautiful tune on his acoustic guitar. [Mediaburn Podstation 2408 on GigaDial Public] 5:13:57 PM

Tech Support? There are suggestions going around the blogs that the support teams of Technorati and Userland Software should join forces, so that they may achieve an economy of scale and provide a dearth of support together. What's wrong with Technorati?. What, my links not good enough for you Technorati? ;-) I say that with a wink, but to be honest I'm pissed off with Technorati. My main weblog, Read/Write Web, is not being indexed there and so none of my outbound links show up in Technorati. Therefore nobody would know I'm linking to them, if they're only using Technorati to track blogs. And let's face it, they are the number 1 blog indexing service - by popularity if not by quality of service. There's no reason why this should be the case - I've got Movable Type set up to auto-ping them for each post, my weblog is "claimed" at Technorati, I have them linked on my main menu (and all this was done ages ago). So why the heck am I not a part of the "World Live Web"?! I've sent two messages to Technorati Support about this, but I've yet to receive a response. So what more can I do but blog it and hope they see this... And I wonder how many other people Technorati is ignoring? I don't like to be negative about a Web 2.0 company doing its best to earn a crust in this new world. I go out of my way to write about Web 2.0 companies that offer great services to the blogosphere, especially the innovative ones like Feedburner and Bloglines. All of the other indexing services are giving me excellent value - Feedster, PubSub, Blogdigger, etc. So Technorati, please hurry up and start acknowledging my existence. My blog is "live", last time I checked! [Read/Write Web] 1:38:21 PM

RSS: The Ethernet of Digital Media Publishing I wanted to write a brief statement today on the RSS format for internet content syndication. In this CNET interview, "30 Years of Ethernet Gains", Inventor Bob Metcalfe describes what he calls the "Ethernet business model": --- There are four business models out there today. The first model is the vertical model exemplified in the 1980's by the IBM monopoly. The second, which dominates today, is the horizontal model dominated by AOL, Cisco, Intel and Microsoft. They are also monopolies, I might add. The third is the Linux/open-source business model. And the fourth is the Ethernet business model. It's based on de jure standards with proprietary implementations of those de jure standards, and it is unlike open source in that competitors don't give their intellectual property away. The competition is fierce, but there is a market ethic that products will be interoperable. And the standard evolves rapidly based on market engagement in such a way to value the installed base. There is a heavy value placed on susainting and maintaining the installed base. That's the Ethernet business model. --- The RSS XML format fits this Ethernet business model. The installed base is of nearly inestimable value. I hope we will see continued increases in the use of RSS, as well as respect for the developers, users, and publishers who built the systems. - G.S. 1:04:37 PM

Filled With Stars: A Space Odyssey Program Space Odyssey. A website with scanned images and HTML reproductions from the original printed program for Kubrik's 2001: A Space Odyssey. [via metafilter.com]... [datacloud] 10:35:12 AM

Favourites - From R.Z., U.K.'s Premier Electronic Cartoonist We're repeating Ourselves. A few repeats: Ads from the Comic Books. Exhibition of ads that used to appear in comic books - Sea Monkeys, Charles Atlas and all the other stuff. Nice. Via JWalk. Saturday, May 17, 2003 schreIBMaschinen. They're all here - old ads and more at The History of the IBM Typewriter. Fantastic. Saturday, April 12, 2003 Thank You for the Music. The fabulous Scopitone of the day archive. Here's Vivi Bach singing 'Das süsse Leben[Quicktime, 13.6MB], for example. But there's lots more and it's all pretty groovy. Be surprised. Via Schockwellenreiter. Sunday, November 14, 2004 Toys! The Toys! Wes Clark and his toys from the sixties. Fab. Saturday, November 27, 2004 And so on. I wish certain people would give credit when & where credit's due ... and it goes on. And on. There's more. And more. And on ... Here are my archives, if you don't mind. [The Cartoonist] 12:34:42 AM

SABPXT Space Age Bachelor Pad Xmas Trees. ATOM: the Aluminum Tree and Ornament Museum. That's supposed to be Tammy Faye Bakker in the picture as a tree-topping angel. Needs more makeup. via LinkFilter [Eye of the Goof] 12:19:12 AM

Red Branch Red Branch. johndan posted a photo: By (johndan). [johndan's Photos] 12:11:04 AM

Shine Jar Flare. johndan posted a photo: By (johndan). [johndan's Photos] 12:06:55 AM