Sunday, March 19, 2006

Comment on posting I mostly read blogs in the so-called "river of news" method within my news aggregator. Therefore I prefer when the feed sends the entire article. I seldom take the time to visit each Web page. The downside is that I miss comments posted. In case the same is true for you, I'm pointing out a comment from Pete with a couple of really good links. First, he points out a fellow RSS evangelist, Jeff Nolan. I also checked out Pete's company. Looks interesting. Thanks for the note. 9:14:44 PM    comment []

Who's Burt Munro We saw The World's Fastest Indian last night. Highly recommended. It is so refreshing to see a well-made movie where the hero triumphs over great odds without blowing up half the population of some city. And he's an engineer, to boot. And a truly nice guy. Portrayed with sympathy by Anthony Hopkins. By the way, I've seen Hopkins in many roles. If people think of him only as Hannibal Lector, they've missed seeing a truly great actor. Some of the scenes are moving enough I had to blink back a tear or two. I learned automobile mechanics from guys like him--not afraid to cast metal, do machining or welding. I have great respect for that generation of engineers ("professional" or not). 2:08:51 PM    comment []

Innovation or standards Dick Morley sent me his notes from our wide-ranging conversation with the folks at SoftSwitching Technology. One of the comments was that standards get in the way of innovation. This is a comment that makes sense--at least on the surface. Often, especially in technology, what emerges from the standards process is seldom the best possible technology. However, consider these words from Dave Winer about inventing RSS: In the world of standards the second-mover is the decision-maker, the first-mover is at the second guy's mercy. In the case of simple syndication formats, Netscape was the second mover, they blew off my earlier work. So I decided that I could either sulk about it, or do the powerful thing. Of course I did the powerful thing. I added all the features of their format to mine, which they responded to (as I thought they would) by adding all the features of my format to theirs. At that point, I had what I wanted, I put a bullet in the head of my format, and made RSS my cause. Invention here is hardly the issue. What matters is adoption and forward motion. Invention usually blows up standards and sets technology off in a different direction. However, standards enable widespread adoption. I think we need both. 1:39:20 PM    comment []