08.31.02
Posted in Blogging, Conferences, Culture and Society at 9:56 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
Friday morning at ConJosé I attended a Special Interest Group set up by a few Live Journal users. I’ve looked at Live Journal before; of all the various web log systems it seems to be the one most focused on community in the sense of creating communities via links to like minded Live Journal members, or “friends,” as Live Journal would have it, and a comment system. Live Journal struck me as a good system to introduce undergraduates in introductory composition classes to writing for the web as a way of getting them to write and to think critically about writing as well as just becoming comfortable with writing as a habit. Most, but not all, of the Live Journal users are creating journal-like pages.
Live Journal is a free service, though they encourage users to support Live Journal ($25.00/year) by offering extra services. It’s open source as well. There are even a variety of clients, for pretty much any OS you’d want, to use in posting if you don’t want to rely on a browser and web-based posting. The FAQs are here. It includes the usual structural devices, like chononological based postings, with the newest at the top, a calendar for access to the automatic archives, and various ways of editing and deleting and controlling access to the journal.
Listening to the others at the SIG, I was particularly struck by a few observations. These are my observations, and in no way reflect on those Live Journalists referred to, or linked to. I’m sure I’m getting things entirely wrong in some way. They were both helpful and patient in answering my questions, so I expect some kind soul will straighten me out. In particular, The_ogre, Firecat, Wrapper, Isabeau, Rmjwell, Rowanf.
In no particular order then, here are some random observations about Live Journal, based on my admittedly small sampling from the SIG, and some browsing:
- The role of the communities, and interaction between members of a community, is seen as a positive feature of Live Journal.
- Users are particularly aware of the public versus private, and Live Journal software supports that distinction, allowing one to post to a public journal, or to a private one, or to a “communal” one.
- Most users do in fact use the service to create actualjournals about their daily lives and thoughts.
- Several spoke about using Live Journal as a way of creating reminders, either short term (groceries to buy) or long terms (events, thoughts and memories to be recorded now for later recall). I think, more than any of the other web log like systems I’ve seen, Live Journal lends itself to the commonplace book. There are also some obvious ways one could easily and useful use Live Journal as community K-logs or Knowledge logs.
- A surprising number of those at the SIG compared Live Journal to UseNet. This may have been because the group was self-selected based on an interest in SF, one of the largest UseNet communities.
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Posted in Silly at 9:27 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
Saturday I attended the Con José panel on “Computer Folklore: Tales from the Geekside,” featuring Eric Raymond, Chris Garcia, Tom Galloway, Brett Glass, and Corey Cole. Aside from a brief discussion of the first chain letter (an MIT student did it!) it wasn’t what I’d expected, though that’s OK. There are some good sources here, and even here. Computer folkore is, by the way, a genuine folkloric academic study, despite much of the humor involved.
The panel was well attended, and amusing, but I’d guess about a half hour was spent in geek nostalgia, in the form of “my hardware is older than yours.” The other version of this (and the two are often combined) is “my hardware is faster/more powerful/better than yours.” This gives me the perfect opportunity to post the ultimate riposte to both debates, gleaned from UseNet, and as far as I know first posted by Christopher Lishka in May 1993 to both rec.humor.funny and comp.sys.mac.???. Thanks Christopher, wherever you are.
Come on people: you are all missing the most obvious upgrade path to the most powerful and satisfying computer of all. The upgrade path goes:
- Pocket calculator
- Commodore Pet / Apple II / TRS 80 / Commodore 64 / Timex Sinclair (Choose any of the above)
- IBM PC
- Apple Macintosh
- Fastest workstation of the time (HP, DEC, IBM, SGI: your choice)
- Minicomputer (HP, DEC, IBM, SGI: your choice)
- Mainframe (IBM, Cray, DEC: your choice)
And then you reach the pinnacle of modern computing facilities:
G R A D U A T E S T U D E N T S
Yes, you just sit back and do all of your computing through lowly graduate students. Imagine the advantages:
- Multi-processing, with as many processes as you have students. You can easily add more power by promising more desperate undergrads that they can indeed escape college through your guidance. Special student units can even handle several tasks *on*their*own*!
- Full voice recognition interface. Never touch a keyboard or mouse again. Just mumble commands and they *willbe understood (or else!).
- No hardware upgrades and no installation required. Every student comes complete with all hardware necessary. Never again fry a chip or $10,000 board by improper installation! Just sit that sniveling student at a desk, give it writing utensils (making sure to point out which is the dangerous end) and off it goes.
- Low maintenance. Remember when that hard disk crashed in your Beta 9900, causing all of your work to go the great bit bucket in the sky? This won’t happen with grad. students. All that is required is that you give them a good *whack!upside the head when they are acting up, and they will run good as new.
- Abuse module. Imagine yelling expletives at your computer. Doesn’t work too well, because your machine just sits there and ignores you. Through the grad. student abuse module you can put the fear of god in them, and get results to boot!
- Built-in lifetime. Remember that awful feeling two years after you bought your GigaPlutz mainframe when the new faculty member on the block sneered at you because his FeelyWup workstation could compute rings around your dinosaur? This doesn’t happen with grad. students. When they start wearing and losing productivity, simply give them the PhD and boot them out onto the street to fend for themselves. Out of sight, out of mind!
- Cheap fuel: students run on Coca Cola (or the high-octane equivalent — Jolt Cola) and typically consume hot spicy chinese dishes, cheap taco substitutes, or completely synthetic macaroni replacements. It is entirely unnecessary to plug the student into the wall socket (although this does get them going a little faster from time to time).
- Expansion options. If your grad. students don’t seem to be performing too well, consider adding a handy system manager or software engineer upgrade. These guys are guaranteed to require even less than a student, and typically establish permanent residence in the computer room. You’ll never know they are around! (Which you certainly can’t say for an AXZ3000-69 150gigahertz space-heater sitting on your desk with its ten noisy fans….) [Note however that the engineering department still hasn’t worked out some of the idiosyncratic bugs in these expansion options, such as incessant muttering at nobody in particular, occasionaly screaming at your grad. students, and posting ridiculous messages on world-wide bulletin boards.]
So forget your Babbage Engines and abacuses (abaci?) and PortaBooks and DEK 666-3D’s and all that other silicon garbage. The wave of the future is in wetware, so invest in graduate students today! You’ll never go back!
And, just in case you’re looking, I do have some spare cycles before classes start again in October, and I have to teach.
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Posted in Blogging, Conferences at 8:42 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
I went to the Con José “Blog this!” panel I mentioned here. The panel featured Lucy Huntzinger, Moshe Feder, Evelyn C. Leeper, Bill Humphries, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Patrick Nielsen Hayden. My remarks are somewhat disconnected (and as opinionated as usual) since I only took notes when a specific point struck me. It was also cool because I got to meet Dori Smith and Tom Negrino, bloggers (Mac users!) and authors of the best Javascript book I’ve seen for people new to scripting.
Lucy Huntzinger has had an online journal since January of 1997. It sounds to me like she’s hand-coding the HTML herself. She talked about the effect the Open Pages web ring had on online diarists, in that it encouraged a sense of community among the diarists. She also hypothesized that “people who like the longer essay format tend to keep diaries,” rather than web logs. She also suggested that web logs tended to be more politicized, journals more personal. (This desire to differentiate the journalist/diarist from the web logger came up in Friday’s Live Journal SIG as well.) There was some attempt to make the distinction in terms of the underlying technology used by the two formats, with the suggestion that journalists lack a “comments” feature that is used in many web logs. I think that’s a misunderstanding, since certainly Live Journal offers a built in comments feature, and a number of web log systems don’t offer one (though it’s easy enough to use yaccs or other comment add-on tools).
Teresa Nielsen Hayden suggested that the attempt to define or discuss “what is a web log” should be moved outside of a discussion of the underlying tools. Bill Humphries and Patrick Nielsen Hayden
discussed the early history of web logs, and referred to their characteristically chronologically ordered posts. He referred to Robot Wisdom, and Dave Winer’s early blogs. I think both have good points, but I’d suggest that in addition to chronologically ordered (most recent at the top) and time and date stamped posts, an emphasis on linking, and the presence of automated or at least publicly accessible archives are also important elements of web logs.
Towards the end of the panel, Bill Humphries said “The web log for me is a research tool,” and pointed (verbally any way!) to Cory Doctorow’s reference to Dorie Smith’s explanation of her web log as her “Backup Brain.” Teresa Nielsen Hayden said “One of the reasons I have a web log is to keep track of all the things I find incidentally.” The Live Journal folk said the same thing, and so I’m going to point (yes, again) to the commonplace book as a close relative if not a distant ancestor of the web log.
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08.30.02
Posted in Blogging, Conferences at 7:27 am by Lisa Spangenberg
Bill Humphries, a Mac user and blogger, is also at the Con, and will be speaking on a blogging panel “Blog This! (or, Blogology Recapitulates Mimeography)” on Saturday 11:30am. The description reads:
What is Blogging and why should you care? This new form of online diaries has taken fandom by storm. The mainstream world is also adopting this very fannish style of communication and community. Will they revisit our common foibles and squabbles? How does the emergence of weblogs and other online communities compare to that of fanzines?
The panel features Lucy Huntzinger, Moshe Feder, Evelyn C. Leeper, Bill Humphries, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and looks interesting.
Cory writes:
I’m bringing down three wireless access points and plan to hook them up wherever I can find an Ethernet drop, so that bloggers at the con can post while they’re there. Meanwhile, Bill Humphries has set up a ConJose metablog, with a Movable Type TrackBack system that allows any bloggers posting about the con to ping him and get listed on the page (even if you’re not using MT).
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08.28.02
Posted in Conferences at 9:51 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
Yes, that’s right, I’m doing something purely frivolous, I’m attending the World Con for most of this week. I’m going to try blogging as well—I figure why not? And I notice there’s a couple of other bloggers here, Cory Doctorow, and Eric Raymond, which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to link to his Cathedral and Bazaar for a while.
The Wyndham Hotel has a contract for an outside company, WayPort, to provide wide band over ethernet access. There’s supposed to be support for some wireless access at the convention.
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08.19.02
Posted in Copyright at 8:10 am by Lisa Spangenberg
From a press release from host Information Wave Technologies, via Metafilter:
Due to the nature of this matter and RIAA’s previous history, we feel the RIAA will abuse software vulerabilities in a client’s browser after the browser accesses its site, potentially allowing the RIAA to access and/or tamper with your data. Starting at midnight on August 19, 2002, Information Wave customers will no longer be able to reach the RIAA’s web site. Information Wave will also actively seek out attempts by the RIAA to thwart this policy and apply additional filters to protect our customers’ data.
They’re also engaging in null seeding, and tracking the data: “Clients which connect to our peer-to-peer clients, and then afterwards attempt to illegally access the network will be immediately blacklisted from Information Wave’s network.” That is, Information Wave Technologies is preventing would be RIAA or any other outside user from using its own network as a staging point for attacks on the Gnutella network.This is an different appoach; it will be interesting to see if others adopt similar strategies.
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08.16.02
Posted in Copyright at 6:11 am by Lisa Spangenberg
I knew a bit about Congressman Howard Berman, since he’s the representative for my home state, California, but I’d never heard of Congressman Howard Coble (R-North Carolina) until I learned he was Berman’s co-sponsor for the so called “Peer to Peer Piracy” bill.
Here’s a list of Coble’s top eleven contributors (via PACs and other forms of contributions):
| Assn of Trial Lawyers of America |
$10,000 |
| Winston & Strawn |
$5,515 |
| Recording Industry Assn of America |
$5,374 |
| National Assn of Broadcasters |
$5,360 |
| ASCAP |
$5,000 |
| National Assn of Realtors |
$5,000 |
| Teamsters Union |
$5,000 |
| Wal-Mart Stores |
$5,000 |
| GlaxoSmithKline |
$4,999 |
| National Cable Television Assn |
$4,999 |
| American Intellectual Property Law Assn |
$4,000 |
You will note that the list features several large entertainment corporations, with vested interests in controlling intellectual policy, including the Recording Industry Academy of America (RIAA) who might as well have written the bill themselves, The National Association of Broadcasters, ASCAP, and the National Cable Television Association. You will notice that the top two positions are occupied by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, and Wallace and Strawn, a law firm who represents Euro Disney, and Microsoft (Palladium chip anyone?). In fact, just as with Howard Berman, the two industries that are responsible for most of Coble’s funding are:
| Lawyers/Law Firms |
$35,515 |
| TV/Movies/Music |
$33,483 |
Now, I can see that Coble would likely always have a sizeable percentage of his money coming from lawyers and law firms since he’s on the Judiciary committee. But last year the top industries his monies came from were Pharmaceuticals/Health, and Lawyers and Law firms, with TV/Movies/Music the third. Do I think he’s representing the voters of North Carolina when he sponsored this bill? No, I really don’t. He may think he is, having been informed by the relentless lobbies of the entertainment industry that what’s good for them and for attorneys (who always win when litigation is involved) is good for his constituents.
I also suspect that, like many people who have little or no exposure to digital technology, and who don’t actively use it themselves, Senators Coble and Berman must depend on the information they are given—and right now, that information is not coming from end users, it’s filtered through the paranoid neuroses of the RIAA, who not only don’t want files to circulate, they want to be able to control digital technology, instead letting users control their own hardware and software.
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08.15.02
Posted in Copyright at 9:08 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
Howard Berman (D-California) is co-sponsor with Howard Coble (R-North Carolina) of the Peer to Peer Piracy Bill). I’d like to make sure you know that Congressman Berman’s top five financial contributors (via PACs) are:
| Walt Disney Co. |
$31,000 |
| AOL Time Warner |
$28,050 |
| Vivendi Universal |
$27,591 |
| Viacom Inc. |
$13,000 |
| News Corp. |
$11,750 |
Other major contributors include well-known intellectual property law firms in Los Angeles, like Irell and Manella, Phillips and Cohen, “the nation’s only law firm that is dedicated solely to representing whistleblowers,” Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca & Fischer, the Los Angeles entertainment firm, responsible for, among other things the Divx DVD scheme to charge users each time they viewed a Divx digital video. In fact the two top industries who have supported Mr. Berman are:
| TV/Movies/Music |
$186,891 |
| Lawyers/Law Firms |
$97,100 |
Now, granted, I’m just a naive digital medievalist from rural New Hampshire, but to me that looks like Mr. Berman isn’t so much interested in doing what’s right, or what’s best for his entire constituency, or even in doing what’s sensible. He’s acting in the best interests of his largest contributors, two groups who stand to benefit financially from his proposed legislation. Take a look at what Dan Gillmore of the San Jose Mercury Newshas to say about recent legislation regarding distribution of content, paying particular attention to Mr. Berman’s role. Now, it’s more than likely that Mr. Berman is simply naive about the technology involved, and is therefore assuming that the “truths” he is given by various lobbiests and special interests are in fact true—you and I, then, need to let him know what we think.
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Posted in Copyright at 8:40 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
There’s an important post about Coble’s role in the Peer to Peer Piracy bill at Ed Cone’s blog. He quotes an email from Fred von Lohmann, Senior Intellectual Property Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Under the bill, “…a copyright owner *can* invade your computer if it has your “authorization.” When would you ever authorize such a thing? When it’s hidden in a “clickwrap” license agreement! If the bill passed, there’s nothing to stop PressPlay, Microsoft, or any other copyright owners, from putting a “pre-authorization” into their service agreements.
The worst thing about the bill is that it entitles copyright owners to ignore *any law*, so long as they stay within the (murky) bounds of the statute…Copyright owners are saying that, unlike the rest of us, they should be above the law. This is a power that we as a society don’t give to anyone, even to the FBI.”
This is why all of us need to contact everyone we can think of and let them know that passing the “Peer to Peer Piracy” bill is a seriously bad idea. You might also suggest that they read Ed Cone’s column at the News - Record, and this editorial as well.
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Posted in Software, Macintosh at 8:55 am by Lisa Spangenberg
Wired has posted two stories about Apple’s Hypercard. The first one, “HyperCard, Forgotten but Not Gone,” discusses the enormous power and utility yet ease of use that drew so many to use HyperCard. The second, “HyperCard, what Could Have Been,” is a retrospective lamentation by Bill Atkinson, the brilliant initial creator of HyperCard, that he did not foresee the ubiquity of the net in creating HyperCard.
I suspect that both of Wired’s stories were inspired by this thread at MacinTouch about OS X Alternatives. I’m sure they will spur a lot of people’s nostalgia. It certainly inspired mine. I met my husband, and changed my career path because of HyperCard. I was a humble graduate student, hired to convert Professor Richard Lanham’s book A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms
into HyperCard. It was my first experience making an electronic book. You can buy the latest incarnation, still in HyperCard. Later, my husband Michael Cohen and I both went to the now defunct Voyager, where he produced and programmed Voyager’s Macbeth, and we both worked on Expanded Books, books in HyperCard sold on floppies, and the Expanded Book’s Toolkit, to let ordinary non-programmers make high quality digital books. The book interface that Colin Holgate, Steve Riggins, Michael Cohen, Bob Stein and other Voyager alums created in 1991 is clearly still inspiring Peanut Press, Microsoft, and Adobe.
Others have also waxed nostalgic about HyperCard, like Cory Doctorow, another Voyager alum, and Russ Lipton of MacNet Journal, and Brett Morgan also journies down memory lane.
This isn’t the first instance of developers regaining interest in HyperCard. On O’Reilly’s network alone (a true geek haven!) the last year has seen articles on “HyperCard and Python,” wizard developer “Danny Goodman Talks About HyperCard,” “REALBasic for HyperCard Users,” and most recently the heartrending pleas for HyperCard’s future under OS X, “The Death of HyperCard?“
I too wish Apple would redo HyperCard for OS X, enhancing it, and extending it to support Web Services (which they would likely do via HyperCard’s AppleScript support.) The possibilities for end users and developers alike of an OS X HyperCard are mouth watering. A new HyperCard would be rapidly adopted by developers, as well as end users, and HyperCard alone would sell thousands of Macs to education. The really intelligent thing would be to open source HyperCard, and develop internally, along the lines of Apples other open source projects. But I realize it’s not likely. I’m still using HyperCard regularly, and I know that there are hundreds of colleges and universities that still rely on HyperCard for text processing and manipulation, interface prototyping, and instructional design. I have been extremely impressed with Revolution from Runtime Revolution. Revolution 1.1 includes all of HyperTalk plus, is in color, and very cross platform. It even includes import abilities.
But good as Revolution is, it isn’t HyperCard.
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