Friday, March 26, 2004

Wired: "A draft bill obtained by Wired News recently circulated among members of the House judiciary committee that would make it much easier for the Justice Department to pursue criminal prosecutions against file sharers by lowering the burden of proof. The bill also would seek penalties of fines and prison time of up to ten years for file sharing." 

It's soooo interesting that Microsoft is moving against Google using this BlogBot thing, which we assume is a search engine that specializes in blogs. I want to know more, because there really are ways to optimize a search engine for weblogs, I've written about it, even implemented it (using the Google API) but it's not like Google listens (why should they). Anyway, Google buys Blogger, and they don't even get a search engine that understands blogs. Should have used RSS instead of insisting on replacing it. Priorities all wrong. Maybe they have an answer and maybe we get a two-party system. That would be great, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Silicon Valley culture is foolish arrogance. Microsoft's is only steal from the best.  

Google News search for BlogBot. 

ZD Net UK has a gazillion RSS feeds. 

I have some writing to do this weekend so I can spend next week in Florida. I bought several books today for beach reading. The big one is Ghost Wars by Steve Coll. It was recommended to me by a reader, and I had heard an interview with the author on NPR and thought it was interesting. I almost bought Richard Clarke's book, but I'll read Ghost Wars first.  

Sooz may have found the place for our party for the evening of April 17. We're also going to have hosted dinners on the night before the conference at restaurants around the Cambridge area, or possibly at the Durgin Park restaurant at Faneiul Hall in Boston.  

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "MSN Blogbot." 

Tim Oren eulogizes HyperCard, which was retired this week.  

More Russian RSS. 

Reuters: "Boeing on Thursday announced pricing for its Connexion high-speed Internet service that will soon enable travelers to surf the Web or send messages to friends or co-workers while cruising at 30,000 feet." 

Steve Ballmer: "We have a lot of guys who are really smart about search." 

Steve Gillmor to Steve Ballmer: "Steve, you need to support RSS." 

Political Wire reviews how the White House is gunning for Richard Clarke. I've heard a half-dozen interviews with Clarke. He comes off as an intelligent, respectful, and not overly arrogant critic, not just of the White House policies re terrorism and Iraq, but also himself. Listening to his interview with NPR's Terry Gross, I thought -- wouldn't it be great if the White House offered up someone as thoughtful as Clarke, then we could have the kind of election some of us want, one where the issues are debated with integrity, and each of us makes an intelligent choice with our vote. No such luck, even if the White House spokespeople are intelligent (no doubt they are), they're acting like thugs and appealing to the worst in us. Shame. According to the Bush people, the only reason a man like Clarke would speak up is to sell books, to get a Democrat elected, or to get a new job. It might have all those effects and their criticism would still fail to address the key point of Clarke's testimony (under oath, btw), that the White House has diverted our resources and attention from defending against terrorism, before and after 9/11. That's the amazing part. There's some way to explain not focusing on terrorism before 9/11, but how can they explain that they're doing so little to defend the US against future acts of terrorism? 

Reuters: "Noticed those little orange boxes on the Web lately with the letters XML?" 

Frontier developers in Europe take note.  

Jeff Jarvis opens a discussion of the business of weblogs for the April 17 conference. 

Phil Wolff: "I don't have time to try a million beers." 

Ananova: "Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy, according to a top Austrian doctor." 

Will Richardson: Blogging and RSS. 

Andrew Grumet: "Control by a few gives you a chance at achieving conceptual integrity." 

I take back what I said on March 12 about The West Wing. Wednesday night's show kicked butt. Glenn Close was an incredible casting choice, the acting was great, and the ending very gratifying, left me thinking this country could be great, that our system actually could support intelligence, creativity and courage. I watched the last twenty minutes twice just to savor it, and might watch it again. Great show.  

Dowbrigade: "There are a number of computers strewn around the Greater Boston area which are busily downloading and compiling further digital detritus for our possible perusal, as we STILL have over 30 gigs of available space on our hard drive."