Wednesday, September 01, 2004

The state of Missouri supports RSS. 

Listening to Cheney speak now. More of the same lies. I love that the text behinds him says Land of Opportunity, while he trashes Kerry. Before him, Zell Miller talks about the "Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief." Yes, that's right, it's called an election. Geez Louise. Let me know when these guys get serious.  

Glenn Reynolds: "With accredited bloggers at both conventions, this can fairly be called the first presidential election to be blogged. And that just might matter -- though if it does, it will be as much because of big-media vices as it is of bloggers' virtues." 

According to News.Com, Philadelphia is considering a city-wide wireless network. Wow. That would instantly make Philly the place to be. I never thought I could possibly say that. Here's another thought for Republicans to consider. Imagine if the trillion dollars we're pouring into Iraq infrastructure had been put into providing across-the-board wireless in every major US city. I bet it wouldn't even cost a trillion. And think about the economic gain. It's the difference between pouring money down a hole, and investing. 

Here's what a trillion looks like: $1,000,000,000,000.  

Josh Marshall says that Ben Barnes, the former Texas attorney general who pulled the strings necessary to keep President Bush out of Vietnam, will tell his story on 60 Minutes.  

CBS: Microsoft unveils music download service. 

Command Post compares the RNC with the DNC. Not sure what he means, I was able to work alongside the "real" reporters on the floor-level at the DNC. I have pictures to prove it. In some ways it was better than the official blogger space, not due to any failure of the DNC, rather the greed of people who wanted to siphon our wifi access (rumor was we had the only wifi in the Fleet Center). I think the DNC also deserves credit for going first. I doubt if the RNC would have let Alan and his colleagues in if the DNC hadn't raised the bar. And finally, I was unable to apply to go to the RNC. They chose Alan presumably because his politics matched theirs. So right off the bat Alan your participation is tainted. What would happen if you ran a piece critical of the Republicans?  

Apparently Adam has found the perfect audioblogging software for his Mac. It hooks into the flow of bits to the speakers and turns that flow into an MP3. This means you can use any software you like to play the tunes and effects you want. I'm envious. I want that for Windows. 

Audio blog post from the Trans-Canada Highway in Saskatchewan. Lots of random bits with very little premeditation. About 45 minutes.  

Arrived in Regina around 2:30PM Central, in time for a nap then a brief exploration. I like this pace better. Anyway, I caught up on Adam's audio blog posts (here's the feed) and did one of my own.  

Today's drive: Brandon to Regina.  

CNN this morning reports rumors of change in the Kerry campaign, but news of the change is public, on the Kerry weblog. Puzzling. 

BOP News: On TV It's All Republicans All the Time. 

NY Times: "A trio of newly discovered worlds are much smaller than any other planets previously discovered outside of the solar system." 

Taking out the garbage 

Scoble was fascinated how news of the Longhorn recalc propogated, but he missed the most fascinating aspect of the announcement. Microsoft shipped the story on a Friday night, I even got a detailed email from a Waggenerette, but the blogosphere waited until Monday to carry the story.

It wasn't that we were on vacation or weren't checking email over the weekend, it's just that by announcing it on Friday, Microsoft was clearly taking out the garbage (a term I learned from The West Wing, basically announce all your bad news on a Friday, no one reads the political news on Saturday).

The blogosphere didn't play along. Blog flow over weekends, esp a late summer weekend, is miniscule compared to the flow on a Monday morning. Can the story wait till Monday? No problemmo.

Apple critiques 

Microsoft gets something of a raw deal from the blogosphere, they're considered fair game for ridicule, when few other companies are. This should change, and I'm glad to see it is. Russ Beattie, for example, had a succinct, practical and negative review of Apple's new desktop computer. Bravo!

And when Adam Curry calls the iPod a platform, he's overlooking one important thing that users and developers like to see in a platform: choice of vendor. It's laughable to think that iTunes will ever work with another vendor's hardware, it's not very likely to happen, in our lifetimes, even if we live to a ripe old age. I literally did laugh when I considered the idea. That's not the way Apple works.

Postscript: Of course then I immediately realized that HP is making an iPod, just to confuse matters. Oy. There goes my theory. Does the hPod work with iTunes?

Curry catchup 

I resolved today to catch up with Adam Curry's audio blog posts. I didn't have one of my own last night it turns out. Generally I'm too wiped out after a day of exploring the northland to have much energy left for creativity before falling asleep. But not so in the morning. Even without coffee, I'm rarin to go!

I hope to write more here so I can copy-paste a picture of a Heinz ketchup bottle here.