Saturday, March 19, 2005

LiveJournal now supports RSS 2.0 with enclosures.  

David Czarnecki : Podcasting with Blojsom. 

I was knee-deep in the surf with my camera as the sun was setting, when a cute wet doggie comes to say hello.  

My new directory displayer now handles passages of text, so you can write little documents directly in the directory. 

One more thing re steroids and heroes, how about letting Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame. Geez Louise, was there ever a better player?  

10/24/02: "Baseball is nothing if not history." 

WNYC has a really good FAQ on Podcasting. 

David Pogue: "What happens to your PC when you die?" 

I was sitting at my desk doing some work and this thing appeared outside the window. A big wing with a motor and a guy in it. He looked right at me and waved. I waved back. Had to hunt around for the camera, dashed out on the patio and shot a movie. Life at the beach is different.  

CustomizeGoogle enhances "Google search results by adding links to other useful services. It can also remove ads." It's a toolbar for Firefox. At first I thought it was a website I could use instead of google.com. I would be very happy to contribute to such a site. I want better ads in my Google results. Hey it's my computer right? The users come first, right? I'm a user! Woo hooo. Party down.  

It's being discussed on ThreadWatch. 

Jason Calcanis wrote up Thursday's Odeo demo.  

I like the programming on WNYC better than the local station, WJCT. The only problem is the weather in NY is a lot colder than it is here in sunny Florida. So they're happy when the temperature in Central Park is 42 degrees Farenheiht. Brrrr. Here, we're complaining that it's not quite 70 degrees. "It's almost April!" the guy at the pharmacy said. What gives, why's it so cold? Anyway, unfortunately they're playing Car Talk right now. I hate Car Talk. Funny I used to think Click and Clack were funny until I moved to Boston. But that's another stawree. 

Sunrise on the Atlantic. 

Martin Schwimmer says someone has filed a trademark for "Podcast." 

My least favorite phrase in the English language: Take it like a man.  

More blogs are showing up in Google News. I would like to understand how they decide which are included. 

Two-level communities 

Last week there were two conferences that I didn't go to but followed through the Web. I could have gone to either of them in person, if I had been willing to pay their fees, and been willing to be in the audience or the hallways, at all times. In other words, I would have to accept my place as a second-level person, an outsider, in the presence of insiders.

There are two conflicting emotions around this. First, why aren't I an insider? I feel like I've earned the respect of the people who put on the conferences, and the people who participate. And the second emotion, harder to find with the first one swirling, is wait a minute, why should I accept the premise that there are two levels? When I put on a conference, or throw a party, I work really hard to erase the idea that there are two levels, to make everyone feel welcome and equal. Really. It's hard work, because people are always trying to nominate themselves for insider-ness, and push other people to the outside. I remember well what it was like going to Esther's conferences in the 80s, when the insiders all had someone to eat with, and I was paying thousands of dollars for the priviledge of eating by myself because I didn't know anyone. If I'm putting on the conference, that isn't going to happen

You can see it really clearly in this lecture by Doc Searls to Ross Rader, who said something pretty aggressive about a product for the podcasting community that hasn't yet had Word One to say to the podcasting community, instead has only been selling it to insiders, most of whom have no idea what the issues are in creating, distributing podcasts, and having them be heard. Doc, who understands how bloggers hate to be talked down to by professonal journalists who know bupkis about blogging, now does exactly the same thing to podcasters.

I gave Scoble a really hard time about this earlier this week, after he came back from an insider's conference, all full of their world, forgetting about the larger world that he's part of, that I know he cares about. After that conversation we decided to do everything we can to compete with the force of the insiders. Doc, how about looking at your words from our perspective. Talking to us through you ain't going to cut it. Your friends who want to earn the respect of the podcasters should explain in the medium, in their own voices, in their own words -- produce a podcast and tell us what the fuck they're doing, instead of leaving us guessing. Then you might see the hostility ease, because that's where it comes from.

Steroids and heroes 

I've only heard snippets of Mark McGwire's testimony in Congress last week on the use of steroids in baseball. He refused to say if he used steroids, but come on, it's obvious that he used something. He was a big guy when he played at Oakland, but not as big as he was when he was at St Louis. People just don't grow that way after a certain age.

When asked about Jose Canseco's claims, McGwire said "consider the source," as if we all knew that somehow Canseco has less credibility than McGwire does. But if McGwire took the drugs to enhance his performance, to best Roger Maris's home run record, well, at least Caseco came clean. And to us, former Bay Area baseball fans, we'll always remember that McGwire and Canseco were the Bash Brothers. If a man wants to talk that way about his goddam brother, well, I just don't want to know about some things, sorry Mark.

Baseball is worried about losing its heroes, well stop worrying, it's already happened. The record for most home runs in a season is now meaningless, and if Barry Bonds (also a steroids user) keeps hitting home runs there goes Hank Aaron's record.

Without heroes, is there any point to Major League Baseball? After all it's just a sport. In some sense we measure ourselves against our past selves through men like Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Hank Aaron, and the current crop of pretenders, McGwire, Sosa and Bonds. If we apply the test, even though Ruth was surely flawed, and Maris tragic, we lose.