Friday, July 15, 2005

Daniel Shorr: "The underlying issue in the Karl Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war and how America was misled into that war." 

Still pics taken before last night's OPML meetup and my Cambridge hotel room; and a movie from the same hotel. 

I may have found the perfect Cambridge hotel. It's a high rise with a great view of Boston, the Charles River, Harvard and MIT. It's on Memorial Drive, so walks can be uninterrupted by traffic, for miles in each direction. And next door is a Trader Joe's and a major chain computer store. Free wifi. What more could you ask for? 

Jim Moore on Web Super Services. 

I've tried all the online travel agencies, and up till now Expedia has had a virtually unblemished record. There have, of course, been a few glitches here and there, but mostly I've been happy with the service. Until today, when they put me on hold a total of 2 hours over four separate calls, and all I wanted to do is change hotels. Each time they had me jump through a new hoop till I finally said enough. Cancel the reservation or don't, but if you don't, I won't be back. That's where we are now. The hotel was glad to accomodate, they're sold out, and were easily able to replace me as a customer. I've booked a new room at a more suitable location. But it seems Expedia may charge me for the room, anyway. Arrrgh. 

Tim Bray compares Atom 1.0 with RSS 2.0, Don Park comments. 

Alex Bosworth's view of Atom as compared with RSS.  

Jon Udell comments as well. Of course any innovation in Atom could easily be applied to RSS, since, as Bray points out, Atom can be a namespace, and (something he doesn't point out), RSS 2.0 accepts elements from other namespaces.  

Last night's OPML roadshow meetup in Cambridge was another kickass meetup. Great group of people, the demo went smoothly, a couple of glitches here and there, but the power of the ideas and software came through. I definitely have to do one of these in California, probably some time in mid-August, possibly at Stanford, in the East Bay, up in Marin, or all three? 

David Weinberger: "Graphically it's very simple." 

I'm going to start a mail list for OPML Roadshow participants. The discussion must continue. I promised to do this after NY, but dropped the ball. I'll pick it up soon. 

I guess you've really arrived when the NY Times calls you "cranky." Last time they called me an "irascible gadfly." I guess this is progress.