One Infinite Loop?
Monday, March 11, 1996 by Dave Winer.
Good Morning!
It's always this way. The radio starts talking about an old person. The thought forms -- he's gone. Then two sentences later, the news, George is gone.
George Burns made it to 100, but not 101.
The man had class! He loved Gracie. When she died, many years ago, he said it helped him to sleep in her bed. On 60 Minutes last night they showed George visiting Gracie's grave at Forest Lawn Cemetary in Los Angeles. He thought of everything in terms of showbiz. "She'll always get top billing in my heart," George said.
I wanted to do something special for the passing of George Burns, so I went to "Alta Vista". Found a bunch of quotes. They're all great!
"Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs or cutting hair." Yeah! That fit the theme of the 24 Hours project, so I added a George Burns page to the site at http://www.hotwired.com/userland/24/.
In one of my favorite movies, "Oh, God!", Burns plays god, of course, but he's a very sensible god. He wants us to love each other and take care of each other. Stop looking to god to make everything right, it already *is* right.
George Burns was a sweet man! He was one of us. He is missed.
Mathematics with the weather 
Last Tuesday I took a walk with a friend. We talked mathematics. What's an identity? It's different from saying A equals B. It's saying that A *is* B. This isn't just a heavenly day. This *is* heaven. Yayuh.
Yes the weather here in California has been brilliant. Hot and humid. Reminds me of east coast summers, childhood feelings, the good stuff! I delayed gardening this year based on last year's experience. There may still be a cold spell, but in a couple of weeks it'll be warm for good. Summer is just around the corner on this March morning and I'm liking it!
Microsoft around the corner
Look for a big blast of publicity from Microsoft this week. New web browser. Java applets, Netscape plugins, Visual Basic scripts. And JavaScript scripts with a twist -- you can get to the system thru the OLE interface. Security? Maybe not. Power? For sure.
A little bird whispers that Steve Jobs may be at the Microsoft Developer Conference in San Francisco this week. Jobs says that clients are moving too fast, servers have a lot more to do. I agree.
I will be at the Microsoft conference on Tuesday. If anything interesting happens I'll report on it.
Back in geek mode
I've slowed down on DaveNet writing because I've been doing script writing and webmastering.
I'm taking what I learned in doing 24 Hours of Democracy and bringing it back to the Macintosh webmaster community. In 24 Hours we linked over 1000 sites together. Not billions of websites or even thousands, but hundreds.
It's a start. We built a community that didn't depend on broadcast email or a newsgroup. The project was tied together by a Macintosh running at the end of an ISDN line. Lots of sysops and a few scripts and tables and outlines.
I believe that as of March 1996, a rational way to do a high-flow website is to serve html pages and gifs from a Unix box close to the Internet backbone and on a wide pipe.
Scripts work great on a Macintosh running WebStar and Frontier, a narrow pipe for the Mac server is OK. In the next system I'm doing the pipe to the Mac server will be even less critical, but the system will depend more heavily on the storage and scripting power of a network of Mac servers.
We got a lot of attention with the 24 Hours project. Macintosh servers played a central role. We have a lot of room to grow here. Lots of web servers are Macs. Great authoring tools and publishing networks. Artists and writers use Macs.
A bright future, I see, says this geek.
I wanted people to hear that.
An Infinite Loop?
Apple chose to name their R&D headquarters building One Infinite Loop. To those who understand what an infinite loop is, why did they choose this name?
Maybe we can get a clue from the changes that are coming. We haven't heard much yet. Here's what we *have* heard...
Larry Tesler is the new Internet czar at Apple. Tesler is very old school. Not Invented Here. More of the Same. Tesler is a puzzling choice for an important growth area such as the Internet.
Here's how Tesler's Apple works. Developer spots an opportunity. Delivers. Apple announces they're taking over the market. No delivery. Market withers.
To Gil Amelio: Apple should appreciate every software product that ships for the Macintosh. In the past, Tesler has been very picky. This created a major diseconomy. It's why your business and mine are so sick when there are so many Mac users, and so much growth in the software business.
Ask Tesler why Apple is doing Cyberdog. Is he helping Apple's shareholders, spending their money wisely, or holding onto a discredited vision of Apple's role in the Macintosh marketplace?
I'm looking for change at Apple -- an outward perspective that helps flow new products from developers to users without aloof judgement from Apple. More attention to users and products. More air cover for developers, less sniper fire.
I've been busy with other things for the last few weeks, and I wanted to give the new Apple management a chance to figure out what kind of change they want. Now they're starting to make changes. I'm listening, but so far it looks like more of the same. Stay tuned.
Dave Winer