Scripting News

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 22:16:08 GMT

Lessig: "American software developers will continue to choke on software patents."

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 22:11:12 GMT

News.Com: Google's search for new ad revenue.

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 18:41:32 GMT

BBC: "A chain of UK internet cafes is offering low-cost wireless net access at its branches."

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 15:42:21 GMT

David Davies: Mobile blogging how-to guide.

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 14:45:08 GMT

Here's what Google can do for weblogs that would be a service to the weblog community -- classify and group them. Give me an accurate list of all the librarian weblogs, and all the lawyer weblogs, and all the weblogs of people who have implemented an XML-RPC stack. You get the idea. They have been able to do this with news stories, it seems they should also be able to do it with weblogs. This is the biggest unsolved problem I see in this world, and I don't know how to solve it, it's not what I do. Postscript: Tom Matrullo wants this too.

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 14:35:44 GMT

On this day two years ago Bill Humphries found NASDAQ feeds in XML. They're still there and they still work.

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 14:11:12 GMT

I'm giving a seminar at Dartmouth on May 9 entitled "Internet protocols for the Web as a writing environment." Interesting timing, because it was five years ago, to the day, that I wrote the piece that inspired XML-RPC and SOAP. "It's RPC over HTTP via XML. I believe it's the next protocol for runtimes."

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 14:04:26 GMT

It's striking how fast the new community aggregator is. It's only subscribed to 18 feeds but it usually completes scans in less than ten seconds. I figure this is because it's on a fast local network that's close to a backbone.

Credit where it's due

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 13:37:20 GMT

As with many "firsts" on the Web, the current moblog craze was well-explored last year and the year before and likely the year before that.

David Davies, last year, for example, blogged from the crowd at a football match, and from inside a plane.

The fact that so many things are new so many times is a good thing, even though to those who came before it can be very irritating to see people claim credit for inventing what you thought you invented. Here's why it's good. Because ideas get improved, and made relevant in new contexts. It's why patents in software are so dangerous and so unlikely to be deserved.

I explained it once quite concisely. "Everything on the Internet is just like something else. Or if it's any good it's just like everything else."

And I have a motto to go with this, of course. "Only steal from the best."