Scripting News

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 23:33:15 GMT

Chris Lydon: "We will be broadcasting from WGBH in Boston at 6 p.m. EDT. 'Be ready,' as the Good Book says. And please leap into the get-ready starting immediately with your comments here."

The FeedRoom is "the world's premiere broadband news network, gives high-speed Internet users the video news they want, from the sources they trust, anytime they want." Lots of RSS feeds.

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 21:57:00 GMT

Dave Sifry has just come out with his first product at Sputnik, Inc. It's a cool 802.11 base station. I used a prototype of this product at Larry Lessig's Spectrum Conference at Stanford in February. Lots of users, and didn't skip a beat. I'm glad to see Dave ship, he's one of the few these days who has the guts to ship new technology products, and I'm sure it's great, and I wish him the best.

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 20:02:39 GMT

More skating from CNN's Eason Jordan. I can't make sense of what he's saying. The Times ran a piece today, a few days too late, and it didn't go far enough. They must say clearly that they don't condone what CNN did. By running his op-ed piece on Friday without comment, it appears that they condone it. The question certainly is out there. Does the Times accept such conflicts without disclosure? Paul Boutin checks in. "Millions of viewers took it on faith that CNN's reporting was, if anything, skewed toward the political agendas of Washington and Wall Street, not Baghdad."

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 20:19:22 GMT

Why the Times chose to ally itself with CNN on this is a total bewilderment. Do they think he represents a cause that must have their support? This is not the first time a dirty press person has taken a bath on the Times' op-ed page. On a smaller scale, an editor at the Industry Standard, who now writes for Time, admitted huge ethical transgressions during the dotcom boom, with no comment from the Times. He still claims to be a journalist. What are we to believe? That the Times engages in such practices itself? It certainly seems to condone them. Today CNN got a much-deserved lecture from the Washington Post. But the Times is in trouble alongside CNN, until they cut them loose with a strongly worded disclaimer.

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 19:36:29 GMT

Robert Scoble just called to say that he's leaving NEC to join Microsoft as technical evangelist for a new product in development. He'll work for Robert Hess, a smart guy I've known for many years. It's a good match, a dream job for Scoble, and Microsoft gets a foot in the blogging world, and enthusiastic evangelism from a true believer. Congratulations to Robert and to his new employer.

Boston Globe: "A plan to enact tough digital antipiracy legislation in Massachusetts has run into fierce opposition from technologists and civil libertarians who say the new law would violate civil rights and ban some common computer security techniques."

Scott Rosenberg: "While US forces were unable to protect museums in Baghdad from looting crowds destroying millennia-old artifacts, it seemed to have plenty of troops available to protect the Iraqi oil ministry in Baghdad."

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 10:28:39 GMT

OPML.Org: How To implement an OPML directory browser.

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 12:55:49 GMT

Brent Simmons has an OPML directory browser running in some environment that runs on Mac OS X. I'll get more details later (I have a meeting at 10AM). But in the meantime, here's a screen shot courtesy of JY Stervinou. Bing!

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 11:56:58 GMT

Hopefully we can have implementations in PHP, Python, Perl, Zope, .NET, you name it. A barn-raising. A community development project. It worked several times before, with RSS, XML-RPC, SOAP and OPML itself. Can we do a bootstrap in 2003? Let's find out.

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 12:07:45 GMT

Let a thousand flowers bloom. "I looked at Andrew but said to the group, how well is it going now that there's one browser?"

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 12:08:59 GMT

Simply stated, here's my rule. "Where you want competition, give away the technology. Where you want to be competitive, keep it to yourself."

OSCOM

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 11:51:34 GMT

OSCOM is an inexpensive conference, and there are lots of seats available. I've thought maybe I should invite all Scripting News readers to come. The two keynotes are two people you're familiar with -- Jon Udell, and me. I'm sure Jon won't disappoint. Hey if you're in the Boston area, or even NY, it'll probably be worth a trip if you're a content management sort of guy or gal.

No wait for tools

The really cool thing about this kind of directory isn't the format, OPML is designed to be unremarkable. When people look at the OPML files and criticize them I know they don't understand OPML, but I wish they did. They're looking at the roots of a tree, when the interesting stuff is happening in the canopy, in the tree-tops.

Here's what's different. There's no need to wait for a tool to edit this format, because the tool existed before the format. This is flipped around from all other XML formats, where it may or may not be possible to create a tool. We know of several good outliners that support OPML. And outliners are a tool of choice for people who think, people who have information that we want in directories. It's a clever plan!

Hey if you want to know about outliners, ask Larry Lessig. Lawyers love them. Soon so will librarians.