Scripting News

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 15:44:21 GMT

During the flamefest about weblogs.com hosting, James Grimmelmann at Yale Law School's LawMeme tried to analyze the story from a legal point of view, got most of the basic facts wrong, and therefore arrived at a wildly incorrect conclusion (along with some childish name-calling). I wonder if they would like to take another look, now that the flames have died down, and see if they'd like to tell the story again, based on what actually happened. And maybe they could tell the story of how their condemnation came to be, based on so little information? If technologists have an obligation to treat users fairly (they do, no argument there) do lawyers have the same obligation, according to Yale Law School?

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 18:03:03 GMT

So Yale doesn't feel totally out there, Harvard Law School also took took a shot at me during the flamefest. Their comment about RSS is pretty nutty (it's a format, not software, it can't be licensed under GPL). They say they got their facts from Wired, so they're just passing on what they heard. I guess that's an okay excuse. Anyway, thousands of people weren't stranded and we got all the sites back on the air within a week. It would be nice if they published that part too.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 17:34:11 GMT

Greg Linden: "Findory Blogory just launched a new and unusual feature: personalized, aggregated, and adaptive RSS feeds."

Tue, 06 Jul 2004 00:26:16 GMT

According to CNN, Kerry has chosen a running mate and will announce shortly.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 22:48:09 GMT

Jason Calacanis: "Dave, how much would you pay for an add-free RSS feed from Engadget.com?"

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 22:35:26 GMT

Follow the links in this post by Tim Jarrett to learn about Yahoo's first attempt at a gated community built around RSS.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 17:19:46 GMT

Listening to Sun president Jonathan Schwartz on The Gillmor Gang on my new iPod. He's a master of "vendor sports," as Steve calls it. The ponytail is misleading. He's as good as McNealy ever was, and he has good manners. He should make a proposition to RSS developers that doesn't necessarily depend on Java. It'd be interesting to see what he comes up with.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 17:07:21 GMT

Boston.Com: Engaging young Bostonians in citizenship.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 17:30:14 GMT

Britt Blaser: "We cannot comprehend how stupidly the inexperienced bulk of society speaks of war as a rational option that we're entitled to use on people the way a company might launch a hostile takeover."

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 15:09:49 GMT

Photos from BlogTalk in Vienna.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 16:15:15 GMT

Aggregated bloggings from BlogTalk.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 10:44:12 GMT

Lida Liberopoulou, writing from Greece: "In your July 4 entry you mention some really wild celebrations going on at a NYC neighborhood. It is possible that what you witnessed was the Greek community of New York City running wild." Yes it is possible. Last night there were Greek flags around everywhere. I had no idea why and didn't think much of it. Greece won the Euro 2004 cup. Lida continues: "This is probably the biggest sporting victory in the history of the country. Here in Greece we have been getting reports that Greek communities have begun to celebrate the event by the thousands in big cities all around the world (London, Melbourne, Berlin etc)."

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 10:10:07 GMT

In Vienna, the BlogTalk conference is underway. Paolo is blogging.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 10:33:17 GMT

Also Der Shockwellenreiter and Heiko Hebig.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 10:35:39 GMT

As Adam notes, Radio and Manila sites have officially joined the age of comment spam. It's happening on my sites too. Look on the bright side, here's a new chance to get creative. BTW, I had an interesting phone talk with Adam this week. He didn't want to call while I was under attack on blogs and in the press, which I kind of understand, then he told me how the Dutch press is treating his wife (she's a movie star) and I realize I don't have it so bad.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 14:54:09 GMT

Geek News notes that SixApart is now getting Trackback spam.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 10:28:08 GMT

This is a puzzling story, perhaps someone from Britain can explain. "The BBC has just under four months to redefine the remit for its online services, the government has said." I think that means that the websites have to explain why they shouldn't be shut down. The BBC web is unique, it's the only major news site that doesn't move their archive behind a for-pay firewall. The NY Times is second-best, but the BBC is perfect. It would be a shame, but an understandable one, if they became more restrictive.

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 11:57:36 GMT

Lance Knobel: "There's no chance the things most people value from the BBC, principally the news sites, will face any changes."

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 11:17:52 GMT

Independent: "There was evidence that BBC Online, which was launched in 1998, was having an adverse affect on commerical rivals."

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 10:16:42 GMT

NY Times: "Apple has elected to use a compression standard that, to put the best face on it, creates an awfully small file."