I'm putting together my LAN at the new place, bit by bit. I have more space here, but much less than I had in Berkeley. It's an interesting opportunity to get my office and entertainment center all in the same room, networked, yet separate. They couldn't be in the same place in the last apartment, the rooms were too small. And it never occurred to me to put them in the same room in Berkeley cause I had umpteen rooms to play with.  

As an example of what's possible, I want to use the entertainment center sound system for my computer and for watching TV. Should be possible because the receiver has a built-in HTTP server, and a website that allows you to operate the receiver. 

When I got the desktop working Saturday afternoon, I looked around and found that Zuck had just started speaking at a startup conference in Calif, so I tuned it in on Justin.TV. The first thing I heard him say was that it was simpler when he started Facebook. All he had to do was make a website. Today if you want to compete, you have to cover all the mobile platforms, iPhone, Android, etc etc ad nauseum. 

It makes me sick to hear him say this cause it's the same old shit they always say and it's always wrong. Let's hope for Zuck's sake he knows it's wrong. To the startup guys, if you believe what he's saying you should go work for him, because it takes guts and creative thinking and the ability to spot a bluff, to make it in the business world. And he sure is bluffing.  

Having to cover all those platforms is a liability, it's what makes it hard for Facebook to move. The guy who does to him what he's doing to Google, Yahoo, et al (even Apple) is going to have one product on one platform and it's going to be simple and fun and grow like a weed because it doesn't work everywhere. It'll be on the right platform, the one everyone wants to use, and it will help establish its platform as the one that everyone wants to use. That's how these things work.  

I've heard what Zuck said from Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Scott McNealy, Philippe Kahn, the VisicCalc guys, Mitch Kapor. Every wunderkind blows smoke at teh would-be wunderkinds, to no avail. Eventually they all have to deal with someone who calls his bullshit and happens to have a winning hand.