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Permanent link to archive for Thursday, December 13, 2001. Thursday, December 13, 2001

Pictures from the French bloggers dinner, 22 novembre. They look like nice people! 

John Gilmore: "In 20-30 years there may well be technologies that could notice what we think, and/or control it." 

JD Lasica: "I don't know that John Walker, the local Marin boy gone wack-job who made the cover of this week's Newsweek, deserves to be tried for treason and executed.." 

Amy Wohl asks "How often do you fly?" 

Blogdex has an interesting Social Network Explorer feature. 

Glenn Fleishman went surfing through Google's archives of Usenet and found posts from Jon Postel in 1981. 

NY Times: "Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voiced deep skepticism today about the Bush administration's proposed settlement of the antitrust case against Microsoft, as the company denounced the list of tougher penalties being sought by nine states as 'radical and punitive.'" 

Nice. My Segway piece is on the first page on Google. This is incestuous of course, by linking to it here, I'm helping it move up the chart. And it's even worse than it appears. At the Segway event on Monday I was standing next to Larry Page, one of the Google founders, and I complimented him. I said Google is cool because it doesn't keep you there. It's like the Web, its purpose is to send you away, knowing that if it does that well, you'll come back of your own free will. That's why Google works so well. Then I told him that I had the #2 link for John Doerr on Google (Doerr is Google's VC). That got his attention. I said "Google likes me." He looked at my badge. I think perhaps for the first time he actually listened to something I said. Heh. I'm learning. 

MSNBC: Sprint cuts off Conxion. Nice to see the shoe on the other foot. I remember well how Conxion made us scramble when their service went to hell. A company with great values, as long as the news is good. Now they get to scramble for their corporate life.  

The Lonelyhearts Club 

After listening to the NPR Fresh Air report on weblogs, which seemed to miss every point possible as the commentator tried to figure out what the bloggers are doing -- I'd like to offer my own opinion. We're experimenting and innovating.

The Big Press response to the Web is much like Compuserve's reaction to users of their online network in the early 80s. I have a clue about this because my brother worked at Compuserve while I was a user of their CB Radio network. He told me that they called us The Lonelyhearts Club. Heh.

In fact we were exploring a new technology that would eventually become as big as any other software category -- Chat or Instant Messaging. Doc Searls is exploring this phenomenon on a daily basis on his weblog. Instead of taking offense or being frustrated by their disrespect, know that what they're doing is erecting blinders so they don't have to look over here. That doesn't mean that their blinders are true or real, or that even that they have good intentions and can be convinced to see the light.

The people at Compuserve were doing their jobs -- being sure that their company would be acquired by another company later, one that had more respect for the users of the technology.

PS: Search for Compuserve on Google. Look at the top hit.

McGarry is a boozer 

I love The West Wing. What a show. What was Josh hatching up that didn't work that he didn't tell the President about? Chief of Staff Leo McGarry is a boozer, and vulnerable, but tough as nails. It was so cool the way he leaned over to his counsel, while testifying in the House, and asked her out. It was also cool the way he told the Congressman who didn't show enough respect to fuck off. It's great that on The West Wing the good guys prevail, even among the Republicans. I love living in that fantasy for one hour a week.

     

Last update: Thursday, December 13, 2001 at 3:51 PM Eastern.

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