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Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.
 
Permanent link to archive for Tuesday, October 15, 2002. Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Dan Shafer: "My new favorite sport is Race the Aggregator." 

Werblog: "Blogs are hitting the mainstream in the way the Web did in 1994-95. It's a different economic environment, so we're not going to see a rush a blog vendor IPOs. But don't ignore what's going on because of that." 

Very weird situation this morning. I'm getting huge flow on yesterday's archive of Scripting News, more than I'd get if I were being Slashdotted, but the hits appear to be coming without referers. I don't think it's a robot (I don't want to explain why) or a denial-of-service attack, but it's so weird that so many hits would come without referers. 

Doc Searls: Blogo Culpa. Doc acted for the benefit of the jungle, paid a small price (not really) and gained a deeper respect from his readers. 

John Gruber: "Bad marketing is one thing. Bald-faced lying is another." 

Matt Neuburg explains Tinderbox. 

Duncan Wilcox had the full Microsoft ad in his cache, including all the images and the style sheet.  

10/15/01: "In the future, a man helping a woman, or a woman helping a man, may be seen as a sign of people being kind to each other, and nothing more (or less of course). Not a statement, not something that requires correction or explanation." 

Whining Mathilda 

The Age: US press ignores Australia's pain.

I got that pointer from an Australian in the US. I linked it into Scripting News early this morning and got more complaints from Aussies in the US about how screwed up we are. One email said that bloggers were bad too. So I let it percolate before answering, and this is what I came up with.

There are plenty of Australian weblogs. The Web is worldwide. Cover it, explain it, grieve it, if the US press isn't covering it, route around them. Use the tools.

Jonathon Delacour: Our volatile, dangerous neighbor.

Dody Gunawinata: "The Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, said 'For the rest of Australian history, 12 October 2002 will be counted as a day on which eveil struck.'"

National League Champions 

The St Louis Cardinals are a great baseball team.

But today they're not the best, that position is held by San Francisco's baseball team, the Giants.

In the last couple of weeks they've been playing Great Baseball. This is the stuff we love, it's the reason we put up with strikes and lockouts, and overlook the enormous salaries and arrogance of the owners and players. The Giants opened their hearts and found that they could win, in the most dramatic, most inspiring way.

Two down, bottom the ninth, score tied 1-1. A run scored ends the series. A single. Another. On the first pitch another single, runner rounds third heads for the plate. Throw from right field is wide. Run scores! Game over. Oh man.

Now I think you can recognize this even if you love hockey, basketball, gymnastics, or ski racing. This is the sport played at its best, people in flow, not thinking, just doing, with spirit, excellence and love. The Giants won the game, the series, the championship, and stole our hearts. Now bring on the Angels, it's going to be a wonderful World Series. All-California. By hook or by crook I'm going to at least one game. Go Giants!

Dominance of RDF? 

There's been an active discussion in response to the note I posted here about XML-level redirect in RSS. Perhaps predictably, the RDF folks are saying we need to use RDF to do this. For what it's worth, I don't believe the solution to this problem requires RDF.

Further, as a tool developer, I think this is going to be hard to explain to users. It's not the kind of thing we can easily do a dialog interface for, so they must understand it. So extra concepts must be edited out. Sorry, no RDF.

If we're going to try to work together, the RDF and non-RDF folks, we must stop dictating and start listening. This was all amply explained in the thread on Phil's weblog. Respect starts with acknowledging. In so many ways, they depend on the fiction that we don't exist. Well, we do exist. To this day 0.91 and 0.92 are the most popular flavors of RSS, dwarfing all others. 2.0 is simply an upgrade for those formats. No RDF.

Extensibility in RSS 2.0 is an olive branch. Now it's time for the RDF folk to extend their own offer for peace, and understand that we have not all decided to adopt RDF, and if their goal is to get us to do that, the best way is to step back and stop trying to force it on us.

Men and the jungle 

8/12/97: "As boys grow older and become men our view of the world changes. We learn that we are not the greatest primate in the jungle, that other people have greatness too. And if our youth was productive, we learn that we have a stake in the bigger picture. We learn to love the jungle, we want it to survive, we develop an appreciation for chaos."

There is a medium ground.

     

Last update: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 at 9:44 AM Eastern.

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