30 July 1999
Architecture is policy, code is law ... I forgot who said that originally (Barlow?), but it's something that needs repeating in cases like this.
HTTP and HTML were not designed to force people to view advertisements, they were designed to share and link information. If you don't like the limitations of a technology, don't use the technology.
-- a poster (0xdeadbeef) in the lively Slashdot discussion of Universal's complaint |
Now...This: Design Commentary: Saint Louis Bread Company
A book I'll probably have to get sometime:
- First chapter of 'Monty Python Speaks' [CNN, seen on RobotWisdom]
ERIC IDLE: We weren't new to each other at all. ... We had all worked together as writers and actors. Jones, Palin, and I were perhaps the closest, having written two whole seasons of Do Not Adjust Your Set, but I had written six episodes of a sitcom with Graham, and we had all worked together on The Frost Report. So we weren't new to each other at all, but were actually very familiar; what was new was being free to decide what we wanted to do.
Jakob Nielsen gives an overview of why keeping network protocols proprietary [such as AOL's Instant Messages] and preventing linking [a la Universal] are bad.
- Metcalfe's Law in Reverse [Useit Alertbox]
...mis-guided attempts to achieve short-term advantage by locking in users or preventing the natural growth of the Internet.
The value of partitioning a network into N isolated components is 1/N'th the value of the original network.
Courtesy of reader Dave T.:
Smartass questions: What's a 'probe fly', why is more than one hanging out near an asteroid, in what sense are they NASAs, and why isn't the plural form of 'probe fly' 'probe flies'?
The Apple Store was redesigned last week.
Hmmm, something's different... aha: no more frames.
'Webzines' and 'web logs' seem more alike than different to me; it's all just self-publishing, with little monetary reward, some psychic reward and a tendency to take over one's free time:
- The Existential Suckiness of Self Publishing [SF Gate]
The point is to vent. The point is to express. The point is to piss people off, or to make them listen or make them think or make them laugh.
It's ironic that e-commerce sites and the corporatized media spend millions to encourage interactivity and create community while Webzine editors with almost no financial outlay and unbelievable time constraints have created vital and involved communities. Why is it that workers for magazines which lease their voice to corporate sponsors can make a living, while those who remain uncompromisingly true to their own vision still have to have day jobs?
Seeya next week.
|
