Communities: Ties that Bind
Internet/Weblog Culture
5/2/2000; 11:51:55 PM Mar 10, 2000: A number of things we can do to enhance community. Good piece.

Yeah, the Internet does move fast... Personal Commentary5/2/2000; 11:50:11 PM Mar 3, 2000: On Misnomer, Dru Jay discussed yesterday the relationship of my essay on Weblog Communities and the Tragedy of the Commons. I have to apologize to him; I simply forgot about referencing that stuff as a source of some of the root ideas. While my thinking on the topic doesn't stem solely from that reading, they did contribute a lot to the ideas. His comments are dead on, and I've added a link to that day on his site to the end of the essay; it really belongs as part of it. Do read the comments if you haven't already.Since the features just aren't worth anything yet, in a couple of hours, the Linkback page will simply cease to exist. Hopefully, by this time next week, I should have context and decay working. (I figured out how to do them both at once, simplify the database by linking only to a site without regard to the contents of the links, and overall simplify the process immensely while gaining features, speed of processing, and decreasing time-to-program. Sometimes a little bit of design thought can save tens or hundreds of hours of work...)You know, it comes home yet again that the Internet DOES move things along more quickly... I'm disappearing for a week and I expect that half of you will forget I exist. I'll probably miss at least one big story. (The recent Amazon patent controversy is only what, 3 days old?) I'll miss multiple small ones, but interesting ones. In other words, the penalty for disappearing for a week is stiff around here. (Wait until my honeymoon, I suppose, it'll be even worse.)If I disappear for 3 months from home to go to college, my mother can catch me up in significant events in the church, my extended family, and the events of interest in the town in less then an hour. Meanwhile, she has little clue what goes on online in my life, because that much interesting stuff happens online in a day, and I can't explain it all to her in a reasonable amount of time. Even my fiance thinks I'm a little bit nuts running a daily website. (To the best of my knowlege, none of those people are reading this on a daily basis.)Of course, a lot of stuff happens in the real world, too, we just never hear about it because we lack the communication channels.Step back for a moment and look around you at those who are not connected to the Internet (not just online, but actually living 'here' to some extent). It's easy to forget how differently we see the world then those who are not connected... we get news in hours, including thoughtful opinions, commentary, and opposing positions, if you know where to look. (Sure, network news comes in hours, too, but its a very limited subset of what I see online.) Fads occur in a matter of hours, and can last no more then days. (Mahir, anyone?) There are two sides to nearly every issue, even the ones you'd think are a cinch for one side like "internet censorship", not just the Network News view.For me, who's never really known a world that has been changing at anything less then exponential speed, it is so easy to forget that even now, it is not like this for everybody. I am incapable of understanding on a gut level a world where change is slow, news is from last month, and adding 1,000,000 numbers together is impractical because even if you take the time to do it, your result will be too full of error to be useful.Just a bit of introspection here, and hey, I'll end it with a cliche, why not? Where will I be 5 years from now at this rate of change of rate of change? (That's not a typo.) Wow. The answers boggle the mind.(And to think... one of the projects I'm working on this week will only serve to speed up the weblog communities even faster then they already work now, and to help them draw closer together dynamically... I'm certainly not helping to slow things down any...)

Free speech or cyber-slander? Free Speech5/2/2000; 11:48:11 PM Mar 1, 2000: "The chatters claim a First Amendment right to post messages on electronic bulletin boards using pseudonyms. They have scored some success in challenging attempts to pry loose their identities from Internet service providers."I've been rolling around issues like this. I'd like to post my complete reasoning someday, but for now, consider this. I think that yes, we do have the right to not have to identify ourselves on a message board. I also think that no particular message board is obligated to allow people to remain anonymous.The two issues are distinct, but they are often carelessly merged, to the detriment of both issues."'Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority,' the court wrote."

DoubleClick held at arm's length by partners
Privacy from Companies
5/2/2000; 11:43:45 PM "AltaVista and Kozmo.com have distanced themselves from Internet advertising network DoubleClick partly out of concerns about its handling of privacy issues, according to reports." Wow, that's unusually gutsy for companies like that...

British Woman Patents Self
Patents
5/2/2000; 11:42:35 PM Mar 1, 2000: Not 100% Internet related yet, but it will be. Regarding the woman patenting herself... pay attention to how it comes out, don't just view it as an oddity. In fact, if you were British, you should be filling out a patent application for yourself right now. Do it before its blocked. If you can get a patent, you'll be in a good position for the coming genetic problems.

"Your honor, that genetic evidence introduced that placed me at the scene of the murder was illegally analyzed in violation of patent #6,274,283, 'Jeremy Bowers'." OK, it wouldn't fly in a criminal trial, but there are other situations it probably would, like if your insurance company tries to deny you after analyzing your genes? Might be worth the price of the patent application to possibly have something to beat over the heads of an insurance company someday... ("Fine, you won't cover me? I'm suing for patent violation relief.")

Govt Wants Less Web Anonymity Surveillance and Privacy from Government5/2/2000; 11:41:49 PM Mar 1, 2000: "The U.S. government may need sweeping new powers to investigate and prosecute future denial-of-service attacks, top law enforcement officials said Tuesday." Clever... we all knew it was coming so they waited until it blew over to announce this. We'll see if the network news picks up on this..."But it was one of the younger members of the House -- Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee -- who appeared the most confused. She said that parents should be held legally responsible for what their teen-age children do 'on those Internet channels.'" I've never heard a better argument for not having children... you may find yourself responsible for their felonious actions, and spend time in prison. (If you haven't had teenaged children in a while, and haven't been one yourself, please rest assured that it is impossible to completely police a teenager. They are as clever as any other human who doesn't want to be caught, and, with the aid of a computer, can hide things right under your nose without all that much effort, no matter how good a parent you are.)Holding parents accountable for their children's actions is becoming increasingly out-of-date. Unfortunately, we hold parents accountable for good and sufficient reasons, and those reasons aren't disappearing, it's just that teenagers are becoming capable of committing larger and larger crimes that the parents can be completely unaware of. For instance, collecting illegal MP3s can give a fine or a jail term, and it's going to be very easy in 10 years to completely hide them from your parents (after mass storage devices are so big that the odd gigabytes eaten here or there arouses no suspicion). Can we hold parents accountable for this?

Weblog Communities Essays5/2/2000; 11:38:49 PM Mar 1, 2000: I've tried to collect my thoughts on the community I see developing around here and systematize some of the relationships so we can understand them. I find Weblog Communities are surprisingly interesting upon closer examination.I think the value of the piece is not so much that brilliant observations are made, but simply that they are stated out in the open, where we can discuss and consider them, rather then in the back of our heads. Therefore, you may find this Katzian (There are practical reasons for this discussion too... but more about that tommorow.)

Slashdot on iCraveTV Television & Movies5/2/2000; 11:34:39 PM Feb 29, 2000: iCraveTV update: An interesting post at Slashdot emerged, claiming to be from "a media consultant for a major American network." "Anyway, the problem with iCrave was that they didn't make it easy enough to remove their advertising banners. If they had had a button to turn them off then we would have had no case because then they wouldn't have forced anyone to view their added material."If he's for real, that's exactly what I was objecting to as well. Adding the advertising on top of it was what this was about, not the re-broadcasting per se. Communication modification.Also, note the cluelessness exhibited by the responders (in true Slashdot fashion): "Does this mean NBC be suing [sic] SONY soon because it's not easy to remove that 'SONY' logo on my TV and remote? The SONY logo isn't inside the TV frame, but then, neither were iCrave's banners..." It's amazing how many people seriously believe that "bound together on a single web site" and "in one person's field of vision" are semantically identical relationships... I suppose this person believes his TV remote to be an integral part of the TV signal. (Another failed argument-by-metaphor... I've really gotta write that one up for this site.)

Are Security Fears Running Ahead Of Reality? Privacy from Companies5/2/2000; 11:32:40 PM Feb 29, 2000: Funny, I would think a better title would be "Why Aren't People Worried About Security?" Consider this quote from the end of the article:"Bennett, the Texas Webmaster, said the controversy demonstrates that companies need to do a better job quelling the public's fears about privacy."'I don't think there's anything wrong with targeted banner advertisements,' he said. 'But there needs to be more information. A person should know what's happening to information about them and what's going on with the software in their computers.'"Where's the part about "and be able to prevent the information transfer if they feel uncomfortable about it"?If you prevent the transfer, you may not be granted a license, but I think explicit permission should always be asked... and if it's not in the license agreement (which it never is, because they actually want you to read that and if they put a requirement of giving your information there, you might get spooked), I don't personally feel terribly obligated to give good information.

iCraveTV Out For The Count
Television & Movies
5/2/2000; 11:30:53 PM Feb 29, 2000: "Groups representing the TV, film and sports industries have forced Canada's iCraveTV.com to permanently close its Web site, ending any possibility it will resume showing TV programs without permission, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters said." Goodbye, ICraveTV.