Disqus - Latest Comments for dsearls

Re: Cilantro Love and Hate: Is it a Genetic Trait?

Doc Searls — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 23:09:33 -0000

I hadn't tasted cilantro before I moved to California from North Carolina in 1985. Instantly I thought it tasted like soap. But I decided not to discriminate against it, and learn to appreciate it. Which I now do. In fact, soapy is no longer one of the ways I would choose to describe the flavor.

Re: Aptos flag poles come down

Doc Searls — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 14:49:19 -0000

Those towers were quite the landmark for a long time, and very pretty as broadcast towers go. But uselessness has its limits, and I guess they were reached here.

Re: Linux Journal is Back | Linux Journal

Doc Searls — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 18:42:37 -0000

To be clear, those ads were by sponsors who kept Linux Journal alive while not not spying on readers in any way.

Linux Journal was almost entirely alone among commercial publishers online in not placing tracking cookies, or even doing tracking-based analytics, such as with Google Analytics (which does track).

Re: Linux Journal is Back | Linux Journal

Doc Searls — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 18:37:20 -0000

Hi. Doc Searls here. I've been with Linux Journal since before it started in 1994, on the masthead since 1996, and most recently was editor-in-chief.

I am extremely pleased that the site and its archives—among the longest continuously published on the Web—is still here, with nothing 404'd—and that the Slashdot folks say they are committed to preserving Linux Journal's valuable library of writing and history.

I also need to add that I get lots of questions about what will happen with Linux Journal, and that i don't know any more than what I've read here. Nor, far as I know, do any of the other Linux Journal staffers and contributors who were terminated a year ago.

So it would be great if somebody from Slashdot reached out to fill us in. That would at least help us pass along good information about what the plans are.

Thanks!

Re: SXSW PanelPicker®

Doc Searls — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 15:26:12 -0000

Just saying: I want my own AI. Or AI's; ways of extending my agency in the world. For music that means being able to compose, arrange and play music better. Also to listen and appreciate music better. To be the AI's puppet master, rather than its puppet.

Re: Facebook, Not Microsoft, Is the Main Threat to Open Source

Doc Searls — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 08:25:38 -0000

The Facebook-vs.-Microsoft framing misdirects concern away from the deepest point in Glyn's essay: the multiple threats of a whole society becoming dependent on a single company's proprietary platform for damn near everything, and what happens when one company's platform become the operating system for every society where that company's platform already enjoys near-ubiquitous use.

Look again at Glyn's closing paragraph, and especially his final question.

I suggest is that our role is to advocate, and work for, going beyond keeping open everything that uses free and open source software. There should be no secrets in what stuff uses and how stuff runs. None. Companies can compete in product and service qualities without closing the code they use. I also think our future depends on it. And by "our" I mean far more than the open source development community. I mean everybody. Literally.

Re: April: How podcasting got its name

Doc Searls — Tue, 28 May 2019 12:28:41 -0000

Not sure what to make of this: https://books.google.com/ng... First time I did it, the first date was 2004. Now it appears to be 2003. I gotta run, but I'll keep digging later today. (Aside: both Google Trends and Google Ngrams have lately looked much more fudge-y to me.)

Re: The Letter By Perry Simon | News/Talk/Sports | AllAccess.com

Doc Searls — Sat, 25 May 2019 20:21:07 -0000

On the basis of no knowledge whatsoever, I'm betting that nonprofit WITF, the public broadcasting leader in central Pennsylvania (http://www.witf.org), will pick up the license and simulcast their FM.

KCLU did that with an AM station here in Santa Barbara and together with its FM translator it's #1 in the market: http://blogs.harvard.edu/do...

If that doesn't happen, a religious broadcaster will move in. It'll be one of the two.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

Doc Searls — Fri, 10 May 2019 11:40:12 -0000

Thanks. This is a good point, and maybe the fight for general purpose computers is as doomed as the fight for cars anybody can make or repair. And your suggestion for going at felt pain points is a good one.

So maybe the challenge is also coming up with a way de-nebulize general purpose computing as an cause. Suggestions for that are invited. Because it does matter.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

Doc Searls — Wed, 08 May 2019 18:43:24 -0000

Brent is great. We got a little bit of hang time long ago when Linux Journal and Brent were both in Seattle.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

Doc Searls — Wed, 08 May 2019 18:42:32 -0000

To be clear, we're fully aware of Disqus' problems. Our problem is that it's the only commenting system that works for us. Maybe one of our technical folks can step in here and explain why; but believe me, we've gone around on this topic long and hard, and the bottom line is that Disqus is our only choice if we want to have commenting here.

Re: Linux Journal at 25 | Linux Journal

Doc Searls — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 12:13:57 -0000

Thanks, t-r-g! Let us know what you like. All input and feedback helps!

Re: A Line in the Sand | Linux Journal

Doc Searls — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 10:33:06 -0000

Thanks, Keith. This is a hard one. There are no substitutes for Disqus, unless we don't want to enable comments at all. If we hosted comments ourselves, we'd instantly drown in spam. And we can't use Coral (the best open source alternative, in our humble opinion) because that pretty much requires a dedicated staffer, which we can't afford.

If you, or anybody, knows an alternative we can try—one that doesn't plant trackers—please let us know.

Re: Is Privacy a Right? | Linux Journal

Doc Searls — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 20:35:53 -0000

Good point. I just added a correction, and pointed to your comment. Thanks!

Re: If Your Privacy Is in the Hands of Others Alone, You Don’t Have Any

Doc Searls — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 21:40:08 -0000

Thanks, Craig. There's a lot more coming. :-) Stay tuned.

Re: LA Times: Ignored debris basins made January mudslides worse

Doc Searls — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 19:12:42 -0000

The Santa Barbara County Flood Control and Water Conservation District produced a 231-page report in June 2017 ttled Final Updated Debris Basin Maintenance and Removal Plan. Seems to me a relevant document.

Re: Episode 6: Conferences and Community

Doc Searls — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 16:37:35 -0000

I can't answer the transcript question (though I guess it's because we're not staffed or budgeted for it), but for Disqus the answer is indeed convenience. In using it, we've done our best to keep away from the tracking stuff. Katherine can explain more if you like.

Re: An Immodest Proposal for the Music Industry

Doc Searls — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 15:13:32 -0000

I'm a privacy advocate too, and I should have made clear that anonymity needs to be part of this, and complete control over who can know what, from the individual's side. This is behind my work with Customer Commons too. Check it out: http://customercommons.org.

Re: An Immodest Proposal for the Music Industry

Doc Searls — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 15:11:54 -0000

Thanks. Do you know anything like that in the works? Care to start one?

Re: Join the Linux Journal Crusade

Doc Searls — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 10:01:36 -0000

We love freelance writers. Also subscribers.

But the main things are to pioneer in publishing (without spying), fighting for freedom and hacking outside the silos that forest the Net today.

Re: Privacy Is Still Personal

Doc Searls — Mon, 21 May 2018 07:23:25 -0000

And we can do something or nothing about all that. This post is about a few of the somethings I'm working to make happen.

Re: How Wizards and Muggles Break Free from the Matrix

Doc Searls — Tue, 01 May 2018 20:20:37 -0000

The Internet is fine. What's broken is the ad-supported commercial Web. That's not the whole thing.

As I said in reply to the first comment above, are you—or anyone here—willing to help?

Re: How Wizards and Muggles Break Free from the Matrix

Doc Searls — Tue, 01 May 2018 20:17:31 -0000

Look at the last bulleted list above. Follow the links. There are lots of ways to go here.

Re: How Wizards and Muggles Break Free from the Matrix

Doc Searls — Tue, 01 May 2018 20:16:57 -0000

I didn't write this piece for ad companies. I wrote it for you. Are you willing to help out here?

Re: How Wizards and Muggles Break Free from the Matrix

Doc Searls — Tue, 01 May 2018 20:15:29 -0000

Plenty of sites made plenty of profit from advertising before moving turning to surveillance and behavioral targeting — and advertising back then sponsored publications like this one, rather than planting tracking beacons on readers to advertise at them elsewhere. I've written extensively about how the surveillance system sucks, as have Don Marti (our former editor-in-chief), Bob Hoffman and others who know advertising well.

By the way, if Linus and friends had bought arguments to maintain the status quo for operating systems in 1990 (as you're arguing now for advertising online), we wouldn't have Linux today.

As for comments, all our choices have problems. But that's another thread.