Shelley

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  • Shelley  "As for the TechCrunchIT vs. TechCrunch vs. CrunchGear argument, Gabe said on FriendFeed that this was not impacting Techmeme. " That makes no sense, unless Gabe is specifically filtering out these partnered weblogs when they link to each other. In either case, yes, it impacts on Techmeme.
  • • 2 days ago
    •   louisgray.com: Techmeme and TechCrunch's Detractors Prove It's Hard to be On Top
    •   louisgray.com
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  • Shelley  PS Oh, and poor Michael Arrington and having to deal with the hate? This is my own brush with having to deal with Arrington's gentle ways. I closed my weblog down specifically because of him. Now, I don't even know why I bother to comment at a post like yours. You're all part of a clan, and we're nothing but noise.
  • • 2 days ago
    •   louisgray.com: Techmeme and TechCrunch's Detractors Prove It's Hard to be On Top
    •   louisgray.com
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  • Shelley  Techmeme uses weighted factors when determining who gets air time. Unless you're linked by one of the biggies, and continue to be linked by at least moderate or big sites, you won't show up. Who are the biggies? Well, Techcrunch is one, and with Techcrunch spawing other sites, the empire can basically guarantee that will always be top dog in Techmeme. CyndyA has a very good point about Techcrunch pointing to TechcrunchIT, which points to Crunchgear, which points back to Techcrunch. Talk about rigged. We won't even go into how few women are on the list, until someone makes a stink and then, wonder of wonders, women actually start showing up (golly). We also won't talk about how insular the environment is, or how the news really is rarely about "technology" and more about marketing. At least posts like this aren't about the Yahoo Board and is Steve going to die tomorrow. As for Michael Arrington, he's made an art form of how to throw a hissy fit and end up benefiting from the resulting noise. He, and other princes of the meme boards are also not above deliberately stifling sites run by people they don't like, in order to choke off any potential attention. Lastly, most of the people in the Techmeme lists won't link unless it will do them some good. It perpetuates the myth about equality. It harms more than helps. You don't see this because you're an insider. You're acceptable to the big boys and therefore you got the attention and now you're part of the club.
  • • 2 days ago
    •   louisgray.com: Techmeme and TechCrunch's Detractors Prove It's Hard to be On Top
    •   louisgray.com
  •   Louis Gray  Shelley, I get your comments and concerns there. The cloud of mystery is actually important, in some ways, to Techmeme, as if it were obvious, it could be gamed much easier than it is now. I wouldn't call myself an insider, even if I have been participating in this circle for a few years now. There are some prominent bloggers who link more than do others, that's clear. But it's not clear how many links or what prominence of links are needed to make a story hot. If it were, I bet there'd be a lot more friendly linking going on. As for the TechCrunchIT vs. TechCrunch vs. CrunchGear argument, Gabe said on FriendFeed that this was not impacting Techmeme. Also, if TechCrunchIT is run as a parallel property with its own URL and writers, it should have equal opportunity to rise up the leaderboard as any other site.
  •   tonyhung  "Unless you're linked by one of the biggies, and continue to be linked by at least moderate or big sites, you won't show up. " I think this is only part of the picture. There are blogs which show up -- seemingly out of the blue -- with few or no inbound links to any particular post. Or, who are large in their own right, but without any inbound links from high leaderboarders (see: Digital Inspiration over the past two days). I would love to know exactly how Techmeme seems to pick these out of the air.
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  • Shelley  I'm not adverse to innovation, and lord knows I like my specialty boxes like the Roku. At the same time, though, we have to look at the environment every time a new plastic "must have" comes along. Something like an iPhone has the capability you mention, but it's also a phone, which means it serves a specific purpose. You couldn't do real work with this device, it's going to be hot to the touch (because it won't be big enough to have much of a fan system), and it will most likely burn out within a year. You'd then have to buy another as you "throw" this one away, because it's too integrated and cheap to fix. You really couldn't answer email because there is no keyboard, other than what gets overlayed on the device. You couldn't do work with the device, and like I said, most web-based applications wouldn't work with it, because it doesn't have enough to power the apps. If people can afford to spend money on a limited use device, more power to them. But this device has a carbon footprint. Anytime we see a device with a carbon footprint, we should ask ourselves, do we really need it, or does it just touch our "cool" and is cheap, so what the heck? It would be nice if we could indulge our need for cool without being destructive on the environment, not to mention using dwindling resources like oil.
  • • 3 days ago
    •   Firefox Tablet — I would like one too
    •   Mathew's comments
  •   mathewi  Fair enough. I still want one :-)
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  • Shelley  "That said, however, I can understand Mike’s frustration; I’ve been waiting for that kind of tablet ever since I saw them using one on Star Trek. Put me down for one :-)" Why? What need would this device fill? Where when you use it, and when? No keyboard, limited caching, no AIR or Silverlight, or Flash...why do you _need_ this device?
  • • 3 days ago
    •   Firefox Tablet — I would like one too
    •   Mathew's comments
  •   mathewi  Shelley, no one -- least of all me -- actually *needs* this device. That said, however, I sure would like one :-) I'd like to use it at home, instead of carting around a bulky laptop. I often want to check the Web or look at email during commercials or something like that, and this tablet would be perfect.
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  • Shelley  Russ, Salon is looking for a tech reporter.
  • • 2 weeks ago
    •   I need a job! - RussellBeattie.com
    •   Russell Beattie's Blog Forum
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  • Shelley  Please don't compare what happened with Feldman to Lenny Bruce. There is a difference between losing a corporate contract, and being arrested every time you appear on stage.
  • • 2 weeks ago
    •   Protests over Verizon deal with 1938media
    •   Mathew's comments
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  • Shelley  I doubt Feldman was dropped based on a one day protest by small groups yesterday. I imagine that Verizon is finding that outside of the small sphere of webloggers, Feldman really doesn't have much of a following. Certainly not enough to justify keeping his material when seeing the racist video he created. As for freedom of speech, Feldman still has the same forum the rest of us have. If Verizon does not carry my text, does that mean my freedom of speech has been abrogated? No, and neither has Feldman's. Frankly, I'm amazed that anyone watches any of his stuff, he really isn't very good. But he has gotten some publicity from this event. So have others. Again.
  • • 2 weeks ago
    •   Protests over Verizon deal with 1938media
    •   Mathew's comments
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  • Shelley  There is no "freedom of speech" among corporations. The only way Feldman would be denied freedom of speech is if the government intervened and he was no longer able to publish his material. You pressured a corporate entity. Chances are, that entity wasn't overly enthusiastic about Feldman in the first place, and you gave the company the excuse to pull his material. In addition, it was the other organizations that protested his inclusion also helped get his videos pulled.
  • • 2 weeks ago
    •   I Requested That Verizon Drop Their Deal With 1938media
    •   SheGeeks
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  • Shelley  I can't help thinking if the company wants to save money, seems like they have an unusual number of jumbo jets they could consider dumping. I think the article had it right: this isn't free M&Ms and a massage--this is a mandatory item for anyone with kids, and a big area of concern for parents who are also employees. Keeping the gourmet lunches, but forcing the employees to pay for day care (overpriced day care), demonstrates that Google is only interested in the young and single, who can be burned out and then trashed.
  • • 2 weeks ago
    •   Google’s subsidized child day care not as good as it used to be?
    •   VentureBeat
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  • Shelley  "Thank you Matt for this important reminder. I sure hope I don't confuse these two bastions of journalistic integrity ever again." +1 to the Duck
  • • 3 weeks ago
    •   BoingBoing: It’s our blog, and our rules
    •   Mathew's comments
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  • Shelley  How far will you go Matthew, in order to spin yourself into the "right" on this one? Journalist? You make mockery of that word.
  • • 1 month ago
    •   AP and the Media Bloggers Assoc.
    •   Mathew's comments
  •   mathewi  Not sure what you mean, Shelley. I assume (given our past clashes over the topic) that this has something to do with my support of the 'fair use' principle?
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  • Shelley  Question: is the material encrypted when it's uploaded?
  • • 1 month ago
    •   Bandwagon Blog - Wow, thanks!
    •   Bandwagon Blog
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  • Shelley  comment by Ev Williams on this issue at a post by Jeffrey Zeldman. People have to ask themselves: do they want the Twitter folks to focus on fixing the service? Or catering to the sensitive needs of the dear, little community. "Oh no, precious dear. Were thou feelings hurt? Let me kiss them, make them better." Because lord knows, the rest of the internet is such a polite, and safe place to be.
  • • 2 months ago
    •   Twitter: A community or a utility?
    •   Mathew's comments
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  • Shelley  Arrington's post is frankly obscene, as well as nothing more than cheap link bait. He wouldn't know technology if it bit him in the butt. I don't know Blaine, but he left a couple of weeks ago. The Twitter folks also came out and said they tried a new caching scheme that sounded like it failed. Considering how much use this application is getting, I'm rather amazed it doesn't fail more often. Even Google's apps, as well as Amazon's have been known to fail, and no one accuses these two companies of not knowing how to scale. Don't you guys ever write about anything useful anymore? All I read now is whining, blame games, petty bickering -- good lord, you guys are a piece of work. I'm not going to write at Techcrunch, because frankly, that site has become a dead bore. But you know Matthew, you used to write about decent stuff once upon a time. Now it seems like all you're doing is going for the attention points. PS I was an architect at a start up once. I bet there isn't one true tech person who is playing this same blame game. No, it's all of you who haven't a clue.
  • • 3 months ago
    •   Twitter-storm: Blaine leaves, blame flies
    •   Mathew's comments
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  • Shelley  "This is the internet and quite frankly, EVERYTHING is for the taking, whether you wish it to be or not." Wrong. Not only wrong, but harmful because this is the same as saying, "Remove everything you care about from the internet, because some scuzzbucket who wants to make money from your stuff will." All that will be left then, is content from people who really can give a sh*t about it. Which says a lot about the quality of the content, doesn't it?
  • • 3 months ago
    •   You Don’t Own ANY Conversation
    •   SheGeeks
  •   Corvida  It's not the same because I'm not telling you to remove it. I'm simply trying to make you aware of one of the possible consequences to putting your stuff on the internet. How is it not for the taking? You can't put your content on lockdown and the only way to really do anything remotely close to that is to protect your entries with privacy features such as requiring a password. Even then, you have to give someone the code and in doing so, you're opening your stuff to the limitless possibility of being taken. Just by putting your stuff on the internet you're doing that. Ergo, whether you want it to be or not, it's there for the taking. Or let me rephrase that last part:* It's open to the POSSIBILITY of being taken.*
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  • Shelley  April fool! Good one. Almost had me going.
  • • 3 months ago
    •   Google: Why not make the cloud free?
    •   Mathew's comments
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  • Shelley  Thank goodness, a rational argument. I would suggest perhaps new glasses? Maybe?
  • • 4 months ago
    •   Duncan Riley: Lessons in diplomacy
    •   Mathew's comments
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  • Shelley  I was mainly curious as to why others in this thread considered the use of "cunt" to be derogatory to women. As for the point, you can use the sweetest words in the world and not advance a rational argument. I look at it this way: Louis Gray's words, though they be coached in gentle terms, had enough of a negative impact on Duncan Riley that he reacted as he did. Maybe Duncan is in a bad mood; maybe, though, Gray pushed the right buttons in this circumstance. Regardless, this struck me as a personal issue between the two that perhaps should have been resolved between the two. Or is saying that an irrational argument?
  • • 4 months ago
    •   Duncan Riley: Lessons in diplomacy
    •   Mathew's comments
  •   Cam  As far as I can tell, you are the first commenter to use the word "woman" in the entire thread.
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  • Shelley  I'm indifferent to this weekend's hate-me/love-me/link-me fest, but I'm curious as to why people thought that Duncan Riley's use of "cunt" is demeaning to women? Especially since you, yourself, Mathew, used "bitchfest" and "bitchmeme"? If the one is demeaning, wouldn't the other be equally demeaning? I find that the only time women are demeaned by these words is if they're used directly against us. I don't believe any player in this cat fight is a woman. Thank goodness for small favors. (PS I apologize if anyone is offended by the word being spelled out, but I can't stand these coy, playful uses of characters to re-created a word, which we all know anyway. Call the word the word and damn the consequences.)
  • • 4 months ago
    •   Duncan Riley: Lessons in diplomacy
    •   Mathew's comments
  •   mathewi  I never expressed an opinion about whether it's demeaning to women or not -- I happen to think that those kinds of terms are demeaning to people in general. In any case, my point was that they don't help to advance any kind of rational argument. On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Disqus
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  • Shelley  You're right, the only reason I'm commenting here is because I'm being difficult.
  • • 6 months ago
    •   I’m glad Louis Gray called out Mashable
    •   Mathew's comments
  •   mathewi  Well, I'm sure you don't feel that you're being difficult, but I don't think there's much comparison between Lane and Mashable lifting a quote or not giving another blog credit when they run something that's virtually identical to what another blogger posted -- that would be like posting a photo from Lane and pretending it was yours, which is clearly wrong.
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  • Shelley  Wanting attribution for your work...attribution for you work,,,that rings a bell. In fact, if I remember correctly, that wasn't something that bothered you overmuch at the time.
  • • 6 months ago
    •   I’m glad Louis Gray called out Mashable
    •   Mathew's comments
  •   mathewi  Shelley, I said at the time that I thought giving Lane Hartwell credit for her photo in that Richter Scales video would have been nice -- I just said it wasn't legally required, which I still believe it wasn't. In any case, that was about a photo appearing as part of a larger work for less than a second, which is something completely different. This is about taking credit for an entire post. If Richter Scales had tried to take credit for Lane's photo, then you would be on the right track. As it is, it seems like you're just being difficult.
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  • Shelley  All I can say after reading comments by Ray Beckerman, as well as how he handles a deposition in the case you link, I would not have him for a lawyer.
  • • 6 months ago
    •   More RIAA Abuse
    •   odd time signatures
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  • Shelley  The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, but not the burden of defense. I read all of the court filings for this case, including the ones not posted by anyone, accessed through PACER. The point of RIAAs claim is that these files were made available for public access, which amounts to unlawful distribution according to copyright laws. The issue of whether the copies made available were lawful or not arose from the fact that the original claim by RIAA is that the person both downloaded these files and made them available for further distribution. Howell's defense was pictures of the CD cases for the music. The defense for these being in Kazaa were, first of all they weren't. Then about half way through he reminded the courts he had kids, somehow implying that he wasn't responsible for their actions, and then eventually he came out with some 'agent' or malfunction made these files available for Kazaa. In the original court filing, Howell was also warned to not touch his computer or this installation, in very clear non-legal text. He immediately deleted all of Kazaa. Under law, that is enough to provide proof for the RIAA. Howell's response then was, I didn't do anything, I have no money to pay anything. The only defense he brought out was a court case that had to do with a manufacturing company, nothing to do with his situation (probably under advice from some idiot on the internet). He basically provided absolutely no proof for his defense. Though the courts give great leniency when it comes to a person representing themselves pro se, at some point in time, the defendant has to mount a defense. Howell has not, though from what I can see, the court has bent over backwards to help this person stop shooting himself in the foot. The RIAA is only required to provide proof of their complaint, not provide the defense for Howell. The danger with something like this, and this is the second time this has happened, is the person representing themselves pro se introduces broad arguments that force courts into asking questions: were these unauthorized copies. Yes, it was Howell that introduced this question, not the RIAA. At that point, it's been the RIAA who has been actually trying to back away from this issue, and focus purely on the distribution angle. The Washington Post should have read all of these court papers before writing what they did. To misconstrue this as the RIAA going after Howell just because he ripped the music from the CDs was grossly inaccurate. The RIAA has never gone after anyone other than the fire sharing sites. This case is absolutely no different than any other the organization has brought. There is no increased harassment -- just a complete disregard to fact checking. Frankly, I'm surprised that Kazaa isn't getting the same level of vilification based on this event. What you're saying is that the software put this person at risk of being sued.
  • • 6 months ago
    •   Rip Your CDs; Go to Jail? Or Bankruptcy Court.
    •   odd time signatures
  •   Karoli  Shelley, Sharman Networks (Kazaa's parent) has already reached a settlement with the RIAA. After they reached the settlement, the RIAA began to send their settlement offers to the users, at which time Kazaa countersued, saying the RIAA was misusing the software to entrap users. That lawsuit was dismissed. I think anyone who used Kazaa, particularly before its specific evils were exploited and revealed, should sue the living hell out of them, though I doubt a lawsuit would have legs. I'm sure they had an airtight Terms of Use agreement that no one bothered to read. I never used it or wanted to use it, but I cleaned up a lot of computers where it had been installed along with its slimy spyware partners. I would like to read those court papers, too. I am still troubled by the wording of their supplemental brief, mostly because it follows their expert's testimony in Jammie Thomas' trial about how ripping a CD is "only stealing one copy". I'm still concerned that there is a broadening of what they intend to go after. Going back to what you said in the beginning of this strand, I agree with you that the only way to really steer clear of the RIAA is to purchase, download, and share non-RIAA music. Unfortunately for lots of people out there, it's too late for that, because they did share music, whether by accident or design. I just don't want to find myself sued in five years because I acted in accordance with existing terms of use and shared with others in what I believed to be authorized use, only to discover later that the rules were changed.
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  • Shelley  Karoli, Howell also made a mistake by wiping his machine, especially in regards to the legal notice stipulating that he was forbidden from doing so because of ongoing litigation. The RIAA provided their proof. The burden of proof was then on Howell to bring in a forensic expert to stipulate that malware moved his music tunes to Kazaa. He didn't and couldn't prove it. The court systems work on proof not hypothesis or assertions of confusion or reference to some unknown and nefarious entity. This is the law. This is the way law works. If there was forensic proof that a malware program moved his music files to the kazaa directory, Howell should have provided this. He did not. If there is proof that Media Sentry is typically in error, he should have provided proof. He didn't. All he did was testify that some unknown person or software moved his files to the kazaa directory. His argument, sans proof or expert testimony, was invalid in the eyes of the court. This is the law. I didn't once say he was or was not saying the truth. I said this is the way the law works. Tell me: what should have the courts done differently? "My iTunes library is shared with my kids. RIAA says (today) that iTunes is a permitted music download site but will they turn around and say the ability for me to share files has somehow caused me to violate the copyright?" Tell me: is this related to this incident? Is this related in any way to this particular incident?
  • • 6 months ago
    •   Rip Your CDs; Go to Jail? Or Bankruptcy Court.
    •   odd time signatures
  •   Karoli  Shelley, I am not trying to be a smartass here, but isn't the burden of proof on the plaintiff, not the defendant? Second, the RIAA's own expert concedes that Kazaa, by default, indexes all files on one's computer and makes them available for sharing without user approval or agreement. Third, Howell is representing himself -- or was -- he may have a lawyer now. We all know the adage about self-representation; I won't repeat it here. I'm sure he is doing so because he could not afford a lawyer, which is what the RIAA hopes for. Therefore, he has a limited knowledge of the law, procedure, and how to approach something like this. Like most of these defendants, settlement is their only option simply because they cannot afford to pay for litigation. A read through documents where a lawyer IS involved shows how difficult it is for defendants to even obtain the Media Sentry reports or any of the other documents obtained by the RIAA. See this case for an example: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/01/index-of-litigation-documents.html#UMG_v_Lindor With regard to your question about what my iTunes library has to do with this case, here is the answer: If I believe today that I am not breaking the law, but the IRIAA arbitrarily decides that ripping CDs and making them available to my family for sharing is now unauthorized distribution, I and many others will now be subject to the kind of harassment and extortion tactics that Howell and Lindor and others are now victimized by. This is my point: The RIAA is BROADENING their definition of unauthorized duplication. This places people who believed (even under the guidelines published on the RIAA website) they were acting in accordance with their purchased license at risk. Back to your first comment for a minute, since I didn't address all your points there for a minute. First, you are quoting from an RIAA document written by RIAA attorneys without seeing the deposition itself. DID he admit the files were placed in a Kazaa folder? Or, along the lines of the expert's testimony regarding Kazaa efaults in the Lindor case, did he install Kazaa and unwittingly place everything in his "My Documents" folder at risk, including all personal correspondence, photos, and other files (like financial data, for example)? (As an aside, there was no evidence that Kazaa had ever been installed on the Lindor computer, yet the RIAA is asserting that Mrs. Lindor did share files via Kazaa, based on MediaSentry reports.) If you want to argue that Howell had a fool for a client the day he hired himself to represent his cause against the RIAA, I will agree with you. But I'm unwilling to take the unanswered assertions of the RIAA attorneys as fact without actually seeing the evidence they based those assertions on.
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