Disqus - Latest Comments for orcmid

Re: This Land is Your Land (Scripting News)

orcmid — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:38:20 -0000

Was his son there too? I recall seeing him on the DVD of Springsteen's Seeger Sessions.

Re: http://www.dpawson.co.uk/nodesets/entries/090520.html

orcmid — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:51:41 -0000

I have been in the UK doing anything more than shuttling between Heathrow and Gatwick only 4 times since my first visit to London in 1966. This past Saturday I arrived for an actual visit and one-day meeting in London. And I used public transport from Heathrow to London and around London with much satisfaction. The bus system here in Seattle is reasonable and many visitors remark on it, but I found Transport for London to be remarkable, right from being able to prepare for my visit and plan local travel using the Internet.

I felt that I was able to see and enjoy far more this way, an unexpected benefit.

Re: http://www.dpawson.co.uk/nodesets/entries/090525.html

orcmid — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:31:21 -0000

Nice review. It is pricey for me (over $200 US) but interesting, although I would want the heart-rate monitor as well. On the Handtec site, I am seeing VAT-inclusive prices with ex-VAT in small print in some cases. Have they updated since you looked?

Re: http://www.dpawson.co.uk/nodesets/entries/090525.html

orcmid — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:36:18 -0000

I see that in the US we are talking around USD $350 for the 405 with HRM included. OK, I need to wait a year or two (or I should have bought one while I was in London one week ago).

Re: What School Never Taught You About The Waterfall Method

orcmid — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:15:25 -0000

Royce's son, Walker Royce, is the author of Software Project Management: A Unified Framework ((Addison-Wesley 1998). He goes into the experience his father had and the dedication to the book says it all: "This work is dedicated to my father, Winston Royce, whose vision and practicality were always in balance."

Re: Book Review: The Advent of the Algorithm

orcmid — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:22:41 -0000

http://orcmid.com/readings/philosophy.htm#[Berl...

I loved the conversation between the Cardinal and the physicist. There seem to be some bugs in the examples, but I have not gone back to dig closer into them.

I loved the book.

Re: Book Review: The Advent of the Algorithm

orcmid — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:27:29 -0000

Hmm, reply may not have worked. Try this URL:
http://orcmid.com/readings/philosophy.htm#Berli...

(When I started those bibliographies, I didn't realize that [ and ] are not allowed in fragment IDs. I haven't repaired all of them yet.

Re: C# 4.0: var, object and dynamic - Miguel de Icaza

orcmid — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:42:05 -0000

That is probably the cleanest explanation of the difference ever. Nice job.

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » Game, Set, and Match: Martin!

orcmid — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:36:32 -0000

I don't get it.

Universities are not operating a service to the public, any more than internal corporate internets are. Both are in a position to manage network activity as part of assuring their institutional purpose (however different the university one is from the corporate one).

Making an equivalence with regard to FCC regulatory authority seems very weird to me.

And, ahem, recent legislation is going to require universities to take pro-active measures against piracy over their networks in order to obtain Federal funds. Way different regulatory regime there, wot?

Re: Uncommonly Bad Treatment of the “Commons” Concept

orcmid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:39:06 -0000

I like this view. There is the interesting problem of how we are trust asymmetrically. For example, our notions of which social mechanisms are efficient or inefficient come into this, as well as our notions of how the particular system is gamed (or the game is stacked), and in whose favor.

Management of a commons (e.g., a trade system or economy or common/public lands and resources) is a great example of how our stories collide.

Although there are similar, though maybe more subliminal, differences around ideas of property and ownership, I think the idea of a public trust and accountability that can actually function (that is, has efficiency) could serve both models of ownership.

The prospect of generating income (that is, imposing a tax) is a problem, and I notice the distortion here in Seattle between what I pay for public utilities and what I paid in a suburb where the services were from private companies and much less expensive. There are not markets within the service areas, of course, and I have to choose where I live in order to make substitutions. An interesting case of economic inefficiency versus social planning (e.g., urbanization as a presumed efficiency).

Re: Apparently I’m Unpatriotic

orcmid — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:18:26 -0000

Well, I decided to add it as a mild protest to the protest, and I got a 404 at the final install-the-app button.

Re: Apparently I’m Unpatriotic

orcmid — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:20:22 -0000

Uh, well, but I do have the app running. So not sure about the 404.

Re: Facebook As An Email Alternative

orcmid — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 21:38:37 -0000

I get far more traction out of my e-mail reader than Facebook. I can reply easily, I can organize in different folders, and I can delete items from my in box and my sent box independently without having deletion in one place delete everywhere. I can subscribe to e-mail lists from anywhere (not within Facebook) and have an archive of the clippings that matter to me in my e-mail folders. I also can use desktop search on my e-mail folders, something I use a lot.

Of course, I'm one of those older people. Facebooks "all in one place" strikes me as an illusion.

Re: I don’t just “use” the Internet, so why am I a user?

orcmid — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 14:33:03 -0000

As I started reading your post, I thought of participant, so it was cool to end up in the same place with you.

I disagree with Tony Bishop about this. Language is very important and very small nuances can matter a great deal. "User," "customer," and the like do tend to allow objectivisation and separation from others who are participating with us in an economy, for example. It is useful to find terms that interrupt those automatic postures (even though the new will become automatic at some point).

A related example that I hadn't fully appreciated until recently, while minding my language around pattern languages, might be helpful (http://nfocentrale.net/TROST/info/2005/08/i0508....).

Consider the contrast between thinking of users as having problems for which our software is a solution and regarding how our customers will participate in a world of opportunity and action in which our software is employed as a valuable instrument.

Re: I don’t just “use” the Internet, so why am I a user?

orcmid — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 14:36:56 -0000

Naturally, I didn't think of what strikes me as the most important until I clicked "Post."

I think the choice of terms for you is what works for you. What I treasure is that you are willing to examine what that is and what are the sources of "ick" that you don't want to perpetuate in your own speaking. Go for it.

Your friendly blog participant, orcmid [;

Re: Microsoft standardizes Office formats - Jean Paoli interview

orcmid — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 20:49:52 -0000

Well, a convenant not to sue is what Sun provided for OpenDocument. These two specification efforts are pretty much converging at the same level of open-ness. (I assure you, Oo.o was the basis for OpenDocument just as Office "12" Open XML formats will be the offered basis that ECMA starts with. This is not much different than all of the XML specifications -- SOAP, WS-whatnot, etc. - that have been offered as initial specifications and implementations as contributions from your favorite vendors, even jointly by some.

I'm thrilled to see this and now I'm going to read the press release.

Re: Going skiing today…

orcmid — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 16:21:59 -0000

Well, I'm glad you were wearing your glasses through all of that black-light naughtiness.

You make me want to take up skiing again, but I'll just deal with high winds, power-outages, and the never-ending rainy-blustery chill back here.

I think this is the first time that I've seen Hugh instead of his work. I thought he'd look older. No good reason. Nice suits.

Re: Track your comments, no matter where you make them

orcmid — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 16:52:07 -0000

I found that you can easily receive your own invitation code by leaving your e-mail address in the dialog on the coComment home page.

I also found that the protocol is pretty sensitive to cookie settings, so I am using the successful entry of this post as demonstration that I got it working. I am blogging this, of course ...

Re: Track your comments, no matter where you make them

orcmid — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 13:50:09 -0000

According to a post on the coComment Team Blog (http://www.cocomment.com/teamblog/?p=22), they've stopped sending out invitations until they address some performance and scaling issues.

Ansgar: You need to go to the site and simply deposit your e-mail address in the dialog box toward the lower right. They have been pretty quick to provide invitation codes in response to those.

I don't recall seeing an invite-a-friend arrangement.

Re: The new A list

orcmid — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 21:12:20 -0000

I agree with Robert sticking to what matters to him.

With regard to private disputes, they get resolved privately, sometimes with the help of lawyers and judges, but I don't any reason to want to vote. And I feel like I'm being put in the middle when someone expects me to take sides on something for which I can never know all of the relevant facts.

I've thought about this, and I think what I will do is stay out of private disputes and also not give any public voice to them if I can help it.

Re: Where the heck is Scoble?

orcmid — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:46:52 -0000

What is this Vole business all about anyhow? Perhaps this: http://www.vole.org.uk/ ? Or just Nick Farrell weirdness? Or some confusion with an odd company, http://www.myvole.com/index.html apparently in Singapore?

I don't think calling for people to be fired is any more appropriate here than when someone-whose-name-shall-not-pass-my-lips claimed a while back that Sinofsky should be fired.

Re: Walt likes Ask.com (my ego search disagrees)

orcmid — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 12:38:10 -0000

I used your links to see what happened, then plugged "orcmid" into them. All but Ask wanted to know if I really meant "orchid" even though they had lots of its for "orcmid." Only MSN avoided putting up adds assuming that I really did mean "orchid."

What's particularly nice, and getting better since I started using nofollow on internal site links, is that the searches find non-redundant material, often quite different material, but it is always pure "orcmid." How about that. A genuine six-letter Internet brand. I didn't have anything like that in mind at the time, but it is certainly cool.

Now I technorati tag "orcmid" too. But that's because it is the most useful way of telling whether or not technorati has caught my taggings for a particular article. There are mystery discrepancies and this helps me look for patterns and see what it takes to have the tags be captured.

Re: a week in the world of robert scoble

orcmid — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:34:54 -0000

What a great recap.

I think the lessons of stepping into a visible blog are terrific. Thank you for having the courage to be with your emotional responses and to build conversations out of it. You've made your participation human and you honor us with it.

It was great reading your posts, every one.

Re: Top 13 reasons to consider Microsoft for Web 2.0 development

orcmid — Tue, 23 May 2006 21:35:52 -0000

I keep forgetting to mention that every time I come to your page, I have to click through a security warning. It is from the piece of code that brings up the amazon.com image of your book. (My browser also blocks a wordpress.com cookie, but that is done silently, except for the little do-not-enter sign in my browser status row.)

[The warning is that this page, which is not a trusted site of mine [:-( is accessing a site that I made trusted back during one of the frights about IE being vulnerable to scripting hacks. I guess I can make amazon.com no longer trusted and the message might go away ... Good idea, Dennis]

Meanwhile, I love that list and the comments on it. I like all of the points, but I do concede that #8 holds a lot of sway for me too. Go figure.

Re: Software factory tool glides in

orcmid — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 16:09:29 -0000

I think Project GlidePath is very cool. Michael's enthusiasm for MicroISV's is great. Unfortunately, I stopped watching the video when he said it only installs on VS 2005 Standard and above (because the Express Editions don't support extensibility of any kind). So NanoISVs need not apply. Dang.

Re: Watching the grass grow (Drupal developer needed)

orcmid — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 04:08:31 -0000

Hey Robert, I'm not into Drupal, but there's a Drupal Camp in Seattle June 28-29 according to http://groups.drupal.org/drupalcamp-seattle-2006
I bet that's a likely place to find someone. I think Boris Mann will be there, and he may have leads (or be interested) too.

Re: 3,000 new subscribers

orcmid — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:20:32 -0000

If you do the interstate, you can get it done in two pleasant days the way Rob Fahrni describes it. That's how Vicki and I drove up to Seattle for our wedding.

On the other hand, the drive back was way more fun. At Portland, after dropping off our oldest son Doug (my best man), we cut over to the Oregon Coast, stayed overnight down that coast, continued down PCH to Eureka, stayed in a bed and breakfast, then did the rest of the way down PCH, then down 101 across the Golden Gate bridge and on to 280 and on down to the South Bay.

The two night trip was way nicer than the one-night trip. Either of them is better than a one day trip, although I did a lot of driving like that when I came cross-country from Rochester New York to Palo Alto. There, I had lots of energy and excitement about finally coming to work in Silicon Valley.

Your mileage may vary. Heh.

Re: Is an anti-trust lawsuit on Eric’s list?

orcmid — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 10:53:19 -0000

Actually, IBM got caught with some consent decrees sometime in the 50's. It had a lot to do with vertical and sometimes horizontal integration (sound familiar?).

One problem was over blank punched card stock and who you had to buy them from (a maneuver that was similar to Kodak requiring you to get their processing when you bought their film and a number of other recent cases, like whose inkjet cartridges or toner you might have to use).

Another was over the service bureau business. Service Bureau Corporation was once a subsidiary of IBM and they had to divest it. (Control Data Corporation was the lucky winner, for a time.)

This last also reminds us of some things about scale and monopoly power. Other companies (e.g., Remington Rand Univac, where I worked at the time) were allowed to have service-bureau subsidiaries, but they did not have monopoly power. I also notice that certain kinds of licensing and exclusive business arrangements are not frowned on in the small but become honerous when exercised by a company with monopoly power.

You'll notice, in all of this, that being a monopoly isn't a problem, it is how monopoly power is used. (Well, maybe not exactly in Europe, but in the US certainly.)

When the DoJ went after IBM in the mid-sixties (LBJ era), the DoJ eventually had to simply give up. I don't believe it or the public gained much of anything.

Oh, the unbundling of software as a tie-in to hardware and opening up to third-party software was a mid-sixties biggie. IBM was sued into unbundled software and consulting services and Mel Conway, a buddy of mine who understood architecture at the economic level, successfully predicted the 5% increase in TCO that resulted almost immediately. Heh. (Anybody remember who "won" that suit and where they are now?)

Re: Interesting way to use video

orcmid — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:52:13 -0000

Actually, you can get a great MIDI controller for around $125-150. I was inspired to get an E-MU XBoard 25 after watching this. It works great and I can get a lot done just with the demo software. I didn't even need a MIDI connector because the USB works great and is the preferred connection. This, with the versions of instrument software that come with the unit is a good start along with the suggestions from Maurice.

Now, I just paid $500 for an E-MU 1802M for onboard digital processing and all the audio and MIDI input-output I can swallow to make my Media Center into a Media Producer. (There's even a firewire port for digital video input.) When I install this I will also move over my Pevey StudioMix control surface and finally install Cakewalk Sonar 5 (which I got for a previous owner upgrade fee -- Sonar LE comes with the 1802M but I won't need it).

You don't have to go the 1802M route though. There are lower-cost versions, including a just-announced desktop PCI board and external MicroDock unit that you can share with a separately-purchasable laptop card.

Re: On the BBC

orcmid — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 03:12:34 -0000

The interview is still on-line.

After going to the BBC WorldService link, click "Start Radio Player" (in the blue band partway down the page).

Under World Service Shows by Type click "News and Current Affairs."

Look down the list and click "The World Today 0300 GMT."

After the 59-minute broadcast begins, notice that you can fast forward in 5-minute and 15-minute chunks. Skip ahead 45 minutes and you'll learn about what had them be in the Seattle Central Library and how Robert's interview went. That part begins around 49 minutes into the hour. There's a nice interview about the library followed by the interview with Robert.

The particular news hour should remain online until almost 8pm PDT on July 25.

I liked the credit given to the reputation of the Beeb, and what it means to Maryam. Nice job.

Re: Richard tells me to explain my view on Google Calendar

orcmid — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 15:56:22 -0000

Re #22: if you select an area on the calendar page and then double-click it, the time will be filled in on the form that comes up, too. I do this all of the time.

And even though I don't have Exchange (so I'm technically off-line all of the time, which I prefer), I love it when events provide calendar entries that I can open and they import into Outlook automatically.

Re: Richard tells me to explain my view on Google Calendar

orcmid — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 15:57:50 -0000

Re #22: if you select an area on the calendar page and then right-click it for a new calendar item, the time will be filled in on the form that comes up, too. I do this all of the time.

And even though I don't have Exchange (so I'm technically off-line all of the time, which I prefer), I love it when events provide calendar entries that I can open and they import into Outlook automatically.

Re: IE 7 says Scobleizer “not secure”

orcmid — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:57:27 -0000

In IE6 for me, It's the way the amazon.com ad for the book is handled. The Barnes & Noble image doesn't have the problem.

I get one warning per image on pages that have lots of amazon.com ads/referrer links, mostly because amazon.com is on my trusted site list and this blog isn't. I guess it is time to take them off of my trusted site list and see if their scripts all still work.

- Dennis

Re: IE 7 says Scobleizer “not secure”

orcmid — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:03:26 -0000

Well, removing the trusted site designation from the non-HTTPS amazon.com URLs got rid of the unknown (mixed) designation. I don't see https fetches for the blog page, but posting a comment does generate some https action.

By the way, although I don't get a warning message now, I do get the little stop sign in the status bar, and my browser has blocked three cookies from amazon.com.

It annoys me when sites that I am not accessing directly put cookies on my system because they use fetched images to do it. (My blog does that to its visitors because I must show the blogger icon and Google happily drops cookies on all visitors who accept them.) So I can't write an honest privacy statement for my blog, which is on my own web site. Ick.

Re: Little duckies head to Flock

orcmid — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 18:00:21 -0000

Concerning your mail backlog: Take a look at http://www.43folders.com/2006/09/01/wolsey-email/

I've found that my day becomes peaceful the minute I have an empty in box. It was hard to have it be empty at first, but I got over it. Now I get cranky when I stop cleaning it out.

Re: Where’s the Windows Vista RC1 download?

orcmid — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 21:40:31 -0000

Nick White posted this clarification on what happens next:
http://blogs.technet.com/windowsvista/archive/2...

I got in on the Customer Preview Program so I think the RC1 disk will come in the mail. I wouldn't be surprised if they open up to new previewers too. Wait a while and keep watching for new announcements.

Re: Microsoft ships beta of latest Web site builder (Expression)

orcmid — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 16:17:25 -0000

I have the CTP on my Tablet PC and it is wonderful how it integrates and synchronizes, even with my development IIS site and its FrontPage Extensions. It also does a great job of writing clean HTML. That's a relief, because the Visual Web Designer Express Edition is a giant step backwards that scared the heck out of me.

The only thing keeping me away from beta 1 is that it can't install on a machine with Office 2007 beta 2.

Re: HP has major ethical problem, day 3

orcmid — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 15:56:32 -0000

Robert, I am more inclined to Rickey's council than your ad hominem stuff about HP leadership.

For one thing, you have no skin in this game (any more than does Steve Gilmor when he rants for the firing of specific Microsoft executives). Secondly, this is not an election and you are not on a jury. Commenting on their lack of transparency, and on the comparison with Ford Motor Company (FMC to its friends and family) are useful.

Calling for the guillotine is not very appropriate. It doesn't leave much room for redemption. It doesn't cultivate much mutual understanding and room for cleaning things up and putting in corrections for future conduct. We are all in the peanut gallery here, and that makes our posturing ridiculous.

Re: Facebook listens to its users

orcmid — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 16:40:24 -0000

"Notice how different this is from how HP is handling things? Where’s the HP’s CEO’s blog?"

That's useful to point out. However, there is an apples-and-oranges problem here. In one case, there is the question of a crime having been committed as well as possible breach of regulatory requirements. Until that is sorted out, I am sure that blogging would be high on the list of no-nos by the Corporate Counsel at Hewlett-Packard.

Also, the presumably-injured parties are quite different in the two situations. So the recipients for possible apologies are also quite different.

Now, whether HP needs more transparency in its corporate governance, and the form that could take, is certainly an important conversation. I'm not so sure that blogging is the answer or even the most-appropriate means for that kind of transparency. But those seem like useful questions and I hope those inside the situation look at them.

Re: HP has major ethical problem, day 3

orcmid — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 00:43:20 -0000

I get that we are all stakeholders in how our society works, and having it work well. But I don't think voting in newspaper surveys on whether or not we think XYZ (the popular XYZ was O.J when the papers really got stupid about this) was guilty or not is a contribution to civil participation.

I understand this situation isn't exactly like that, but it is a bit like the spectator's calling for a gladiator's execution.

Maybe worse. We don't have all of the facts, and we're not in a position to have them. And we shouldn't rush to judgment. However the HP board's leak-stoppage fiasco plays out, we won't know much until it is over. This is not one of those situations that gets handled by a blog response.

Re: HP has a major ethical problem, Day 5

orcmid — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 13:49:29 -0000

It's interesting that the title and tone of the article are not nearly so clear-cut as the cover would suggest. I recommend that the Newsweek article be read and then we should wait to see how all of these allegations are resolved.

Re: HP has a major ethical problem, Day 5

orcmid — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:05:37 -0000

Dominic, I have not said that I find any of the alleged conduct acceptable. I do not.

What I don't want to be party to is a rush to judgment in a situation in which I am but a spectator.

Re: Dunn apologizes and steps down from HP board

orcmid — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 12:20:16 -0000

There isn't anyone in the company or on the board that can just fire anyone on the board. The board is elected by the shareholders. The leaker refused to resign. However, the leaker is not being nominated for re-election (though shareholders could write him in).

Sometimes there are shareholder actions to intervene -- Disney and HP had those, remember -- but that usually involves getting together a lot of proxies somehow. I don't see that as very likely in this instance.

I suppose indictments would cause removals, but we are not going to know about that for a while, and it might not touch the board either.

I find it interesting that leaking doesn't have more-serious sanctions in this case. It's not just like someone violating an NDA, it is more like breaching confidentiality about business and market information. The SEC would have a concern about how that could end up impacting trading and stock prices, which is why, I imagine, that the fact of the leaking had to be disclosed to the SEC in one of HPs reports.

At the same time, I do not condone the approach that was taken to identify and halt the leakage.

Re: Zune vs. iPod comparisons

orcmid — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 21:08:35 -0000

Hey, thanks for the heads-up about Woz and his book tour. People can get more info on his home page, http://www.woz.org/Features/iwoz.html

See you on the 6th, Robert.

Re: Seattle MindCamp is must attend event

orcmid — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 23:05:32 -0000

Actually, the next Seattle MindCamp is on Nov. 11-12, in the same format and at the same great Delridge Avenue venue in West Seattle.

The October 5 event is billed as a pre-Mindcamp event. They were about full, and I suspect your post tipped them over: http://www.ventureallstars.com/

Re: Back at Microsoft today

orcmid — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 18:38:29 -0000

Dave:

Well, the difference between WSU-UW is about 5 hours travel time, quarter system versus semester system (as I recall), and different football teams. The last feature is cause for fisticuffs, although I notice there is great tolerance for WSU affinity plates in UW territory. (I don't have either on the orcmobile, so I can't tell you what the actual perils are. I should ask an insurance agent. Heh.)

Re: Google acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion

orcmid — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 02:01:23 -0000

Here's another piece of the puzzle about IP and YouTube that fits with the Google play: http://weblog.ipcentral.info/archives/2006/10/y...

Re: Scrybe gets you organized

orcmid — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:21:47 -0000

Wow!! That is very impressive. I think the Outlook folk will be having late-night meetings on this one. The usability bar has just been raised. This should be way scarrier than Google because it has all of the smart-client capability people like you and I crave.

If they can get all of that into the mail organization and integration area, it looks like they will have it all covered.

I love the fact that they seem to be able to tell time properly and deal with actions and calendar events that may be happening in other than the current reader's timezone. Outlook hasn't mastered that as of 2003 and I haven't tried it in 2007 yet. It is the one thing that has me not change the clock settings on my laptop when I travel, because my calendar (and its recurring appointments) will be screwed forever if I do that. Changes for daylight-savings are bad enough but I can't prevent those. Maybe I should see if I can put my laptop on GMT without DST and coordinate everything with secondary timezones relative to that. Dunno. Grr.

Re: Scrybe gets you organized

orcmid — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:41:25 -0000

What's even more interesting is the way that interest is being generated in this product. They just disintermediated "Demo" and went with nice videos and You Tube. Hmm.

It will be interesting to see how quickly the self-invitation list grows for the beta, and how they deal with the challenge to ship something before interest wanes.

But a very nice way to create early-adopter interest for sure.

The next question (and deal-breaker) for me has to do with who owns the on-line bits. Can I host my own or not will be a big question.

But either way, I don't think desktop productivity tools are going to ever be the same again.

Re: Scrybe gets you organized

orcmid — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 16:30:05 -0000

Rooster's Rail also has a review: http://roostersrail.wordpress.com/2006/10/13/sc...

Near the beginning is a link to a longer alternative video that is also on YouTube. This provides a bit more depth.

It is also interesting (from a "Naked Conversations" perspective) that Scrybe folk are watching the blogs and responding to questions that show up in people's comment streams. There's an example there.

I am a little puzzled by the "nothing to install" that allows off-line working. It may be more about "nothing to go through an installation procedure for". We'll see ...

Re: Woz on stage at University of Washington Computer Science department

orcmid — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 20:47:29 -0000

Hey Robert, what's with using a service that only streams Quicktime? Will they have a Flash video stream too if they're unwilling to do Media player?

Re: Tower Records is going…

orcmid — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 20:51:24 -0000

The Tower Records and Books at the corner of San Antonio and El Camino was a great place. I've been in others, but none lived up to that combo.

Re: Woz on stage at University of Washington Computer Science department

orcmid — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 18:08:53 -0000

OK, OK, I installed Quicktime. But then, Blip wants to download the whole file to my computer before it starts to play it. Heck, if I have to provide space for the whole file on my hard drive, I might as well have downloaded the silly thing so I could play it locally at my leisure.

Robert, this isn't working so hot, Robert? ROBERT!!

Re: Speaking of linking to other people…

orcmid — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:57:43 -0000

I suscribe to the link blog. It works great for me and I am always finding interesting things to clip and keep. There's some duplication with feeds I already subscribe to, but this is a great way to learn about other feeds that I don't monitor or that I don't even know about.

So it works for me, because you notice a lot the same kinds of things that I am interested in. And even though there are also things I don't care about, the quality is very high for me.

Seeing how well this works, I'm tempted to set up a river and do the same thing. But it's only temptation so far. And a mild one at that. Heh.

Re: I love reading feeds

orcmid — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 01:29:34 -0000

1 - volume is fine
2 - I subscribe
3 - No, I haven't tried it - I like sorting feeds into categories and archiving by feed within category. I have it down pretty well. Not ready for swimmin' the river.

Re: I like trains too…

orcmid — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:49:36 -0000

Wow, the things you learn on blogs that don't come up in real life.

I was a train chaser starting as a teen-ager back when there was still steam in the yards and a giant Milwaukee Road Mallet graveyard in Tacoma. The Tehacepeh loop was always famous to me and I remember going through the tunnel on my first ever real train ride (on Northern and Southern Pacific from Tacoma to Glendale) in 1957.

Re: If Campaigns are conversations?

orcmid — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 14:38:19 -0000

Yes, Edwards did do that. And in real-time as part of a webcast of a live event. It was broader reach than tech bloggers and continues to be so.

It is going to be very interesting to see the different styles of Edwards, Obama, and Clinton and how there is engagement. I think it will be great that they, and other candidates, work to create grass roots participation in the thoughtful discussion of issues leading up to selection of candidates and Election 2008.

I noticed that Obama and Clinton, so far, have done one-way videos and I found Clinton's the least engaging and more like a meet-the-candidate campaign commercial. I expect that to change and I look forward to having a better sense of all three of these candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Re: You say Genoa, I say Geneva…

orcmid — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 15:59:12 -0000

Maryam's LiveSpace is down at the moment, so I'll comment here.

The problem is not helped by the fact that the official name of Genoa is Genova (as in "Christopher Columbus was Genovese" although in the spirit of using the English naming of that fellow Cristofero, Genoese would be used by we-uns).

And the Italian for Geneva is Ginevra (gee-nev-ra). I wonder how they keep it all straight in Switzerland, where the sort-of-official languages are French-German-Italian. You're in the French part now, so it could be doubly exciting!

Hey, drop in on the ECMA and ISO folk and see how they are bearing up under their newfound attention.

Re: Getting links from A-listers

orcmid — Thu, 24 May 2007 21:38:11 -0000

I've wanted to link to items in your link blog from time to time, but I can't figure out how to do it. The feed that I get (in RSS Bandit) clicks through to the article you've linked. I can't get to the link blog.

So there.

Re: Photos from my Nokia…

orcmid — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 23:04:47 -0000

At the moment Zoomr can't find the Scobleizer page.

Robert, the N95 snaps on Flickr are awesome. I notice that the large sizes aren't all that usable, and that might be related to a setting somewhere.

(The N95 may be claiming a larger size than resolves cleanly or there may be something in how Flickr will go to a lossier JPEG to keep the file small enough. And I have no idea what I am talking about.)

You will be shocked to learn that I finally got a digital camera. I don't expect to ever go back. I still manipulate the images before uploading, but the workflow is much easier now and the lag to posting is not quite so terrible (but not as fast as using your phone).

PS: I logged out of my Flickr account and I could get to your photos. Just to be safe, I logged out of the Yahoo network completely, and I still got to your Flickr pages.

Re: Stuff you won’t see on American TV

orcmid — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:39:48 -0000

That's gripping and tragic. Thanks for the link. By the way, both links in your post are to the same video. Did you have something special in mind about YouTube?

Re: Too accessible:

orcmid — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:55:15 -0000

My concern is can all of these guys be plugged out-of, not just into. I still hate the silo approach to identity and presence. I feel like I'm in a straight-jacket (whatever that feels like).

Re: danah continues the “precious,” er, Facebook conversation…

orcmid — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 13:22:03 -0000

Hey, I finally went over to the Live Spaces greenie side. Just a place for knock-off stuff not so technical or serious as I want to be elsewhere.

Meanwhile, you've been blogging up a storm yourself, rather than doing all the work in Google Reader. Nice to see that.

I like the way you are looking at privacy but I wonder how having fine control of our social graph at the unit-of-conversation level will work for just plain folks. It could get tedious, be easy to lose track of, etc.

This has me baffled, although it is easy to think of, say, publish-and-subscribe models and some kind of authenticated, authorized RSS or Atom Publishing goodie that works that finely. The question is how can people use it in its user-interactive form and how can they be confident about what is happening with it?

Considering that most of us don't have a clue how OpenID or Information Cards works in our favor, and even the user-centric identity people are allergic to public-key stuff, I think this is going to be very difficult.

Re: A few hours in TechCrunch 40’s hallway

orcmid — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:48:32 -0000

Dang Robert, I finally go digital (saving up enough AmEx Rewards green stamps for it) with a D80 and now have a nice flash to go with it but still using my old lenses. I am not going to have Canon envy, I am not. But I definitely have VR lens envy and that is going to take another two years worth of green stamps at least. I don't think I can wait that long. Maybe have to find another low-fare consulting gig to pay for one sooner.

Hey, can we photowalk in December when Vicki and I are down there? (Dec. 3 to 10 or so, with best time on the weekend.)

Re: The 10 rules of Twitter (and how I break every one)

orcmid — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:46:55 -0000

Oh, my sides hurt!

I almost signed up for twitter just so I could tweak you with some tweets, but I figure why torgue when I can just nag you about not even answering Facebook mail.

Re: New browser war brewing over JavaScript?

orcmid — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:01:58 -0000

I don't think I look in the right places, having so little skin in this game, but I do wonder about the complaints that the serious non-complier already is JScript.

It would be nice to have a specification that gets everyone on a common level, with serious adoption and good conformance/interoperability demonstration.

That's probably not with ES4, perhaps on the road to ES4. But is that possible? Is it practical? Is it probable?

Re: Containers defined

orcmid — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:41:52 -0000

Uh, ok, but then what is the new meaning of "platform" in your treatment?

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

orcmid — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:21:24 -0000

This was a nice addition to my "I will Facebook no more Forever" post, but I am commenting here just to say I like the snowflakes you added to your banner picture. Heh.

Re: Why isn’t Scoble against ‘thought crimes bill?’

orcmid — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 16:18:57 -0000

Yes Robert, I think you got co-opted into someone else's agenda (like the juxtaposition of a "24" episode with the prospect that internship camps are being built all over the US).

The Bill is designed to set up a study and a Center for the study of how radicalization to violent means is done. It doesn't make anything illegal and it certainly has nothing to do with "thought crimes."

Now, you did get me to read all of it (and from the official government site, just to be safe), check its legislative history (it has been consigned to a committee and it is not clear when or whether it will be addressed by that committee), and make sure that it is actually before the current Congress and is not another one of those bogus E-mail tax things.

The outcome of the implementation of this bill is a report on the nature of such activities, how they come about, and what other (democratic) countries with experience in domestic terrorism have learned about it and about their efforts to contain/prevent it.

This, I think, is a great demonstration of the willingness of advocacy groups to lie, exaggerate, and speculate without bound in the name of their particular just cause. You know, the "extremism for the sake of freedom is no vice" kind of thing. (I don't know about the exact wording, but a Republican Senator said that.)

In this time of facing into a major electoral season in the United States, one that may shape the direction of the nation for years to come, we should have our bullshit and unsupported claims detectors turned to high. Let's cool it on the screaming meemies.

Re: Why isn’t Scoble against ‘thought crimes bill?’

orcmid — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 13:42:37 -0000

OK, let's cool it, OK. HR 1955 was the bill that passed in the House of Representatives. The authoritative version of this bill, which was forwarded to the Senate and is there as S.1959 is here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:4:./...

So, if we are to quote things, lets find the accurate legislative history and link to the definitive versions. (The Library of Congress is definitive in every way I can imagine.)

Finally, let us get off the Chicken Little bandwagon. This is going to make it harder to find the real scary stuff that might be happening by desensitizing all of us to ravings about this.

First, the HR.1955 and S.1959 do not create laws in the sense of making additions to the US Code (USC). It is an Act to ammend an Act (the Homeland Security Act of 2002) in order to establish a study Commission and a Center of Excellence. These are not unusual activities and this is an ordinary way of carrying them out.

The presumption that this is going to create laws against "thought crimes" is unwarranted. If the commission produces a report calling for such legislation, that will be an appropriate time to complain. (They will be delivering their report during the administration of the next President of the United States, by the way.)

However, such an outcome is in no way a foregone conclusion. Since the bill did pass in the house, you might want to find out how *your* Congress-person voted on the bill and find out why. The voting record on this bill should be an useful bit of information.

Re: Why isn’t Scoble against ‘thought crimes bill?’

orcmid — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 13:45:43 -0000

PS: No one seems to find it worth mentioning that a major part of the charge to the proposed Commission is to make sure that the protections of the US Constitution are addressed and given weight in any recommendation.

So I am mentioning it.

Re: Putting photos into public domain

orcmid — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:57:43 -0000

OK, two problems. First, of course, Flickr has the photos under Creative Commons Attribution. You can declare that no attribution is required, but it doesn't show on Flickr. You probably need the declaration to be on your profile on Flickr, if there is a way to do that. This would be a natural place for people to find out what attribution satisfies your license. (By the way, the U.S. Copyright Code has no means to put material in the public domain. You have the copyright whether you want it or not, it will expire whether you want it to or not -- unless you are Disney Corp -- and the most you can do is make a quit claim, which you are doing.)

The second problem is more serious. While you can grant free use of your photograph, the subjects of the photograph have something to say about the use of their image. This is especially the case if a commercial use is made of the photograph. Unless you have model releases, and say what they are (they usually have to be in writing) your copyright license is important but insufficient for someone to do whatever they want with the image. I bet you know something about that from your work in a camera shop. Nothing has changed.

Notice, for example, that the Nikon School group on Flickr requires that contributors of images to the group are required to have obtained the necessary releases for images of identifiable people. Notice that your CC-attribution license is sufficient for this except for the possession of releases:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/nikondigitallearni...

Re: Putting photos into public domain

orcmid — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:05:44 -0000

"fortes: you do NOT need a release of your subject to put them into public domain. The only reason you need a release from a subject is if you’d like to use them in advertising where their use might imply an endorsement of the subject. Professional photojournalists never get releases of subjects they take in public places, which is where I got all of these photos."

Let's be clear about something. You can only make a quite claim to rights that you have. Not to rights that you don't have. Your copyright in a photo does not include a right possessed by the subject of the photo and not you. That's why there are separate releases.

I am not disputing that the rights of people to their own image is diminished in public activities, but your making a public domain declaration is independent of that and people who use your image need to be just as careful as someone who purchases it from you.

Re: Qik and Twitter goes to Congress and causes major controversy

orcmid — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:17:28 -0000

Robert, I wish you would dig deeper into this stuff before assuming that the posturing about free speech has any sound basis. I like the way that Aaron Brazell has continued to update and tease out the perspective on this, even though he tends to hold to his first impression too. I think it should have been clear from a careful reading of the original letter and Culberson's claimed reading of it that there was a serious disconnect. It is also clear from the alleged (unofficial?) material from Feinstein that the Senate is also not attempting any such thing. I do notice that Brazell has changed the title of his post (although the URL has not changed.

He still doesn't give up on the limitation idea when the proposal is to start relaxing existing rules. I think we should be encouraging that, and being respectful that the constitution directs that the Congress set their own rules. I guess if we tweeters and woofers are played so easily, we should maybe have more compassion for MSM being led around by the nose on terrorism and Iraq?

Re: The blog editing system in action

orcmid — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:43:06 -0000

Steve Garfield: Although the idea is to leave blog entries intact, there are people who do make clear corrections and updates. This is often done carefully so that the change is evident (although I touch up typos without making a fuss about it). Also, because the update may not be seen in an RSS feed, if there is a significant update, a new article that points out the changed information and later news can be posted. We have the advantage of hyperlinking to knit this together, as well.

Now, there are webzines, including those for print news, that also tie articles to comments and will also indicate if there is an update or has been an update. A prominent recent example was the Austin newspaper that moved a column from the front page and provided an editorial introduction to the reclassified commentary publication. So I think that the print media can be savvy about this in their electronic editions too, and some may see it as material to their integrity as a source.

Re: Who should be USA’s CTO?

orcmid — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:27:07 -0000

I think there are two different positions (at least) of interest here. First there is technology policy, and that could be a policy advisor position (though those don't always amount to much, depending on the President and other considerations). Like, heard of any Science Policy Advisor incumbents lately?

The Federal agencies (all executive branch with a few exceptions) have CIOs and there is a CIO counsel. They also work on the equivalent of enterprise architecture across the Federal Establishment. There could be a CTO here, along with a national CIO for that matter. What goes on here also impacts and relates to counterparts at the State level and there are occassions for coordinated efforts. This is essentially about government operations in their rich variety. For this end of it, it would help to understand what the Federal investment in ICT infrastructure, operations, and applications is. You will blink. Candidates for this level of responsibility and experience are not going to be geek household names.

Re: More on Microsoft and not going to PDC

orcmid — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:24:48 -0000

Good for you Robert.

I think one problem is that when you are among the Gillmore gang, you will always find someone to say their respect for Microsoft is diminished, since some of them seem to be always looking for that. It would be good to step out of that echo chamber to calibrate what you see happening.

OK, I'll cool it too! Stay well, dude. Enjoy the home cooking.

Re: Why I haven’t posted for two weeks

orcmid — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:42:08 -0000

Hey, don't burn out!

And good luck. I'll have my eye on word from SXSW

Re: Decentralized moderation is the chat room savior

orcmid — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:01:21 -0000

Nice analysis. I like the decentralized moderation principle. It makes great sense, and how it works in terms of social capital is also fascinating.

I am wondering if commenting systems like Disqus will provide something comparable (and/or if a FriendFeed item would work as a comment stream for a blog, have to think about that).

I know you looked into Disqus recently. I confess I am intrigued, but not that thrilled about having my comments in a cloud silo. (Now I can backup comments on my blog, few as they are, because the blog and comments are posted to a site that I control.)

Re: What School Never Taught You About The Waterfall Method

orcmid — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:15:25 -0000

Re: Twelve techies who could help nurture and save Seattlepi.com

orcmid — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:31:00 -0000

I wonder what Mark Briggs of the Tacoma News Tribune (sorry, the old name is engraved in my DNA) is doing now? I loved his approach to on-line-ness, also favor the P-I community engagement with blogs and comments online.

Re: Q&A: Microsoft's chief lawyer explains why he started blogging

orcmid — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 03:48:00 -0000

I've been a Brad Smith fan since I saw him stand up at some of the announcements of agreements with the European Commission and also the Interoperability Principles launch.

This is a welcome addition in having a perspective on how Microsoft deals with a thicket of policy issues that it is a lightning rod for. Nicely done.

Of course, he remains lawyerly here too, so we don't always get some sort of black-and-white position. I admire the calm tone, the lack of aggressiveness and beligerence, and respect for the perspectives of others even where there is a policy disagreement. Holding to that posture takes something. I have great respect for that.

Re: Intuit's Quicken prepares to embrace MS Money refugees

orcmid — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:45:00 -0000

I just checked. My oldest backup of my MS Money data has 1997 in its filename and the oldest transaction is dated January 1, 1996.

I liked the pure desktop software better than the MoneyPlus version, but I had no choice when I finally moved my Money files to Windows XP.

My current Money Plus says it expires on November 30, 2009, whatever that means. So I bought a new download so that I can install it and have support out to 2011. Now I can take my time figuring out what to do next.

So far, I'm batting 3 for 3: OneCare running out in September, Encarta never to return (must get the latest of that too), now MS Money biting the dust.

Re: Intuit's Quicken prepares to embrace MS Money refugees

orcmid — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:45:00 -0000

Re: Microsoft rails against Word injunction: 'This is not justice'

orcmid — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:47:00 -0000

Realizing that patents are difficult to grasp, and the devil is in the details of the claims, I remain baffled.

I have to turn my head completely around, stand on my shoulders, and tilt 45 degrees yet I still can't understand how custom XML satisfies the claims around markup separated from content data in anything like the structure that the patent claims. Of course, I'm a geek, not a lawyer.

I read the Microsoft document all the way through. I appreciate it is an adversarial offering and tilts everything to one side. Yet it reads like a treatment for a forthcoming "Law & Order: Trolls and Autocrats" mini-series. The next stage should be a beaut by any measure.

Re: Working with Charles Petzold

orcmid — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:34:41 -0000

Thanks for this, Chris. I think the cover is brilliant. It captures the profound relationship of the tape and the single read/write head at the cosmic level. I love the imagery. (And I'm not one of the God/universe is a computer crowd.)

Re: McGinn vs. Mallahan: Who are you voting for on November 3?

orcmid — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:17:02 -0000

Watching the two debates in the last week, I concluded that I would not be unhappy with either of them. I also find myself leaning increasingly toward Mallahan, where I came out of the primary thinking McGinn was the man (although I voted for Nickels hoping to see the incumbent in the race against a newcomer).

I'm not filling out the poll. I hate polls and I need to have that T-shirt that says "lies to polsters." Mostly I just don't answer them.

Re: McGinn vs. Mallahan: Who are you voting for on November 3?

orcmid — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:21:57 -0000

Although I don't know as much about Mallahan as I would like, one thing that strikes me is his unwillingness to tilt at windmills, even popular ones, and his steadfastness about the deep bore tunnel (which I am disappointed about, but agree we should get on with it rather than pulling yet-another Seattle reconsideration). How he manages risk and accountability will be critical, but I am also aware that Gregoire has raised the bar in this regard too concerning transportation initiatives. Sounds like a potential successful partnership to me.

Re: McGinn vs. Mallahan: Who are you voting for on November 3?

orcmid — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:28:40 -0000

Having spent most of my working life in corporate settings, I suspect that both candidates are over-stating the readiness of their experience for the daunting responsibilities of Seattle mayor. However, I have the fear that McGinn doesn't realize he is doing that whereas Mallahan is engaging in the usual puffery. An opinion based on no facts at all, just impressions of their statements on the subject.

Re: NYT's Keller: We're Looking For Ways To Charge For Online Content Again

orcmid — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:28:12 -0000

I like the direction that Tim O'Reilly is pointing. I even buy books from third parties through amazon.com simply because it gives me single account management and their assurance around difficulties I might have.

On the other hand, there is something about the NYT as a newspaper of record that has me want to see the past material be indexed by search engines and retrievable (thing school students, researching student papers, and whatever someone is seeking information about, and the quality that NYT brings). Deep liinking to archival material would be OK.

That should bring more advertising views along with it.

The next question is, what is the value added that would draw revenue through a syndication or aggregation model. Perhaps time-value material, notifications, ability to subscribe to individual columnists and sections, something where there is a sustaining benefit with someone having focused attention on new material. There is probably no way to prevent someone else from engaging in such an offering directly, but it would seem licensing and revenue sharing could be worked out. Probably scary.

But I think two-tiered is somehow the way to go. Finding a division that preserves the authority and appeal of the NYT and has broad exposure of people to its quality content is the trick to ponder.