Disqus - Latest Comments for eas

Re: Who or what will be the BitTorrent of Realtime? (Scripting News)

twitter-16944017 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:25:57 -0000

The classical way of content distribution via BitTorrent is through a tracker, yes, but it isn't entirely necessary. The DHT made the tracker optional (though very nice to have) - hence why the torrents listed on the Pirate Bay kept working when the tracker was under a denial of service attack

Re: Who or what will be the BitTorrent of Realtime? (Scripting News)

eas — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:43:19 -0000

I'm not sure how far Unite goes, but I think the concept of putting a server inside of every browser may get further in a more browser-agnostic incarnation. HTML5 local storage features are becoming more widely supported. The mobile browsers on iPhone and android support enough of it to enable browser-based offline versions of gmail and google reader, and on the desktop, I know Safari 4, and I think Firefox 3.5 have similar levels of support, and if IE8 doesn't, it can be added with Google gears.

The local storage features mean that javascript code, images, and html data can be stored locally, along with a persistent datastore. The app runs inside the browser when the user visits the page. Once started, it can reach out and request updates over HTTP.

The shortcoming of this approach is that it doesn't provide for long-running processes that can be accessed remotely, but I question whether that is a big strike against it, since firewalls make P2P communication across the Internet difficult.

The missing piece then is a way for peers to communicate. Some sort of generic HTTP accessible message-queue could provide that piece of the puzzle.

Re: Who or what will be the BitTorrent of Realtime? (Scripting News)

eas — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:23:38 -0000

The seeming deficiencies of bittorrent are interesting to consider. The other P2P clients I'm aware of, like Napster, Kazaa, Limewire, etc, bundled both content discovery and content distribution. BitTorrent only handled distribution, and even that wasn't totally decentralized, since the client needed a "tracker" to find other users with the content one wanted to download. As you note though, all the pieces were open, which, among other things, allowed the deficiencies to be addressed or worked around.

Re: WordPress Adds Themes Optimized for Mobile

eas — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:38:59 -0000

I'm pretty sure that caching conflicts are why I ditched the mobile theme I installed over a year ago. Of course, since they, I've ditched caching plugins in favor of better hosting and the ability to run a PHP opcode cache, so, I'm back to having a mobile theme on my blog.

Re: What's obvious about netbooks (Scripting News)

twitter-47788222 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:27:09 -0000

PDA's are loaded with applets- simple programs, simple tasks while on my feet. Notebooks are for doing PC work in Starbucks. Will have to try the Netbook and see what's inbetween...

Re: What's obvious about netbooks (Scripting News)

eas — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:59:13 -0000

And yet there are plenty of people (not just techie-types like the author of the post you are commenting on) who love their netbooks and make heavy use of them.

Personally, I find netbooks to be a little too small and underpowered, but I realize that not everyone is like me.

Re: Why Flickr should do Realtime RSS (Scripting News)

JonathanDeamer — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:26:51 -0000

DailyBooth does seem to be getting a lot of press recently. I don't think it would provide quite the same mainstream seal of approval as Flickr though.

Re: Why Flickr should do Realtime RSS (Scripting News)

eas — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:21:23 -0000

Flickr is big, bu maybe try pitching to dailybooth.com, which is a lot like twitter, only focused around pictures. Small team, but the site seems to be growing fast. They may be more open to it than Flickr is these days.

Re: He has a million followers (Scripting News)

dave — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:56:02 -0000

He didn't say it -- I did.

It was kind of a joke about social media experts. It's not much of an
expertise, imho.

Re: He has a million followers (Scripting News)

eas — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:27:03 -0000

Where does Scott Simon represent himself as an expert on Twitter? Certainly not in that interview.

Simon might have a blog, I don't know, but that interview isn't posted on his blog, that's a transcript on NPR's website. I'm sure he didn't do the transcription and I very much doubt he wrote the little blurb at the beginning that you object to. Maybe he signed off on it, but I wouldn't count on that. You might be able to argue that NPR is positioning Simon as an expert on Twitter, but if they are, the actual interview undermines that. In the interview, Simon himself mentions that he has a million followers on Twitter, but only to ask Shirky what that really means.

I missed the segment you Tweeted him about, but it does sound like he doesn't get it. Both that people are proud of their own blogs, but also that people profess to love blogs they follow the way he claims they profess to love a newspaper. My wife, for one, quite loves some of the blogs she reads, including the two that do the work of local papers for our Seattle neighborhood.

Re: Google Chrome Turns One: Has It Been a Success?

eas — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:37:42 -0000

Yes, its been a success. Since chrome debuted, Javascript performance, and various other issues that Chrome helped draw attention to have become a focus for other browsers (well, for Firefox and Safari/WebKit, IE seems hopeless). As a result, at least 10x as many people as actually use Chrome have benefitted from the competitive pressure from Chrome.

I don't want to overstate this, the Firefox and Safari teams were clearly already working to improve javascript performance, but still I think the competition has been helpful.

Re: Hey Mike, I told you so (Scripting News)

dave — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 17:45:22 -0000

I edited your comment to correct the spelling of my name.

And I don't get my iPhone for free, or any of my computer hardware.

I pay like everyone else.

Re: Hey Mike, I told you so (Scripting News)

eas — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 17:33:29 -0000

I don't think Weiner, Arrington, or any of those bloggers are getting their iPhone and service for free. That is to say, they are customers too. You think their opinions should be discarded though.

Re: Did VoloMedia invent Podcasting? (Scripting News)

eas — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:32:47 -0000

Yeah, and don't forget pointcast.

Re: Walter Cronkite's 'Cosmic Disaster' editorial (Scripting News)

eas — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:19:13 -0000

Thanks.

You know though that who ever posted it looks like a nutty conspiracy theorist (which may skew the message)?

This one seems to be posted by less of a nutter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdOb_183d1o&feat...

Re: What of Woodstein in the Rebooted World (Scripting News)

Jake — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:13:38 -0000

No, I'm not saying that journalism could not be better. I am saying that it could be a lot worse.

There is a seemingly significant amount of journalism that is fueled by the corporate ownership across entertainment, media, news, and sponsorship. It is not pretty, but it could be worse. Give the people what they want.

I say this respectfully - the fact that you haven't found a news organization that will validate your opinion and agenda simply means that no outlet is producing what you want. Not necessarily that any of them are wrong - they're just not addressing your market segment. (I have heard the word Torture on NPR. I've also heard Aggressive Interrogation)

Is it journalism and news or is it all just segmented media and entertainment designed for the mass market?

Re: What of Woodstein in the Rebooted World (Scripting News)

eas — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:13:59 -0000

You seem to assume that things are better today, after the professionals were cowed and manipulated into supporting the Iraq war, when even NPR is still so cowed and corrupted that it refuses to use the word "Torture" to describe acts of torture.

Re: Okay I'm trying iPhone tethering (Scripting News)

Joshua_Whalen — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:37:21 -0000

So, what's wrong with jailbreaking? Heck, if I were in jail, I'd really want someone to get me out! How wouldn't matter very much....

Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2008/10/16/how-to-...

Re: Okay I'm trying iPhone tethering (Scripting News)

eas — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:35:50 -0000

That required a jailbreak.

Re: Iran streets after election (Scripting News)

optionshiftk — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:53:27 -0000

One thing we can agree on is that the entire situation is a mess.

Re: Iran streets after election (Scripting News)

eas — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:55:50 -0000

It would be more futile to assume that protesting the results is futile. I've read nothing to suggest that Iranian politics are simple, so it doesn't boil down to any one individual.

Re: Iran streets after election (Scripting News)

eas — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:51:11 -0000

I also found these:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zhubin-najafi/

Re: An end to the endless cycle? (Scripting News)

dave — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:37:13 -0000

I read that piece too, and thought it was cool. I don't care who does the
writing, what I like to get is a story that reflects in some way what's
going on, as close to the source as possible. If the source can write, all
the better!

Re: An end to the endless cycle? (Scripting News)

eas — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:33:18 -0000

A few weeks ago I saw a little sign of the light coming on for one journalist, James Fallows. Fallows posted the contents of a few paragraph email from someone he knew at Google (but speaking for himself) giving a perspective on the problems of the news industry's business model. The writer of the email had apologized for the quality of his communication by telling Fallows that it was the middle of the night and he had a major headache, and Fallows noted that if a non-journalist in a hurry could dash off such a clear and cogent analysis of the issue (or any issue), then maybe journalism was in even more trouble than he thought.

Bingo!

I note this not to pick on Fallows. He's been willing to be critical of his own profession, industry and colleagues, and while I haven't been following him closely for a while, I don't have the sense that he's been one to sneer about blogging. Still, its interesting to see things sink in, especially since on some level, I think he's understood it for a while. He's done a lot of blog posts that are basically composed of long quotes from email sent by readers, so he's been willing to let his sources "speak" for themselves from his soapbox. He is serving the editorial function a lot of other bloggers serve, by finding good information and thinking, providing some context, and giving it more exposure. It's something I'm sure he's done a lot of through his career since he's been an editor, as well as a correspondent.

Re: Who do the people of the NY Times follow on Twitter? (Scripting News)

eas — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:35:01 -0000

Dave, thanks for sharing this data. It's always interesting to see this sort of thing, even if I'm not sure what to make of it. It's like looking at those charts of boards of directors, or campaign donors.

It helps expose hidden influence, which is always a good thing. It would be great if someone who is a wizzard with visualization did something with your data.

I'll note too that insight into patterns of influence is what Google was founded on.