Steve Hoffman on laptops at BloggerCon.#

I was pretty amazed (during Day 2, when I was there) at how many people were concentrating so hard on their laptops while the conference was going on.

This is exactly why I came with only a pad and a pen. If you are not going to give your full attention to the speaker and the other attendees, why attend? If you are going to treat the session you are in like I do the television every night (e.g., some nice background while I blog, answer email, etc.), then what are you truly getting out of it?

Enoch posts some notes of the Day 2 Medical weblogging session at BloggerCon.#

David Giacalone writes about the public's distrust of and distaste for lawyers.#

Distrust of lawyers is ancient and widespread, and based on much more than class envy or the sour grapes of a dissatisfied client. From Ovid, to Overlawyered, Shakespeare to Shark t-shirts, lawyers have been universally disrespected, even by (and sometimes especially by) those who know them the best and need them the most.

Why? Put simply, human beings find it difficult to trust or respect liars -- especially the dissembler who promises protection, disguises motives or parses words. Like it or not, to the average person, lawyers seem to be in the business of lying, their degree being a license to lie (and steal). [...] The causes go far beyond the central role lawyers play in our "adversarial" legal system, although that doesn't help ("You see, my dear, both sides present slanted stories and the judge nevertheless figures out what the truth is and renders justice.")

[...]

My message to the legal profession: You do need more PR, but it must be Professional Responsibility, not Public Relations. Image crafting only sounds like more deception to the average (and above-average) American. Like more lies. Lost trust has to be earned the hard way -- client by client, case by case, with the focus on competence, diligence, and loyalty toward the client; on responsibility toward society rather than toward guild and gelt; on virgorous overseeing rather than overlooking of ethical rules; and on service rather than self-importance.

The Kicker reviews the premiere of "Kill Bill."#

"Kill Bill" is Kung-Fu meets Anime meets Monty Python (severed limbs spew blood like fire hydrants) meets The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

[Ed.—This is another ancient magazine trick. When you can't properly describe the thing in question, you think of several other things that are similar using free association, darts, and a dictionary and try to cram them all together. It completely absolves you of any responsibility for writing creatively.]

Watching the film in a room full of people who cheer when Uma Thurman's character kicks someone's ass is, incidentally, far more entertaining than watching with a silent audience. Should you decide to see "Kill Bill" yourself, I highly recommend that you clap, whistle and yell every time someone's head goes flying across the screen. It really enhances the experience. Trust me.

Lisa Chau can't stand diets.#

When I was a freshman in college, I freaked out after gaining 8 pounds. I changed the way I ate -- For the better. I ate more fruits & veggies. Less meat. Less dessert. Which is much easier when one has a huge catered cafeteria to mix & match low calorie foods. So easy. I miss those days. I'm not one of those people who can commit to those eat only one thing over & over diets. SO boring!

She probably wouldn't like being like be: A level 7 Vegan who doesn't eat anything that casts a shadow.

Scott Rosenberg on Arnold.#

Far be it from me to insist that politicians actually take positions before the election, but now that we've made Arnold governor, it will be neat to find out what he actually stands for and how he intends to deal with our various crises. It's a little disheartening that his only campaign position with any specificity was to promise cutting the auto licensing "tax" (really a fee). We already have a budget gap in the tens of billions, so hey, what's a few billion more?

As a California citizen and parent, I wait with great interest to find out how Schwarzenegger's approach to the state's cruel budgetary quandary is going to differ from Davis's. Schwarzenegger is about to learn that funding a state's schools and services is a different beast from funding a movie production.

Richard writes about why he doesn't enable comments.#

I freely admit to having an arrogant disdain for my audience and I can't take criticism. (I hate being corrected. You?) Ayers gives reasons for enabling comments, and rather good ones at that. They're almost moral appeals, but they are closer to addressing my personal interest. That said, I don't mind coming across as an egomaniac, because after all, "Blogging, is, at some level, the greatest ego-satisfaction engine created by modern technology; where else can someone gain a worldwide audience for his or her rants overnight?" Why else would I blog?

As Jessica notes, I think that because everyone should have a blog there's no need for comments. But I can support Richard's egotist assertion as well.

Charles Miller reminds us to never over estimate our users.#

One of the things the old site had was a "Search engines" page. This page was a simple list of links to each major search-engine via a centred column of their logos. It was really quite ugly and we weren't really sure of its utility: too many choices, not enough context. A new user coming to the page would have no idea which they should click on or why. So we decided to scrap it. As a replacement, Tom wrote a search-box for the site's front page that could be used against any of the previously listed search-engines, with whichever one we thought was best at the time (this may have been long enough ago that HotBot was the winner) being the default choice.

Eventually, the site went live. We got lots of compliments about the design. And we got lots of complaints about the missing search-page. The complaints were inevitably from people who had been with the ISP more than six months, and they said with one strong voice: "HEY! I can't find Yahoo any more!"

This is when I realised how little the average user knows about using the World Wide Web. We had all assumed that the search-engine page was there for new users. Once somebody had found an engine they liked, they would bookmark it or remember its URL. We were completely wrong. Some of the people complaining had been regularly using the Internet for years. All of them had been using it long enough to complain when Yahoo! went missing.

The other lesson to be learned is to actually talk to your users and find out how they use your site! Then it won't be such a surprise. (I'm not criticizing Charles, but in generally this is a good idea.)

Tony Pierce wants to sell out, but not in the way you'd expect.#

At the very bottom of the article an industry insider said that charging people to read a blog will probably only be successful on a few blogs. He mentions Drudge, the Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, Fark... and dumbass me.

Although the flattery of being part of that amazing short list is priceless, let me say here and now that you, precious reader, will never be charged a premium to read the busblog.

If someone wants to pay me money to write for their blog, newspaper, or magazine, I will gladly consider their terms. If someone wants me to tone down the busblog by not saying things like fuck the fucking president, or by not showing scantily clad women, or not calling bullshit on the bullshitters, and if they pay me the proper price, then i will tone down the busblog.

But under no terms will you ever be charged to read this brilliance that me and my hundred monkeys present to you each day.

That will never be part of the sellout.

Scoble links to Sean Gallgher who writes,#

Is blogging now reinventing the gateway system for stories that print invented and television tuned mercilessly?

I think it is. Ask anyone who's been Slashdotted, Instapundited, or Dave'd. Or anyone that hasn't. Ask them about their hitrates, their readership. And compare the haves with the have nots.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The difference, of course, is that the new boss is not concerned with balance, or at least the perception of balance. The new boss is all about the new boss. Blogging, is , at some level, the greatest ego-satisfaction engine created by modern technology; where else can someone gain a worldwide audience for his or her rants overnight?

People's eyeballs are lazy; they tend to follow the same pattern as they travel across the web. Eventually, they self-select a gatekeeper blog that matches their interests;they follow Dave, so they go to Scripting News, and they follow his links. Right-wingers (and Democrats who want to troll) go to Glenn's sight to get their desired fix of (a)self-righteousness or (b)vitriol (pick one and only one per visit). Group blogs like Slashdot and MetaFilter are natural gateways because they aggregate so much content, it's a lazy browser's smorgasbord.

This reminds me of the idea that the Internet and huge sources of information just make it easier to find stuff that you agree with and that validate your opinions.

An Advogato article writes about Debian's democracy and that while the heads may change, the bureaucracy stays the same.#

Now, what is the problem with debian? It's because debian claims to be democratic, but it isn't. It claims to be open, but it isn't open. It has a "secret" mailing list. And some guys who are in charge never change, like James Troup who is basically a village idiot. Now, in an open organization there are no dictators, but in debian there is. James Troup gets to decide who can get an account all by himself. Project leader changes, but he doesn't change. He is the administrator of everything. He is Mr. Debian.

Davezilla posts on the Geek Tarot Card deck.#

V The Mac Evangelist

[formerly The Heirophant]

The Mac Evangelist sits proudly in his ivory tower, away from the naysayers and skeptics. His is a narrow path. The path of creativity and innovation.

Knowing that most of the world is too mundane to accept his message, he nonetheless presses on, spreading the seeds of knowledge like a futuristic Johhny Appleseed.

Michael Feldman ponders the Instafeed.#

If a blog is a window into another person's world, then what is the ultimate blog? Many science fictions stories have speculated that eventually we will be able to port, record and broadcast (or narrowcast) the sensory information arriving at any given brain so that others could experience it voyeuristically.

The technology to do this actually exists today, at least if we are talking about a brain belonging to an individual like Glenn Reynolds, who, judging by the frequency, chronological sequentially, and depth of his postings spends at least 15 hours a day working at his computer. Logic suggests that for Glenn, the pixels of his monitor are, to a high degree, the sum and substance of his sensory input, at least for long stretches of his day.

What if you could see an exact mirror of everything that flashes across Glenn's screen, AT THE SAME TIME HE SEES IT. You could actually watch over his shoulder as he composes and posts his profundities! Read his personal, private email! Watch as he googles and insinuates himself into databases and rumor mines, ferreting out the good stuff like a coon dog after a pregnant possum! Talk about access to sources! How much would you pay for THAT? How about $4.95 an hour?

Michael Feldman posts an amazing picture.#

Dave Winer writes,#

At every conference it seems, someone gets mad at me. My style of public talking has its pluses, the discussion can be lively, but some people's buttons get pushed. Most people go through this without making a scene. At this conference no one went ballistic, I'm thankful for that. But the Web being what it is, it still could happen. My job is to take a deep breath, and go on.

Joi Ito links to Jim Moore on the Register. And Russ in the comments writes,#

The Reg's readership is huge, Andrew's not taking the piss out of weblogs because he's trying to bump up his linkage, trust me. It's absurd to suggest it. A recent link to Mobitopia from Andrew shunted more than 3000+ readers to my website within 24 hours, as many hits as my last Slashdotting (though more spread out, thank god). A link from Dave Winer will net about 250-300 links for comparision purposes. The Reg gets hundreds of millions of page hits a month - the links from blogs don't even get noticed by them. It's classic weblog arrogance to think it would.

Andrew is a good guy who's simply trying to point out the obvious hype and giving a good poke to the leading hypester. You have to admit there were *a lot* of upper class white guys at Bloggercon talking garbage about new democracy and good and evil, etc. Have you ever *seen* so many new Powerbooks?

Halley Suitt on Spirtual Hyperlinks.#

AKMA suggested a very interesting notion in his Sunday morning BloggerCon presentation, which by the way, was excellent. Each friend, family, colleague, neighbor and all the people we connect with make hyperlinks into our world in a spiritual sense. When we lose one of these hyperlinked people to death, we are diminished, just as our network is diminished. I loved the notion.

Sometimes in the past few years since I've lost both parents, as well as gotten separated and divorced, I will travel somewhere distant and instead of arriving and calling my mom or dad or husband to let them know I arrived safely, I will find that I don't know who in particular to call. I have a bunch a sisters, brothers-in-laws, a brother, a sister-in-law, many friends, co-workers, but still there are times when I don't have anyone to call. It's a surprising place to be. It is sometimes exhilarating to be on an adventure and feel so bold and brave, but often as not, you can have a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach and a thought, "Nobody knows or cares where I am," which is really something to grapple with, especially as I've been part of my big family since birth and then a marriage after that for nearly my whole life.

Tony Pierce on Califlower.#

today we learned, more than ever, that anything is possible.

that it doesnt matter if you talk funny, or look funny, or have a freaky looking wife. it doesnt matter if you have no experience whatsoever, and it doesnt matter if your poppi was a nazi.

Wendy Koslow posts a reaction.

It's a sad day for America. Have we really gotten so apathetic - pathetic? - that we would choose someone to lead just because we recognize his face? Do we care so little about ourselves that we would choose someone who allegedly molests women to pass laws? Have we forgotten how much the Republicans have screwed us over in the last few years? And, above all else, have we forgotten how dumb we already look to the rest of the world? They've stopped fearing us already, which is fine, I don't like to be feared and I don't think a true leader should have to be feared. But now they're laughing their asses off. Superpower no longer, kids, now we're a joke.

The Onion reports,#

ARMONK, NY—In a move hailed by corporation owners as a forward-thinking humanitarian gesture, IBM emancipated more than 8,000 wage slaves from its factories and offices Monday.

"You are all free, free to go!" said IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano to the 600 men and women freed from the corporation's Essex Junction, VT, location. "No more must you live a bleak, hand-to-mouth existence, chained to your desks in a never-ending Monday-through-Friday, 9-to-5 cycle. Your future is wide-open. Now, go!"

Kevin points to Green party irony.#

Am I the only one who sees the irony in the Green Party placing Camejo election signs all over neighborhoods? (especially if they don't get picked up after the election, as is common)

Richard takes Charles Miller's indictment of "just" and applies it to dating.#

Charles Miller: "just" is "a dangerous word that should be used as sparingly as possible." I would tend to agree, except possibily for different reasons than his. "Just" has evil connotations in the non-tech world of dating—full disclosure: I don't know anything about dating—as well. "Just friends" is among the most demoralizing phrases in the English language. When I hear "just friends", I release the safety catch on my Browning, because a) friendships are not something scoffed at (the friends thou hast, etc.) and b) "he's just a friend" reverberates like it reverberated for Bart Simpson when the girl he fancied said about him that "he's just a kid". It's utterly heartbreaking, and the worst part is, most seem to not even know how heartbreaking it can be.

Richard responds to my comment on disliking crushes.#

Je': "I hate having crushes." Crushes aren't so bad. It's the unrequited ones that are the worst. To my tremendous relief, I recently found out that one of the girls I have a crush on has a boyfriend. It's when the girl doesn't have a boyfriend, that's, somewhat paradoxically, the worst-case scenario. Actually, that's not true: it's when I can't tell either way that frustrates me the most. When the girl has a boyfriend, it means I can be pretty certain I don't have a chance. None of this uncertainty nonsense. Thinking that I have a glimmer of a chance, that sucks.

We desire certainty and relief from the trials and tribulations o the bachelor lifestyle. I feel weird for dreaming about the great days when I'll be married and won't have to deal with that; although, not as weird as I would feel if I associated that desire with a particular person. This gives me relief and then I remember that there will always be more problems to think about. Ahhh.

Jason Kottke links to How to Road Trip.#

To the woman who worries she'd be in over her head with her boyfriend because they bicker constantly: Chances are a road trip won't work unless you're both ready to adhere rigidly to the rules of the road. Relationships based on constant arguments are either meant to be marriages or sitcoms. So, unless your trip is part of a reality TV show where others can extract entertainment from your misery, my sense is no good will come of it.

Dave Winer asks what was with all the laptops?#

Look at how many computers are out. Most people seem to agree it was a lively discussion, lots of back and forth, but look at all the people looking at the screen instead of looking at the room. Remember what conferences were like before WiFi. Boredom without any hope of relief. Now we have our laptops and the Net to keep our minds interested even if the presenters are droning. At this conference people could speak up at almost any time. What are they doing on their laptops? Why don't people watch the speakers and each other, why is the screen more interesting? What can we do to make conferences more captivating, or should we even try?

Jessica on medical blogging,#

I asked the ophthalmic technician who reads this blog about it. He cautioned that it might not be the best idea to open the blog [that contains doctor/specialist conversations] to the patient and other non-medical people because people without a medical background could misinterpret some of the information, which could cause serious problems.

A blog might be a great communication tool among patients--a support group of sorts. On those lines, it's probably more of a format change than a new concept. I remember learning about online communities for caregivers of Alzheimer's sufferers a few years ago. Why not replace that with a blog? (Someone somewhere probably already has...)

The Black Saint writes about the Newlyweds.#

Nick Lachey, whose penis probably steered him into this disastrous union ("Just leave it to me, Nick, I know what I'm doing -- damn, she's fine"), is the perfect Darrin Stevens/Major Nelson to Simpson's Samantha/Jeannie. You keep waiting for him to exclaim, "Jessica!" while trying to deal with the mess she's created.

One should note that a major problem in the relationship could be that Lachey is about to turn 30 and Simpson just reached 23 (years, not IQ points unfortunately). Eventually, he'll realize that what he probably dismissed as mere immaturity is in fact severe mental retardation. Sadly, that realization will come around the time Simpson's looks fade (five years tops given the glimpses we've seen of her without makeup) and Lachey finds himself trapped in an Ethan Frome nightmare.

Newlyweds is often compared to The Osbourne; however, it took Ozzy Osbourne decades of drug abuse to render him practically brain-damaged. Simpson is all natural, baby.

Richard writes what kinds of weblogs he likes,#

The weblogs I've been reading and enjoying lately don't tell me anything new other than the fact that I'm not unique in my views, which is can be awfully reassuring. Some webloggers write what I am thinking but in a more eloquent or original way, or at least in a more ordered way. They are the products of a mind similar to mine, but less fear-ridden. (TheYeti's NotDating™ series is the best example of this.) The best weblogs are the ones that tell me what I already know.

Stephen Forte on what's wrong with democracy today.#

Another problem is that people don't like to take responsibility for their actions anymore. The voters have the option to recall an elected official, every 4 years! Governor Davis was elected barely 11 months ago and less than 4 months after he was elected the recall movement was started.

This clearly has to stop. The "what have you done for me lately" culture was seen during the recent war in Iraq. While not taking any sides on the war issue, about 6 days in the news media and popular culture were saying that it was taking "too long". Six days to invade and take over another country? They can't be serious. But alas the news media and popular culture were.

Carl Blesius writes about what BloggerCon made him think about with regards to his e-learning platform.#

The conference reinforced my initial excitement about the addition of weblogging and aggregation software to .LRN (a free elearning platform that we will be implementing this month in Heidelberg Germany). It will make it possible to introduce students to weblogging in a protected environment and sets the stage for some interesting possibilities within a protected space (e.g. "Wow that was a great lecture, lets go see what feeds she subscribes to?", "Check the blog if you want to know what is going on in the department.", "That link my classmate added to the required reading that pointed to her comments in her blog added so much!", "I prefer getting my forum postings as a RSS feed.", etc.).

The conference also made it clear that .LRN needs a major marketing push. Everyone I talked to about .LRN had not heard of it, but they had heard about another MIT Intellectual Commons Initiative: OpenCourseWare. Even more well known was the Creative Commons (their site just happens to run on the same infrastructure as .LRN does). With the release of .LRN 2.0 (internationalization, external authentication, and miscellaneous additional packages like weblogs and aggregators) we will have something very substantial to start banging drums about.

Lauren writes about the media's role in the Califlower election.#

Sadly, the media fed into the circus that was the California recall election, especially when it came to dealing with Ah-nold.

Yes, there was a bit of mud-slinging at Schwarzenegger, especially towards the end, that the media tried to clarify. But where were the important questions? Didn't anyone notice that he didn't have a strong platform or that any time someone asked him how he'd lead California out of its deficit, he'd say something like, "I will erase the deficit and I'll talk to my people on how to accomplish this."

Moreover, this man is hypocritical! He drives a Hummer and claims to be a friend of the environment.

Carly Hawkins questions the world.#

So I have this calendar that asks you a question every day, and sometimes it has jokes or quotes on it as well. And today, the extra part is a quote from this guy from Texas, talking to his Congressman, saying "We didn't send you to Washington to make intelligent decisions, we sent you to represent us."

This is weird because my philosophical issue with politics du moment is...should politicians lead public opinion or follow it? Is "representing your district" literal, like you should always follow the public opinion polls of your constituents, or does their electing you give you a mandate to follow your own judgement? Do people elect the person who will represent them the best or the one who they trust the most? Can that be in the same person?

I'm just sayin'. Would civil rights legislation ever have passed when it did if all congresspeople had voted the way their districts wanted them to? Isn't it the responsibility of the representative to sometimes be a parent to their constituents? Aren't there higher moral truths that the people must be held to, even if they don't like it?

The will or the word of electorate?

Carly on Noam Chomsky.#

The best part for me was the question-and-answer period. He didn't take that many questions...maybe only four or five...but the very first one was this girl who asked why the media don't do their jobs better, why they are simply playing into the agenda of the administration a lot of the time. And Chomsky said something about how it was understandable, because being a journalist is a job and the editors are the ones who control content and they're owned by corporations just like everyone else. The media is independent from the government, but it's not independent from control. And then he said I think the more important question is why aren't we doing our jobs? He says it's easy to justify our own silence and blame it on the media for not reporting the right things, but it's more important to look yourself in the mirror and ask why you aren't doing more. Movements don't come from nowhere, someone has to start them, and it might as well be you. ("It has to start somewhere, it has to start sometime, what better place than here, what better time than now?") Going to one demonstration and seeing no change is not enough, you have to work where you are and in your field and try to make a difference every day, or nothing's going to change.

There was some major hero worship when I saw him speak as well. :(