Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

scriptingNews outline for 7/21/2000

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:7/21/2000; 7:15:40 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 7/21/2000
Msg #:18863
Prev/Next:18862 / 18864

Napster users buy more music 

News.Com: "People who use Napster and other file-swapping networks to trade MP3 files are more likely to boost their music spending than those who don't use such services, according to a new study from Internet research firm Jupiter Communications."

Pointers du jour 

Frontier 6.2.1 released. Change notes. A free upgrade to all with current subscriptions.

David Simms: Tales of Woz's Genius.

Jake Savin: "Most artists never make money from touring."

Just for fun I put a comment on Macromedia on this News.Com page. They now have a place for reader comments. Good idea.

I just was interviewed by Wired magazine, they're doing a story on Philippe Kahn. I explained to the reporter what Turbo Pascal and Sidekick were. At one point I said, with a avuncular chuckle, "I feel as if you should be sitting on my knee as I tell the story." We both had a good laugh.

Dan Gillmor: "No one should have been surprised that Napster moved so quickly from the fringe to the middle, not in retrospect. Yet most of us didn't see it coming until it was already over, at least those of us over 25."

Bryan Bell's Basic Blog Theme is now available on UserLand-hosted Manila sites. I asked for this theme on Sunday, requesting a "basic black dress" for a news-oriented Blog.

Linux.Com interviews Zope's Ethan Freeman. "We're an integrated environment, which has a lot of advantages if you work within the environment. It's strongly object-oriented, which means that it has a better chance at longevity than almost anything else out there, because if it's HTML objects today and SOAP objects tomorrow, it's still the same underlying platform."

Red Herring: Pop goes the Eazel. "I'd say we're quite a lot different than the latest online leather exchange."

A conference in October? 

I'm playing around with ideas for my own conference. We have a hotel in Palo Alto reserved for a full day in early October.

We can have as many as 500 people, I think; perhaps more. It'll cost money, and it won't be cheap (I want everyone to eat well, and have great audio visual stuff, lots of giveaways).

My working title for the conference is "Visionaries". People who really have a vision, something that they want everyone else to do, for fun, not to control them. If you speak at the conference you have to agree to a simple statement like that. If you can't well, maybe we can talk about that, on stage, in front of an audience.

Then I thought maybe it makes more sense to call it "Dave's Competitors 2000". Then in 2001 I'd have a conference with my competitors that year. This would encourage people to compete with me. It's tricky because it gives me what I really want, movement, progress, parachute-less plane jumping.

People are sending me ideas for people they'd like to have speak. Some really good ideas, like Phil Greenspun, Steve Wozniak, even Bill Gates. Your suggestions are welcome, self-nomination is OK too.

Telegraphy 

For me, today is one of the most exciting days in my software career. As I said yesterday, we're working on software that plays music. All you need is a folder with MP3s in it.

From there, we make it possible to build playlists by pointing and clicking, drag and drop. Where Napster's playlist is single-dimensional, ours is multi-dimensional. Now get this, I'm using it. And.. It's fantastic!

George Harrison 

Crackerbox Palace: "We've been expecting you."

Three domain names I wish I had grabbed 

fantastic.com, fan-tastic.com, fan-tas-tic.com.

Complaint of the day 

Why doesn't Microsoft's Paint accessory save as GIF or JPEG?

I see a big hole, Microsoft has a sub-menu of the Start menu called Microsoft Web Publishing. Why aren't there all kinds of goodies that real Web publishers use? Someone isn't paying attention here.

I'd give you a screen shot, but since Imageready doesn't work on W2K, can't do it today. Workin on it. (Microsoft missed an oppty to get me hooked on their tools, again.)

Microsoft shoots itself in foot? 

Wired: Applause for IE's Cookie Catcher. "The additions for Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser will describe cookies to the user and differentiate between first- and third-party cookies, Microsoft said. The browser will then let the user refuse third-party cookies."

Since my sites don't use any third-party cookies, and since I'd prefer if advertisers didn't know all my personal preferences, I applaud this move.

However, Microsoft has a split mind on this, as an email from an unnamed source within Microsoft indicates.

"Brad Chase and his team gave them an earful."

Fantastic insight into the innards of an 800-pound gorilla.

Screen shot of the Microsoft cookie feature.

Bryant Durrell started a thread on this topic.

Heather's mirror 

Heather Champ has a neat page of mirror shots. She started with pictures of herself taken in a mirror. If I had a face as beautiful as hers, I would do the same.

She sent an email asking if I would submit my own picture for her collection; I had never thought of doing that! Of course. Always happy to oblige.

God bless them filters 

Cam: "If Microsoft wants to evangelize the .NET concept to the OSS community, then why didn't they have a booth? Why were there virtually no Microsoft representatives at the conference? I didn't see any at all."

Dave: "Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft. It's like reducing Europe to Heathrow. It is the biggest airport, for sure. So what."

We talk over each others' heads. This happened in the Mac community in the late 80s and early 90s. All the developers wanted to do deals with Apple. I had a different idea. Let's do deals with each other. It didn't work. I can't tell you how many times deals were killed just because some random Apple person called the other developer and said we'd prefer if you didn't work with each other. Deal over. In an instant.

More thoughts.

A mirror into the past 

Here's a Stanford website that describes the early history of the Macintosh.

Epiphany 

I was searching for a symphony by Charles Ives, and instead I found folk songs by Burl Ives. My father used to have an album of Burl Ives folk songs when I was a very young child. So I 'm listening to Big Rock Candy Mountain right now, and it begins, "Oh the buzzing of the bees and the cigarette trees, the soda water fountain. Where the lemonade springs and the bluebird sings in that big rock candy mountain."

Now anyone who's worked with me knows I always type "Oh the buzzing of the bees, and the sycamore trees, a soda water fountain" where most developers type "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."

When you're working on writing tools, that's how you test them. You always need a phrase to test with.

Now I knew they were the lyrics to an old song from my deep past, but I honestly never thought I'd hear it again.

Next song, Goober Peas! Peas peas peas peas peas, nothing so delicious, eating Goober Peas!

I think it was my favorite song when I was three years old, if you can believe that.

Moral of the story. Kids are silly, therefore they like silly songs. Good news, my three year old is still in there and he's still silly. He's laughing right now. A happy kid. That's cool.



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