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

scriptingNews outline for 8/5/2000

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:8/5/2000; 6:57:47 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/5/2000
Msg #:19481
Prev/Next:19480 / 19482

XML-RPC & SOAP 

David Adams has deployed an XML-RPC-based spell-checker.

Microsoft has posted a page with SOAP 1.1 issues.

Edd Dumbill asks us to: Show me the pointy brackets!

Rankings 

A shuffling of the order on most-visited-sites-yesterday. Look who's number two! Wow. Lots of hits.

Sanjay Sheth provides the explanation. The Motley Fool published an article that praises Joel, to the hilt, and links to his site, very nicely. Congrats to Joel!

Doc Searls looked up his favorite sites at WebMostLinked, with surprising results.

Fear of fear 

A great line from GW Bush's acceptance speech. Goes something like this. FDR was a great Democrat who said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Al Gore just wants to give you the last part. I'm sure he said it more eloquently. I laughed out loud. Then I remembered who was saying it. The corporate candidate. The best speech writers money can buy.

I think I'll vote for Ralph Nader. When he speaks, I believe the words are his own. My vote for having a mind and thoughts and vision, and the courage to put them to the test.

Eric Raymond on Napster 

Eric Raymond certainly has his own thoughts and a vision.

But I wonder if he's used Napster?

As they say about love, if you've experienced it you know what I'm talking about, if not, no words will suffice.

(Even so, for an idea of what it's like, read Clay Shirky's anthem, which is a concise and eloquent user's pov of Napster.)

Imagine when the phonograph came out. What would the contrarian's argument have been then? Imagine all the musicians it will put out of work.

(As I write this I'm listening to Elton John and John Lennon singing I Saw Her Standing There. Now tell me where I'd go to buy that song? The next song queued up is Lennon and Jimi Hendrix doing Day Tripper. I had no idea these recordings even existed!)

David Brown: "As far as I can remember, that particular recording of I Saw Her Standing There was found as the B-side of the Philadelphia Freedom single that Elton released in 1975."

So, after you finish telling me about right and wrong (I've heard it 80K times), you could then choose to use your imagination and consider all the inspiration, serendipity, even synchronicity that comes from massive numbers of people sharing their musical discoveries. Music is not like software. It resonates at an emotional level, it lifts out memories, so they can float away. And the fact that it's shared squares the power.

Music makes me happy. I have plenty of money, and am happy to share it with the artists and the music industry. I'm even willing to pay more so young people who have less money can have music for free. I consider that an investment in the future. Maybe when they're my age they'll remember the act of generosity from our generation to theirs and be similarly kind to the generation after them.

Eric, here's an opportunity for you and others to expand your horizons. You don't control this conversation as you did for a couple of years in software (glad that's over).

Stop reading, go download a copy of Napster, and find out what the fuss is all about. Music on the Internet is magic. It's the biggest killer app so far.

Today's song 

John Lennon: "Every day in every way it's getting better and better."



There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:55:59 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.