Category: Stuff

Peter Merholz writes an exceptionally good response to Clay Shirky’s Ontology is Overrated.

Clay’s whole argument predicates a black-and-white distinction between evil hierarchy on one side and good tags on the other… And while Clay is right to question hierarchy, and, particularly, Yahoo’s less-than-optimal use of it, he neglects to distinguish truly useful forms of professionally-created classification and categorization, which undermines his argument. (He continues to set tags against folders-and-hierarchies, as if there are no other ways of classifying information. Sigh.)

Excellent secondary commentary based on this essay from Jamie Pitts and Mark Bernstein.

I will no longer respond to a Shirky essay, regardless of the topic. I will, though, highlight those who do, and do such a good job of it.

(Thanks to Dave for the heads up to Mark’s entry.)

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I watched the movie, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou on DVD tonight. It starred Bill Murray and a host of other well known actors. Critics hated it, or loved it — in about equal measure. I also loved it and hated it, in about the same measure.

It’s a odd movie with odd sets and an odd story. I would watch one scene and decide I disliked the movie; in the next, though, I would be laughing over some dry piece of visual or verbal humor, and the confusion would start all over again.

Ultimately, though, I liked this movie. I liked it a lot. I liked the odd sets, including the cut away ship, exposed to the camera like an ant farm. I liked the music, which enters at odd moments. I liked the characters, but not all of the time. And I loved the end. I loved the end so much, I watched the last set of chapters on the DVD three times, and may watch it once more before going to bed. All I will say is that I came close to crying, and still may. And I have a burning desire to hear the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” again. For the first time.

A. O. Scott at the NY Times wrote:

As someone who was more annoyed than charmed by “Tenenbaums,” I should have been completely exasperated with “The Life Aquatic,” with its wispy story and wonder-cabinet production design, but to my surprise I found it mostly delightful.

Save the money you might spend watching that piece of crap Dukes of Hazard and rent The Life Aquatic. If for no other reason than a good David Bowie song, and for the visual delight

I’m suffering a fairly major allergic reaction to either bug bites or plant allergens (can’t tell which, as they look like bites, except they’re far too numerous). As a consequence of same, I may not be posting anything of any length for a few days. I have a couple of things in work, but I’m foggy and tired and not with it, and my head is going to explode momentarily.

Normally I wouldn’t write this, but I’m following a new policy of never writing anything that could be considered ‘news’. The personal details of my life, my health, my altercations with the flora and fauna of Missouri, the quest for rain, and even my sex life definitely qualify as ‘not news’.

Well, if I had sex with a President, it would be news. But I don’t see this happening in the near future. In fact, I just realized something: there isn’t a single politician who I consider to be ‘hot’. Not a one. I wonder what happened to the sexy politicians? I wonder what happened to me?

In the meantime, some links to readings that will be working their way into upcoming posts and/or I just wanted to link because it felt so good:

Dori Smith: Invisible? Confused with others?. Dori, what you need to do is use really big font for the tech stuff.

 

A call for Dude Bloggers. Yes, even the girly dudes.

 

Dare Obasanjo’s Microsoft and Innovation: Always ahead of its time or Bad Marketer. Uhm, door number three?

 

Watermark’s Yesterday, on life and the end of life. (Hang in, SB.)

 

Another secret fan of Hurricane Dennis. So far, we’ve had a lot of clouds, but little action. I’d do a rain dance, but I’m afraid I’d scare the neighbors.

More.

 

A story of a pen and how there is a person studying Japanese somewhere who is really dumb.

 

Dave’s Honor and Karl’s followup. The start of what could be a very good discussion.

 

Can I use the word “discussion” in a weblog?

 

As you already know if you read this blog at all regularly, I tend to be obsessive. Nooooo, really, Loren? All friendly teasing aside, I like Loren’s pictures, especially when he adds little tidbits of info with them. Same with Bill, who has reached the mid-summer gardener’s crises.

 

Speaking of which, I entered a couple of photographs into the Missouri State Fair. I won’t win, but I thought it would be fun to participate in a State Fair. I’m thinking of baking a pie for one of the cooking contests; I make a killer apple pie.

 

I love State Fairs. Who says you can’t go home again?

 

First, though, I’m going to go work for eBay.

 

One man who doesn’t need eBay, Doug will be posting a new photo of himself wearing a suit and tie, with Oxford button down shirt and penny loafers, to go with his new position. Congrats, Doug! Just remember: bear grease goes a long way with squeeky loafers.

As for employment situations for tech women, actually, Catarina, we’re leaving the field because we heard that Wal-Mart pays better, and gives away free jars of pickles to its employees.

 

Watch the head lemur shingle! Hammer, nail, cut, trim! Frankly, I find the idea of the head lemur holding both a hammer and a saw to be vaguely disturbing.

 

Phil Ringnalda should be on his annual fishing trip and retreat from the online world right about now. I think for grins and giggles, we should go into Phil’s site and leave comments on a post — any post — the DC post quoting our favorite comic book characters.

 

By the way, I found a wonderful, wonderful collection of photos documenting a bike rider’s Katy Trail ride in 2002. After the Slashdot trashing of Missouri, it’s good to see something positive about the state.

 

This is the type of photography I want to do: telling a story with my pictures. The composition, and the mechanics, and the lens and the camera, these don’t matter. What matters is the story.

 

When you’re halfway through a trail, it’s good to be reminded why you started. I started because of the story.

There goes the head. Back soon.

We’re getting the worst storm of the season tonight and I went to my favorite storm watching spot to get photos. It was a magnificent cloud with lightning, which I couldn’t capture as I was just too slow. I love the wind pushed in front of the storms, though, and leaning into it as it blasts around me.

When it started raining heavily I headed home. Entering the complex, I started up the hill using my regular route, forgetting that part of the road is closed off for road re-surfacing. The car in front of me also forgot, and was stopped at the barrier. Looking in the rearview mirrow, I spotted an SUV behind me.

It’s narrow to turn around in that spot with cars parked on both sides. The car in front started backing up, and I started backing up but the lady in the SUV wasn’t moving. I finally stopped, and the blue car ahead of me, impatient, started backing up on the other side of me.

Did I happen to mention it’s narrow? And that he was impatient? Sure enough, on the other side of me, he hit a parked car, scarping his car’s side down the other fender. He stopped, and I thought he was going to get out, but then he just took off. I rolled down my window to see where he went and saw him a couple of blocks away, turning the corner. The lady behind asked if I got the license plate, which I hadn’t. But she did back up the SUV enough for me to turn around and I followed him to see if I could identify his car.

I couldn’t find him so I headed back to the damaged car, calling the police to report a hit and run. When I got to the car, a young guy was standing beside it and thinking it was the owner, I yelled out I had called the police. Seems it wasn’t the car owner but the ‘hit and run’ driver.

He had pulled around to where his house was to park, and then walked back. He was pretty unhappy I had called the police, but as I told him he took off without a word to anyone and to all intents and purposes, he was a hit and run. I called the police to let them know the guy showed up, but the dispatcher told me and the guy to wait, the police were on the way. I told the guy I would say I misunderstood the situation, but he was still unhappy.

The rain became extremely heavy and I ran back to my car to wait for the police. I then noticed I had left the back door of the car open and the back seat was soaked. I was soaked, too, and for being as hot as it was, feeling really cold. When the policewoman came, I ran out into miserable downpour long enough to briefly tell her my story. She said I could go, and I took off.

When I got home, I told my roommate what happened and asked him: was I wrong to have called the police? He answered no way. The guy had driven several blocks away, without a word to anyone, and leaving the site of an accident. For all I and the other lady knew, he was a hit and run driver.

So why did I let the guy make me feel I was in the wrong?

Anyway, my roommate made me some chicken soup and I’m curled up in my chair with a soft blanket over my legs, still feeling upset about the experience. Then a knock on the door–a neighbor lady had found my wallet out in the street in a puddle by my car and was returning it. Though everything is soggy, it’s all there. And as much as the water has been running, it’s lucky it wasn’t washed away. That was nice of her, and her actions made me feel a little better; but I still feel that right now I would rather be walking the beach near Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, Oregon at sunrise–by myself–than be here. Walking, flying my huge sport kite, checking out the tidal pools–anything but be here, and anything but be with people.

None of the pictures really came out, so no photos. But I did want to point out that in addition to the thoughtful comments to my last post there’s a lively discussion about it at Lauren’s weblog–excellent discussion attached to both posts. And Dennis Kennedy at Corante’s Between Lawyers wrote a great follow-on post to the recent Creative Commons post.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I have much to say on Foster’s new Internet, but I hesitated to do so because I’ve had emails from folks the last month complimenting me on my enthusiastic and positive tone of voice in my recent weblog posts. My response to this “new” Internet is going to be neither enthusiastic nor positive.

Foster writes:

What will happen when amateurization and folksonomies make their way into enterprise web applications? What happens when IT managers can tag Oracle’s product documentation with their own words? Where will our bookmarks go when the idea of the “webpage” becomes obsolete?

Invention inspires invention. Ideas are collapsing into each other, recombining, and having powerful effects. The Internet has always been a medium for democratization, and by reconnecting with our idealism we’re once again uncovering its poetry, nobility, and transformative power.

I don’t know how it is in the rest of the world, but in the US move a hundred miles away from Boston, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and, for some reason, Texas, and the “new Internet” is the same as the “old Internet”. Management in companies are interested in system administration skills for Unix, Windows, .NET, J2EE, WebSphere, Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft, or any combination of these large, established technologies. For web development, they also want Dreamweaver and Flash, and can you show them ten sites you’ve worked on.

If you mention ‘tag’ in Kansas City, Denver, St. Louis, or Memphis, they think you want to play a kids game. Mention ‘folksonomy’ and you’ll just get blank stares. Ajax is a cleaner, and most people in these parts prefer Comet.

I spent the morning searching for jobs in St. Louis and the closest I found to match my current list of up to date skills is the following:

Qualifications

*Familiar with the culture/community of the World-Wide Web. Knowledge of Internet concepts and the latest developments on the web.

* Extensive knowledge of cross-platform browser compatibility restrictions and requirements.

* Leadership experience designing compelling user interfaces. Understands the strengths and limitations of browser-based UIs.

* Deep Web site development skills using ADO.NET, ASP.NET, Visual Basic .NET or C# .NET, VB Script and Java Script.

* E-Commerce experience a must.

* Ability to maintain attention to detail and complete multiple or repetitive tasks. Demonstrate a serious commitment to accuracy and quality while meeting goals or deadlines. Ability to work effectively with other team members and management. Must be a self-starter.

* Hands-On Experience with Microsoft Commerce Server, Content Management Server and Internet Information Server

* Database skills as they relate to application development. Outstanding software debugging skills. Adept at debugging complex applications.

* Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, MIS, Software Engineering or equivalent with a minimum of 3 to 5 years experience.

* MCAD or MCSD a plus.

Well, okay, this is a stretch. I haven’t been working with .NET technologies recently, but I have in the past and can study feverishly to update my skills. I do have some old Microsoft certificates, which might be good enough. One problem though–a further requirement:

All positions at Joyce Meyer Ministries require mature Christians who are faithful in their church attendance.

I have less than 200.00 in my bank account with another few bucks coming in for a tech review of a book chapter. This isn’t enough to pay my living expenses, much less my Internet connection costs and car payment.

I’ve applied to most of the companies that are looking for tech in this area but though my resumé looks impressive, if you look in the recent jobs listed, there isn’t a lot of companies between 2001 and today. In this area, they don’t know what weblogs are, they don’t care what books you’ve written, or that you’ve modified a weblogging tool and helped dozens of webloggers with their sites…and they especially don’t care that you’re jumping up and down with enthusiasm for–or against–tags or folksonomies. Companies in this area want solid, recent, corporate experience; using solid, not-too-recent, corporate tools.

Kottke’s response to Foster is to say how sad that money is having such an impact on all of this–and it was so great when the dot-com bust happened because people had time to work on really cool things then. Now, though:

Now that the money is back, the focus will necessarily shift even though, as Janice notes, we’ll be a little wiser about it this time around. There will be less innovation and activity from individuals because they’ll be snapped up by companies to work on their projects for their customers. The information flowing out of companies, even those that are pretty open, will be limited because of competitive and legal concerns. A person who — when she was unemployed 3 years ago — could spend a couple weeks in releasing a neat web app for anyone to use because she wanted to or could say what she wanted on her blog will now be putting all her coding energies into an application that serves a few customers & needs to be cash-flow positive and won’t have the time to post anything to her blog (and can’t say much about what she’s working on anyway unless all her readers want to sign NDAs). (Not saying this is bad…this is just what companies are for. But what’s good for companies, their shareholders, and their customers isn’t necessarily what’s good for environment those companies inhabit. On the other hand, everyone I know has more work than they know what to do with and that’s a good thing too.)

Must be nice to see the dot-com bust from the perspective of a 27 year old. But following through on his statement of “…everyone I know has more work than they know what to do with…”, I want to make a formal announcement that I am available to be snapped up, and will re-locate, sign a NDA, and keep as quiet as a church mouse about my work. And I’m more than happy to channel my working energies into an application that will only help a few people. Seriously.

 

Invention inspires invention. Ideas are collapsing into each other, recombining, and having powerful effects. The Internet has always been a medium for democratization, and by reconnecting with our idealism we’re once again uncovering its poetry, nobility, and transformative power.

I promise, as soon as I’m snapped up, I’ll re-read this last phrase again without going ‘what a crock of shit’ under my breath. Oh, and I’ll start jumping up and down again, too.