Category: Internet

You may or may not have heard about the hijacking of the www.hoopla.com domain from Leslie Harpold. If you haven’t, you can read more on the story at Textism, Time is Tight, MetaFilter, and diveintomark.

What’s funny is that I received an email last week “warning” me that burningbird.org and other variations of “burningbird.xxx” were being scooped up and that I was at risk of losing my online identity. Considering that another company had burningbird.com before I ever signed up for burningbird.net, and that searching on Google for “burningbird” always returns my web sites (yes, Google is very good for this type of search), I’m not worried over much about it. Besides, I’ll always have “yasd” and “shelley powers”, as well as me when I look in the mirror, thank you very much.

Take more than a domain name theft to steal me.

And for those who are looking for traces of Leslie Harpold, or a souvenir as Mark would put it, don’t forget the Wayback Machine is an invaluable resource for finding “lost” web material.

If the fight for freedom of the Internet has a center, that center would be in Australia. I’ve long found that the difficulties inherent with trying to enforce censorship and copyright laws, as well as other related legislation, seem to get tested, first, in this country.

I wrote on the possible effects of South Australian proposed legislation and it’s impact with P2P technologies for O’Reilly in a piece titled Australian Censorship Bill could Impact P2P. To read more about Australian legislation and associated impacts on online civil liberties, check with Electronic Frontiers Australia.

What is going to be the future of connectivity? What is the Brave New World of the Internet going to be?

Is it going to be a system of services linked together through one centralized (but benevolent) agency? Need a service? Want to sell a service? Check into the Agency, the Agency will take care of you. Oh, by the way, you need to add this to your machine. And you need to give us this information.

And you need to understand that we know what’s best for you…and you have no choice, any way, do you?

Or is it going to be a brave new world of content publishing and subscription?

You sitting at home passively on your machine hooked up as a dying man is hooked up to a heart machine, each beat a pulse from the great wire, delivering you all the information fit to print, at least fit enough to survive the filters.

You sit and add your own beat, with perhaps an accompaniment of a pat on the head, job well done. Why seek? Why search?

Now, just put that finger on that mouse and click those check boxes and yes, we’ll take care of you because we know what’s best for you…and you have no choice, any way, do you?

Put your mouth to the nipple and prepare to be fed.

A brave new world.

Connecting to the void you send tendrils out seeking others of like mind, or not, occasionally bumping into something new or unexpected in your search.

Two paths open for every path that closes, and the only locked door you find is standing alone with no walls around it. You laugh into the void as you walk past the door, continuing on your journey of discovery.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I moved today’s original posting to my web site OpEd page — it’s too large for a weblog. I’ll post it later this weekend when I have time to finish it.

In the meantime, I’m still responding to the folks who volunteered for the RDF book tech editing process. Too many good folks have volunteered.

I’m also indulging in a bit of self centered ego tripping — I’m in searching for my first Usenet posting at Google.

I know it was for a Usenet group interested in POSC, ModelPro, data models and schemas, what have you. I also know I wrote the Usenet posting while I was working for Sierra Geophysics, many years ago, in the beginning of the 90’s (I was a late Internet bloomer). But I can’t remember anything more specific, and I still haven’t found it. If I look for “Shelley Powers” I get way too many Usenet postings back — I’ve been opening my mouth online for years.

There’s no use or purpose for finding my first Usenet post — I just want to, for fun and curiosity. Personally, I think it’s great that Google is posting the Usenet Archives, and I’m playing with it.

It’s funny, but who’d have ever thunk it — our old web and internet stuff is now becoming “history”. Geez, makes me feel like an old fart.