BurningbirdI haven’t said anything about the beheading of Nick Berg, and I won’t other than to point out a comment thread on a posting at David Weinberger’s and state that Dave Rogers is both eloquent and thoughtful for a man who says, ‘What do I know? I make all this shit up.’
Whatever I could wish to say, he’s said it.
Nuff said.
I usually agree with Mark Morford but rarely have I found myself in such strong agreement with him, as I did with his column today.
He writes in response to the question: how can he write about dogs or yoga or sex in cars when there is so much evil in the world. He responds with:
The world’s tragedies absolutely deserve our immediate attention. And our hope. And our divine raw funky sexed-up intellectual perspective. This is not a question.
But what it needs even more is the counter-energy. For us all to remember to shut it all off and get the hell away from the computer and go have a glass of wine and a deep tongue kiss and a romp and a an intense book and a hot sweaty yoga class and a soft swoon to an incredible blues singer. This fuels the resistance. Rekindles meaning. Steals life back from those who would deign to devour it with pitchforks and judiciary committees and heavy artillery.
After all, real life is not in the dour headlines
Though I could have wished that he had left off his anger with Bush, because it detracts from his message, overall it is compelling reading with one important point: all of life is not dark matter, all the time.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
For those of you who subscribe to my feeds, note that I’m dropping the RSS 2.0 feed starting next week.
Why? Because hosting an RSS 2.0 feed is providing indirect support for behavior that sucks the joy out of my day. Because Dave Winer is a hypocrite, and the so-called RSS 2.0 ‘advisory board’ is a mockery on true open standards efforts. More importantly, though, when I woke this morning, I said to myself:
Today is a good day to stop supporting assholes.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
It’s not surprising that yesterday’s unhappiness at the new pricing structure for Movable Type 3.0 has generated response from those in support of the structure, Six Apart, or both. But I am disappointed, no let’s be honest, angry at the deliberate misinterpretation and obfuscation put on our responses.
In the MetaFilter thread about this topic, Matt Haughey spins the negative reaction against the pricing structure to one where those who are unhappy are so because we don’t want to pay:
If you so despise the idea of paying someone for software, it’s pretty easy to keep using MT 2.661 free of charge, or having a few blogs to yourself with MT 3.0.
If you so despise the idea of paying someone for software… Show me the writing where the person has said they despise having to pay for software? From what I’ve read, most people’s negative reactions were due to the fact that they, like myself, run multiple weblogs for different subjects, or run weblogs with multiple authors, and the pricing structure is, indeed, prohibitively expensive. They, like myself, weren’t expecting this type of pricing structure. We have happily used the easy functionality of MT to create multiple weblogs and add authors never knowing that some day we would be penalized for doing so; that ‘cheaper by the dozen’ may apply to egg rolls, but it sure doesn’t apply to weblogs or authors.
Timothy Appnel writes on his weblog and for O’Reilly about how are poor software developers to eat:
This outcry raises a bigger more important point which is the reason for my post. As a developer and one who makes a living writing code, this reaction to Six Apart’s new licensing is really disheartening and on a certain level frustrating to see. I am a firm believer and backer of open source. I’ve personally released quite a bit of open source code myself and will continue to do so. However this apparent expectation of the vocal part of community that it is their right to have all great works of software at no cost is bothersome. If users don’t have the funds or won’t pay on principle for my time, effort or talent – how do I eat?
Oh poor Timothy, and Ben and Mena, too. They are starving while we rip the software from their hands and dance on their emaciated bodies in the street in a frenzy of open source lust.
Though I think Appnel turning around the negative reaction to Six Apart’s pricing structure as somehow originating because of open source is the biggest stretch I’ve seen since I last watched a taffy machine in operation, he doesn’t have to look beyond MySQL to see open source being profitable; or Linux (SCO problems aside) implementations created by Red Hat and others. Each of these companies makes a profit by providing value added versions of their products that have appeal for those wanting to use the product for commercial purposes; or for people who may want a simplified installation process or better help system, and support for using the product.
But Movable Type isn’t open source. That’s not the issue. What is the issue is that those few discussions about Movable Type 3.0 in the past at Six Apart gave the impression that this version, at least, would remain free. In fact I remember reading once in one of the weblogs associated with Six Apart that the reason so much support was given to TypePad (and hence the MT developers couldn’t work on the comment spam problem) was so that products like Movable Type could remain free.
There is a free version of MT, true. But there are so many caveats on its use that either there’s confusion about whether a person can legally use it–exactly what does it mean that it can only be used on a single CPU machine; exactly what does it mean that the paid version is the only one on the guaranteed upgrade path; exactly what is meant by having access to paid services– or dismay at how much it will cost if you can’t or choose not to use the free version.
Howver, rather than address these concerns directly, Appnel obfuscates them and makes this an issue of open source, and how he will starve if we don’t stop our unreasonable demand for free software, selfish gits that we are.
I particularly like Appnel’s deliberately negative spin on my writing yesterday, saying:
Many of these posts gripe that alternate server-based tools such as WordPress do not support multiple blogs and/or authors yet. What’s a bit silly about these posts is that not one so far notes that the hosted version of MT (TypePad) allows for unlimited authors and weblogs (plus many other features not available in MT) at a price that rivals basic hosting packages.
What I said yesterday was, “One of the reasons people haven’t moved to WordPress or other weblogging tools is lack of support for multiple weblogs–yet”. I wrote what I did in reference to the reason people have used Movable Type in the past instead of something like WordPress is because of the ease of creating multiple weblogs. Unfortunately, they did so not knowning that someday they’d be charged by the blog or author.
And why did Appnel introduce a hosted product into this conversation? This has nothing to do with TypePad…
…unless this all has to do with TypePad.
Dave Winer, accuses those of us who were critical of ‘being children’, a mature reaction for sure:
Six Apart announced new pricing for Movable Type and hell breaks loose. The users are acting as children, saying somehow they didn’t know that eventually Six Apart would charge for their software. I knew they were going to charge, why didn’t you? I can say this because I’m not a customer (I do use their software, but I didn’t pay for it) and I’m not them. But I’ve been where they are and it sucks. No one’s perfect. If you use their software, you owe them some money. If you don’t like the price, don’t use it. Amazingly they’re not asking for money if you use the new software in a limited form, or continue to use the old software. Users who can’t get behind that are people we don’t need to work with. Everything costs money. When you drive to the gas station, try whining at the attendant, and see how much gas you get. Do it enough and they’ll call the cops.
Are some people using specialized glasses, like 3D glasses, that decodes our writing into some kind of hidden message? Is that why they deliberately disregard the statements we’re making about not being adverse to paying? My issue is that I feel Six Apart has not been open with us about the direction the pay structure was going before we committed ourselves to what will be prohibitively expensive installations. How does that translate to, “Wah! Me want lollie for free!”
Let me repeat, slowly for the filter challenged: We… don’t… deny… Six… Apart’s.. .right… to…. charge… a… fee. But doing so on top of lack of communication in the past, and what communication there was runs counter to what we’re seeing now, is reason for concern, and yes, written complaint. Just as Google’s support for Atom might be seen as reason for concern and complaint by others.
If people have no problems paying the cost and they love Movable Type and they think the price structure is fair and Six Apart has been open in their communication, then say so; but if you can’t do so, not without the words sticking in both your throat and your keyboard, don’t defend the company by spinning our legitimate concerns into the trite, whining ramblings, of free software open source spoiled brats who want something for nothing. You’re not helping Six Apart by your actions; all you’re doing is polarizing the issue and making enemies where once there wasn’t.
The work on the star tunnel books goes slowly as I gather the material to make the volumes. Before I can even consider starting them, though, I have to master the fold. If I can’t master the fold, I won’t be able to master the concertina fold, which is nothing more than long strips of stiffer paper, in perfect parallel folds. The star tunnel book I have in mind consists of several overlapping concertinas.
I thought I knew folding, having previously spent a life time of folding things, such as dolls, letters, hope, books, arms, and t-shirts; but all this past experience does is build bad habits; habits which must be broken to do a proper fold. Contrary to what we might think a fold doesn’t just happen by luck. There is no natural perfect fold in nature, unlike the fractal. The fold must be precise, measured, and then firmly flattened using a bone folder, because your work is only as good as your fold.
As I study the art of book, I find that there is an esoteric element to folds, which adds a hint of spirtual mystery to that previously seen as commonplace . For instance, there are proper names describing how the fold is placed relative to the surface: if the fold is pointed up, then it’s called a mountain fold; pointed down, a valley fold. Not difficult to remember and makes for rather impressive explanations of what you’re doing if someone asks.
“I’m folding the end of this paper, here, until the tip meets the base of this mountain fold.”
Or something to that effect. Those people who are experienced at this are probably snickering right now, saying to themselves, “It’s not called a base, you amateur. It’s the spine“, or some such thing.
To practice my proper folding technique, I created a book called an Inserted Concertina, which is one concertina fold inserted into another, and looks rather nice for nothing more than two pieces of paper connected by slits.
First I had to make one 8-panel concertina, 6 inches high (sorry, if I try to keep up in metric, I’ll be here all night); and then a second, 4 inches high. I cut off the two end panels from the shorter strip (which are being used to make a small Japanese stab binding book). The paper had to be long enough, so I glued two pieces together, which itself is rather a production.
Place scrap paper underneath the edge and use it to mask all but 1/2 inch of the edge of one strip; use the paintbrush to spread a thin layer…
Once the long strips were made, I folded the middle of the taller concertina to make a mountain fold, and then folded one half to make another mountain fold and so on, until the stretched out piece easily collapses, edge to edge, all space eliminated.
It was then a matter than of cutting out the insides of the larger to make space for the smaller, cutting slits in both to align with each other and then put the two pieces together (easier said then done, something about cutting through six pieces of paper). To measure the cuts, I used the pointed end on the bone folder to score the paper, to avoid using pencil or pen, which, in a way, again makes use of the fold to accomplish my task.
As a finishing touch, I added orchid print outs, just as a fun detail and a bit of color, because the true spirit of the art of book is improvisation, each piece then being subtly unique.
I’m not sure if the photos do the book justice; it was difficult to photograph. It’s not perfect, and there are bends in the paper, and the photos warp the perspective, and I have made mistakes. Regardless, the amazing thing about it is how well the book collapses neatly and elegantly into its cover, and how stable the piece is, without using any clip or thread or glue to keep the concertinas together. It is a most cooperative work, as if the pieces decide to mesh for whatever reason even though there is no physical bond.
I can twist the work about and open and close it and pull it around to take photos, but the join holds and the piece remains steadfast despite the strain it undergoes. As you may guess by now, it is, of course, due to the compatibility of the folds; to the ends, really, because that’s what a fold is–the alignment of two ends.
I have no allusions about the stability of my little book. Brutal shaking of the piece will most likely break it apart, perhaps permanently if the slits are damaged, or the folds crumpled and lost. It is not a work that can be tossed carelessly aside for convenience, or thrown across the room in anger; too easily sat on or thrown away for scrap if forgotten. I think that’s why this style of book appeals to me: there is the very real possibility that it will not endure.
Since we can name these individual works, these book arts, I called this one My Virtual Friend.