Wal-Mart took a step away from RFID by cancelling a consumer-level trial of the technology, but their other RFID plans seem to still be in place. I’d say that’s a victory for privacy concerns. Whether or not it’s a major one remains to be seen.
Category: Technology
Dave’s shut it down.
So I’m shutting down Scripting News now, to give me some time to think, and to give you all a demo of what it would be like if it weren’t here. These last few days have been really awful. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have so many people screaming at you. It’s inhuman, especially considering that my health isn’t that good. The only conclusion I can come to is that I shouldn’t be doing this.
You know… I don’t like seeing people feel bad. But the current situation came about in part because people felt Dave was using Scripting News in order to unduly affect certain technical issues. Retreating is one way to say “OK, I’ll stop.” I’m not sure Dave’s gonna get the desired effect here.
Also, as a technologist (and as someone who’s recommended Dave’s protocols in a business setting), watching a site vanish does not give me warm fuzzies. Sure, it’s still there as http://scriptingnews.userland.com/, so I can still get to archived posts and so forth. But man, how do you rely on a spec which can vanish at any moment?
Pensive times.
T-Mobile is removing the games from the color Sidekick (via Boing Boing). That’s pretty much the suck. I don’t know that I like having a provider who removes functionality from my cell phone. Apparently it was a licensing issue, but guys — suck it up and pay for the license.
Hrm. Palm Tungsten? Treo? I have a portable cell phone number now, so I can switch when my current plan expires.
CafePress sez:
Books are closer than ever to completion! We are currently running a beta test to make sure that we present the best product possible. As soon as we tally the results and make improvements where necessary, books will go live! For our first release we will be offering the following size and binding combinations.
Wire-O binding (like a journal):
4.18” × 6.88” mass trade paperback
5” × 8” tradeback
6.625” × 10.25” comic
7.5” × 9.25” manual
8.5” × 11” the standard
Saddle-stitched binding (like a comic book)
5” × 8” tradeback
6.625” × 10.25” comic
7.5” × 9.25” manual
8.5” × 11” the standard
This is not as exciting as the perfect-bound stuff they’ll be doing later. If the saddle-stitched versions are cheap enough, there are interesting possibilities, though. I can actually see doing something like Into The Sunset in a saddle-stitched version for Gencon.
After my RSS rant, I’m glad to see Sam Ruby trying to solve the problem. For what my voice is worth, I support this effort.
Ah, ArsDigita. For a while, Phillip Greenspun was an Internet darling. He did some important work on database driven web sites, which wound up turning into a startup called ArsDigita. ArsDigita was very successful for a little while, and then went boom.
Phillip and his former SO Eve Andersson have one perspective. I mention the personal relationship only because it becomes somewhat relevant in the recently posted alternate perspective from Michael Yoon.
Yoon’s piece probably ought to be required reading for, I dunno, lots of people. Or perhaps for nobody, since the horse is now far from the barn and frolicking around in the pasture. Way too late to close the barn door now. But — speaking from a biased, management perspective — these three stories in conjunction demonstrate exactly why management is important.
There were any number of bad professional managers running around during the dot.com boom. This led to the unfortunate assumption that management (and marketing, and sales, and other non-technical fields) were easy. That, in turn, led to smart charismatic people like Phillip assuming that they could do management stuff. And… well, it’s all in the essays linked above.
RFID just succeeded. When Wal-Mart wants manufacturers to use a technology, they will use it — Wal-Mart’s leverage is just that big. The privacy implications are horrendous, but the applications are fairly neat.
CafePress seems to be a mite closer to launching their book printing arm. I just got an intriguing email offering me the chance to beta it; alas, I don’t have a book all ready to go. C’est la vie. However, the email does have some hints about formats.
They want page sizes of either 4.18 × 6.88 (mass market paperback), 5 × 8, 7.5 × 9.25, 8.5 × 11, or 6.625 × 10.25 (comic books). That’s inches, one assumes. They offer saddlestitch binding for lower page counts and wire-o for full fledged books. Maximum page count is 600 pages.
That’s kind of interesting, since people were expecting perfect bound books. Then again, maybe the perfect bound books work, um, perfectly and they don’t need to beta test those. More to come, I’m sure.
Wired and Dan Gillmor just did stories on OhmyNews, which sounds pretty revolutionary. It’s an online newspaper (with a print component, but that’s a fish of a different color) that’s 90% written by volunteer reporters. Ah, you say, it’s Metafilter. Yes, except that the “citizen-reporters” file stories which are then checked and approved by professional editors. Really good stories earn the authors a smallish fee.
In other words, it’s news blogging with professional editors. Compare this to Dave Winer’s optimism about bloggers; note that OhmyNews is in fact having a real effect on Presidential elections in South Korea. In fact, Jon Bonne nailed it. “Professional journalism continues to exist because the public has demonstrated its need for two things: truth and convenience.” OhmyNews is a way to satisfy those two needs while still opening up a door for the amateur reporter.
I love my iPod. I’d long ago noticed that its alphabetic sort puts bands with “The” in their appropriate place; i.e., “The Beatles” sort into the Bs. Good. But I didn’t realize until yesterday that it does the same thing with “Los.” Yep, Los Straightjackets are in the Ss.