Scripting News for 3/16/2006

Congrats to John Furrier who raised $5.5 million to fund his Podtech podcasting venture. This was a surprise, but a nice one. John is a member of the Web 2.0 Workgroup, as am I, he’s got lots of friends in the community. 

Scoble laments all the flamers in the thread on Rogers Cadenhead’s site, but isn’t it obvious that the purpose of his post was to get a flamewar going? What non-flamer is going to post in the middle of a festival like that one? I’m not as worried about it as Scoble is, because I’ve seen better flamewars and I know how they turn out. In a few days he’s still going to have to try to resolve the matter with me, and the flamers will have gone on to some other trumped-up controversy. The days when you could fool any number of real people with a charade like this are long past. And people who use pseudonyms to call public figures schoolyard names are not really very serious or threatening. Jeneane Sessum is right in saying it’s extreme to call this a lynch mob. It’s just a bunch of anonymous comments on a snarky blog post. Big deal. Not. 

Sylvia: “Geniuses are not only supposed to be innovative thinkers — the ones who come up with new memes, technologies, and art — they’re also supposed to be kind and loving to competitors, thieves, ex wives, and assholes.” 

It took a couple of days for the brilliance of the continuity in the Sopranos to catch up with me. It’s been two years since the last episode, and instead of picking up where they left off, the characters have gone on while the show wasn’t being aired. So now Uncle Junior is completely demented, Tony has a newborn niece, and his marriage with Carmella is repaired. We have no clue how any of this happened, but there it is.  

While on the subject of the Sopranos, I noticed something about the picture on the website. Who’s the guy in the middle? I thought I knew all the characters. And who’s not in the picture! Without wanting to spoil it for those who haven’t seen this season’s opener, remember what it leaves unresolved. Are they using the website to give us a clue as to the resolution? It’s like Kremlinology. And where was the picture taken? Does that look like a funeral home to you? 

It’s been a while since I commented on ads in RSS feeds, but don’t you think the signal-to-noise ratio is a little low in this Economist feed? 

Another low signal-to-noise ratio feed. 

This is why I think of Nick Bradbury as a stand-up guy. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to say something. 

MediaBaron says that the guy with the jacket over his head is Robert X. Cringely, which is creative but wrong. Kosso doesn’t quite commit himself, but let’s give him the points anyway. It’s me. I had the jacket over my head because the sun was so bright there was no other way to see what was on the screen. And ten karma points to La Costa for having such good free wifi that we were able to consult the web during an outdoor identity politics discussion between Mike Graves of VeriSign, Kim Cameron of Microsoft and Johannnes Ernst of Netmesh. Lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce, was Identity Woman, aka Kaliya Hamlin. 

PaidContent reports that Netscape.Com is coming back as a Digg-like site, with Jason Calacanis at the head.  

OPML innovation 

I noted that the first item in the Grazr demo is the outline of past DaveNet essays. I wondered if people were aware that the archive of Scripting News is also available in OPML

There are several ways to access it.

First, you can browse it in HTML, or as OPML, or in any OPML-compatible app, like Grazr for example. 🙂

Here’s today’s Scripting News, viewed in the OPML browser. Interesting, no?

I hope other people will be able to use this in their demos.

An aha waiting? 

Now you might see this blog in a new way.

Scripting News is just an OPML browser.

One of many ways to browse hierarchies.

No parking meter 

They don’t have parking meters in the mountains outside Salt Lake City, Utah; but they do have signs that advise you not to litter. Click on the pic to get the joke. 🙂