New Flickr set: A pre-party visit to TechCrunch HQ. 
PC World on podcasting.
This afternoon’s lunch talk at Yahoo went great. I wonder if they’ll provide an MP3.
I ordered an iPod for a friend, it shipped the same day from Shanghai!
Clearing something up 
John Palfrey: “Nothing has changed from the perspective of Harvard, which is the owner and trustee of the RSS 2.0 spec.”
5/18/04: “It’s got a very conservative mission, to answer questions about RSS, to help people use it, to promote its use. It’s basically a support function.”
Anyone wishing to understand the status of the RSS 2.0 spec should just refer to the two bits linked to above.
1. The spec is owned by Harvard. 2. The RSS Advisory Board, when it existed, performed a support function. Later, in case anyone was still confused, we disclaimed: “It does not own RSS, or the spec, it has no more or less authority than any other group of people who wish to promote RSS.”
So people and companies who think they were invited to be on some kind of standards body that owns the spec were sold a Brooklyn Bridge. Hope they didn’t pay too much for it. 🙂
Scripting News Annex 
Posted by Rob Bazinet on February 17, 2006 at 7:53 am
I ordered a Mac on a Saturday and received an email confirmation it shipped on the next day, a Sunday! The way Apple is run is second to none. IMHO.
-Rob
Posted by Dan Ciruli on February 17, 2006 at 8:55 am
Hold on. Do you even know what this means? See, they’re like 18 hours ahead of us. Generally, when it’s “today” here, it’s “tomorrow” there. So if you order it “today,” and they ship it “today,” that means they shipped it BEFORE YOU ORDERED IT!
Apple has done great things for user interfaces, clean design, and, yes, streamlining the shipping process. But what they’ve done in terms of extra-sensory perception, divination and forecasting will really be driving their future business. I mean, sure, now they’re shipping products before you order them. Soon, they’ll be shipping them before you know you want them.
In mid 2008, they’ll perfect the technologies necessary to ship products before they’ve been invented, which will solve many of the inventory problems that plague so many industries. Michael Dell will go crazy trying to duplicate this.
Oh, and you should see the UI on those crystal balls.
Posted by Andrew Scott on February 17, 2006 at 11:15 am
With the ipod shipping from Shanghai here is a thought worth reflecting on – “The latest technologies go into the newest plants, and those plants are abroad. Innovations take place in new plants as new processes are developed to optimize the efficiency of the new technologies. The skills required to operate new processes call forth investment in education and training. As US manufacturing and R&D move abroad, Indian and Chinese engineering enrollments rise, and US enrollments decline.”
Read the whole text – by Paul Craig Roberts, assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration – here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02162006.html
Posted by Mark on February 17, 2006 at 11:55 am
Story on Houston Public Radio (KUHF) this morning regarding bloggers in the Enron Trial. A quote from the media professor echoes your often repeated theme of increasing “outlets of information” through the blogging medium.
He also hints at the looming problem of filtering this stream/river/ocean of new information.
Posted by Robert Yocum on February 17, 2006 at 10:16 pm
I recently purchased an iPod from Apple.com as well. It also shipped from Shanghai. My guess is that it’s easier for them to do the engraving when it’s manufactured and it’s a good bet they’re manufactured in China (though I haven’t checked to be absolutely sure). I tracked mine on FedEx, too. It didn’t get checked as an international shipment into the US until it reached Indianapolis after stopping for a while in Anchorage. Final destination: Redlands, CA.
That’s assuming you got the engraving on the back as well, of course. If not, maybe Apple just likes to ship international.
Robert