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World of Ends Public Draft

Doc Searls sent me the link over to the newest work that he and fellow Cluetrain person David Weinberger haveput together. It's called "World of Ends" although I like the subtitle "What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else" better - but that's just me. In any case, some interesting reading, particular if you like/d The Cluetrain Manifesto. Update: 03/08 14:42 GMT by CN : Yeah, this is a dupe of yesterday's story. Everyone point at Hemos and laugh.

20 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. progress... by sczimme · · Score: 2, Funny


    Almost a whole day passed before this dupe was posted. Huzzah!

    --
    I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
  2. Dupe - was posted yesterday! by DJPenguin · · Score: 4, Funny

    Proof that DUPES can still get through will subscribers looking into the mysterious future!

    Yesterday's article:

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/07/1532 23 3&mode=nested&tid=95

    1. Re:Dupe - was posted yesterday! by HoneyBunchesOfGoats · · Score: 2, Funny
      And they even made a reference to the same song in the byline!
      from the it-starts-with-an-earthquake,-birds-and-snakes dept.
      from the and-i-feel-fine dept.
      Coincidental, eh?
    2. Re:Dupe - was posted yesterday! by hoggy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Perhaps if there was a simple "dupe" button on articles in The Mysterious Future, these would get picked up quicker. When a subscriber sees a story in The Mysterious Future at the moment they have no immediate way to offer feedback on it besides emailing the editors. No-one's going to bother doing this.

      That way if an article gets a dozen "dupe" marks against it while it's still in the queue, it can get held until it's checked by an editor and then pulled if necessary.

  3. The net isn't rocket science by hugesmile · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All we need to do is pay attention to what the Internet really is. It's not hard. The Net isn't rocket science.

    Wasn't the internet invented as part of a military Advanced Research Project Agency, and include a mechanism for redundancy to keep communications going in case of a military attack (often delivered by rockets and missles).

    Sounds a lot like rocket science to me...

    1. Re:The net isn't rocket science by The+AtomicPunk · · Score: 4, Funny

      Slashdot has certainly perfected the redundancy part ...

    2. Re:The net isn't rocket science by Shade,+The · · Score: 2

      Well, it's true that it took some smart people to design the infrastructure of the net, but the main protocols behind it; IP, TCP and UDP, aren't difficult to understand. In fact, they're amazingly simple protocols, and hardly something I'd class as rocket science.

      The internet is effectively built on very simple premises. And as the report says, it took some very smart people to design it that way.

    3. Re:The net isn't rocket science by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well no, actually, that sounds like computer/communications science. It's the guys who conduct the attack who are doing the rocket science.

      They guys *under* the falling missles are generally working of perfecting their "Run away, run away" science.

      We told you geeks to at least join the track team, but would you listen? Noooooooooo!

      Making the internet into rocket science wouldn't be rocke. . . .er, hard though. Just stick a Saturn V up its virtual butt and have the internet in "Space. . .Space. . .Spaaaaace. . ."

      If you can't find a Saturn V on the surplus shelves I guess you can make do by shoving a D size engine up a Timex-Sinclair's butt, although I've discoverd imperically that it's somewhat lacking in stability.

      Hide the dog well.

      Did I mention I havn't had my coffee yet this morning? That may effect the lucidity of the above, but I'm counting on that fact that you haven't had yours either and won't notice.

      I'll go make some now. It's not rocket science.

      Oh, wait. Yes it is.

      KFG

    4. Re:The net isn't rocket science by arvindn · · Score: 2, Funny
      I'm sorry, but if you wish to discuss the article you may do so here. This story is reserved for:
      • Making jokes about dupes on slashdot (bonus point if you can include a reference to the Mysterious Future)
      • Pretending you misread "World of Ends" as "World Ends" (bonus point for linking it with Bush/RIAA/Microsoft/{insert favorite evil agency here})
      • Posting the highly moderated comments in the previous story as your own here
      Thank you.
  4. World of Ends Public Draft by Tuxinatorium · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just reading the topic once over, it looked like it had something to do with George Bush and Iraq. ;) Then I realized the grammar didn't make sense. "World Ends; Public Draft"

  5. haven't read it... by RealBeanDip · · Score: 2, Funny

    "In any case, some interesting reading, particular if you like/d The Cluetrain Manifesto."

    Sorry, haven't read "The Cluetrain Manifesto" - however I would like to recommend the editors of Slashdot check out a neat website called SLASHDOT - they usually post articles strikingly similar to "World of Ends."

    --

    You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.

  6. Aha! by xintegerx · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...We can build businesses without having to worry that "Internet, Inc." is going to force us to upgrade, double its price once we have bought in, or get taken over by one of our competitors.

    HA! If that's true, then explain what these "Internet, Inc." stock certificates are, that I bought online!

    I shall have free internet access FOREVER, here and on my MOON property that I also bought online...

  7. Obviously. . . by bplipschitz · · Score: 2, Funny

    one end doesn't know what the other end is doing.

    The end is near.

    1. Re:Obviously. . . by ponxx · · Score: 2, Funny

      > one end doesn't know what the other end is doing.
      > The end is near.

      Can't see how that follows, surely if one end doesn't know what the other is doing, they must be a long long way from each other. Chances are you're somewhere in the middle... so the end is far!

      Ponxx

  8. Repetitive Mistake Syndrome - I like it! by louzerr · · Score: 2, Funny

    I really like the "Repetitive Mistake Syndrome" - I have seen so many cases of that!!!

    I wonder if the GNU folks would mind if we just abbriviated that 'RMS'?

    --
    "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
  9. Goddamn it, Slashdot by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 4, Funny

    My country is going to war in the next couple weeks. Could you refrain from stories including the words 'public draft' for a bit. It's a little unnerving to come across first thing in the morning before I've had a cup of coffee. Thank you.

  10. Hehe by arvindn · · Score: 2, Insightful
    4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value.

    Sounds screwy, but it's true. If you optimize a network for one type of application, you de-optimize it for others. For example, if you let the network give priority to voice or video data on the grounds that they need to arrive faster, you are telling other applications that they will have to wait. And as soon as you do that, you have turned the Net from something simple for everybody into something complicated for just one purpose. It isn't the Internet anymore.

    Now go back and read the paragraph again replacing "the internet" --> "slashdot", "video data" --> "subscibers", "applications" --> "readers". I hope that made you chuckle ;^)
  11. The draft for this story by Sgs-Cruz · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can be found here.

    --

    Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).

  12. A good read by frdmfghtr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Makes me wish I had seen it yesterday :)

    A couple points about the mistakes being made over and over and over ad nauseum:

    Other mistakes we insist on making over and over. For example, thinking that:

    * ...the Web, like television, is a way to hold eyeballs still while advertisers spray them with messages.


    This one in particular struck me. As has already been proven, users will find ways to block annoying advertising (Guidescope, AdSubtract, Junkbuster, etc.) rendering it useless. Free tip to the ad agencies: an ad that one finds interesting and compels us to explore further is not the same as oner that is obnoxious and gets our attention for the wrong reasons. An ad that is unseen will draw exactly -0- potential customers.

    As for those who believe that users who block ads steal content: there is nothing that requires me to read the ads in my local newspaper. If I don't read those ads, am I stealing content there as well? If I pull out the remote control and change the TV channel at a commercial or get up to get a sandwich when the ads come on, am I stealing content? (Yes, I know what the "content providers" say about that, and I say "screw you" to them.)

    * ...the Net is something that telcos and cable companies should filter, control and otherwise "improve."

    The Internet is a pipe. It is a pipe that transmits data hither and yon. That is it. The only improvements that the telcos and cable providers can do is add better and faster hardware to make the pipe bigger. Using the "Information Superhighway" as the analogy: when you have a freeway through your city and you improve it, you improve the efficiency of the flow of traffic by making it EASIER for traffic to pass through, not HARDER.

    * ... it's a bad thing for users to communicate between different kinds of instant messaging systems on the Net.

    If AOL, Microsoft, et al won't do it, I bet some intrepid programming brains will write "switchboard" type server software that will do it for them, assuming it hasn't been done already. The IM clients and services are free, so how can AOL be afraid of losing customers of their AIM users can talk directly to MSN Messenger users? Must be that whole territory, ego, alpha-male thing.

    * ...the Net suffers from a lack of regulation to protect industries that feel threatened by it.

    The threat facing those industries (music and multimedia content) that feel threatened by it is their own failure to embrace the INternet for what it is: a means for these companies to distribute their product practically instantly and at a extremely reduced cost. If I buy ten or twelve tracks from Liquid Audio and burn my own CD, that cost me about $12 or $14 all told. That CD is worth much more than the $16 CD that the local Camelot Music is trying to push with only two or three good tracks.

    The non-threatened industries take advantage of the Internet pipe and use it for what it is: a fast and easy means of transmitting data. Cisco apparently saw this when they developed the voice-over-IP phones (which, BTW, are very cool--I had the opportunity to use them over a multi-site network linked by satellite, and they sounded just like a land line) and the telecos are threatened because now users can communicate without using their proprietary, charge-by-the-minute phone systems.

    My thoughts for the morning...

    --
    Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
  13. Re:I like the idea, but... by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I think that this article ignores the fact that bandwidth is not an unlimited resource.

    I'm not sure I agree; well technically you're right of course. But the amount of bandwidth on the internet available for each of us is growing exponentially. Beyond a certain point, there ought to be so much bandwidth sloshing around that nobody can easily use it all. Which isn't to say we won't try ;-)

    This especially applies to the airwaves. While new technologies (e.g. wireless mesh, ultrawideband, etc.) promise to deliver massively more bandwidth/MHz than the old analog broadcast methods, that doesn't necessarily mean that we have the right to summarily revoke the incumbant telco/broadcasters' rights to use their alloted spectrum without interference.

    Yes. Well, they've paid for it. You can't take it away without compensation. I don't think you could take it away legally or morally.

    These companies deserve to at least be compensated for the massive amounts of money they spend secureing their specturm licences, and for the infrastructure improvements they're going to have to make to take advantage of the new technologies.

    No. I definitely don't agree with this. I mean look at WiFi, nobody paid for the WiFi bandwidth. The users pay for the equipment; and that pays for the R&D. Everyone wins.

    Unless you are saying that because of techniques like WiFi, other data carriers should be given a huge compensation from the government? If so- you're nuts.

    --

    -WolfWithoutAClause

    "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"