I'm always amazed at the naivete the so-called media critic, JonKatz.
Gotta give the guy credit: he's as earnest as college freshman writing his or her first term-paper.
In fact, Katz's articles usually read like freshman, 5-paragraph paper material.
For example, the typical freshman paper always contains that first paragraph which either quotes the dictionary ("Webster's dictionary defines the word 'geek' as...") or asserts the prominence of an general idea in the broadest, most non-specific way ("Not since the invention of the first printing press over 500 years ago did...")
As for the 'body' of the paper?
Well, Katz, like most college freshmen, relies on broad, sweeping assertions to drive home a point that hasn't been properly (or even 'clearly') specified. We know we're reading something -- the author is certainly making a lot of assertions -- but we aren't convinced why the author so adament in his or her assertions.
The persuasive power of the text is lost in what I've come to understand is the typical Katzian sentence.
For example: "...there's no doubt that the next Shakespeare will come from cyberspace."
Are we to believe this literally? Does Katz even himself believe this? Is this a quote? A paraphrase?
Or is this just rhetorical flourish? Or, worse yet, rhetorical "filler" to bridge the paragraph previous to the paragraph following?
Or, another example:
"Culture isn't being destroyed online, but re-invented. The next Shakespeare is probably clacking away on some weblog or messaging system."
Katz is fixated on the notion of the next Shakespeare. It's an interesting idea: but he's using Shakespeare -- or his *notion* of Shakespeare -- for a specific rhetorical purpose.
As I read this, he's not meaning the "next Shakespeare" literally -- he's apparently using the name "Shakespeare" to imply "a good writer." Or perhaps "a famous writer". Or, wait -- is a "good" *and* "famous" writer?
Or, better yet: "a writer who creates enduring work?"
But Katz's Shakespeare is "clacking away on some weblog or messaging system."
WTF?
First, why would anyone "clack away on a weblog?" And is clacking on a weblog really similar to clacking on a "messaging system"?
Second, why would Katz's Shakespeare -- one who creates enduring art -- clack away at a message system? Is Katz implying the cultural shift from creating theater (the first "Shakespeare") to creating applications (Katz's new Shakespeare)?
If this is the case, it's an interesting thesis: perhaps, this new "eCulture" has made some gradual shift in its notion of the imagination -- creative works now include stuff like "weblogs" and "messaging system" and if Shakespeare is to be found, he (or she) will be located not by examing plays, novels, or stories, but instead web-based applications like "weblogs" or "messaging systems."
This, as I say, is pretty damn interesting. Katz is no fool -- he just writes like one. Why not pursue this notion?
Well, because that's not what the article is about. The article is really about gaming. And, um, this (apprently) new idea: a gaming site.
WTF?
I could go on, but I won't.
Instead, I'll make a plea: Katz, please don't underestimate your audience here. Please tell me that you really don't think we're as naive as your writing makes us sound.
Tell me that it's all done for a rhetorical purpose. You think Slashdot readers aren't as savvy as they really are.
If that's the case, I can forgive you. You've made a mistaken assumption about your audience -- and, well, in the future, you'll crank your rhetoric and analysis up a notch.
You don't actually write this sort of simplistic analysis: you just write it because, well, that's the sort of quick analysis you think Slashdot readers want.
If all this is a rhetorical mistake, you're forgiven. But, if not...
"Trust" is one way of looking about it. But what I was referring to above was the thing itself -- information, in this case -- and not that which is *outside* the thing -- trust, in your example.
I'm interested -- at least in this particular dialog -- in the notion of what constitutes information. If all information equates to no information, then you're implying that no-information somehow constitutes information (a part of the whole) or that information is derived from no-information. (Much like how, for example, Freud explains that the unconscious must exist before the conscious -- and that consciousness is only that which has been found to bubble up through the unconscious. You can't have one without the other, and both are bound to each other -- but unconsciousness is privileged over consciousness.)
Trust seems to me to be a particular 'view' brought to information. I mean, is it possible to have information apart from trust? I say, yes, that trust is simply another word for the experience of the 'reader' -- and that different readers have different experiences -- and therefore different notions of trust.
And if everyone has different notions of trust -- you trust A, but I trust B -- then you're not really talking about the information itself -- you're talking about the experience of the reader -- the 'trust' that he/she carries around as baggage interacting with this thing that is (not yet) information. So what is this thing that exists before it is trusted? Is it information? Or is it simply uninformed information?
Or, another way of looking at it, if trust determines information, then what determines trust? In order to trust one must know what to trust, and to know what to trust, one must have information. (This is possible because, as I said in the previous paragraph, different people have different notions -- different experiences -- of trust.)
So what you're really defining when you proclaim that 'trust determines information' isn't information so much as trust -- which, in this case, doesn't help much to define information.
That's actually something I hadn't thought of -- the deconstructuralist turn: that information itself only exists because its binary opposition ("no-information") also exists. Without one, there is no possibility of the other. (Now the good deconstructuralist will ask which of the oppositions is "privileged" above the other -- but I digress...)
If all permutations of information exist, then it ceases to be information. So it begs the question: what makes information? Is it the thing itself? Or the thing(s) which it lacks? And if information consists primarily of the differences between itself and not-itself -- then what exactly are we referring to when we talk about information?
Kinda like the donut and donut hole, no? Without the donut, there would be no hole. But the hole itself is really the absence of the whole (pun intended) -- or is it?
Or is the hole a presence? Is what quanitifies the donut hole the donut around the hole? Or is the hole a thing in itself -- the empty space within a donut?
And what do you make of actual donut holes -- the clumps of dough served up as "donut holes." Are these the actual holes? Or are these donuts without holes? (And if they're donut without holes, why are they called donut holes?)
Not to mention the fact that if the hole is an absence -- how can it be named? Can we name something that doesn't exist? Doesn't naming require acknowledgement of existence? And if we don't name it, then does it not exist -- or does it exist because it does not exist?
Hey, if you want to read an example of this, check out Jorge Borge's story "The Library of Babel."
In the story Borges posits a library in which every possible permutation of every possible book has been written. So you find stuff like true histories of the world, true histories of the world off by only one letter, false histories of the world, true histories of the creation of the false histories, false histories of the creation of the true histories, and so on.
The trick is to locate the "true" index which points to all the "true" texts. So, of course, librarians are always looking for the true index -- but they can never be sure if they've found it.
It's an amazing story -- it blew my mind in high school, and it's one of the few stories I think about on a daily basis.
It's no coincidence that the vast majority of the rabid "open source or bust" crowd is no older than their early twenties.
It's interesting, too, how times have changed. Now, it seems that "youth" on the so-called front-lines are primarily concerned with information and the ramifications of how that information is disseminated. (And belive me, I don't denigrate this; I believe it's an important battle, and one that must be fought and decided.) 30 years ago, the front-line was Vietnam -- bombing Cambodia, nightly incursions into Laos, and the difficulties (and deceptions) of withdrawing troops from Southeast Asia.
It seems to me -- and I can't really problematize or more clearly elucidate this yet because I'm thinking as I'm typing -- but that there has been a large-scale social (and perhaps economic?) shift from the ideological and political dogma of the late 1960's to the information wars that we're witnessing now. To me, at least, this shift is *from* the usual layers of a stratified society -- the poor, the middle-class, the upper-class -- *toward* something entirely different -- something that (curiously) transcends politics and even the idea of democracy. I mean, it's true on the one hand that democracy encourages all voices to join the fray -- but if each voice is equal -- truly equal -- then how is it possible to maintain the levels of hierarchical order that democracy depends upon? The idea of majority/minority (it would seem to me) disappears when a democracy in its pure form exists. Who sets the rules? Who says the majority wins? Why not the minority? I mean, democracy presupposes the very hierarchies it attempts to subvert, right?
Information 30 years ago was controlled in a way that's simply not possible now, and as a result, the stratification (or "Democratization") of society was able to be manipulated by forces outside (and inside) the system -- the government and various social services, schools, churches, etc. Now these forces are struggling against the growing "blob" of information -- the more that 'information' (and I mean information in its pure form, encompassing everything from government documents to MP3 files to propaganda) becomes available, the more the hierarchies start to lose their persusasive force.
This is not to say we've been under the illusion of democracy for 200+ years, but it's more to wonder -- and it's early in the morning -- just where democracy starts and what -- specifically -- makes democracy possible.
The answer, I think, is information -- information is the key to maintaining order. And if the order is now somehow maintained -- via the courts, most likely -- then it's not that the democracy will cease to be, it'll just be rendered impotent.
Which is to say: I think I know how much of the so-called information war will be settled: it'll be settled so that the status quo will be maintained. It'll be settled (I would think) so that, like 30 years ago, it's possible to maintain the levels of hierarchical power which facilitate the "illusion" -- bad word, I know -- of democracy.
It's a scary thing when you try to think beyond 'democracy' as we know and attempt to posit the power relations that make it possible. Are those relations democratic? How do those relations achieve their power? I would argue that it's far from democratic. This doesn't necessarily make it right or wrong -- just that, ya know, there's more than meets the eye.
Yeah but -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- the main incentive to "open source" the code isn't so much to create an alternative operating system from the existing codebase as it is to allow developers to examine the current codebase and create better applications.
The alternative "Joe Shmoe" MS-OS would certainly be a possibility, and -- to be honest -- it would certainly provide some pretty interesting business possibilities for those wishing to throw some serious VC -- millions and millions of dollars, that is -- toward developing alternate flavors of Windows.
And no, this would be Joe Shmoe Windows -- it would be Corel Windows or RedHat Windows or whatever company has the VC to embark on the project. In this way (as I understand it) the open sourced Windows would actually assist in exploiting the very competition that Microsoft years ago sought to quash and annhilate.
Of course no one would buy Joe Shmoe Windows -- and why would they? -- but if an open-sourced Windows was backed by serious money, serious expertise, and serious customer support -- that would be an interesting concept.
Microsoft would of course have the home-court advantage, but -- and I know this well -- money buys time and talent. Serious money might not displace Microsoft's advantage for some time, but it would certainly force them to, er, innovate to keep that advantage until good (better?) talent catches up.
Actually I like hardware. Hell, the only piece of hardware that broke down on me was a lousy HP 8100i CDRW drive. I used it for 4 months and then it gave out. You musta triggered a flashback or something.
Anyway, I like hardware. Really. I'm sure I speak for most of the propeller heads here when I say that if it weren't for nifty hardware I'd actually have to save my money instead of buying gadgets. Heh, heh.
You could make everyone's day more educational by putting apostrophes in the right places.
But I got news for you, pal: hardware ain't the holy grail you think it to be. I got lots of dead hardware sitting around that died for no apparent reason.
Well, wait, actually that's not true.
It did die for an apparent reason: the quality of the hardware sucked.
So, if I were you, I'd forget about making "everyones" [sic] day more surreal and start thinking about making better hardware.
Plus, what's gonna happen when Joe {insert corporation name here} Employee uses a company-purchased PC to traffic in kiddie porn?
Imagine the local news headlines: "{insert corporation name here} Liable in Kiddie Porn Connection: News at 11"
I realize this happens every day in the workplace, but I would imagine it'll become a sticky situation when, say, the religious zealots/wacko, SUV-driving, soccer moms start suing the corporations because said zealots assume that the corporations therefore are the facilitators for whatever bad bhavior the corporations' employees are engaging in while on the internet.
It's one thing to control the PCs in a workplace, but I can't imagine the legal cans-of-worms which will attempted to be opened by the religious/right wing/anti-smut/anti-porn/anti-internet/pro-censors hip/pro-Jesus/right-wing/fundamentalist/ f lag-waving/thrice-divorced/let's-get-kinky-but-pre tend-we're-really, really religious/"Hey, Chuck, are you gonna play basketball in the church's men's league, tonight?"/"Let's send out kids off to fundamentalist Earth-For-Jesus camp so we can get out damn kids out of the house and give ourselves at least one week of peace and quiet because we work hard, worship hard, and deserve it" folks?
Yesterday evening, I'm sitting at my computer. I get an itch to download some Whiskeytown. So I go to CDNOW.com to see if they have a new album. (A great band, BTW -- sort of like a laid back Son Volt -- if that's possible -- but I digress...)
Well, they don't have a *new* album, but I see an album of theirs that I don't own. I scroll down the CDNOW page and see the ubiquitous Real Audio 'snippets.'
And, WTF? only some of the songs on the albums have snippets -- and GODDAMMIT! -- the snippets are 30 seconds long.
I don't mind the reduced sound quality, but for chrissake gimmee samples of all the songs! What, you're playing some tease -- some game?
"Hey, bud, here's a couple snippets. We can't give you all of 'em, but, um, take a snippet from track 1, track 2, and, er, let's skip down to track 6 and 7 -- here take these. See, if we gave you snippets from all the tracks, you'd probably not buy the album, right? So we gotta control the snippets you listen to. Plus, ya know, we got disk space issues to consider. Imagine the fucking chaos that would exist if we snipped snippets from all the songs!"
This alone gets me a little peeved. But -- there's more! The brilliant propellar head that snipped the snippets decided to start the snippets at apparently random intervals of each song. So instead of just -- for the love of GOD! -- starting the 30 seconds at the BEGINNING of the track (What? At the beginning? You're kidding, right?) Zippy the MSCE/Multimedia specialist decided to, oh what the heck, start the snippets 30,40 seconds into the song during a particularly long silent space so it's virutually imposible to get any coherent sense of the song.
Yes, yes, this, my friend, is what snippets are for! Hell, yes, that's what they're for!
Lets reduce to the sound quality so that you hear more hiss than music and -- lets really remind the consumer who's in charge -- let's rotate the points where each snippets begin and give them, say, 27 seconds of crappy, disjointed audio) and -- wait, there's more! -- let's just give the buyer a few tracks -- not even the good tracks! Let's tease! Yes, that'll rope 'em in! The snippet tease!
A suit in the backroom: "Snippets? I dunno. Give these internet scavengers more than a few seconds and they'll find a way to SCREW us!"
Zippy the MSCE Propellar Head: "Hey, wait boss: we thought about that. We'll just do a tease. Tease sells, you know."
"A tease! Ah! I love it! The snippet tease! Yes! Zippy, that's the way to sell albums! Let's tease the listener. It's like local news, right?"
"Right."
"Is the milk your drinking loaded with lead? Find out at 11."
"Ha!"
"Ha! I love it! Tease, tease, tease!"
Is it any freaking wonder people are sick of the RIAA? Everything is a marketing tease. (Heck, see my other posts about Roland Barthes, Death of the Author, and Lars, but I digress...)
Everyone is trying to control everything I do. Why? In the name of art? Hell no.
In the name of profit.
Profit for the art?
Hell no.
Profit IN SPITE OF the art.
Fuck art. Fuck Lars. "But, um, Lars? James?" -- high pitched whisper of a pimply-faced record company exec worrying about buying his next Porsche -- "Could you boys go and make us another one of your albums?"
"Why sure, Mr. Record Company Suit."
"See, because, um, while I don't really understand your metal, um, your art, we here at the record company sure do like the profit that your stuff -- er, your *ART* I mean -- the money that your art makes."
So "profit potential" is really at the foundation of DMCA?
I mean, that doesn't surprise me -- but it begs the question: is the recording industry concerned about the profit potential of specifically Napster? Are they concerned about their own lack of "profit potential" because of Napster? Or both?
I mean, for chrissake -- if this is really at the core of everything, then why the hell is Lars talking about "art"? "Art" has nothing to do with it -- it's all about money.
Again, this doesn't surprise me -- but I always had the misconception that the DMCA was about copying (the "C" stands for "copyright", no?) -- but it's not. It's only about copying insofar as copying leads to lost revenue -- or, lost profit potential.
I suppose that's what copyright itself is, no? Protection against losing revenue to due intellectual property theft?
It has nothing to do with the "art" itself -- the actual "text" is just a means for profit. The text itself -- a song, a book, a play -- is worthless.
It's interesting to see the commodification of art -- and to witness the smokescreen that is "art" nowadays.
I mean, what the hell: what is Metallica producing? Are they producing "art"? Are they producing "revenue?" Hell, they're just a conduit for the recording industry, right?
The recording industry is actually using Metallica (and any other artist) for their own profit motives. And the DMCA is just in place to insure that only the recording industry itself -- and no one else -- is able to exploit Metallica.
Hmmm. It almost makes you sympathetic to Metallica -- or any artist -- but not for the reasons that Lars is talking about.
Isn't this what Barthes and Foucault are talking about when they talk about the death of the author? Really. I mean, what is the "text" here? The text is only useful insofar as it exists within the structure of centralized power.
It makes you wonder: if "art" -- in it's 'pure' sense -- is able to exist this way, why aren't recording industry execs trying the "1000 monkeys in a room" approach? You get enough monkeys banging on a typewriter and the odds are good that one of is gonna hack out a gem.
So maybe that's what's going on with all the poppy boy-bands and Brittany Spears wanna-be's? Maybe we're just mute witnesses to the 1000 monkeys being played out across the culture.
"One of these monkeys, ladies and gentleman, will surely produce us some serious revenue. Just watch."
I mean, maybe that *is* what's happening: Lars thinks they're making art -- and they are, whether or not you actually like Metallica -- but it's only art until it gets presented to their record label. Once the label gets it, it becomes a conduit for profit potential.
Poor Lars! My god! Someone oughta explain to Lars and James and Mr. -- er, I mean, Dr. -- Dre what really is going on!
"Lars, dude, listen, um... okay, I'll keep it short... but, dude, the author's dead. There are no author's."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"You read Barthes?"
"Who?"
"Roland Bar-- okay, wait, forget it. Listen. What you're doing -- your 'art'..."
"We work for our 'art'. Don't fuckin' denigrate our art."
"No, I know that, but think about this, Lars."
"Are you denigrating our art?"
"No, I..."
"James, he's denigrating our art."
Hetfield, looking glum: "Listen, fans are our family. Don't denigrate our arts or our fans."
"No, I'm not talking about..."
Lars: "We love our fans. We wouldn't be where we are without fans. Right, James?"
"Lars, he's got a bad fucking attitude."
"Man," says Lars, "you got a bad fucking attitude. First you denigrate the art, then you talk smack about our fans."
James: "We love our fucking fans! We love our fucking fans!"
"Wait, no, I understand that. I know. But you should realize that your art... what you're producing -- it's, you know, being exploited. Napster's not the problem. It's not filesharing that's the core..."
"Screw Napster! Don't talk to me about Napster! I want our songs off Napster! Understand? Get them off! Get our songs off! Right, James?"
"Oh boy. Napster. Did he say Napster?"
"Yeah."
"Oh boy. Tell him to get our songs off Napster."
"I am. That's what I'm saying."
"Napster," says James. "Grrrrrr."
"Grrrrrr," says Lars.
Poor Lars! Poor James! Karl Marx, what say ya about the commodification of our finest talents?
I dunno about this. Last night I happened to fire up Napster and search for some fairly obscure artists -- local artists around Chicago, for example.
I couldn't find a single mp3.
Now, I fire up "Pearl Jam" or "Metallica" and, yeah, I get hits up to the 100 hit limit -- tons and tons of.mp3s for these folks.
As much as I appreciate Napster's attempts to unite the mp3 music community, I do think think they're somewhat disingenuous about what they're doing.
But, on the other hand, I'm all for the free flow of information -- and I certainly don't think it's right for, good god, politicians, lawyers, or lobbyists to come in, slap down money, and start passing nonsensical laws.
But, yes, artists should be paid for their work. And, yes, all this should demonstrate to the music industry that there is an incredible demand for this stuff.
I think the blame -- if blame is to be cast -- rests squarely on the shoulders of the recording industry. They need to put hire some propellar-head consultants who have good thinking caps and start thinking of alternate business models -- quick.
I don't think we should blame the artists for being "too rich" or money hungry (Metallica, for example), and I don't think the finger should be pointed at fans -- the fans (myself included) are hungry for music.
Yeah, I agree. The whole concept of "entry portal" is a weird one -- I never liked it.
Hey, does anyone remember David Siegal? 5 years ago or so he was semi-influential. I remember his take on these portal pages was that they were absolutely vital to a good website.
I also remember that Siegal (Siegel?) came off as a pompous horse's ass on his website: http://www.davidsiegal.com
I think he published a book, too -- something about influentual web design -- I dunno.
And he had some weird-ass essay back in 1994 or so -- "The Balkanization of the Web"
Whatever happened to Siegal? If you go to his site and poke around, you'll find that the guy is a certified loony-tune. He had all sorts of bizarre, pompous ideas about web design and -- oddly enough -- writing screenplays. He started promoting his '9-act screenplay structure' and then explained that if you didn't agree with the 9-act structure, you didn't understand it -- go back and read it again.
He used to have a dining journal, too -- all his appointments with famous people, what they (and he) ate, and what they talked about.
And then, suddenly, silence. He stopped updating his dumb journals, stopped pontificating, and didn't complete his 9-act screenplay structure page.
Anyway. Why mention this? Well, the idea that slashdotters -- much like Siegal in halycon days -- complaining to Jeff about "cardinal sins". I mean, what the hell? -- who set the rules about this stuff? And which pope decreed the sins of web design? David Siegal? Berners-Lee? And we're not talking minor sins -- we're talking cardinal sins -- big ones.
Man, I'd like to get the 10 commandments of web design. I hate to sin with this shit -- and cardinal sins? Whoa-boy, not me. I'm just a little Cold Fusion/PHP peon. I don't want to get involved in no cardinal sinning.
"You'll burn in hell for that 4K entry page."
Damn, I'm starting to sweat. "Father? Father? Forgive me, for I have created a portal."
"Was it a big portal?"
"Um, well, 4K, I think."
"Okay, keep it under 8,000 bytes -- " whispering -- "any more, and we'd have problems."
"Father?"
"Yes, my son?"
"Bless me, please."
"In the name of the Father."
"Shit, thanks."
"Don't mention it."
So where o where is David Siegel? Has he Forsaken Me?
Siegal? Siegal? You pompous fuck! Where art thou? Thou hast forsaken thy flock! Come back, save us from bad design!
I've been programming in CF and ASP for two years, and PHP for 1. They all have their pros and cons.
The more flexibility you have as a developer, the better off you are. I prefer CF because it's fast and easy to deploy. You can write 25 lines of ASP for every 1 line of CF.
It's astounding to see all the CF bashing here. My take on the bashing is this: 3/4 of the people here bashing CF have never used it.
If you use it regularly, you know it's fast, it's easy to deploy, and it gets the job done in a hurry. Can't say the same for ASP or PHP.
There's nothing wrong with a business model based on a service contract. Moreover, there's absolutely nothing wrong a company attempting to make a profit. Obviously, that's what NetAppliance is doing -- and this article does a great job explaing what, up until now, has been a fairly confusing picture of their business model.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion of service contracts, but I'll say this: I'm bothered by the implication that "service contracts" are somehow "less moral" than, say, an outright purchase.
It seems that open-source zealots often want to quantify the morality of profit-making. If you make profit by method X it is somehow "less moral" than if you make profit by method Y. (This is, of course, assuming that both X and Y are legal means of making profit in the first place.)
I understand (or think I understand) the attitude of the faithful when it comes to open source, open access, and a close adherence (and understanding) to the bazaar model: that's fine. I understand that. I understand that these are cornerstones in the so-called movement.
But I've yet to see a lucid explanation of how the "morality" of different types of profit models plays into the acceptance of a product into open source channels and into the (so-called) movement. I suspect it has something to do with how the profit is made versus how the product is "consumed".
But to outright cast aspersions on a "service contract" model simply because it (for good or bad) locks a person into a monthly payment is, IMHO, absurd. So long as the contract is legal and clear -- and so long as both parties accept it -- then it would seem to me a valid (i.e. moral) way of making profit.
You seem to indicate that this is not so -- please explain.
Yes, "Jaimie" -- the original poster -- tends to overuse the word "meme" -- and use it incorrectly to boot.
As another poster pointed out, the word does not mean just a "group of words" -- as Jaimie seems to think it does -- nor does it mean simply "idea" -- as, again, Jaimie seems to think it does.
Jaimie's intentions are honorable but he/she is sorely miseducated about the meaning of the word "meme" and, as a result, sounds like a bizarre (albeit significantly less annoying) version of JonKatz.
Actually, there are thousands of JonKatz generators across America. (And there's no coding involved!)
What's it called?
Freshman Composition.
How does it work?
Step 1: Teacher stands in front of the class, writes a word on the blackboard: Censorship, Abortion, Religion, Freedom, Liberty, Fascism, etc. (You get the point).
Step 2: Teacher says, "Okay, you got 30 minutes. Go!"
Step 3: Freshmen write. They write for 30 minutes. Some stare into space, some giggle and fidget, some eye the teacher and think: "You bastard, you'll get yours." But at the end of 30 minutes, everyone has three, four, sometimes five hand-written pages on wide-lined notebook paper.
Step 4: Turn papers into teacher.
Step 5: Freshmen exit. Teacher stands for a moment in the silent classroom. "Ah," thinks Teacher. "This is the sound of silence."
Step 6: Teacher goes home. Teacher plops down in front of television set. Teacher takes out the manila folder with the student essays. Every essay is the same form: a five-paragraph essays (sometimes 7 paragraphs, sometimes 12 paragraphs, but it goes like: Paragraph 1 - introduction; Paragraph 2 - Talk in general terms about an idea; Paragraph 3 - Talk in general terms about the opposite idea; Paragraph 4 - Talk in general terms about the idea again; this time relating life experience; Paragraph 5 - conclude with the notion that the idea is both good and bad, it really depends but -- wink, wink -- I think it's a good idea because the world with this idea is a better place than the world without the idea.)
Katz usually puts the spin on paragraph 5 by concluding that the idea, in fact, is a bad one -- and the world without the idea is better than the world with the idea. Although for his expert film reviews, he'll generally agree that the world is better off because the film has been made and is especially better off because the film demonstrates (at whatever obscure level) that freedom is good and corporations are bad.
Step 7: Teacher falls asleep in front of the television set. Wakes up next morning, hands back the papers.
This happens thousands of times each day at thousands of college campuses around the country (and the world, in fact.)
And every freshman essay sounds like a "media analysis" by JonKatz.
That's actually a pretty naive question. Katz wrote a bizarre column about this not too long ago, and he came off like some old fart who doesn't know dick about technology -- or dick about his role in today's "new media" (Obscene, but true.)
What both you (and Katz) fail to realize is this: who is to say that the absence of civility is *not* normal?
The only reason why everyone is so uptight about the net -- and it's apparent "radical" tendencies -- is because it's the great democratizer. It gives a voice to the voiceless. But generally -- and Katz is right about this -- the voiceless are a pretty angry bunch.
But what you're both missing is what I take to be the real status-quo -- anger -- that has for years, decades, and centuries, been obscured by the various cultural forces (religion, corporations, etc.) that attempt to ignore, stifle, and generally quash the anger.
Civilization is not a liberating force: it chains everybody down, and in the process of doing that -- repressing us -- civilization pisses off a lot of people. It attempts to quash their biological, natural, and normal instincts.
I'm being crass and a little flip, but I believe this: I believe that id is really a melting pot of desires and anger and frustration that we're forced (at every turn) to hide. Freud is right: it leads to pretty neurotic, unpredictable tendencies when the id can't do what it feels compelled to do. (Now, I fully understand that these desires may or may not be "moral" or "legal" or whatever else, but that's not what I'm arguing here.)
What I'm saying is that the internet is a direct line into our unoppressed psyches because of its inability to be genuinely censored. People are pissed off at Katz with good reason -- he's not some jolly gas-bag that everyone at Slashdot, gosh gee willikers, loves to hate: he's someone who expresses opinions that genuinely anger Slashdotters -- and he takes advantage of his position of power in the Slashdot community to post those unpopular opinions.
I happen to agree with the Slashdotters that get pissed off at Katz: he's able to circumvent the Slashdot editorial process to post his largely "freedom good, corporation bad" rants in order to make money (and PR) for himself.
What he doesn't realize is that he's in a position of power above the "democratized masses" -- the normal slashdot readers and posters. He can't expect people to think: gee, he's just a nice guy, and, gee golly, I just love his opinions. He's like any of the other corporate fascists that he writes about: he's simply using the system for personal gain at the expense of its silent majority.
Sure, we're not silent -- we can talk amongst ourselves -- but we can't *successfully submit* a story whenever we decide we want to.
But this rant is about more than just story submissions: it's about the fact that Katz doesn't realize that he's the problem he advocates against. He's part of the power machine, the corporate fascists.
People aren't dumb -- especially Slashdotters. Slashdotters are smart enough to recognize the power matrix here -- the way the power flows from within Slashdot and Andover.net -- and despite (as someone pointed out in another story) Andover's economic "valuation" (Hey, Andover is worth a lot, so it must be good, right?) it's just simply one more example of the corporate machine using its power to keep the democratized masses silent until they're given permission to speak.
In our case, permission to speak allows us to post responses to those in power -- but we can't fully participate in the process by becoming those who post -- and therefore the ones in power.
Care to respond, Katz?
In fact, I doubt this question will even be passed on to Katz. (Gee, I didn't even find a question in there, dude.)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm always amazed at the naivete the so-called media critic, JonKatz.
...") or asserts the prominence of an general idea in the broadest, most non-specific way ("Not since the invention of the first printing press over 500 years ago did ...")
...
Gotta give the guy credit: he's as earnest as college freshman writing his or her first term-paper.
In fact, Katz's articles usually read like freshman, 5-paragraph paper material.
For example, the typical freshman paper always contains that first paragraph which either quotes the dictionary ("Webster's dictionary defines the word 'geek' as
As for the 'body' of the paper?
Well, Katz, like most college freshmen, relies on broad, sweeping assertions to drive home a point that hasn't been properly (or even 'clearly') specified. We know we're reading something -- the author is certainly making a lot of assertions -- but we aren't convinced why the author so adament in his or her assertions.
The persuasive power of the text is lost in what I've come to understand is the typical Katzian sentence.
For example: "...there's no doubt that the next Shakespeare will come from cyberspace."
Are we to believe this literally? Does Katz even himself believe this? Is this a quote? A paraphrase?
Or is this just rhetorical flourish? Or, worse yet, rhetorical "filler" to bridge the paragraph previous to the paragraph following?
Or, another example:
"Culture isn't being destroyed online, but re-invented. The next Shakespeare is probably clacking away on some weblog or messaging system."
Katz is fixated on the notion of the next Shakespeare. It's an interesting idea: but he's using Shakespeare -- or his *notion* of Shakespeare -- for a specific rhetorical purpose.
As I read this, he's not meaning the "next Shakespeare" literally -- he's apparently using the name "Shakespeare" to imply "a good writer." Or perhaps "a famous writer". Or, wait -- is a "good" *and* "famous" writer?
Or, better yet: "a writer who creates enduring work?"
But Katz's Shakespeare is "clacking away on some weblog or messaging system."
WTF?
First, why would anyone "clack away on a weblog?" And is clacking on a weblog really similar to clacking on a "messaging system"?
Second, why would Katz's Shakespeare -- one who creates enduring art -- clack away at a message system? Is Katz implying the cultural shift from creating theater (the first "Shakespeare") to creating applications (Katz's new Shakespeare)?
If this is the case, it's an interesting thesis: perhaps, this new "eCulture" has made some gradual shift in its notion of the imagination -- creative works now include stuff like "weblogs" and "messaging system" and if Shakespeare is to be found, he (or she) will be located not by examing plays, novels, or stories, but instead web-based applications like "weblogs" or "messaging systems."
This, as I say, is pretty damn interesting. Katz is no fool -- he just writes like one. Why not pursue this notion?
Well, because that's not what the article is about. The article is really about gaming. And, um, this (apprently) new idea: a gaming site.
WTF?
I could go on, but I won't.
Instead, I'll make a plea: Katz, please don't underestimate your audience here. Please tell me that you really don't think we're as naive as your writing makes us sound.
Tell me that it's all done for a rhetorical purpose. You think Slashdot readers aren't as savvy as they really are.
If that's the case, I can forgive you. You've made a mistaken assumption about your audience -- and, well, in the future, you'll crank your rhetoric and analysis up a notch.
You don't actually write this sort of simplistic analysis: you just write it because, well, that's the sort of quick analysis you think Slashdot readers want.
If all this is a rhetorical mistake, you're forgiven. But, if not
"Trust" is one way of looking about it. But what I was referring to above was the thing itself -- information, in this case -- and not that which is *outside* the thing -- trust, in your example.
I'm interested -- at least in this particular dialog -- in the notion of what constitutes information. If all information equates to no information, then you're implying that no-information somehow constitutes information (a part of the whole) or that information is derived from no-information. (Much like how, for example, Freud explains that the unconscious must exist before the conscious -- and that consciousness is only that which has been found to bubble up through the unconscious. You can't have one without the other, and both are bound to each other -- but unconsciousness is privileged over consciousness.)
Trust seems to me to be a particular 'view' brought to information. I mean, is it possible to have information apart from trust? I say, yes, that trust is simply another word for the experience of the 'reader' -- and that different readers have different experiences -- and therefore different notions of trust.
And if everyone has different notions of trust -- you trust A, but I trust B -- then you're not really talking about the information itself -- you're talking about the experience of the reader -- the 'trust' that he/she carries around as baggage interacting with this thing that is (not yet) information. So what is this thing that exists before it is trusted? Is it information? Or is it simply uninformed information?
Or, another way of looking at it, if trust determines information, then what determines trust? In order to trust one must know what to trust, and to know what to trust, one must have information. (This is possible because, as I said in the previous paragraph, different people have different notions -- different experiences -- of trust.)
So what you're really defining when you proclaim that 'trust determines information' isn't information so much as trust -- which, in this case, doesn't help much to define information.
Yowee.
That's actually something I hadn't thought of -- the deconstructuralist turn: that information itself only exists because its binary opposition ("no-information") also exists. Without one, there is no possibility of the other. (Now the good deconstructuralist will ask which of the oppositions is "privileged" above the other -- but I digress...)
If all permutations of information exist, then it ceases to be information. So it begs the question: what makes information? Is it the thing itself? Or the thing(s) which it lacks? And if information consists primarily of the differences between itself and not-itself -- then what exactly are we referring to when we talk about information?
Kinda like the donut and donut hole, no? Without the donut, there would be no hole. But the hole itself is really the absence of the whole (pun intended) -- or is it?
Or is the hole a presence? Is what quanitifies the donut hole the donut around the hole? Or is the hole a thing in itself -- the empty space within a donut?
And what do you make of actual donut holes -- the clumps of dough served up as "donut holes." Are these the actual holes? Or are these donuts without holes? (And if they're donut without holes, why are they called donut holes?)
Not to mention the fact that if the hole is an absence -- how can it be named? Can we name something that doesn't exist? Doesn't naming require acknowledgement of existence? And if we don't name it, then does it not exist -- or does it exist because it does not exist?
Damn.
Ha ha!
Hey, if you want to read an example of this, check out Jorge Borge's story "The Library of Babel."
In the story Borges posits a library in which every possible permutation of every possible book has been written. So you find stuff like true histories of the world, true histories of the world off by only one letter, false histories of the world, true histories of the creation of the false histories, false histories of the creation of the true histories, and so on.
The trick is to locate the "true" index which points to all the "true" texts. So, of course, librarians are always looking for the true index -- but they can never be sure if they've found it.
It's an amazing story -- it blew my mind in high school, and it's one of the few stories I think about on a daily basis.
It's interesting, too, how times have changed. Now, it seems that "youth" on the so-called front-lines are primarily concerned with information and the ramifications of how that information is disseminated. (And belive me, I don't denigrate this; I believe it's an important battle, and one that must be fought and decided.)
30 years ago, the front-line was Vietnam -- bombing Cambodia, nightly incursions into Laos, and the difficulties (and deceptions) of withdrawing troops from Southeast Asia.
It seems to me -- and I can't really problematize or more clearly elucidate this yet because I'm thinking as I'm typing -- but that there has been a large-scale social (and perhaps economic?) shift from the ideological and political dogma of the late 1960's to the information wars that we're witnessing now. To me, at least, this shift is *from* the usual layers of a stratified society -- the poor, the middle-class, the upper-class -- *toward* something entirely different -- something that (curiously) transcends politics and even the idea of democracy. I mean, it's true on the one hand that democracy encourages all voices to join the fray -- but if each voice is equal -- truly equal -- then how is it possible to maintain the levels of hierarchical order that democracy depends upon? The idea of majority/minority (it would seem to me) disappears when a democracy in its pure form exists. Who sets the rules? Who says the majority wins? Why not the minority? I mean, democracy presupposes the very hierarchies it attempts to subvert, right?
Information 30 years ago was controlled in a way that's simply not possible now, and as a result, the stratification (or "Democratization") of society was able to be manipulated by forces outside (and inside) the system -- the government and various social services, schools, churches, etc. Now these forces are struggling against the growing "blob" of information -- the more that 'information' (and I mean information in its pure form, encompassing everything from government documents to MP3 files to propaganda) becomes available, the more the hierarchies start to lose their persusasive force.
This is not to say we've been under the illusion of democracy for 200+ years, but it's more to wonder -- and it's early in the morning -- just where democracy starts and what -- specifically -- makes democracy possible.
The answer, I think, is information -- information is the key to maintaining order. And if the order is now somehow maintained -- via the courts, most likely -- then it's not that the democracy will cease to be, it'll just be rendered impotent.
Which is to say: I think I know how much of the so-called information war will be settled: it'll be settled so that the status quo will be maintained. It'll be settled (I would think) so that, like 30 years ago, it's possible to maintain the levels of hierarchical power which facilitate the "illusion" -- bad word, I know -- of democracy.
It's a scary thing when you try to think beyond 'democracy' as we know and attempt to posit the power relations that make it possible. Are those relations democratic? How do those relations achieve their power? I would argue that it's far from democratic. This doesn't necessarily make it right or wrong -- just that, ya know, there's more than meets the eye.
Katz, you care to comment on this?
Yeah but -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- the main incentive to "open source" the code isn't so much to create an alternative operating system from the existing codebase as it is to allow developers to examine the current codebase and create better applications.
The alternative "Joe Shmoe" MS-OS would certainly be a possibility, and -- to be honest -- it would certainly provide some pretty interesting business possibilities for those wishing to throw some serious VC -- millions and millions of dollars, that is -- toward developing alternate flavors of Windows.
And no, this would be Joe Shmoe Windows -- it would be Corel Windows or RedHat Windows or whatever company has the VC to embark on the project. In this way (as I understand it) the open sourced Windows would actually assist in exploiting the very competition that Microsoft years ago sought to quash and annhilate.
Of course no one would buy Joe Shmoe Windows -- and why would they? -- but if an open-sourced Windows was backed by serious money, serious expertise, and serious customer support -- that would be an interesting concept.
Microsoft would of course have the home-court advantage, but -- and I know this well -- money buys time and talent. Serious money might not displace Microsoft's advantage for some time, but it would certainly force them to, er, innovate to keep that advantage until good (better?) talent catches up.
Awwww, now I feel bad.
Actually I like hardware. Hell, the only piece of hardware that broke down on me was a lousy HP 8100i CDRW drive. I used it for 4 months and then it gave out. You musta triggered a flashback or something.
Anyway, I like hardware. Really. I'm sure I speak for most of the propeller heads here when I say that if it weren't for nifty hardware I'd actually have to save my money instead of buying gadgets. Heh, heh.
Hey hardware man,
You could make everyone's day more educational by putting apostrophes in the right places.
But I got news for you, pal: hardware ain't the holy grail you think it to be. I got lots of dead hardware sitting around that died for no apparent reason.
Well, wait, actually that's not true.
It did die for an apparent reason: the quality of the hardware sucked.
So, if I were you, I'd forget about making "everyones" [sic] day more surreal and start thinking about making better hardware.
Plus, what's gonna happen when Joe {insert corporation name here} Employee uses a company-purchased PC to traffic in kiddie porn?
s hip/pro-Jesus/right-wing/fundamentalist/ f lag-waving/thrice-divorced/let's-get-kinky-but-pre tend-we're-really, really religious/"Hey, Chuck, are you gonna play basketball in the church's men's league, tonight?"/"Let's send out kids off to fundamentalist Earth-For-Jesus camp so we can get out damn kids out of the house and give ourselves at least one week of peace and quiet because we work hard, worship hard, and deserve it" folks?
Imagine the local news headlines: "{insert corporation name here} Liable in Kiddie Porn Connection: News at 11"
I realize this happens every day in the workplace, but I would imagine it'll become a sticky situation when, say, the religious zealots/wacko, SUV-driving, soccer moms start suing the corporations because said zealots assume that the corporations therefore are the facilitators for whatever bad bhavior the corporations' employees are engaging in while on the internet.
It's one thing to control the PCs in a workplace, but I can't imagine the legal cans-of-worms which will attempted to be opened by the religious/right wing/anti-smut/anti-porn/anti-internet/pro-censor
Phish?
Hell, forget about Phish, friend: think Dylan.
Have you sat down and realized the sheer bulk of Bob Dylan concert recordings?
People were booting Uncle Bobby like mad when Phish was but a guppy.
But goddammit, snippets suck.
Yesterday evening, I'm sitting at my computer. I get an itch to download some Whiskeytown. So I go to CDNOW.com to see if they have a new album. (A great band, BTW -- sort of like a laid back Son Volt -- if that's possible -- but I digress...)
Well, they don't have a *new* album, but I see an album of theirs that I don't own. I scroll down the CDNOW page and see the ubiquitous Real Audio 'snippets.'
And, WTF? only some of the songs on the albums have snippets -- and GODDAMMIT! -- the snippets are 30 seconds long.
I don't mind the reduced sound quality, but for chrissake gimmee samples of all the songs! What, you're playing some tease -- some game?
"Hey, bud, here's a couple snippets. We can't give you all of 'em, but, um, take a snippet from track 1, track 2, and, er, let's skip down to track 6 and 7 -- here take these. See, if we gave you snippets from all the tracks, you'd probably not buy the album, right? So we gotta control the snippets you listen to. Plus, ya know, we got disk space issues to consider. Imagine the fucking chaos that would exist if we snipped snippets from all the songs!"
This alone gets me a little peeved. But -- there's more! The brilliant propellar head that snipped the snippets decided to start the snippets at apparently random intervals of each song. So instead of just -- for the love of GOD! -- starting the 30 seconds at the BEGINNING of the track (What? At the beginning? You're kidding, right?) Zippy the MSCE/Multimedia specialist decided to, oh what the heck, start the snippets 30,40 seconds into the song during a particularly long silent space so it's virutually imposible to get any coherent sense of the song.
Yes, yes, this, my friend, is what snippets are for! Hell, yes, that's what they're for!
Lets reduce to the sound quality so that you hear more hiss than music and -- lets really remind the consumer who's in charge -- let's rotate the points where each snippets begin and give them, say, 27 seconds of crappy, disjointed audio) and -- wait, there's more! -- let's just give the buyer a few tracks -- not even the good tracks! Let's tease! Yes, that'll rope 'em in! The snippet tease!
A suit in the backroom: "Snippets? I dunno. Give these internet scavengers more than a few seconds and they'll find a way to SCREW us!"
Zippy the MSCE Propellar Head: "Hey, wait boss: we thought about that. We'll just do a tease. Tease sells, you know."
"A tease! Ah! I love it! The snippet tease! Yes! Zippy, that's the way to sell albums! Let's tease the listener. It's like local news, right?"
"Right."
"Is the milk your drinking loaded with lead? Find out at 11."
"Ha!"
"Ha! I love it! Tease, tease, tease!"
Is it any freaking wonder people are sick of the RIAA? Everything is a marketing tease. (Heck, see my other posts about Roland Barthes, Death of the Author, and Lars, but I digress...)
Everyone is trying to control everything I do. Why? In the name of art? Hell no.
In the name of profit.
Profit for the art?
Hell no.
Profit IN SPITE OF the art.
Fuck art. Fuck Lars. "But, um, Lars? James?" -- high pitched whisper of a pimply-faced record company exec worrying about buying his next Porsche -- "Could you boys go and make us another one of your albums?"
"Why sure, Mr. Record Company Suit."
"See, because, um, while I don't really understand your metal, um, your art, we here at the record company sure do like the profit that your stuff -- er, your *ART* I mean -- the money that your art makes."
"Why sure, we do to! Right James?"
"Right Lars."
So "profit potential" is really at the foundation of DMCA?
... okay, I'll keep it short ... but, dude, the author's dead. There are no author's."
..."
..."
... what you're producing -- it's, you know, being exploited. Napster's not the problem. It's not filesharing that's the core..."
I mean, that doesn't surprise me -- but it begs the question: is the recording industry concerned about the profit potential of specifically Napster? Are they concerned about their own lack of "profit potential" because of Napster? Or both?
I mean, for chrissake -- if this is really at the core of everything, then why the hell is Lars talking about "art"? "Art" has nothing to do with it -- it's all about money.
Again, this doesn't surprise me -- but I always had the misconception that the DMCA was about copying (the "C" stands for "copyright", no?) -- but it's not. It's only about copying insofar as copying leads to lost revenue -- or, lost profit potential.
I suppose that's what copyright itself is, no? Protection against losing revenue to due intellectual property theft?
It has nothing to do with the "art" itself -- the actual "text" is just a means for profit. The text itself -- a song, a book, a play -- is worthless.
It's interesting to see the commodification of art -- and to witness the smokescreen that is "art" nowadays.
I mean, what the hell: what is Metallica producing? Are they producing "art"? Are they producing "revenue?" Hell, they're just a conduit for the recording industry, right?
The recording industry is actually using Metallica (and any other artist) for their own profit motives. And the DMCA is just in place to insure that only the recording industry itself -- and no one else -- is able to exploit Metallica.
Hmmm. It almost makes you sympathetic to Metallica -- or any artist -- but not for the reasons that Lars is talking about.
Isn't this what Barthes and Foucault are talking about when they talk about the death of the author? Really. I mean, what is the "text" here? The text is only useful insofar as it exists within the structure of centralized power.
It makes you wonder: if "art" -- in it's 'pure' sense -- is able to exist this way, why aren't recording industry execs trying the "1000 monkeys in a room" approach? You get enough monkeys banging on a typewriter and the odds are good that one of is gonna hack out a gem.
So maybe that's what's going on with all the poppy boy-bands and Brittany Spears wanna-be's? Maybe we're just mute witnesses to the 1000 monkeys being played out across the culture.
"One of these monkeys, ladies and gentleman, will surely produce us some serious revenue. Just watch."
I mean, maybe that *is* what's happening: Lars thinks they're making art -- and they are, whether or not you actually like Metallica -- but it's only art until it gets presented to their record label. Once the label gets it, it becomes a conduit for profit potential.
Poor Lars! My god! Someone oughta explain to Lars and James and Mr. -- er, I mean, Dr. -- Dre what really is going on!
"Lars, dude, listen, um
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"You read Barthes?"
"Who?"
"Roland Bar-- okay, wait, forget it. Listen. What you're doing -- your 'art'
"We work for our 'art'. Don't fuckin' denigrate our art."
"No, I know that, but think about this, Lars."
"Are you denigrating our art?"
"No, I
"James, he's denigrating our art."
Hetfield, looking glum: "Listen, fans are our family. Don't denigrate our arts or our fans."
"No, I'm not talking about..."
Lars: "We love our fans. We wouldn't be where we are without fans. Right, James?"
"Lars, he's got a bad fucking attitude."
"Man," says Lars, "you got a bad fucking attitude. First you denigrate the art, then you talk smack about our fans."
James: "We love our fucking fans! We love our fucking fans!"
"Wait, no, I understand that. I know. But you should realize that your art
"Screw Napster! Don't talk to me about Napster! I want our songs off Napster! Understand? Get them off! Get our songs off! Right, James?"
"Oh boy. Napster. Did he say Napster?"
"Yeah."
"Oh boy. Tell him to get our songs off Napster."
"I am. That's what I'm saying."
"Napster," says James. "Grrrrrr."
"Grrrrrr," says Lars.
Poor Lars! Poor James! Karl Marx, what say ya about the commodification of our finest talents?
I dunno about this. Last night I happened to fire up Napster and search for some fairly obscure artists -- local artists around Chicago, for example.
.mp3s for these folks.
I couldn't find a single mp3.
Now, I fire up "Pearl Jam" or "Metallica" and, yeah, I get hits up to the 100 hit limit -- tons and tons of
As much as I appreciate Napster's attempts to unite the mp3 music community, I do think think they're somewhat disingenuous about what they're doing.
But, on the other hand, I'm all for the free flow of information -- and I certainly don't think it's right for, good god, politicians, lawyers, or lobbyists to come in, slap down money, and start passing nonsensical laws.
But, yes, artists should be paid for their work. And, yes, all this should demonstrate to the music industry that there is an incredible demand for this stuff.
I think the blame -- if blame is to be cast -- rests squarely on the shoulders of the recording industry. They need to put hire some propellar-head consultants who have good thinking caps and start thinking of alternate business models -- quick.
I don't think we should blame the artists for being "too rich" or money hungry (Metallica, for example), and I don't think the finger should be pointed at fans -- the fans (myself included) are hungry for music.
Yeah, I agree. The whole concept of "entry portal" is a weird one -- I never liked it.
Hey, does anyone remember David Siegal? 5 years ago or so he was semi-influential. I remember his take on these portal pages was that they were absolutely vital to a good website.
I also remember that Siegal (Siegel?) came off as a pompous horse's ass on his website: http://www.davidsiegal.com
I think he published a book, too -- something about influentual web design -- I dunno.
And he had some weird-ass essay back in 1994 or so -- "The Balkanization of the Web"
Whatever happened to Siegal? If you go to his site and poke around, you'll find that the guy is a certified loony-tune. He had all sorts of bizarre, pompous ideas about web design and -- oddly enough -- writing screenplays. He started promoting his '9-act screenplay structure' and then explained that if you didn't agree with the 9-act structure, you didn't understand it -- go back and read it again.
He used to have a dining journal, too -- all his appointments with famous people, what they (and he) ate, and what they talked about.
And then, suddenly, silence. He stopped updating his dumb journals, stopped pontificating, and didn't complete his 9-act screenplay structure page.
Anyway. Why mention this? Well, the idea that slashdotters -- much like Siegal in halycon days -- complaining to Jeff about "cardinal sins". I mean, what the hell? -- who set the rules about this stuff? And which pope decreed the sins of web design? David Siegal? Berners-Lee? And we're not talking minor sins -- we're talking cardinal sins -- big ones.
Man, I'd like to get the 10 commandments of web design. I hate to sin with this shit -- and cardinal sins? Whoa-boy, not me. I'm just a little Cold Fusion/PHP peon. I don't want to get involved in no cardinal sinning.
"You'll burn in hell for that 4K entry page."
Damn, I'm starting to sweat. "Father? Father? Forgive me, for I have created a portal."
"Was it a big portal?"
"Um, well, 4K, I think."
"Okay, keep it under 8,000 bytes -- " whispering -- "any more, and we'd have problems."
"Father?"
"Yes, my son?"
"Bless me, please."
"In the name of the Father."
"Shit, thanks."
"Don't mention it."
So where o where is David Siegel? Has he Forsaken Me?
Siegal? Siegal? You pompous fuck! Where art thou? Thou hast forsaken thy flock! Come back, save us from bad design!
No, it's not.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
It's not "worst" than ASP.
I cannot believe all the comments by people who have never used CF.
It's native now.
CF 5.0 is being rewritten in java and will run native on all major platforms.
You're using an old version, dude.
Dude, you have no idea what you're talking about.
I've been programming in CF and ASP for two years, and PHP for 1. They all have their pros and cons.
The more flexibility you have as a developer, the better off you are. I prefer CF because it's fast and easy to deploy. You can write 25 lines of ASP for every 1 line of CF.
It's astounding to see all the CF bashing here. My take on the bashing is this: 3/4 of the people here bashing CF have never used it.
If you use it regularly, you know it's fast, it's easy to deploy, and it gets the job done in a hurry. Can't say the same for ASP or PHP.
Come on, don't be dense.
There's nothing wrong with a business model based on a service contract. Moreover, there's absolutely nothing wrong a company attempting to make a profit. Obviously, that's what NetAppliance is doing -- and this article does a great job explaing what, up until now, has been a fairly confusing picture of their business model.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion of service contracts, but I'll say this: I'm bothered by the implication that "service contracts" are somehow "less moral" than, say, an outright purchase.
It seems that open-source zealots often want to quantify the morality of profit-making. If you make profit by method X it is somehow "less moral" than if you make profit by method Y. (This is, of course, assuming that both X and Y are legal means of making profit in the first place.)
I understand (or think I understand) the attitude of the faithful when it comes to open source, open access, and a close adherence (and understanding) to the bazaar model: that's fine. I understand that. I understand that these are cornerstones in the so-called movement.
But I've yet to see a lucid explanation of how the "morality" of different types of profit models plays into the acceptance of a product into open source channels and into the (so-called) movement. I suspect it has something to do with how the profit is made versus how the product is "consumed".
But to outright cast aspersions on a "service contract" model simply because it (for good or bad) locks a person into a monthly payment is, IMHO, absurd. So long as the contract is legal and clear -- and so long as both parties accept it -- then it would seem to me a valid (i.e. moral) way of making profit.
You seem to indicate that this is not so -- please explain.
chris
Is the chat log available on-line anywhere?
LOL!
These two comments -- the neighbor comment, and the beat the hell of him comment -- are two of the funniest comments I've read in a long, long time.
Slashdot and serendipity. Very weird, very funny.
Um, I think CmdrTaco is confusing two products.
Connectix has Virtual PC and Virtual GameStation.
This press release is about Virtual PC (and makes mention of VPC for Linux). It allows you to run Windows on Linux.
This is entirely different than VGS.
Now, they may well be shipping VGS with VPC, but this press release says nothing about tha
Yes, "Jaimie" -- the original poster -- tends to overuse the word "meme" -- and use it incorrectly to boot.
As another poster pointed out, the word does not mean just a "group of words" -- as Jaimie seems to think it does -- nor does it mean simply "idea" -- as, again, Jaimie seems to think it does.
Jaimie's intentions are honorable but he/she is sorely miseducated about the meaning of the word "meme" and, as a result, sounds like a bizarre (albeit significantly less annoying) version of JonKatz.
*sigh*
Actually, there are thousands of JonKatz generators across America. (And there's no coding involved!)
What's it called?
Freshman Composition.
How does it work?
Step 1: Teacher stands in front of the class, writes a word on the blackboard: Censorship, Abortion, Religion, Freedom, Liberty, Fascism, etc. (You get the point).
Step 2: Teacher says, "Okay, you got 30 minutes. Go!"
Step 3: Freshmen write. They write for 30 minutes. Some stare into space, some giggle and fidget, some eye the teacher and think: "You bastard, you'll get yours." But at the end of 30 minutes, everyone has three, four, sometimes five hand-written pages on wide-lined notebook paper.
Step 4: Turn papers into teacher.
Step 5: Freshmen exit. Teacher stands for a moment in the silent classroom. "Ah," thinks Teacher. "This is the sound of silence."
Step 6: Teacher goes home. Teacher plops down in front of television set. Teacher takes out the manila folder with the student essays. Every essay is the same form: a five-paragraph essays (sometimes 7 paragraphs, sometimes 12 paragraphs, but it goes like: Paragraph 1 - introduction; Paragraph 2 - Talk in general terms about an idea; Paragraph 3 - Talk in general terms about the opposite idea; Paragraph 4 - Talk in general terms about the idea again; this time relating life experience; Paragraph 5 - conclude with the notion that the idea is both good and bad, it really depends but -- wink, wink -- I think it's a good idea because the world with this idea is a better place than the world without the idea.)
Katz usually puts the spin on paragraph 5 by concluding that the idea, in fact, is a bad one -- and the world without the idea is better than the world with the idea. Although for his expert film reviews, he'll generally agree that the world is better off because the film has been made and is especially better off because the film demonstrates (at whatever obscure level) that freedom is good and corporations are bad.
Step 7: Teacher falls asleep in front of the television set. Wakes up next morning, hands back the papers.
This happens thousands of times each day at thousands of college campuses around the country (and the world, in fact.)
And every freshman essay sounds like a "media analysis" by JonKatz.
That's actually a pretty naive question. Katz wrote a bizarre column about this not too long ago, and he came off like some old fart who doesn't know dick about technology -- or dick about his role in today's "new media" (Obscene, but true.)
What both you (and Katz) fail to realize is this: who is to say that the absence of civility is *not* normal?
The only reason why everyone is so uptight about the net -- and it's apparent "radical" tendencies -- is because it's the great democratizer. It gives a voice to the voiceless. But generally -- and Katz is right about this -- the voiceless are a pretty angry bunch.
But what you're both missing is what I take to be the real status-quo -- anger -- that has for years, decades, and centuries, been obscured by the various cultural forces (religion, corporations, etc.) that attempt to ignore, stifle, and generally quash the anger.
Civilization is not a liberating force: it chains everybody down, and in the process of doing that -- repressing us -- civilization pisses off a lot of people. It attempts to quash their biological, natural, and normal instincts.
I'm being crass and a little flip, but I believe this: I believe that id is really a melting pot of desires and anger and frustration that we're forced (at every turn) to hide. Freud is right: it leads to pretty neurotic, unpredictable tendencies when the id can't do what it feels compelled to do. (Now, I fully understand that these desires may or may not be "moral" or "legal" or whatever else, but that's not what I'm arguing here.)
What I'm saying is that the internet is a direct line into our unoppressed psyches because of its inability to be genuinely censored. People are pissed off at Katz with good reason -- he's not some jolly gas-bag that everyone at Slashdot, gosh gee willikers, loves to hate: he's someone who expresses opinions that genuinely anger Slashdotters -- and he takes advantage of his position of power in the Slashdot community to post those unpopular opinions.
I happen to agree with the Slashdotters that get pissed off at Katz: he's able to circumvent the Slashdot editorial process to post his largely "freedom good, corporation bad" rants in order to make money (and PR) for himself.
What he doesn't realize is that he's in a position of power above the "democratized masses" -- the normal slashdot readers and posters. He can't expect people to think: gee, he's just a nice guy, and, gee golly, I just love his opinions. He's like any of the other corporate fascists that he writes about: he's simply using the system for personal gain at the expense of its silent majority.
Sure, we're not silent -- we can talk amongst ourselves -- but we can't *successfully submit* a story whenever we decide we want to.
But this rant is about more than just story submissions: it's about the fact that Katz doesn't realize that he's the problem he advocates against. He's part of the power machine, the corporate fascists.
People aren't dumb -- especially Slashdotters. Slashdotters are smart enough to recognize the power matrix here -- the way the power flows from within Slashdot and Andover.net -- and despite (as someone pointed out in another story) Andover's economic "valuation" (Hey, Andover is worth a lot, so it must be good, right?) it's just simply one more example of the corporate machine using its power to keep the democratized masses silent until they're given permission to speak.
In our case, permission to speak allows us to post responses to those in power -- but we can't fully participate in the process by becoming those who post -- and therefore the ones in power.
Care to respond, Katz?
In fact, I doubt this question will even be passed on to Katz. (Gee, I didn't even find a question in there, dude.)
Maybe Katz can figure it out and respond?
I know this a little off-topic, but I'm curious. Last night I was fiddling with MyMP3.COm and registered a bunch of CDs in my collection.
In theory, it's a great idea. It's fantastic, actually.
But how does MP3.com get all this media loaded up on their end? Did they go out, purchase 100,000 CDs and then rip each one?
Do they have some massive database filled with music?
I'm just wondering if anyone knows exactly MP3.com is doing (hardware, storage) to store and serve out all these data strams.