Year: 2004

McGee’s Musings new linking policy – what he said

Now here is a linking policy I can get behind. It is, forwith, the linking policy at McGee’s Musings.

Boing Boing has a linking policy. Cory Doctorow: After years of making fun of “linking policies” that set out the terms under which a website can be linked to, Boing Boing has decided to create a linking policy of our own. Here it is — now, abide by it!

Boing Boing doesn’t believe in linking policies. They’re dangerous, have no basis in law, and they break the norms that make the Web possible. They’re a wicked, stupid idea.

That said, if you believe in linking policies — that is, if you believe that people who make websites should be able to control who links to those sites and how — then have we got a policy for you:

No site with a linking policy (other than a policy such as this one, created to deride and undermine the idea of linking policies) may link to Boing Boing. Ever. [Boing Boing]

John Perry Barlow on John Kerry

Once again, John Perry Barlow cuts to the heart of the matter. Here’s the core of it, although the whole thing is worth your time and attention:

Right here, right now, somewhere over the Atlantic, I’m having a moment of clarity. I realize the obvious. I realize that, along with a lot of other people, I have fallen prey to the peculiar American frailty which has given us so many bad presidents. I refer to our national tendency to treat presidential elections as though we were all high-schoolers choosing a Prom King.

Thus, when it comes to qualifying for the American Presidency, a grating accent can be a bigger political liability than a record of homicidally misguided policies. Being inconsistent is a greater personal failing than being consistently, doggedly, disastrously wrong. Being dorky is more damning than being dictatorial.

We all need to get a grip and quickly. Whatever it has been traditionally, this Presidential race should not be a personality contest. I say this as much to myself to myself as I do to you. I have to snap out of it and remember we are not electing our new best friend here. We were electing a set of ideologies, cultural predispositions, policies, practices, and beliefs – many of them religious – that may literally affect the fate of life on earth. And one thing I will say for George Bush, he has disabused me of my old belief that it doesn’t really matter who’s President. [Barlow Friendz]

A day at the Brigham

Quite a week.

Had a more direct and personal encounter with the Emergency Department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston earlier in the week than I would have liked. I’ve been working for a client in the Longwood Medical Area here since mid-July. Over the last several days I’d been having chest pains off and on. Generally not considered a good sign for an overweight, underexercised middle-aged male. I finally decided that being moderately embarrassed if it was nothing was significantly preferable to what my wife would do to me if it were something serious. The image of her digging me up to kill me was the deciding factor so I walked across the street to the Brigham.

I’m happy to report that the outcome was moderate embarassment rather than immediate bypass surgery or worse. I spent a good portion of the day on a monitor and they ran me through a treadmill stress test. While not absolutely definitive, it appears that my heart is sound. My thanks to all the good folks I met at the Brigham who reassured me that I had done the sensible thing and made me feel comfortable despite my anxieties.

NY Times and James Fallows discover ActiveWords

All around interesting piece from James Fallows in today’s N.Y. Times. My good friend Buzz gets some well deserved praise for ActiveWords, which I’ve used and recommended for several years now. Here’s what Fallows had to say about ActiveWords:

Tinker With Your Computer, and Reap the Rewards

The most striking improvement in basic computer function comes with ActiveWords, $19.95 for the basic version and $49.95 for the advanced, from a small company of the same name in Winter Park, Fla. Most computer users understand the concept of macros, or shortcuts – abbreviations the computer expands into full words or phrases. ActiveWords applies that concept to nearly everything you would like the computer to do. It lets you create keyboard shortcuts – say, typing “WH” to visit the White House’s Web site – for a wide variety of functions. With just a few keystrokes, you can start a report, edit a specific spreadsheet, address an e-mail message to your brother, place an Internet phone call to the home office, go to a particular Web page or fill out a form. (You press a key to signal that a shortcut is coming, then type the relevant letters.)

This is especially useful for those who, like me, hate using the mouse. I had known about this program for years before trying it seriously; now I regret the lost time. But I figure that its efficiencies give me enough extra time to keep tinkering with the list of shortcuts, until it’s just right.

I’m also using this to experiment with a new tool to support my blogging – Qumana.

Philosophy in my inbox

Just to prove the email isn’t entirely useless, Charlotte passed the following along to me and I though it was worth sharing. I have no idea who the author is.

“Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the
intention of arriving safely in an attractive and
well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways,
Champagne in one hand – strawberries in the other, body
thoroughly used up, totally worn out and
screaming WOO HOO – What a Ride!”

 

Parody of copyright billboard

I’ve been working in Boston lately and I’ve seen the original posters and done my share of sneering. And I’ve grown increasingly annoyed at what I have to sit through in the movie theater after paying for my tickets.

I do wonder what the right mix should be between education, ridicule, and civil disobedience toward industries struggling to hold off the future. Why is it that reasoned discourse seems the least likely alternative?

Parody of copyright billboard. Cory Doctorow: While in Boston for WorldCon, I spotted these copyright warning posters in the lighted advertising podium. Trevor points to a much better parody. Link (Thanks, Trevor!)
[Boing Boing]

Reading habits and The Creative Habit

I’ve been doing the 50-book challenge this year. Although I’m way behind on writing up what I’ve been reading, I think I have enough in the queue to hit the goal by year’s end. A quick count says I’ve posted 27 short reviews, I have another 6 books finished that I need to write up, and I have somewhere between 19 and 28 other books I have in various stages of completion.

For years my reading habits typically have multiple books in various stages of being read. Sometimes I get sidetracked enough on some books that I end up having to start over, but generally I find it more interesting to have multiple threads running in parallel because I then get the additional benefit of watching and reacting to how different books interact with one another and with whatever I happen to be working on at the time.

Perverse, I suppose, and YMMV.

At the same time, this strategy also allows me to plow through particular books when I’m in the mood or they resonate in some way with my immediate needs. Often that may be nothing more than retreating into a good story. I blew through about half of The Rule of Four this weekend. Certainly doesn’t hurt that besides being a good read, it’s set on the campus of Princeton and that makes it feel like a mini-reunion.

I chose to leave that on my bedside table when I headed out to O’hare this morning, however, to leave room in my backpack for Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit. I’m not done yet, but will be before week’s end. I came upon this by way of a recommendation that showed up in my aggregator a while back from Dennis Kennedy (I think). This is an absolute must read (and re-read) for any of us who has to create as some part of what we do. In my own view, that includes anyone who would even loosely describe themselves as a knowledge worker.

Among many insights, Tharp shows why most knowledge management efforts have been disappointing at best and points to how they will need to change to succeed. See Chapter 5, “Before You Can Think out of the Box, You Have to Start with a Box,” for insight into why knowledge management needs to start at the personal level, even if it must ultimately connect with those around you.