Disqus - Latest Comments for cgerrish

Re: The Silo & The Pipe: Doc Searls gets Venezuelan

cgerrish — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:10:55 -0000

Your data is always already yours. It resides on your fingertips before they touch the keyboard.

And you seem to make the point that the silo metaphor is leaking oil, and barely serves either its literal or metaphorical purpose in your rhetoric. Silos by definition are not interoperable. Turning "users" into "silos" is the ultimate contortion of a once stately metaphor.

There are no silos, think Network, nodes and the pipes that connect them.

Re: The Silo & The Pipe: Doc Searls gets Venezuelan

cgerrish — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:57:04 -0000

We're saying some of the same things in different ways. Microsoft failed in the attempt to replace the Network, and so had to join it. In a network, the potential for connection is critical. A silo is unconnected by definition.

Apple's music play isn't a silo, it's a successful business. There's no barrier to creating music players, stores or applications. Microsoft has done just that. But there's no requirement that once you are successful-- you must give the store away. It's entirely possible that a direct distribution model, or a music micro-community model will disrupt the central store model in the next few years. But that's an issue for users to decide which solution is more valuable. Lala.com is a very compelling model. Amazon's MP3 downloads work perfectly with my iPod and iTunes.

Yes, interoperability -- pipes are enough. Now, "pipe" politics look different than "silo" politics. Real time and latency is a big issue -- does the pipe update in real time? Rate limiting is an issue -- does a node limit traffic and why. Censorship, does a node censor any kind of traffic? How can identity be piped from node to node? How can micro-communities form across nodes? These are all political questions in the realm of the pipe -- the connection.

The metaphor is important because it implies boundaries to the conceptual analysis. Looking to the pipe rather than the silo opens a new field of issues. And it recasts 'silo' issues in the context of the Network. In some cases, Microsoft is more interoperable than open source counterparts.

Twitter is a business that's trying to build sufficient scale to create a return on investment for their investors. Rather than ask 'at what cost?' -- we might ask, 'at what benefit to the Network?'

Re: The Silo & The Pipe: Doc Searls gets Venezuelan

cgerrish — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:01:50 -0000

I exhumed the moldy metaphor of the 'capitalist pig' intentionally. If you'll recall, in its original context, one was either a 'capitalist pig' or a ' commie bastard.' Like the 'silo' it's a binary opposition that has outlived its usefulness.

If the Network is the computer, a silo is not part of the computer. Once MSFT lost its bid to become the Network (The silo that killed all other silos), it had to join the Network. Thus their new focus on 'first, best and interoperable.'

Interoperability is a question of the 'pipe' -- the connection of one node to another. Oauth is the plumbing Twitter uses to pipe identity to this comment stream.

Don't confuse plumbing with a value proposition. As Steve Gillmor might say, Twitter is like the Beatles. Two guitars, bass and drums is plumbing, but they have every right to the music they make with those instruments. Twitter has taken the micro-message and the directed social graph and created something special. Technically, there's no barrier to entry, anyone can create a micro-messaging service. It's Twitter's mindshare that would be very difficult to overcome.

The Beatles cause a fail whale on Amazon because their Box Sets are sold out. Twitter's fail whales are similar -- you can buy a different box set if you like, you're just not getting The Beatles.

Re: Claiming My Right to a Purpose-Centric Web: SideWiki

cgerrish — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:48:10 -0000

A well-tempered scale would be the equivalent of phonemes, or 1s and 0s in Dave's example. Any "tune" picks up on previous tunes - inverts them, varies them within a theme. The question about control of content becomes one of control of meaning-- as in Alice in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty says: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." Words (content) always mean more than we intend.

Re: Claiming My Right to a Purpose-Centric Web: SideWiki

cgerrish — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:34:17 -0000

No one controls their own content. Every sentence you write is filled with the language that preceded it. It's not the web that's an illusion, it's language -- a stream created out of phonemes. The reader rewrites your content in the act of reading it. The objection seems to be to sharing the transcription publicly. There's no such thing as a content endpoint -- it always connects to something else. The only way to prevent connection in a public network is to be completely uninteresting.

Re: Tornado - Benjamin Golub's Blog

cgerrish — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:24:19 -0000

I'm very interested to see how Tornado will be used. How will a Tornado-based blog extend the metaphor of blogging?

Re: A Loss of Connection: Digital Intermediaries

cgerrish — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 11:20:21 -0000

I remember seeing Ram Das many years ago in Santa Cruz. He road his
bicycle everywhere.

Re: The Real-Time Web and Information Arbitrage

cgerrish — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:02:48 -0000

In geologic and astronomical time scales, any human communication would be considered very fast. And if an asteroid was headed toward earth, I doubt we would consider it a matter for slow contemplation.

Re: The Real-Time Web and Information Arbitrage

cgerrish — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:59:31 -0000

Speed is necessary, but not sufficient for the economics of the real-time web. For examples of the 'slowsky' argument -- look for responses to FriendFeed's move to real time.

Re: Buddhist Economics, Cool Enough To Touch

cgerrish — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:43:04 -0000

A 'cap' is a method of moderating growth. Value accumulates under the ceiling of limitation. Optimizations of carbon emission are an expression of values through an industrial market. But as you note, the game hasn't changed-- they've just slightly changed the dimensions of the playing field.

Re: Ink, Trust and the Electronic Vote

cgerrish — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:03:01 -0000

A screenshot with a time stamp? A photo of you voting while holding up today's edition of the NY Times? Or is it really just a copy of your vote sent to an archive under your control?

Re: Ink, Trust and the Electronic Vote

cgerrish — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:48:43 -0000

The word "cemented" seems to be key. What does digital cement look like?

Re: On Trolls

cgerrish — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:43:18 -0000

MG, it's up to all of us to call out bad behavior when we see it. It's the way society works (or doesn't work when we don't). In a real time web, anonymous attacks can't be tolerated -- and when people use their own identity to launch personal attacks, we need to shine the light on them. Ultimately there's the ability to block bad actors. Speech is both a privilege and a right.

Re: On Trolls

cgerrish — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:41:43 -0000

Re: To Leo Laporte’s fans and Techcrunch trolls - Thanks a helluva lot

cgerrish — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:30:20 -0000

Karoli, thanks for writing this. Calling out bad behavior and establishing a civil and constructive tone in the social space of real time web is one of our new rights and responsibilities.

Re: !Kung: Banking Social Relationships

cgerrish — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:35:20 -0000

McLuhan's idea of probes is very interesting, they aren't personal. A couple of quotes: 'I have no devotion to any of my probes as if they were sacred opinions. I have no proprietary interest in my ideas and no pride of authorship as such. You have to push ideas to an extreme, you have to probe.' 'A good probe is hard to exhaust. It does not surrender everything at first encounter...'

Re: The Edifice of the Bank: Connecting Streams of Capital

cgerrish — Sun, 24 May 2009 22:50:57 -0000

Yes, the thickness of the bank vault is replaced with the character of network availability and inputs/outputs. The networked bank that *is* a networked bank will change everything. The current crop may not be able to make that leap.

Re: The Edifice of the Bank: Connecting Streams of Capital

cgerrish — Sun, 24 May 2009 22:38:24 -0000

Banks are already virtual. The branch as it exists today is only an interface to the Network. Challenge a local branch employee, and they will turn to the Network as the source of authority. Their physical and virtual presence are roughly equal at this point.

Re: PBS could become a cause for the web (Scripting News)

cgerrish — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:35:59 -0000

PBS videos (full length) are available here: http://www.pbs.org/video - Including Frontline. Bit Torrent not required.

Re: Unknown And No Longer Optional

cgerrish — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:18:03 -0000

Degrees seem to carry a value as a "token" that is completely unrelated to their substance. Until there's a radical revaluation of the meaning and value of a college education-- there won't be change. The "token" -- a sort of poll tax, will accepted at all fine business establishments.

Re: Real Time Identity: A Dance to the Music of Time

cgerrish — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:11:34 -0000

Everyone needs to protect their identity, I don't think that's related to transparency. Anonymous and Private modes are a normal part of communication-- it's the public part that's new.

Re: Real Time Identity: A Dance to the Music of Time

cgerrish — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:14:22 -0000

The Starbucks case seems to fall under the second of Kim Cameron's Laws of Identity:

2. Minimal Disclosure for a Constrained Use.

The solution that discloses the least amount of identifying information and best limits its use is the most stable long-term solution.

(Laws of Identity: http://tinyurl.com/cuhb2 )

I attempt to get at this by referring to 3 modes: anonymous, public and private. Starbucks just needs to let you know when your drink is ready. A number would work as well as a name. Using a customer's real given name became a fad in retail a few years back. It gives the illusion of a social relationship. The Starbucks transaction could easily take place on a completely anonymous level-- or any combination of the three. Using an ATM card for payment opens one kind of channel, whereas using a Starbucks payment card is a different kind of relationship. If you were logged in to their Wifi -- could they notify you that your drink was ready via IM?

One might also ask, how much does Starbucks really want to know about you? Would a subpoena potentially make that information public? Generally, it's believed in marketing circles that the more connections between a person and a brand, the better. But that describes a world where the brand controls the quality of every connection and the form of every message transaction.

Re: 1953: Real Time, Real People

cgerrish — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:35:35 -0000

Ars Gratia Artis, it appears, was only a slogan. But that's where people like Morris Engel and John Cassavetes broke the mold. A 'business model' isn't the real limiter -- it's what a person values...

Re: iPhone 3.0: The Steve Jobs Interview

cgerrish — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:55:25 -0000

No need to let go of anything. Things can and will overlap for a good while. These waves move quickly, but in slow motion...

Re: UX: The Pleasure of the Text

cgerrish — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:45:52 -0000

A return to a recording of the oral tradition of Homer. I guess we call them audio books these days. Although I don't think attention spans are to blame. Continuous attention has always clocked in at around 7 seconds. The ability to refocus general attention generally goes up with age, but tops out at about 12 minutes. Text, Audio, Video -- it's all reading. ( http://tinyurl.com/bjcwdr )