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

twitter-3339171 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:35:45 -0000

What makes the Network "the silo that killed all other silos"? The Internet has its protocols and standards, but it is not by nature something that seeks to contain, for its own self-serving purposes, everything that depends on it.

Motivations matter. Microsoft failed to control the network, as Craig Burton pointed out long ago, in A Bulldozer Through the Intersection. But Microsoft wanted to control the Network. According to Craig (and bear in mind how long ago this was -- April, 1996), Microsoft began losing that game when Netscape and friends adopted LDAP -- an open directory standard. The story here, now almost forgotten, was vendor vs. vendor hockey at its finest, and one of the ways that Netscape's early work fighting Microsoft paid off later for Google, which in many ways is Netscape 2.0.

The larger motive, or both Netscape and Google, was growing the whole marketplace. They could still dominate that marketplace by doing better work, or by offering more goods and services. But they would not own that marketplace in the sense that they controlled it as a private domain.

The distinction here is between an open market space where many can participate and a closed market space that one company controls.

I don't think Twitter is being like the old Microsoft here. I think it is trying to be as interoperable as it can. But I think some of its moves, such as sticking with bit.ly and not working (far as I know, and I would welcome correction on this) toward an open standard for URL shortening, serve to control and contain the marketplace rather than to open and enlarge that marketplace -- one which they already dominate, and which opening would not threaten.

I also don't buy the Beatles analogy. The Beatles were one band. They never controlled the music industry. Today, to a much greater degree, Apple does that. And they achieved that position by verticalizing a stack of dependencies. Today the vast majority of little music players are iPods (and now iPhones). These operate only with iTunes software. They interoperate with approximately nothing else. Want to buy music for your iPod? Go to Apple's store. Want applications for the iPhone? Apple's iTunes store, again. A large third party marketplace has grown around all of this, and it's all inside Apple's well-crafted vertical space. I don't think it's wrong, or antique, to call that a silo. In fact, I can't think of a better metaphor, and it has nothing to do with politics; nor is it obsolete open source lingo. It has to do with linguistics and the concept of the container. What is Apple's iTunes/iPod/iPhone contained market space most like? A stovepipe? A smokestack? A bottle? Call it what you will, a metaphor is unavoidable. Pick one.

Again, I don't think the Twitter folks are much like Steve Jobs & Co. But I'm sure many of their investors would like them to be. If so, at what cost?

Which brings me back to the question I asked earlier. Is interoperability enough? I say it's not.

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

jeremy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:24:51 -0000

But isn't that like saying that all the notes in the western tonality scale (C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, etc.) already exist, therefore there is no such thing as an original composed tune? Any "new" tune is just reusing notes that other people have already used?

I don't buy it.

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

windley — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:36:45 -0000

Nice thought Cliff. We're all rewriting something else all the time.

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

ReeseJones1 — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:49:16 -0000

Artful blog site & conversation topic Cliff. Most favor sending any data over the internet faster (RSS, Twitter, Hubble or 3D tele-presence).

Astronomy/Geology are some ways "Slowsky" like for precision, but these predict things that can move very fast. Many thousands of years of Slow careful human astronomy data collection, analysis and forecasting through all history (now including employing the fastest network communications infrastructure and powerful compute resources worldwide). Recently the orbit risks of >5,000 asteroid like objects (NEOs) have been identified including >70 large ones with probable earth collision orbits http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ You could even help via the ASE/UN project http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/26779 There are likely 10,000 more NEOs yet to be detected.

Combine astronomy data analysis & communications (you may have noticed both Google & Microsoft are hot on astronomy) with geologic fossil record analysis of historical asteroid collisions data to determine impact consequences. We know "an asteroid (several are) headed toward earth", we also know timing and probable consequences. But the recent first ever forecasted Asteroid/Earth collision (2008 TC3) last year was detected only 1.5 days prior to impact.

2008 TC3 could have hit New York, London, or Tokyo. Future impacts may be a similar Fast surprises plus the already identified NEOs on probable collision orbits. We also know there are financial market risks and legal risks of these events (see ASE/NEO/UN program).

Perhaps Twitter or RSS will help observers to report the next asteroid collision path, perhaps detected by an armature astronomer like this week's Jupiter collision reported to the IAU http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/weekinreview/....

Faster is better for some things but Slowsky patience like watching star fields to notice a shadow passing between, logging, then reporting it appropriately - is how these asteroids are detected. An urgent report of inaccurate data delivered faster will not yield a better result. A Tweet urging - "An Asteroid is going to hit" the incorrect place... will not be best for anyone (except the "fame" of being the very first to report... something... perhaps wrong). Mindful "Slow" action can be good.

Consider the Slow Food movement and other slow deliberate movements. Perhaps there is a Slowsky argument ;)

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

hardaway — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:59:47 -0000

They've converted an idea for purification of character (limits to growth) into a way to make money, zero sum game that doesn't look like one.

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

Karoli — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:56:05 -0000

some sort of real-time record of what I did at that moment that can be matched against the archive later...at least, that's my gut response. I can produce a hard copy receipt now that can be matched to my ballot put in the ballot box. That creates an audit trail that cements and links my vote to me. An electronic version of that would be 'digital cement'.

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

Karoli — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:59:05 -0000

Cliff -- it has always been a right and responsibility. It just matters more now than before, because the nature of real time means that setting a fire can cause an instant meltdown, as opposed to one that might be prevented with some interventions.

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

Jonathan Langdale — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:11:03 -0000

Are you kidding? You're dreaming. That is never going to happen without severe moderation. It won't be "open." The first few minutes of the Wolfram Alpha webcast launch, the chat was filled with non-sense even before it began.

Need to first recognize that social real time web space is going to be anything but civil and deal with it. It's going to get worse in real time than it is on twitter. Google wave is said to show keystroke. You're not going to necessarily have people being able to edit that much in real-time.

And it's interesting to call out less than civil behavior by fans and respondents when the podcasters in question are dropping f-bombs and arbitrarily cutting off shows. Or others are continuing to bait people to get a good story or "interesting" reaction.

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

SimonEdhouse — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:11:12 -0000

...not wanting to anthropomorphize the inanimate.. but perhaps: 'a meme with a mission'?

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...'