Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Dave: No wait for tools. The really cool thing about this kind of directory isn't the format, OPML is designed to be unremarkable. When people look at the OPML files and criticize them I know they don't understand OPML, but I wish they did. They're looking at the roots of a tree, when the interesting stuff is happening in the canopy, in the tree-tops. Here's what's different. There's no need to wait for a tool to edit this format, because the tool existed before the format. This is flipped around from all other XML formats, where it may or may not be possible to create a tool. We know of several good outliners that support OPML. And outliners are a tool of choice for people who think, people who have information that we want in directories. It's a clever plan! Hey if you want to know about outliners, ask Larry Lessig. Lawyers love them. Soon so will librarians. [Scripting News] 11:13:39 PM    comment []

Conspiracy freak's delight: Missing 1998 Time article by Bush, Sr. on why a full-on Iraq war would be a bad idea [bOing bOing via newsisfree] 11:01:58 PM    comment []

The FeedRoom is "the world's premiere broadband news network, gives high-speed Internet users the video news they want, from the sources they trust, anytime they want." Lots of RSS feeds. [Scripting News] 10:58:23 PM    comment []

EE Times: Cryptographers sound warnings on Microsoft security plan. [Hack the Planet] 8:16:34 PM    comment []

Japan's Internet community opposes privacy protection law (Hindustan Times). There's a danger the law will be abused, Nobuo Ikeda, a senior fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, a Tokyo think-tank, said on Tuesday. We should do away with all restrictions on the freedom of expression. Defenders of the bill, backed by Japan's ruling coalition, say it's merely responding to consumer complaints about personal information circulating without regulation in dubious databases and mailing lists. The bill is now under discussion in Parliament. Japan has no comprehensive law specifically protecting privacy. Alleged violations are prosecuted under other laws that protect people from libel, stalking and other crimes. Ikeda and 20 professors, company executives and other top names in Japan's Internet community -- including Neoteny Co chief executive, Joichi Ito and Center for Global Communications executive director Shumpei Kumon -- issued a protest against the bill last week. Their statement, posted on the Web, says owners of home pages can be regulated under the bill because they may be providing information about individuals without their consent. Operators of bulletin board systems and search engines will be flooded with requests to delete information and the services may even have to be shut down, it says. But Dai Hishiyama of the Cabinet Office, the government agency in charge of the bill, says it does not target search engines and bulletin boards because they aren't databases that specifically list individual information. He did, however, acknowledge borderline cases could fall under the bill. See also coverage here at A blog doesn't need a clever name from December and also just last month. 12:22:49 PM    comment []

Idaho man takes junk e-mail senders to court (AP) Many people don't even remember a time when they didn't get daily porno e-mail or Nigerian scam letters, [Kevin] Wilson said. But my issue has nothing to do with content. It's that it's unwanted. He has taken advantage of an Idaho law that lets people sue e-mailers for $100 if they continue to send material after they have been asked to stop. . . . I hear all the time — just press delete, he said. But we have a law on the books. I'd like to see if it's enforceable. 11:22:51 AM    comment []

US Broadcasters' War Stance Under Scrutiny, by Annie Lawson, The Guardian. 9:22:14 AM    comment []

A $20-Million Carrot: A university wants faculty members to compete to get into a new high-tech building. By Scott Carlson, CHE. Like many administrators, [ George Mason University President Alan G.]. Merten has struggled with the challenge of getting more professors to use technology in the classroom. He has improved technology support and set up grant programs to pay for course retooling. He has even scheduled awards ceremonies to honor faculty members who have incorporated high-tech devices in their teaching. Now he is approaching Innovation Hall with a new plan, a wager: What tech- savvy professor, or merely tech-curious professor, wouldn't want to teach in this brand-new, high-tech building? Most colleges assign fancy new buildings to departments. Innovation Hall will be open to all professors in all disciplines, he says, but only on the condition that they expand the use of technology in their lessons. Teaching in Innovation Hall will be a reward for those who have already upgraded their courses to use technology, Mr. Merten says. As for those instructors who are merely curious about technology, Mr. Merten hopes the lure of the building and its new classrooms will encourage them to take the next step. 4:21:26 AM    comment []

Matthew Branton: Publishing is for wimps. Novelist and surfer Matthew Branton is so enraged by the British literary scene that he's virtually self-destructed. William Leith hears his manifesto at Independent Digital. Matthew Branton is a 34-year-old novelist from Sevenoaks who lives in Hawaii and likes to do dangerous things. For instance, he belts down mountain roads, naked, riding on a skateboard, as often as he can. "Do not attempt this if dying from your injuries would be a problem," he explains on his website, www.matthewbranton.com. Of his mountainside skating, he says, I never see anyone up there except hikers, and a naked man doing 80 down a mountain on a skateboard shrieking get- out-the-fucking way in English and Japanese contributes, I'm sure, to their hiking experience. He also says, Wearing safety gear clouds your ability to react purely without consciousness... if you're not entirely 'in the zone' every millisecond you're doing this, you die horribly. If you're not prepared to die horribly at any second, you shouldn't be doing this. . . . This is a man who likes to live life without protection – he is a bareback type of guy. Recently, he's decided to extend this bareback attitude to his writing career. Having written his fifth novel, The Tie and The Crest, Branton has decided to dispense with his publishers, Bloomsbury, and release the book to his readers, for free, on the internet, with the help of The Independent on Sunday. The book, whose title is taken from a line in the Jam song, "Eton Rifles", is the gripping tale of a fictional 13-year- old schoolgirl who is, like all Branton's characters, shafted by the establishment. I wanted to create a character whose family life is ruined by money. Of his strange, possibly crazy decision not to publish the book, he says, I'm just saying: 'that's enough,' you know. He is talking to me on the telephone from his beach house in Hawaii. I will not go on working in this industry. I will live off fish that I can catch and veg that I am growing until my demands are met. Publisher's Lunch notes, he has managed to link up with the Independent to provide the book "exclusively" online, and oddly in the midst of their extensive coverage the newspaper neglects to indicate if any money is changing hands. 2:21:08 AM    comment []