August 2007
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Laugh tracking
rec.humor.funny is 20 years old today. Brad Templeton calls it the world’s oldest blog. My own vote goes to Poor Richard’s Almanack, which did for print what blogs did for pixels. Come to think of it, PRA could be funny too. Continue reading
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Back to natures
Living in coastal California can dull one’s Eastern edge, forged in the heat of summer, sharpened by abrasive seasons, the recurrent swelters and chills of true summers and winters. I’ve always been, as my old business partner David Hodskins correctly put it, comfort-imperative. Maybe that’s one reason I stayed so long on the California coast Continue reading
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Test post
test text [Later…] Cool write-up at the Berkman Center on the moves here, with nice credits to Dave for his help. Continue reading
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Getting real
The New York Times says Fake Steve Jobs is really Dan Lyons, a writer for Forbes. Remember Attack of the Blogs, from a Forbes in Fall of 2005? That was Dan’s. He interviewed me for that piece, which was quite controversial at the time. I had been warned that Dan was out to “get” me Continue reading
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Appreciating Baltimore
I’m in Baltimore for about a week, enjoying good times with family. And with the city. In spite of all the publicity by Poe, Mencken, Levinson, Waters, and a pile of fine sports teams, Baltimore remains one of the most overlooked cities in the world — a singular center of shipping, education, industry, medicine, science, Continue reading
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Unwanted extras in a URL
Sometime in the last couple of days I was at a hospital (don’t worry) that offered free wi-fi. Like many free wi-fi services, it required saying yes to something on a “welcome” page before allowing me to move along to the page my browser had requested.Now I’m elsewhere, but the page — Google — won’t Continue reading
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Trouble in Paradise
The Zaca Fire has burned southeast through the Los Padres National Forest, and straight toward Santa Barbara. This report says the fire can be seen from Paradise Valley now, and is advancing in that direction. Paradise Valley is being evacuated, and 154 — the main road from Santa Barbara northwest through the Santa Ynez Valley Continue reading
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Growing forums
Exploring the Harvard Weblogs environment, I just ran across a question from Phillip Greenspun about his Solar Magnitude Forum. The subject is dear to my mind, along with aviation and photography, two more of Phillip’s deep interests. The bottom line: This would be a good Computer Science master’s degree project. If you are interested in Continue reading
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Toward a better all-fiber diet
In Linux Journal: What would you do with fat fiber? An excerpt: …it’s clear that there’s room for real differentiation here. I would think there’s a huge opportunity for one of them to break loose and offer exactly what Bob, a helluva good customer (he co-invented the spreadsheet and helped home networking happen), is Continue reading
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The future, cont’d
Dave explains more of what’s going on with the old blog. People have been asking why I didn’t just keep trucking on the path I was on. There are several answers, but they all come down to dead ends that could easily be seen. Ideally I’d blog at searls.com, a domain I own. I have Continue reading
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Fiber sales maze
So I’m taking an apartment for the next year, near Cambridge, Mass. As it happens, there is an abundance of fiber (ftth) and copper to homes there, including ours. The three competing suppliers are Verizon FiOS, RCL and Comcast. For the customer interested only in maximal Internet service (such as yours truly), rather than a Continue reading
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Welcome pilgrims
I’ve been wanting for awhile to start blogging anew on WordPress. That’s what they use here at the Berkman Center, where I’m going on my second year as a fellow. Dave, a Berkman alum, suggested I start blogging here, and helped set me up using the same outliner I’ve been using on my old blog. Continue reading
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First post
Now is the time for all good men to come to the birthday party. Test indent. Continue reading