Doc Searls
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Dazeday
Some unfair comparisons I’m polyamorous about college towns. Having lived in or beside Greensboro (Guilford, UNCG), Chapel Hill (UNC), Durham (Duke), Palo Alto (Stanford), Santa Barbara (UCSB), Pasadena/Los Angeles (Caltech, et. al.), Cambridge (Harvard, MIT, Tufts, et. al), New York City (NYU, Columbia, et. al.), and Bloomington (Indiana U), I’ve been spoiled by book stores Continue reading
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Default Lines
Suck onward I only had this one day to catch up on all kinds of stuff here in Santa Barbara, and ended up spending half of it trying to get our two printers working. The Brother is a laser printer that only worked on Wi-Fi after I downloaded new drivers and installed them with my Continue reading
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Nutherday
Agents by agents for agents with agents around agents over agents without agents beside agents… I’m at the Agentic Internet Workshop, where most of the sessions are about what personal AI agents can do: for you, with each other, and (choose a preposition) each other. Wow: https://github.com/loyalagents, within which is https://github.com/loyalagents/loyal-agent-evals HT: Dazza Greenwood. We’ll miss it Continue reading
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Trustday
Convention Naming I didn’t know until reading this that Oakland International Airport, better known as just OAK (with the slogan”I Fly OAK”) had named itself San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport, and earned in the process a lawsuit by San Francisco, objecting to usurpation of its name, even though the water body the two cities flank Continue reading
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Websday
Greater Good Government Phil Windley nails a use case for MyTerms. Lesser Good Government Wired: ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here’s Where It’s Going Next—ICE plans to lease offices throughout the US as part of a secret, monthslong expansion campaign. Good Community Governance Alex Chalmers: When Decentralization Fails. And how it succeeds. Pull-quote: Continue reading
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Sunlings
There is no liquid soap that can outperform good bar soap at cleaning a stinky, hairy armpit. Which is why I hate that hotels have replaced bars of soap with bottles of "body wash" or whatever. I'm at one of those hotels now. Corporatization is a form of enshittification While driving from SoCal to NorCal Continue reading
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An Airport Question
Today I flew from IND to DEN— Then from DEN to LAX— —Where I had plenty of time to fantasize about what could or should be done with the iconic but idle Theme Building in the heart of the airport, while waiting for my wife to pick me up. (She was, in the city tradition, Continue reading
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Your Future Starts Monday
Your private future, that is. Your present isn’t private. Not in the digital world. Not while you always agree to their terms, and not them to yours. With MyTerms, they agree to your privacy terms. Ones that, for example, disallow being tracked everywhere like a marked animal. There’s a standard for this now: IEEE 7012, Continue reading
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The Other Reasons Why Podcasting is Hot
Near the end of this Pivot podcast, starting at about the 55 minute mark, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway give a great summary of why podcasting is “the fastest-growing ad-supported medium.” Among other things, they say “People actually listen to the ads,” and that host read-overs are very effective and remunerative (bringing much higher CPMs). Continue reading
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Frylings
Truth for sale Who Will Monetize Truth? asks Francesco Marconi in a long, thoughtful paper. Pull quote: “Content is free. Intelligence is not. The entire media industry is being repriced around that distinction.” HT to Rasmus Kleis Nielsen for linking to it here, and sharing this excerpt: The media industry is splitting into three different species. The Intelligence Business, Continue reading
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Whyday
Yum On the latest Prof G Pod, David Brooks says, “One of my favorite sayings about writers is, ‘Writers are beggars who tell other beggars where they found bread.’” And now I’m disincentivized from subscribing to anything published by Hearst. I don’t know how I started subscribing to the Esquire newsletter, or if I had Continue reading
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Ursday
And it still is I posted Why Music Radio is Dying almost 15 years ago, but it’s getting action now for some reason. Verily Reid Hoffman in Faith in the Possible: “It’s easy to get caught up in product releases and cycles, and forget that every technology traces this spiritual arc. You are born into Continue reading
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Thisday
Blurp I am told that Santa Barbara’s beaches are covered with velella now. I mean a lot like the one above, See you there A couple of nights ago, a friend and reader of mine said he didn’t understand what today’s talk by Judith Donath would be about. “Signaling theory?” he said. “What’s that?” To him, signals Continue reading
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Wonday
em… As a lifelong over-user of em dashes and F bombs—hey, I'm from New Jersey—it's fun for me to learn that AI slop generators follow my style and F bombs are a way around detection. I'd say more, but would rather point to Tom Fishburne's typically excellent cartoon and post about the whole thing. Delayed Continue reading
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For broadcasters, digital tech isn’t a lifesaver. It’s a new land for fish with legs and lungs.
Eric Nuzum says public radio isn’t interested in saving itself. He’s actually quoting somebody else, but saying there’s a case. Specifically, When I hear public media leaders talk about the state of audience, ratings, and legacy platforms, I hear a very strong decline-centered narrative, with one station CEO infamously saying that “radio is dead.” Really? When Continue reading
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Runday
Did he die in his sleep? "The Gambler" may be the best country song ever written. And performed. (Kenny Rogers' version is the definitive one). Alas, its author, the great Don Schlitz, has passed on. Not many details on that: Nashville hospital, sudden illness. He was from Durham, NC, one of my former homes and Continue reading
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The Biggest Thing
In his latest blog, Dave says, “If I were running WordPress, my first priority would be to get something exciting out that even non-WordPress users would talk about. Then do it again.” He follows with a good suggestion. I have one too. I’ve told Matt about it, and he was receptive. But it’s not the Continue reading
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Staturday
Kind of a Christo thing Mission TARONI put a silk-wrapped mannequin in space. From The Dorothy Project. It has implications. Today it’s frost The Monroe County Alert System just called me. I didn’t answer, because they call too much. Glad to hear from them when there’s a tornado risk, or when one is coming. Deep Continue reading
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Niceday
Which it is, here in Southern Indiana. Was yesterday too. Spring! Getting strait A visual of marine traffic piling up on the two sides of the Strait of Hormuz. Also this story on transponder spoofing in Wired. Transponders are how one can see what ships are where, their routes, and other important facts for cooperative Continue reading
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Everwhen
Good deal This is cool: IU opens its free generative AI course to anyone worldwide. As always Jamie Smith nails it with No one is listening to Steve Jobs’s advice about the EU Digital ID Wallet. Still the only way Interesting how old posts get new traffic. The biggest this morning on the ProjectVRM blog is to Health Continue reading