Future
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Some perspectives in time and space
First, time. Earth became habitable for primitive life forms some 3.X billion years ago. It will cease to be habitable in another 1 billion years or less, given the rate at which the Sun continues to get hotter, which it has been doing for the duration. Species last, on average, a couple million years. Depending… Continue reading
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People will do more with Big Data than big companies can
The history of computing over the last 30 years is one of lurches forward every time individuals got the power to do what only big enterprises could do previously — and to do a much better job of it. It happened when computing got personal in the ’80s. It happened when networking got personal in… Continue reading
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Outlining vs. Formatting
Dave makes a profound distinction in his post this morning titled Outliners and Word Processors. For the first time I not only grok what I already knew about outlining, but why it’s so much better as a way to write than word processing ever was. The distinction is a bit hard to see because Word… Continue reading
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TV 3.0
We’re not watching any less TV. In fact, we’re watching more of it, on more different kinds of screens. Does this mean that TV absorbs the Net, or vice versa? Or neither? That’s what I’m exploring here. By “explore” I mean I’m not close to finished, and never will be. I’m just vetting some ideas… Continue reading
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Broken news
For me, news of the Boston bombing broke on my phone, in a remote hotel on the island of Providenciales in Turks and Caicos, where I had gone for a speaking engagement at a corporate offsite. First came emails with no context, from friends asking if I was okay. Next I checked the Web to… Continue reading
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Why durable links matter
In How podcasting got its name, Dave nicely outlines the derivation of the terms podcast and podcasting. That last link goes to the Wikipedia page, because pretty much any other link I put in there has a greater risk of breaking. And that’s what’s at issue here. Dave was able to date usage in part because others,… Continue reading
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Surf’s down. For now.
I was talking with @ErikCecil yesterday about the sea change we both detect in people’s tolerance for unwanted tracking. They’re getting tired of it. So are lawmakers and regulators. (No, not everybody. But not a small percentage. And it’s growing.) See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Somewhere in the midst… Continue reading
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Apple rot
In The Lost Luster of the Juicy Apple Rumor, Steve Smith writes, “Most of the current rumors surrounding the fabled company involve Apple catching up to trends.” Ouch. In Samsung vs. Apple: Losing My Religion, which ran in AdAge last month, Barbara Lippert, a longtime member of the “Cult of Cupertino,” wrote, “The truth hurts.” That… Continue reading
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Aaron Swartz and Freedom
[Update on 18 January: A memorial service will be held tomorrow in the Great Hall at Cooper Union in New York. Many will speak, me included. Register at the first link. I’ve also added many more links to the stack below. I’ve also put together a too-short collection of photos I’ve taken of Aaron over… Continue reading
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Al Jazeera English to be buried in cable
Two years ago I called Al Jazeera’s live coverage of the revolution in Egypt a “Sputnik moment” for cable in the U.S. Turns out it wasn’t. Not since Al Jazeera agreed to pay half a $billion, plus their live internet stream, to sit at U.S. cable’s table. Losing Al Jazeera English reduces to a single source — France24 —… Continue reading
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Android as a life management platform
Nearly all smartphones today are optimized to do three things for you: Run apps Speak to other people Make you dependent on a phone company The first two are features. The third is a bug. In time that bug will be exterminated. Meanwhile it helps to look forward to what will happen with #1 and… Continue reading
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The evolution of radio from waves to streams
WMVY is a delightful music station on Martha’s Vineyard, with a great history, that I always enjoy tuning in when I head down that way to visit friends in Falmouth or Woods Hole. Alas, like so many other good small radio stations, it’s is going off the air. The station’s signal on 92.7fm has been sold to WBUR, one… Continue reading
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Let’s name the crossover point
Over dinner in Amsterdam recently, George Dyson — who knows a thing or two about the history of computing — told me that a crossover of sorts has happened, or is happening now. The crossover is between a time when we erased storage media to make room for fresh data and a time when we… Continue reading
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Browsers should have been cars. Instead they’re shopping carts.
Back in 1995, one of my wife’s sisters became one of the first executives at a hot new startup called Netscape. We wore Netscape t-shirts, used Netscape’s browser, and paid close attention to what was happening in Netscape’s space, which was the entire Web. One of the first things to happen on that Web was… Continue reading
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The only issue that matters
Geologists have an informal name for the history of human influence on the Earth. They call it the Anthropocene. It makes sense. We have been raiding the earth for its contents, and polluting its atmosphere, land and oceans for as long as we’ve been here, and it shows. By any objective perspective other than our… Continue reading
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Table for two
The Web as we know it today was two years old in June 1997, when the page below went up. It lasted, according to Archive.org, until October 2010. When I ran across it back then, it blew my mind — especially the passage I have boldfaced in the long paragraph near the end. The Internet… Continue reading
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How Apple will turn the Net’s top into TV’s bottom
Apple TV (whatever it ends up being called) will kill cable. It will also give TV new life in a new form. It won’t kill the cable companies, which will still carry data to your house, and which will still get a cut of the content action, somehow. But the division between cable content and other forms… Continue reading
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Writing with Bitly
Markets are conversations, they say. So yesterday I had one with MRoth, head of product for Bitly, the company whose service changes the other day caused a roar of negative buzz, including some from me, here. Users were baffled by complexities where simplicities used to be. Roger Ebert lamented an “incomprehensible and catastrophic redesign” and explained in… Continue reading
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So long, and thanks to the bird
Independent commercial alternative rock radio in Boston is heading to the grave. The Boston Phoenix‘ WFNX has been sold to Clear Channel, which — says the press release — will expand its “footprint” in Boston. (Bambi vs. Godzilla comes to mind.) Boston Business Journal suggests the signal’s fate will be to carry country music or Spanish programming. But it doesn’t… Continue reading