Category Archives: Internet

The Rhetoric of War

I wrote this more than a quarter century ago when Linux Journal was the only publication that would have me, and I posted unsold essays and wannabe columns at searls.com. These postings accumulated in this subdirectory for several years before Dave Winer got … Continue reading

Posted in Cognitive Science, Internet, Linguistics, marketing, metaphor | Leave a comment

On digital distance

In July 2008, when I posted the photo above on this blog, some readers thought Santa Barbara Mission was on fire. It didn’t matter that I explained in that post how I got the shot, or that news reports made … Continue reading

Posted in data, Internet, Linguistics, privacy | 3 Comments

The most important standard in development today

It’s P7012: Standard for Machine Readable Personal Privacy Terms, which “identifies/addresses the manner in which personal privacy terms are proffered and how they can be read and agreed to by machines.” P7012 is being developed by a working group of the IEEE. … Continue reading

Posted in advertising, Business, data, intention economy, Internet, marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Empire Strikes On

Twelve years ago, I posted The Data Bubble. It began, The tide turned today. Mark it: 31 July 2010. That’s when The Wall Street Journal published The Web’s Gold Mine: Your Secrets, subtitled A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on … Continue reading

Posted in adtech, advertising, data, intention economy, Internet, Journalism, Law, media, privacy, problems, regulation, Technology, VRM | Leave a comment

Is there a way out of password hell?

Passwords are hell. Worse, to make your hundreds of passwords safe as possible, they should be nearly impossible for others to discover—and for you to remember. Unless you’re a wizard, this all but requires using a password manager.† Think about … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, infrastructure, Internet, privacy, problems, security, Technology | 5 Comments

Beyond the Web

The Web is a haystack. This isn’t what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind when he invented the Web. Nor is it what Jerry Yang and David Filo had in mind when they invented Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, history, Ideas, Internet, publishing, Technology | 5 Comments

How anywhere is everywhere

On Quora, somebody asked, Which is your choice, radio, television, or the Internet?. I replied with the following. If you say to your smart speaker “Play KSKO,” it will play that small-town Alaska station, which has the wattage of a … Continue reading

Posted in infrastructure, Internet, language | Leave a comment

Welcome to the 21st Century

Historic milestones don’t always line up with large round numbers on our calendars. For example, I suggest that the 1950s ended with the assassination of JFK in late 1963, and the rise of British Rock, led by the Beatles, in … Continue reading

Posted in Blogging, Broadcasting, Business, Digital Life, history, Internet, Technology | 1 Comment

Toward new kinds of leverage

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world,” Archimedes is said to have said. For almost all of the last four years, Donald Trump was one hell of … Continue reading

Posted in adtech, advertising, Blogging, Business, Customertech, Future, Internet, Journalism, problems, Technology, VRM | Leave a comment

How we save the world

Let’s say the world is going to hell. Don’t argue, because my case isn’t about that. It’s about who saves it. I suggest everybody. Or, more practically speaking, a maximized assortment of the smartest and most helpful anybodies. Not governments. … Continue reading

Posted in Internet, problems, Technology | 2 Comments