] We've taken orkut.com offline as we implement some
] improvements and upgrades suggested by users. Since orkut
] is in the very early stages of development, it's likely
] to be up and down quite a bit during the coming months.
] None of the information you've entered will be deleted,
] and none of the connections you've made will be lost.
] And, if all goes well, you should see some significant
] improvements when we come back online.

I had been curious about Orkut since made aware of its existence. I was pleased with what I saw the first time saw it, when I got an uber-quick tour via someone else's account. This time around only confirmed the clue I saw present then. I believe they are basing their architecture on a way more valid model of a social network then any of the other players out there I have seen. You can tell they know it can be used for way more then the Friendster style color scheme suggests.

I knew Google had clue. I expect great things from Orkut.

] We'll send an email once everything is ready and running
] again. Thanks for your feedback and for bearing with us
] as we work our way up the learning curve.

Don't worry about it.. You folks can fart over there, and we (everyone) will wind up hearing about it. I think your doing a great job thus far. You can see how good Tom and I are doing.. Hehe..

You get your own subtle (pre-planned?) irony. Today, under construction is the joke of the Internet.. Tomorrow or the day after? Hmm.. Going to have to eyeball the index for that one.

orkut - under construction

The region stretching from Morocco to the border of India had almost no lights.

War of Ideas, Part 6

"2004 is not an ordinary election; it is a referendum on the Bush doctrine. The future of the world hangs in the balance. That is the other point that I want to make; it is not enough to defeat President Bush. We must also develop and adopt a more constructive vision."

You can read a transcript of the speech, or you can download an MP3 of the introduction, speech, and discussion.

George Soros, Bubble Book Boy

] Brewster Kahle wants to network San Francisco. All of it.

I've never actually met Kahle, but as time rolls on, he is becoming a personal hero of mine. History will see this man as an important visionary..

] It sounds like every broadband Internet service
] provider's fantasy, but it's maybe not as far-fetched as
] it seems. Over the last year or so, small, gray plastic
] boxes have begun appearing atop homes and businesses
] around San Francisco. Roof by roof, they're bringing
] Kahle's vision of ubiquitous wireless-network access
] closer to reality -- no telephone companies or cable
] providers required.

I wound up at two parties last night.. At the first one, I found myself in an interesting conversation with a guy named Bill who worked for the phone company.

We talked about asymmetric versus symmetric Internet connections for the home. We talked about the differences between centralized and decentralized systems. We talked about telecom law. We talked about natural monopolies. We talked about market conditions. Market conditions..

When has the phone company every really understood market conditions in reference to the Internet? Not that often. I think I really pissed the guy off, he just kinda got up and left after suggesting I find the bottle of wine.. I had to leave shortly after finding the wine.

Good conversation though.. I Hope I run into him again.

] "If I have data or resources in my house and somebody
] lives 50 feet away from me in their house and wants to
] be able to share data back and forth, it seems pretty silly
] that we both have to pay $50 a month for a DSL connection
] to be able to do that," says Pozar. "We should just be able
] to throw this virtual wire over our fence and be able to
] send data back and forth."

That's a market condition, right? At the very least, Open Spectrum and the ability to use it cheaply, is going to create a market condition or five. I'm not even going to try to claim I understand the ramifications of it all.. I hope the phone & cable companies don't either.

] As to the future, "we would just like to see this type of
] idea and technology copied, and matured, by many others,"
] says Kahle. "We don't see it as a large, centralized system.
] It's an idea toward making community networks operate
] at very high speeds that have distributed ownership. We'd
] just basically like to see bandwidth spread like a virus ... so
] it just builds on itself."

I've been thinking about Amateur Radio lately.

I never actually got my Ham license.. I learned (and since forgot) morse code, I was on the standard track to a novice license. At one point my father had a general license. As I understand it, that kept him out of Vietnam and in front of a radio in Gemany.. My father clearly saw value in that skill set, and was sure I had the ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

Free Wireless Everywhere / Tech visionaries' new project mirrors roots of Internet

] Snocap has been working on ways to identify songs, as
] they are traded through a file-swapping network,
] including using a technique called "audio
] fingerprinting," which monitors the sonic characteristics
] of music files.
]
] That fingerprinting tool could be integrated into the
] file-swapping software itself in several different ways,
] sources said. When a file is being downloaded, the
] software could check its "fingerprint" and then compare
] it against a database Snocap operates, for example.

Watch this closely. Microsoft was very aggressively going after patents in that area. If I'm correct, they could attack at will. This a perfect example of something that existed in 2000, could have been brought into the game then, and these guys are about to get screwed again.. Either that, or there is already a dialog between these guys and who already owns the technology. Somehow, I doubt that.

Sounds like they are looking for PRO like model for a survey based handling of decentralized p2p downloads. Survey based leeching licensing? I've thought about this often, but never came to any conclusions.

Napster's Fanning has Snocap-ped vision | CNET News.com

There is something about the gallery sales model that is very broken.. It just kinda hit me, (again) last night^Wmorning, when I was trying to get to sleep.. You can't really put a price tag next to something you have to experience to know the value of.

When I see an art gallery, and there is a price tag.. I always look at the tag. And after, I always realize that was a real dick thing to do. But one cannot really be a lover of art and not be a lover of information. (I think so anyway..) When presented with them both at the same time, it presents an odd conundrum for markets of art (and maybe all information). I have not seen an answer to this problem.

Walking back from the market.. The really big one that has everything cheaper but is farther away then the corner stores that have most of the stuff I need. The one I go to when I'm not in a rush.. The friend I was walking with noticed a little tucked away gallery of rock fountains on the walk back. Great place for it. We ducked in. I gave a quick look at all the pieces, and there were tags.. So I looked at them. Every expensive, first thing I think. Immediately I'm judging these rock fountains like pieces of rock.. Wondering about materials and time.. Shit like that. Wrong chunk of the brain kicks in.. I'm not in a gallery, I'm in Home Depot. The thought process is more then happy to roll on its path, starbucks triple venti latte in hand.

Now, I'm also the last person to be buying a rock fountain. I'm sure that plays in. I definitely don't have the bling to drop on anything like that right now, or a place to put it.. I think the key to all art, is feeling/finding a connection with either the artist, the process of making the art, the process of getting the art "out", or at the very least getting what the art has to say. Its certainly not a well placed display with prices alone. That will only create a more of a market for commodity products.. Not something deeper. The ground we wish to walk on isn't as solid as it appears.

Hmm.. In certain contexts each piece of art is a one-item thing. Its not like music or movies where the entire process is pushed in a the directions of making each viewer of the art pay. Movie tickets, CDs, performing rights tracking, etc.. With these things, its possible to construct a market, I think. And eventually we will. However, the rock fountain people, DougZ, and many others I know will still have a problem.. There is no market for artists. Just product.

These are old thoughts.. Others have pounded the same points. I know, I've read it all somewhere before.

On Google, for the keyword "rover".. Its almost number one.. Almost. Land Rover is the only thing left blocking it.

Update: Anyone notice what happened with the hostname there? That's cute.

Just one dumb thing I've been watching...

Larry C. Johnson via Salon:

"We've seen it across different agencies, a pattern of going after anybody who's a critic. When people raise legitimate issues that may not be consistent with existing administration policy, those people are attacked and their character is impugned."

"Put it this way, with this White House, I see an outright pattern of bullying: Gen. Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, warned that the U.S. was going to need several hundred thousand troops in Iraq, and he's attacked for that, and basically told that he doesn't know what he's talking about -- and he's fired essentially a year before he's out of that job. When it's time for him to retire, not a single senior representative of the Department of Defense or White House leadership is there for his retirement. Then there was Thomas White, the secretary of the Army who was forced out. There was a senior CIA analyst by the name of Fulton Armstrong who was attacked, using leaks to the press, which alleged that he was disloyal and somehow under the influence of the Cuban government. There was a prosecutor [ousted from] the Department of Justice who had warned that John Walker Lindh's father had hired a lawyer and that [the DOJ] needed to consider the Miranda rights."

"I've been told that even a number of Republican members want to sign on to the efforts launched by Rep. Russ Holt [D-N.J.], who's a former intelligence analyst at the State Department -- but they're saying "If we do, Dennis Hastert is going to have our ass." So, clearly the intimidation and the fear factor continues."

The CIA revolt against the White House

] "It is not a telephone service; it is a voice
] application, completely indistinguishable from any other
] kind of application that can run on an IP network," he
] said.
]
] "If you're going to say to me that voice over IP is
] something that needs regulation, then you're going to
] have to explain to me why e-mail isn't also, or streaming
] video or instant messaging is not also," Powell added.

No, no.. Don't stop there. Those sound like words from a sane man, but the very next words out of his mouth are:

] What's my approach?

This is where I scream.

FCC chief frowns on VoIP regulations | CNET News.com

] Thomas Thurman has developed Joule, a nice application
] that tracks 'friend-of'? relationships over time on
] LiveJournal and displays a user's friendships over time
] in either tabular or graph format. Note that LiveJournal
] features an integrated aggregator; friendship there is
] roughly equivalent to subscription in the weblog world.

This guy is going in the right direction with his visualization engine. These graphics are way more useful then the GraphViz stuff I've been playing with.. There I am showing a little chunk of activity (or a complex mass of crap), here he is showing relationships over time..

I was thinking at one point about having a sidebar graphic that did this kinda thing, only vertically. User activity, audience, sources. This is _very_ cool.

I hear this is all MS based. People I respect keep telling me I need to get re-hip to various elements of MS tech. Grrr..

Many-to-Many: Visualizing Friendship Dynamics