• How To Pick Up Internet News as it Breaks
  Ben Miller from Tokyo breaks it down according to how fast it is, from google zeitgeist (slow) to the Digg live fed (raw — fast!). A great little list.
  (tags: benmiller google digg pickup howto news)

Macleans, the bastion of Canadian journalism has published an opinion piece about how The Internet Sucks. Some fairly educated minds are debating it in various places. I anticipate the debate to reach some volume before it dies down; much like posting an article about how Digg sucks and seeing it catapulting to the front page on Digg — I expect an article on how the Internet sucks to soon hit the front page … well, of “the Internet”, I guess.I don’t expect many upcoming articles or opinions to be “for” the piece because the argument is fairly high in “garbage” quotient.

Why?

Because all technology comes with good and bad uses. The reality is that all technology, is in fact value neutral. What we do with it imbues it with “goodness” or “badness”.

So why is it Mr. Maich writes about the Internet being bad? I suspect that human nature being what it is, and journalism reflecting that side of human nature that derives a certain guilty pleasure in every bad thing we hear about, its no wonder that one builds up a certain cynicism for a technology — or, a series of technologies, such as the Internet.

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As you may have heard, “DVD Jon”, the Swedish hacker who, at the tender age of 16 cracked software for DVDs allowing interested individuals to rip DVDs to their own PCs, has now reverse engineered the iTunes/iPod software. Previously, your iPod had a difficult time playing DRM-locked stuff from other music stores; similarly, music purchased from iTunes is difficult (impossible) to play on other music players.

Jon’s exploits obivously represent a blow to the cash cow that has been fueling Apple’s bottom line.

So, what does Jon do on his appropriately named blog “So Sue Me”? How is he reaching out to his fans, his audience, and potential lawyer types looking for any thoughts on his latest escapades?

He posts a recipe for Banana Bread.

The guy has big brass one’s. I love it. ;)

• Web Browser Deathmatch: IE7 vs. FF2 vs. Safari vs. Opera9 vs. Flock vs. Maxthon
  A nice breakdown/ comparison of the most current generation of browsers. Personally, IE7 really ain’t that bad, although the lack of plugin library is still its greatest con for me.
  (tags: readwriteweb comparison maxthon flock opera explorer safari firefox)

Here’s a drastic idea.

There’s been a meme floating around that seems to be catching steam — the idea of accountability in the sense of trust that bloggers have with their peers and their audience.  Yes, this is another branch of the Edelman fiasco.   The importance of disclosure and transparency. Pledges, badges, commitees, codes of ethics and round tables have all been … uh, tabled.

Many interesting discussions all around.

I think the easy thing is being outraged. The next easy thing is to decide why we’re outraged. I anticipate the next thing is that one, or several, groups, consortiums, rings, and/or posse’s will automagically form of their own accord to try and introduce a sense of self-policing amongst the blogosphere community.

But how can they do this?

A pledge is one thing, but what of the consequences? What happens when one or more members is found to be in violation of that code of ethics? An even trickier question is what happens when that violation is … well, disputable?
Clearly a mechanism for dispute resolution will need to be organized, but going back to the “easier” question … when a member violates a sense of ethics, of right-i-tude, as it were, what are the consequences?

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Mesh Conferences aside, it seems like an interesting point was raised not too long ago about how important it was to be IN Silicon Valley to be near the movers, shakers, and monied folks.  After all, $100 000 high definition conferencing aside, when it boils down to it, you’ve got to press the flesh to seal the deal. 

The hoopla around Jason Calacanis proves my point.

There’s a fair bit of linkage going on at the moment because he’s giving a keynote speech at the Blogs Business Summit — an interesting summit that I’d love going to.  Sure, there’s going to be a bootleg copy of his speech on YouTube later in the day — but its the second thing this week where something seemed to be happenin’ in the valley that would be cool to take part in (even if I would have to pay to get in :)

The other thing?

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You can now include Tyrant to “Firefox Snob” in adjectives to describe me. Why you ask? A few days ago I got a polite email from a Trae McNeely, blogmaster over at berrybusyblog.com asking if I could give him a “Shout Out”, as I have occassionally done with other blogs I have liked in the past.

JohnChow.com was a recent recipient. I think Liz Strauss of Successful-Blog.com was the first (and needs to be congratulated on her 1 year blogging birthday!).

Well, Trae — I’m sorry, to tell you at this time I can’t.

There’s a sophisticated vetting process, whereby potential applicants for the “Shout Out” are analyzed through a 36 parameter algorithm. Since this is done electronically, I then have to rank applicants according to softer non-quantifiable factors such as “If this site was a texture, how would it feel against my skin?”(obviously silky soft ones rank higher) and “if I was a hitchhiker, would this site give a lift home?” (creepy ones rank lower).

Of course I kid. ;)

Basically I choose them based on the mood I’m feeling that week, and a vague set of criteria that I thought would be useful to put down in writing.

So for the 1.5 of you that are interested in getting a Shout Out are … well, interested, here are bare minimum requirements:

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