Steve Gillmor & RSS: Out of Chaos and into Absurdity

I remember the beginning of Out of Chaos, a book I read over 30 years ago. There was a passage about the worldview of a tiny insect on a leaf, and how to that insect the leaf, and at most the tree, was his universe. I can’t remember much else from that book, but I remember that part.

Because I keep seeing the same thing happen over and over on the internet. Take some new online application, toss in a celebrity or two, get some venture capitalists to bait their greater fool hooks with some fuzzy math and, presto, the world is suddenly turned on its side.

Except it isn’t. At least not for anyone who doesn’t live on that same leaf, in that same tree.

Even online applications and protocols that have been around a long time and could make life easier are often ignored by the general public. Take RSS, for example. I can count on two hands the number of people, of any age, I know in the real world who use RSS. Heck, most of the people I know don’t even use the internet all that much for news. Sure, they check their newspaper’s web site and maybe CNN for breaking news and they may check their stock quotes on Yahoo or Google, but they still get the lion’s share of their news from the paper. You know- that wad of dead trees that some dude tosses at your porch every morning.

And now comes Steve Gillmor trying to argue, presumably with a straight face, that RSS is dead and everyone should get all of their news from Twitter. From freaking Twitter, for crying out loud. Why not from a Ouija Board? Or a mood ring? Even though I can’t get him to converse with me on said Twitter, I have met Steve and he’s a smart guy. So maybe his article is satire and I’m not getting it. But I don’t think so.

While RSS may very well be dead to most of the real world, to suggest that people are going to go from a technology they barely, if at all, grasp (RSS) to one they know absolutely nothing about (Twitter) is perhaps the most optimistic bit of navel gazing in the history of the typed word. People might go look at Twitter because Oprah talks about it, but that’s a far cry from relying on it as a primary source of information. Shoot, I go to the circus every year or two, but I don’t live there.

Not only is no one who matters going to treat Twitter as the new CNN, anyone who wants anything resembling reliable information in anything resembling an organized fashion is not going to rely on Twitter. For one thing, no one- and I mean no one- is going to read, much less rely on, the Twitter public stream or topical word searches that capture ten spam posts for every legitimate one. The signal to spam to noise quotient on Twitter is simply off the scale. Just to make Twitter enjoyable, you have to manage your follows zealously. And of course there are no archival features on Twitter. You can only see what’s been posted recently.

It’s going backwards. Like watching the news at 10:00 on live TV.

Let me say it again, Google News has folders, archival features, add-ons to improve those archival features, etc., etc. Twitter has none. This, in and of itself, is one of the fatal flaws in Steve’s illogic.

I agree- and have said so over and over here- that RSS is not perfect. Google has tried to single-handedly kill RSS by acquiring and then completely ignoring Feedburner. And I have said many times, that RSS needs to get a lot closer to real time. But real time, filtered poorly can be very noisy. If I see yet another stale post about some beat to death topic in my RSS feeds, I’ll see it five or ten or twenty-five times on Twitter. The echo chamber in Twitter is deeper and more resonant than in Google Reader, or even the blogosphere as a whole. Steve may not know that, because I really don’t think he uses Twitter for broad interaction. I think he uses it as a platform for a written version of his podcast, where others get to observe him talking to a few selected people.

But he’s far from alone. I think Steve and many others have fooled themselves into thinking that their leaf on the big old celebrity infested Twitter tree is representative of the larger world. But it’s not.

Thankfully.

Evening Reading: 5/4/09

So Now I Actually Know What They’re Talking About: I’ve seen all these articles about waterboarding, without really knowing what it is. Some reporter bet he could withstand 15 seconds of it. Think he made it? Take a look.

Girl Power Department: Dr. Isis at the Science Blogs is doing a really cool series called the Letters to Our Daughters Project, in which accomplished female scientists write letters of advice to young women considering a career in science. As the father of two daughters who would be thrilled to see them pursue and enjoy a career in science, I think this is interesting and worthwhile. Here’s a excerpt from the first one:

About a year later a classmate turned to her and called her a bitch. She thanked him for noticing, and then related how she had not reached her mother’s level of “bitchdom” yet. He said nothing more, and did not try to insult her the rest of the year. She came home from school empowered rather than insulted.

Here’s an excerpt from the second and most recent installment:

Fortunately for me as a smart girl, my family and my teachers never told me that I could not be who I wanted to be when I grew up.

Amen. I have consistently told my girls they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. They aren’t going to (and shouldn’t) choose a career just because I want them to, so they might as well do something that makes them happy. I like to expose them to stories about smart, cool women who chose their path, as opposed to having it chosen for them.

We Came to the Pyramids: Speaking of Isis, there’s this on the day before the 5th day of May:

Isis, oh, Isis, you mystical child.
What drives me to you is what drives me insane.
I still can remember the way that you smiled
On the fifth day of May in the drizzlin’ rain.

If Kafka Did Airports: This is really funny (via Will Truman):

Do Bears Poop in the Woods Department: Yes, yes a million times yes. Like every other thing in the Web 2.0 space. But as far as I can tell they haven’t sought out the overhype.

Burma-Blog: I would’ve guessed it was Texas. Oh, that’s right, we’re still a state.

Writing blog posts
Well you can dream
That they’ll be
On Techmeme
Burma-Blog

Caveman General Says: That some dinosaurs survived the asteroid cataclysm. I wonder if it was Space Invaders that got ’em. Or maybe this:

dinosaurs

Speaking of the Surgeon General: Just remember that “the Surgeon General has one lung and a voicebox but he could still kick your sorry ass.”

Mythbusting Department: I love the epic battles between fairy tales and scientists.

Deep Art Ment: I go to great lengths to avoid all ads. DVR, XM Radio, Adblock Plus, you name it. Yet I like to read old Sears catalogs (I bought two from the 60’s off of eBay a few years ago) and old print ads. Here are some ads you won’t see anymore. And here’s a neat list of vintage illustrations.

Now I Can’t Eat that Either: Want to know how much sugar is in that healthy dish you’re about to consume?

Nice Monkey: On the other hand, some teas allegedly increase your metabolism. I’m not sure I buy it, but it makes me feel better about the Arizona Diet Peach Tea monkey I carry around on my back.

The Hunt for Gollum: Not Your Father’s Home Movie

I noted the other day that Cassidy and I are reading The Hobbit together. It, along with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was a defining moment in my early reading years. I’ve been looking forward to sharing these books with Cassidy, and we are having a blast. She has not seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies, and I told her that we would watch each movie together after reading the book. Just the other night we were lamenting the fact that there is not a movie version of The Hobbit.

Now, thanks to a dedicated director and a bunch of very talented actors/volunteers/fans, there is a very well-done movie inspired by these books that we can use to whet our appetites. In our reading, we are just past the point where Bilbo Baggins finds the ring and escapes from Gollum and the goblins, with some help from the eagles. So Cassidy knows about Gollum and the ring.

Filmmaking is not like journalism. Unlike the ever narrowing gap between traditional journalists and bloggers, citizen filmmakers have not narrowed the gap between themselves and their Hollywood counterparts. In fact, I think the difference between a Saturday night made for Sci-fi Channel movie and a Hollywood feature film is bigger than the difference between a good blogger and the New York Times. Words all look the same and stand in their own merits. Movies are multi-media events, where cinematography, special effects and other factors have a lot to do with the end result. Accordingly, even talented actors look bad in a film with no production budget.

Which makes it very hard for independent films to measure up.

The Hunt for Gollum is a very pleasant exception to this rule. This is an excellent 40-minute film, in HD no less. The fight scenes were excellently filmed, choreographed and acted. I really enjoyed the entire thing, and intend to watch it again- with Cassidy.

Take a look. But be quick, because there’s no guarantee that some walking bad decision at New Line Cinema, who owns the rights to the Lord of the Rings movies, won’t try to squelch this little labor of love, and all the good publicity it will generate. I hope that doesn’t happen.

Because it is a cool and well made film.

Good and Bad News for Old MediaSmart Servers

I was a very early adopter of the HP Media Smart Server. I bought an EX475 model, upgraded the storage to 4 terabytes and haven’t looked back. Until, that is, I noted that the new version of the MediaSmart Server software (which includes the iPhone media streamer among other goodies) was not compatible with the older models.

That was a bummer.

But today I noted in my feed reading that someone has hacked a way to install the new software on the old machine. I’ve built computers from parts, and I hacked my Mac Mini right after I bought it. So I figured I was good to go.

Until I saw the required steps.

Are you kidding me? That’s looks about on the scale of building a space shuttle in your garage.

I don’t really need the software update. But if I did, I’d buy a new server from Amazon for $585, and move my bigger hard drives to that box. Compared to all that work, $585 seems like a great deal.

Evening Reading: Rational Swine Flu Edition

One of the most annoying problems of modern journalism is the trend, born out of competition for attention, to overstate everything. To create some headline that stands out from the crowd, and as a result occasionally stands out from the truth. The result is that headlines that used to read like encyclopedia topics now read like used car ads. That’s annoying enough when it concerns the newest Web 2.0 application that is somehow going to “kill” Google. It’s inexcusable when it involves a strain of flu that could kill a bunch of people.

I live about three blocks from the (now temporarily closed) school attended by the girl (thankfully recovering) who had Houston’s first confirmed case of Swine flu. All three of my kids go to a school that is literally right beside that school. So, yeah, I’m pretty interested in getting reliable information about the Swine flu.

There’s a lot of bad information flying around out there. Here’s where I’m getting my Swine flu information.

First, I ignore 100% of the stuff I see on Twitter. All that talk about Twitter as a reliable source of breaking information has been debunked. Photos of planes in a river, yes. Information about a developing public health hazard, not so much. Unfortunately, Twitter is not the only place to see panic-inducing reports. Major media is doing its part too. In fact, I completely tune out, figuratively and literally, the TV coverage.

The first place I look, and probably my number one favorite daily read even before the Swine flu story, are the Science Blogs (About page; RSS feed). I enjoy their scientific topics all the time, and I find the various science blog writers to be generally level-headed, informative and super-smart without being eggheads. And in at least one case, super-smart and pretty (Good heavens Miss Sakamoto – you’re beautiful!).

So what have the scientists taught me so far. . .

First, that it is always better to be safe than sorry:

By raising the pandemic threat level to phase 5 have done something very important: served notice that it’s time to mobilize resources in the event this virus shows sustained transmission in several countries. The severity of the disease it produces doesn’t have to be extremely serious or lethal for a widespread outbreak of flu in a community to do a lot of damage in productivity, economic loss and quality of life. It’s the job of public health agencies to warn communities this might happen and so they can prepare to manage the consequences.

They’ve taught me what the WHO pandemic levels mean:

Phase 5: characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short. This is the key–Phase 5 is a signal to governments to get their act together, because the shit is about to hit the fan.

More, including a handy chart, here.

And that it’s not a good idea to start tossing antibiotics at everyone at the first sign of trouble:

We wouldn’t want to resistance to evolve when, overwhelmingly, most cases will resolve on their own (and without extensive hospitalization).

I got a little background on the name thing. As an aside, those who are getting their panties in a wad over what we call this disease are, in my opinion, idiots. Period. It’s not about pork, it’s about people. And do those dumbasses really think it’s ever going to be known by any other name?

I’ve learned why this variant is resistant to certain antiviral drugs. I’ve read a little about the genetic history of the virus, and why that is important. And I learned about the Flu Wiki, and about a 2007 outbreak in Ohio.

I read a legitimate reason not to panic, but to be a tad nervous:

The real bad news is that since this is a new flu part of which (flu has different parts that may have different histories) only recently entered the human environment, there might be a slightly higher than we would like to have chance that this flu, while it swaggers around the human population making people sick, will recombine with one or more other flu viruses that are already out there with very nasty results.

As a bonus, they sometimes call an appropriate bullshit on other media sources:

As my readers know, I hate the Huffington Post’s “science and health” reporting. The main reason is that they approach health and science the same way they approach politics: ideologically. I have no problem with people holding particular political ideologies. My medical partners and I have very different political views, but we all practice the same science-base medicine, and that’s what unites us (that, and our daily kumbaya sessions). But science in service of ideology is always problematic.

Here’s the latest- on the questionable benefit of travel and border restrictions.

Another good source of information is Harvard Medical School (even if for some insane reason they want you to buy their full report):

The initial symptoms of this flu virus are like those of the regular, annual flu viruses: fever, muscle aches, runny nose, and sore throat. Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may be more common with this swine flu than with the regular flu. If this epidemic hits your community and you develop flu-like symptoms, it is likely your doctor will take samples from your throat or material you cough up and send them to the
st
ate public health laboratory for testing.

Of course, the CDC’s web page is also a reliable source of information, that is updated regularly.

We need to have reliable information about the Swine flu. Rather than extreme headlines from both ends of the spectrum, we need reporting right down the middle. The sources that do that will do better in the long run than those who toss up used car ads in the name of attention. We deserve better than that.

Getting the Picture with TweetPhoto

I’ve used TwitPic to link photos to my Twitter posts almost as long as I have been a semi-active Twitter user. I like applications that do one thing, simply and well. Sort of like Foxmarks before they ruined it, but that’s another story. TwitPic works perfectly for my purposes. It’s embedded within Tweetie, my preferred and only iPhone Twitter application. I also like the TwitPicGrid in small doses.

Today, I read about TweetPhoto, a new Twitter photo sharing application (isn’t it great when multiple developers fight to see who can give away stuff to more people?). At first blush it looks like TweetPhoto suffers from the internet stats obsession (who saw my photo, god-awful trending tags, etc.) that I most affirmatively do not share, but let’s take a closer look.

Once you sign in with your Twitter credentials, you get a nice looking upload screen.

That seems like a lot of work compared to the Tweetie/TwitPic integration or the integrated Trunc.it photo sharing via TwitterGadget, my Twitter app of choice. When you upload the photo, a box pops up asking if you want to push the photo to Facebook too. Nope, I don’t. The app then adds a Twitter post with a photo link to your Twitter stream.

OK, that’s fine and dandy. But it’s no different than TwitPic. Let’s see what else TweetPhoto has to offer. It shows me how many times my photo has been viewed, but (1) I don’t really care and (2) so does TwitPic. You can enlarge the photo, as you can on TwitPic. You can retweet it, which is a feature that’s not important to me, but one that TwitPic doesn’t have. And you can mark favorites.

Test Photo: 1970 in the Astrodome

It geo-tags photos posted via a mobile phone. I emailed a photo to test out the geo-tagging, but it hasn’t shown up on my TweetPhoto page 20 minutes after I emailed it. Hopefully that’s a glitch. If not, that’s not good. Time is everything online, just like offline.

The My Friends Photos tab leads to a page where you can see other TweetPhoto users’ photos and invite your friends to join (I don’t like my chances). You can supposedly show photos posted by your Twitter friends, but the app said I didn’t have any Twitter friends. It may be that this option only shows photos posted by your Twitter friends who also use TweetPhoto- which would be of limited value. The Public Stream looks like it shows other photos posted via TweetPhoto. Again, that’s not as interesting as TwitPicGrid. You can upload photos via email, which is nice, but, once again, not as easy as the Tweetie/TwitPic combination.

Navigation between those tabs was very Twitter-like (e.g., slow).

TweetPhoto is well-designed, and it has some neat features. But it’s not evolutionary enough to supplant the incumbents. Maybe like the rest of the online world, it is betting that the general population continues to flock to Twitter, so it can make its bones with new Twitter users. Maybe, maybe not. Only time will tell.

Evening Reading: 4/30/09

There are Some Who Call Me Tim Department: Here’s how 10 iconic tech products got their name. I didn’t know that Firefox started out as Firebird.

Adventures in Victim Retaliation: Here’s the hilarious story of how some dude punked the guy who stole his laptop via remote access. He should have let the guy keep it and started a blog with daily updates and live webcam feeds, particularly since the police refused to swing at the softball he lobbed at them.

Living Deliberately: This fellow suffered through 2 long weeks without Twitter in the name of journalism. I think there are pockets of Twitter that function as a free-form message board, if you manage your follows well, but the larger platform is without a doubt a self-promotion and spam fest.

Good Mashup Department: This is pretty funny. Star Trek, Lost style. The funniest Star Trek parody ever were the Star Trek cats segments in the old Robotman cartoon.

Stupidity for Traffic: This is a really stupid headline. Maybe Palm is having issues with the Pre, but why don’t we act like grownups and see how it works before we bury it. The crap people do for attention really amazes me (as I give them attention, thereby rewarding hyperbolic behavior).

Fringe Movies Department: Here’s a list of the top 10 classic midnight movies. I’ve seen all of them, except the first one. I love Rocky Horror, and I thought Eraserhead was worse than horrible.

Evernote Department: Ron tells us how to encrypt notes in the most wonderful Evernote. I like this feature, as I migrate more and more of my data into Evernote. Ron needs to stop posting new tips and answer my question about sub-folders.

The E Word: Here are some educational web sites for kids that are fun. Hey, where’s Webkinz on this list! Here are some good math apps for the iPhone or iPod Touch. And here are some Web 2.0 apps for learning.

What We Need Here is a Boycott: So PC World not only does the annoying partial feed thing, it also breaks up some articles into many separate pages. I’d love to know what they think are the essential iPhone apps, but I’m not going to click that hard. Here is my list, on one handy page. Without ads. Imagine that.

What is that Bald Spot in the Distance: The universe is so flat you can stand on a sardine can and see the back of your head.

Like Wimpy’s Hamburger Money: Looks like the final release candidate for Windows 7 will be here on Tuesday. Thankfully, I’m running the beta on an old laptop with no data I care about on it.

Welcome Wagon: I’m really glad to see Seth Finkelstein on Twitter (follow him here). I just wish he’d use it more and talk with other non-BigHeads like me. Twitter needs more Seths and less celebrities.

Defrosting Windows Department: Here’s a handy way to kill frozen Windows applications.

Good New Music: I dig this new Weinland record. Here’s Sunken Eyes, and here’s the Neilish I’m Sure It Helps. Buy it here.

Chiseled in Stone: The great Vern Gosdin died recently. I loved his eighties country records and The Gosdin Brothers’ Sounds of Goodbye is indeed an overlooked classic. Groover’s Paradise has an MP3. So does Setting the Woods on Fire. The Adios Lounge has a story.

TIVO Deathwatch Department: I haven’t updated my TIVO Deathwatch in a while because I thought TIVO was already dead. Now I’m holding out hope for a resurrection in the form of this new DirecTV TIVO. The question, of course, is how do we know this isn’t a Lucy football move, that will end up with DirecTV abandoning TIVO again?

I’d Be Happy with One: Here’s a list of 10 ways to be useful on Twitter. My list would be number 5 written ten times.

Scary and Funny: io9 has a good write up on Supernatural. Supernatural is a very well written show. The scary episodes are generally really scary (particularly for TV), and the occasional comedic episodes are almost always hilarious.

More Stating of the Obvious: In the second stating the obvious study of the week, some egghead got paid to determine that employees will find ways around corporate firewalls. Wow, I’d never have guessed that. I wonder if alcoholics drink more beer than meerkats?

No Gander in Sight Department: OK, this is the kind of bullshit thing that infuriates me. It’s perfectly fine to crap all over Christians, but say anything even remotely non-positive about any other group and the world stops for a gigantic protest. I’m no bible beater, but this sort of crap enrages me. Fully.

If This Isn’t an Omen, What Is Department: The Newspaper Association of America is going online-only.

Luke Needs to Study Harder. Some little girl gets inspired by some Globetrotters song or whatnot and rocks an IQ of 156.

Safety in Math: Here’s why you only have to worry about the little monsters in your closet.

Cry Baby Department: So Microsoft wants to give us all free PC security products, and we have to worry about other companies crying about it. Seems to me that any lawmaker who wants to force consumers to have to pay for what they could otherwise get for free isn’t doing us any favors. I say any company should be able to give away anything it wants, without penalty.

Celebrity of the Day: Everybody is bleating about Sarah Palin joining Twitter. She has over 10,000 followers and follows a whopping 45 people. When did Twitter turn into People Magazine?

Rich Men with Clubs: If you like golf, change sports. If for some reason you are unwilling to do that, this looks like an interesting golf game for your iPhone.

Once You Go Mac: Here’s a very interesting read about a guy’s switch to Mac after a lifetime of PC use.