Author: Kent

Reader, writer, arithmeticer. Proprietor of Newsome.Org, a tech, music and life blog.

Jamming Those Pesky Cell Phones

At lunch today, there was a very popular lady sitting at the next table. I know she is popular because her cell phone rang about every 3 minutes. She’s also deaf. I know that because every time it rang, the rest of us dove under our tables, mistaking her insanely loud cell phone ring for a civil defense warning.

While I was irritated that this lady couldn’t turn her phone off or put it in silent mode for the 45 minutes it took her to eat lunch, I can’t support any effort to ban or jam cell phones.

Why? Because I am a parent. And because any legislation would likely substitute one problem for another. And because the restaurant and movie industries, which are desperately trying to draw customers to restaurants and theaters, probably wouldn’t enforce the law anyway.

Yes, it aggravates me when somebody’s cell phone rings off the imaginary hook at a restaurant or a movie. And yes, there are a lot of people who think (or more likely want us to think) they’re too crucial to the wheels of commerce to be off the grid for a hour (most of them like to wear sunglasses inside too). But notwithstanding those inconsiderate and insecure folks, there is a legitimate need to be reachable when you’re out at dinner and a movie.

Rather than ban or jam cell phones, establishments should develop and publish cell phone policies. The easy one is to require that all cell phones be put on silent mode during a movie and that anyone who wants to take a call must first go to the lobby. If someone really needs to tell someone something in the middle of a movie, send them a text message that does not disturb others.

If someone needs to talk to me, I want them to be able to reach me. It’s up to me, and every other right thinking person, to decide who really needs to talk to me now or who can wait an hour or two. And it’s up to me to take calls I need to take in a way that doesn’t disturb the people in the next row or at the next table.

The way to get there is via uniformly enforced cell phone policies and societal pressure- not via cell phone jamming and legislation.

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Down to 999,999

firefoxEd Bott says there’s one less reason to use Firefox, now that someone has made an add-on that replicates Firefox’s find box.

That’s a neat feature, but the fact remains that Firefox has left IE in the dust.  From time to time, IE might close the gap a little, but barring some radical open source move from Microsoft, the race for the power user is over.

One add-on to replicate one feature is simply not going to matter in the long run.  In the time it took to write that one add-on, hundreds of Firefox plugins were likely written, updated, etc.  There is too much developer support behind Firefox for IE to regain the momentum.

There are, of course, millions and millions of Windows users who don’t know anything about Firefox.  So it’s not like IE is going to fade into oblivion.

But I can’t think of a legitimate reason why a tech savvy power user would prefer IE over Firefox.

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RoamEO, RoamEO, Where Art Thou Dog

As more and more GPS devices come to market, we are seeing lots of devices that allow you to track cars, people and pets.  Gizmodo has a post about a new one.

The lastest is a pet tracker cleverly (or not) called RoamEO.  I think GPS for pets makes sense.  Lucky Dog has a one of those chips that allow him to be identified should he hop a plane to San Diego or something.  I’d consider using a GPS device as well.

But not one with a limit of 1 mile.  If he’s within a mile of home, he’s not so much lost as he is out for a walk.  Granted, if he was outside of that radius, I could drive around and hope to get a beep on the unit.  But that seems less than ideal- for pet control.

But boy oh boy would I love to have one of these for quail hunting.  The unit will tell you how fast your dog is moving, which probably sounds silly to anyone who isn’t a quail hunter.  You can track 3 dogs at the same time, which is also perfect for quail hunting.

The 1 mile limit is still a little short, but I’m intrigued by the possibilities.

Lucky Dog probably won’t get a RoamEO, but some of his hunting friends might.

Now someone just needs to invent a KidEO before my kids hit the teenage years.

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Morning Reading: 9/7/06

Marcus Vorwaller on how to have better conversations.

Wired on the other side of the blogosphere.  “Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you’re about as likely to find someone else interested in it.” 

Darren Rowse on keeping your digital camera out of harm’s way.

The Blackberry Pearl looks pretty sweet.  Wonder if it will ever come to Verizon?

Nick Carr on the Digg problem.

Richard Querin has some good thoughts about the boring blogosphere problem.

Here’s a niche product.  Web 2.0 seating charts.  I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.

Make yourself a logo.

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In Search of a More Conversational Blogosphere

The blogosphere is boring me lately, so I need to make some adjustments. I need to find a more conversational blogosphere.

conversation

My dilemma is the result of a couple of patterns. Stated simply, the first is a growing realization that I simply don’t care about a lot of the stuff that pops up in my RSS feeds lately. I don’t really care that Six Apart bought Rojo. I think pay per view movies on a cell phone is perhaps the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of. I can’t even muster enough interest to write a separate post about how silly it is.

I am tired of the same old same old. Dave Winer reminding us once again that he invented something people are talking about today a long time ago. I don’t really care that Dave invented everything we talk about. Good for him. I’m just bored with hearing about it.

Is there any place for modesty in the blogosphere- or has it become one giant billboard for self-promotion?

I’m weary of hearing people who have done everything they can do to raise their profile in the blogosphere proclaim that they don’t care about traffic. Let some of those folks talk to themselves for about a week and see how they feel. It’s perfectly OK to raise your image and try to become influential among the hundreds of people who care what a blogger thinks. But it is hypocritical on its face to then turn around and say traffic (the blogosphere’s attention equivalent) isn’t important to you.

If people won’t be intellectually honest about their intentions, is there a basis for conversation?

I’m bored with reading the latest cheerleader report on how Web 2.0 is big business poised to change the world. No one seems to see beyond the boundaries of the blogosphere. It’s cool if you really think the next social bookmarking service is going to change the world. I’m just tired of hearing it- particularly from people with skin in the game. We’ve talked about the easily identified conflicts of interest in the blogopshere, but the less obvious ones are a bigger, and growing, problem.

It just seems like the blogosphere is becoming an online series of tupperware parties where friends move money around amongst themselves while they wait for the mythical third party tupperware lover to show up. It’s Eugene O’Neill, Stanley Kubrick style.

echo chamber

The second troubling pattern is the echo chamber that we talk about from time to time. Some self or temporally appointed smart guy says something that is supposed to be clever or earth-shattering and then, like the anchovies at the Krusty Krab, tons of others pile out of the bus and say the same thing. With so many people saying the same thing, conversations are simply not possible. There’s just the drone of a hundred keyboards typing the same words.

And finally, I’m exhausted from trying to have conversations with people who don’t share my view of the blogosphere as conversational. Blogging is a lot of different stuff for a lot of different people. For me, it’s not about spouting off my latest philosophy and it’s certainly not about making money. It’s supposed to be about having fun. It’s supposed to be about learning stuff and sharing interests. The more I think about it, using blogging as a way to make money or become influential is, well, boring. Can’t we just be regular people and talk about interesting stuff? Sure we can. If we make an effort to seek out like-minded individuals.

It’s not wrong to think of the blogosphere differently than I do. Good luck to those who think blogging is going to make them rich or famous or get them a Wikipedia entry. It’s just more fun to find people who come at the blogging thing from a similar place.

So I have decided to seek out a more conversational blogosphere. Gone from my blogroll will be those whose primary purpose, be it disclosed or not, is wealth accumulation or self-aggrandizement. I would find those people boring in the real world. The fact that they found the little room at the end of the hall before me doesn’t make them any less boring.

In sum, I either have to fix my blogging outlook or stand by and watch my blogging interest go to zero the way so many of my stocks did back in Bubble 1.0

I want to find, link to and converse with the sort of people I’d enjoy talking to in the real world. I’m going to need some help finding them. But I’m pretty committed to this new manifesto.

I’m interested in tech, obviously. And I think much of the Web 2.0 stuff is cool- taken in the right context. I’m interested in music, movies, humor, photography and self-expression in general. I want to talk and learn about that stuff. I’m tired of talking at people who aren’t listening and I’m concerned that by doing that, I am missing out on better and more useful conversations that are happening somewhere else.

It’s going to be a bit of trial and error and it may completely fail. I may end up in an even smaller room all by myself. But I have to try.

Otherwise, my blog is going to wither and die out of sheer boredom.

I’m going to have some space on my blogroll. If you know of anyone interesting I should add, let me know.

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Windows Live Writer Annoyance

Beta or not, I simply cannot understand why there is a need to add a post (which I have found no easy way to delete) on your blog every time you install Live Writer.

I just installed it on my laptop and, presto, there’s another “temporary” post I can’t get rid of.

This needs to be seems to have been fixed.

Update: When I posted using Live Writer, the temporary post seems to have disappeared.

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Donna Bogatin Peels Back the Onion

Donna Bogatin has a great read over at ZDNet about the champions of Web 2.0.

She starts off with a bang:

It is fitting that YCombinator’s Paul Graham did a feature interview with Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch. The two entrepreneurs have a lot in common: they both are making money by promoting Web 2.0 start-ups lacking business plans.

Donna’s point, which is one I and other have been making for some time, is that, while the internet and that sliver of it we call Web 2.0 may have changed the rules ever-so-slightly, the tried and true rules of business still apply. Business is about making money. Not building a cool toy or giving away a lot of stuff to a lot of people. Too many of the people who control the microphone in the blogosphere are either making too much money or have fooled themselves into thinking they are going to make too much money to talk about this. But it’s true.

If people were genuinely interested in changing the business landscape through the use of this collaborative software, they would encourage, or better yet demand, that some thought be put into exactly how you new social bookmarking service is actually going to make a profit. Instead, everyone keeps on yukking it up at Web 2.0 parties and nibbling on the low hanging fruit- ad revenue. Once the fruit is gone, there’s always eBay.

I’m no VC, but let me punch a few holes in this quote by Paul Graham:

What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don’t do that, it won’t matter how clever your business model is. Of course you have to have a business model eventually…

If that’s all it takes, here’s my new Web 2.0 service. Start a web page where anyone who clicks on a link will be sent $20 from a Paypal account. Everybody wants money- especially if it’s free. We’ll put some AdSense ads up there to generate some revenue. Once we get a lot of traffic, then we’ll figure out how to monetize it.

When your entire business is based on people using your product for free, customers are going to be highly resistant to later paying for it. If all you do is give stuff away, you’re a charity. Charities are good, but the money they get should be called donations, and not investments. Particularly when the dream return on that investment is greater fool money via an IPO or getting bought by Yahoo.

The rules of business apply to Web 2.0. Even if every 5 years or so someone catches lightning in a bottle, there are hundreds more who lose money or give up.

There are plenty of reasons why the champions of Web 2.0 don’t want to recognize this indisputable fact, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to buy it.

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