Nick Denton

Dateline: Memphis
Only in America: in a southern town, home of Elvis Presley, a Russian restaurant, with the Havah Nagilah, Jewish wedding music, accompanying a belly-dancer who gyrates as though she's just come off a shift at the local lapdancing club. She balances a sword on her head and, failing, takes the blade and says in a strong southern accent: "You be needing your steak cut, 'hon?" #

Thursday, March 28

Dateline: Amarillo
Northern Texas, cattle country, carlights and neon, impenetrable geography. #

Cory Doctorow has some additions to my weblog etiquette guide
· If I'm telling someone something I don't want her to repeat, I tell her so -- blogger or otherwise. I have been doing that for far longer than I've been blogging, distinguishing among those things that are for public consumption and those things that are just between us.

· When someone tells me something that I think would be a cool blog entry, I usually say, "Hey, can I blog that?"

· Things people say on panels, in print, or on their blogs are fair game. I generally ask if I'm quoting something from the WELL (that's part of the WELL's AUP) unless it's something that's been forwarded from elsewhere, like a public Yahoo group.

· I ignore things I disagree with -- if you want to say something different, get yer own blog and say it there. This is my blog.

· For matters of fact and corrections that I agree with, I use ~~strikethrough~~ tags and usually append a (Thanks, name-of-person-who-corrected-me!) to the correction.

Weblog etiquette questions, with answers from Rebecca Blood

Cory Doctorow [group weblog] #

Democrats vs. New Media
Glenn Reynolds brings party politics into the fight over copy protection. The argument: Hollywood funds Democrats; Hollywood hates internet piracy; the web hates Hollywood; therefore the web should hate the Democrats. It's an interesting argument, and would be even more interesting if the Republicans weren't as much in hock to corporate interests as the Dems; and the Democrats at least as much in hock to the tech industry as they are to Hollywood.
· Glenn Reynods [Tech Central Station] #

Dateline Santa Fe
Adobe city. #

You will never forget this
The LA Times has a wonderful audio scoop: the tape of an address to the 2,000 troops on the eve of battle against Al Qaeda. Frank Wiercinski, the speaker, was the commander of the forces in Operation Anaconda. I've "You will never forget this. You will never forget that man or woman on your right or left. You will never forget the fact that you stood here in Afghanistan." It made me think of the great Band of brothers speech from Henry V, to which I've also linked below. Note the reference to "man or woman" - much more politically correct than Shakespeare.

· RealAudio

· The Untold War [LA Times]

· Henry V [Shakespeare] #

Dateline: Albuquerque
Search for a motel in the New Mexico city. #

Wednesday, March 27

Dead presidents
Ian Clarke, the libertarian coder behind the FreeNet file-sharing system, was bending my ear the other night about freedom of information. The usual argument: copy protection for the benefit of entertainment companies leads inexorably to government control of all content and information, and thus to dictatorship. Okay, I'm caricaturing his views, but that is pretty much the line of thinking. Ian is a smart and erudite guy, and brings the thoughts of the founding fathers into the argument. Both sides can play the history game, as Michael Eisner demonstrates in this article. The thesis: Abraham Lincoln would have hated digital piracy.

· Michael Eisner [Financial Times]

· Discussion with Ian Clarke [Slashdot] #

Blogloop
   A defining moment, at one of the PC Forum sessions. It's the wireless networking panel, with companies such as Boingo presenting their vision of the internet in the air, everywhere. There's a live Wi-Fi connection in the room, so Doc Searls, Dan Gillmor, and I are all blogging away.
   Duncan Davidson, the co-founder of SkyPilot, is talking about a "mesh" system to bounce data signals from rooftop to rooftop. Gillmor writes: "This might be an alternative to DSL or cable. But it's not the answer to true broadband, which is a lot faster and more useful." Whoops. Davidson of course has his own laptop hooked up to the conference's wireless network, reads Gillmor's post, and corrects him. The mesh technology apparently allows for radically higher transmission speeds. All this, in the space of ten minutes.
   A suggestion for next year: cut off any speech-questions, you know, the long-winded speeches from the floor followed by a half-hearted question mark. You want to present your views: just post a blog entry. Could work for some speakers too.

· Dan Gillmor #

Tuesday, March 26

Blog etiquette [with some answers from Rebecca Blood]
In traditional journalism, there are some codes of behavior. For instance, if you meet someone at a social occasion, there is a general presumption that conversations are off-the-record. Blogging is younger. Some of the rules of conduct translate from ordinary social interaction, and journalistic practices. But I still have some etiquette questions. I'm hoping the weblog world has its Ann Landers. I'll publish all sensible answers. Here are the questions.
· Is a conversation with a weblog author off-the-record, unless otherwise specified, or on-the-record? "That's between us," I've found myself saying a couple of occasions. Afterwards, which would be too late, if I was talking to a journalist. Should I preface all conversation with that proviso?

Rebecca Blood answers: IMO, everything *should* be off the record, but too many webloggers report entire conversations on their weblogs for anyone to rely on that. if you know their weblog, you're likely to know where they will fall on this issue; protect yourself accordingly. otherwise, always give the proviso. this isn't etiquette, btw, it's just self-protection.

· What to do about the fact that I'm always repeating myself? I was chatting to a friend the other day, and realized that every topic of conversation was something about which I had already blogged. And he reads my weblog, occasionally. Should I ask whether he has read my weblog recently, and how recently, or would that be presumptious? And should he pretend that my stories are new, or disclose that he's already read them?

I usually say "I don't know if you saw it" and launch into my story.

· Dan Gillmor comes up to me and says that I've quoted him out of context. He's not against the notion of copyright. He just rates freedom of information more highly. Do I have an obligation to run a correction? And is it okay if I just edit the relevant post, or do I have to give the correction equal prominence? And, if the complaint is nutty, is it okay just to ignore?

just make a note of it on the day it happens. I'm opposed to editing posts, since, anyone who has cited a post is rendered nonsensical if the weblogger goes in and just changes it willy-nilly. I'm in favor of addendums (duly dated) or, if a correction is absolutely necessary, a note indicating the date and nature of the edit. (no one does this, to my knowledge, btw). in this specific case, I would note dan's objection on your weblog and link to the offending post so that readers can see exactly what you're talking about. maybe link the original post to the correction, with a note that you made a correction later.

· Another blogger at PC Forum told me an interesting anecdote. Is it okay for me to post on the subject, if he hasn't already? If he's slow, is that just his problem? Journalists, good ones, at least, will merrily screw eachother over for a scoop. Are webloggers that ruthless?

bad form. tell your own anecdotes.

· I've been subject to a rather enjoyable tirade by Sgt Stryker, an angry-white-man weblog. I'm busy, and not interested in politics this week. Should I respond? But what if that just riles the guy even more? Would it seem wimpish if I just ignore him? Or arrogant?

just ignore him. personal attacks should always be ignored. cross-blog talk is fine, but only if you have the time and inclination. you're never obligated to respond.

PC Forum: Joltage
The most interesting company I've seen at PC Forum is Joltage. It's a small startup with limited funding, no plans for infrastructure buildout, dangerous enemies, and an idea which could give the world with high-speed wireless internet way sooner than we might expect. Joltage is like Sputnik, a system for individuals to open up their wireless access points, in exchange for money, or the right to roam across the rest of the network. Imagine a network built - not on billions of dollars of investment and armies of technicians in vans - but from below. It's the telecom equivalent of an Amish communal barn-raising. The only hitch: most people's DSL or cable internet service agreements prohibit sharing of the bandwidth. Joltage will not encourage individuals to breach their terms and conditions; but it's growth will depend on these individuals. It can turn a blind eye; but the incumbent telcos won't buy that once demand for high-speed internet switches from wireline providers to wireless guerrillas like Joltage.

· Joltage

· Sputnik #

PC Forum
I've offered some trivial vignettes from PC Forum. If you want a more serious account of the tech conference sessions, try Doc Searls or Dan Gillmor. Both are blogging live from Scottsdale.

· Doc Searls

· Dan Gillmor #

Monday, March 25

PC Forum: Remote control trivia
A couple of random facts from the panel on digital entertainment at PC Forum today.
· The average man uses the remote once every 28 seconds. The average woman: every minute and a half.
· Steve Perlman asks: who has more than one remote control? Most of the audience of gizmo freaks put up their hands. Three? Four? Anyone have more than five remote controls? Still a quarter of the audience with their hands up. #

PC Forum: Platinum sneakers
John Doerr, the venture capitalist, is probably the richest man in the room, and he is sitting directly in front of me. He looks like a geek, which is one important reason that he is rich and successful. His hair is mussed in a geeky way. There is a difference between the geek bedhead look and the New York downtown bedhead look. The latter requires much more time in front of the mirror. At PC Forum, the geek bedhead look is still in. I lean over the table to check out the brand of Doerr's footwear. When he crosses his legs, Doerr's right foot vibrates. There was a guy in my class at high school who used to do that, and it drove me crazy, but he wasn't John Doerr. The sneakers are slightly worn, and silver. As someone says later: not silver, they're probably gilded in platinum. #

PC Forum: The content tax
The techies are sure of the hopelessness of the music industry's current course. Any copy protection scheme will be circumvented. They should devote their energies to the search for alternative revenue streams. But at this point, the future gets murky. If CD sales disappear, then what? Merchandise? Speaking engagements? Live gigs? Dan Gillmor says people will always make music, even if there is no money in it. Cory Doctorow, citing historical precedent, is confident, or at least hopeful, that some new revenue stream will come along. My idea, which is derided as a statist European solution: public funding for the arts. If music is free over the internet, it becomes a public good, of benefit to all, but unmetered, like clean air or untainted water. The only way to sustain a public good is through public funding of some sort. A license fee, such as the one that all TV owners pay in the UK for the BBC? A surcharge of $100 on every PC sold? It's going to happen. #

PC Forum: Turing machines
Everybody hates the copy protection proposals of the entertainment industry. If the movie and music makers got their way, electronic devices would refuse to play copied CDs or DVDs. Cory Doctorow says computers can emulate any system; the only way to inhibit copying is to cripple computers. "The only way is to ban Turing machines." It took me some time to get the point. Turing: it's a geek thing. Dan Gillmor is equally passionate. He's just done a furious column on the subject. Dan is a writer, of course, a producer of original content. You would have thought he would put the sanctity of his content over the right to copy, but no. "If it was a choice between my career and freedom to copy, I would sacrifice my career."

· Bleak future looms if you don't take a stand [Dan Gillmor] #

Sunday, March 24

PC Forum: Media guys
My Penske truck is parked at a discreet distance from the hotel. I'm at PC Forum, the annual geek conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, organized by Esther Dyson. Most of the sessions are hard-core: web services, security, telecommunications, in line with the current interests of the venture capitalists. In the evening, John Battelle, founder of the late and lamented Industry Standard, is still thinking about magazines. He says, defiantly: I like media. Chris Anderson, editor of Wired, says he's not a media guy, but he can list the unlicensed spectrum by frequency. He could be making it all up; I wouldn't be able to call him on it. #

Approaching the Arizona border

The California desert, east of Palm Springs. An anti-abortion ad on Christian radio: A woman has eight children, six are disabled, she has syphilis, and she's pregnant again. Should she have an abortion? Yes? Meaningful pause, and then the punchline. "You just killed Beethoven." #

Saturday, March 23

Rancho Las Palmas, near Palm Springs

I'm outside Palm Springs, staying in a gated community owned by the Marriott Corporation. At the gate, the guard called in to my hosts, before letting up the barrier. It's a mile from the entrance to my friends' place. The houses are embedded in a golf course. I wonder how much water it takes to keep the grass so green. Miriam, Jon's Brazilian girlfriend, is nervous about sitting out on the patio. There is a protective barrier, but three misdirected golf balls made it over yesterday, and Miriam worries she'll be hit. She keeps a collection of the golf balls, and intends to sell them; the proceeds are compensation. Miriam doesn't feel comfortable in Southern California; in an upscale shop, people assume she's Mexican, and give her funny looks. Jon tells me that gated communities are, like, so over. The latest thing: an inner sanctum, a gated community within a community. When I leave, there is an advisory note from Marriott security. On an empty street, my truck was parked pointing the wrong way. #

Friday, March 22

Los Angeles
Mapquest tells me to turn left on Hollywood Boulevard, but the road is blocked by a giant white tent and I'm blinded by the lights after the dark approach to Los Angeles, and I remember: it's Oscars weekend. Mapquest didn't allow for that. Later, walking along Sunset Strip, outside the Standard Hotel, under the upside-down sign, I see a man who looks like Elton John. In Los Angles on Oscar weekend, it probably *is* him. I'm staying just off the Strip, in a kitsch bed and breakfast called the Secret Garden. Raymond, the camp German who owns the house, loves Los Angeles, and he can't understand why anyone would drive across the wasteland.. "For me, the US is LA, New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, maybe. The rest: you can keep it." #

The Central Valley

In the truck, 300 miles out of San Francisco, outside of Fresno, a radio ad for a local restaurant. "It's like dining in San Francisco," said as if the city was very sophistication itself. #

San Francisco

The movers are from Fujian province, and speak no English. They can count, ask for a larger tip, and they know the word manager. But when I ask for the shelves to be padded, and only then packed, communication breaks down. I call Mr Tim, the manager, and he translates while his staff and I pass the receiver back and forth. #

Thursday, March 21

Jewish dope fiends
From recently released tapes of Nixon in the White House: "You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob? What is the matter with them? I suppose it is because most of them are psychiatrists."
Just What Was He Smoking? [Washington Post] #

Ah, so that's what they all look like
A photo of the A-list web people at SXSW - and me. I Zeliged my way in. Of course, in the caption, everybody is described by their name, and URL.
SXSWbaby! #

Wednesday, March 20

In defense of Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson, the UN human rights commissioner, is on her way out. Indications that the US opposed her; and lots of criticism of her role in the Durban anti-racism conference, which was taken over by anti-semites. Before beating up on her any more, remember Robinson was a respected president of Ireland, did considerably better in a difficult job than her predecessors, and it's not as if she gave the Durban nuts a pass.
From last August: 'A pamphlet distributed at the United Nations anti-racism conference in South Africa equating the Star of David with a swastika has prompted the UN human rights commissioner, Mary Robinson, to declare at an official dinner: "I am a Jew".'
· I am a Jew, Robinson tells racism protesters
· InstaPundit.Com #

Nick Denton (Out To Lunch)
I always thought this was a cool idea: a buddy list on a cellphone which, just like an instant messaging service, notified the user when their friends were in the vicinity. You're away from your screen, for the first time all day, out to lunch, walking along Columbus, and there's a little ping to indicate that your best friend's just a block away; press talk to call; and two minutes later you're enjoying a coffee, or he's ducked into the nearest doorway to avoid discovery. Science fiction? Not in the land of the future, Sweden, where Telia has already launched the feature.
· Telia FriendFinder #

Tuesday, March 19

Teenage slang, after the fall
Their bedrooms are "ground zero." Translation? A total mess.
A mean teacher? He's "such a terrorist."
A student is disciplined? "It was total jihad."
Petty concerns? "That's so Sept. 10."
And out-of-style clothes? "Is that a burqa?"
· In Times of Terror, Teens Talk the Talk [Washington Post via Jeff Jarvis] #

Monday, March 18

Hyperfashion
Rebecca Mead of the New Yorker, who swore she was never going to write about fashion again, visits Japan, the land of $1,000 second-hand sweatshirts.
· New Yorker
· Comments [via Blogdex] #

Saturday, March 16

Smart tariffs
If the EU is going to retaliate against US steel tariffs, this is actually quite a cunning way to go about it. Brussels is planning to target imports from swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania, to hit Bush where it hurts, in swing Congressional districts. For those who are confused by terriers and bariffs, or unclear about the principle of measured retaliation, here's an exciting war analogy: think of the EU move as a targeted attack by the economic superpower, designed to punish US protectionists, with minimum collateral damage.
· EU plans tit-for-tat tariffs in key US election states [Guardian] #

Friday, March 15

Web color codes
Here's a useful resource if you, like me, always forget the code for discreet gray.
Webmonkey #

Where are the liberal weblogs?
   I wrote a few days ago asking a question that's been bothering me lately. Where are all the well-written liberal weblogs? For the purposes of this discussion, I'm defining liberal as anyone who cares about injustice, whether in the US, or in the world at large. Anyone who believes in the notion of enlightened self-interest. For instance, letting in Pakistani textiles - even at a cost in American jobs - because the world will be a safer place if the developing world is actually encouraged to develop.
   I think there are four main reasons why liberal weblogs are hard to find. First, the American right feels shut out of mainstream media, and has embraced weblogs with more enthusiasm. Second, conservative opinions tend to be punchier, whether offline or online, and lend themselves to a format founded on brevity; the conservative weblogs are just more readable. Third, liberals are wusses: there are plenty of well-written liberal weblogs out there, but the authors avoid politics, fearing flames from nasty neo-cons. Finally, the conservatives were the first to reach critical mass, and they keep the business within the circle, like any sensible establishment.
   My initial question prompted conservative ranting about whiny liberals, and some liberal whining about being drowned out by ranting conservatives. But also, usefully, a whole bunch of links. I've marked the ones I already read, or have just started reading, and like. They are refreshingly reasonable. As the real world allows, I'm going to try to work my way through the rest of the list.
· Ted Barlow *
· War Liberal
· Chris Bertram *
· Avedon Carol
· Charles Dodgson
· Gary Farber
· Avram Grumer *
· Glenn Kinen
· Ginger Stampley
· Matt Welch *
· Patrick Hayden *
· Rebecca Blood *
· Thomas Nephew *
Thanks to Patrick Hayden and Martin Wisse for the links. Anyone else out there, please keep the recommendations coming in. I'll update the list as I receive them. Oh, yes, me. I'd rather defy categorization but, if I ever have to stand up and be counted, put me in the column along with all the woolly liberals. If they'll have me. #

Off-the-record
These weblogger parties - SXSW earlier this week, and at Pribik's house on Wednesday, are great fun - but there is one drawback. It's pretty much taken as read that there will be photos, and a party post-mortem report, and all will be published on the web in real-time. Follow the links below. Over a coffee, I told Matt and Ken something amusing about the Berkeley class. They're friends of mine, but webloggers first, so I caught myself saying: that's off-the-record.
· Matt Welch
· Ken Layne
· Richard Bennett
· Blogs of War #

Mac envy
I admit it: I've begun to get jealous again of Mac users. I used to have a Mac, switched to Windows, and scorned Apple with the passion of the convert. Those gorgeous laptops, the cinema flatscreen displays, the new iMac, which is growing on me. At least us poor Windows users can taste the new operating system, with this nicely executed Flash mock-up of the Mac OSX icon bar.
· Renegade's OSX Flash Dock #

Blogbombers
A Slashdot posting - via Jeff Jarvis - on spammers' ability to manipulate Google search results. "The long-and-short of it is that a group of bloggers could bomb google with a large effort, but the average spammer would have to set up an incredibly complex web of interwoven pages that garner significant traffic to fool google." Um, maybe I'm being dumb here, but isn't this exactly what webloggers have already done? Type the first name of many name webloggers into Google. They usually show up in the first 10 or 20 search results. Evan Williams is the first Evan, Meg Hourihan is the first Meg, etc. And how do they do it? By setting up something that looks very much like 'an incredibly complex web of interwoven pages'.
· Slashdot: Google Juice
· Jeff Jarvis #

Required reading for American liberals
"The world (and this includes the third world) is too full of hatred, cruelty, and corruption for any left, even the American left, to suspend its judgement about what�s going on. It�s not the case that because we are privileged, we should turn inward and focus our criticism only on ourselves. In fact, inwardness is one of our privileges; it is often a form of political self-indulgence. Yes, we are entitled to blame the others whenever they are blameworthy; in fact, it is only when we do that, when we denounce, say, the authoritarianism of third world governments, that we will find our true comrades -- the local opponents of the maximal leaders and military juntas, who are often waiting for our recognition and support. If we value democracy, we have to be prepared to defend it, at home, of course, but not only there. I would once have said that we were well along: the American left has an honorable history, and we have certainly gotten some things right, above all, our opposition to domestic and global inequalities. But what the aftermath of September 11 suggests is that we have not advanced very far -- and not always in the right direction. The left needs to begin again."
· Michael Walzer [Dissent, via Andrew Sullivan] #

Thursday, March 14

The drive-over states

I've always joined in the jokes about the fly-over states, that vast and featureless expanse between the Rockies and the Atlantic Ocean, which I've always enjoyed from the safe distance of 35,000 feet. Well, now it's no longer a joke. Later this month, I'm driving cross-country from San Francisco to New York. The real America, finally. The problem is this: I have stops planned in Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Scottsdale and Santa Fe. But what then? Mapquest shows Jefferson City, Missouri, is on the route. Any recommendations? #

Online photofit machine
Hey, cool. With this Flash gizmo, create photofit faces.
Ultimate Flash Face #

The top Ken
Ken Layne and Matt Welch came yesterday to talk with the class I'm teaching at Berkeley journalism school. There, at the back of the room, the groupies, who had heard somehow that these two rock stars of the blog world were in town, and had snuck in to see their heroes in the flesh. I don't think the students - most of whom have old media ambitions - quite understood the fame of Ken and Matt in the weblog world. In the Google charts, Ken is now the world's top Ken. I am only the sixth most important Nick, but console myself that I do at least beat Nick Cave.
· Ken Layne
· Matt Welch
· Google Search: ken
· Google Search: nick #

Media mergers
You think the media is already dominated by evil mega-corporations? According to McKinsey, the industry has some way to go before it's as concentrated as some other industries.
· Media mergers: The wave rolls on [McKinsey Quarterly] #

So Larry Ellison was right all along: everything should be in databases
CNET reports that Microsoft is building the next version of its operating system around a database. That should mean, finally, the ability to search efficiently through files and email at the same time. Quite amazing it's taken this long. For those who can't bear to wait till the next iteration of Windows, there is add-on software called Nelson, which has good reviews.
· New Windows could solve age-old puzzle [CNET]
· Nelson Email Organizer [ZDNet] #

Cartoons from the Axis of Evil!
For those of us who think Iran is a Western beauty trapped in a Mullah's body, these cartoons - violently anti-American and anti-Israeli- should be a caution.
· Slate! #

Wednesday, March 13

The old reliable keyboard
The prettiest Palm I've ever seen, from Sony, of course. And, just like one of the Handspring Treo models, the device does away with the nasty pen scribble pad.
Sony Introduces Two Models with Keyboards, MP3 Players [PalmInfoCenter] #

Vast weblog conspiracy
I missed the weblog panel today at SXSW. Of course, it didn't matter, because CamWorld reported on the event.
   "1:52 PM: Doc [Searls] asks the audience how many have political opinions that are left of center. Most of the audience raises their hands. He then asks how many people are afraid to talk about it on their weblogs. He mentions that he got a lot of scary email from fundamentalists. He no longer talks about his family on his weblog, out of fear."
   "1:57 PM: Meg says that this fear is silencing a lot of people. Doc says that we have to be careful."
   No great surprise that most of the original webloggers are left of center. I'm not sure I buy the argument that they keep quiet about politics out of fear. That's an over-statement. It's simply not done in the tech community to talk about politics. A matter of manners. And they are all far too mild to stand up in invective against Glenn Reynolds or Sgt. Stryker.
   People like Doc Searls and Meg Hourihan are to the weblog as Oppenheimer and von Neumann were to the A-bomb. Gentle souls whose creation will be used by others more ruthless.
CamWorld: Archives: 2002: 02
#

Web tips for terrorists
Memo to Tom Ridge. Did you know that Slashdot, seeking to preserve the privacy of its posters, deletes server logs? I saw Brian Aker, the main techie behind Slashdot, on a panel at SXSW yesterday. Geekly proud of the fact that Slashdot hashes users' IP addresses, and then destroys the records so the service can't be served with a subpoena. Pretty convenient if you're an Al-Qaeda organizer trying to assemble the troops, or command a retaliatory attack. Speaking of geeks and terrorists: has anyone checked whether the Internet Archive is deleting the material on nuclear power plant safety, and other sensitive government material, from its database?
· SXSW: Brian Aker
· Brian Aker
· Internet Archive #

An expensive divorce
"The couple, married in 1989, had a prenuptial agreement that expired, which means Jane Welch is free to pursue wealth generated during the marriage."
Welch's Wife Splitting [New York Daily News]
#

Tuesday, March 12

Imperial America
Brits love, of course, to patronize Americans. To offer wise counsel to the impetuous relations. To play Greece to America's Rome. And to warn, from experience, that all empires fall. I've been re-reading Farewell the Trumpets, James Morris's account of the British Empire as it began its long decline. The parallel with today's United States is by no means exact. The US can sustain its military dominance; England was already losing ground. But some of the passages resonate.
"By their own best standards the British of the 1890s were beneath themselves, their patriotism coarsened and their taste debased. This was hardly the England that Burke had idealized, 'sympathetic with the adversity or with the happiness of mankind, [feeling] that nothing in human affairs was foreign to her'. The England of the Diamond Jubilee was essentially insular, for its people saw the whole wide Empire, even the world itself, only as a response to themselves."
· Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat [Amazon.com]
· Excerpt [Amazon.com] #

Priceless
I seem to have riled some of the more fanatical right-wingers of the Blogosphere. Could my real-world friends, some of whom have called me a crypto-fascist, please read. The Stryker post is priceless. Just for the record, my favorite limp-wristed bi-coastal liberal coffee is a double espresso macchiato. I refuse to say doppio, no matter how much the Starbucks staff coax me. Thomas Nephew makes a good point about textile tariffs. Yes, there's something even more boring than steel tariffs. And someone even more earnest than I am. And USS Clueless makes some interesting points about the lack of liberal weblog writers.
· Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing
· Thomas Nephew: Would you like your partisanship steely or fabricated?
· USS Clueless #

Monday, March 11

Clinton, man of principle: who would have thought?

From the Washington Post, via InstaPundit. 'Clinton faced enormous pressure to impose steel tariffs. George Becker, the old steel union leader, looked him in the eye and growled, "Who the ---- gave you the right to take away our jobs." But Clinton stood up to him. Meanwhile, Bush has chosen protectionism plus ambitions for a government-brokered deal to reduce global steel capacity.'
· Lots of Talk, Precious Little Walk [Sebastian Mallaby, yet another Brit, in the Washington Post]
· InstaPundit #

The borg
   Did Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan know what they were doing when they founded Blogger? They're both at the SXSW interactive conference in Austin this weekend, along with most of the other founding fathers of weblog publishing. And, of course, they're all earnest Northern California liberals, as far as I can tell, though of course it's rude to talk or blog about politics in Northern California, unless you're in Berkeley or part of the tiny libertarian-nut minority. Speaking of libertarian nuts, and speaking as a one-time still-sorta libertarian nut myself, what kind of monster have Evan and Meg created?
   The web and weblogs were supposed to reflect the kaleidoscope of opinion. But Blogger has made weblogging so easy that even conservatives can do it. And now the political weblogs - at least the ones to which we all link - have become monotously hawkish. Not Jerry Falwell conservative, of course. But yelling talk-radio poor-are-lazy Clinton-is-evil fuck-the-Saudis fuck-the-Europeans fuck-everybody conservatives. (Okay, not you, Matt.) They make me feel like a bleeding-heart liberal, which is quite an achievement. Where are the liberal weblogs? Okay, let me rephrase that: where are the well-written liberal weblogs?
   I'm sure there is an an erudite book to be written on groupthink among seemingly independent minds. Dispersed to begin with, opinions converge on a central point, and outliers are marginalized. There's probably a line in Steven Johnson's Emergence, which goes on about humans and ants, and the hive-like structures that emerge from chaos. For a simpler analogy, I give you Dr Weevil, who likens the blogosphere to the Borg Collective, the evil group organism in Star Trek.
   Hope for the galaxy isn't yet lost, so long as Evan remains one of us, and can still pull the plug, as he demonstrated last week. Evan, you can still pull the plug, can't you? Evan?
· Blogosphere = Borg Collective? [Dr. Weevil]
· Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software [Steven Johnson]
· South By Southwest
· Matt Welch, bleeding-heart conservative, or sensible liberal, whatever #

Sunday, March 10

The definition of a liberal
Following Matt Welch's discourse, here's another view, from Paul Begala, the former White House aide. "Very often, the definition of a liberal is someone who is afraid to take their own side in a fight..." Begala and James Carville are going on Crossfire, and intend to break the stereotype. Someone get these guys a weblog too.
Carville and Begala to join Crossfire #

Friday, March 8

Oh, yes, and these are your allies

· "One trade rule for the rich, another for the poor" [Guardian]
· "This is the worst decision George W. Bush has made" [The Times]
· "a hypocritical, self-defeating, dangerous, discriminatory, economically damaging, kneejerk reaction to domestic political pressures" [The Australian]
· "Hypocrite M. Bush" [Le Monde]
· "This is hypocrisy, pure and simple, especially coming from a man whose minions scour the Earth urging nations to open their markets to U.S. goods" [Moscow Times]
· "The case blatantly revealed America's double standard in trade by demanding free trade abroad while closing doors at home" [Korea Herald] #

Viral networking
   I was reading Michael Wolff's hilarious column in New York Magazine about his evening with Rupert Murdoch. The pen-portrait of Pam Alexander, the PR uberwoman, is particularly wicked. There's a throwaway line: "[Walt] Mossberg lectured Rupert about a new sort of viral connectivity (it was the same lecture Rupert had gotten from Negroponte at lunch). And Rupert listened patiently ("I'm interested in this," he kept saying, although, probably, not very)."
   The mystery is solved. Sputnik, a San Francisco software company, has a very clever idea. If it succeeds, Sputnik will turn every house into a mobile internet base station. The deal is this: buy a Wi-Fi antenna, install Sputnik software, and share the connection with other people within reach of the signal. In exchange, get free internet access courtesy of your fellow Sputnik users. It's as if you offer a room in your house, in exchange for the same hospitality anywhere in the network. Without the annoyance, cost, or need to clean the sheets.
   Presumably, also, when you try to catch a Sputnik signal, it tells you to share your own connection before permitting access. The possibility: a wireless internet that grows as virally as did the use of email. Virally, hmmm. It's a long time since I used that word.
· Sputnik
· Boingo
· Michael Wolff #

The non-story

Jeff Jarvis, Glenn Reynolds and others say - quite rightly - that global poverty is a non-debate. So let's just remind ourselves of some other non-stories and non-issues from the last few years.
· Bethany McLean's doubts about Enron's accounting
· Saudi funding of Islamic madrassa schools
· Byron Wien's concerns about tech stock valuations
· Afghan ethnic politics
· Security at nuclear installations in the former Soviet Union
· US airport security
· Osama Bin Laden (who he?) #

Who will listen to our preaching?

The backlash against the steel tariffs begins, too late to do anything except make Bush pay a political price that was already factored into the equation. Krugman produces a column for the New York Times so well argued that even his nemesis, Andrew Sullivan, links to it warmly. And Tim Blair offers a list of the multitude of ways in which the decision is wrong. Krugman: "Even before the steel verdict, the United States was developing a reputation for hypocrisy � ready and willing to criticize others for failing to live up to their responsibilities, but unwilling to live up to its own. Now that our free-trade rhetoric has proved empty, who will listen to our preaching?"
· Paul Krugman [New York Times]
· Tim Blair [FoxNews] #

All steel, all the time

You've had enough of bariffs and terriers? Tough. Here's an exhaustive retrospective of nickdenton.org trade coverage. And we now have a little steel logo in the top-right of every post.
· Made in Pakistan [Nov 2001]
· Prosperity is a strategic imperative [Jan 2002]
· Put up or shut up [Feb 2002]
· Try saying this again now, with a straight face [Mar 2002]
· America's ring of steel [Mar 2002]
· Bloggers and steel [Mar 2002]
· Then they'll be sorry [Mar 2002]
· Steel, the inconvenient story [Mar 2002] #

Virginia Postrel has caught me out

   The accusation: hidden sympathy for the anti-globalization movement. It's pretty hard to detect in my writing, but she's right. I *do* have time for the Seattle and Genoa protestors. They're dumb and irritating, of course. They have no coherent agenda; their few detectable policies would be horribly counter-productive; and they are, as the ever-wise Toby Ziegler says in the West Wing, white and middle-class, posturing as representatives of the oppressed. But they have one saving grace: they do at least pretend to care about the tired, huddled and dangerous masses of the developing world.
   There is a protectionist coalition: steel, textile and agricultural workers; the shareholders and managers of those industries; and the American isolationists. Free trade needs a coalition too. And the
progressive left could be a powerful part of it if we stop rubbishing their motives and make the case: that tariffs are a tax on global progress, and free and fair trade the surest route out of poverty for the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South Asia and Africa. There are a few people trying to combine sound policymaking with concern about global development, such as Joe Stiglitz at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia. In time, this will be a broader movement. Free trade has everything going for it as an issue: it is a matter of both efficiency and justice.
   Anyway, here is Virginia Postrel, excerpted and then linked, as well as Thomas Nephew, who also comments. Postrel: "I suspect that what's really going on, especially in postings like Nick Denton's (via Ken Layne), is an attempt put distance between certain bloggers and people they're culturally uncomfortable with, namely supporters of free markets. It's also a backhanded attempt to salvage sympathy for the anti-globalization movement, which opposes trade in general, not just trade that hurts swing-state union members. Well, bullshit. You may feel some cultural affinity for them, and some of their political opponents may be hypocrites, but those kids in the street don't deserve a drop of sympathy. They're not as effective as the lobbies in Washington, but their agenda is much, much worse. Knowingly or not, they are out to impoverish the entire world."
· Virginia Postrel
· Thomas Nephew #

Try saying this again now, with a straight face

"Our nation has drawn together in shock, mourning and defiance. Now we must thrust forward the values that define us against our adversary: openness, peaceful exchange, democracy, the rule of law, compassion and tolerance. Economic strength -- at home and abroad -- is the foundation of America's hard and soft power. Earlier enemies learned that America is the arsenal of democracy; today's enemies will learn that America is the economic engine for freedom, opportunity and development. To that end, U.S. leadership in promoting the international economic and trading system is vital. Trade is about more than economic efficiency. It promotes the values at the heart of this protracted struggle."
Countering Terror with Trade [Who said? Answer: Robert B. Zoellick, the U.S. trade representative, September 2001, six months before imposing tariffs on foreign steel and refusing Pakistani appeals for free trade in cotton trousers] #

Steel: the inconvenient story

Again, on steel tariffs. Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit claims there's little public interest, and Ken Layne says he's not qualified to comment. As if that has stopped either of them, or any of our other blog pundits, or me, before. Reynolds said it himself, when commenting on the recent primary vote in California, "I'm not letting ignorance stop me from expressing an opinion!" And is he honestly saying that his posts are determined by the level of public interest? Yeah, right: as if the transgressions of Paul Krugman, to which both Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan devoted a battery of posts, were a matter of life or death to the man on the New York subway. Reynolds is a good writer with an eye for a story that would put many news editors to shame, his belief in realpolitik is refreshing, and his productivity is amazing. But he's just as selective about his subjects as the liberal establishment journalists he pillories. Bush-the-protectionist is as inconvenient a story to him as was the success of the Afghanistan campaign to anti-war writers.
InstaPundit.Com #

Thursday, March 7

Mythic Manhattan series
The final scene, when Charlton Heston discovers that the Planet of the Apes is the world of the future. #

Then they'll be sorry

Update: Okay, I'm starting to find scattered weblog outrage at the steel tariffs. See Ted Barlow, Matthew Yglesias and Juan Gato. But my friends Ken Layne and Jeff Jarvis don't see why they should write about steel tariffs. If this was just about steel tariffs, I would agree. Steel: boring. Steel tariffs: yawn. But, Ken, Jeff, it isn't about steel. This is about winning, not just the War, but this cold and temporary peace. You've moved on? No one cares about trade? When a corrupt reactor boss in bankrupt Ukraine [steel exporter] sells plutonium to resentful Arabs [oil exporters, yes, ok] harbored by impoverished Pakistanis [textiles], then they'll be sorry.
· Ken Layne
· America's ring of steel [Nick Denton]
· Ted Barlow
· Matthew Yglesias
· Juan Gato
· Jeff Jarvis #

Mythic Manhattan series
Another in an occasional series of images from imaginary New York. This, from Batman, though I'm sure there were some much more panoramic scenes. #

Bloggers and steel

I'm disappointed. Most political weblog writers are conservative, but it was a consolation that they were at least smart conservatives. Now, here comes an issue - the Bush administration's decision to impose tariffs on steel imports - that gives them a perfect opportunity to show the capacity for independent thought. And, hey, maybe some of them actually believe in free markets as more than a stick with which to beat the woolly anti-globalizers. Maybe they can articulate a foreign policy ideas that go beyond that answer to all our problems: Fuck the Saudis.
And their reaction: a pathetic whimper. Andrew Sullivan does describe the move as "easily the dumbest, worst, and most cynical decision yet of this administration", but his three-line post puts the blame on one of Bush's advisers, and then passes us off to George Will. The New York Times article by Virginia Postrel, to which several blog writers link, focuses on the damage to US consumers of steel and says hardly a word about the broader damage. InstaPundit, too busy sniping at the few remaining friends of the US left in the world, recuses himself from the discussion. Ken Layne doesn't even bother to post on the subject. All these writers know the trade barriers are stinkingly hypocritical but, hey, let's get back to the fun business of bashing Paul Krugman, Prince Abdullah, Giscard d'Estaing, and all those woolly-minded liberals in US academic institutions.
· Rove Economics [Andrew Sullivan]
· Curbs on Steel Trade Demonstrate Faults of Courting Special Interests [Virginia Postrel]
InstaPundit.Com
· Matt Welch
· Daypop search - steel
· Ken Layne #

Mythic Manhattan
All the images of New York generated by reconstruction plans have set me on a wider search. Manhattan lends itself to myth, and the image of the Statue of Liberty submerged or buried is a staple of science fiction movies from Artificial Intelligence to Planet of the Apes. I'm starting a collection of imagined New York. So far I've captured a poster for Escape from New York, in which Manhattan is a high-security prison, and a frame from AI, as an aircraft swoops in over the submerged skyscrapers of Manhattan.

But I'm still looking for a high-resolution image from the Spielberg movie. It's proving hard to download the DivX rip on KaZaA. And I'm on a broader hunt for images from the following movies. Any suggestions to .
· Planet of the Apes
· Artificial Intelligence
· Escape from New York
· Batman #

Towers of Light

The Towers of Light is a brilliant memorial to the destruction of the World Trade Center. But why will it be dismantled after a month? The installation only costs $500,000, and the electricity can't be all that expensive. I'm hoping that, like Crystal Palace or the London Eye, a temporary construction will be so popular as to become permanent. The only troubling complaint. The brightness of the lights might confuse airplanes.

Towers of Light
#

America's ring of steel
   I'm sure George Bush had good political reasons to impose tariffs on imported steel. You could argue that it's a quid pro quo for congressional support of fast-track trade negotiations. That it's one step back to take two steps forward. You can point to some of the bilateral free-trade agreements, with countries such as Egypt, to which the administration is open. And I would discount the howls of outrage from the European Union, which is hardly the standard bearer of free trade.
   But that's the limit of the credit I'd give him. The steel tariffs, and continuing barriers to imports of textiles and agricultural products, are a tax on the developing world. Steel is one of the few sectors in which countries such as Russia and Ukraine can compete. Pakistan, Egypt and others depend on textiles to earn hard currency. Agricultural products are the only hope for much of Africa.
   So what do the US and Europe do? They tax precisely the industries that underpin development. Free trade, to western policymakers, is free trade in those industries that the West already dominates.
   Fine to question the efficacy of foreign aid; fine to mock the anti-globalizers; fine to write off African countries as basket cases; fine to blame Middle Eastern governments for corruption. But realize one thing: compromise on free trade, and there is nothing left of US foreign policy but force. No moral high ground, no hope for the developing world, no security but the illusory confidence in military superiority.
   How the hell can the US administration lecture the developing world on the virtues of free markets if it is unwilling to take on its own steel and textile lobbies? If aid is ineffective, and trade doesn't play well in West Virginia, what is left of US policy towards the developing world? Sell them Disney and remaindered drugs, and crush the towel-heads every decade when they rise up.
   Robert Zoellick, the US trade representative, used to underline the link between free trade and US national security after September 11th. He won't be doing that any more, but the connection was valid. Countries with rising exports - Mexico and China, for example - may not much like the US. But their people are too busy getting by or getting on to train as terrorists.
   And if you accept that connection between trade and security, there is one stark conclusion: there is a trade-off between the national security of the US on the one hand, and job security in its declining industries on the other. Between the interests of the country and the interests of the steel, textile and agriculture workers of West Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.
   To be sure, this is an age-old dilemma for a politician. How to combat the fierce lobbies when the general interest - global harmony in this case - doesn't exactly have a core constituency of support. I'm not saying it's easy. But, you know what, there is an argument that the security of the West depends on spreading economic opportunity. It might convince some people. Bush hasn't even tried.
· America's steel tariffs [Economist]
· Bending For Steel [George Will]
· Fabric Softener [The New Republic] #

At last
I'm finally able to post again. Evan over at Blogger has been working on a new publishing server. And I haven't been able to FTP up to my site since the weekend. It's as if I was struck dumb. Anyway, if others are having the problem, here's Evan's explanation, and his advice.
Status.Blogger.Com #

Spyz Digital Camera
The latest gizmos from Japan - lovingly imported by Dynamism - include a tiny camera that fits into the palm of your hand. The predictable regret of the compulsive gadget buyer: if only I hadn't just bought the new Kodak.
Dynamism.com - Spyz Digital Camera

For anyone addicted to audio and video from Morpheus, don't bother downloading the new preview edition. I tried. It now connects to the Gnutella P2P network, and now I remember how Gnutella was always so useless. I've switched to KaZaA, and it works as well as Morpheus ever did. Episodes of the West Wing, Six Feet Under and the Sopranos are downloading as we speak. Phew. It was bad enough when Napster went away. I don't think I can ever go back to record stores and video recorders.
· KaZaA Media Desktop [Download.com]
· Morpheus woes lift rival from obscurity [CNET]
· Mythography: The Greek God Morpheus in Myth and Art #

Wednesday, March 6

Spaghetti sauce
From research showing cooked tomatoes help prevent prostate cancer: "Spaghetti sauce was the most popular" and also seemed to give the most protection, said Giovannucci. Tastes good, and it's good for you. I thought that went against the rules of nature.
Study: Tomato Sauce Cuts Cancer Risk #

Monday, March 4

Cultural decay: guest posting from Rebecca Mead
"But: isn't the fact that Nightline and the NYT arts section are boring and irrelevant to the likes of a culturally-engaged person like you (and me) much more an indication of cultural decline than that they are being revamped or abolished? There's no point holding on to totems of middle-to-highbrow culture just for form's sake. Speaking as someone who write for a middle-to-highbrow magazine that strives for cultural relevancy. I'm not sure what the answer is, but hanging onto Ted Koppel for dear life isn't it." #

72 white raisins

So the suicide bombers believed that 72 dark-eyed virgins would be waiting for them in paradise as a reward for their martyrdom. Well, actually, sorry, guys, it looks like there's been a mix-up over accents. The New York Times reviews some new interpretations of the Koran. And the holy text may have been referring to something else entirely. Raisins, in fact. "For example, the famous passage about the virgins is based on the word hur, which is an adjective in the feminine plural meaning simply "white." Islamic tradition insists the term hur stands for "houri," which means virgin, but Mr. Luxenberg insists that this is a forced misreading of the text. In both ancient Aramaic and in at least one respected dictionary of early Arabic, hur means 'white raisin.'"
· Virgins? What virgins? [Guardian]
· Does the Koran really promise Islamic martyrs 72 virgins? [The Straight Dope]
· Radical New Views of Islam and the Origins of the Koran [NY Times] #

Sunday, March 3

When we win

The Gallup poll of Muslim attitudes towards the US makes depressing reading. 61 per cent of Muslims polled did not believe that Arab groups carried out the September 11 attacks. And 53 percent of the people questioned had unfavorable opinions of the United States, while 22 percent had favorable opinions. Time to play nice? Screw that. Germany and Japan are democratic and benign not because of a US charm offensive but because both countries were crushed. Listen to the immortal words of Toby Ziegler, the White House communications chief in the West Wing television drama. Yes, the West Wing is the fount of my political philosophy nowadays, and Aaron Sorkin, the creator of the series, is a genius. Laugh all you like. Anyway, Toby has written a foreign-policy speech for the president. It attacks Islamic fundamentalism. Doesn't he realize how he'll just sharpen the resentment against the US? Toby responds: "They will love us - when we win."
· Gallup poll
· West Wing: Night Five #

Saturday, March 2

Wireless hotspots
Needed: an atlas of the world's wireless hotspots. Here's a start, a map put together by Anthony Townsend, of the Wi-Fi access points on his route from Williamsburg into work in Manhattan.
Williamsburg wireless map #

Blogs about blogging
· Microcontent News
· Blogger #

Cultural decay
Item one: New York Times executive editor turning against its high-culture Arts & Leisure section. The new policy: more Britney Spears, less Chinese opera. And Ted Koppel's Nightline may be canned to make way for Letterman to come to ABC. Now, I like Letterman, I don't watch Nightline, and find the Arts & Letters the most tedious section of the NYT. That's the philistine in me. But if one was inclined to look for signs of cultural decay, this would be an upsetting week.
· Arts & Leisure too arcane
· Nightline to be bumped by Letterman?
· NY Post: Oh, quit yer sniveling #

Archive
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