As they say, “Capitalism done right”. It’s like Threadless + Cafe Press but high on open source. And the launch party was swell. Oh, and yes, my shirts will be up for sale soon.
Bush comes clean: “Boy were we wrong! Oh and 9/11! Heh.”
After realizing that nobody was buying the “trust us, we’ll find those damn WMDs… soon… ish…” party line, Bush has accepted responsibility for being a moron.
“I am,” Bush said solemnly in speech to US soliders, “a moron.”
“No you’re not,” someone offered from the friendly, mostly reality-despising crowd.
This about-face appears to negate months of lies and misdirections that the administration has tried to feed us about the reasons why we’re at war in Iraq right now and how it’s really been going. Interestingly, the international community has known about this intricate web of self-deception both in Bush and his country for some time. They jokingly have taken to calling it “Bush’s Folly” (Silly Canadians).
Bush’s additional omiss… I mean, admission…, that he is to blame for going to war, should come as no surprise, since, according to the veep, the authority to go to war lies solely with the president. And, for those of you dozing off, Bush is, still, somehow, the president. And oh yes, the Constitution is just a damn piece of paper anyway, so even if someone were to try and make the case that only Congress has the authority to go to war, you’d have to search pretty far and wide to actually substantiate your claims.
Anyway, before we conclude this fake news snippet, just wanted to make mention of another interesting tidbit. Even now, as Bush concedes that the intelligence that justified his case for war (yeah, remember the mobile mobile weapons labs?) is really, no, really full of shyte, we’re reminded that this was the right thing to do™. C’mon, his goals were always bigger than just removing Saddam. Pssh, duh.
And yes, as we enter the holiday season and begin to bargain for our sins with a benevolent and Wal-mart backed Santa, Bush continues to believe that having on his conscience more than 2,300 American casualties, 30,000 Iraqi deaths, and the ruination of 100s of thousands more doesn’t warrant any kind of repetence.
So be it. Now that we’ve got him on record, it’ll be great to hear the full story be told, from beginning to end, sans bullshit, sans Rovian spin. Kent, need any help?
technorati tags: george bush, politics, fake news, bush’s folly, rant
Of Bar Camps New York, Paris, Dallas, Los Angeles, DC, and Ottawa
The franchise is totally growing.
Amit’s finally got himself a venue (first come, first served!):
BarCamp NYC will be on the weekend of January 14th and 15th, right here in Manhattan. We have an awesome space, and some terrific new sponsors. If you’d like to come, add your name (AND EMAIL) to the attendees list on the BarCamp NYC wiki. In order to assuage safety concerns, we’ve promised the venue owner that we will register all attendees ahead of time. That means we don’t know you’re coming, we may not be able to let you in!
Also, don’t forget to add a proposed session if you know what you’re going to talk about. Remember, all attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one.
BarCamp NYC is coming on January 14-15, 2006! at Amit Gupta’s Blog
So on top of that, there’s been a lot of activity around Bar Camp Dallas, Bar Camp Paris (thanks for staging such a killer minimeetup guys!), Bar Camp Los Angeles, Bar Camp DC, and Bar Camp Ottawa.
So while I don’t like to count my eggs before they hatch, I wonder… where will Bar Camp go next?
technorati tags: barcamp, barcampdallas, barcampparis, barcampnyc, barcampla, bratpack2.0, barcampottawa
Little Flock, Arkansas
Funny how Google Alerts can teach you something new. Like there’s a place called Little Flock, Arkansas.
Architecting the Flock Content Platform
I had a meeting with Daryl, Vera and a sleepy Lloyd the other day to figure out how to bring the Flock.com website properties forward, in terms of both design and utility as well as towards an architecture for participation (thanks Tim!).
So what’s gong to happen to *.flock.com? Simple: massive syndication, resyndication and the collapse of web development as we know it.
Using Drupal as our core platform enables us to move content back and forth between all the different platforms that we use (and trust me, there’s quite a few (password: flock). It also means that the content building blocks that we’re using to build our site will be available to our community to mashup pretty much however it wants (sticking within some liberal licensing scheme, of course (thanks Larry et al!)).
The implications of moving to such an architecture are significant.
To begin with, it means that besides producing content ourselves, we’ll be able to consume feeds seamlessly that our community produces. Yeah, so we can pull in other people’s blog feeds, Flickr feeds, forum feeds and on and on (thanks for adding RSS to Basecamp, Jason!). If it’s got an API or feed output (password: flock) (or is marked up with microformats) figure that at some point we could use it somewhere on our site. It’s like one big disgusting paste-board exercise. Glorious, glorious!
So get this: this is where web development is going; this is also where Flock is going. Static websites are a relic of a foregone era. It’s no surprise that when you come upon a prone animal on the side of the road, it’s a good bet that it’s dead. Roadkill or natural causes or radiation sickness. Same thing is true on the web.
Yeah, if this direction sounds like chaos, it’s not. It’s ordered madness, which, you’ll note, has massive amounts of potential energy in its structure. Go ask a physicist what that means coz I have no idea. Fortunately, we’ve got some tricks up our sleeves to tame this beast. Check it out.
One thing that’s important here is being able to 1) navigate your way around the site and 2) get back to where you were many days or weeks ago (in an event stream, how do you hit pause?). Well, for one, tagging. Duh. And rich, full-text search (thanks Google!). And a social network thingamabobber. And favorites. And outgoing feeds. With permalinks.
Gee, a website that mirrors Flock’s featureset? Eeeenteresting.
No but seriously, back in the days of Round Two we were building both a browser and a web service. Why? Well, it’s actually pretty interesting when you’re designing both the content source and the user agent. It’s like choosing both the bread and the cheese for your fondue. Or chocolate and fruits. Um yeah ok, but why? Because intimate knowledge of both sides of the equation helps you fill in other variables that much faster!
Consider: 1 + x = 3.
Easy right?
So try this one on: APIs + Feeds + Drupal + Microformats + Flock + mojo, baby = you figure it out.
But I’ll tell you one thing, it’s going to kick ass.
Killing the addiction. Stab! Stab!
Well, after my brief relapse yesterday, I think I’m coming to my senses and going caffeine free, cold turkey. Combine that with my latent jet lag and I should be a peach to be around today. Heh.
Ed asked a reasonable question about my-so-called addiction. Yeah, one or two cups of coffee a day really isn’t much. Especially going half-caff. But that’s not really it, see? It’s all in the eye of the consumer. Blame it on my upbringing in Puritanical New England. I dunno. I just don’t like feeling dependent on or controlled by some substance. Call me crazy, whatev. Must be that New Hampshire Libertarian-thing coming through again.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m a coffee fiend. I love the stuff. I’d drink it all day if I could and I almost usually do. If I had a country, the national past time would be coffee consumption in all it’s glorious varieties. Oh wait. Hrm.
But yeah, it’s back to tea and Superfood for now. And yes, it really does make a difference in keeping me from biting my nails. Heh, what a perfectly imperfect specimen I am.
The Out of Towner Meetup
So tomorrow night is only the second ever Net Tuesday event, being put on by CompuMentor slash TechSoup. Reposting the details:
On December 13th, join Bay Area web innovators and social change agents for demos, discussions and drinks at Net Tuesday!
Ed Batista, Executive Director of Attention Trust, will show you how to stand up for your attention rights, while Seth Sternberg will demo web-based IM app Meebo.
Doors open at 6pm at Balazo Gallery at 2183 Mission St. (Mission & 18th)
Net Tuesdays are held on the second Tuesday of every month, and are part of TechSoup’s NetSquared project. Email net2@techsoup.org or visit the NetSquared site for more details on how to join the movement to remix the web for social change.
So that’s great and all, but the interesting thing (well, besides the event itself) will be the post-Net Tuesday Out of Towner meetup, being organized by yours truly for a few out of town friends. I’m thinking that once the Net2 event is over, we’ll mosey on over to Medjool for drinks, food and general tomfoolery. San Fransocializing will likely occur, but that’s up to the individual attendees.
Anyway, go sign up and bring your friends!
Flock landing in China
Flock’s crossed the Pacific and is landing in China, the land of free speech and civil liberties!
No but seriously, the sun doesn’t set where Flock is going, so China had better get ready. Bloggers know no boundaries and sure as hell aren’t polite. When the Bokee edition of Flock comes out, proponents of democracy can breathe a sigh of satisfaction; we are taking back the web and talking about it every step of the way. And you can’t stop us. You won’t stop us.
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Back on caffeine
I have but few vices and one of them is coffee. I’d switched to decaf for the past couple weeks but after coming back from Paris, I’ve been back on the agitator of agitators and chewing my nails again.
While it definitely gives me a good kick in the ass and keeps me going, it also makes me more aggressive than I think I’d otherwise like to be. So just a heads up. I’m gunna try to kick the addiction again later this week, but the gaunlet’s been thrown down here at work and I’m looking to crush some bones and get my work done. Nothing like someone questioning my commitment to my work to push me into overdrive.
Heuer suggests that anger can be a positive motivating force. Alright, well let’s see what a little caffeine recidivism and Disturbed can do for my productivity.
Factory Joe 