Day: October 18, 2005

I appreciated reading the hardcover copy of The Cathedral & The Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revoluionary, even as I recognized some of the ironies of the act.

First, the hardcover book, published in 1999, is out of print. Second, Eric Raymond published every essay in the book for free online long ago… which may explain part of the first irony, although the paperback is still for sale. Third, at this point in time, many of the ideas he popularized in these essay have become almost background to the way the tech world works… which should be seen as a tribute. Fourth, I had read the title essay several years ago, so why in a time when I’m starving for deep distractions did I spend a few evenings several weeks ago flipping through this book rather than jumping into something entirely new to me?

Because while living the technology-media intersection/collision during the last decade-plus, I tend to find similarities between the tech world and the media world… especially those media which cover the tech world. There are more than one analog to be found, but I marked one when I was reading.

From this understanding, we can analyze the Lockean property customs of hackerdom as a means of maximizing reputation incentives; of ensuring that peer credit goes where it is due and does not go where it is not due. (page 104 of the hardcover print book)

I’m not so big on Mr. Locke, but the latter half of the quote was worth the first half.

Among reporters and editors, whereever they may work, a similar ethos of proper attribution of peer credit beats strongly. Otherwise, why would people fight so fiercely for credit and scoops? The side effect is fairly positive for the audience: a constant stream of news and “follow-the-leader,” with different people and publications playing the leader at different times. But it’s also a game that never ends. The rules are not written down, nor agreed to by all parties. Can you say… frustration?

Anyway, if you haven’t read any of the essays, or if you’ve read some but not all, find some time to acquaint yourself with the full essays, not the headline alone.

Side note: I’ll bet that ampersand in the title plays havoc with parsers. Why isn’t there a key on the keyboard that is guaranteed to NOT be used for anything but signaling “No, really, this is a character for computers, not people.” OK, that’s a foolish idea. (My son would tell me not to say “stupid.”) But I’ve seen ampersands foul up more publishing systems than I care to remember, and I’m neither terribly far along in years nor travelling in multiple content management system circles. But enough about the ampersand.

I’m not sure I get it. Via The RSS Weblog, I read about Blogarithm, which lets you know via e-mail that a blog you follow has updated.

Huh?

I do know RSS is not (yet!) for everyone, but I hadn’t thought there still was even a sliver of market opportunity for doing update notification via e-mail. But then I thought about my own behavior. I still sign up for e-mail alerts in certain circumstances, both because e-mail often demands action and because not all services yet offer RSS. So e-mail is definitely still lingua franca when it comes to information transmission. Still… for blogs, where RSS is a native tongue? Hmmm… didn’t we see this movie? Where’s Spyonit now?

Paul Ford, in Followup/Distraction, says there “at least” two kinds of distractions, wide and narrow. My abstracted definitions follow (though you’ll want to read the short essay):

• Wide = time wasted you will never get back.
• Narrow = time wisely spent chasing a thread whose unraveling may tie up a loose end.

Can you tell the difference at first? Probably, if you give the “look at the shiny new thing” impulse a half-second pause to consider the choice. As Ford says:

I’m smarter, then, with my computer on, but not much deeper.

Deep, to me, is the capability to focus on the goals, not the competition. Dick is talking about business, but competition rarely feels limited to the workplace. I don’t think blogging makes me deeper, but it is less shallow than simply consuming, which I do often enough. [Via 43 Folders]