We got a 60-page booklet in the mail today from the
Mall at
Short Hills (commonly referred to as “The Short Hills Mall” by plebeians
such as me). In essence, it is a series of ads for the various top-drawer
stores at the mall, such as Gucci, A|X Armani Exchange, Sunglass Hut, and
others whose names alone sound so expensive that I’ve never bothered to
determine what, exactly, they sell. The ads all have the same style and
come from a fairly small universe of expensive, elegant-looking locations
with the same models appearing in multiple places, so I think the ads were
done specifically for the mall.
It’s strange. Looking through the booklet, I don’t find myself wanting to
shop at Short Hills any more than usual (not much), but I can’t help but
respect the effort that went into making it. I don’t have much sense of
design or fashion (as my web site can attest), but I’m impressed by the
photography, the color, the quality of the printing, even while I’m amused
by the copy or the odd juxtapositions. The page for Mrs Fields has a
bunch of their cookies carefully placed on gold-edged china plates with a
crystal decanter of wine in the background.
This one, at least, is paperback. The last time the Mall at Short Hills
sent around an ad booklet, it was hardcover. I don’t even want to think about
how much that cost.
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Computer security: still lousy
In the most recent Crypto-Gram,
Bruce Schneier explains why trying to hide vulnerabilities in software is a poor
strategy, the tradeoffs of a fully isolated network (more secure, less useful),
and Microsoft’s traditional strategy of claiming each new version of Windows is
more secure than the previous one, right before people find dozens or hundreds of
obvious flaws.
Mr Schneier also notes a recent
unicode-related
security problem, where people can enter bad input and the software doesn’t
detect it because it’s encoded in a way the programmers didn’t anticipate. I originally
thought he meant there were problems endemic to unicode itself, but this looks to
be merely bad programming caused by people not fully thinking through new features.
(Hint for budding programmers: decode text before checking for forbidden
sequences.)
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Content vs. connectivity
The most recent
JOHO
mentions an article arguing that the
telephone
companies are trying to kill independent
DSL providers by being
uncooperative towards companies which are simultaneously their customers and their
competitors.
This is understandable, as well as something that shouldn’t be allowed to
continue. Everyone is obsessed about branding these days, so the phone companies
don’t want to end up the providers of commodity utilities. (Quick! Can you name your
water company?) That means they have to provide services in addition to simply
managing the wires that run up to your house. Unfortunately (for them), other
companies can also provide these services, and the law requires them to allow
these companies access to the physical wires. Thus, the utility part of the
company (the part that manages the wires) is cooperating with other companies
that compete with the service part of the company (which offers
DSL and voicemail and other
features).
To put it another way, the problem is that the
connectivity providers have
a conflict of interest: if they also provide services, then they have a
vested interest in making it difficult for their users to use services offered
by competitors. Phone companies, for example, are concerned that people with
high-speed internet access will use internet telephony rather than their own
voice services. AOL would rather
you visit its own private network offerings (where it can charge the content
providers) or, if you must make use of the internet, to stick to
sites within the AOL Time Warner
empire.
The ultimate truth is that
telephony and television are subsets of
connectivity. Anything that can be done with television or a phone
can be done with the internet, but much more can be done with the internet
that cannot be done with phones or TV. The goal I would shoot for is to
get everyone a static IP
address and a guaranteed amount of bandwidth (in both directions). Things
like phone service, television, web surfing, e-mail, and so forth can
all be handled by a single connection. If people want to run their own
web or mail server, that’s fine. If people prefer an account on a third-party
server (analogous to today’s ISPs),
that’s fine too. Note that things like e-mail and usenet access are not
bundled with the internet connectivity; this will actually make things simpler
in the long run. Really.
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Weblogs: What are they?
Some of the big names in weblogs have been having an argument or something
about the nature of weblogs. (I’m still not entirely happy with the term
“weblog”. About all it has going for it is that it’s better than “blog”,
which just sounds stupid to me.) The primary question seems to be:
What is a weblog? Is it something new? Is it similar to other things?
Chris “RageBoy” Locke sidesteps the question somewhat to look at the
connections
between the weblogs, the way thoughts and ideas are reflected back
and forth between sites, picking up new spins and concepts.
At least, I think that’s what he’s doing. These guys can be a bit
obscure at times.
As I see it, the key difference between a weblog and other types
of web sites is history. Your standard web site (such as the
ZedneWeb
Library) exists only in the present. It may change over time
through addition or subtraction, but the contents are presented in
terms of what exists now. Weblogs, in contrast, are about
how things were at the time. Each entry is associated
with a specific time and may refer to earlier entries (of the same
or different weblogs), and may be referred to by later entries (of
the same or different weblogs).
That’s true also of usenet postings, but the mechanics and organization
are different. Postings are organized by author, rather than topic, and
tend to live longer.
In that spirit, when I find an interesting article on another weblog,
I try to link back to the entry where I found it, rather than the front
page. That way, my readers can follow the thread backwards and see another
angle on the subject. (via Doc Searls)
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In praise of vague characterization
James Wagner Au comments on the XBox, describing why he thinks it will
fail (no compelling games). He does concede that Bungie’s Halo looks
interesting, but he complains that the hero is “a nameless ultracommando in a bulky power
suit”, adding: “Underdeveloped protagonists are a recurring flaw in Bungie’s games”.
I can’t help but think he’s missing the point. Take Bungie’s first big hit,
the Marathon trilogy, which has a story so compelling that people
still
discuss it today. There the protagonist is similarly unnamed and uncharacterized
(aside from hints about cyborgs made from deceased soldiers). Some might call this
a flaw, but consider that players see things through the protagonist’s eyes (the
“first-person” perspective). By keeping the character vague, Bungie allows anyone
to identify themselves as the protagonist. You aren’t controlling the
Mjollnir IV cyborg, you are the cyborg. If the protagonist is suddenly
revealed to be an opera lover, then there’s a conflict between the player and
the character (except for those players that love opera).
Consider the “hand” pointer on the Macintosh (used for grabbing things with the
mouse). When it was originally introduced, it was a simple white outline of a hand.
Nowadays, however, it contains some stripes and a slightly baggier look that makes
it resemble a white glove. Why do this? Because non-white people use computers, and
this makes it easier for them to associate the hand pointer on-screen with their
own hands. (Granted, it’s not much help if they’re left handed, but give it time.)
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