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Category: zettel

scraps of paper

Richard Foreman: Ontological Hysterical Mashup

Published September 16, 2007 by cgerrish

Richard Foreman has an API. He’s mashable. His notebooks are downloadable in html and you can freely include them in your Web 2.0 mashup. You push the button, and Foreman does the rest…

This website contains hundreds of pages of unedited text which Richard Foreman is making available freely for use by theatrical authors/directors from which to create plays of their own.

I’d like to see an automatic Richard Foreman play generator, select the themes, the length and the number of characters. And then we need to get together and put on theatricals for each other on a saturday night.

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Bosworth leaves Google

Published September 12, 2007 by cgerrish

Red Cross

This was news to me. Adam Bosworth is leaving Google. One doesn’t hear about people leaving Google too often, they’ve been like the black hole of the valley— sucking all the area’s talent into their campus.

For some reason, I felt that the Health problem needed a guy like Adam Bosworth. It’s a very tough problem that needs a smart guy to work on it. I wonder if the politics of “health” will make any real progress impossible.

I suppose it’s an inflection point for Google. There was a time when all talent sought Google. Apparently there are now more desirable destinations. I used to care, but things have changed.

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NBC Chooses More Strings, iTunes Needs To Become iSafe

Published September 5, 2007 by cgerrish

They’ve ditched Apple and moved to Amazon’s Unbox. Higher prices, more DRM strings on usage— so NBC got what it wanted.

What Amazon doesn’t have is a simple system for online purchase and usage. That’s why iTunes and the iPod are dominant. They make it easy to purchase and use. Amazon makes it easy to buy stuff in boxes, it’s download service has never caught on. One reason is that most people can’t figure out how to get digital files on to their MP3/Video player. Jon Udell explores this theme in his writings on unexplored software idioms. Something that seems very straightforward to long time computer users can be unfathomable to the average user.

Electronic safe

Jason Calacanis’s Mahalo tries bridge that gap to the user in Search. Apple was able to make synching painless for the average user, and that’s what made digital entertainment through the network possible. Dave Winer thinks that synching sucks, but not because it’s hard. He just doesn’t think things need to be in more than one place. So where’s that online safe where I can keep copies of all the digital media that I’ve purchased? It contains all the music, audio books, podcasts, TV shows & movies, software, online art and photos that I legally own. It’s automatically backed up and I can reach it from all kinds of devices wirelessly through a ubiquitous network. My home stereo, car stereo and iPod all access the same music. A connection is established once, and then you’re all set. iTunes could become this.

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