pstack

I've dealt with this, personally, when someone produced the exact same service as I had been providing for many years. They changed two letters in the name and that was it. For years afterward, there was great confusion among the audience and I had to deal with people emailing me to complain about problems with the other group that I had nothing to do with, because they didn't realize they were different. They filed reports about me, thinking that I was the other place. They would use my service and get upset that "the site has changed", because they didn't realize that they had been visiting "the other" site this whole time.

The only reason I couldn't do anything about it is because I'm just one guy and I don't have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on lawyers and legal processes or, believe me, I would have.

You might also notice that "This Week In NASCAR" would, of course, be about NASCAR. There is almost no concern about brand confusion or dilution when one is about technology and the other is about racing. There is, however, potential for brand confusion when one is primarily about technology and tech culture and the other is about technology and tech culture. And when one is distributed over the internet and iTunes and the other is distributed over the internet and iTunes.

It is a naming attempt made deliberately for confusion. You can't argue that it isn't, because any reasonable person starting a project would look at the naming conventions of similar services and products and say "well, I don't want to be confused with this other one, so I want my name to be unique and very identifiable". It's skeezy, unprofessional, and the fact that the guy asked "do you mind if I name my show This Week In..." shows that he recognized it (notice he only ever said "the show" and not "an entire network").

Anyway, I'm not invested in TWIT whatsoever and normally could not care less, despite the characterization you attempt to apply. However, it certainly bears some relevance to the topic as it was posted.

When you are changing the physical media, it's a little more understandable (even though you're still really just giving me a license to the content on it and nothing else). When it's already in digital format, it's no longer acceptable to play that sucker's game, as far as I'm concerned.

Also, there's definitely something to be said not only for carrying your book around on a light device, but carrying up to thousands of them around on a single light device. (Though, on the other hand, how often are you going to need to go back and read most of your non-reference books after you've finished them?).

In a world where you not only need serials and registration to play multi-player games, but many single player games, it's becoming difficult to even argue against digital download game services, like Steam (on which I currently have 400+ games). Hell, you don't even have to concern yourself with shelf space, theft, loss, or damage anymore.

The problem is that you also have to accept several negatives. Like DRM or the inability to resell a purchased book, album, movie, or game.

The problem is that you have to make several leaps of faith, too. Faith that the source of your content will still be around for the length of time that you'd own the physical version (several generations, in the case of books). Faith that their DRM won't bite you in the ass. Faith that something won't happen to your account which restricts your access to your content and that if it does, their customer services is accessible and responsive. Faith that they won't suddenly yank content you've already paid. Faith that they won't do any dirty aggregation or data mining as you use content that you own.

I'm all for digital, but I think we need some serious commitment from publishers and distributors and content warehouses before we continue making huge investments into what is essentially a collection of content licenses. An industry-enforced sort of "bill of digital content consumer rights" wouldn't be unreasonable.

Do you seriously think that your local utility is going to have massive solar fields that are going to provide the kind of power demands they have or even a chunk of it? The only long-term option is for existing space to be used - power generation on the space used by the house it generates. Until that is affordable, I doubt it's going to make the impact we're hoping for.

Plus, come on. We all know how utility companies behave. They'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the type of investment necessary to roll these out, even if they're cheaper in the longer term.

Also, yeah, I wouldn't have had a clue what to google for the type of information you pulled up. Good for you. You get +1 google points for today, sport.

First, I'd like to see numbers that show solar panels are less damaging to the environment. I suspect that they require significant energy to manufacture as well as cause pollution in the process. Let's see some numbers that show it saves far more than it costs, energy/pollution-wise.

I'd also like to see this supposed day (as soon as a year and a half from now, according to the article), when solar power suddenly becomes affordable. It sure wasn't one year ago and I'm pretty sure it's not, today. In fact, if you calculate the cost of materials and installation, you will often find that you don't start saving a dime until the warranty on the product has expired (around 20-25 years). Not to mention, the efficiency degrades over time, so I'm not sure what kind of performance you can expect when the warranty expires and it starts finally saving you cash.

I want it to happen. Trust me. I seriously considered it (although I don't think it's allowed in my city and I know that panels on your house are forbidden by many cities and many HOAs). When I realized that the tens of thousands of dollars I'd have to invest up front in it wouldn't start to pay off until I was almost retirement age, I decided I'd just stick with what I've already got. If things change drastically in a few years, I'll revisit the idea. Until then, I'm not going to let my bank account get caught up in the hype that only benefits the solar panel installer industry. I don't see how it's going to mature significantly in a whole two years.

I'm undecided which model is truly the best, however. Purely ad or donation based content will surely acquire a much larger audience, but is that worth anything other than ego-stroking, if you can make the same living off of a couple thousand people willing to pay you to do what you do? Of course, it's likely a different proposition to take someone and ask them to do what they do for a profession for free (or donations, etc) versus taking someone who is doing it as a hobby or a starter project and looking to build up from there.

Adam Curry and Dvorak do the "donate" thing with the caveat that "as long as you keep making it worth our while, we'll keep making content". Of course, something like one percent of their listeners actually contribute (but boy, they contribute a lot). I tend to adhere more to the idea that you only ned a small number of true fans to support you and you can just cater to them. If you get the same income either way, then it seems the only benefit of a massive audience that mostly doesn't pay is that you can hopefully springboard that into a paying gig somewhere on a big time site or in some form of traditional media.

The most dramatic impact is that I stopped letting a project I started in 1997 (when I was 20) continue to suck me dry, like a vampire. I ran it far after I'd entirely lost interest in it. Partially because I felt it was my one meaningful contribution to anything, so far. I started it in 1997 and did every piece of work involved in it from building the servers to writing all of the backend code and front-end presentation and dealing with users (it was an auction site with a niche sub-culture twist and a screw-eBay and their fees selling point). When you invest that much time (many thousands of hours) and money and emotion into a project, you feel an obligation to maintain it. When you know there are tens of thousands of regular users (100k, at the peak) depending on it for socializing and even their income in some cases, you feel obligated. And, like with bad relationships, the familiarity and all of that invested time obligates you.

For me, it got to the point where I wouldn't read my email anymore. I wouldn't post in my own forums. I wouldn't even visit my own site for months at a time. I would rely on a script to ensure the site was up and responding, because even just seeing the front page load filled me with anxiety and a degree of loathing. I ran this for twelve years. The last six of them almost entirely out of some misguided sense that I owed it to people. Or that I owed it to myself (that ceasing it would somehow waste all of my personal investment in it).

One day, I decided that was it. I had to cut the cord with the project and the community and everything that it ever meant. I published a grateful thank you and goodbye (sans the details about how I had come to loath everything about it) with a notice that I would terminate it in three months. And on that date, I simply pulled the plug.

I still have a workaholic mentality, where work is concerned. But at least my every waking moment outside of work isn't spent dealing with users or mediating conflicts between them or fixing bugs or feeling that I had to get around to re-writing the entire code-base all over again. Or feeling that I needed to respond to all the requests over the years for me to "sell my code" to people by actually polishing it up and making it a product (I didn't). Instead, I can read a book, watch a movie, listen to music, play a videogame, or even just take a long nap. All things I rarely ever did the previous dozen years.

Further, while I spent those dozen years essentially feeding that monster with every ounce of leftover energy and not having the mental bandwidth left over to ponder future ideas and ventures, I now have some free space and time that allows me to pursue something new. I don't have anything yet. I never really was a huge "idea" guy (that project was my only shining moment of brilliance, to be honest). But, now, I can.

You can find the specific segment I refer to from Pale Blue Dot, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

And you can find the text, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_Sa...

If you were the last person on the planet, would you still read and listen to music? I mean, without being a member of a species and a society that contextualizes you, does music even mean anything to you anymore? Do stories? If you're exiled on an island somewhere, you know that humanity continues to hum along past your horizon, even if you're stranded from it. But once it's eradicated - along with the whole ambition and possibilities of it - do created works hold anything for the one remaining survivor?

Then I came to the conclusion that I'm a tiny life on a tiny planet in the arm of a huge galaxy in an infinite universe. That the entire planet - to the universe - is no more than a speck of sand is to the entire Earth. That on this planet, celebrities and accomplished scientists and creators will almost all be forgotten in decades; certainly a hundred years. A few will last beyond that. As the span of time grows, only a few names -- maybe Hitler, George Washington, Ramses -- will live on for hundreds of more years. Even thousands. And I'm certainly never going to amount to anything like those guys.

And, when it comes down to it, all of human history has occurred on this tiny blue speck. Even the most monumental achievements and persons won't matter to anyone outside the planet and almost none will matter even to those of our own species who might continue on (assuming we aren't obliterated by some catastrophe and have spread out into the universe).

So, I'm able to recognize that anything I accomplish will only have temporary meaning and that the both the most awesome and hideous legacies of all time will grow to mean nothing. So . . . why worry about my trivial actions? I'm like a bacteria on a counter waiting to be sprayed with Lysol.

And no, that doesn't bum me out.

My first thought in response to this actually deviated from the intention of the topic. You see, I am constantly amazed at humanity. For all the stupidity and evil, we have a capacity for overwhelming kindness, compassion, ambition, and ingenuity.

Few days ever go by that I don't see something that makes me have a moment of extreme pride in this species (and I wonder if other species from other planets out there in the great beyond would share any of the same appreciation).

Anyway, those thoughts are usually followed directly by the realization that life is so painfully short. Too brief. No matter what fantastic accomplishments I witness in my few remaining decades on this blue ball, I will miss out on everything that comes after. I probably won't be alive when we discover other life in the universe. When we accomplish teleportation and long distance space travel. When we have kick ass robots that we can have conversations with. When we do everything that nobody can even conceive of, today.

I wonder, would anyone take up the offer if it was given, to be in some sort of stasis that allowed you to awake for one year every hundred years? You'd miss out on all relationships and so much life, but you'd also experience a year of life every century, well into the 31st century (and probably beyond, if medical science could extend your life another forty years at some point, there).

I'm tempted. I can't say I'd do it with absolute certainty, but I would have to think very long and hard about the chance for such a prolonged journey. Plus, I bet girls in 3011 are total sluts.

I concede that social networks are not 100% noise, but the signal value is so small that I don't see there being enough return for the amount of work needed to whittle it down to mostly 'content'.

I'm, frankly, a little offended that you are suggesting that snobbery is involved and that it has an element of "well, your commentary doesn't my my needs the priority, so it is therefore of no interest to me". That's hardly it, at all. It's more an issue of "I don't need to be bombarded with every trivial thought and action of your entire daily life and I would not bombard you with the same". News shock -- you are not that important and neither am I. And you don't need to post the constant stream of inanity to "keep in touch" -- assuming that you even need a third party utility to "keep in touch" (isn't that what email is for?).

For example, I finally logged into my Facebook account while posting this and here were the most recent updates that greeted me. Note that the age of every poster here is between 25 and 50. No, I'm not solving world hunger, but am I a snob for saying that all of the below is a complete waste of my time and that the only reason a person would post any of these things is that they either have keyboard-turrettes or are some degree of attention whore?

Do I have anything more significant to say with the same frequency of all these inane posts? Do I have anything truly earth shattering and mind-bending and enlightening that absolutely must be shared with a hundred people several times per day? No, I don't. So I don't post. I choose not to add to the noise that other people (presumably people that I am either close friends with or at least vaguely associated with) have to sift through. Interesting how that makes me a snob, rather than considerate.

* Someone posted a picture of their cat.

* Someone posted a picture of something really old in their freezer and asked if they should still eat it.

* Someone made a snarky comment about Obama.

* Several people posted links spamming projects they're doing (shows, events, etc).

* Someone posted their tarot reading (again).

* Someone said they should have been in bed an hour ago.

* Someone answered questions in some app about how tall they are.

* Someone said they saved a lot of money grocery shopping today.

* Someone liked Dial brand soap.

* Someone said the work day will never end.

* Someone said they "love being a mommy".

* Several people posted links to random stupid youtube videos.

* Several more stupid updates from apps (no matter how many you click "hide" on, there are always more).

* Someone said "that dream was different!"

* Someone made some vague drama-infused comment about their relationship or a friendship or something (I couldn't tell which).

* Someone said they can't wait for Friday.

Another way of thinking of this. I call my mom maybe once a month and talk to her for half an hour or so. The woman who gave birth to me. The woman who raised me. The woman who sacrificed a lot in life to make sure that I was fortunate enough to become the person that I am today. I talk to her once a month-ish. Just long enough to catch up on the most important things and let her know she's important in our lives.

I would not want a running stream of every action and thought my own mom made. Why on earth would I want one every hour or two from every single friend or associate I have. People overshare. Too much and too frequently. And too trivially. Whatever happened to going out and having a drink and shooting the shit with your friends? That's fine, every now and then. Keeping in touch when something big is fine. I don't, however, need to hear from you every damn hour on every damn thing going on. And they don't need to hear that from me, either.

As I said, people absolutely adore talking about themselves. They are attention-whores. They want to broadcast as much inanity and/or drama as they possibly can to the largest audience they possibly can and it's usually a one-way-street (though even more so on Twitter). If they had even one second of consideration for the value of their contribution and the value of their "friends" time, they wouldn't post nearly as much of the crap that they do.

And it's not just your buddy. Or the guy at work. Or the ex-girlfriend. Or the random dude you met at a convention that friended you when you got back home. It's the tech celebs. It's the tech industry darlings. It's Scoble and Kevin Rose and everyone else. Trust me, I've considered following the twitter feeds of some of these people. After all, they stumble on to some cool things and have some interesting thoughts to offer. But even with these people, the level of noise is just incredible. So much so that I stopped following any of them ages ago and don't bother to follow anyone anymore, because I know that for every interesting 140 characters I get from them, I'll have to pour through many thousands of characters of trivial crap (or even meaningless crap, when it's just semi-inside stuff between them and someone else).

My time and attention isn't more valuable than anyone else's, but that doesn't mean that it should be wasted, either. It seems entirely reasonable to expect people to have at least a little bit of a filter on their output with respect for the dozens or hundreds or thousands of people that are going to be subjected to their signal (or more often, noise) before submitting.

And yes, I realize the hypocrisy of my statement after I just sat here and wrote about a thousand pages. Sorry.

I find that the reward of more free time (no commute, work when I'm most productive, no hassle about presentation, no noise or inanity, etc) outweighs absolutely everything else. I have turned down far more lucrative offers within and outside of the same company over the years, simply because the benefit of working from home is so extraordinarily appealing to me. A few years ago, I turned down a position that would have involved a 50% increase in salary, because it would have meant going to an office 8-5 five days a week. (And when you figure in commute and getting ready in the morning, it's more like 6am-6pm).

I have occasionally thought that the whole public space thing - were I could be alone, but not - may be appealing. I have always turned it down, however, because all of the people I know have negative connotations to guys in coffee shops or cafes with their laptops and cell phones. They associate a guy at the coffee shop doing work with the guy who stands in public with a cell phone (that probably isn't even on) yelling "buy! sell! buy!" to make himself look important. I'd probably then spend all my time being self-conscious about whether everyone around me is just looking at me like I'm some pretentious asshole, even though I'm just a guy wanting to have some tenuous connection with the rest of the human race while I do my daily thing.

Am I a snob for not giving a fuck about every single second of your life? Fine. Call me a snob, then. My time is too precious to waste stuffing it full of crap about your life. When you have something really important to say that will mean something significant to me, then you can come tell me. Or call me. Or email me directly. You're not the damn Daily News. You're not so important that you need to broadcast your every thought and action to a legion of followers. You can have direct interactions with me. One on one. And if you can't, then whatever it is probably isn't that important in the first place.

I have the decency not to bother with Facebook or Twitter. Why? Well, I am a writer. I'm also a bit of an entrepreneur. I also value other people's time and don't feel that every thought I have or action I take is worth sharing with the world. Inf act, I feel that very few are. And when I do have something of value to share, I'm not going to do it on Facebook or Twitter. I'll do it on a website, like we've done for fifteen years and it'll have more thought given to it than a 140 character spam of my new startup or a "so drunk lol!" followed by seventy-eight photos of me getting wasted at a bar, like a rookie.

However, for content that would otherwise be languishing, it can be a terrific move.

Like Jerry Pournelle said, 70% is a hell of a lot more than you ever get from a publisher. Hell, 30% is a hell of a lot more than you ever get. Ten percent (what you'd get from a publisher) on a $20 book is going to get an author a couple bucks. On Kindle, they could sell it for $3 and still make more money.

And at a buck or three, you're more likely to pick up more spontaneous sales and they can add up to ten or even a hundred thousand sales, pretty fast. If you are smart enough to have included a rights-reversion in your contract, it's a good way to make some additional income on what might otherwise be forgotten and ignored.

This is one of those issues that is so widespread and so broad in its reach that merely raising some social awareness isn't going to accomplish anything. There was a lot of social awareness about Darfur, for whatever non-existent good that did. This is a thing that requires significant involvement from many governments. And, sure, you could argue that governments will be more likely to take action if pressured by its people, but there was a good deal of pressure, again, on Darfur (or, before that, Rwanda). Lot of good that did.

It's a matter of time before corrupt MPAA style bureaucracies start to force the labeling and filtering of every piece of content out there. And god help you if your website has more than one type of content on it.

It wasn't as complex as I had feared it was going to be, but it was far from simple and farther from ideal. Especially since they had a habit of changing the API and the automated services over time.

I also never liked that you had to kick users out to the Paypal site at some point, to facilitate the payment.

In that case, you might as well just have numbers, since you can correlate numbers with colors, at that point.

I would rather see colors indicating the "heat" of a comment. That is, its numbers, in relation to other numbers in the thread. In other words, you wouldn't have the following:

Blue == 5+ Yellow == 10+ Orange == 20+ Red == 50+

Instead, you would have:

Blue == average score in this thread/topic Yellow == 5% higher score than other posts in this thread/topic Orange == 10% higher score than other posts in this thread/topic Red == 20% higher score than other posts in this thread/topic

This would help provide a more meaningful context for what posts are rising to the top in that particular conversation and the highest would always rise to the top. The top 20% of comments would always be the top 20% of comments, even if the lowest scored comment in the entire discussion is +10 points.