Tim O'Reilly and Dave Winer, Peer to Peer

Six years ago, Dave Winer felt like he was wrongfully excluded from an O'Reilly "summit" on the newly emerging field of peer-to-peer programming:

David Stutz, Gene Kan, Ray Ozzie and Dan Gillmor were there. I wish I had been. I could learn a lot from each of them. Wouldn't you have wanted to hear what I think about P2P? I'm curious. Are you? If there are going to be more meetings like this, I want to be there. Ask Tim to explain why I'm not invited, and see if you accept the reason.

Peer-to-peer technology was so white hot back then that Michael Arrington is developing a time machine so he can go back and pimp it.

When some people asked O'Reilly about the snub, he explained:

... why didn't I invite Dave? I was looking for people who I thought would work well together in an unstructured way, without grand standing or insulting other participants if they happen to disagree. My experience in working with Dave is that you never know what you're going to get. He can be a great contributor, but he can also decide, for no apparent reason, that someone is somehow on "the other side," at which point he becomes disruptive and abusive.

I know Dave claims he doesn't like personal statements (except the ones he makes, of course), but he suggested that his readers ask, and you've done so. I've given Dave this feedback privately, and each time he's said it's inappropriate to tell him such things, that he believes his behavior is above reproach, and that I'm out of line for giving him any personal feedback.

When someone reserves for himself the right to "flame at will," and claims that his flames are only his quest for truth, in spite of feedback to the contrary from many people, he should expect that those people will not invite him to their meetings or discussions. I completely grant that Dave has the right to remain on the outside, to critique anyone he likes, and to crusade for whatever causes he believes in, but if he wants to be included in events that I organize, he'll have to behave more politely. He may consider that censorship; I consider it etiquette. No one disputes his right to his views -- in fact, we all still read him because his views and ideas are so interesting -- but I think he needs to recognize that his social habits will, from time to time, lead him to be left out of events and discussions to which he might otherwise be invited.

So, did my personal feelings about Dave (or more precisely, my personal experience working together with Dave in the past) influence my decision not to invite him? Absolutely.

Today, Winer believes he's being wrongfully excluded from Friends of O'Reilly (FOO) Camp, an emerging technology conference:

A dam is about to break. There are a lot of people pissed at O'Reilly, every time you do another exclusive event, more people are getting angry. ... what I do want is to avoid a bloody mess ... We're not going to be able to keep a lid on it much longer, and it's better to let it out in a way where people know we're listening and we want to work with them.

I've been rightfully excluded from every technical conference since 1996, so I'm in a poor position to judge whether these peers should form a network. But if they don't, it may break the lid off the bloody dam of inclusiveness.

Perhaps we can draw some hope from an event that happened five years ago: Winer was invited to speak at O'Reilly's next peer-to-peer gathering:

A quick good morning from the O'Reilly P2P conference in San Francisco. ... Many thanks to Tim O'Reilly for putting on such an excellent conference.

Business · 2006/08/31 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Warren Buffett Remarries (or Doesn't)

I received an anonymous news tip this evening from somebody in Nebraska claiming that Warren Buffett just married his housekeeper of 25 years in a private ceremony at his home.

My effort to confirm this with sources has been hampered by the fact that I don't have any sources. I wish I did, because I'd love to get this scoop. This is the biggest celebrity gossip involving a man in his '70s since Anna Nicole Smith took a husband.

If it has been reported anywhere this evening that Buffett is off the market, nobody told Wikipedia yet.

Alleged congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Buffett.

Update: In a Surprise Merger, Warren Buffett Remarries

Business · 2006/08/30 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Testing an RSS Feed's TTL (Time to Live)

I'm currently researching the RSS element ttl, which tells aggregators how long to cache a feed before checking it again.

Although ttl has been part of RSS since the original version 2.0 published by UserLand Software in 2002, I'm having trouble finding aggregators that honor it.

This weblog entry is going out in an RSS feed with this value:

<ttl>90<ttl>

Aggregators that support the element should check it no more than once every 90 minutes.

Rss · 2006/08/30 · 7 COMMENTS · Link

Sold Cell Phones Reveal Customer Secrets

A company that makes phone-security tools bought 10 phones on EBay and shared their contents with a reporter, finding evidence of marital affairs, business deals and other juicy private information.

One phone surrendered the secrets of a chief executive at a small technology company in Silicon Valley. It included details of a pending deal with Adobe Systems Inc., and e-mail proposals from a potential Japanese partner:

"If we want to be exclusive distributor in Japan, what kind of business terms you want?" asked the executive in Japan.

Trust Digital surmised that the U.S. chief executive gave his old phone to a former roommate, who used it briefly then sold it for $400 on eBay. Researchers found e-mails covering different periods for both men, who used the same address until recently.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but "former roommate" has to be a euphemism for a relationship, right? They were sharing a residence, e-mail address and expensive cell phone, which the roomie quickly dumped. I'm sensing that somebody's got a box of somebody else's T-shirts, toiletries and The Best of Judy Garland two-disc vinyl record set, and if he doesn't pick it up soon, that crap hits the garbage.

Security · 2006/08/30 · 1 COMMENT · Link

Mexican Flag Raised Over U.S. Post Office

Los Angeles blogger Lone Wacko reported an incident this weekend that should be entering heavy rotation any minute now in the mainstream media: Hispanic pro-immigration demonstrators raised a Mexican flag over a U.S. post office in Maywood, Calif., Saturday as part of a counterdemonstration against Save Our State, an anti-immigration group that claims California is becoming a "third-world cesspool."

Maywood became a flashpoint in the escalating immigration debate when elected officials in the Los Angeles-area city of 25,000, which is 96 percent Hispanic, declared it a sanctuary for illegal immigrants and took steps to make enforcement more difficult.

The Los Angeles Times covered the competing Maywood protests but did not report the flag-raising, which was witnessed by commentator Bridget Johnson of the Los Angeles Daily News:

... after the local post office took down the American flag at closing time, pro-immigration demonstrators promptly ran the Mexican flag up the flagpole. Eventually, police officers surrounded the flagpole and tried to get the Mexican flag down, but the cords got twisted and they could only lower it to half-staff.

Reporting this event makes me sound like a Minuteman, but I share her position on immigration. I'd like to see work become a path to citizenship for thousands of immigrants living illegally in this country, who wouldn't be here if employers didn't need them badly enough to risk breaking our laws. If there's too much immigration the place to get tough is with the Americans who hire workers illegally, not by demonizing desperate people yearning to improve their lives. I sympathize with these folks as the child of poor Irish a couple generations off the boat.

But raising a Mexican flag over a U.S. government building is a flagrantly offensive gesture against a country that has celebrated immigration, supported bilingualism and teaches schoolchildren to believe the melting pot's one of our strengths. This stunt's as ugly as the Mexifornia rhetoric coming from groups like Save Our State, and you have to marvel at the stupidity that would inspire activists to be so damaging to their own cause.

Politics · Journalism · 2006/08/29 · 107 COMMENTS · Link

The Giant Bikini Woman of Peoria, Illinois

I was pleased to discover this morning that the giant fiberglass bikini woman still stands tall in Peoria, Ill., lording over a grimy industrial strip where I first saw her on a bitterly cold day in 1996.

Travis Alber's photo best captures the scene.

The tire company she calls home has named her Vanna Whitewall, but she began life as one of several Miss Uniroyal women in 1968. Her description on the company's web site provides her dimensions (though they might want to check the math):

Manufactured in the 1960s in Venice, California, "Miss Uniroyal" arrived at our location in May of 1968 as a grand opening promotion. She was stored at our location until Uniroyal needed her at another grand opening. Due to the years of wear and tear on her body, Uniroyal decided to change to their present mascot, Bengal "Tiger Paws" Tiger. Plaza Tire acquired Vanna Whitewall in 1971. She is 17 feet 6 inches tall and weighs approximately 450 lbs. Her measurements are 108-72-108, three times the perfect woman's (36-24-26).

There are at least 11 others of her kind, according to Roadside America:

The sculptor who created the original molds for the large lady had a thing for Jackie Kennedy. She was issued with a dress, ready for shedding or donning depending on the community climate.

From the looks of a more recent photo by another Flickr user who is traveling the country in search of huge beings, Vanna's now wearing a dress. I'm surprised at the change, because she's been a beacon of immodesty at the family-owned tire business for decades.

The Huge Being List Project, is attempting to document all of the gargantuan fiberglass people in the U.S. I'm going to find out if there's still a Uniroyal woman beckoning the drivers on Highway 50 in Ocoee, Florida.

Business · Kitsch · Tourism · 2006/08/29 · 10 COMMENTS · Link

Ernesto Hits Florida as Tropical Depression

Most of Florida is under hurricane watch for Ernesto, the hurricane that weakened to a tropical depression and will hit the Florida Keys later today.

Jeff Masters' prediction:

The latest forecast models are all in excellent agreement, calling for a landfall in the Everglades tonight, a long passage up the spine of Florida, followed by a re-emergence into the Atlantic and possible re-intensification to a Category 1 hurricane before a second landfall in the Carolinas.

Riding out a tropical storm is better than riding out a hurricane, of course, but they spawn tornadoes at an alarming rate. My urge to be the first Floridian to evacuate the state grows strong.

Jacksonville · Florida · 2006/08/29 · Comment · Link

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