""People who before were intelligent and open-minded turn into raving lunatics...""

Grok Headline matches for ""People who before were intelligent and open-minded turn into raving lunatics...""

Atheists are Open Minded

Atheists are Open Minded 01/19/2004 03:11 PM
I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. -- Isaac Asimov I'm a skeptic and therefore, an atheist. Many agnostics would think that first sentence an oxymoron, yet this would be a popular misconception. A skeptic generally, where possible, tries to assume nothing going in, so to speak, and requires evidence for claims made. I'm not looking at a dictionary; this is the definition of skeptic that I'll be meaning when I say that word in this piece. Recently an agnostic friend of mine told me that being an atheist is closed minded; thinking there is nothing out there is as dogmatic a claim as many made by religions. I was taken aback by this because I was always quite open minded, or so I thought.

New Treatments Turn Off the Tap for
People Who Sweat Too Much

New Treatments Turn Off the Tap for
People Who Sweat Too Much 04/19/2004 05:41 PM
Seven million Americans suffer from hyperhidrosis, or excessive sweating. New treatments now are gaining attention.

raving about blinkx

raving about blinkx 06/17/2004 02:57 PM
sounds like i'll have to give it a try

Microsoft Goes Starck Raving Mad

Microsoft Goes Starck Raving Mad 08/30/2004 11:53 AM

Hardware as art: Microsoft meets Philippe Starck: Since App le seems to have pulled a Microsoft, we'll balance that out with this story of Microsoft pulling an Apple.

No, they're not going to over-price their products in a concerted attempt to achieve and remain at single-digit market share (sorry — it was too easy...). Instead, Redmond has hired Phillippe Starck, designer extraordinaire, to make all sorts of Mac-ish hardware accessories.

Click here to comment on this entry

Linus & the Lunatics, Part II

Linus & the Lunatics, Part II 12/02/2003 01:46 AM
The transcript of the Q&A portion of Linus' talk on this year's Linux Lunacy cruise.

Linus & the Lunatics, Part I

Linus & the Lunatics, Part I 12/02/2003 01:46 AM
The first of three transcriptions of talks by Linus and friends during the latest Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise.

Linus & the Lunatics, Part III

Linus & the Lunatics, Part III 12/02/2003 01:46 AM
Linus and fellow cruisers talk with the Victoria LUG during the latest Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise.

Open Source Databases: As The Tables
Turn

Open Source Databases: As The Tables
Turn 06/11/2004 11:17 AM
A comparison of two databases, PostgreSQL 7.1 and MySQL 3.23 , of diabolical PHP experiments performed, and some strongly held opinions reversed. By Tim Purdue.

Phone exec: "People don't want open
Internet access"

Phone exec: "People don't want open
Internet access" 08/27/2004 01:46 PM
Cory Doctorow: The COO of 3, a European 3G wireless company, has uttered one of the stupidest things ever said by a phone company executive (there's a field with some stiff competition!). In justifying his company's decision to censor the Internet services delivered over its wireless link (they're only allowing customers to access certain, selected services, rather than providing a fast wireless pipe that customers can use as they see fit), this loonytune has this to say:

'People don't want open access, that's not what our customers tell us they want,' he said. 'Anyone in their right mind who tries to do anything on the Internet with a screen that size has to be nuts.'

Link (via Engadget)

Small-minded orchestration

Small-minded orchestration 04/09/2004 04:06 PM
BEA and IBM this week published an ill-conceived mongrel specification called BPELJ. Edwin Khodabakchian has done a ...

Don't Be a Simple-Minded Investor

Don't Be a Simple-Minded Investor 04/05/2005 08:32 AM
It's dangerous to rely on just one or a few measures.

New rules on Government procurement: Buy
in an eco-minded way from 1st Nov

New rules on Government procurement: Buy
in an eco-minded way from 1st Nov 10/31/2003 02:43 AM
PublicTechnology.net Oct 31 2003 1:53AM ET

God bless the clear minded thinkers

God bless the clear minded thinkers 09/08/2004 05:04 AM

Brendon Wilson sent me this note:

Are affiliation relationships another form of micro-content by your definition? See this post for the background....

Brendon

So that definitely caught my attention. Brendon works for PGP and seems like a really smart dude.

So here's Brendon's post......

Clicking For Dollars

A couple weeks back, I mentioned to one of my co-workers that he should check out the special features on the "Wag the Dog" DVD. About five minutes later, he passed by my cube and mentioned that he had looked at the information on my blog and added the film to his Netflix queue. The importance of this moment didn't strike me until Apple's more recent announcement of an affiliate program for the iTunes Music Store.

It occurred to me that my friend had been forced to go through a circuitous route to add the movie to his Netflix queue. Rather than simply clicking a link within the review on my web page, he had to log into his Netflix account, find the movie and then add it to his queue of movies. What a pain.

It's no secret that I'm a fan of the Amazon Affiliates program - it seems almost obvious that Netflix should incorporate a similar affiliation system to allow web sites to provide users with an easy way to use the Netflix system. Such a system would enable Netflix to embed itself into the web - and all it would cost is a little web plumbing and whatever credit they give to referring web sites. Netflix gets a way to leverage the blogosphere, the blogosphere gets a way to further build useful content and value for its readership, and the bloggers gets a way to get mildly compensated for their effort to create value.

But the prospect of multiple affiliation systems raises an interesting user interface obstacle (oh, where art thou OK/Cancel?): what happens when affiliation systems collide?

Picture the scenario: a user comes to your web site to read your review of a kick-ass new independent film about an underground band you're interested in checking out. Does the link to the movie go to Amazon (and hence, contains your Amazon Associates ID) to allow the user to buy the DVD, or does it go to Netflix to allow the user to add the film to their Netflix queue? Does the link to the album go to Amazon to allow the user to buy the CD, or does it go to iTunes to allow the user to buy individual tracks in a digital form? What if you prefer to buy digital music from Real? Or movies from Barnes and Noble?

Although Amazon is the only real player with enough momentum to draw significant link-love from the bloggers, they can't be all things to all people. Inevitably, as demonstrated by Apple's affiliate program announcement, there will be new entrants, each striving to carve out their particular niche by leveraging blogs to enable customers to be "self-selected", for lack of a better word. But it'll have to get easier - blogging tools fail abysmally to simplify the process of leveraging other web services, like Google's Adsense (assuming they don't smack you down in the process). Making it easier will require a standard mechanism to interface with affiliation systems. Hmm, makes me wonder - would Marc Canter consider affiliation relationships another form of micro-content?

[Brendon Wilson]

I then responded with this comment to his blog:

God bless the clear minded thinkers. Right on.

Here's my take on it.

There are APIs and schemas. As long as something can have a permalink and be subscribe able to... via an aggregator - it's micro-content.

But what you bring up - are web services. The combination of various types of technologies (in your example's case - it's a movie (media) being added to infrastructure (NetFlix) via a blog (the ORIGINAL form of micro-content).

So what you've taught me today is that it's MORE than just APIs and schemas. It's infrastructure and web services too.

Thank you.

---

Postscript: Brendon's suggestion for NetFlix is EXACTLY what I told them - six months ago. Offering end-users ways to make money is key. These affiliate programs can be part of the Web OS infrastructure.

Or shall I say "a business model for digital lifestyle aggregation?"

Microsoft goes civic-minded in Asia

Microsoft goes civic-minded in Asia 07/01/2004 07:10 AM
CNET Asia Jul 1 2004 11:32AM GMT

2003 Gift Ideas For The Macintosh-Minded

2003 Gift Ideas For The Macintosh-Minded 12/12/2003 07:45 PM
(TidBITS via MyAppleMenu)

Submission of article'Mainstream media
has become a single-minded

Submission of article'Mainstream media
has become a single-minded 05/09/2004 02:27 PM
WebDevInfo May 9 2004 5:28PM GMT

2004 Gift Ideas for the Macintosh-Minded

2004 Gift Ideas for the Macintosh-Minded 12/19/2004 02:50 PM

Newt: "There is a party of narrow-minded
bigotry"

Newt: "There is a party of narrow-minded
bigotry" 08/30/2004 05:26 PM
Repeat after me: The Republican Party is the party of diversity. The Big Tent. The party of inclusion.

spectacularly simple-minded column on
women's magazines

spectacularly simple-minded column on
women's magazines 11/19/2003 08:03 AM
Democracy seen in Lucky magazine, not Vogue .. "We are all equal, and we are all Lucky" .. Stuff and Nonsense .. The Magalog .. column

nytimes.com/2003/11/18/opinion/18BROO.html
track this site | 10 links

Microsoft preps security-minded Windows
update

Microsoft preps security-minded Windows
update 06/15/2004 11:34 AM

Spoken like a true money minded
materialistic american

Spoken like a true money minded
materialistic american 07/10/2004 05:43 PM
TechTree Jul 10 2004 8:42PM GMT

Intel CEO: Egypt's forward-minded I.T.
strategy 'showing results'

Intel CEO: Egypt's forward-minded I.T.
strategy 'showing results' 03/30/2005 07:22 AM
AME Info Mar 30 2005 10:49AM GMT

Pilot wants to know if people flying in
his plane are "Christians" - asks people
to raise their hands

Pilot wants to know if people flying in
his plane are "Christians" - asks people
to raise their hands 02/10/2004 09:18 AM
CNN.com - Passengers: Pilot promotes faith on flight .. Pilot's proselytizing scares passengers .. FLYING THE PLANES!!!!

cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/02/09/airline.christianity/index.html
track this site | 6 links

"people it's somehow understandable how
some people might be driven to kill
"activist" Judges who make unpopular
decisions"

"people it's somehow understandable how
some people might be driven to kill
"activist" Judges who make unpopular
decisions" 04/06/2005 03:07 AM

Correspondences - News By the People For
People: Who captured Saddam Hussein?

Correspondences - News By the People For
People: Who captured Saddam Hussein? 12/22/2003 07:54 AM
Well, the cat is out of the bag so to speak. Saddam Hussein was captured by Kurds, not US forces. 12/22 .. (even more) .. more

correspondences.org/archives/000507.html
track this site | 4 links

There are lots of bright people out
there but only so many Bryght people

There are lots of bright people out
there but only so many Bryght people 08/27/2004 01:47 PM

Congrats to Roland and Boris and.....

They've just launched Bryght - a Drupal hosting service. I hung out with these guys a bit when I was in Vancouver and they're certainly a compelling reason for moving there.

Vancouver is hot.

Here's Roland's post....

Our latest venture is Bryght, a hosted Drupal service, "the Salesforce.com of community content". I am working with Boris, Richard, Adrian and James on this one. Yes, we are all Bryght guys :-) !

We have taken Drupal and combined it with web hosting and email to give you a one stop shop for your community content. No IT required, no muss, no fuss! Check out The lights are on at Bryght for more background on how this started. And if you know of an individual, organization or company that could use a Bryght site, please contact us.

Whither StreamLine you might ask? StreamLine continues and it will continue to resell Blogware blogs because we still believe that Blogware is the best individual blogging platform.

[Roland Tanglao's blog]

"Correspondences - News By the People
For People: Who captured Sad..."

"Correspondences - News By the People
For People: Who captured Sad..." 12/22/2003 04:17 PM

An attempt to evaluate the actual power
of brands by making Austrian people draw
a total of twelve logos (nine
international, three typically European)
from memory, 25 people per brand

An attempt to evaluate the actual power
of brands by making Austrian people draw
a total of twelve logos (nine
international, three typically European)
from memory, 25 people per brand 01/03/2004 07:05 AM
monochrom Brandmarker

monochrom.at/markenzeichnen/index-eng.htm
track this site | 3 links

Top Ten Holiday Gift Ideas for the
“Science and Engineering Minded”
Announced at Start of Holiday Shopping
Season

Top Ten Holiday Gift Ideas for the
“Science and Engineering Minded”
Announced at Start of Holiday Shopping
Season 12/19/2004 03:10 PM
Holiday gift ideas for the science and engineering enthusiast. [PRWEB Nov 24, 2004]

""We're saving more people than should
be saved, probably," Lt. Col. Robert
Carroll said. "We're saving severely
injured people. Legs. Eyes. Part of the
brain.""

""We're saving more people than should
be saved, probably," Lt. Col. Robert
Carroll said. "We're saving severely
injured people. Legs. Eyes. Part of the
brain."" 04/29/2004 03:19 AM

intelligent OS-64

intelligent OS-64 08/23/2004 02:55 PM
iOS-64: Design Aims And Features.

IBM gets intelligent about BI

IBM gets intelligent about BI 06/10/2004 09:53 AM
This year is the year IBM has chosen to get more intelligent about BI (business intelligence).

[etech] People-to-People (Microsoft)

[etech] People-to-People (Microsoft) 02/11/2004 09:36 PM
Lily Cheng from Microsoft Research is talking about how people represent themselves on line. The closer the friends, the fuzzier they want the representations. We need to make social tools fluid enough to account for the way people's lives change. We need easy access to friends and people important to us. We want sponatenous interactions. Lily's group went to a mall and asked people to draw their social interactions, and gots lots of circles and lines. Microsoft studied this and built a "personal map" that clusters people based on who they send email to (TO and CC) and how...

Intelligent Design? I Think Not

Intelligent Design? I Think Not 12/19/2004 03:54 PM
A common assertion from the "intelligent design" crowd (that is, people who can't imagine or understand the concept of evolution, so they have to fall back on God. They used to be called creationists, but after legal failures, they realized...

Intelligent Portals

Intelligent Portals 08/02/2004 06:25 AM
Intelligent Portals
http://www.intelligent-port als.com/

The premier Web Community for portal developers and managers responsible for delivering a dynamic, interactive user environment that is integrated with key underlying applications, processes, analytics, and data resources. This has been added to Knowledge Discovery Subject Tracer™ Information Blog.

The Intelligent Fire Arm

The Intelligent Fire Arm 03/15/2003 04:04 PM

New smart gun from a South African company with biometric sensors that limit who can fire it. But what's particularly novel is that the Intelligent Fire Arm also comes with an embedded camera that takes a photograph whenever the gun is fired, something sure to prove popular with hunters who want a visual record of their kill.
Read [Via Slashdot]

Intelligent Whimsy

Intelligent Whimsy 07/30/2004 10:13 AM
Copper - tales about Copper and Fred, his dog. By Kazu Kibuishi.

"You thought these people were saying
that the fight against Iraq was part of
the fight against the people that
attacked us on 9/11? Psych!"

"You thought these people were saying
that the fight against Iraq was part of
the fight against the people that
attacked us on 9/11? Psych!" 06/19/2004 04:26 PM

FIAIF is an Intelligent Firewall 1.18

FIAIF is an Intelligent Firewall 1.18 01/03/2004 10:42 AM
An iptables firewall for Linux.
Grok Description matches for ""People who before were intelligent and open-minded turn into raving lunatics...""
GrokA matches for ""People who before were intelligent and open-minded turn into raving lunatics...""

""People who before were intelligent and open-minded turn into raving lunatics...""

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