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Posts Tagged ‘Bloggle’


Posted on July 23, 2008 - by deCadmus

Great Moments in Coffee Blogging History!

Seven years ago today the fine folks at Blogger (You remember them? Swallowed by Google?) recognized Bloggle [the Coffee Odyssey] as a Blog of Note. Oh sure… you can smile your isn’t that nice smile now, but it was a Big Deal in 2001. It was like… you’d arrived.

‘Course it’s been all downhill, since. ;)


Posted on August 3, 2007 - by deCadmus

We can rebuild it — better, stronger, faster…

Welcome to the new home of Bloggle.

Bloggle’s been served out of the same data center since 2001. While I’ve never had anything but wicked good customer service from my old host, their uptime and availability have been problematic for me of late. And so I’ve moved on. I hope that my new home on the web will be half as good on the customer service side… and twice as good in terms of speed and reliability.

The move is now complete, and — short of missing a couple of comments from a single day only (today, of course) — I think all the bits are aligned and working.

Should you find something wonky, please do let me know.


Posted on July 14, 2007 - by deCadmus

From the Bloggle Archives: Mediums Writ Large

I’ve recently been asked whether this essay — a Bloggle classic, originally offered in three parts in July, 2001 — might be used as part of the coursework in a new media studies program.1 Before I replied I gave it a quick read — it’s been a while after all — and was gratified to find it holds up pretty well. Hope you enjoy it…

When Thug the caveman first scrawled an image of himself on a wall of stone, we can imagine the prehistoric critics — “Arg! Ick dannae throg!” Which, roughly translated, imparts that the cave art lacked passion, and what’s more Thug would be better off spearing dinner. Little did the critics know that someday we might define the dawn of recorded history by Thug’s efforts.

When, in the Middle Ages Gutenberg created the printing press, the voices of his critics echo still… “What’s the use! The people cannot read! And if they could they would not understand without us to tell them what it means!” Which suggests that Johannes’ critics may have had some idea how the printed page would usurp their power, though even they could not know how profoundly it would change the world to come.

When Bell uttered his first words through his electrical speech machine, his critics were dumbfounded… “Who would you talk to? And won’t you disturb their dinner?!” True enough, dinner would never be the same. What’s more, dinner would never be the same wherever you might go, as one day everyone over the age of 12 would have a phone in his or her pocket.

When Zworykin [or Philo T. Farnsworth] patented his kinescope, his critics were confused. They argued amongst themselves whether the thrust of their criticism would be the tried and true, “It’ll never work” or the more obscure, “Mid-season replacements will confuse your audience.” In either case, they surely couldn’t imagine a live broadcast of man taking his first steps on the moon, or Ally McBeal’s dancing baby.

When Berners-Lee made the Internet accessible to everyone, the critics on Wall Street were frantic. “Buy!” they screamed. And then, “Sell! Sell!” Which suggests that critics haven’t changed all that much through the ages… they still don’t understand the creation of a medium any more today than they understood it in Thug’s time. Or Gutenberg’s. Or Bell’s. Or Zworykin’s.

A medium has the capacity to not only change our thinking, but to change how we think… how we communicate, experience, and understand. And to tell the truth, we still don’t know what the implications of the Internet and the Web really are. This much is fairly certain, though — we’re not finished. We’re only just begun.

So what is this invention, this medium, that has evidently caused us fits throughout the ages? Is it a tool? A toy? A myth?

A medium is vehicle for communication. It’s a transport for the expression of ideas… a means for transmitting a message from the sender — the person who wants to express something — to an audience, those who might receive that message. This could be an audience of one, or an audience of thousands, or even millions.

Even as a medium transports a message, it also shapes it, and manifests in that message properties that are unique to that given medium. Likewise a medium lends the message its own limitations. The stark lines of a rock chip scratched against a cave wall, the gilded manuscripts of the thirteenth century, an analog broadcast beamed through the airwaves — each has its strengths and its limitations. To master a given medium it’s critical to learn what those strengths and limitations are. Which is precisely why the Internet — and in particular, the Web — is such a mess today.2

It’s not immediately apparent how a new medium is best used. If our early cave artist were given a paintbrush would he paint a prehistoric Mona Lisa? More likely he’d try to use the handle to scratch on the walls. It’s no surprise, then, that early television broadcasts were little more than televised radio plays, or that today’s web sites try so hard to look like television screens with hyperlinks. We’ve got a new set of tools, but we’ve yet to master the techniques required for the medium. For that matter, we’re still trying to discover what they are.

So what do we know about this medium–this Internet? We know that there are three laws that govern the Internet, and none was penned by a legislator. The first of these is Moore’s Law — a nifty bit of insight offered by Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel. Moore’s Law states that every 18 months, processing power will double, while costs remain constant. It’s the principle on which Gordon Moore built his business, and it’s proved remarkably accurate. Moore’s law has been essential not only in terms of how it has driven innovation, but in how it’s made basic computing capability more affordable for a mass audience.

That brings us to the second law that governs the Internet. Metcalfe’s Law, offered by Bob Metcalfe — a guy who knows quite a lot about networks — he invented Ethernet, and founded 3Com. Metcalfe’s Law states that the utility of a network equals the square of the number of its users. Consider the computer you’re looking at now. Imagine it unplugged from the network. Alone. Isolated. It’s still a computer. You can run a spreadsheet, edit a document, play a game. But once you connect that computer to even just one more, the power of your own computer increases dramatically. You can now share those documents, or send messages to the other computer on your network. The utility of your computer continues to increase — geometrically — with each additional node that is introduced to your network.

And that brings us to the third law that governs the Internet. At a certain point — critical mass — the power of the computing network is so great that it extends beyond the realm of technology alone, and affects the social, economic and political worlds in which it operates. This is the Law of Disruption, described by Chunka Mui in Unleashing the Killer App. Between the accelerated curve of technological change and the incremental curve of human change there is a widening gap — a vacuum — and a vacuum is a powerful force. I believe that both the fundamental cause for that gap, and the vehicle that will fill it–the agent of change–are one and the same… the Internet.

And so we are where we began, with the birth of a new medium — the invention of a vehicle for communication that disrupts as it transforms. The effects of this particular medium will be especially powerful, and likely unusually disruptive. While other mediums have empowered the individual to communicate with the masses, to do so on a large scale has always required an intermediary — an art gallery, a publisher, a theatre or broadcast company. These are powerful organizations, groups that are rarely content merely to replicate a message, when they can edit and augment it as well.3

The Internet, however, is inherently a many-to-many medium. Virtually anyone who has the ability to browse the web has the capability to publish on the web, without the services — or the editorial predilections — of any intermediary whatsoever. It’s interesting to imagine what might have transpired if Thug’s cave art were instantly transported to every cave that chose to tune in. Or if there had been a printing press in every kitchen.

It’s just as interesting to imagine where the Internet will lead us. I don’t claim to know. But I expect it’ll be a helluva ride.

Notes and Links

  1. Yes… I imagine they are desperate. But it wouldn’t be the first time this has occurred. ↩
  2. It’s worth noting, six years on, that despite our progress — and the Web 2.0 mantra — the Web is still pretty messy. ↩
  3. Never has this proved more true than in our “post-911″ world of political spin-doctors and bold-faced propagandists that pose as analysts and news organizations. ↩

Posted on July 13, 2007 - by deCadmus

Coffee Notes From All Over

In which the proprietor dumps a bunch of coffee-related stuff into a single post. Enjoy.

  • Cuppa Joe to Go, Hold the Cup — In Edmonton, the DaCapo Caffe won’t give you a paper cup for your takeout coffee. Co-owner Antonio Bilotta, 31, says he’s tired of the waste.

    Just sayin’ no to paper cups.“I’m a cyclist and spend a lot of time in the river valley, and I see a lot of paper cups there,” he said from his university-area cafe. The last time he was at a bus stop, he glanced at the garbage can and found it full of coffee cups. He decided he wasn’t going to add to the problem. “I’m putting my foot down and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  • Circle the Wagons! — As Starbucks sets its sights on rapidly expanding its presence in St. Louis, area coffee shop owners are banding together to fight back.

    “We’re the neighbors” is how Craig Schubert, owner of the 1st Cup kiosk close to Chrysler’s plants in Fenton, summarizes the sales pitch. It’s based on the idea that “St. Louisans love to support the home team,” said Ben Murphy, managing partner at Applegate’s Deli & Market.

    Bloggle’s advice to the home team: it’s all about the coffee.

  • Cuppa Joe, Hold the Carbon? — Starbucks has been calculating its carbon footprint, with an eye toward going on something of a diet.

    In its shop in downtown San Mateo, Calif., for instance, baristas serve up about 40,000 cups of coffee drinks every month. Just based on utility bills alone, that means Starbucks is serving up about 4,900 pounds of carbon with its drinks–or about two ounces per cup.

    I wonder… does that include a paper cup?


Posted on July 10, 2007 - by deCadmus

A ticket to the world…

In the very early 90’s my brother Ken and I sysop’ed a Bulletin Board System (aka, a BBS.) It was a simple dial-up affair (I should be clear… *all* BBS were simple dial-up affairs back then) and ours consisted of a single (anemic) IBM PC, two phone lines and two modems… a 2400 baud Hayes Standard and a wicked fast 14400 baud U.S. Robotics beast. We were stylin’.

Despite the fact that our little BBS was in a small town in the middle of Missouri — where the cow to computer ratio was alarmingly high — that system ran almost non-stop. There was nearly always *somebody* dialed-in, and often as not both lines were in use. And it wasn’t just local folk connecting, either. We used to review the traffic logs to see who’d come in from where, and we were frequently astonished to see folks from not only one end of the country to the other, but international dial-up visitors, too, at what had to be significant cost to them… long distance service wasn’t cheap.

If you’d ask me why people dialed into our little system from all over the place, I’d have to say it was simply because they *could*. Having a PC and a modem was like having your very own ticket to the whole wide world. Our BBS had a FidoNet link, and FidoNet had a connection to Usenet, and — if you were patient — you could have a conversation with people on the other side of the planet.

That is, of course, if your phone company would let you. Those modems ran on plain old telephone service (or, POTS) which was, the telephone man would tell you, designed for voice-grade — not data-grade — service. You wanted to pick up your phone, dial somebody and have a conversation? You bet! In that case the connection was 99.999% reliable. If, however, you wanted to zoom zeros and ones across that line at breakneck speed… well buddy, all bets were off. Maybe it’d work, and maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe you’d get your full-duplex, high-speed connection, and maybe you’d connect at a bit dribbling rate of 1200 baud or so. ‘Course… you could always pay for a “data-grade” connection at, oh, five to ten times the price of a voice line. But it wasn’t anything different, at all! It was just another POTS line… albeit one all shiny and new. Hooey!

Just a few short years this side of the BBS’ heyday, the Internet began its inexorable rise. And with it, the local ISP, and flat-rate dial-up services, and broadband connections. And — I’d like to say — it changed everything. And it did. With a (relatively) cheap, local service you could connect with people all around the planet in completely new and exciting ways: voice, data, video streams, the Internet didn’t care. Use any service you like â€â€? watch an online video, listen to a podcasts, send instant messages â€â€? anytime you choose. The Net had arrived as our new common carrier.

And there is where this story should end. But it doesn’t. ‘Cause the phone companies and their new coopetition — the cable companies — have borrowed a page from their old playbook… and it’s the “data grade” scam all over again.

The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies â€â€? including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner â€â€? want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won’t load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video � while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services � or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls � and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

The big phone and cable companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to gut Net Neutrality, putting the future of the Internet at risk.
–SaveTheInternet.com

And so, for the first time ever, Bloggle is sporting an ad — a PSA spot, if you will — in support of Net Neutrality. I encourage you to lend your voice in support, too. No-one — no government, and certainly no corporation or cartel — should be able to impede the free exchange of ideas or the access to information that the Internet has made possible, today, much less what the Net may offer us tomorrow.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, my brother and I had a modem and a dream, and it proved our ticket to the world. The Internet is your ticket to the world, now. Don’t let anybody take it from you.


Posted on July 6, 2007 - by deCadmus

Winning the Hearts and Minds of Terroirists

If a recent article in the New York Times‘ Style Magazine is right, then everything you think you know about terroir may be wrong. The article — Talk Dirt to Me — takes aim at some long-held thinking about the stuff that makes a wine’s flavor what it is: dirt.

When terroir was first associated with wine, in the 17th-century phrase goût de terroir (literally, “taste of the earth”), it was not intended as a compliment. Its meaning began to change in 1831, when Dr. Morelot, a wealthy landowner in Burgundy, observed in his “Statistique de la Vigne Dans le Département de la Côte-d’Or” that all of the wineries in Burgundy made wine essentially the same way, so the reason some tasted better than others must be due to the terroir — specifically, the substrata underneath the topsoil of a vineyard. Wine, he claimed, derived its flavor from the site’s geology: in essence, from rocks.

(more…)


Posted on June 28, 2007 - by deCadmus

This is just so wrong…

I’m hugely appreciative of Grist and their take on issues relevant to the environment and sustainable living, but I have to draw the line somewhere. That line is here: Grist’s Guide to Meat-free Grilling.

I come from a cow-town. For me the very definition of a summer’s day involves a grill and many pounds of beef. (Better still, it involves a barbecue pit, and a large supply of beef brisket and pork ribs.) Meat… it’s what’s on the grill.I’m happy to grill veggies — even fruit — so long as it’s understood by all in attendance that these are accompaniments to the main dish, which will be meat.

As an antidote to Grist’s misguided efforts, allow me to present you with an alternative menu:

Now get grillin’.


Posted on October 25, 2000 - by deCadmus

OOPS.

For a long time I dismissed personal web sites as hollow “vanity” pages. I was wrong. Sure, there are sites that don’t really have much to say… but what’s to dismiss about personal expression? There are personal sites that express real purpose, or real talent, or at least a real person.

The proliferation of weblogs, or “blogs” has added a new dimension to the mix: a sense of immediacy. It’s that dimension that can make an average blog entertaining… and a good one just plain irresistible.

So why me? And why now? I make my living from this thing we call the Internet… I’ve been ‘working the web’ since 1994 (and dialing into, and then building BBS since 1986. Anyone remember Fidonet?) And as my efforts have slowly mutated from technical architecture to information architecture to customer experience evangelism, I’m finding myself uncomfortably removed from the hands-on aspects of development. So this site is at once a means for me to express my own ideas about the web and what it can mean to people, and an opportunity for me to keep my own development experience fresh and relevant. (more…)


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