Lights That Blink

Last night a bunch of bloggers here in Cordoba, Argentina got together to drink beer, eat pizza, and talk about technology (among other topics).

Tons of fun.

Saludos en particular a Pablo (que buen marketing de tu blog!), Nicolas (vamos con la fuerza Mac), Daniel (sí, soy una masa…y humilde!), and Diego (que maestro de CakePHP).

Special thanks to Franco Giménez for putting it together.   Hopefully I can be around when they throw another event.

tags: blogging

Posted by Doug | 3 Comments »

I don’t find stories like this suprising.  At all.

Our favorite local-blog-with-an-admitted-ax-to-grind, the Claremont Insider, digs into the city of Claremont’s website and strikes .pdf gold: “scanned-in bi-monthly pay stubs for all city employees going back several years.” The Insider writes up an amusing (and clearly fictional) account of how they obtained the stubs and posts the juice.

The city freaks out and starts muttering about “theft” and “investigation.” The Insider reveals that they found the information by simply using the city website’s search engine. Claremont’s city attorney contacts Google and asks for the post to be deleted.

Unbelievably, Google removes the post, telling the Insider that “we’ve received a complaint that your blog…contains confidential information…Accordingly, we have had to remove the content in question.”

Why would you host a blog with Google (or Typepad or Wordpress or any other 3rd party when you don’t control the domain?).  Especially if you’re going to be muckraking.

tags: blogging, google

Posted by Doug | 2 Comments »

The blogosphere is all abuzz, as usual, with the most recent episode of superfluous navel gazing. This time driven by Kathy Sierra blowback. Obviously, we here at Lights That Blink don’t want to be left behind when it comes to blogospheric memes.

My take on the whole kerfuffle is in line with TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington:

I’m not turning off anonymous comments, I’m not going to always try to talk privately with someone before i write, and I’m also not going to allow a mob to decide what types of words constitute “unacceptable content.” And I’m certainly not putting a badge on my site that says whether I comply or not.

The code of conduct and the mass of bloggers lining up behind it scares me a lot more than the hate comments and death threats I’ve received in the past. I won’t support it.

In fact, it looks like this is having trouble getting traction among a lot of popular bloggers. Jeff Jarvis writes:

This effort misses the point of the internet, blogs, and even of civilized behavior. They treat the blogosphere as if it were a school library where someone — they’ll do us the favor — can maintain order and control. They treat it as a medium for media. But as Doc Searls has taught me, it’s not. It’s a place. And when I moved into the place that is my town, I didn’t put up a badge on my fence saying that I’d be a good neighbor (and thus anyone without that badge is, de facto, a bad neighbor). I didn’t have to pledge to act civilized. I just do. And if I don’t, you can judge me accordingly. Are there rules and laws? Yes, the same ones that exist in worlds physical or virtual: If I libel or defame you on the streetcorner or in a paper or on a screen, the recourse is the same. But I don’t put up another badge on my fence saying I won’t libel you. I just don’t. That’s how the world works. Why should this new world work any differently? Why should it operate with more controls and more controllers?

And my favorite comment on the whole thing comes from the ever enlightening web 2.0 curmudgeon, Nick Carr. You’ll have to click through to read it.

You can read Tim O’Reilly’s post on the code of conduct here and follow some of the links he provides.

tags: blogging

Posted by Doug | No Comments »