Um. No. Let's not overcompensate in the other direction, either.
> Reading Adam's post, I now see that he believes that
> even flapping butterfly wings might not be irrelevant,
That is correct. Butterfly wings are relevant.
> I've seen the ongoing thread since with Seth, Adam, duck contributions.
> Yes, this subject of bit-ownership is complex, and fascinating. And I think
> we all sense that it's pivotal to what it means to lead informational lives.
> The answer isn't pat, and there are many variations, including ones involving
> JoeK emailing Manny & friends some of Adam's FoRK words along with
> some lowercase commentary, which Adam then forwards to Rohit, and
> has a dilemma about the propriety of FoRKing.
Actually, I never mentioned JoeK, Mani, FoRK, or Rohit by name.
This was a hypothetical situation with people named J, M, F, and R.
Really interesting code: in reality, J spoofed the alleged email forwarding
to M. J did not really send the email to M, he just faked all the headers.
Of course, the "A" in our scenario had no idea a joke was being played on him.
And to be fair, J still sent X' to little cats D through K. Just not little
cat M.
So when little cat M came in this morning to give a talk to BMW, of course
I went completely on the defensive. "What did you do this week, Adam?"
"Nothing." "Is anything wrong?" "Oh, no, everything's great."
Only now do I understand that the X' email to M was a joke. WHOOPS.
Little cat J says he did it because he wants me to be more careful about
what I say on public forums. Information wants to be free, after all.
> With every email, with every post, we effectively
> hand our disciples and friends a camera - we give them the _opportunity_ -
> not the _right, mind you - to capture our nakedness, to allow yet others
> further afield to see our private parts.
Amen to that. Someone get me some clothes...
> So, how do you know _when_ you're allowed to stand on your soapbox?
I just... know. There is no try, there is only do.
> I think that's why Adam puts 'glue' ahead of 'bits', and I agree. Glue is
> very important.
In the land of bits and clue, the person with glue is king.
> I think Adam, Ernie and Tim all misjudged what was going on with:
> >A word of advice about trying to teach a pig to play Hamlet: don't.
> >You won't get anywhere; in fact, the only thing you'll be able to do is
> >annoy the pig.
> On the contrary, I think we *did* get somewhere. Tim got annoyed,
> sure, but he also rose to the occasion. He showed us all that he can do
> precisely what I was daring him to do! I can read through the insults, and
> see that. That's why I like this post. Mind you, I still stand by pretty
> much everything I wrote in the earlier one, and I still reserve my judgement
> of what I think of Tim, (much as I'm sure he will still continue to think
> I'm an asshole ;-). Our pig *has* played Hamlet. And we've all learned
> something from him. That's why I'm taking the time to respond to this.
NEVER trick a pig into playing Hamlet. He'll become enamored with the
revenge plot and apply it to his personal life --- against you --- someday.
> For the other shoe to drop, no lengthy posts from Adam or others can suffice.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey! I resemble that statement...
> But I guess that unlike Adam, I don't believe in butterfly wings.
Chaos did kill the dinosaurs, you know.
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
Apparently Apple had Microsoft by the balls, if Microsoft actually had
any balls, with respect to the justice department investigation. As a
result, Microsoft did not enter this Apple deal of their own free will.
And so Jobs parlayed this into a huge public-relations coup. Really,
there's no good reason for Microsoft to have done this otherwise.
Essentially, Apple gets money and publicity, and Microsoft gets dick.
-- Dan Zimmerman