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  • 1 min read

Area codes become meaningless

A good little insight from Rafe Needleman in his new column over at ZDNet.

" The reason it won't last: If you can get a telephone with any area or country code, the whole idea of a vanity area code will eventually evaporate. It won't be like a real-world address, which for the most part still represents a physical location. While roaming cellular phones have already begun to make area codes irrelevant, VoIP will finish the job. Soon, area code will be one of those anachronistic telecom terms, like dialing, that doesn't mean anything close to what it once did. "

  • 1 min read

Follow-up to Subservient Chicken

The true story comes out about the most excellent subservient chicken gimick. I mentioned it a few days ago when I first saw it; it was amazing how quickly it spread. Here is an article giving some background on how it was done, where it came from and what the thinking was: "In fact, CP+B came up with about 400 different actions that the chicken could do, and then filmed them in the course of a day in Los Angeles."

  • 1 min read

[GEEK] Web Rich Text Editors (Apropos of nothing)

I've had occasion to look into what kinds of rich text editors are availble out there, and I thought I'd use this as a place to record the results, for myself, for you, and for posterity.

Basically I am looking for a Rich Text Editor that can be embedded in a browser based application. Here are the requirements:

  • Needs to run cross platform (IE, Mozilla, Safari)
  • Doesn't need to be hugely featureful
  • The less of a download the better
  • Avoid stepping into a cross platform testing quagmire

So far, here's what I've come up with:

This one looks nice, is lightweight and sufficiently functional.

This one is much heavier weight, and is very functional

I will post more results of my research as I continue. If you know of any that I should take a look at, please drop me a line or post a comment.

  • 1 min read

Identities (WTF Series, 1)

Some say that it’s very important that they be able to use one identity while doing one thing, and a different one for another. In ‘cyberspace’ they want to be able to express themselves without that expression being tied back to them.

My gut reaction is that I don’t like this. It seems dishonest. It’s contradicts what is possible in meat space, where I have to stand behind what I say and do. Do they have something to hide? Shouldn’t they be held accountable for their statements?

Yes, but, some say, the net doesn’t forget. You can do a search on something you said or posted at the beginning of (internet) time and it will still show up. Don’t you ever say something that you later regret? Or that is innocent now but harms your reputation later?

Like many things, the speed and scope of computers and telecommunications changes things. Where in the past it was workable to consider impersonation as a bad thing, perhaps in the 21st century it is perhaps reasonable to support multiple digital identities.

Maybe. But the world works on personal relationships and reputation. I am willing to do business with you because someone I trust has told me that you are a good person.

  • 1 min read

Outsourcing and Immigration (WTF Series, 3)

What’s the relationship between offshore outsourcing and immigration? Here’s an interesting connection. Immigration brings workers from other countries to this one. With outsourcing, we send the work to them (because with fast networks, we can…)

For years Immigration was a hallmark of U.S. society, the melting pot and all that. Its fair to say that it’s been viewed positively. The people that are against offshore outsourcing today would have been against immigration in the past. (And I say that as an actual immigrant 🙂

  • 1 min read

Virtual People? (WTF Series, 2)

One of the reason that society needs people to transact with each other using real identities, maybe, is that in the end, virtual digital persona can’t own and transfer ownership. I can’t buy or sell or trade with a virtual digital persona. Corporations in fact are virtual people in some sense, and indeed they are legally regulated much like people are.

Maybe in the future the law will expand to allow my virtual identity to own and transact separately from me, with it’s own ‘social security number’, the ability to have a checking account, to own property and generate income. But for that to happen it would seem to me that the law would have to catch up and regulate digital personas as a third actor along with natural people and corporate-like entities.