Topic: Posts

Yesterday I posted a note about what I’ve been reading and about Melissa Scott’s The Jazz, and in it I realized that I talked about William Gibson’s Neuromancer in comparison to Melissa’s book and I didn’t get into my thoughts on the Gibson.

Which is awkward, because it’s such an important book and I didn’t like it very much. Although Gibson writes very beautiful prose, I had a hard time maintaining interest in the book. Maybe this is a feature of the cyberpunk sub-genre’s difficulty aging--but that seems too simple. While I think the more rigorously derived from the future a piece of SF is, the harder it ages¹

I asked Chris, “Isn’t this supposed to rock world, I feel very unrocked,” and he said (ever helpfully) that “maybe my world was already rocked.” Which it might be, I think this is another angle on the “it’s past it’s moment.” And unlike some cyberpunk which engages issues of identity, the meaning of “reality,” government intervention in people’s lives, and other interesting issues, the major argument in Neuromancer amounted to “Duuudes cyberspace, it’s like drugs…”

I joke, but there was a lot of drug use in the book, and while it gave Gibson the space to write some really trippy scenes, which really were beautiful, beyond that I was unimpressed. And probably as a result I didn’t find myself not particularly invested in the characters.

I’d be interested in hearing what your thoughts are on the book, it’s role in the science fiction canon, and about cyberpunk in general. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Thanks for reading.

Onward and Upward!

My New Year’s resolution was to make a list of all the things (particularly fiction) that I read. Not to read more, but just to keep track of it. Part of my insecurity as a writer is the fact that I don’t feel particularly well read, in light of all the books that I want to read this is a particularly stark problem.

Just keeping a text file with everything on the list, seemed (and is) a great way to keep track of things and provide a clearer record of what happens.

I’ve mostly kept up with this, I deleted the file for a while (thanks to git I was able to rescue it, and I’m back in business,) but it’s all up to date. Also throughout the year, I’ve kept writing little notes about what I’ve finished reading, with some rough thoughts. It’s my blog after all.

I finished--a few weeks ago--Melissa Scott’s The Jazz, which I really enjoyed reading. Melissa is a contact from another context¹, which makes reading her work even more fun. Reading this book lead me to do some thinking about the state of the cyberpunk sub-genre.

I liked the book, the characters, and more importantly how it was able to take the “cyberpunk” sub-genre in a much more contemporary feeling story. While cyberpunk stories are great fun, the fact that by, say 1993, it was clear that the early cyberpunk (which set the mold for the genre) misunderstood the internet in all but the most fundamental ways. The Jazz, fixes this problem deftly.² At the same time, however, it brings a couple other problems with the genre to bare.

When I finished the book I was left with the feeling that the ending was a little bit flat, or it felt a little rushed, or something. And then I remembered that I felt the same way about Neuromancer (Gibson), and even “Trouble and Her Friends,” Scott’s probably most oft recommended book (at least by me). And then it struck me, that the biggest flaw with cyberpunk is that the action and dramatic tension derive from the mythology of the cyberpunk setting.

But it’s science fiction, you say. And, indeed, it is. But here’s a SF secret, I think in most/the best cases the SFnal elements of a story don’t provide dramatic tension but just set up. Lets take a couple of examples: In John Scalzi’s `Old Man’s War <http://www.amazon.com/Old-Mans-War-John-Scalzi/dp/0765315246/tychoish-20>`_ the tension comes from a very conventional war, from mystery about what happens to the main character’s wife, from the main characters friendships, and so forth. The fact that it’s a space opera and they have computers implanted in the heads is… background, and a device to put the characters in the right situations. In say Neuromancer, without the mythology (cyberspace, AIs, etc.) the characters would have been high the entire story rather than just most of it.

The end result is that the resolutions to the conflicts are very unsatisfying because there’s something that feels totally contrived in the cyberpunk story. In Neurmancer I disliked the characters and the plot/setting, and the “hard to pin down” feeling about the ending was too wrapped up in this, while in The Jazz, I loved the characters and the story, and I learned something pretty important about cyberpunk and dramatic tension. Can’t argue with that.

I’ve read more things recently, but I’ve run out of room in this post, so I’ll get to some of the other ones later.

Onward and Upward!

tycho: So I like what I’m doing, but I think in a few years I’m going to start thinking about how to go back to school to do science studies work or anthropology.

Ben: Ah, that’s cool, so what do you really want to do? [implied: with your life]

tycho: [Laughs] Really? Marry a couple of doctors and write and edit science fiction, I think would be pretty nice.

Ben: uh…

pause

Ben: Did you hear about Paul Newman?

tycho: Anyway, so I was chatting about work/career stuff with this guy and I mentioned my eventual plan to go back and do anthropology/science studies grad school, and he was like “so what do you really want to do,” and I said “marry a couple of doctors, and write and edit science fiction full time,” which is the best possible answer to this question I think. Given that no one really knows what they want to be when they grow up. And if you’re basically talking about winning the lottery, you might as well aim high.

Scott: Not a bad plan… Let me know if the doctors want a 4th in the mix!

pause, and tycho smiles

tycho: wait, I think you just proposed to me. [laughs]

Scott: Well… technically I proposed to the hypothetical other two… you’re just along for the ride…. ahem

tycho: Right, and fair enough, really. But you wanted to be #4, and I’d be #3 and which gives me some sort of veto power or hypothetical precedence in the hypothetical decision making. [pauses] it’s not every day that you get accidentally proposed to…

Scott: Ooops

[pauses]

tycho: I’m so blogging this.

Scott: facepalm

So I may have my beef with with the software as freedom,¹ none the less I think we can learn some pretty interesting things about freedom and politics from thinking about what open source means. In this vein recently, I’ve been thinking more about the economics of open source, and as I’m prone to an interest in creative business models that find interesting ways to generate income in unique and special ways. Here’s some thoughts on the “politics/economy of work in open source.”

On some deep level open source software resists the traditional scarcity economic model. There is no property, intellectual or otherwise, that you can exchange for money in a way resembling the normal way. With that option off of the table the open source community has to come up with other ways of doing business, and because scarcity (in another sense) is the mother of creativity, what folks in the open source world do to make a living is pretty interesting.

There are a few of major ways that people in the open source community make money:

1. Software-as-Service: Rather than sell people software, companies sell service agreements. This is nifty, because it lets groups of people get support for open source, it’s cheaper for users than buying software and service contracts, and also it means that service based businesses are smaller, because it’s more efficient to run a smaller company, and because anyone with the right skills can provide the services and not just the copyright holder for the OS. So customers get a more tailored experiences. The con, is that the better software is, the less people need support for it.

2. Custom programing. Basically individual programers consult with users to develop custom solutions around people’s needs, using open source tools. Ideally some of what people write gets contributed back into the repositories (as libraries/tools), and this is particularly suited to very modular/adpatable projects like drupal or debian

3. Certification. A company/programer reviews the components and develops an independent release of an open source product that they’ve certified. The best example of this is the RedHat certified linux versus Fedora Core. Which is mostly useful in the “enterprise world.”

4. Service Software. This is a mashup of other models, and I think it better to lead with examples: Wikimedia/Wikipedia/Wikia and DabbleDB andsmalltalk/seaside. Basically, a company uses an open source product to develop a service which generates income via subscriptions, advertising, and donations, which supports developers who contribute to the core project.

The most interesting effect that all of these models (but most clearly in the first two) have is that money isn’t being exchanged for “a thing,” but rather for work.

Which when you think about it, after we remove a few layers of mystification around “intellectual property,” the only thing that’s truly scarce is labor. Folks in the open source movement have had to realize this, and I think the ripple effect of this could be really profound. More important than even the “open access” to source code.

Twenty years ago (or more) having open source code was really rather important, but even then and more so now, open source code wasn’t a great benefit to most users. The number of linux users who’ve ever looked at the kernel source is probably pretty small. Thus I think it’s not a stretch to say that the ideology of open source (as opposed to free software) is as much about pushing further a different way of thinking about work and “ownership,” as it is about “freedom” or some more specific technological goal.

Thoughts? Reactions?

I read the following phrase on my travels this past week: “we’ll just have to wait till the SEO does it’s thing.” This is sort of a typical phrase that gets throw around on the “commercial internet,” and it wasn’t out of place. Indeed, I think all the readers of the article probably understood what the author was trying to convey. But it struck me as sort of odd. Here’s why:

It’s a completely empty statement. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to the collection of techniques that are used to “raise” a given web page’s ranking in search results. Because there isn’t a hell of a lot of competition in this market, basically this amounts to trying to “game” Google.

Which… is sort of a loosing proposition. Google’s algorithms (or the key components) are top secret, and what we do know about how google arranges searches is that the more pages link to a given page, the more favorably Google’s algorithm’s view that pages, this lets Google’s search results reflect a sort of emergent semantic organization of the world wide web. This means that when we search google, more often than not, we’re mostly searching the most interreferential pages on the internet.

It’s true that there are a lot of sites that don’t have a lot of “juice” in Google, and that’s really frustrating for people who create websites, but Google’s domination of the internet-search marketplace is due largely to the quality of results that this reference-based system plays.

And in light of this, I hope it’s pretty obvious that SEO is mostly a crock of shit. You can’t game Google, and more to the point you don’t want to. Though I think the prevalence of SEO an interesting admission for the “commercial internet” that traditional advertising-based marketing models has utterly failed on the internet.

To my mind the ideological parent of SEO was “search engine submission” services, which would purportedly “submit” your website to search engines so that people could find your site. For a fee, usually. Clearly this didn’t work, because the return was so diffuse, and because no one really wants to use a search tool where the results are based on “submissions” which are paid for by the content producers. There’s a reason why most of us use Google and not AltaVista, AskJeeves, Excite, Lycos, Infoseek, and so forth.

Now having said that there are some things that you can do to encourage your site’s ranking in google (ie. get people to link to you on their sites,) I’d call this “good writing,” or “effective communication,” or “best practices,” not “SEO” but you know whatever works. Here’s what I think really works.

1. Be interesting, and have something to say. No one wants to read a website that’s boring. That’s why my readership is so low ;) but if you can’t make the attempt, no amount of good mojo is going to help your site.

2. Post regularly. Really regularly. This resonates with this idea, the way to get good at doing 1., and make sure that people keep reading your site (and linking to you) is to provide dynamic and fresh content.

3. If you’re a company, write not only about what you do and your clients, but also about what your clients are interested in. This might mean talking about and linking to your competitors, don’t worry, rising tides raise all boats.

4. Participate in real life conversations. Most people learn about new websites via word of mouth connections formed in unusual contexts. There’s a reason why most of the leaders of the independent web (bloggers) are either: in New York City, San Francisco, or have been going to SXSWi since the beginning. (There’s also a minority of L.A. based bloggers). Talk to people, talk about your work, and talk to the other people who are creating content.

5. Write emails. This is the second stage of what starts in 4. Digital networking connections rest mostly on one-on-one email correspondences, and listserv conversations, despite all sorts of next wave technology like twitter, facebook, and linked in. Getting really good at writing quick, meaningful emails and staying on top of your correspondence is requisite.

6. Top load your content and titles. This falls under the category of good practice, and it mirrors the way newspaper columns are structured. Give as much information away as soon as possible, put all the details at the end, and write in a style that’s simple and designed to be easily and quickly read. There’s a lot out on the internet, and the the less time you take to make a specific point/joke/insight, the better.

7. Provide full RSS feeds, and don’t put things behind “cut/fold” tags so that people have to click through to “read more.” The former is good sense, and represents reaching out to other content producers (the people who read your site,) and the later is just good sense.¹ Other content producers are the people who have the real power over your search engine ranking, and making your content accessible is the first step in getting the content read.

8. Use a site design which maximizes readability and visibility, so that people can--you know--read your content, rather than marvel at your superior design capabilities.

Basically write a good site, network well, and don’t waste your time on snake oil and chants. /end.

Ok, I have two things to ask/pose/announce, which only seems fitting after writing something about how blog posts should be more singularly focused. Figures.

Part One: Switching to Linux

So, I’ve mentioned “the great linux switching of 2008” a few times, but never really explained it. Here’s a proper exploration:

I’m finally begining to feel the pinch of not having a desktop computer. Don’t get me wrong, I really love my laptop, and will likely still use it a lot. My issue, is that I want more screen space than I’m really willing to pay for in a laptop (and a better keyboard), and I want to be able to dig a little deeper into the open source world for various reasons. And I’ve realized that the cost of building a multi-screen desktop isn’t going to be particularly prohibitive. So it seems like the right thing to do.

I started out the linux journey running ubuntu (hardy) and it was ok, but not great. Then I spent most of the week plaiyng around with gentoo linux and toying with the idea of other distrobutions like ArchLinux, say. And the end result was that while ubuntu was frustrating from time to time, it would work. I mean really work. So having learned my lesson--which I think is the most valuable product important re: the linux community of this process--I’m back to using ubuntu, and it’s working better than ever.

Part Two: Editor Dependence

As part of the “Great Linux Switch of ‘08,"¹ I’ve been spending a lot of time working in a virtual machine instalation of linux (first ubuntu, now gentoo) to practice the setup and get a slate of configuration files all ready for the machine when I finally order the real hardware. Going into this, I knew that the hardest part of the transition to linux was going to be the text editor part. Which wasn’t insignifigant given that, I write a lot of text and I’m a devotee of the OS X only “TextMate.”

In my linux useage I’ve been using vim a lot, and I’ve written about my vim trials for some time here, in various ways. Including, my comment to twitter that “vim isn’t something that people ever learn, as much as give up on.” Having said that, I think I’ve got mostly got a hang of it it. I need to get highlighting for Markdown and a few other things nailed out. And there are a lot of things that I don’t quite know how to do, but I’m getting there. The other thing that I’ve recognized myself doing is using more than one editor, or at least multiple variants of .

I mean, we use plain text files because they’re standard and just about every editor can read them. Isn’t it ironic then, that I/we grow so dependent on specific programs? Despite irony, it’s true for pretty good reasons.² In anycase, for a lot of drafting and blogging writing, I’ve been using cream, a modern interface/configuration of vim that basically acts like you’d expect an editor written in the last twenty-thirty years to act.³ And I’ve even been using standard gui-vim (gvim) for some things, and it’s not all bad.

Having reported this, I can’t decide if:

1. I haven’t found the linux editing enviroment nirvana.
2. I’m maturing in my geekyness/editor use and am become more in touch with/accepting of mostly standard configurations.

What do you all use/like? Thoughts

This is the first post I’ve written in a long time that wasn’t about open source/technology stuff. Not that I’m not still fascinating (or cranking out blog entries about that,) but it’s fun to tred on other ground for a while. This post grows out of some very abstract thinking I’ve been doing inrelation work about the nature of blogging.

First off there’s the divide between journaling and blogging. Though the distinction is pretty clear cut, in practice the lines blur. Journaling include posts/blogs that recount your own experiences and events, more or less as they happen. Blogging in contrast are posts that explore ideas and events around the author(s) expereince. And blogs are chronological so they look like journals and sometimes include “personal notes” posts, while journals will sometimes/often include the authors thoughts on a subject outside of the authors experience. So it’s a muddy playing field from the get go, but I think it’s useful to think about what makes a successful blog, because it’s more of what I have been doing here , and it may be easierer to quantify than what makes an successful journal.

I’d like to put out 4 general theories for your consideration about “blogging that works:"¹

1. Posts should generally explore ideas, concepts, events, and other texts. But mostly ideas.
2. Posts should explore one idea/concept, and only one idea/concept. If you want to write more complex essays, figure out a way to write articles for a more tratditionally formated publication (such things exist on the web).
3. Blogs are highly referential texts. Blogs which don’t include links to other blogs, and/or don’t include quoted text I think miss some of the point of what makes the web so great.
4. Blog posts need to be short. (Guilty as charged!) Blogs are meant to be read in concert with other blogs, and time is scarce. Also attention is scarce. And really if you’re only talking about one idea, getting it into ~400 words is hard, but it’s something to aim for.

That’s what I have. Any ideas on your end? Speaking of under 400 words, I’ll be done now, with none to spare!

Ok, this is going to be a quick post, I swear.

Truth is I do most of my blogging in TextMate using the amazing blogging bundle. Basically it means that if I use the right template (which looks a lot like an email header, really), I can hit three keys and a few seconds later the post appears here on tychoish.

Right.

As part of tycho’s great march torwards linux, I’m looking for something to fill this niche in my workflow.

So basically does anyone know of/know how hard it would be to write a script that takes posts written in a specific format (to specify title, categories, tags, etc) and send them via xml-rpc to a given blog.

Command line only is fine/preferable, and really I think the blogging.rb file in the TextMate bundle would probably make for a good core to write a script around, and I’m mostly interested in being able to send posts, editing as I archive posts on my machine, and I don’t mind the web interface for editing. Getting the sending done would be mighty nice.

This might make more sense if you’ve used the blogging bundle, as I think about it. Basically, the files when you pust get a Post: id field, which if you post a file with that ID a second time, is treated as an edit.

So in short:

• Simple text-based file format.
• Easy, non-editor specific posting commands.
• Multiple Blog support (again the TM bundle does this.)

Yeah, that’s about it. Thoughts?