Posts

Regarding the Kathy Sierra situation, Chris Locke offered this in his own defense: I was a conference host on the Well 15 years ago where the core ethos was acronymized to YOYOW – You Own Your Own Words. This has remained a guiding principle for me ever since. I will not take responsibility for what someone else said, nor will I censor what another individual wrote. However, it was clear that Sierra was upset, so it seemed the best course to make the whole site go away. ...

Laura Lemay on the Kathy Sierra situation: Mostly as I read the comments on Kathy’s post and on other blogs I have noticed a kind of interesting but obvious breakdown. Men, in general, are shocked and horrified that this kind of harassment goes on at all. Women are of course shocked and horrified at Kathy’s situation, but they also kind of nod ruefully and say yeah, it happened to me, too. ...

So Wired News does an article on increased transparency at Microsoft, mainly covering their Channel 9 site. Someone at Microsoft mistakenly sends Fred Vogelstein, the author of the story, a confidential internal dossier about how the company is managing the story internally. It covers who’s talking to Vogelstein, what they’re telling him, and how likely it is that they will be able to make sure that the story presents the message Microsoft wants delivered. It’s sort of the corporate version of the Scooter Libby trial and further illustrates how journalists and their subjects attempt to game one another. Wired editor provides some background on the memo, and you can find the memo itself here (it’s a PDF). The memo even reveals that Microsoft planned ahead of time to get Wired to write the story in the first place. In the end, Microsoft got the story they wanted published, so even in spite of the memo being leaked before the story was finished, their plan was a total success. ...

The question on everyone’s mind after the Battlestar Galactica season finale was, “Are the four really cylons?” Series executive producer confirms that they are.

I’ve been reading Kathy Sierra’s blog pretty much since she launched it, mainly because I really enjoyed Head First Design Patterns. Her blog seems innocuous enough. It’s smart, funny, and topical, the topic being designing products that users like. So today I’m checking out the feeds, and what do I find, but a long post there talking about how Sierra is the target of death threats and hateful misogynistic attacks. How does she suggest people respond? ...

A few simple reasons why a social safety net is probably a good idea.

Justice Department official claims he didn’t know about some pertinent details of the US Attorney scandal because he didn’t scroll down when reading an email on his Blackberry. I can’t wait until we have the first blogging software-related political scandal. Future quote from someone’s official spokesman: “He didn’t know about the plan to fleece the voters because he never reads past the jump.”

The Washington Post prints the experiences of one recipient of a national security letter, anonymously, because the first rule of NSLs is recipients are not allowed to talk about NSLs. Rather than turn over the information, I contacted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, and in April 2004 I filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSL power. I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn’t abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters. ...

Take a look at this bit of rumormongering about MySpace and tell me it doesn’t sound like 1999 all over again. Companies hiring like crazy and then just setting the employees adrift once they start is a sure sign that things are going off the rails, and I’m certain MySpace isn’t the only offender in this department.

Andy Baio figured out a nifty way to track Twitter’s growth rate since it was launched. Companies that aren’t interested in revealing that sort of information indirectly may want to read about using GUIDs instead of sequential ID fields in databases.