April 1, 2005
“Yet another New York coffee notes, this one with Kosso, live from the bar in the Millenium UN Plaza Hotel. We talked about tools for creating and managing podcast feeds in Flash, and lots of other random stuff. Goofy and technical.”
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Well, good morning everybody.
(00:03):
This is Dave Weiner coming to
you from the basement of the UN
Millennium Plaza Hotel in
lovely New York City.
And I'm here with Jonathan.
Jonathan is a Jonathan.
Jonathan Casso.
Jonathan is a real-
Just Casso.
Casso?
Just Casso.
Casso.
Okay, I just called you Casso.
Just Casso.
(00:24):
What's your name?
Well, of course the secret's
out right now.
I don't know.
Everybody knows you all.
And so, John Casso is a British
.
Yes.
We're going to talk like we
remember this as the British
royal family today.
And I won't be able to do it,
but he can do it.
I can't.
Yes.
And so Casso, I met, how did we
(00:45):
meet actually?
When did you first, you got in
touch with me and said that you
wanted to do a podcast
with me, right?
Or was that what it was?
No, no, I don't think it was
like direct.
You had something.
I think it was just something
interesting.
I was just emailed you with
some interesting link to go, "
Hey, uh..."
Oh, that's right.
No, no, no.
You were doing the logo for
(01:06):
Morning Coffee.
The blood cast.
That's what it was.
And I totally didn't understand
, but it was pretty spacey.
And I didn't use it, did I?
You haven't used it yet.
I haven't used it yet.
There you go.
That's the optimistic view.
I haven't fully assimilated you
yet.
Ah, that's right.
So can you talk in that squeaky
voice that you do?
Unfortunately not.
No, you see, I am.
I'm already talking in the
(01:26):
phone.
Oh, that's right.
It's been modulated.
I'm actually already talking in
my funny voice.
Oh, so the theory is that your
name isn't Casso at all.
It's...
It's...
What was it?
Blurg.
Blurg, right.
Blurg, yes.
And your girlfriend is...
The doctor.
Doctor.
But she's really Joe, right?
Yeah.
(01:47):
Joe is a scientist, right?
Oh, I'm not supposed to...
No, never mind.
She is a real doctor.
She's a real doctor?
But not like a health doctor.
Not like a health doctor.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
(02:08):
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
(02:29):
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
I like listening to people talk
.
I like people watching as much
as I like people hearing.
I like people listening, isn't
it?
Yeah, there's lots of little
sounds going on here in this
(02:50):
room.
And that's great as well.
It is.
It gives it a certain...
There's dishes clanking and
there's a guy over there.
We're actually sitting in a bar
in the middle of the morning
and it's very dark.
And Danny Glover was having
breakfast in the corner.
Danny Glover was sitting right
there in the corner where we
were eating breakfast.
I'm too old for this shit.
No, actually I rode up in an
elevator with Danny Glover or
rode down in an elevator.
(03:11):
And so I was being really cool,
like not going, "Hey, you're a
dead Glover."
He said, "You're the one."
Yeah, actually it occurred to
me that maybe...
Oops, sorry.
There goes the microphone.
That would probably...
I'd be like...
It would be me.
Well, it's funny.
You were...
Yeah, so I played it really
cool.
But the mirrors in this hotel
is mirrors everywhere you look.
And so I tell them, "Put in the
(03:31):
elevators."
And so I looked just looking
ahead of me, but I could see
what he was doing.
He was making faces.
Like, you know...
Gurning.
Seeing his teeth and just
making sure he looked...
It looked to me like he looked
like he was making sure he
looked really good because he's
like an actor.
If I had talked to him, you
know what I would have asked
him about?
I would have said, "What do you
(03:52):
think about what Mel Gibson is
doing?"
You know, with the passion of
the Christ and all that stuff.
He did all those...
What was the name of the movies
?
The lethal weapon.
The lethal weapon movies with
him where Mel Gibson played the
druggy, crazy, three stooges
guy.
Yeah.
And all of a sudden Mel Gibson
is a very serious guy.
So podcasting.
And...
See.
(04:14):
So...
What should we talk about?
I had a whole bunch of things
in my head that were in space
there.
Well, that kind of...
Oh, you listened to yesterday's
podcast, right?
The one of you and the guys in
Starbucks.
In the Starbucks, yeah.
Starbucks are getting a lot of
mileage out of podcasting.
I think they should be
sponsoring podcast, actually.
Do you?
Well, I think...
I mean, in McDonald's, but the
(04:37):
whole Wi-Fi...
Yeah.
Ubiquity and the...
I mean, not that you need some
connectivity to do a podcast.
You obviously need it.
You need connectivity to upload
it.
Ironically, they didn't have
enough connectivity in the
Starbucks for me to upload it.
However, the place we're
sitting in right now, which is
the basement of the...
Where did I say it was?
(04:58):
Millennium UN Plaza.
You have not been able to get
on?
No, I've got it.
You're...
You're still in it for me?
I've not.
I mean, you have free...
Well, I was going to say we
have free Wi-Fi here and I get
a log on screen.
You can see.
And it says $0 wireless access
one hour.
So I click on access the
(05:18):
internet and then it gets me
this agreement, which of course
I don't read.
And then I accept it because I
want to give them all my money
and make them my heirs.
And...
Oh.
What was that?
Something didn't work here.
Hold on.
Let's see if I can go to script
ing.
Yeah.
And I've just got...
(05:39):
I've got no wireless networks
we found in, right?
Strange.
Well, here.
Well, you bought a cheap
computer, I guess.
I don't know what it does.
So here's...
I'm going to show Koso.
We went to dinner at the 2nd
Avenue deli at last night.
That was cool.
Diana was cool.
I wish I...
You have a lot of clips of her,
don't you?
Yeah, I do.
I wish I'd taken some...
Well, would you post them up
when you get back to...
(06:00):
Yeah, we'll be.
Yeah, yeah.
When you get back to...
So I thought that was a nice
picture of you.
That was me being very worried
about the doctor.
Yeah.
And then there's Edwin Newman
and some asshole complained
that he thought my pictures
were
too orange.
But I actually like orange
pictures.
It's just the light ideas, yeah
.
He says that any fool, except
of course, except me, knows
(06:22):
that there's a filter.
Any fool says you can get rid
of that shit.
I also got an email last night
from Corey Doctor, a very snipp
y little email.
What was that about?
Saying that any idiot knows...
People call me an idiot a lot.
Maybe I should take that to
heart.
But basically saying any idiot
would know that what you want
to do is fraudulent.
(06:44):
But what Google wants to do is
cool.
So what is it you want to do?
What is it you think is cool?
Oh, well, what I propose to do.
I don't really actually want to
do it.
But he's released his book
under the creative commons.
Oh, right, yes.
So I offered to download it and
change his name, replace it
with mine, and then print out
(07:05):
a bunch of copies and sell them
.
And then go find a publisher
who could publish my book.
And Corey says, "Oh, no, no, no
.
That would be fraud.
You can't do that.
Oh, I see.
Okay, good.
That's good to know.
There is a line in there.
I thought that was good news.
Right.
You're obviously just trying to
kind of kick the boundaries
(07:26):
around a bit.
Well, I'm trying to find out
where the boundaries are for
these people.
Because basically they've been
sort of pretending, I guess,
that there aren't any
boundaries.
I didn't believe really that it
would be all right with Corey
because, you know, because
I can imagine that he had to go
through some kind of a struggle
with his publisher to get
permission to do this.
(07:47):
Right.
So books are published by a
real publisher that distributes
it in bookstores.
And when they look at the idea
of uploading the full text of a
book to a website, they
must think, "Well, that's crazy
.
Why would I want to do that?"
Yeah.
So, and this is probably their
worst nightmare.
So Corey kind of has to say, "
You can't do that."
But as soon as there's an e-
book out there, you just go to
alt.bindemes.ebooks.
(08:08):
Yeah.
And you'll be downloading it
for free the next day, you know
?
Right.
Right.
And I think you could do that
right now with this.
With anything.
Yeah.
So what I don't want is, you
know, I used to write for a
magazine and they used to
change
my writing so that I would be
saying things that they wanted
me to say and say things
that I believed to be true.
And I'd always ask them, "Well,
(08:29):
why do you do that?"
And they would say, "Well, we
're just making it better."
Or, "They never would have
understood what you were saying
."
So we made it so that they
would understand it.
But of course, in the process,
it's changing the meaning.
It meant so much to me to be
able to talk directly to people
and say exactly what I meant to
say.
Yeah.
That I quit and I don't get
paid for writing.
And now the ultimate insult is
(08:49):
that this big, heartless
company, Google, wants to put
ads
in the middle of my copy.
Not off on the side somewhere,
which I wouldn't like either,
you know?
But they want to put it right
in the middle of my copy.
And I'm sorry, it's over the
line for me.
So I said to Purae, I said, "
That's fraudulent."
Yeah, since that's a word I
clearly, clearly, that's not,
(09:10):
you know, not a good word.
I mean, the big issue I take
with that is the, you know,
what, you've got no control
over
what these things are going to
be linking to.
So somebody could be reading
your blog and think, "Hey, Dave
likes that enough to put a link
in."
Right.
But, I mean, obviously, I'm not
, there's no point in re-expl
aining it, obviously, but the,
the, I mean, that's, yeah, it
could be anything.
(09:32):
Yeah.
Like, Dave likes, you know.
The Christian Colise.
She did.
Adolf Hitler.
Yeah, whatever.
Yeah.
I'm not a Corey doctor.
Yeah, I know.
Well, Corey, Corey's a little
heavy.
He told Scoble, every time Sco
ble said, "What about this?"
Corey's answer was, "I didn't
listen to him."
Apparently, people tell me
(09:52):
Corey's answer was, "Tough shit
."
Yeah.
And the Supreme Court of Corey
is a pretty tough place.
So, I mean, is it going to
happen?
Are the, are bloggers, is a
blog power, podcast power, is
this going to put a stop to
Google
social thinking?
Apparently, people have told me
that from the inside of Google
that, yeah, that it is not
going to actually make it out.
(10:14):
And that sort of the really
weird thing is that Google isn
't communicating that, but that
's
Google, right?
Right.
Google doesn't say very much,
but I'm pretty optimistic that,
you know, I mean, you know,
the whole goal here is to make
it so painfully obvious that,
that this isn't going to be
(10:35):
popular,
they say, "Well, it's not worth
the trouble to do this."
I don't know.
Yeah.
I feel out there, and kind of
all doing this, and I'll do the
best I can, and if it doesn't
work, I'll start using carrier
pigeons to send out my writing
and see what I'm up to.
So, tell me about your vision
(10:58):
for how, how we're going to be
editing and uploading our
podcasts.
How would you like to be
editing and uploading your
podcasts?
Well, the way that I'm, the way
, it's a pain in the ass at the
moment, obviously.
I think, and I think if people
in the go, they, you know, they
see these, they read these
news articles, they listen to
the news, they read the paper,
(11:19):
and they go, "Like, let's
say your dad."
He goes, "Hey, I want a podcast
."
And the, and then...
So he calls up his son and says
...
So he calls up his son and says
...
Certainly everywhere.
Oh, I think...
That's a better act.
There's something to do with
that.
And they assume he doesn't have
the feed father for a son.
And the, so what's he going to
do?
Is he, is he going to like hunt
(11:40):
around a search engine to find
out his, to find out the answer
and maybe have to install
something nasty or...
It's just, get an FTP client,
know all these, know all these
various little details.
And I think what you just need
is a very, very, very, very
simple desktop application
(12:01):
where you just drag, like the
Flickr uploader, I think is a
very neat little kit.
So what would it, yeah, I'm
sorry, go ahead.
Because with the Flickr upload
er, all you've got to put in is
...
Well, tell people about the Fl
ickr uploader.
There might be one person in
Antarctica who doesn't know how
that works.
Yeah, Penguin.
Penguin.
Or a Linux user, right?
Uh, uh...
It's available.
(12:22):
It probably will be.
It will be because it's, I
think, I'm sure it's just
written in Flash anyway.
Yeah, exactly.
It's just a Flash wrapped up.
Really, they do this stuff in
Flash, is that right?
Well, it looks to me like Flash
, but in the interface.
So basically you've got this
desktop application, this
little square, tiny little
square box in
inaptrucid, and the first time
you run it, you put in your
login details that you would
(12:42):
otherwise use to go to Flickr.
com.
And you just drag your JPEGs
into this, into this window and
then you hit upload and that's
it.
And in fact, after that, at
that point when you upload, you
can then choose to batch tag
everything.
So like when I upload stuff
from my phone, I just go like,
"No blog."
(13:03):
And that's it.
And they're away.
Pretty cool.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just simple.
And do you know what the
interface is like?
How, at a technical level, what
, how it communicates?
Yeah, what goes on in the
background?
I think it's just FTP.
You think it's FTP?
Because when, when it, well,
mind you, actually, because
when you get...
So it's very similar to
upstreaming then?
In a way.
But when you, when it finishes
(13:24):
the upload of your images and
you go, "Okay, are you
done now or do you want to go
to the, do you want to go to a
big page of all the photos
you just did?"
And that, if you just uploaded
100 photos, you got a long page
to download.
Sure.
It'll then put every title in
description, form field in
there for you to fill in and
tag on every picture.
But the URL string, it gives
you, you can, it's like, that
(13:44):
image, that image, that image,
that image, that image, that
image, you know, it's all a get
on the, so get the URL.
And the, the...
I have something like that,
actually.
I think it's just FTP.
I have something like that,
that I call pick sorter.
And I wrote it, I think I wrote
it before Flickr existed.
So like, that's one of the
reasons why I was such a late
adopter to Flickr because I had
my own tools.
Right.
(14:05):
What it does is, I basically,
it knows where my camera is.
So I dock my camera and I
double click on the script,
runs the script, it swaps out,
takes everything that's in the
pick sorter folder and archives
it, and then takes all
the new shit off the camera and
puts it in that folder.
And then it displays them on a
(14:25):
web page, the pictures
themselves, with check boxes
next
to each one of them.
And they're all checked by
default.
And then I uncheck the ones
that I don't want to be
uploaded.
And then there's a button at
the top and the bottom and I
click it, it uploads them.
And then what it gives me when
it's finished is the HTML that
's ready to paste into a web
page for all those pictures.
So I go straight from the
(14:47):
upload process to select all,
copy, do a new blog post over
there.
And I know that they have an
interface in blogging.
See, this seems to me to be the
whole trick between...
But it gets complicated at this
point.
Wait, wait, let me just get
this thought out.
Yes, it does become complicated
.
But the trick here, for me at
least, was that you want, the
next thing you want to do after
doing this, well, what is the
(15:08):
next thing?
For some people, I guess the Fl
ickr approach is like, okay, I
want to go to Flickr, right?
In my case, what I want to do
is do a blog post.
That's why I put those things,
that's why I put the pictures
up there in the first place.
So it's sort of like two
different approaches.
That's why Flickr, it's
surprising to me that Flickr
doesn't have a blogging tool in
it.
It does, yeah, you can go to an
image and you can go blog this.
(15:29):
No, that's not what I mean.
It can interface to my blogging
tool.
In other words, I use either
Manila or Radio or something,
anything that supports the Meta
WebLog
API, right?
But why didn't they actually
make it a blogging tool?
Why isn't there, like, why aren
't they competing with TypePad?
Probably because they didn't
(15:50):
want to compete with TypePad
specifically, because they
wanted
to partner with them.
But it seems to me they did
everything but the blogging
tool.
The blogging tool in Flickr
would be like the tiniest
little corner of the
functionality.
The Flickr is this mega mon
olithic, I mean, it seems like
they must have had 100
programmers
working on it.
Well, oh no, there's a, there's
a, there's a very clever guy,
(16:11):
something else.
Stuart Butterfield, right?
There was, there was a guy
called Cal Henderson.
Yeah.
Who, he's, he's been involved
in all sorts of projects.
You go to IamCal.com.
Where?
IamCal.com.
IamCal.com.
Yeah, which is cool.
And the, and there's, I don't
know if you've heard of a site
called beta.com, B3TA.
(16:33):
And it's kind of all memes and
goofy Photoshop postings,
Photoshop re-workings of images
.
And it's all nonsense basically
.
There's some of the stuff that
comes out of that, that kind of
this long forum is hilarious.
But the, yeah, Cal Henderson
was, is the, I believe, the web
(16:53):
, although the main kind
of web level developer for Fl
ickr.
I see, really?
Yeah.
And the one thing I really like
with Flickr is the, is what
they do with the DHTML where
if you're logged in, the, you
know, the text, the text, the
title, the description,
everything,
you click on it and it, it
turns into a form in front of
(17:14):
your eyes, you know.
So it's, you know, it's, you
know, it looks like it's just
in plain HTML, but you click
on it and it, it turns into a,
it, it, it turns into a form.
That's very rational.
And it's, that's probably why
you clicked on it, right?
(17:34):
But what I mean is it doesn't,
it's not like with, with some
interfaces where, where you
would have to click it, your
effects, if you're clicking
your URL, you're reloading the
whole
page and then, and then, you
know, you're coming up with a
form and then you're posting
that form.
I see, yeah.
You know, it does it on a layer
above that.
A little bit of HTML is doing
things.
And these sorts of very clever
use signage of dynamic HTML and
(17:56):
JavaScript, I think, is,
is really good.
And that, I, I think Yahoo are
now going to employ a lot more
of that kind of stuff.
Right.
Well, of course, the big
question everybody's asking is,
well, everybody, but many
people
are asking why didn't they just
like, why did they do 360 when
they also were buying
Flickr?
It seems like there's so many
(18:17):
of these community systems and
they're really, you need just
one.
Right.
I know I said I wasn't going to
mention Evan Williams and Odeo,
but I got to say this.
It seems like they're doing the
same thing and that a lot of
what they want to do is
basically reinvent Flickr,
which seems really weird to me.
And Flickr works where the
other, you know, sort of social
(18:38):
networking systems didn't work
because it has a purpose.
Because the purpose is photo
photography.
And a community built around
photography can be a very rich
community.
Absolutely.
It's perhaps a community built
around podcasting, but it's so
fundamentally different from
photography.
You know, people say, you know,
(18:59):
if you're looking at it from a
programming standpoint,
you know, oh, okay, big media
objects.
Oh, well, they're kind of the
same thing, right?
But they're missing that.
That's only from that angle
because a photograph is sort of
rockable in an instant.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, and because our
brains are built to rock
photographs.
Explain, explain Grock.
Oh, Grock is a word that as far
(19:20):
as I know came from a book by
Robert Highline, A Stranger
in a Strange Land.
And it was, there was an alien
in that book named Valentine
Michael Smith.
And he came from Mars.
And in Mars, they had a concept
called rocking rock.
And to rock something is to
(19:42):
appreciate the fullness of it.
It's not just an intellectual
understanding of it.
It's to appreciate the fullness
.
It's not a, you know, so Grock
is like a deep understanding.
I don't, how did I just use it?
I said, well, anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, no, you can rock a
photograph in an instant, right
?
Whereas podcasts, you can't a
(20:04):
podcast.
Who knows?
I can't, we're doing a podcast
right now.
I don't know how it's going to
end.
Right.
And I'm doing it.
I can't tell you we're live.
I can't tell you what we're
going to say.
Although I'll tell you, it's
actually to get really meta.
I think this has been very
interesting so far because we
're talking about things, you
know, we kind of don't, it was
the first time we ever met face
to face, but we share
(20:25):
these interests and these sort
of software things and why they
work and why they don't.
And, you know, podcasts is just
about that, you know, every
week probably would be a very
good podcast.
It's quite a relief to actually
communicate with somebody who
actually understands what
I'm talking about.
Same here.
Absolutely.
The amount of time is like, I
kind of, I say things and you
can just see it fly over
their heads.
Most people just use stuff and
(20:46):
like it and don't like it, but
don't know why they like
it or don't like it.
But if you want to make
software, then you've got to
understand why people like it
and why
they don't.
So my guess is that we don't
need another, that a community
built around podcasts like
Flickr isn't going to be the
freewheeling, fun, interesting
place that Flickr is.
Just simply because building
(21:06):
community around photographs is
great.
And then of course, why Yahoo,
you know, I will be know why
because they didn't know
that they were going to acquire
Flickr while they were
developing Yahoo 360.
They didn't even know what Fl
ickr was until somebody knocked
at their door and said, hey,
you know, we've got eight
billion members here and they
're all getting ready to buy
stuff from us.
Do you think they bought it
(21:27):
just to kind of snuff it out?
I hope not.
That would be really bad.
It would be.
People say that Yahoo got their
mojo back.
I think they ought to go look
and see what, look up the word
mojo.
It's not about snuffing things
out.
It's about making love.
It's about making babies.
It's about, you know, being
sexy.
The mojo work.
Yeah.
It's like not how it's not the
shape, but it's how you shake
(21:49):
it.
So anyway, so if you were to
like cut to the core, I want to
steer us back around to the
little tool.
Well, right.
The thing is that you could
take a monolithic view towards,
you know, what do people need
for podcasting?
They need basically everything
under the sun or maybe they
just need a little tool.
Right.
So you can create a podcasting
(22:10):
communities, even podcasters
without these people being
it.
You know, people can find a way
to record an MP3 file.
I think that that's probably
the easiest file.
It actually was, once I found a
tool that could do it, yeah, it
was easy.
I mean, I mean, I would like a
Windows machine.
You've got a sound recorder so
you can record a web and then
you could find a way of
converting
that.
(22:31):
I couldn't believe that Windows
didn't have one built in.
My machine has a microphone
built into it.
Why doesn't it have a piece of
software?
I don't know whether it might
be a licensing issue with Fran
Hoffer maybe.
With what?
With Fran Hoffer.
Fran Hoffer Institute who
developed MP3.
Maybe it might have something
to do with that because I think
there's some Jews somewhere
along the line to have to.
Right.
Well, Microsoft's rich.
(22:51):
Why don't they pay the dues?
Just to be sure.
But then they've got, you know,
they've got WMA so they kind of
go, "Well, we don't
want to kind of..."
Because they should just ask
the, they should call it like
the king of pod.
Yeah, yeah.
The guy behind it.
He's podcasting.
He's what?
He's podcasting.
He looks like.
He might be a similar
reflection.
Oh, that's interesting.
(23:11):
There's a guy who's wearing
headphones and a microphone.
He's probably on a Skype call
or something like that.
It would be nice.
If he's podcasting, it's like,
"We're probably the only two
people bycasting in the city of
the hour right now."
It's an interesting
conversation going on in the
background of my podcast.
So, sorry, right.
It's a destructive thing.
(23:31):
So tell us, okay, so what are
the basic functions?
Say, okay, you were saying
recording is sort of difficult
or not?
Well, not difficult.
I mean, it's, I would say it's
a no-brainer for anybody to
look at the model of the Flickr
Uploader and translate that to
uploading audio.
Right, that's what you're
saying.
That's all it is.
(23:52):
You know, it's exactly the same
functionality as Flickr Uplo
ader except uploading MP3 files.
And the next step after that
will be uploading video files.
You know, there will be that
natural progression.
It's as simple as that.
So what about ID3 information?
You want to say that?
The ID3 information, well then
what could possibly happen is
maybe you would, obviously,
okay, it's got to be a simple
(24:13):
tool.
And what about generating RSS?
Are you going to do that too?
Yep.
Okay, simple tool.
Let's say I've dragged an MP3
file onto the, onto my
application and I hit the
upload button.
When that file is uploaded, it
goes, "Okay."
So, or in fact, maybe before it
uploads, it goes, "So what's
the title?
What's my description?"
I already know what the date is
.
I already know who you are.
I know who the author is.
Do you want to add some tags to
it now?
(24:33):
Do you want to add any other
metadata to it to make it more,
or to make it better?
Now, as far as the tools to
write the ID3 tags on the
desktop, it would actually be
easier
for me to do it on the server
once it's arrived.
Right, because you have a PHP
(24:54):
tool that does that.
Yeah, well there's loads of
open source.
So what you could do then is
basically read the RSS file and
take the data off of that
and use that on the server.
Yeah, I could generate the RSS
either on the desktop or the
web.
So you're going to, you haven't
actually done this work yet,
have you?
I have.
I have some work to do.
(25:15):
Where would people go if they
wanted to take a look at what
it might look like?
Keep an eye on podbat.com.
Right.
P-O-D-B-A-T.com.
I see, okay, cool.
Because, yeah, I'm sorry,
because...
And the reason why it's called
podbat is because we've got pod
catchers out there and
catchers, what are they
catching?
You have a batter, you know?
(25:36):
A batter app.
They do that in Britain?
I thought that was...
Oh, it's cricket, where you are
.
Oh, yes, bowling.
You say bowling.
Yeah, bowling.
So you have a pitcher and
whatever.
I can't do that.
I was just talking like an
American.
So yeah, so you would read the
RSS file information and throw
that onto the ID3 tags.
I mean, there's no...
(25:57):
I mean, originally, when...
Would you ping audio.weblog.com
?
Oh, totally, yeah, totally.
I mean, you'd be able to...
All those kinds of things for
people.
All that sort of stuff could be
either end.
Could be on the server end.
It could be on the application.
What about...
How about this?
This would be cool.
How about letting them categor
ize their feed and categorize
(26:19):
each post too?
Absolutely.
So that it could be routed to a
directory.
Into a directory.
Yes.
So they could do what they call
a phoxonomy.
Phoxonomy.
Phoxonomy.
It's a very nice sounding thing
.
So yeah, so you could do that
too, right?
Yeah.
So it's sort of like the front
end for...
And you're going to also
operate the back end too.
So it's a client server.
(26:41):
So what protocol did we talk
about that?
What protocol do you want to
use between the two?
Well, you see, this is where I
was trying to work out what the
Flickr uploader does.
And I, in fact, I was about to
say that it uses FTP because I
've written a version of
it that uses FTP.
Right.
Because the wrapper that I have
for the flash has built in FTP
(27:02):
functionality.
You could email it.
You could email it if you want
to do it.
But the simplest way to do it
is actually to Tp up load.
And I got a feeling that's what
they do.
A couple of years ago I wrote
something called camobi.com,
which is...
Can you spell it?
C-A-M-O-B-Y.com.
And basically when camera
phones came out, I had one as
(27:23):
soon as you get one, and I
wanted
it to be called a camobi.
In America you call mobile
phones cell phones.
We don't call them cell phones.
What are you talking about?
Mobile phones.
Or mobi.
I was like, where's my mobi?
Where's my mobile phone?
It's your mobile.
In Germany they call it handy.
It's my handy.
My handy.
(27:43):
My handy.
It's small.
It has a camera.
It's MP3 of a core better.
It's the thing about German
accents that crack me up, like
Dr. Strangelow.
It's one of my favorite movies.
Really, I didn't know this, so
that's what that means.
They call them mobi.
Yeah, some people call them a
mobi.
(28:03):
Where's my mobi?
But very few people call it
their cell phone.
We, that's what we call it.
Yeah.
Yeah, call it our cell.
So basically I went straight
out and bought camobi.com.
Every time I talk about a
mobile phone with a camera, I
don't call it a camera phone.
Or maybe I do, but what I
wanted to do is make sure that
every time I said the word
(28:24):
or spoke about these camera
phones that I had, because I
was the first person I knew
with one, and then Joe, a
doctor, had one.
And I wanted to just, you know,
you keep saying things enough.
And people, it's like podcast
ing, you know?
If somebody had said "blog
casting" straight off the bat.
(28:45):
I like blogcasting so much
better than podcasting.
Well, because it doesn't have
that horrible white plastic
ring to it.
I know, well this is something
that you and I both agree on,
that it's not a very popular
thing, is that the user
interface of the iPod is like
from hell.
"Pod" is a great word, actually
.
Something I wanted to say, you
(29:05):
know, the invitation to a
series.
Oh yeah.
And I had some people, some
colleagues of mine, where I was
yesterday, they said "Make
sure you go" because they have
these pods, these audio booths
where they record things.
And they're like little pods.
Oh, wow.
And they're all kind of like
acoustic.
Yeah.
"Pod" is a great word.
It is a good word, but I have a
(29:26):
Lexus RX now.
Well, it's still around.
When I got my Lexus RX 300 SUV
in 1999, it has this sort of ov
ular rounded shape to it,
sort of like an egg in a way.
It kind of looks like one.
And I felt like this was like
my pod, and that's what I
(29:46):
called it.
And I used to tell people that
basically this is sort of like
your standard issued car.
Everyone should be issued one
at birth, basically.
It's sort of like for a species
.
It's a transportation for a
species.
In other words, I kind of liked
it or whatever.
Some people get like silver
bracelets and little white
dresses, but give them a Lexus.
(30:08):
Well, you know, kids got to get
around, right?
Exactly, yeah.
Speaking of which, two of my
creations have their birthdays
today.
One of them is scripting news.
Happy birthday.
Eight years old today, and
Frontier is 17 years old today.
17 years old.
17 years.
And I said today in my post, if
(30:29):
it were a human being and 17
years old, would be ready
to reproduce, ready to drive,
and pretty close to leaving
home.
Old enough to do a lot more.
And as a parent of such a 17
year old, one would have to say
it's time to let go.
And it's kind of auspicious in
a way that last year was the
year that all this wonderful
technology was released under
(30:52):
the GPL.
And slowly, I think a new
community is developing around
that, and some cool things are
going
to happen there.
So let's go back to your thing.
So you're running a back end
and a front end.
Your back end is just simply
for processing, putting the ID3
information in, maybe
maintaining
a directory.
I did.
Hold on, doing some pings too?
(31:12):
Yeah, yeah, we could do other
things.
I'd say step one will be simple
client end, simple desktop end,
and even the back end
will do some processing.
But if I can do it so that
there's no back end processing,
(31:34):
so all you need is web space.
Right, that would be pretty
good too.
Absolutely, there you go.
That's it really.
So if you can do that, then
problem solved.
And if it's easy.
There's no problem with the
client doing the pinging and
sorting things out for tags and
stuff like that.
I mean, it's a no brainer.
But also, you mentioned earlier
(31:57):
about, what I was going to say
is it could also be a catcher.
This desktop client as well as
being a batter could also be a
catcher because as well as
putting in my FTP details, or
the details to my website, I
could also put in the drive
letter that my media player
(32:18):
plugs in out.
And bingo, I'm just doing a
file copy.
I can do download with nice
pretty progress bars and little
aliens jumping around and
bouncing around.
Well, don't underestimate the
importance of aliens bouncing
around.
Absolutely.
The problem with a lot of these
tools is that there aren't any
good, we're the good Easter
eggs.
(32:38):
That's 2005.
Where are your Easter eggs?
We need that.
There's no problem.
We don't need to have fun, but
what the hell?
Let's have fun.
Exactly.
That's good.
I think you're going to do the
creation tool first.
Yeah, I mean, I've already
built half the, well, I've
built an upload of what I haven
't
done is do the RSS beer.
Great.
So you think maybe tomorrow or
(32:59):
next week?
It turns out I could get down
on the plane.
It depends how much I sleep on
the plane.
You might want to catch up on
your sleep on the plane.
I might have to do a bit of
that.
So you're flying tonight.
You're flying across the ocean
tonight.
Yeah, I take off about 10.
And you arrive at 7 in the
morning?
No, I arrive at 10, I think
Saturday.
(33:19):
Is that right?
So I'll fly through the night
and chase the sun.
That's pretty easy.
New York to London is easy.
San Francisco to London is not.
Yeah, I mean, we're Vegas,
Vegas to London from CES and
that was, I've never done it
in the West Coast before.
Really?
I've never done it in San
Francisco yet and that's where
I had an ambition to go and
(33:39):
work
there.
That was that used to be my
ambition.
I was like, okay, I'm going to
do this, establish myself and
what I, in my realm of what I'm
good at, of workout work.
You're just a few years too
late.
They would have welcomed you
with open arms during the dot-
com boom and spit you right
out.
Yeah, maybe I would be really.
You're probably better off
(34:01):
having been where you are and
get a real job.
So we've been doing this, this
is 34 minutes into it.
So I think we said that we
would, yeah, I think we said
that we would try to keep this
in, you know, because we both,
I have to check out of my hotel
, you have to check out of
yours.
I've got to get back over and
check.
Just a little bit of
housekeeping.
What's your email address?
Uh, plusBat@gmail.com.
(34:21):
HotBat@gmail.com.
And a lot of people asked me
for my dad's email address in
the last one.
I didn't want to put it on
scripting news because I didn't
want to like subject him
to the spam and whatever.
I would have happily put it
into the podcast that he did
because that would have sort of
meant that people would have
(34:41):
had to listen to the podcast.
And just say things.
No, I just want to say his
email address now so that if
anybody wanted to write him, it
's
Lwiner9.
That's L-W-I-N-E-R-9@yahoo.com.
Interesting.
I was just thinking of with
Gmail.
You listen, by the way, you
listen to my dad's podcast.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that was pretty good.
Hell of a guy.
I got so much positive feedback
(35:02):
on that.
My brother from there said, "I
'm just listening to Dave's dad
."
We're going to try to do one
with my mom and my dad tonight.
That was good.
We kind of said hello briefly
to your mom.
She was there when you Skype.
Or you just played the blood
cast.
Oh, she listened to it.
I don't think you ever talked
to her, but she listened to it.
(35:23):
Oh, I thought she was there in
the background when you said.
No, no, I was in Florida.
No, my mother listens to all
the podcasts.
She's a real, she's probably
listening to this right now.
Hi, mom.
Hi, Dave's mom.
So yeah, I'm going to try to do
one with both of them, or maybe
just her tonight or whatever.
So you get to meet the whole
clan.
(35:43):
There was something else I was
going to say then, but it
slipped my mind.
Maybe he'll keep.
Sorry for I interrupted you.
Oh, we can wait.
It's okay.
We have nothing better to do.
That's true.
Killing time, drinking coffee.
Oh, yeah.
This is really morning coffee
notes after all because we,
they gave us a full pot of
coffee
(36:03):
here.
So we sort of got obligated.
I was, I just said your email
address, which is podbat@gmail.
com.
Oh, no, I was going to say the
Gmail thing.
Yeah.
Obviously, you know, like the,
the darling of the web mail.
Now, obviously the, uh, now are
they going to be putting author
linking into the email
copy?
Yeah.
(36:24):
Is that, I mean, I don't have.
Oh, yes.
Of course they are because they
, they have had since, I mean, I
, I like the ads that they
put on in Gmail because they
are relevant to something I
might be talking to somebody
about.
Right.
And what if I'm talking to
somebody about, and they're
easy to do now.
If they, if you're not right.
Well, that's exactly it.
You know, it's like, you can,
you know, you don't notice them
unless you kind of just,
(36:45):
oh, look, there's ads and the,
the, um, but if links start
appearing in my email, yeah,
they're kidding.
You know, get out of here.
Yeah.
And they're like, you know,
that's like, that's, that's,
that's the funny thing about
the auto
link thing is that it's going
to creep up on people and they
're going to wonder why nobody
complained about this when it
first appeared.
I mean, would you mind if we
(37:06):
would, would you be less, what
about the argument about if
they
would use like dotted lines, w
avy lines?
No, I wouldn't, that would not
be enough for me.
And in fact, what I have
suggested to them, although
they didn't really want to hear
this,
is that, um, is that they do
the links off on the side the
same way they're doing the
linking in ad copy, you know,
(37:28):
um, in other words, create a
frame over in the right hand
side of the page.
If you must do this and just
say related links and then boom
, boom, boom, boom, you know,
link to things that you need,
absolutely need to link to so
that they're segmented so that
it's very clear that this isn't
part of my content.
It's in a frame off by itself.
(37:49):
I still wouldn't like that
because they're not, because I
don't have ads on most of my
webpages.
The ones that I do have ads on,
sure, that's fine.
See Google AdSense is all opt
in, right?
And I'm a member of it.
I use it.
I get my check every month.
I deposit it.
It helps to fray my costs of
web hosting, but I only put it
on non-editorial pages.
(38:10):
I put it on weblogs.com.
I put it on XML or PC, which is
by the way a really high flow
site.
So I put an ad on that because
there's basically just an
archive.
There isn't a whole lot of new
stuff being posted in.
So I make my choice about where
the ads go and I put them there
.
And I'd be perfectly happy to
continue doing that.
(38:30):
Why they're not?
I think it's kind of obvious.
They want to make more money.
If they can cut me out in the
equation, they'll make my money
and their money.
Number one, number two is if
they can put ads everywhere
when I will only put them some
places, then that makes them
more money too.
But I would vastly prefer that
to the idea of them messing
(38:51):
with what I write.
When messing with what I write
is just totally non-acceptable.
If that is the way the web is
going to work, we're going to
have to leave the web.
And not only am I going to have
to leave the web, but any
publication with integrity is
going to have to leave the web
because the reader simply isn't
going to know who's saying
what anymore.
Well, people won't trust the
(39:12):
HTML, won't trust the web
browser anymore.
What they're seeing, what they
will trust is smart little
bouncy applications written
in flash that are really good
at reading RSS feeds.
So there's the data.
There's your content.
Your content's there all the
way through.
Well, that opens the whole
mother.
Everybody, this one, when
people...
The browser is dead, everybody.
Well, now, I don't want to go
(39:33):
that far because...
I'll take it back.
You can just leave it there.
See if you take it back after I
say this, though, is that when
people really give this
discussion serious thought and
don't just dismiss it out of
hand, the next issue that
comes up is, "Well, what about
blog lines?
When they put ads on your copy,
how do you feel about that?"
(39:54):
And blog lines is showing up
more and more in my referral
logs.
There's a lot of people reading
my stuff in blog lines.
And so, I'll tell you, the
answer is I don't think that's
as objectionable as what Google
does because there's no
question when people are
(40:14):
reading it in blog lines that
they know
that they're reading something
that has been processed.
So they're less likely to
believe that I put the link
there.
On the other hand, I don't
think it's a good idea and I
don't want them to do it.
Would it stop me from
publishing an RSS?
(40:34):
Probably not.
Would it lead me to do
something like blocking blog
lines from subscribing to it?
Sure.
In other words, all that this
is going to accomplish in the
end, all this crap that these
technology
companies want to do, or at
least Google, let's not speak
on behalf of the other
technology
companies so far, it's just
(40:55):
Google, is that they want to do
is to bulk anize the web.
They want us to put up a Berlin
Wall.
We'll try to keep them in.
They already have phenomenal
problems right now with, I mean
, Google, actually very few
people are focused on this and
it's kind of hard to switch the
focus without sort of sounding
(41:16):
a little alarmist.
So Google's having a lot of
trouble maintaining the
integrity of their index
because people
have become so good at spamming
it.
Well, that's right.
So you'll do searches on things
that seem to have absolutely
nothing to do with Viagra,
but somehow Viagra will be the
(41:37):
first hit.
Boy.
That was a good one.
Right on, everybody.
Yeah.
I don't want to say what I was
thinking, but yeah, everybody.
Sorry.
Boy.
Yeah.
Anyway, so everybody, we are
(41:59):
now at 42 minutes.
Wow.
Wow.
So we're going to have to do
this again sometime.
We'll have to do it.
You know, we have, this is our
second podcast, right?
We have Skype.
Yeah.
And I'm going to, the last one
we did, it kept kicking out.
My Skype kept kicking out.
Yeah.
So we're going to have to
figure out how to do that.
Or I'll come to London and we
can do one over there on the
other side of the earth.
Well, I think there are some
(42:20):
people who may be wanting to
see in London.
Even if they don't want to see
me, I can afford to pay my own
way.
You know, that happens
sometimes too.
So.
And you got a big birthday
coming up too, haven't you?
I do, but I also have to get
eye surgery.
So that's sort of sitting in
the middle of it.
Right, when's that going to
happen?
I haven't scheduled yet.
So, you know, I'm going to try
to leave myself free to go have
, yes, I have the big 50th.
(42:41):
So today is 17th for Frontier.
It's eight for Scripting News,
but that's nothing compared to
the next one, which is
coming up in a month and a day,
which is my 50th birthday.
In fact, there's a guy, there's
a guy, when you do come over,
because, oh yes, you will
be coming to London.
You know, you will.
How about the girls who are
saying, oh yes, he will be
(43:01):
coming over?
Oh yes, you will.
I think there's a girl don't
talk that way.
The girls talk like that.
Oh, dear.
The tangents.
We're having too much fun here.
That's 43 minutes.
43 and 17 seconds, 18 seconds.
But this guy, there's like one
(43:22):
day between your birthday's end
.
And that's interesting.
You know, now I have a story to
go with that, too.
They were trying to have me
born on my grandfather's
birthday.
I think you're only a week away
from my father's birthday.
Yeah.
One day away from my
grandfather's birthday, he was
born on my first.
It's not Gemini, is it?
It's not the one that's called
Taurus.
Taurus, which means obstinate
(43:43):
and pushy.
I'm Gemini.
And what does that mean?
You're counting.
I'm Diplomatic.
Diplomatic.
Some people would say too faced
.
I would say diplomatic.
Oh, you're not too bad.
No, but I avoid arguments by
trying to see both sides of the
problem.
No, I think it's good to have
people like that around.
I mean, that's kind of...
You also digress.
You should have that on your
business card.
(44:04):
I digress.
Me?
No, I don't.
I'm like this recurring, this
there, recurring, this there.
Recursive.
It's okay.
You need somebody around.
We have the signal to tap on
the table and say, "Oh, no."
Okay, so everybody, it's been,
this is now 43 minutes, so we
've talked enough.
Thank you.
(44:24):
Coming to you from New York
City, the basement of the UN
Millennium Plaza Hotel.
Nice place.
This is Morning Coffee Notes
for April 1st, 2005.
Bye.
It's all been a joke.
[laughter]
(laughing)
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Well, good morning everybody.
(00:03):
This is Dave Weiner coming to
you from the basement of the UN
Millennium Plaza Hotel in
lovely New York City.
And I'm here with Jonathan.
Jonathan is a Jonathan.
Jonathan Casso.
Jonathan is a real-
Just Casso.
Casso?
Just Casso.
Casso.
Okay, I just called you Casso.
Just Casso.
(00:24):
What's your name?
Well, of course the secret's
out right now.
I don't know.
Everybody knows you all.
And so, John Casso is a British
.
Yes.
We're going to talk like we
remember this as the British
royal family today.
And I won't be able to do it,
but he can do it.
I can't.
Yes.
And so Casso, I met, how did we
(00:45):
meet actually?
When did you first, you got in
touch with me and said that you
wanted to do a podcast
with me, right?
Or was that what it was?
No, no, I don't think it was
like direct.
You had something.
I think it was just something
interesting.
I was just emailed you with
some interesting link to go, "
Hey, uh..."
Oh, that's right.
No, no, no.
You were doing the logo for
(01:06):
Morning Coffee.
The blood cast.
That's what it was.
And I totally didn't understand
, but it was pretty spacey.
And I didn't use it, did I?
You haven't used it yet.
I haven't used it yet.
There you go.
That's the optimistic view.
I haven't fully assimilated you
yet.
Ah, that's right.
So can you talk in that squeaky
voice that you do?
Unfortunately not.
No, you see, I am.
I'm already talking in the
(01:26):
phone.
Oh, that's right.
It's been modulated.
I'm actually already talking in
my funny voice.
Oh, so the theory is that your
name isn't Casso at all.
It's...
It's...
What was it?
Blurg.
Blurg, right.
Blurg, yes.
And your girlfriend is...
The doctor.
Doctor.
But she's really Joe, right?
Yeah.
(01:47):
Joe is a scientist, right?
Oh, I'm not supposed to...
No, never mind.
She is a real doctor.
She's a real doctor?
But not like a health doctor.
Not like a health doctor.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
(02:08):
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
(02:29):
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
She's a doctor of the Internet.
I like listening to people talk
.
I like people watching as much
as I like people hearing.
I like people listening, isn't
it?
Yeah, there's lots of little
sounds going on here in this
(02:50):
room.
And that's great as well.
It is.
It gives it a certain...
There's dishes clanking and
there's a guy over there.
We're actually sitting in a bar
in the middle of the morning
and it's very dark.
And Danny Glover was having
breakfast in the corner.
Danny Glover was sitting right
there in the corner where we
were eating breakfast.
I'm too old for this shit.
No, actually I rode up in an
elevator with Danny Glover or
rode down in an elevator.
(03:11):
And so I was being really cool,
like not going, "Hey, you're a
dead Glover."
He said, "You're the one."
Yeah, actually it occurred to
me that maybe...
Oops, sorry.
There goes the microphone.
That would probably...
I'd be like...
It would be me.
Well, it's funny.
You were...
Yeah, so I played it really
cool.
But the mirrors in this hotel
is mirrors everywhere you look.
And so I tell them, "Put in the
(03:31):
elevators."
And so I looked just looking
ahead of me, but I could see
what he was doing.
He was making faces.
Like, you know...
Gurning.
Seeing his teeth and just
making sure he looked...
It looked to me like he looked
like he was making sure he
looked really good because he's
like an actor.
If I had talked to him, you
know what I would have asked
him about?
I would have said, "What do you
(03:52):
think about what Mel Gibson is
doing?"
You know, with the passion of
the Christ and all that stuff.
He did all those...
What was the name of the movies
?
The lethal weapon.
The lethal weapon movies with
him where Mel Gibson played the
druggy, crazy, three stooges
guy.
Yeah.
And all of a sudden Mel Gibson
is a very serious guy.
So podcasting.
And...
See.
(04:14):
So...
What should we talk about?
I had a whole bunch of things
in my head that were in space
there.
Well, that kind of...
Oh, you listened to yesterday's
podcast, right?
The one of you and the guys in
Starbucks.
In the Starbucks, yeah.
Starbucks are getting a lot of
mileage out of podcasting.
I think they should be
sponsoring podcast, actually.
Do you?
Well, I think...
I mean, in McDonald's, but the
(04:37):
whole Wi-Fi...
Yeah.
Ubiquity and the...
I mean, not that you need some
connectivity to do a podcast.
You obviously need it.
You need connectivity to upload
it.
Ironically, they didn't have
enough connectivity in the
Starbucks for me to upload it.
However, the place we're
sitting in right now, which is
the basement of the...
Where did I say it was?
(04:58):
Millennium UN Plaza.
You have not been able to get
on?
No, I've got it.
You're...
You're still in it for me?
I've not.
I mean, you have free...
Well, I was going to say we
have free Wi-Fi here and I get
a log on screen.
You can see.
And it says $0 wireless access
one hour.
So I click on access the
(05:18):
internet and then it gets me
this agreement, which of course
I don't read.
And then I accept it because I
want to give them all my money
and make them my heirs.
And...
Oh.
What was that?
Something didn't work here.
Hold on.
Let's see if I can go to script
ing.
Yeah.
And I've just got...
(05:39):
I've got no wireless networks
we found in, right?
Strange.
Well, here.
Well, you bought a cheap
computer, I guess.
I don't know what it does.
So here's...
I'm going to show Koso.
We went to dinner at the 2nd
Avenue deli at last night.
That was cool.
Diana was cool.
I wish I...
You have a lot of clips of her,
don't you?
Yeah, I do.
I wish I'd taken some...
Well, would you post them up
when you get back to...
(06:00):
Yeah, we'll be.
Yeah, yeah.
When you get back to...
So I thought that was a nice
picture of you.
That was me being very worried
about the doctor.
Yeah.
And then there's Edwin Newman
and some asshole complained
that he thought my pictures
were
too orange.
But I actually like orange
pictures.
It's just the light ideas, yeah
.
He says that any fool, except
of course, except me, knows
(06:22):
that there's a filter.
Any fool says you can get rid
of that shit.
I also got an email last night
from Corey Doctor, a very snipp
y little email.
What was that about?
Saying that any idiot knows...
People call me an idiot a lot.
Maybe I should take that to
heart.
But basically saying any idiot
would know that what you want
to do is fraudulent.
(06:44):
But what Google wants to do is
cool.
So what is it you want to do?
What is it you think is cool?
Oh, well, what I propose to do.
I don't really actually want to
do it.
But he's released his book
under the creative commons.
Oh, right, yes.
So I offered to download it and
change his name, replace it
with mine, and then print out
(07:05):
a bunch of copies and sell them
.
And then go find a publisher
who could publish my book.
And Corey says, "Oh, no, no, no
.
That would be fraud.
You can't do that.
Oh, I see.
Okay, good.
That's good to know.
There is a line in there.
I thought that was good news.
Right.
You're obviously just trying to
kind of kick the boundaries
(07:26):
around a bit.
Well, I'm trying to find out
where the boundaries are for
these people.
Because basically they've been
sort of pretending, I guess,
that there aren't any
boundaries.
I didn't believe really that it
would be all right with Corey
because, you know, because
I can imagine that he had to go
through some kind of a struggle
with his publisher to get
permission to do this.
(07:47):
Right.
So books are published by a
real publisher that distributes
it in bookstores.
And when they look at the idea
of uploading the full text of a
book to a website, they
must think, "Well, that's crazy
.
Why would I want to do that?"
Yeah.
So, and this is probably their
worst nightmare.
So Corey kind of has to say, "
You can't do that."
But as soon as there's an e-
book out there, you just go to
alt.bindemes.ebooks.
(08:08):
Yeah.
And you'll be downloading it
for free the next day, you know
?
Right.
Right.
And I think you could do that
right now with this.
With anything.
Yeah.
So what I don't want is, you
know, I used to write for a
magazine and they used to
change
my writing so that I would be
saying things that they wanted
me to say and say things
that I believed to be true.
And I'd always ask them, "Well,
(08:29):
why do you do that?"
And they would say, "Well, we
're just making it better."
Or, "They never would have
understood what you were saying
."
So we made it so that they
would understand it.
But of course, in the process,
it's changing the meaning.
It meant so much to me to be
able to talk directly to people
and say exactly what I meant to
say.
Yeah.
That I quit and I don't get
paid for writing.
And now the ultimate insult is
(08:49):
that this big, heartless
company, Google, wants to put
ads
in the middle of my copy.
Not off on the side somewhere,
which I wouldn't like either,
you know?
But they want to put it right
in the middle of my copy.
And I'm sorry, it's over the
line for me.
So I said to Purae, I said, "
That's fraudulent."
Yeah, since that's a word I
clearly, clearly, that's not,
(09:10):
you know, not a good word.
I mean, the big issue I take
with that is the, you know,
what, you've got no control
over
what these things are going to
be linking to.
So somebody could be reading
your blog and think, "Hey, Dave
likes that enough to put a link
in."
Right.
But, I mean, obviously, I'm not
, there's no point in re-expl
aining it, obviously, but the,
the, I mean, that's, yeah, it
could be anything.
(09:32):
Yeah.
Like, Dave likes, you know.
The Christian Colise.
She did.
Adolf Hitler.
Yeah, whatever.
Yeah.
I'm not a Corey doctor.
Yeah, I know.
Well, Corey, Corey's a little
heavy.
He told Scoble, every time Sco
ble said, "What about this?"
Corey's answer was, "I didn't
listen to him."
Apparently, people tell me
(09:52):
Corey's answer was, "Tough shit
."
Yeah.
And the Supreme Court of Corey
is a pretty tough place.
So, I mean, is it going to
happen?
Are the, are bloggers, is a
blog power, podcast power, is
this going to put a stop to
social thinking?
Apparently, people have told me
that from the inside of Google
that, yeah, that it is not
going to actually make it out.
(10:14):
And that sort of the really
weird thing is that Google isn
't communicating that, but that
's
Google, right?
Right.
Google doesn't say very much,
but I'm pretty optimistic that,
you know, I mean, you know,
the whole goal here is to make
it so painfully obvious that,
that this isn't going to be
(10:35):
popular,
they say, "Well, it's not worth
the trouble to do this."
I don't know.
Yeah.
I feel out there, and kind of
all doing this, and I'll do the
best I can, and if it doesn't
work, I'll start using carrier
pigeons to send out my writing
and see what I'm up to.
So, tell me about your vision
(10:58):
for how, how we're going to be
editing and uploading our
podcasts.
How would you like to be
editing and uploading your
podcasts?
Well, the way that I'm, the way
, it's a pain in the ass at the
moment, obviously.
I think, and I think if people
in the go, they, you know, they
see these, they read these
news articles, they listen to
the news, they read the paper,
(11:19):
and they go, "Like, let's
say your dad."
He goes, "Hey, I want a podcast
."
And the, and then...
So he calls up his son and says
...
So he calls up his son and says
...
Certainly everywhere.
Oh, I think...
That's a better act.
There's something to do with
that.
And they assume he doesn't have
the feed father for a son.
And the, so what's he going to
do?
Is he, is he going to like hunt
(11:40):
around a search engine to find
out his, to find out the answer
and maybe have to install
something nasty or...
It's just, get an FTP client,
know all these, know all these
various little details.
And I think what you just need
is a very, very, very, very
simple desktop application
(12:01):
where you just drag, like the
Flickr uploader, I think is a
very neat little kit.
So what would it, yeah, I'm
sorry, go ahead.
Because with the Flickr upload
er, all you've got to put in is
...
Well, tell people about the Fl
ickr uploader.
There might be one person in
Antarctica who doesn't know how
that works.
Yeah, Penguin.
Penguin.
Or a Linux user, right?
Uh, uh...
It's available.
(12:22):
It probably will be.
It will be because it's, I
think, I'm sure it's just
written in Flash anyway.
Yeah, exactly.
It's just a Flash wrapped up.
Really, they do this stuff in
Flash, is that right?
Well, it looks to me like Flash
, but in the interface.
So basically you've got this
desktop application, this
little square, tiny little
square box in
inaptrucid, and the first time
you run it, you put in your
login details that you would
(12:42):
otherwise use to go to Flickr.
com.
And you just drag your JPEGs
into this, into this window and
then you hit upload and that's
it.
And in fact, after that, at
that point when you upload, you
can then choose to batch tag
everything.
So like when I upload stuff
from my phone, I just go like,
"No blog."
(13:03):
And that's it.
And they're away.
Pretty cool.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just simple.
And do you know what the
interface is like?
How, at a technical level, what
, how it communicates?
Yeah, what goes on in the
background?
I think it's just FTP.
You think it's FTP?
Because when, when it, well,
mind you, actually, because
when you get...
So it's very similar to
upstreaming then?
In a way.
But when you, when it finishes
(13:24):
the upload of your images and
you go, "Okay, are you
done now or do you want to go
to the, do you want to go to a
big page of all the photos
you just did?"
And that, if you just uploaded
100 photos, you got a long page
to download.
Sure.
It'll then put every title in
description, form field in
there for you to fill in and
tag on every picture.
But the URL string, it gives
you, you can, it's like, that
(13:44):
image, that image, that image,
that image, that image, that
image, you know, it's all a get
on the, so get the URL.
And the, the...
I have something like that,
actually.
I think it's just FTP.
I have something like that,
that I call pick sorter.
And I wrote it, I think I wrote
it before Flickr existed.
So like, that's one of the
reasons why I was such a late
adopter to Flickr because I had
my own tools.
Right.
(14:05):
What it does is, I basically,
it knows where my camera is.
So I dock my camera and I
double click on the script,
runs the script, it swaps out,
takes everything that's in the
pick sorter folder and archives
it, and then takes all
the new shit off the camera and
puts it in that folder.
And then it displays them on a
(14:25):
web page, the pictures
themselves, with check boxes
next
to each one of them.
And they're all checked by
default.
And then I uncheck the ones
that I don't want to be
uploaded.
And then there's a button at
the top and the bottom and I
click it, it uploads them.
And then what it gives me when
it's finished is the HTML that
's ready to paste into a web
page for all those pictures.
So I go straight from the
(14:47):
upload process to select all,
copy, do a new blog post over
there.
And I know that they have an
interface in blogging.
See, this seems to me to be the
whole trick between...
But it gets complicated at this
point.
Wait, wait, let me just get
this thought out.
Yes, it does become complicated
.
But the trick here, for me at
least, was that you want, the
next thing you want to do after
doing this, well, what is the
(15:08):
next thing?
For some people, I guess the Fl
ickr approach is like, okay, I
want to go to Flickr, right?
In my case, what I want to do
is do a blog post.
That's why I put those things,
that's why I put the pictures
up there in the first place.
So it's sort of like two
different approaches.
That's why Flickr, it's
surprising to me that Flickr
doesn't have a blogging tool in
it.
It does, yeah, you can go to an
image and you can go blog this.
(15:29):
No, that's not what I mean.
It can interface to my blogging
tool.
In other words, I use either
Manila or Radio or something,
anything that supports the Meta
WebLog
API, right?
But why didn't they actually
make it a blogging tool?
Why isn't there, like, why aren
't they competing with TypePad?
Probably because they didn't
(15:50):
want to compete with TypePad
specifically, because they
wanted
to partner with them.
But it seems to me they did
everything but the blogging
tool.
The blogging tool in Flickr
would be like the tiniest
little corner of the
functionality.
The Flickr is this mega mon
olithic, I mean, it seems like
they must have had 100
programmers
working on it.
Well, oh no, there's a, there's
a, there's a very clever guy,
(16:11):
something else.
Stuart Butterfield, right?
There was, there was a guy
called Cal Henderson.
Yeah.
Who, he's, he's been involved
in all sorts of projects.
You go to IamCal.com.
Where?
IamCal.com.
IamCal.com.
Yeah, which is cool.
And the, and there's, I don't
know if you've heard of a site
called beta.com, B3TA.
(16:33):
And it's kind of all memes and
goofy Photoshop postings,
Photoshop re-workings of images
.
And it's all nonsense basically
.
There's some of the stuff that
comes out of that, that kind of
this long forum is hilarious.
But the, yeah, Cal Henderson
was, is the, I believe, the web
(16:53):
, although the main kind
of web level developer for Fl
ickr.
I see, really?
Yeah.
And the one thing I really like
with Flickr is the, is what
they do with the DHTML where
if you're logged in, the, you
know, the text, the text, the
title, the description,
everything,
you click on it and it, it
turns into a form in front of
(17:14):
your eyes, you know.
So it's, you know, it's, you
know, it looks like it's just
in plain HTML, but you click
on it and it, it turns into a,
it, it, it turns into a form.
That's very rational.
And it's, that's probably why
you clicked on it, right?
(17:34):
But what I mean is it doesn't,
it's not like with, with some
interfaces where, where you
would have to click it, your
effects, if you're clicking
your URL, you're reloading the
whole
page and then, and then, you
know, you're coming up with a
form and then you're posting
that form.
I see, yeah.
You know, it does it on a layer
above that.
A little bit of HTML is doing
things.
And these sorts of very clever
use signage of dynamic HTML and
(17:56):
JavaScript, I think, is,
is really good.
And that, I, I think Yahoo are
now going to employ a lot more
of that kind of stuff.
Right.
Well, of course, the big
question everybody's asking is,
well, everybody, but many
people
are asking why didn't they just
like, why did they do 360 when
they also were buying
Flickr?
It seems like there's so many
(18:17):
of these community systems and
they're really, you need just
one.
Right.
I know I said I wasn't going to
mention Evan Williams and Odeo,
but I got to say this.
It seems like they're doing the
same thing and that a lot of
what they want to do is
basically reinvent Flickr,
which seems really weird to me.
And Flickr works where the
other, you know, sort of social
(18:38):
networking systems didn't work
because it has a purpose.
Because the purpose is photo
photography.
And a community built around
photography can be a very rich
community.
Absolutely.
It's perhaps a community built
around podcasting, but it's so
fundamentally different from
photography.
You know, people say, you know,
(18:59):
if you're looking at it from a
programming standpoint,
you know, oh, okay, big media
objects.
Oh, well, they're kind of the
same thing, right?
But they're missing that.
That's only from that angle
because a photograph is sort of
rockable in an instant.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, and because our
brains are built to rock
photographs.
Explain, explain Grock.
Oh, Grock is a word that as far
(19:20):
as I know came from a book by
Robert Highline, A Stranger
in a Strange Land.
And it was, there was an alien
in that book named Valentine
Michael Smith.
And he came from Mars.
And in Mars, they had a concept
called rocking rock.
And to rock something is to
(19:42):
appreciate the fullness of it.
It's not just an intellectual
understanding of it.
It's to appreciate the fullness
.
It's not a, you know, so Grock
is like a deep understanding.
I don't, how did I just use it?
I said, well, anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, no, you can rock a
photograph in an instant, right
?
Whereas podcasts, you can't a
(20:04):
podcast.
Who knows?
I can't, we're doing a podcast
right now.
I don't know how it's going to
end.
Right.
And I'm doing it.
I can't tell you we're live.
I can't tell you what we're
going to say.
Although I'll tell you, it's
actually to get really meta.
I think this has been very
interesting so far because we
're talking about things, you
know, we kind of don't, it was
the first time we ever met face
to face, but we share
(20:25):
these interests and these sort
of software things and why they
work and why they don't.
And, you know, podcasts is just
about that, you know, every
week probably would be a very
good podcast.
It's quite a relief to actually
communicate with somebody who
actually understands what
I'm talking about.
Same here.
Absolutely.
The amount of time is like, I
kind of, I say things and you
can just see it fly over
their heads.
Most people just use stuff and
(20:46):
like it and don't like it, but
don't know why they like
it or don't like it.
But if you want to make
software, then you've got to
understand why people like it
and why
they don't.
So my guess is that we don't
need another, that a community
built around podcasts like
Flickr isn't going to be the
freewheeling, fun, interesting
place that Flickr is.
Just simply because building
(21:06):
community around photographs is
great.
And then of course, why Yahoo,
you know, I will be know why
because they didn't know
that they were going to acquire
Flickr while they were
developing Yahoo 360.
They didn't even know what Fl
ickr was until somebody knocked
at their door and said, hey,
you know, we've got eight
billion members here and they
're all getting ready to buy
stuff from us.
Do you think they bought it
(21:27):
just to kind of snuff it out?
I hope not.
That would be really bad.
It would be.
People say that Yahoo got their
mojo back.
I think they ought to go look
and see what, look up the word
mojo.
It's not about snuffing things
out.
It's about making love.
It's about making babies.
It's about, you know, being
sexy.
The mojo work.
Yeah.
It's like not how it's not the
shape, but it's how you shake
(21:49):
it.
So anyway, so if you were to
like cut to the core, I want to
steer us back around to the
little tool.
Well, right.
The thing is that you could
take a monolithic view towards,
you know, what do people need
for podcasting?
They need basically everything
under the sun or maybe they
just need a little tool.
Right.
So you can create a podcasting
(22:10):
communities, even podcasters
without these people being
it.
You know, people can find a way
to record an MP3 file.
I think that that's probably
the easiest file.
It actually was, once I found a
tool that could do it, yeah, it
was easy.
I mean, I mean, I would like a
Windows machine.
You've got a sound recorder so
you can record a web and then
you could find a way of
converting
that.
(22:31):
I couldn't believe that Windows
didn't have one built in.
My machine has a microphone
built into it.
Why doesn't it have a piece of
software?
I don't know whether it might
be a licensing issue with Fran
Hoffer maybe.
With what?
With Fran Hoffer.
Fran Hoffer Institute who
developed MP3.
Maybe it might have something
to do with that because I think
there's some Jews somewhere
along the line to have to.
Right.
Well, Microsoft's rich.
(22:51):
Why don't they pay the dues?
Just to be sure.
But then they've got, you know,
they've got WMA so they kind of
go, "Well, we don't
want to kind of..."
Because they should just ask
the, they should call it like
the king of pod.
Yeah, yeah.
The guy behind it.
He's podcasting.
He's what?
He's podcasting.
He looks like.
He might be a similar
reflection.
Oh, that's interesting.
(23:11):
There's a guy who's wearing
headphones and a microphone.
He's probably on a Skype call
or something like that.
It would be nice.
If he's podcasting, it's like,
"We're probably the only two
people bycasting in the city of
the hour right now."
It's an interesting
conversation going on in the
background of my podcast.
So, sorry, right.
It's a destructive thing.
(23:31):
So tell us, okay, so what are
the basic functions?
Say, okay, you were saying
recording is sort of difficult
or not?
Well, not difficult.
I mean, it's, I would say it's
a no-brainer for anybody to
look at the model of the Flickr
Uploader and translate that to
uploading audio.
Right, that's what you're
saying.
That's all it is.
(23:52):
You know, it's exactly the same
functionality as Flickr Uplo
ader except uploading MP3 files.
And the next step after that
will be uploading video files.
You know, there will be that
natural progression.
It's as simple as that.
So what about ID3 information?
You want to say that?
The ID3 information, well then
what could possibly happen is
maybe you would, obviously,
okay, it's got to be a simple
(24:13):
tool.
And what about generating RSS?
Are you going to do that too?
Yep.
Okay, simple tool.
Let's say I've dragged an MP3
file onto the, onto my
application and I hit the
upload button.
When that file is uploaded, it
goes, "Okay."
So, or in fact, maybe before it
uploads, it goes, "So what's
the title?
What's my description?"
I already know what the date is
.
I already know who you are.
I know who the author is.
Do you want to add some tags to
it now?
(24:33):
Do you want to add any other
metadata to it to make it more,
or to make it better?
Now, as far as the tools to
write the ID3 tags on the
desktop, it would actually be
easier
for me to do it on the server
once it's arrived.
Right, because you have a PHP
(24:54):
tool that does that.
Yeah, well there's loads of
open source.
So what you could do then is
basically read the RSS file and
take the data off of that
and use that on the server.
Yeah, I could generate the RSS
either on the desktop or the
web.
So you're going to, you haven't
actually done this work yet,
have you?
I have.
I have some work to do.
(25:15):
Where would people go if they
wanted to take a look at what
it might look like?
Keep an eye on podbat.com.
Right.
P-O-D-B-A-T.com.
I see, okay, cool.
Because, yeah, I'm sorry,
because...
And the reason why it's called
podbat is because we've got pod
catchers out there and
catchers, what are they
catching?
You have a batter, you know?
(25:36):
A batter app.
They do that in Britain?
I thought that was...
Oh, it's cricket, where you are
.
Oh, yes, bowling.
You say bowling.
Yeah, bowling.
So you have a pitcher and
whatever.
I can't do that.
I was just talking like an
American.
So yeah, so you would read the
RSS file information and throw
that onto the ID3 tags.
I mean, there's no...
(25:57):
I mean, originally, when...
Would you ping audio.weblog.com
?
Oh, totally, yeah, totally.
I mean, you'd be able to...
All those kinds of things for
people.
All that sort of stuff could be
either end.
Could be on the server end.
It could be on the application.
What about...
How about this?
This would be cool.
How about letting them categor
ize their feed and categorize
(26:19):
each post too?
Absolutely.
So that it could be routed to a
directory.
Into a directory.
Yes.
So they could do what they call
a phoxonomy.
Phoxonomy.
Phoxonomy.
It's a very nice sounding thing
.
So yeah, so you could do that
too, right?
Yeah.
So it's sort of like the front
end for...
And you're going to also
operate the back end too.
So it's a client server.
(26:41):
So what protocol did we talk
about that?
What protocol do you want to
use between the two?
Well, you see, this is where I
was trying to work out what the
Flickr uploader does.
And I, in fact, I was about to
say that it uses FTP because I
've written a version of
it that uses FTP.
Right.
Because the wrapper that I have
for the flash has built in FTP
(27:02):
functionality.
You could email it.
You could email it if you want
to do it.
But the simplest way to do it
is actually to Tp up load.
And I got a feeling that's what
they do.
A couple of years ago I wrote
something called camobi.com,
which is...
Can you spell it?
C-A-M-O-B-Y.com.
And basically when camera
phones came out, I had one as
(27:23):
soon as you get one, and I
wanted
it to be called a camobi.
In America you call mobile
phones cell phones.
We don't call them cell phones.
What are you talking about?
Mobile phones.
Or mobi.
I was like, where's my mobi?
Where's my mobile phone?
It's your mobile.
In Germany they call it handy.
It's my handy.
My handy.
(27:43):
My handy.
It's small.
It has a camera.
It's MP3 of a core better.
It's the thing about German
accents that crack me up, like
Dr. Strangelow.
It's one of my favorite movies.
Really, I didn't know this, so
that's what that means.
They call them mobi.
Yeah, some people call them a
mobi.
(28:03):
Where's my mobi?
But very few people call it
their cell phone.
We, that's what we call it.
Yeah.
Yeah, call it our cell.
So basically I went straight
out and bought camobi.com.
Every time I talk about a
mobile phone with a camera, I
don't call it a camera phone.
Or maybe I do, but what I
wanted to do is make sure that
every time I said the word
(28:24):
or spoke about these camera
phones that I had, because I
was the first person I knew
with one, and then Joe, a
doctor, had one.
And I wanted to just, you know,
you keep saying things enough.
And people, it's like podcast
ing, you know?
If somebody had said "blog
casting" straight off the bat.
(28:45):
I like blogcasting so much
better than podcasting.
Well, because it doesn't have
that horrible white plastic
ring to it.
I know, well this is something
that you and I both agree on,
that it's not a very popular
thing, is that the user
interface of the iPod is like
from hell.
"Pod" is a great word, actually
.
Something I wanted to say, you
(29:05):
know, the invitation to a
series.
Oh yeah.
And I had some people, some
colleagues of mine, where I was
yesterday, they said "Make
sure you go" because they have
these pods, these audio booths
where they record things.
And they're like little pods.
Oh, wow.
And they're all kind of like
acoustic.
Yeah.
"Pod" is a great word.
It is a good word, but I have a
(29:26):
Lexus RX now.
Well, it's still around.
When I got my Lexus RX 300 SUV
in 1999, it has this sort of ov
ular rounded shape to it,
sort of like an egg in a way.
It kind of looks like one.
And I felt like this was like
my pod, and that's what I
(29:46):
called it.
And I used to tell people that
basically this is sort of like
your standard issued car.
Everyone should be issued one
at birth, basically.
It's sort of like for a species
.
It's a transportation for a
species.
In other words, I kind of liked
it or whatever.
Some people get like silver
bracelets and little white
dresses, but give them a Lexus.
(30:08):
Well, you know, kids got to get
around, right?
Exactly, yeah.
Speaking of which, two of my
creations have their birthdays
today.
One of them is scripting news.
Happy birthday.
Eight years old today, and
Frontier is 17 years old today.
17 years old.
17 years.
And I said today in my post, if
(30:29):
it were a human being and 17
years old, would be ready
to reproduce, ready to drive,
and pretty close to leaving
home.
Old enough to do a lot more.
And as a parent of such a 17
year old, one would have to say
it's time to let go.
And it's kind of auspicious in
a way that last year was the
year that all this wonderful
technology was released under
(30:52):
the GPL.
And slowly, I think a new
community is developing around
that, and some cool things are
going
to happen there.
So let's go back to your thing.
So you're running a back end
and a front end.
Your back end is just simply
for processing, putting the ID3
information in, maybe
maintaining
a directory.
I did.
Hold on, doing some pings too?
(31:12):
Yeah, yeah, we could do other
things.
I'd say step one will be simple
client end, simple desktop end,
and even the back end
will do some processing.
But if I can do it so that
there's no back end processing,
(31:34):
so all you need is web space.
Right, that would be pretty
good too.
Absolutely, there you go.
That's it really.
So if you can do that, then
problem solved.
And if it's easy.
There's no problem with the
client doing the pinging and
sorting things out for tags and
stuff like that.
I mean, it's a no brainer.
But also, you mentioned earlier
(31:57):
about, what I was going to say
is it could also be a catcher.
This desktop client as well as
being a batter could also be a
catcher because as well as
putting in my FTP details, or
the details to my website, I
could also put in the drive
letter that my media player
(32:18):
plugs in out.
And bingo, I'm just doing a
file copy.
I can do download with nice
pretty progress bars and little
aliens jumping around and
bouncing around.
Well, don't underestimate the
importance of aliens bouncing
around.
Absolutely.
The problem with a lot of these
tools is that there aren't any
good, we're the good Easter
eggs.
(32:38):
That's 2005.
Where are your Easter eggs?
We need that.
There's no problem.
We don't need to have fun, but
what the hell?
Let's have fun.
Exactly.
That's good.
I think you're going to do the
creation tool first.
Yeah, I mean, I've already
built half the, well, I've
built an upload of what I haven
't
done is do the RSS beer.
Great.
So you think maybe tomorrow or
(32:59):
next week?
It turns out I could get down
on the plane.
It depends how much I sleep on
the plane.
You might want to catch up on
your sleep on the plane.
I might have to do a bit of
that.
So you're flying tonight.
You're flying across the ocean
tonight.
Yeah, I take off about 10.
And you arrive at 7 in the
morning?
No, I arrive at 10, I think
Saturday.
(33:19):
Is that right?
So I'll fly through the night
and chase the sun.
That's pretty easy.
New York to London is easy.
San Francisco to London is not.
Yeah, I mean, we're Vegas,
Vegas to London from CES and
that was, I've never done it
in the West Coast before.
Really?
I've never done it in San
Francisco yet and that's where
I had an ambition to go and
(33:39):
work
there.
That was that used to be my
ambition.
I was like, okay, I'm going to
do this, establish myself and
what I, in my realm of what I'm
good at, of workout work.
You're just a few years too
late.
They would have welcomed you
with open arms during the dot-
com boom and spit you right
out.
Yeah, maybe I would be really.
You're probably better off
(34:01):
having been where you are and
get a real job.
So we've been doing this, this
is 34 minutes into it.
So I think we said that we
would, yeah, I think we said
that we would try to keep this
in, you know, because we both,
I have to check out of my hotel
, you have to check out of
yours.
I've got to get back over and
check.
Just a little bit of
housekeeping.
What's your email address?
Uh, plusBat@gmail.com.
(34:21):
HotBat@gmail.com.
And a lot of people asked me
for my dad's email address in
the last one.
I didn't want to put it on
scripting news because I didn't
want to like subject him
to the spam and whatever.
I would have happily put it
into the podcast that he did
because that would have sort of
meant that people would have
(34:41):
had to listen to the podcast.
And just say things.
No, I just want to say his
email address now so that if
anybody wanted to write him, it
's
Lwiner9.
That's L-W-I-N-E-R-9@yahoo.com.
Interesting.
I was just thinking of with
Gmail.
You listen, by the way, you
listen to my dad's podcast.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that was pretty good.
Hell of a guy.
I got so much positive feedback
(35:02):
on that.
My brother from there said, "I
'm just listening to Dave's dad
."
We're going to try to do one
with my mom and my dad tonight.
That was good.
We kind of said hello briefly
to your mom.
She was there when you Skype.
Or you just played the blood
cast.
Oh, she listened to it.
I don't think you ever talked
to her, but she listened to it.
(35:23):
Oh, I thought she was there in
the background when you said.
No, no, I was in Florida.
No, my mother listens to all
the podcasts.
She's a real, she's probably
listening to this right now.
Hi, mom.
Hi, Dave's mom.
So yeah, I'm going to try to do
one with both of them, or maybe
just her tonight or whatever.
So you get to meet the whole
clan.
(35:43):
There was something else I was
going to say then, but it
slipped my mind.
Maybe he'll keep.
Sorry for I interrupted you.
Oh, we can wait.
It's okay.
We have nothing better to do.
That's true.
Killing time, drinking coffee.
Oh, yeah.
This is really morning coffee
notes after all because we,
they gave us a full pot of
coffee
(36:03):
here.
So we sort of got obligated.
I was, I just said your email
address, which is podbat@gmail.
com.
Oh, no, I was going to say the
Gmail thing.
Yeah.
Obviously, you know, like the,
the darling of the web mail.
Now, obviously the, uh, now are
they going to be putting author
linking into the email
copy?
Yeah.
(36:24):
Is that, I mean, I don't have.
Oh, yes.
Of course they are because they
, they have had since, I mean, I
, I like the ads that they
put on in Gmail because they
are relevant to something I
might be talking to somebody
about.
Right.
And what if I'm talking to
somebody about, and they're
easy to do now.
If they, if you're not right.
Well, that's exactly it.
You know, it's like, you can,
you know, you don't notice them
unless you kind of just,
(36:45):
oh, look, there's ads and the,
the, um, but if links start
appearing in my email, yeah,
they're kidding.
You know, get out of here.
Yeah.
And they're like, you know,
that's like, that's, that's,
that's the funny thing about
the auto
link thing is that it's going
to creep up on people and they
're going to wonder why nobody
complained about this when it
first appeared.
I mean, would you mind if we
(37:06):
would, would you be less, what
about the argument about if
they
would use like dotted lines, w
avy lines?
No, I wouldn't, that would not
be enough for me.
And in fact, what I have
suggested to them, although
they didn't really want to hear
this,
is that, um, is that they do
the links off on the side the
same way they're doing the
linking in ad copy, you know,
(37:28):
um, in other words, create a
frame over in the right hand
side of the page.
If you must do this and just
say related links and then boom
, boom, boom, boom, you know,
link to things that you need,
absolutely need to link to so
that they're segmented so that
it's very clear that this isn't
part of my content.
It's in a frame off by itself.
(37:49):
I still wouldn't like that
because they're not, because I
don't have ads on most of my
webpages.
The ones that I do have ads on,
sure, that's fine.
See Google AdSense is all opt
in, right?
And I'm a member of it.
I use it.
I get my check every month.
I deposit it.
It helps to fray my costs of
web hosting, but I only put it
on non-editorial pages.
(38:10):
I put it on weblogs.com.
I put it on XML or PC, which is
by the way a really high flow
site.
So I put an ad on that because
there's basically just an
archive.
There isn't a whole lot of new
stuff being posted in.
So I make my choice about where
the ads go and I put them there
.
And I'd be perfectly happy to
continue doing that.
(38:30):
Why they're not?
I think it's kind of obvious.
They want to make more money.
If they can cut me out in the
equation, they'll make my money
and their money.
Number one, number two is if
they can put ads everywhere
when I will only put them some
places, then that makes them
more money too.
But I would vastly prefer that
to the idea of them messing
(38:51):
with what I write.
When messing with what I write
is just totally non-acceptable.
If that is the way the web is
going to work, we're going to
have to leave the web.
And not only am I going to have
to leave the web, but any
publication with integrity is
going to have to leave the web
because the reader simply isn't
going to know who's saying
what anymore.
Well, people won't trust the
(39:12):
HTML, won't trust the web
browser anymore.
What they're seeing, what they
will trust is smart little
bouncy applications written
in flash that are really good
at reading RSS feeds.
So there's the data.
There's your content.
Your content's there all the
way through.
Well, that opens the whole
mother.
Everybody, this one, when
people...
The browser is dead, everybody.
Well, now, I don't want to go
(39:33):
that far because...
I'll take it back.
You can just leave it there.
See if you take it back after I
say this, though, is that when
people really give this
discussion serious thought and
don't just dismiss it out of
hand, the next issue that
comes up is, "Well, what about
blog lines?
When they put ads on your copy,
how do you feel about that?"
(39:54):
And blog lines is showing up
more and more in my referral
logs.
There's a lot of people reading
my stuff in blog lines.
And so, I'll tell you, the
answer is I don't think that's
as objectionable as what Google
does because there's no
question when people are
(40:14):
reading it in blog lines that
they know
that they're reading something
that has been processed.
So they're less likely to
believe that I put the link
there.
On the other hand, I don't
think it's a good idea and I
don't want them to do it.
Would it stop me from
publishing an RSS?
(40:34):
Probably not.
Would it lead me to do
something like blocking blog
lines from subscribing to it?
Sure.
In other words, all that this
is going to accomplish in the
end, all this crap that these
technology
companies want to do, or at
least Google, let's not speak
on behalf of the other
technology
companies so far, it's just
(40:55):
Google, is that they want to do
is to bulk anize the web.
They want us to put up a Berlin
Wall.
We'll try to keep them in.
They already have phenomenal
problems right now with, I mean
, Google, actually very few
people are focused on this and
it's kind of hard to switch the
focus without sort of sounding
(41:16):
a little alarmist.
So Google's having a lot of
trouble maintaining the
integrity of their index
because people
have become so good at spamming
it.
Well, that's right.
So you'll do searches on things
that seem to have absolutely
nothing to do with Viagra,
but somehow Viagra will be the
(41:37):
first hit.
Boy.
That was a good one.
Right on, everybody.
Yeah.
I don't want to say what I was
thinking, but yeah, everybody.
Sorry.
Boy.
Yeah.
Anyway, so everybody, we are
(41:59):
now at 42 minutes.
Wow.
Wow.
So we're going to have to do
this again sometime.
We'll have to do it.
You know, we have, this is our
second podcast, right?
We have Skype.
Yeah.
And I'm going to, the last one
we did, it kept kicking out.
My Skype kept kicking out.
Yeah.
So we're going to have to
figure out how to do that.
Or I'll come to London and we
can do one over there on the
other side of the earth.
Well, I think there are some
(42:20):
people who may be wanting to
see in London.
Even if they don't want to see
me, I can afford to pay my own
way.
You know, that happens
sometimes too.
So.
And you got a big birthday
coming up too, haven't you?
I do, but I also have to get
eye surgery.
So that's sort of sitting in
the middle of it.
Right, when's that going to
happen?
I haven't scheduled yet.
So, you know, I'm going to try
to leave myself free to go have
, yes, I have the big 50th.
(42:41):
So today is 17th for Frontier.
It's eight for Scripting News,
but that's nothing compared to
the next one, which is
coming up in a month and a day,
which is my 50th birthday.
In fact, there's a guy, there's
a guy, when you do come over,
because, oh yes, you will
be coming to London.
You know, you will.
How about the girls who are
saying, oh yes, he will be
(43:01):
coming over?
Oh yes, you will.
I think there's a girl don't
talk that way.
The girls talk like that.
Oh, dear.
The tangents.
We're having too much fun here.
That's 43 minutes.
43 and 17 seconds, 18 seconds.
But this guy, there's like one
(43:22):
day between your birthday's end
.
And that's interesting.
You know, now I have a story to
go with that, too.
They were trying to have me
born on my grandfather's
birthday.
I think you're only a week away
from my father's birthday.
Yeah.
One day away from my
grandfather's birthday, he was
born on my first.
It's not Gemini, is it?
It's not the one that's called
Taurus.
Taurus, which means obstinate
(43:43):
and pushy.
I'm Gemini.
And what does that mean?
You're counting.
I'm Diplomatic.
Diplomatic.
Some people would say too faced
.
I would say diplomatic.
Oh, you're not too bad.
No, but I avoid arguments by
trying to see both sides of the
problem.
No, I think it's good to have
people like that around.
I mean, that's kind of...
You also digress.
You should have that on your
business card.
(44:04):
I digress.
Me?
No, I don't.
I'm like this recurring, this
there, recurring, this there.
Recursive.
It's okay.
You need somebody around.
We have the signal to tap on
the table and say, "Oh, no."
Okay, so everybody, it's been,
this is now 43 minutes, so we
've talked enough.
Thank you.
(44:24):
Coming to you from New York
City, the basement of the UN
Millennium Plaza Hotel.
Nice place.
This is Morning Coffee Notes
for April 1st, 2005.
Bye.
It's all been a joke.
[laughter]
(laughing)
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.