Filtered for Purity
Less is more; but least is best.
I spent part of the week in Chicago, so I missed the big party; which I heard was a blast. Instead I had a wonderful lunch with Maggy, who launched Colors on Jaunary 1, which uses “canvas mode” to its fullest. Oh, it’s not a kids thing, that’s for sure.
Meanwhile, out here in SF, there’s the whole Macworld thing going on. Which means the reality distortion field is in full effect. I can’t imagine that there’s not accounting tomfoolery going on in Cupertino. Apple, show a profit? It can’t be true….
Netscape redesigned their home page. Finally. But hey…is that the “community” word I see?
Meanwhile, Business Week tackled Microsoft’s future. Joel Klein, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division: “This kind of product-forcing is an abuse of monopoly power–and we will seek to put an end to it.” And the latest “good news,” that IE is leading the browser war, could actually end up being bad news.
Hey, I know her.
Simson Garfinkel argued this week that in order to break the headlock of applications, vendors should open up their file formats. On the surface, not a bad idea. Open file formats means it would be easier to share information regardless of the brand of application you were using. But that “interoperability” would only last as long as the vendors used that format. Combine open file formats with subscription-based software (like Microsoft’s been hinting at recently) licenses, and you’ll have monthly updates to the formats, which would render all this promised interoperability moot.
First they killed cigarettes. Next thing you know, they’ll kill the spam.
Media Nugget of the week: Absent Friends, by Frederick Busch. Harold quotes from “Ralph the Duck” … “She blinked her eyes. I swear I heard her blink her eyes.”