Category: People

Wednesday, 16 August 2006

Sunday, 13 August 2006

Sunday Morning Dot Connection

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Sunday Morning Dot Connection

“Airport security is the last line of defense, and not a very good one at that. Sure, it’ll catch the sloppy and the stupid — and that’s a good enough reason not to do away with it entirely — but it won’t catch a well-planned plot. We can’t keep weapons out of prisons 1; we can’t possibly keep them off airplanes.” – Bruce Schneier

Interesting note on my media readership. I had already paged through the Sunday Star Tribune, read all the usual stuff, got frustrated with the huge amount of FUD and general insipidness, when I loaded up my NetNewWire for the morning. Right there in my ‘must reads’ list is the above article. If you follow the link, you’ll notice it was also published in the Op-Ed section of the paper I just put down.

1. Dangerous Beauty: The Art of the Shiv. My vote for most, um, innovative is the sharpened tablespoon.

Thursday, 10 August 2006

No Passengers Equals No Threats?

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on No Passengers Equals No Threats?

A terrorist threat is thwarted in London.

The reaction here and there – making flying more uncomfortable for everyone else, heighten the ‘threat alert’ to ‘red’ (because something might happen we’re not aware of? – hmmm. I felt more secure).

Seems that with the plot foiled, we should be _safer_ in the immediate short term – not less so.

Bruce Schneier on the new no carry-on rules (as always, read the comments).

Doc Searls from the front of the line…er front lines. Good luck Doc.

As always, insightfulness and thoughtfulness on risk comes from our comedians – Ze Frank on Red810.

Thomas P.M. Barnett on the terrorists’ success being the disruption they caused.

Great stuff from Rex Hammock:

“I’ve discovered I have less tolerance for someone else — especially a producer at a cable new channel — determining the priorities and sources of my information on such a story.” and “The stock market stood rock solid and even airline stocks were up.”

Thursday, 27 July 2006

Wednesday, 8 March 2006

Patriot Act Misuse – Ignorance or Opportunism

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Patriot Act Misuse – Ignorance or Opportunism

Thanks to Bruce Schneier for pointing me to Mark Steyn’s excellent ‘Long war’ is Breaking Down into Tedium column in the Sun Times.

Steyn lists out some actually happened examples of companies and financial institutions invoking the Patriot Act without reason. Given the complexities of most legislation and the Asking Questions = Unpatriotic attitude of the current administration, I can see how this could happen.

Fortunately, Steyn provides ammunition if you suspect overly-zealous corporations are misusing the security bill:

“…we have a policy of reporting all erroneous invocations of the Patriot Act to the Department of Homeland Security on the grounds that such invocations weaken the rationale for the act, and thereby undermine public support for genuine anti-terrorism measures and thus constitute a threat to America’s national security.”

Sunday, 26 February 2006

Bye Rex, Thanks for the Party

by Garrick van Buren 1 Comment on Bye Rex, Thanks for the Party


(Matt Thompson from the Strib and me in a MNstories video documenting the party.)

I, along with 600 of Rex Sorgatz‘s closest friends wished him well in his move to Seattle and Microsoft last night.

Honestly, I haven’t been to a blow out like that in quite a while. The food, the drink, the hundreds of hipsters in a very tight space.

Among them, I was able to catch up with Ben, Chuck and Lori, Paul, and a bunch of people I haven’t seen in years that are still without blogs. As an added bonus, I finally met – in person – the legendary Adam Sellke and the elusive Dack.

Thanks Rex – for the party and for MNSpeak community (of course more over there). Enjoy your travels west, and oh, and say ‘Hi’ to Scoble for me.

Sunday, 19 February 2006

Why Health Coverage Shouldn’t be Tied to Employers

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Why Health Coverage Shouldn’t be Tied to Employers

“Weyco and Scotts Miracle-Gro, based in Marysville, Ohio, are in the vanguard of a growing effort by business to brake soaring medical costs by regulating such unhealthy employee behavior as smoking”

Health coverage as a benefit of employment no longer makes sense – financially for employers or employees. Expecting employers to foot the bill and not expecting them to minimize their expense might be a sign of mental illness.

My problem with employer-sponsored plans is their lack of portability. The instability of employers in the dot-com era meant switching plans and doctors every 18 months when I switched business cards – annoying to say the least.

The three benefits I see of individual sponsored plans are:

  1. a better understanding of where their healthcare dollars are going
  2. more direct control over the services that make sense to them
  3. portability

I don’t see these points conflicting with a national health care plan. To me, healthcare is the same type of problem as roads/highways and defense.

J Wynia has a good write up of choosing an individual healthcare plan.

Malcolm Gladwell takes the healthcare = transportation metaphor one step further.

“…imagine if we had employer-based subways in New York. You could ride the subway if you had a job. But if you lost your job, you would either have to walk or pay a prohibitively expensive subway surcharge. Of course, if you lost your job you would need the subway more than ever, because you couldn’t afford taxis and you would need to travel around looking for work.”

Thursday, 5 May 2005

Minneapolis Scobleized

by Garrick van Buren 10 Comments on Minneapolis Scobleized

Tim, Cody, Chuck and I grabbed a drink with Robert Scoble tonight. And I also met local open source CMS developer Tim Broeke from ElectricJet.

If you’re finger isn’t on the pulse of weblogs, Scoble is Microsoft’s überblogger. He was in town to start a conversation with Target. I applaud Target for this.

There are only a handful of companies people feel really passionate about. So passionate you don’t want them to get started (yeah, like me with weblogs and podcasts). These are companies that would have to do something really, really stupid for their impassioned customers to blink.

Target is one of those companies.

Jen is one of those customers. She knows Target’s different layouts. We get the Sunday Star Tribune for the Target flyer. There was a moment of silence in our house when T-1 was demo’d. I’ve talked to a number of others around the US, just as passionate.

To me, companies with a customer base this passionate are obligated to cultivate an intimate conversation. Whether this is weblogging, in its many forms, or some other community-building technique, I think that’s up for discussion and experimentation.

As always, I look forward to seeing the fruit of whatever seeds Scoble planted.

Monday, 7 March 2005

Blogger Forces Company Blogging Policy Issue

by Garrick van Buren 5 Comments on Blogger Forces Company Blogging Policy Issue

Update: 9 Mar 2005 9:04 am

…we do not censor people’s blogs, and we take the censorship allegation extremely seriously. I actively encourage our employees to blog, and to express their opinions. However, many readers do not make as clear a distinction between personal and work lives as many experienced bloggers do, and will view a provocative image on a blog in the worst possible light…

Everyone, send good vibes Dave Sifry’s (Technorati CEO) way.

Niall, perhaps this would be helpful to remember in your position as Technorati Community Manager:

“Provocation and controversy are good for building hype, bad for building community”
“Being provocative or negative is one way to generate traffic, but it doesn’t generate culture.”

I’m googling for the author of this quote, if you know please drop it in the comments. I think it was said in the context of podcasting. Thanks.
Found it, 15 Mar 2005 11:30 pm, credit for this quote goes to Mark Vandewettering via Dan Lyke of Flutterby (see the comments. Thanks Dan!)

Update: 8 Mar 2005, 11:30 am

Jason Kottke is a smart person. He changed the title of his original post because as more information came out, Technorati was not at fault. I agree and have followed suit.

Frankly, I find the entire situation artificial and awkward. As it turns out, Kennedy set himself up. I saw nothing wrong with his original post. Poor taste or otherwise. He then went around and basically asked his employer to find fault with it. Quid pro quo, he proved his own point – when given the chance, employers are happy to say no. Blah and now I’m out of coffee.

Original Post

The last couple days, I was thinking about exploring integrating Technorati’s Tags into WordPress. Then I read Technorati censoring employee blogs? over at Kottke.org.

I concur with Jason, if I ran a company that aggregated weblogs, the last thing I would do is piss off webloggers.

The post in question was on Niall Kennedy’s personal site. Niall was comparing employer’s desire to restrict employees blogging to wartime propaganda.

Last night I modified a few propaganda posters from the 1940s to express how corporations would like to control what their employees say on a weblog, at a bar, or even to their families.

Cue Technorati being, um, ironic (Employer commands employee to pull down blog post commenting on employers restricting employees weblog posting). It’s funny, cause it’s true:

No, this post was not a joke and it was a post meant to generate buzz about a topic. Technorati executives are concerned about how employee weblogs expressing opinions may be interpreted as an official Technorati position. All Technorati employees have been asked to review weblog posts with staff members before posting. I reinstated my original post this morning and I am ready to willing to hear the community’s response to my individual voice.

Will opinions expressed on employee weblogs be considered official company positions?
Unless the weblog is http://Technorati.com/OfficialTechnoratiWeblog and has a big Technorati logo on it, NO!

Just 2 days earlier, Steve Gillmor commented on the Google’s new Autolink “feature” and offered this advice:

Who cares if you can do it because. Forget the stuff about do no evil. Do no stupid.

Technorati Bloggers and companies should follow the same advice. or I say we stop pinging them. I’m holding off digging into their tagging until they do.

Thursday, 6 January 2005

First Crack 18. Blogumentary’s Chuck Olsen and the Revamps

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on First Crack 18. Blogumentary’s Chuck Olsen and the Revamps

Chuck Olsen and I discuss his movie Blogumentary, open source films, vlogging, authenticity, and piles of other things including:

I end the show with “Rainy Day Exit” by the Revamps. For more on them, drop lead man Darren Harff a line or catch them at their show on Jan 14th at the Terminal Bar – they go on around 11:45pm.

Listen to Blogumentary’s Chuck Olsen and the Revamps [44 min]

Got questions about coffee or comments about the show? Call: 206-20-BEAN-1

Like the show? Support the First Crack Podcast