Garrick van Buren

Remember the May 6, 2010 Flash Crash – that caused the Dow to drop 1000 points in manner of seconds (and almost immediately completely rebound)?

It was caused by a high-frequency trading bot. The Atlantic has an enjoyable write-up on the these bots – turns out – we don’t know what the hell they’re trying to do.

The software engineer profiled in the article posts some of more bizarre trading behavior these bots on his Market Crop Circle of the Day blog.

Super fun stuff.

To summarize:

• The App Store terms apply to GPLed software in the App Store.
• Those terms force strict Usage Rules on customers that prohibit many
  activities that are allowed under the GPL.
• Those restrictions are not allowed under GPLv2 section 6.

Again, if any of you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them. – Brett Smith, Licensing Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation

“These companies are being valued as if they will be our permanent means for identifying ourselves….Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It’s the people that matter, not the venue” – Douglas Rushkoff

“They call this ‘content’. But it’s not, really — it’s filler. And by a more common-sense definition, it’s spam.” – Marco Armet

“we are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. we are human beings – and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.”

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” – e.e. cummings

“There are a lot of people that don’t start making money until you briefly forget who you are.” – Merlin Mann

“My guiding principle in this project has been thrift. Without a publisher to capitalize the book, I’m doing my darndest to spend money only when it makes me money. Lucky for me, today’s world is one where that constraint is well accommodated. Obviously, the print-on-demand paperbacks don’t cost anything — the book doesn’t exist until you order and pay for it! And I’d doing the limited hardcovers in lots of 20, to minimize my expense there. The CDs of the audiobook are also produced on demand, of course.” – Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow’s With a Little Help is the closest model I’ve seen to my vision for the future of publishing.

• Premium Hardcover: $275 ( yes, $275!!)
• On-demand Paperback: $18 (via LuLu)
• eBook: $0 (6 formats including HTML & plain text)
• Audio Book: $0, $5.50, and $10 (5 formats)
• Monthly Financials out in the open.
• A clear, well-used ‘Report Typo‘ section
• A way to give the book to libraries & schools.
• Running on WordPress install under the author’s domain name.

“Two graduate students, intrigued by a growing wealth of material on the Internet, built a huge fucking lobster trap, absorbed as much of human history and creativity as they could, and destroyed all of it.” – Jason Scott, Archive Team

“It was a good run. So long, old friend.” – Merlin Mann

“It’s just that given the choice between helping to keep something you love alive, and very publicly declaring it dead, I’m not sure why you’d choose the latter.” – Rob McBroom

It seems a tad melodramatic to declare a functioning piece of open source software dead. Especially when the most likely alternative is neither free nor open.

One of the core premises of open source software is not being tied to the whims of a vendor. Quicksilver faithfully serves me everyday. Sure, I’d like Quicksilver to be a more active project – I have direct control over that. Just as you do, just as Merlin does, just as Rob McBroom does (Thanks Rob.). Declaring Quicksilver dead is like declaring Wikipedia worthless because of a typo.

Merlin, by the way, could you check the mp3 URLs for the 43Folders Podcast – specifically, Honor Thy Energy? I was looking to give it a re-listen earlier this week, and came up with a 404. :/