Sculley redux

This interview with former Apple CEO John Sculley is kind of interesting; this one bit made me think about what could have been:

Q: Any missed opportunities that you wish you could do over?

A: As I look back on things that I wished we would have done differently when I was at Apple, I think one of the biggest missed opportunities, and it was on my watch, so I feel responsible and disappointed that we didn't do more with it, was Hypercard. It was created back in 1987 by Bill Atkinson, Apple's first software programmer. We could never figure out exactly what it was. We thought it was a prototyping tool. We thought it was a database tool. It was actually used by people as a front-end communications device for TCP/IP to connect the Internet to large Cray computers.

We weren't insightful enough to recognize that what we had inside of Hypercard, essentially, was everything that later was developed so successfully by Tim Berners-Lee with HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). We didn't call it that. But essentially, we had all that hypertext, radio buttons and linking capability architected in the original Hypercard. In hindsight, I wish Apple had recognized that we had a huge opportunity to go take our user interface culture, and our know-how, and applied it to the Internet. I think we would have had a very different story for Apple during the 1990s. But that, of course, is hindsight.

Mailing lists & Spam Assassin

I'm a long-time subscriber to the Studio B mailing list, a great resource for computer book authors and people who want to be computer book authors. Today, though, Spam Assassin identified today's digest from that list as probable spam. That's a new one on me, so I checked the headers and found:

* 2.5 -- URI: URL uses words and phrases which indicate porn (4)

The URL that set it off: MSExchange.org, a site about Microsoft Exchange Server. Snicker.

Candy Sushi

From the Gallery of Weird Food Ideas, it's Candy and Rice Crispy Snacks That Look Like Sushi. Via Paul Music.

CSS Primer

The Bare Bones, No Crap, CSS Text Control Primer, by Wendy Peck. If you've tried looking at one of those many other tutorials and felt like you've missed the intro, check out this one.

October Meetup for Dean

Tonight's the National Dean in 2004 Meetup Day for October. About 120,000 of your fellow US citizens will be meeting tonight across the country to help elect Howard Dean president and send Bush and his failed presidency packing, and (by expanding the Democratic voting base) to elect a Democratic majority in Congress. If you're not already a Dean supporter, drop by a Meetup in your area and see what the campaign's about. Dori and I will be running the Meetup here in Healdsburg.

Clark interview

The last week or so, I've been watching most spots that Wesley Clark has done on TV, and just yesterday, I said to Dori, "This guy doesn't speak that well in TV interviews, which is puzzling, seeing that he did so much of it as an analyst on CNN during the Iraq war." Today's interview with Clark at Talking Points Memo is very good. The guy's obviously very smart and has good things to say, especially in foreign policy, which is his strength. I still think that he's come in too late to the race, and I think that ultimately Dean's message of voter empowerment will be a winner. But read the interview; it elevates the dialog, and it's refreshing to read an interview where the politician is not repeating parts of a stump speech or talking points and is truly engaging the reporter's questions in a thoughtful way.

On its way!

Because so many of you have a desperate desire to know this: my Apple PowerBook Notebook 15.2" M8981LL/A (1.25-GHz PowerPC G4, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD-RW/CD-RW Drive) left Dallas, TX yesterday via UPS Ground, with an estimated delivery date of Friday. Just in case it appears that I've dropped off the face of the earth next weekend, it's really that I'm just playing with my new toy.

Who gets it and who doesn't

Jason Kottke says:

As the next step in the utilization of the Web in his campaign, Howard Dean should open up a b3ta-like forum for people who want to create digital media (photos, movies, music, Flash animations, etc.) related to Dean and the election. Give people starting material (photos, soundbites, talking points, important issues, logos, colors) and let them go nuts (you know, participate in the political process).

No no no no! The point is that it isn't "Howard Dean open[ing... a] forum," it's that the forums are being founded by the grassroots themselves. Nobody's waiting on the campaign to do this. If you're interested, check out Graphic Designers for Dean or the Dean Media Team, two groups working hard (and accepting volunteers, hint, hint) to get Dean elected.

Don't wait for the campaign to take the lead, folks. Get out there and do it yourself.

Repeat after me: You have the power! You have the power!

Fray Day 7

A reminder to myself and others: Fray Day 7 San Francisco is this Saturday. It's hard to believe it's been a year already.

I wrote my thoughts on Fray Day 4, and that seems like an entirely different world now. My thoughts on Fray 6 are here, and it appears that Fray 7 will be similar in tone. It's no longer "Web geeks tell stories from their lives," instead, it's "Published authors tell stories about writing in the hopes that you'll buy their books." So, we may or may not go, as it's no longer compelling for us.

OTOH, I've been trying to get Tom to sign up for the Fray Open Mic (possibly to read this?). If I can convince him (any of y'all want to help me work on this? <g>), then we'll see you there.