Every Week, Ian dishes out his wit
and witticism on that wild and wacky world we call the World Wide Web. Listen
to Ian's comments in RealAudio, or read the full text.
Current Edition: Dried Plums (May 7th, 2001)
The final days. The end of empire. We're doomed, as prunes become dried
plums, says Ian Shoales.
Dot Com Mess
(April 9th, 2001)
Ian's dot com advice: ignore your problems, and instead give power point
demonstrations at sales conferences with pie charts about marketshare
projections. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Textbooks
(February 19th, 2001)
While he admits he's not the best qualified person in the world to comment
on Newton's first law, Ian does so anyway, in the context of error-ridden
science textbooks. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Suits (February
12th, 2001)
Ian Shoales believes that a fashion sense governed by whatever free tee-shirts
we gathered from a software convention in 1998 is a doomed fashion sense.
And he found an expert who agrees. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Bush (February
5th, 2001)
George W. Bush can bring back Eisenhower-era steak and spuds, lard, doughnuts,
and mixed drinks, says Ian Shoales. "All we have to do is pretend Clinton,
and of course Florida, never happened." Hear
it in RealAudio.
Hillary
(January 22nd, 2001)
Ian begrudges politicians who parlay the coin of their fame into gazillion
dollar book deals that result in hardcover books that show up like clockwork
on the shelves of Goodwill stores roughly six months after they were published. Hear
it in RealAudio.
What Is Death?
(January 1st, 2001)
Welcome the new year by listening to Ian Shoales opinions on the dormant
250 million-year-old dormant bacterium scientists recently unearthed from
a cave in New Mexico. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Cliches
(December 18th, 2000)
Ian Shoales is trying to think out of the box, to come up with some scalable
b to b solutions, while he's still on top of his game--working on his
cliches. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Playstation
(December 4th, 2000)
Ian Shoales offers Christmas advice: buy PlayStation 1 when you're shopping
this Christmas. Don't open it though. Keep it in the original packaging,
and sell it on eBay for ten thousand dollars five years from now. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Commuting
(November 27th, 2000)
According to Ian Shoales, "Only in America, could you cram a bunch of
people into a bus, have them watch lame movies they've seen a zillion
times before, thus somehow convincing them they're not wasting an hour." Hear
it in RealAudio.
Coat
Phone (Ocotber 30th, 2000)
Levi Strauss has partnered with Phillips the electronics people, to create
a jacket that will come equipped with a cell phone. Has anyone asked why?
Ian Shoales has. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Hello, My
Name Is Yuma (Ocotber 2nd, 2000)
The Internet Underground recently sponsored a contest asking soon-to-be
parents name their child after the site - IUMA, that's I U M A (pronounced
Yuma), in return for five grand. Ian shares his thoughts. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Itoke (September
25th, 2000)
Itoke wants to sell marijuana over the Internet. Ian Shoales says: "I'll
bet they did have a business model. Then they got stoned and forgot where
they left it." Hear
it in RealAudio.
E-Books
(September 18th, 2000)
Ian Shoales says everybody has gotten hysterical about e-publishing. Articles
are written, business models drawn up, ventures launched, opinions shared--
and then all of a sudden, it's over. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Gravitas
(September 11th, 2000)
Ian Shoales says journalists have sprung an unfamiliar word on us, but
acted as though it's a word we use all the time, even though most of had
never even heard of it before they sprung it on us. That word is: gravitas.
Hear
it in RealAudio.
Tomorrow's
TeeVee (September 4th, 2000)
Ian Shoales wants to know: does anybody remember, before this whole Internet
thing blew everything else out of the water, that the next big thing was
going to be the television of tomorrow-- the telecomputer. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Telephone
Beals (August 21st, 2000)
Although he telephone has sort of got lost in the shuffle in the Internet
hype, Ian Shoales still reads his phone bill each month, and it's come
to his attention that there's a bit of controversy around its content.
Hear
it in RealAudio.
Darva (August
7th, 2000)
The other shoe has dropped, along with Darva Conger's clothes, ending
months of suspense, says Ian Shoales, at least for the diminishing demographic
of the kind of guys who like see the kind of gals like Darva Conger with
no clothes on. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Football
(July 31st, 2000)
Ian Shoales found himself surrounded by football stories. The Green Bay
Pickers? Dennis Miller on Monday night football? What can it all mean?
Hear
it in RealAudio.
Eminem (July
24th, 2000)
Ian Shoales is tired of canned self-serving outrage by the interchangeable
smooth-talking moral arbiters that swarm all over our airwaves, at places
like MSNBC. Hear
it in RealAudio.
New York
(July 10th, 2000)
Ian Shoales hates the way New York has to be not only on top of everything,
but has to charge the rest of us for the privilege of sharing the information
that only New York can offer. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Service
Economy (June 26th, 2000)
Ian Shoales says people are getting excited about the icons of fully clothed
sultans, and there might not even be an emperor behind the virtual curtain,
naked or not. Hear
it in RealAudio.
Pacific Bell, in an effort to promote its high speed
DSL internet service, has aired a series of commercials showing a neighborhood
disintegrating. Hear it
in RealAudio.
E-Lite (April
10th, 2000)
Ian says We're nothing but cattle. We have to create imaginary herds for
our fellow human beings so we can sneer at them for belonging to a category
that we invented for them. Don't agree? Remember hippies? Hear it in
RealAudio.
Old Wine,
Old Bottles (February 2000)
There's a trend in music, commercials and ads: Bringing dead celebrities
back "from the grave" to promote products or team up with current stars.
Ian explores the idea and offers some suggestions for other ethereal spokespeople.
Hear
it in RealAudio.
Even though Ebay crashed, its products didnýt. This
set Ian to musing about the nature of the digital marketplace.
Digital
Nerves (June 1999)
Bill Gates Book, Business @ The Speed Of Thought suggests using
e-mail to communicate. Ian Shoales asks: "What else would you use it for?"
Spiritual
(May 1999)
In his May Commentary, Ian Shoales asks why we want to abandon our smelly
little bodies for new rugged ABS plastic versions.
Sarcasm
(April 1999)
In his April Commentary, Ian Shoales wonders if he's hurt the Internet's
feelings. He's apparently hurt someone's.
Future of Print:
Whither print? That's what Ian thinks. He deals with such issues as the
future of content providers (bottom feeders or fish?) and the fate of
such publications as Coin Laundry News and Bingo Scene Magazine in the
digital age. It's just good business practice!
Wired Style
Ian Shoales asks whether we really need cyber everything, an unreadable
magazine and its equally unreadable guide to the new language of the Internet.
Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age takes a licking,
as do its authors, the editors of Wired magazine.
Luddite
Ian's just a content provider who wants to know who's the fish and who's
the fisher and how to become proactive with his peeves. He's here to tell
you how to avoid contact with other human beings--after all, isn't that
what e-mail's for?
Gates
Bill Gates doesn't wants a Picasso because it's a Picasso; he wants a
Picasso because it matches his neo-Cubist rattan sectional, according
to Ian. Gates claims that he wants technology to be fun, but making a
profit runs a pretty close second, Ian says.
Push
Ian says Push Technology is a desperate new business model, x in a series
of attempts to make money off the Internet. It could be cool. But he wants
all of these things to go away if he shouts at them. As it stands now,
every time he screams at his computer, nothing happens at all. So he screams
at you.
Domain
Horders
Wily entrepreneurs are registering web domains that famous individuals
or major corporations may want later. This brand new profession is called
Cybersquatting, and what an attractive name it is. Cybersquatting. What
a pleasant image it conjures in the mind. Would it surprise you to find
that Ian has something to say on the subject?
3D
Here's what happens to Ian when he gets multimedia e-mail: It takes fifteen
to twenty minutes to download, and then requires some plug and play which
he has download, try and get to work for an hour, give up, throw everything
in the trash, and email the senders back to tell them to describe to him,
in thirty words or less, what exactly it is he would have seen, had he
had the ability to see it.
Words
The words you need to survive in the digital age, spoken really quickly,
with snide remarks interspersed. Ian doesn't know what it all means, but
he hopes you do. He's gotta go.
Internet
Limits
Ian notes there are things you can't do in Cyberspace. You can't pick
your nose, though you can pick your friend's nose, in certain chat rooms,
if you have the right password. You can't shave. You can't pad around
your wretched hovel scratching yourself and mumbling. There are no wretched
hovels in cyberspace.
Internet
Is Crap
Ray Bradbury was asked to give advice to young writers. According to the
Orange County Register, he told them to "read, read, read, and put away
computers." He said, "Forget the Internet, that's all crap." That's all
it took to set Ian off.
What Zope Did Wrong (and How It's Being Fixed) Dr. Dobb's talks with Lennart Regebro about the many things that
Zope 2 did right and did wrong. Lennart has also been one of the driving
forces behind Five, the integration of Zope 3 technologies into Zope 2.
Ubuntu and the Software Around It Dr. Dobb's interviews Ubuntu's Gerry Carr about the Linux-based Ubuntu
operating sytem and the application lifecycle tools -- such as the
recently released Launchpad -- that surround it.
In this volume of Best of BYTE, we explore the emergence of some heuristic algorithms. Although we have only scratched the surface of this intriguing subject, we hope we've suggested the potential of the synthesis of heuristics and algorithms.
