Playing with categories and upstreaming

I've been tinkering today with Radio trying to get categories and ftp upstreaming to work the way I think I want them to.  I've written up the details in a story (FTP flow to multiple sites).  I've gotten some good suggestions and ideas to try, but there was also some discussion about whether there's a disconnect between what Radio was designed to be and what some users at least were expecting. Obviously that's going to be true for any non-trivial product, but I was struck by one thought that I wanted to capture here in a more permanent location.

I think this debate about how to use Radio is reflective of the underlying insight of its design. You know you've got a good tool when your users not only try to push it in unexpected directions but succeed when they do so.

While it seems there are still a few bugs lurking around the upstreaming feature, it also appears that several people have made substantial progress. I think what we need is a few more detailed examples. Dave Liebriech describes his approach in his weblog which helps. And Mark Woods offers some scripts that look promising, as has Mark Ax

In my case I could try to shift to one suggested approach and push everything done to the category level. It strikes me that some of the bugginess is caused by having a hierarchy of upstream.xml files scattered through the directory structure. Does it make sense that "flattening" the hierarchy is a short term workaround? It would mean figuring out how to move the current archives from the main blog down to the category level, but it's not like I've got years of archives like Dave does :)

I'm blown away by what I can do with Radio right out of the box. At the same time, I'm challenged by all the things that begin to look possible. It would probably help if Radio had some "training wheels" that kept me from falling down, but I don't want them welded on the way they are with so many other tools. What excites me about what we've got here is that Radio is a professional tool that serious hobbyists, and even semi-serious ones, can handle without endangering themselves or others. This is a good thing.

9:29:34 PM •  • comment  

Why you don't have Fair Use Rights, (and never did). In this article I hope to explain why citizens of the United States don't have Fair Use Rights, and never did. Every since Napster's legal problems the masses have been touting Fair Use Rights as the justification for all sorts of uses and abuses of Copyrighted material. However a surprising number of people, including those who should know better, have been mis-using the term Fair Use. As one who supports the concept of Fair Use and would like to continue using legally obtained Copyrighted works in a fair manner, I think it is very important that people learn what Fair Use is and is not. Hopefully this will allow more informed discussions and better strategies for balancing Copyright Holders need for Intellectual Property protection and the consumer's ability to use the Copyright Holder's products. [kuro5hin.org]

A helpful summary of what Fair Use does and doesn't mean. Also a reminder that the labels that get slapped on something ("Fair Use") have little to do with the underlying legal language in effect.

On the other hand, just because publishers are within their legal right to make it difficult to copy their works, doesn't mean that it's a smart thing to do. Betting against your customers and potential customers can never be a good move. More so today when it's the customers who are in short supply not product.

9:46:49 AM •  • comment