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  31. <title>A Taste of Matter</title>
  32. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/12/a-taste-of-matter/</link>
  33. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/12/a-taste-of-matter/#comments</comments>
  35. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  36. <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:41:51 +0000</pubDate>
  37. <category><![CDATA[food]]></category>
  38. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19425</guid>
  39.  
  40. <description><![CDATA[We had a party recently that required cooking an enormous number of baby back ribs. To acquire a volume of barbeque sauce sufficient to soak all the slabs, we took a run to our nearest Costco (an hour away on the south side of Indianapolis), where thee were plenty of Kinder&#8217;s and Sweet Baby Ray&#8217;s. [&#8230;]]]></description>
  41. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_19426" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19426" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-19426" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/FAED391E-1E8B-4AD7-BD1E-D500EE6A1222_1_105_c.jpeg" alt="" width="1024" height="768" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/FAED391E-1E8B-4AD7-BD1E-D500EE6A1222_1_105_c.jpeg 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/FAED391E-1E8B-4AD7-BD1E-D500EE6A1222_1_105_c-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/FAED391E-1E8B-4AD7-BD1E-D500EE6A1222_1_105_c-768x576.jpeg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19426" class="wp-caption-text">Two kinds of barbeque sauce sold by Costco, at one moment in time.</figcaption></figure>
  42. <p>We had a party recently that required cooking an enormous number of baby back ribs. To acquire a volume of barbeque sauce sufficient to soak all the slabs, we took a run to our nearest Costco (an hour away on the south side of Indianapolis), where thee were plenty of Kinder&#8217;s and Sweet Baby Ray&#8217;s.</p>
  43. <p>While my personal taste runs more to North Carolina vinegar-based sauce, I can still swing with Texas-style, such as we have with these two. My wife, a confirmed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster">supertaster</a>, preferred the taste of the two mixed together. But if I had to pick just one, it would be Sweet Baby Ray&#8217;s. The taste, for me, was a bit more complex and spicy.</p>
  44. <p>Knowing Costco, both might be gone by now, but I thought that much empirical data was worth sharing with the carnivores out there.</p>
  45. ]]></content:encoded>
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  48. <slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
  51. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">19425</post-id> </item>
  52. <item>
  53. <title>Car Goes</title>
  54. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/12/car-goes/</link>
  55. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/12/car-goes/#comments</comments>
  57. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  58. <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:13:12 +0000</pubDate>
  59. <category><![CDATA[Cars]]></category>
  60. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19418</guid>
  61.  
  62. <description><![CDATA[The other day I bought a refrigerator at Costco. When a guy rolled it out on a flat to help me lift it into the car, he said, &#8220;This isn&#8217;t going to fit in there.&#8221; Then it did. It might not have fit in some SUVs. And while it would have fit in the bed [&#8230;]]]></description>
  63. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_19419" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19419" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-19419" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025_08_31_car-between-trucks-1024x342.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="342" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025_08_31_car-between-trucks-1024x342.jpg 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025_08_31_car-between-trucks-300x100.jpg 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025_08_31_car-between-trucks-768x257.jpg 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025_08_31_car-between-trucks-1536x513.jpg 1536w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025_08_31_car-between-trucks-2048x684.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19419" class="wp-caption-text">My little station wagon parked between two trucks.</figcaption></figure>
  64. <p>The other day I bought a refrigerator at Costco. When a guy rolled it out on a flat to help me lift it into the car, he said, &#8220;This isn&#8217;t going to fit in there.&#8221; Then it did.</p>
  65. <p>It might not have fit in some SUVs. And while it would have fit in the bed of a pickup, I would have had to drive around a pickup all the time. Instead, I&#8217;m driving a quiet, comfy, and zippy little car with lots of cargo space.</p>
  66. <p>When SUVs first came along, I craved one. I loved backroads, camping, and what one could do with four-wheel or all-wheel drive. But eventually I realized that the percentage of time I&#8217;d spend doing chancy things in places AAA wouldn&#8217;t go was sub-minimal, and that I would still need cargo space. So at various times I opted for boxy little cars:</p>
  67. <ol>
  68. <li>1966 Peugeot 404 Wagon</li>
  69. <li>1985 Subaru Legacy</li>
  70. <li>2000 Volkswagen Passat</li>
  71. <li>2005 Subaru Outback</li>
  72. <li>2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack XLE</li>
  73. </ol>
  74. <p>I&#8217;ve only loved the Volkswagens.</p>
  75. <p>The Peugeot was a bizarre piece of shit—though it was big as a hearse in the back.</p>
  76. <p>The first Subaru had a stick shift and four-wheel-drive, but one couldn&#8217;t get it into that mode if all four tires hadn&#8217;t been worn to the identical tread depth. Seriously. It was also a noisy rattletrap.</p>
  77. <p>The second Subaru was a mostly good car, but not comfortable for long drives. But, like the others, it held a lot of stuff.</p>
  78. <p>The Passat was great all around. It needed a lot of work*, but it was good to 211,108 miles, when I was told the transmission was toast. So I sold it on Craigslist for $125 to a guy who replaced the transmission fluid and said it was actually fine.</p>
  79. <p>*It was only 5 years old and worth $15,000 when I bought it for $5,000, but I then put &gt;$10,000 into it.</p>
  80. <p>The VW Alltrack is close to ideal. The cargo space is smaller than the others, but not by too much. (Hell, it ate a refrigerator.) It&#8217;s a great fit, so I don&#8217;t feel like I drive it so much as wear it.</p>
  81. <p>Of course, it&#8217;s discontinued. The Alltrack line ran from 2017 to 2019, and that was it. Meanwhile, generations of Subaru Outbacks since the &#8217;00s have morphed into wagon-like SUVs.</p>
  82. <p>To find which station wagons are still sold in the U.S., ask an AI. Or two. Or three. I just did, but pasting a linky copy of the results requires a bunch of HTML post-processing.</p>
  83. <p>I can at least say this: the closest new car to the old VW Alltrack line is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_allroad_quattro">Audi Allroad Quattro</a>. The styling is more pinched in the back than the Alltrack, so it might not ingest a whole refrigerator, but at least it&#8217;s a nice small wagon, and luxe as well. I don&#8217;t want to look closer at them because I might want one.</p>
  84. <p>And right now I don&#8217;t, because I just spent $4,000 replacing all four tires (worn Yokohamas for new Michelins) and two wheel bearings (one front, one rear), straightening two bent rims, aligning the wheels, and fixing something leaky (I forget what) in the cooling system. Now it feels like a new car. It is quieter than when I bought it (18k miles ago), and it handles better than ever. I loved the improvement so much that I spent half a day driving around the hilly Southern Indiana countryside, digging every turn and straightaway.</p>
  85. <p>Now, during our brief sojourn to Southern California, we&#8217;re getting around in a very nice 2020 Camry XLE Hybrid. It&#8217;s still new, with less than 30k on the odometer. Smells like it too. There is much to like about the Camry, especially 45mpg on the cheapest gas, and the sense that it&#8217;s a solid and competent machine. But it also feels like, well a very good rental car. And in the trunk is mainly good for the usual: groceries and suitcases. You&#8217;ll never get a refrigerator in there.</p>
  86. ]]></content:encoded>
  88. <wfw:commentRss>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/12/car-goes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  89. <slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
  92. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">19418</post-id> </item>
  93. <item>
  94. <title>Privacy is a Contract</title>
  95. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/11/privacy-is-a-contract/</link>
  96. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/11/privacy-is-a-contract/#comments</comments>
  98. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  99. <pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:28:20 +0000</pubDate>
  100. <category><![CDATA[privacy]]></category>
  101. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19401</guid>
  102.  
  103. <description><![CDATA[In the natural world, privacy is a social contract: a tacit agreement that we respect others&#8217; private spaces. We guard those spaces with the privacy tech we call clothing and shelter. We also signal what&#8217;s okay and what&#8217;s not using language and gestures. &#8220;Manners&#8221; are as formal as the social contract for privacy gets, but [&#8230;]]]></description>
  104. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_19411" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19411" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-19411" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Contract-Exchange-Process-1024x683.png" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Contract-Exchange-Process-1024x683.png 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Contract-Exchange-Process-300x200.png 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Contract-Exchange-Process-768x512.png 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Contract-Exchange-Process.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19411" class="wp-caption-text">SD-BASE is a contract you might proffer that means <em>service delivery only</em>. It makes explicit the tacit understanding we have when we go into a store for the first time: that the store&#8217;s service is what you came for, and nothing more. Other terms from a roster of MyTerms choices might allow, for example, anonymous use of personal data for AI training. Or for intentcast signaling*.</figcaption></figure>
  105. <p>In the natural world, privacy is a social contract: a tacit agreement that we respect others&#8217; private spaces. We guard those spaces with the privacy tech we call clothing and shelter. We also signal what&#8217;s okay and what&#8217;s not using language and gestures. &#8220;Manners&#8221; are as formal as the social contract for privacy gets, but those manners are a stratum in the bedrock on which we have built civilization for thousands of years.</p>
  106. <p>We don&#8217;t have privacy online. Not when the owner of a store who would never think of planting tracking beacons inside the clothes of visiting customers does exactly that on the company website. Tracking people is business-as-usual online.</p>
  107. <p>The reason we can&#8217;t have the same social contract for privacy in the online world as we do in the offline one is that the online world isn&#8217;t tacit. It can&#8217;t be. Everything there is digital: ones, zeroes, bits, bytes, and program logic. If we want privacy in the online world, we need to make it an explicit requirement.</p>
  108. <p>Policy won&#8217;t do it. The GDPR, CCPA, and the DMA are just inconveniences for the $trillion-plus adtech (tracking-based advertising) fecosystem. The biggest violators look at paying a billion-euro fine as a cost of doing business.</p>
  109. <p>&#8220;Consent&#8221; through cookie notices doesn&#8217;t work because you have no way of knowing if what they call &#8220;your choices&#8221; are followed. Neither does the website, because it jobs that work out to OneTrust, Admiral, or some other CMP (consent management platform). And those companies  also don&#8217;t know or much care. Their job is mostly to bias &#8220;your choices&#8221; toward agreement to keep being tracked.</p>
  110. <p>Polite requests also don&#8217;t work. We tried that with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track">Do Not Track</a>, and by the time it finished failing, the adtech lobby had turned it into <a href="https://www.w3.org/2011/tracking-protection/drafts/tracking-dnt.html">Tracking Preference Expression</a>—as if we wanted to be tracked all along.</p>
  111. <p>What we need are <em>contracts</em>—ones <em>you</em> proffer and sites and services agree to. Contracts are explicit, and the only way to make personal privacy work in the online world. They&#8217;re also backed by contract law, which has been with us since civilization began.</p>
  112. <p>This is why we&#8217;ve been working for eight years on the <a href="https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/7012/7192/">IEEE P7012 Draft Standard for Machine Readable Personal Privacy Terms</a>, aka <a href="https://doc.searls.com/myterms/">MyTerms</a>. With MyTerms, you are the first party, and the site or service is the second party. You present an agreement chosen from a limited roster posted on the public website of a disinterested nonprofit, such as <a href="https://customercommons.org/">Customer Commons</a>, which was built foro exactly this purpose. When the other side agrees, you both keep an identical record. (The idea is for Customer Commons to be for privacy contracts what <a href="https://creativecommons.org">Creative Commons</a> is for copyright licenses.)</p>
  113. <p>MyTerms might look scary to business-as-usual. But so did the PC, the Internet, and the smartphone. All did far more for business than the incumbent systems they obsolesced. When customers and companies start relating as partners who fully respect each other, the range of what&#8217;s possible in business widens much farther than what the old tracking-based fecosystem will allow.</p>
  114. <p>We can explore those frontiers in other posts. Right now, I just want to make clear that contract is the only way to personal privacy online. And MyTerms will get us started.</p>
  115. <hr />
  116. <p>*<a href="https://projectvrm.org/2024/08/28/on-intentcasting/">Intentasting</a> is where you let a market of qualified sellers know what you&#8217;re looking for, in ways that preserve your privacy.</p>
  117. ]]></content:encoded>
  119. <wfw:commentRss>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/11/privacy-is-a-contract/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  120. <slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
  123. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">19401</post-id> </item>
  124. <item>
  125. <title>Remembering R.C. Ward</title>
  126. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/09/remembering-r-c-ward/</link>
  127. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/09/remembering-r-c-ward/#respond</comments>
  129. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  130. <pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2025 02:33:43 +0000</pubDate>
  131. <category><![CDATA[North Carolina]]></category>
  132. <category><![CDATA[Obituary]]></category>
  133. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19386</guid>
  134.  
  135. <description><![CDATA[The first thing R.C. Ward taught in our biology class at Guilford College was his eponymous Law: &#8220;If it works, it&#8217;s good.&#8221; He frequently mentioned Ward&#8217;s Law by name and required it as an answer to nearly every test. As Richard Nilsen explains here, Professor Ward was not a normal dude: It was 1966 and I was [&#8230;]]]></description>
  136. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://richardnilsen.com/2017/12/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-19393" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/richard-c-ward-1.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="601" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/richard-c-ward-1.jpg 600w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/richard-c-ward-1-300x300.jpg 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/richard-c-ward-1-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a></p>
  137. <p>The first thing R.C. Ward taught in our biology class at <a href="https://www.guilford.edu/">Guilford College</a> was his eponymous Law:</p>
  138. <p style="text-align: center;">&#8220;If it works, it&#8217;s good.&#8221;</p>
  139. <p style="text-align: left;">He frequently mentioned Ward&#8217;s Law by name and required it as an answer to nearly every test. As <a href="https://richardnilsen.com/">Richard Nilsen</a> explains <a href="https://richardnilsen.com/tag/french-revolution/">here</a>, Professor Ward was not a normal dude:</p>
  140. <blockquote><p>It was 1966 and I was a freshman in college taking an intro to biology class with Richard Carleton Ward, a teacher of peculiar manners and prejudices. I could write a whole chapter on him, the way he spoke out of the side of his mouth in a gravelly grunt, the way he bought conspiracy theories, his suburban house blocked from view in a bourgeois neighborhood by a jungle of bamboo, vines and weeds.  He wrote an article for the underground newspaper I was publishing in which he complained ferociously about students’ inability to spell the word, “spaghetti.”</p></blockquote>
  141. <p>From<a href="https://richardnilsen.com/2017/12/"> another Richard Nilsen post</a>:</p>
  142. <blockquote><p>One day, he brought a potted plant to class, and as the bell sounded, he held it up in front of us. “This is the sacred lotus of India,” he said through his teeth. “It sheds water as we are supposed to shed our sins.” He took up a pitcher of water and poured it over the plant, dripping onto the floor, saying to us in biblical voice, “Go forth and sin no more.”</p></blockquote>
  143. <p>In that same post, Richard reminded me of another Ward&#8217;s Law:</p>
  144. <blockquote><p>His explanation of sex on campus was: “Some do, some don’t.”</p></blockquote>
  145. <p>He pronounced &#8220;some&#8221; with a whistled s. That went for every word with an s or a c that sounded like s, such as in the word &#8220;pronounced.&#8221; All came not just with an ssss sound, but with a <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f617.png" alt="😗" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />.</p>
  146. <p>So let&#8217;s call those Ward&#8217;s First and Second Laws:</p>
  147. <ol>
  148. <li>If it work<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f617.png" alt="😗" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />, it&#8217;<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f617.png" alt="😗" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> good.</li>
  149. <li><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f617.png" alt="😗" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />ome do, and <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f617.png" alt="😗" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />ome don&#8217;t.</li>
  150. </ol>
  151. <p>There is a lot more about Professor Ward in <a href="https://www.green-wood.com/">Green-Wood.com</a>&#8216;s <a href="https://www.green-wood.com/2021/world-war-ii-project-fourth/">WWII project, featuring biographies of deceased soldiers with surnames running from Pizza to Zeldmann</a>. Scroll way down and you&#8217;ll find eight paragraphs above this shot of his grave marker:</p>
  152. <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.green-wood.com/2021/world-war-ii-project-fourth/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-19391" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ward.richardcarleton.vagravestone-1024x555.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="555" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ward.richardcarleton.vagravestone-1024x555.jpg 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ward.richardcarleton.vagravestone-300x162.jpg 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ward.richardcarleton.vagravestone-768x416.jpg 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ward.richardcarleton.vagravestone-1536x832.jpg 1536w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ward.richardcarleton.vagravestone.jpg 1778w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></p>
  153. <p>Because you probably won&#8217;t click on the photo or the link above it, and I want to give the man and his laws full respect, here are those paragraphs:</p>
  154. <blockquote><p><strong>WARD, RICHARD CARLETON</strong> (1916-2005). Sergeant, United States Army. The Ward family members were among the early English settlers in Rhode Island, arriving in the 1670s. John Ward had been an officer in one of Cromwell’s cavalry regiments, arriving in America from Gloucester, England, after the accession of King Charles II. Another ancestor married the son of Benedict Arnold. Burr H. Nicholls and Rhoda Holmes Nicholls, Richard Carleton Ward’s maternal grandparents, were both noted artists. Burr Nicholls was an oil painter and Rhoda Holmes Nicholls was a painter, water colorist, and art editor in the early 1900s.</p>
  155. <p>The 1918 Darien, Connecticut City Directory records the Ward family living on Runkenhage Road in the Tokeneke neighborhood. On March 19, 1927, Richard Ward was listed as sailing from London, England on the SS <em>American Shipper</em>, arriving in New York on March 30, 1927, with his mother Olive Nicholls Ward, age 39, and his sister, Alida Carleton Ward, age 18. Richard, 10 years old, was listed as having been born in Darien, while his mother and sister were listed as born in New York City.</p>
  156. <p>The 1930 federal census lists Richard Ward’s father, Henry Marion Ward, who was 59 and a lawyer at a law office. His mother, Olive, was 42 and an interior decorator. Sister Alida was 15 and Richard was 13. The home they lived in was valued as $60,000. Richard’s grandparents were all born in New York, except for his maternal grandmother, who was born in England. The family also had a female servant living with them, listed as a 46-year-old “Negro” born in North Carolina.</p>
  157. <p>Richard Ward registered in Darien for the draft on October 16, 1940, when he was 24 years old. He listed his date of birth as August 17, 1916, in Darien, and his residence as on Runkenhage Road in Darien. His contact was his mother Olive Nicholls Ward who also lived at that same address. Richard worked at S. W. Hoyt Jr. Co., Inc. on Washington Street in South Norwalk, Connecticut. He was 6′ 4½” tall and weighed 165 pounds, with a light complexion, blue eyes, and brown hair. He had a small scar on his left shoulder. He signed his registration card as “R. Carleton Ward.” He enlisted in the United States Army on December 17, 1943, and was discharged on November 5, 1949, according to Department of Veterans Affairs records.</p>
  158. <p>Family trees on the ancestry website indicate that Richard married Antonina Pavlova in Canada in 1949. Per Antonina’s obituary in the <em>Greensboro News &amp; Record</em>, she was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, had been a prisoner of war and, after being liberated by the Allied Forces in Austria, she met United States Army Sergeant Richard Carleton Ward there. The 1950 federal census confirms their marriage, showing Ward’s age as 31 and Antonia’s as 26. Per the 1950 United States census, they were living in New London, Connecticut, along with their newborn daughter, who had been born in Canada in August 1949, but was an American citizen. The additional information for Ward shows that he had been living at Westerly, Rhode Island, the previous year, that he had finished one year of college, and that he had served in World War II, but there was no job listed, although he was not noted as unemployed.</p>
  159. <p>Antonina Ward’s 1954 naturalization record, issued in 1954 in Hartford, Connecticut, shows her residing at Bay Road in Amherst, Massachusetts. In the 1950s, Richard Carleton Ward was a botany instructor at the University of Vermont, holding a Bachelor of Arts degree and appointed in 1954, according to the school’s catalogs for 1954-55 and 1955-56. The 1956 Burlington, Vermont City Directory lists Richard and Antonina as living in Vermont. Ward was active in botanical societies and contributed to collections in many parts of the United States. For example, in 1961, he submitted several samples to the Southern Appalachian Botanical Club. Later, he was a biology professor at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina.</p>
  160. <p>According to Ward’s daughter Tanya, Ward and his wife had three daughters, Tamara Olive Ward, Lalla Ward Reid, and Tanya Ward Feagins. The 1970 North Carolina Divorce Index shows that Ward and his wife were divorced on November 30, 1970, in Guilford, North Carolina. In 1994, Ward was living at 8101 Oak Arbor Road in Greensboro, North Carolina and, in 1995, at 410 Guilford Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina. Per Social Security records, Ward passed away on December 2, 2005. The Piedmont Bird Club of Greensboro, North Carolina, posted an obituary of Ward in their February-April 2006 newsletter. He was known as Carl and was active in the club for many years. He was an activist and lover of nature.</p>
  161. <p>Ward was interred on October 10, 2007, in the same section as his father. His daughter Tamara’s 2014 obituary in the <em>Greensboro News &amp; Record</em>, states that she was laid to rest in what was termed “the Ward family ancestral burial site.” “Professor Ward Devoted to Preserving the Environment” is carved on his gravestone. Section 77, lot 72.</p></blockquote>
  162. <p>Some possibly interesting bonus facts:</p>
  163. <ol>
  164. <li>I started hunting down data on Professor Ward when I wanted to credit the source of Ward&#8217;s First Law, which I haven&#8217;t forgotten in the sixty years since I learned it. Short on luck in my diggings, I asked ChatGPT for help, and it produced both of the sources I used above.</li>
  165. <li>One of those sources, Richard Nilsen, was a year behind me at Guilford, so I am sure that, being a small college (around just 800 students), we at least breathed some of the same air now and then.</li>
  166. <li><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22Richard+Nilsen%22">Richard is a known—and excellent—writer, and much else</a>. It is a treat to have discovered him after all these decades. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we are both from New Jersey. Related fact:::</li>
  167. <li>New Jersey, until the last few decades, was bereft of state colleges and universities of any prestige, other than Rutgers. So New Jersey exported more college students to colleges and universities elsewhere than any other US state. In fact, I was accepted at Guilford only because, despite bad grades and SAT scores, I wasn&#8217;t from North Carolina and would commit to come on &#8220;early decision.&#8221;</li>
  168. <li>I can&#8217;t find an image of one, but I recall seeing blue bumper stickers that said, &#8220;DUKE The University of New Jersey at Durham.&#8221;</li>
  169. <li>My two oldest kids are related to the Ward family. That&#8217;s because Professor Ward&#8217;s daughter Tanya married David Feagins, son of Professor Carroll S. Feagins, who headed the Guilford Philosophy Department, where I majored. David&#8217;s brother married the sister of my first wife (both kids of Hiram H. Hilty, another faculty member), and their daughter is a first cousin to both of my kids by that first wife, making Professor Ward their great-uncle by marriage. I think I have that right. I hadn&#8217;t thought about any of that until I read the long biography above.</li>
  170. <li>Guilford in those days required that graduating students prove proficiency in a second language. I studied no language at Guilford, and my joke about German was that I took two years of it in high school—one of them twice—and gave them back when I was done. But, German was the only second language I might claim, I submitted to a test by the German expert at Guilford: Mary Feagins, wife of Carroll S. Feagins, and future grandma to my kids&#8217; first cousin. Her test required that I read two pages of German out loud from a textbook, and then translate it. She passed me, saying &#8220;I&#8217;ve never met anyone who could pronounce a language better while understanding it less.&#8221;</li>
  171. <li>Guilford has had <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=guilford+college+financial+problems">financial woes</a> in recent years, which is why, five years ago, I made<a href="https://doc.searls.com/2020/12/23/guilford/"> a radically simple recommendation</a> for it. They haven&#8217;t followed my advice, but I still stand by it.</li>
  172. </ol>
  173. ]]></content:encoded>
  175. <wfw:commentRss>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/09/remembering-r-c-ward/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  176. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
  179. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">19386</post-id> </item>
  180. <item>
  181. <title>Tis the Seasons</title>
  182. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/08/tis-the-seasons/</link>
  183. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/08/tis-the-seasons/#comments</comments>
  185. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  186. <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 03:44:20 +0000</pubDate>
  187. <category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
  188. <category><![CDATA[Holiday]]></category>
  189. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19379</guid>
  190.  
  191. <description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s a battle of the holidays at the Sam&#8217;s Club here in Bloomington: Christmas on one aisle and Halloween on the next one, back-to-back. Hey! Come in and stock up on stuff that occupies otherwise useful space for 350 partially overlapping non-seasonal days of the year! At least this stuff (at Sam&#8217;s Club in June) [&#8230;]]]></description>
  192. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-19380" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/xmas-vs-haloween-1024x719.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="719" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/xmas-vs-haloween-1024x719.jpg 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/xmas-vs-haloween-300x211.jpg 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/xmas-vs-haloween-768x539.jpg 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/xmas-vs-haloween-1536x1079.jpg 1536w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/xmas-vs-haloween-2048x1439.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>
  193. <p>It&#8217;s a battle of the holidays at the Sam&#8217;s Club here in Bloomington: Christmas on one aisle and Halloween on the next one, back-to-back. Hey! Come in and stock up on stuff that occupies otherwise useful space for 350 partially overlapping non-seasonal days of the year!</p>
  194. <p>At least this stuff (at Sam&#8217;s Club in June) tends to get used up, and not stored in your attic:</p>
  195. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-19381" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fireworks-1024x789.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="789" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fireworks-1024x789.jpg 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fireworks-300x231.jpg 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fireworks-768x592.jpg 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fireworks-1536x1183.jpg 1536w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/fireworks-2048x1578.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>
  196. <p>Unless you&#8217;re in Indiana, I suppose. Wondering what percentage of customers store their un-launched fireworks at home, I&#8217;ve found nothing about Indiana or the U.S., but I did find <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60a67cb08fa8f520c79e881e/consumer-behaviours-and-attitudes-to-fireworks-report.pdf">Consumer Behaviours and Attitudes to Fireworks</a> in the UK. An excerpt: &#8220;Once bought, two-fifths (43%) of people store fireworks in the house, a fifth (20%) in the garage and a sixth (15%) in the shed.&#8221; So there ya go.</p>
  197. ]]></content:encoded>
  199. <wfw:commentRss>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/08/tis-the-seasons/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  200. <slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
  203. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">19379</post-id> </item>
  204. <item>
  205. <title>Some Pix  and a Few Words About IIW</title>
  206. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/04/some-pix-and-a-few-words-about-iiw/</link>
  207. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/04/some-pix-and-a-few-words-about-iiw/#respond</comments>
  209. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  210. <pubDate>Thu, 04 Sep 2025 14:46:25 +0000</pubDate>
  211. <category><![CDATA[Archives]]></category>
  212. <category><![CDATA[history]]></category>
  213. <category><![CDATA[Identity]]></category>
  214. <category><![CDATA[iiw]]></category>
  215. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19363</guid>
  216.  
  217. <description><![CDATA[I wrote for Linux Journal from 1996 to 2019, and have been involved with IIW since I helped start it in 2005. So, in an effort to help substantiate a future Wikipedia article on IIW, I wanted a list of all my Linux Journal contributions mentioning &#8220;IIW&#8221; and/or &#8220;Internet Identity Workshop.&#8221; (Never mind that my [&#8230;]]]></description>
  218. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_19364" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19364" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://flickr.com/search/?user_id=52614599%40N00&amp;sort=interestingness-desc&amp;text=iiw&amp;view_all=1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-19364" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/iiw-photos-from-flickr-1024x712.png" alt="" width="1024" height="712" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/iiw-photos-from-flickr-1024x712.png 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/iiw-photos-from-flickr-300x209.png 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/iiw-photos-from-flickr-768x534.png 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/iiw-photos-from-flickr-1536x1068.png 1536w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/iiw-photos-from-flickr-2048x1424.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19364" class="wp-caption-text">A top few (said by the site to be the most interesting) of the thousands of IIWs since 2005 that I&#8217;ve posted on Flickr.</figcaption></figure>
  219. <p>I wrote for <a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/"><em>Linux Journal</em></a> from 1996 to 2019, and have been involved with <a href="https://iiworkshop.org">IIW</a> since I helped start it in 2005. So, in an effort to help substantiate a future Wikipedia article on IIW, I wanted a list of all my <em>Linux Journal</em> contributions mentioning &#8220;IIW&#8221; and/or &#8220;Internet Identity Workshop.&#8221; (Never mind that my founding role with IIW may disqualify that list from citation. I still wanted it.) So I asked Gemini and ChatGPT separately to provide me with one, and in chronological order. Gemini gave me just three. ChatGPT gave me the whole list, which I already knew by looking through the /linuxjournal/ directory on my hard drive. (I just didn&#8217;t want to hand-organize them chronologically.) So, surfacing the effort, here ya go:</p>
  220. <ul>
  221. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/lets-go-bust-some-silos">Let’s go bust some silos</a></li>
  222. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/can-we-relate">Can we relate?</a></li>
  223. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/getting-beyond-brads-paradox">Getting beyond Brad’s Paradox</a></li>
  224. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/open-source-approach-fixing-public-media-funding">An open source approach to fixing public media funding</a></li>
  225. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/magazine/eof-driving-markets-our-own-kernels">EOF – Driving Markets from Our Own Kernels</a></li>
  226. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/who-controls-your-data">Who Controls Your Data?</a></li>
  227. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/cluetrain-fifteen-0">Cluetrain at Fifteen</a></li>
  228. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/true-internet-things">The True Internet of Things</a></li>
  229. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/dealing-boundary-issues">Dealing with Boundary Issues</a></li>
  230. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/identity-our-last-stand">Identity: Our Last Stand</a></li>
  231. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/new-hope-digital-identity">New Hope for Digital Identity</a></li>
  232. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/cookies-go-other-way">Cookies That Go the Other Way</a></li>
  233. <li><a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/how-can-we-bring-foss-virtual-world">How Can We Bring FOSS to the Virtual World?</a></li>
  234. </ul>
  235. <p>FWIW, https://www.linuxjournal.com/search/ at <em>Linux Journal</em> no longer works. Images are also gone from most of the pieces themselves. But it is truly great that <em>Linux Journal</em> is still alive, and the archives are there and link-able. Hats off to <a href="https://slashdotmedia.com/">Slashdot Media</a> for keeping it up.</p>
  236. <hr />
  237. <p>For a time in the &#8217;00s, I wrote a newsletter for <em>Linux Journal</em> that isn&#8217;t anywhere online. I think I&#8217;ll put that up somewhere at searls.com, eventually.</p>
  238. <p>In case you didn&#8217;t click on the photo collection above, the link is <a href="https://flickr.com/search/?user_id=52614599%40N00&amp;sort=interestingness-desc&amp;text=iiw&amp;view_all=1">here</a>.</p>
  239. ]]></content:encoded>
  241. <wfw:commentRss>https://doc.searls.com/2025/09/04/some-pix-and-a-few-words-about-iiw/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  242. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
  245. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">19363</post-id> </item>
  246. <item>
  247. <title>A Small Request to the Goodwill Folks</title>
  248. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/30/a-small-request-to-the-goodwill-folks/</link>
  249. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/30/a-small-request-to-the-goodwill-folks/#comments</comments>
  251. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  252. <pubDate>Sat, 30 Aug 2025 17:17:17 +0000</pubDate>
  253. <category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
  254. <category><![CDATA[VRM]]></category>
  255. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19354</guid>
  256.  
  257. <description><![CDATA[Please find pricing labels that stick well enough to do their job, and the customer can get off without too much work. Thanks! P.S. In an unrelated matter, Grammarly suggested rewriting that second sentence this way: Please find pricing labels that adhere well enough to perform their intended function, yet can be easily removed by [&#8230;]]]></description>
  258. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_19355" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19355" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-19355" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-30-at-1.11.17-PM-1024x513.png" alt="" width="1024" height="513" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-30-at-1.11.17-PM-1024x513.png 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-30-at-1.11.17-PM-300x150.png 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-30-at-1.11.17-PM-768x385.png 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-30-at-1.11.17-PM.png 1250w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19355" class="wp-caption-text">A Goodwill price sticker before and after I failed to peel and scrape it completely off.</figcaption></figure>
  259. <p>Please find pricing labels that stick well enough to do their job, and the customer can get off without too much work.</p>
  260. <p>Thanks!</p>
  261. <p>P.S. In an unrelated matter, Grammarly suggested rewriting that second sentence this way:</p>
  262. <p>Please find pricing labels that adhere well enough to perform their intended function, yet can be easily removed by the customer without excessive effort.</p>
  263. <p>Which is better? (Note: I&#8217;m posting this thing in a rush between runs to a Costco an hour away from here.)</p>
  264. ]]></content:encoded>
  266. <wfw:commentRss>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/30/a-small-request-to-the-goodwill-folks/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  267. <slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
  270. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">19354</post-id> </item>
  271. <item>
  272. <title>Speaking as a Great Lakes Megacitizen</title>
  273. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/26/speaking-as-a-great-lakes-megacitizen/</link>
  274. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/26/speaking-as-a-great-lakes-megacitizen/#comments</comments>
  276. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  277. <pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:17:03 +0000</pubDate>
  278. <category><![CDATA[Civics]]></category>
  279. <category><![CDATA[Geography]]></category>
  280. <category><![CDATA[infrastructure]]></category>
  281. <category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
  282. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19340</guid>
  283.  
  284. <description><![CDATA[In Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America, Alec MacGillis notes that the city at the center of a circle containing the largest population within a one-day drive is Dayton, Ohio. You can kinda see that in the map above, which I discovered through Brilliant Maps. They got it from the highly precient Defining US [&#8230;]]]></description>
  285. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_19341" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19341" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://brilliantmaps.com/usa-mega-regions/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-19341" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Emerging_US_megaregions_with_cities_labeled-1024x682.png" alt="" width="1024" height="682" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Emerging_US_megaregions_with_cities_labeled-1024x682.png 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Emerging_US_megaregions_with_cities_labeled-300x200.png 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Emerging_US_megaregions_with_cities_labeled-768x512.png 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Emerging_US_megaregions_with_cities_labeled-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Emerging_US_megaregions_with_cities_labeled-2048x1365.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19341" class="wp-caption-text">I&#8217;m in the little circle southwest of Indianapolis.</figcaption></figure>
  286. <p>In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulfillment_(book)"><em>Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America</em></a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_MacGillis">Alec MacGillis</a> notes that the city at the center of a circle containing the largest population within a one-day drive is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton,_Ohio">Dayton, Ohio</a>. You can kinda see that in <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emerging_US_megaregions_with_cities_labeled.png">the map above</a>, which I discovered through <a href="https://brilliantmaps.com/usa-mega-regions/">Brilliant Maps</a>. They got it from the highly precient <a href="https://rpa.org/work/reports/defining-u-s-megaregions">Defining US Megaregions</a>, published by the <a href="https://rpa.org/">Regional Plan Association</a> in 2009, long before interstate highways across the US became flanked by transport transfer buildings big enough hold five Costcos, and trucks hadn&#8217;t yet threatened to outnumber cars on major highways.</p>
  287. <p>When we got a place in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomington,_Indiana">Bloomington</a> four years ago, we thought the town was basically isolated. But we quickly found that we were kinda close to a mess of major league cities. Indianapolis is closest, less than an hour up I-69. Louisville is a bit under two hours away. Cincinnati is about two and a half hours. Columbus is three hours. Chicago is a bit under four hours. Same with St. Louis. Detroit is five hours, and Milwaukee a few minutes more. Cleveland is five and a half. All of these cities are options for a day trip, and we&#8217;ve been doing our best to visit them all.</p>
  288. <p>On trips to these cities, we&#8217;ve noticed that open country between them is part of what makes them cohere as a region: a feature rather than a bug— especially as the truck traffic between them gets thicker:</p>
  289. <figure id="attachment_19346" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19346" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/2uNK4ASvv4KWbmnQA"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-19346" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025_08_09_dayton-traffic-jam_26m-1024x319.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="319" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025_08_09_dayton-traffic-jam_26m-1024x319.jpg 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025_08_09_dayton-traffic-jam_26m-300x93.jpg 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025_08_09_dayton-traffic-jam_26m-768x239.jpg 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025_08_09_dayton-traffic-jam_26m-1536x478.jpg 1536w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025_08_09_dayton-traffic-jam_26m-2048x637.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19346" class="wp-caption-text">Trucks, mostly, passing one of many &#8220;cross-dock,&#8221; &#8220;transload,&#8221; &#8220;parcel hub,&#8221; and &#8220;distribution centers&#8221; alongside I-70 on the northwest corner of Dayton, Ohio. Shot this when I was driving through earlier this month.</figcaption></figure>
  290. <p>There is something new about all this.</p>
  291. <p>What&#8217;s old are <a href="https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2025/what-is-a-designated-market-area-and-why-does-it-matter/">Designated Market Areas, or DMAs</a>, also known as<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_market"> TMAs, or Televsion Market Areas</a>:</p>
  292. <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_stations_in_North_America_by_media_market#/media/File:US_TV_Market_Map.svg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-19347" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/tma-1024x582.png" alt="" width="1024" height="582" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/tma-1024x582.png 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/tma-300x171.png 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/tma-768x437.png 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/tma-1536x873.png 1536w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/tma-2048x1165.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></p>
  293. <p>These are (or were) defined by the collections of TV stations that households watched most. My company was once hired by the three major network stations in the Greenville-New Bern-Washington DMA to help pull viewers in Nash, Wilson, and Wayne Counties away from stations on the same networks in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill market. All stations on both sides had built 2000-foot towers to maximize their signals across overlapping counties. It was quite the war. (One we lost, but that&#8217;s another story.)</p>
  294. <p>By now, TV watching has <a href="https://doc.searls.com/2025/05/05/the-offing-of-whats-on/">drifted from &#8220;What&#8217;s On&#8221;</a> to &#8220;What&#8217;s Where.&#8221; And there are a zillion choices of &#8220;where&#8221;: everything on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, on-demand subscription streaming services such as Netflix, HBO, Prime, Disney+, and your nearby cities&#8217; TV stations. Inside that broad and growing mix, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5250013-legacy-broadcasters-account-for-just-over-10-percent-of-tv-viewership-in-march/">TV stations&#8217; slice of the pie is smaller</a> every day.</p>
  295. <p>Regions now are defined more by commercial connections. Across transport &#8220;corridors,&#8221; forests and farmlands contextualize connected cities with wide rural frames. In McLuhan&#8217;s terms, the medium sending the message is the countryside flanking transport corridors between cities. I suspect this is true of all these megaregions, in different ways. Even the highly urbanized Northeast megaregion has lots of wild and open rural areas packed between their cities.</p>
  296. <p>And what organizes the flow of all that commerce? <a href="https://www.dhl.com/discover/en-global/logistics-advice/import-export-advice/what-is-logistics">Logistics</a>. Which is digital, and for decades has been full of AI.</p>
  297. <p>My thoughts on all this are just starting rather than finishing. I think a good place to do that together is by reading <a href="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rpa-org/pdfs/2050-Paper-Defining-US-Megaregions.pdf">the study that got this started</a>.</p>
  298. ]]></content:encoded>
  300. <wfw:commentRss>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/26/speaking-as-a-great-lakes-megacitizen/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  301. <slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
  304. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">19340</post-id> </item>
  305. <item>
  306. <title>The Hotel Model of AI</title>
  307. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/23/the-hotel-model-of-ai/</link>
  308. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/23/the-hotel-model-of-ai/#comments</comments>
  310. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  311. <pubDate>Sat, 23 Aug 2025 20:33:53 +0000</pubDate>
  312. <category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
  313. <category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
  314. <category><![CDATA[Personal AI]]></category>
  315. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19321</guid>
  316.  
  317. <description><![CDATA[What I like best about Keith Teare&#8216;s latest essay, Who Owns The Front Door to AI? If it isn&#8217;t you, its game over, is that it sounds like he&#8217;s setting up the case for personal AI. But he&#8217;s not. He&#8217;s describing how our AI-assisted lives will get sucked through better interfaces deep into one or more [&#8230;]]]></description>
  318. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><center><a href="https://www.thatwastheweek.com/p/who-owns-the-front-door-to-ai"><img decoding="async" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/who-owns-the-front-door-1024x640.png" alt="" width="60%" height="image" /></a></center>What I like best about <a href="https://www.thatwastheweek.com/">Keith Teare</a>&#8216;s latest essay, <a href="https://www.thatwastheweek.com/p/who-owns-the-front-door-to-ai">Who Owns The Front Door to AI? If it isn&#8217;t you, its game over,</a> is that it sounds like he&#8217;s setting up the case for <a href="https://doc.searls.com/personal-ai/">personal AI</a>.</p>
  319. <p>But he&#8217;s not. He&#8217;s describing how our AI-assisted lives will get sucked through better interfaces deep into one or more of AI&#8217;s giant castles, as &#8220;the chat interface replaces the browser as the primary user interface for computing on the web.&#8221;</p>
  320. <p>His case is not pretty, but it is clear, thoughtful, knowing, and well-described. He concludes, &#8220;<b data-stringify-type="bold">Bottom line:</b> Winners will own a <b data-stringify-type="bold">trusted front door</b> with standards and auditing and settlements behind it—and help teams actually change how they work and consumers find what they want without dethroning content owners. Everyone else will keep shipping demos into a narrowing feed.&#8221;</p>
  321. <p>Note that the winners are giants. You and I? We&#8217;re just consumers. Our agency in this system will be no greater than what these giants allow us. Each giant will be (hell, already is) a hotel with a know-it-all concierge who can get us what we want, within the hotel&#8217;s confines. But the space is not ours. So, what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cluetrain_Manifesto">Cluetrain</a> said in 1999—</p>
  322. <p><center><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/not.gif" alt="cluetrain" width="484" height="61" /></center>—will remain untrue.</p>
  323. <p>And the only way our reach will exceed their grasp is with our own <a href="https://doc.searls.com/personal-ai/">personal AI</a>. Simple as that.</p>
  324. ]]></content:encoded>
  326. <wfw:commentRss>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/23/the-hotel-model-of-ai/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  327. <slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
  330. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">19321</post-id> </item>
  331. <item>
  332. <title>Happy 79th Anniversary</title>
  333. <link>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/17/happy-79th-anniversary/</link>
  334. <comments>https://doc.searls.com/2025/08/17/happy-79th-anniversary/#respond</comments>
  336. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Doc Searls]]></dc:creator>
  337. <pubDate>Sun, 17 Aug 2025 18:25:00 +0000</pubDate>
  338. <category><![CDATA[Archives]]></category>
  339. <category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
  340. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://doc.searls.com/?p=19302</guid>
  341.  
  342. <description><![CDATA[Happy for my sister and me, who are both still alive and well. I&#8217;m also happy for the thirty-three years Eleanor and Allen made a life and a family together. They were great people, great parents, great teachers, great friends to many, and much more. Both are still missed. Some links: Their wedding Eleanor Searls Allen [&#8230;]]]></description>
  343. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_19303" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19303" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/albums/72157623237284390"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-19303" src="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/4285293003_9e9bffd7e4_o-1024x844.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="844" srcset="https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/4285293003_9e9bffd7e4_o-1024x844.jpg 1024w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/4285293003_9e9bffd7e4_o-300x247.jpg 300w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/4285293003_9e9bffd7e4_o-768x633.jpg 768w, https://doc.searls.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/4285293003_9e9bffd7e4_o.jpg 1325w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19303" class="wp-caption-text">Eleanor and Allen Searls, at their wedding in Minneapolis on this day in 1946.</figcaption></figure>
  344. <p>Happy for my sister and me, who are both still alive and well. I&#8217;m also happy for the thirty-three years Eleanor and Allen made a life and a family together. They were great people, great parents, great teachers, great friends to many, and much more. Both are still missed. Some links:</p>
  345. <ul>
  346. <li><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/albums/72157623237284390/">Their wedding</a></li>
  347. <li><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/albums/72157627459328424/">Eleanor Searls</a></li>
  348. <li><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/albums/72157627459297180/">Allen Searls</a></li>
  349. </ul>
  350. <p>Later&#8230; I also did some digging through 2011 correspondence with local realtor Tom Dunn, who said the wedding took place at the late Grace Methodist Church. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/OldNorthMinneapolis/posts/515881641952502/">This Facebook post</a> says the church was at &#8220;2125 Thirty Third Avenue North,&#8221; but that does not appear to be a valid address. But the photo matches <a href="https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/collection/MHPC/id/1438/">this one</a> in the <a href="https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/collection/MHPC/id/1438/">Hennepin County Library&#8217;s digital collection</a>. It&#8217;s 2501 NE Taylor Street in Minneapolis. The closest match on Google StreetView is <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/CPV3EcbYz8sk978aA">this one here</a>. Tom sent literature on the property, which was then for sale. About the building, it says, &#8220;The Church community at the property began in the 1880s when the first sanctuary was built. Then, between 1915 and 1918, a new sanctuary was constructed alongside.&#8221; The church was being sold off because its congregation merged with a larger one in 2011.</p>
  351. <p>Still, it could be that Mom and Pop got married at a different Methodist church in Minneapolis. Possibilities:</p>
  352. <ul>
  353. <li>2125 Thirty Third Avenue North, Minneapolis. According to <a href="https://allofminneapolis.com/southern-folwell-66caae43c532">this 2017 piece in Medium</a>, it is &#8220;a church building now housing the <a class="ag nw" href="http://stephaniebond.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Spirit and Truth Worship Center</a>. The original occupant was Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, subsequently Grace United Methodist Church. The original part of the building, on the left of this photo taken from Penn Avenue, <a class="ag nw" href="http://digitalcollections.hclib.org/cdm/ref/collection/PermitCards/id/259228" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">dates from 1920</a>.&#8221; <a href="https://minnesotaumc.pastperfectonline.com/photo/3AC380E0-A156-46D9-8025-184903932972">Here are some historic photos</a>, via the United Methodist Church.</li>
  354. <li>Grace United Methodist (often called “Grace–Lowry”) is the building at 2510 Cleveland St NE, on the corner of Cleveland &amp; Lowry, one block west of Taylor St NE. The congregation still meets there today under the name <a href="https://northeastumc.com/">Northeast United Methodist Church</a>. <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/x9MuuoNkE3JNqNp68">Google&#8217;s latest StreetView, in 2023, shows building renovation going on</a>.</li>
  355. </ul>
  356. <p>I&#8217;m sure there is correspondence from that time in my sister&#8217;s archives or mine that will shed more light on the question. No rush, though. What matters is that the wedding happened, and so did the kids and the grandkids.</p>
  357. ]]></content:encoded>
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