TinyApps.Org Newsletter Issue 4 - Nov 6, 2001
+++NEWS+++
"Games" category added to "Links" page:
Interactive Zork 404 error page
http://thcnet.net/error/404.php
Tiny Windows Games
http://www.tinywindowsgames.com/tiny/
256 byte demo archive
http://www.256b.com/
DOSGames
http://www.dosgames.com/
DOS Games Archive
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/
PCGameworld's "classic" collection
http://www.pcgameworld.com/downloads/retrogaming/
+++NEW APPS+++
privyCrypt 2.6 [198k] {S}+
http://www.cs.uwa.edu.au/~vlchung/code/privyCrypt/
"A simple encryption scheme for people
whose email service providers block
attachments and monitor their email." Palm
OS and Java applet versions also available.
KILL<HTML> [from 8k] +
http://www.protonfx.com/
Removes all HTML tags and JavaScript from
one or more HTML files. DOS and Windows
versions included.
sHTMLc v2.0 [148k] +
http://hjem.get2net.dk/fec/shtmlc/shtmlc.html
Convert characters to character entities
quickly and easily.
XEarth 1.0 [165k] {S}+
http://www.hewgill.com/xearth/index.html
Yes, XEarth has been listed for some time,
but this is a slightly smaller port with
numerous improvements.
MP-Crypt 0.5b [26k] +
http://www.tinyapps.org/mpcrypt.exe
Easy file and directory encryption. Option
to create self-decrypting files. (With the
kind permission of MP-Crypt's author, this
download is hosted on TinyApps. MP-Crypt
0.6 has turned shareware and is twice as
large. As always, download and use at your
own risk and joy.)
+++OUT OF CONTROL+++
This month's article "Out of Control"
appears courtesy of David Weinberger, who
generously agreed to my request to reprint
it here. David is the co-author of the
bestseller The Cluetrain Manifesto,
commentator on National Public Radio's
"All Things Considered," and a columnist
for Darwin Magazine (www.darwinmag.com), KM
World (www.kmworld.com) and Intranet Design
(idm.internet.com). He publishes a free
zine on the effect of the Web on business
and culture (www.hyperorg.com). He has
written for Wired, The Industry Standard,
Harard Business Review, and many more. He
lives in Boston and can be reached at
self@xxxxxxxxxxx
Out of Control
Since dirt was young, we've assumed that
the larger the project, the more control
you need. If you're building a tree house,
you only need one adult and a plan sketched
on the back of an envelope. But if you're
building a project like the Hoover Dam, you
need entire floors of managers, and then to
manage the managers you need a hierarchy
and organizational charts and preferential
parking spaces. And then you'll bring in
management consultants to figure out how to
manage the managers who are managing the
managers. The bigger the project, the more
control. In fact, the amount of control
required is proportional not just to the
size of the project but to its complexity.
But, what is by far the most complex
network ever constructed on this planet?
And what is by far the largest collection
of writings and music and other human
communications ever assembled? The Web. And
how many managers did it take to build the
Web? Hmm, let's see ... carry the one ...
divide by pi .... Zero! Zero managers. The
most complex technological infrastructure
ever built was created with essentially no
layers of control.
And, even more important, with the lack of
control comes the lack of permission. The
Web's inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, originally
conceived of it to enable scientists to
link to one another's work without
permission. Despite the best efforts of
legislators, corporate executives and other
control junkies, the Web is still largely
permission-free. Whose permission do you
need if you want to build a site, post a
page, send a message to a discussion group?
A duly authorized official? Your parents'?
Tim Berners-Lee's? No, just your own.
Compare this to an institution as humane as
your local public library. If you want to
donate a book, someone's going to have to
fill in a form, take it to a committee, get
permission, decide on a classification,
fill out another form, and put it on the
shelf. You could have posted the whole
thing on your Web site in one step without
having to ask anyone else about it.
And that's exactly how the Web is being
built, one page at a time, 2 billion and
counting. Before long we'll have more pages
than McDonald's has burgers, and all
because hundreds of millions of people give
themselves permission to build a site, to
post a message to a discussion board, to
send an email...without filling in a single
form or asking a single manager.
This affects life off the Web as well as
on. In environments from home to business,
asking permission has been the norm. On the
Web, it's the exception. Of course this
disturbs control-based institutions:
"You may be able to get away with that behavior
on the Web young man and/or woman, but not here
at Big Co. We can't run a multi-billion dollar
businesss without a power structure, and
performance reviews, and big corner offices for
those in charge."
To which the Web poses the question: Are
you sure? Look at what happened when
Napster, at least temporarily, turned
recordings into a permission- free zone; an
industry overnight was threatened with
being replaced by a movement. (Of course,
Napster also shows what happens when the
incumbents fight back.) A hundred thousand
discussion groups are showing what happens
when expertise is no longer under the lock
and key of official experts. Every
institution in our society is going to be
challenged by a Web generation that no
longer takes it for granted that for a
project to succeed, it must be tightly
controlled. From business to religion to
government, the question is going to be:
Tell me again why I have to ask you for
permission? And if your answer isn't good
enough, you'll not only be disobeyed ...
worse, you'll be ignored.
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