These were the good old days of the Internet, where you could write about Microsoft, and Bill Gates would write back telling you why you were an idiot. (Well, he didn’t actually use that word, but how would you describe: “Nothing I said… could have been misinterpreted to suggest [the idiotic thing you wrote].”)

My favorite piece (so far) is an e-mail that Esther Dyson sent to Dave, which includes these highly prescient lines:

The new wave is not value-added; it’s garbage-subtracted. The job of the future is pr guy, not journalist. I’m too busy reading, so why should I pay for more things to read? Anything anyone didn’t pay to send to me… I’m not going to read.

Yes, in a world full of content and advertising and pr, I still want to know what your friends and mine are thinking, but I want only what they think is so good that they’ll pay to have me read it — because they honestly believe it will raise their stature in my eyes.

If that isn’t foreseeing the downfall of newspapers and the rise of Facebook and Twitter statuses and Google AdWords, nothing is.

It gets better:

Our old ideas about intellectual property are going to be revised in a world where content is abundant and rich people’s attention is increasingly scarce… Maybe Steven King will post his books on the Internet — and start charging for readings. University professors publish works basically for free, and make money by teaching and by giving their institutions respectability with their names. Already some software companies are distributing software for free and charging for support. Consultants publish free newsletters in order to win clients. And as John Perry Barlow loves to point out, the Grateful Dead let you tape their concerts, but they charge you to attend.

Let’s see: in 2000, Stephen King published The Plant as a “pay what you think is fair, how ’bout $1″ digital download and his Riding the Bullet was famously given away for free by Amazon and Barnes and Noble to help jump start their eBook program.

MIT created OpenCourseWare, where you can view “Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT. No registration required.” for 1900 courses. In their own words, it a “web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content.” This happened in 2002.

And I think I barely need to touch on the “software companies are distributing software for free and charging for support” line, given the rise of Open Source software in the past 15 years.

Blogs and Twitter have made it trivial for consultants to freely publish their content or information to the whole world — often in hopes of getting paid. Seth Godin is probably one of the best known practitioners of this art.

And the Dead? Ironically, they had a dust up in 2005 when a few of their members asked for their recordings to be pulled from the Internet Archive.

As for Esther, she mentions that she “make[s her] money other ways: These comments may draw attention to [her] newsletter (still charged for the old way, I blush).” Since then, she’s moved along the chain from paid newsletter, to printed book, to newspaper column, to blog, to Flickr and Twitter. No dummy, her.

So, if you want a blast from the past, check out the old DaveNet pieces. I find the early ones the most interesting because they date back to when DaveNet was an e-mail list (instead of a blog post), so there was more give and take between Dave and his readership in the essays themselves, instead of being sidelined into comments or their own personal blogs.

Many stores have a metal roll down shutter that they use when they’re closed. As you can see, it’s quite popular to decorate the shutter with graffiti.

Estudi de Ballet

Vilamala

Nos Vemos

Armeria Esports

Larutanatural Records

Sukot

Galateria Tallers

Orxateria Tallers

Cal Lisardo

Heart

With Chrome extensions, developers from outside Google can write software to modify the Chrome experience. Individuals can install these extensions to enable features that are useful to them, but aren’t necessarily of value to everyone who uses Chrome. (Those features are part of what Google will provide.)

A team at eBay has been working on an eBay Chrome extension (what else?), and apparently the Chrome team liked it so much they asked us to come and show-off the eBay extension at their launch event!

Unfortunately, the team lives in London, so they couldn’t fly all the way to California to be there. However, they passed the ball to me, and I agreed to be their talking head for a day.

Overall, my five minutes of Chrome fame went quite well. I talked about why Chrome extensions matter to eBay and also how third party developers can build their own eBay extensions, too. Also, as someone said to me: “they laughed at your jokes.”

But don’t take my word. My wife Beth joined me for the afternoon and took this beautiful flip HD video of my talk. (Warning: the sound is a little low.)

eBay Chrome Extension Demo from Tifton Drive Productions on Vimeo.

Now, as to the Sergey teaser in my headline…

While we were in the event space getting ready for everyone to come in, I looked up and saw a robot heading out of the corner of my eye. It looked like a small screen mounted on a skinny pole that itself was mounted on a wider base of wheels. (Think of a less human looking version of Number 5 from Short Circuit.)

All of a sudden the robot wheeled our way and we could see that there was a TV screen on the top (along with a WiFi router on the back side). Looking at us through the screen were two people. One of whom was Sergey Brin.

Before we could properly process any of those facts — as my post cannot recreate the surrealism of the experience — Sergey started talking and asking us questions. We realized the was a video camera mounted on top of the TV screen, so we were involved in a two-way video chat with Sergey, who was in his office, driving the robot around, and looking for people to talk with.

After some short chitchat, we almost got him to stay for the event, but it was still 30 minutes before kick-off, so he rode off in search of other projects.

After he left, someone else from Google came up to us and said “What did you think?” My reply: It was very on brand — exactly what I expected to find when I came here. :)

I watched the movie at Japantown’s Kabuki Sundance Theater. The Kabuki has many positive virtues, such as the ability to pre-select your seat, drink alcohol in the theatre, and no commercials before the show. (They also have the highest ticket prices in town.) However, I chose it for two other reasons.

One: In 1974, Julia performed eight cooking demonstrations at the Kabuki Theater itself, an event covered by Calvin Thompkins in his fantastic 11,005 word profile published in The New Yorker. (Did you know that Julia wrote that she “would be perfectly happy w. only Chinese food…. Either French or Chinese. Could live w. only Chinese.”)

Two: The Kabuki uses real butter on their popcorn. Knowing Julia’s fondness for butter, it seemed disrespectful, and downright untasty, to eat artificially flavored popcorn during the show.

Meryl Streep is fantastic. As is Stanley Tucci. Meryl’s Julia is so funny. It’s not only how she says what she says, but also her facial expressions and body movement. I spent the rest of the evening warbling “enchantée” in a high pitched voice while driving home, prepping dinner, watching tv, and pretty much everyplace else, including typing on my laptop writing this post.

I read Alex Prud’homme’s co-written memoir last year. The movie did a fine job capturing the essence of the work: her love of Paul and Paul’s love of her; her transformation from Pasadena to Paris thanks to Paul and cooking; the years and years and years and years of her life she put into the book.

As the co-author of a cookbook, albeit a technical one, I understand how difficult this format is to write. Each recipe much work on multiple levels. It must demonstrate how to complete a task, and do so in a fool-proof fashion. You must anticipate every potential detour the reader may accidently take and keep them on the path. This is particularly hard because accomplished chefs and programmers automatically route around danger without even thinking about it. You must approach the task with a clean mind to visualize the pitfalls.

Good recipes also build upon themselves, growing from simple to increasingly complex. You want to show variations, not only because they are useful, but also to inspire the reader to innovate on his own. Actually, the recipes in aggregate are a series of lessons in the underlying patterns of the art. Such abstract forms are slippery to grasp, so they’re packaged inside highly concrete tasks. If you write the book properly, the astute reader can look beyond the what of the words and see the why.

My editor said: “We do the hard work, so the reader doesn’t have to.” When I began to get lazy, and not want to try out every potential variation to discover potential issues, I thought about how the extra half hour I spend tonight will translate into thousands of hours of savings down the road for others. Seeing the number of hours Julia spent on her cookbook, I can only believe she is the one who set this standard of excellence for all writers of recipes, and is the one we must judge ourselves against.

My mother is the person most responsible for my love of food and cooking. She, in turn, credits Julia Child as her major influence. (Although, her grandmother, also played an early role.) Therefore, I cannot understate Julia’s direct and indirect affect upon my life.

Oddly, while I do own a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Thirteenth printing, December 1966), I very rarely use it. Living in San Francisco has placed me in the Alice Waters school of food. It’s not that these two worlds do not intersect, but I rarely have the time to do a traditional French preparation. Instead, I buy the best organic local food I can find; season it with salt and pepper, maybe herbs; throw it in the pan with olive oil; and serve.

I lack the patience to do Julie’s final dish from the book: Pâté de Canard en Croûte. Debone a duck, add in stuffing (and make stuffing), sow the duck closed, and then wrap the whole thing in pastry (and make the pastry dough)? No way. I’m not intimidated. I’m lazy. I’m don’t truss my chickens. I won’t make whole chickens anymore. I’ll buy a whole bird, but then pre-cut it into pieces before roasting it in the oven — it both cooks faster and is easier to carve when cold instead of hot.

I did enjoy the lobster scene from Julie and Julia; although, it’s still a far second behind Annie Hall. Yet, I fail to see how someone can engage in a project such as cooking your way through the entire Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and not understand that confronting that our food comes from living animals is an integral part of the dining experience. I’ve never killed a mammal or bird, but I always remember that someone killed it for me.

Tonight’s meal is true to both Julia and Alice. I made Poulet Sauté and Tomates à la Provençale. Two classic works (one with tons of butter), but I picked up all my ingredients at the Noe Valley Farmers Market. I bought them Saturday morning, before I decided to make a meal from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, so is was a true local and in season experience.

For the Poulet Sauté, I took a three-pound bird from Prather Ranch’s Soul Food Farm, and cut it into six pieces. I find Mark Bittman’s diagram and instructions in How to Cook Everything to be the most clear explanation of how to disassemble a chicken. He breaks it down into eight pieces, but I kept the leg and thighs together. I always enjoy the satisfaction of a successfully chopped up chicken. I’ve done it many times, but I still find it a miracle that I turn it into recognizable parts. And it’s fun to take a big knife and cut through something other than vegetables.

I browned the pieces over medium high in French butter (my one non-local ingredient, but, again, it seemed fitting). I never use butter in my cooking. Not because I don’t like it, of course. I then put the dark meat back into the pan over medium heat along with chopped fresh basil; after eight minutes, I added the rest and basted for another sixteen.

For my sauce, I sweated farmer’s market scallions for a minute, and then I had to make a substitution. I didn’t have any chicken stock, nor an open bottle of white white. So, I used a Bear Republic Pete’s Brown Beer for flavor. It goes well with chicken, is from Healdsburg, and has been sitting in my fridge door for too long. After it reduced, I added in more butter and basil. (And then I drank the rest of the beer during dinner.)

Before I started the chicken, I did all the prep work for the tomatoes. I cut two tomatoes in half and removed the seeds and juice. Then I combined scallions, garlic, olive oil, and fresh made bread crumbs from last week’s Pugliese loaf. Spooned those on top on the tomatoes and roasted them whole thing at 400 for 12 minutes after I added the white meat back into the pan, then killed the heat and let them sit while I finished off the sauce.

I wasn’t finished cooking until 9 pm, but the meal was worth the wait. It was simple, yet delicious. Really good. Ten times better than the soy sauce and lime juice marinated boneless, skinless, chicken breasts I made earlier in the week.

I finally got the nice crispy skin that never occurs when I roast the chicken with olive oil. As Julia said: “I always give my bird a generous butter massage before I put it in the oven. Why? Because I think the chicken likes it, and, more important, I like to give it.”

And the tomatoes were soft, but not mushy. I broke them apart with my fork. And they had real tomato flavor that only comes from August farmstand tomatoes.

Everything mixed together in my plate: the juice from the chicken as I cut it open, the toasted bread crumbs and garlic, the reduced beer and butter sauce, the flesh of the tomato, and all tied together with basil.

My only disappointment is that Beth is in on vacation in Iowa. I rarely cook anything interesting when I’m home alone. It’s maybe a tenth as fun to cook for yourself than someone you love. You spend hours making a meal that’s finished in minutes. You want someone to share in the experience because it validates the time you spend over the stove. And it’s also fun to glance at them eating the food and smiling as it goes down.

Watching Julie and Julia, you could tell that while Julia’s cooking experience was necessary for herself, the activity was heightened by her and Paul’s shared love of food and dining, and Paul’s pleasure in her success (in multiple ways). I never quite got that same joyous feeling from the Julie theme. She liked making the food, and her husband enjoyed eating it. But it seemed a disjoint experience. He would all too often sit down and start eating without any words or emotions to Julie. And they never went out together in search of that fantastic New York meal. It didn’t have to be Jean-George or Daniel in Manhattan, it could have been the best of Queens: Greek in Astoria, or Thai in Woodside, or Dim Sum in Flushing.

Hard to tell if I’m seeing something real, or if I’m bringing knowledge from the Julia book to the movie, and I can’t apply the same experience to the Julie side. It’s such a key part of my motivation for cooking that I am particularly sensitive to it.

PS: In my Silicon Valley celebrity sighting of the weekend, as I stepped into the Cheese Store after the Farmer’s Market, I saw Ev “Blogger and Twitter” Williams on 24th Street wearing a green Google shirt standing next to a very pregnant woman. Thanks to twitter.com/ev, I know that he’s just moved into the neighborhood on Friday and the baby is any day now. Looks like they made it to Noe just in time. And, having spent hours writing this blog post, I now better understand the attraction of a 15-second status update on twitter instead of 1100 words of prose.

I don’t normally comment on these discussions, but there’s a pretty good one right now that I’m enjoying on the screen shot posted under the title a “new split screen GUI” view of eBay.

According to a comment, one person thinks this is some super-secret screen capture ferreted out by someone under NDA. Scot Wingo thinks this is a “snagged screen shot” of a special test “roaming around the playground.”

As usual, the reality is far more mundane. Since the evidence is posted publicly on eBay.com, I’m happy to debunk this.

Go to the eBay investor Web site and check out the “Boston Lunch Presentation” from February 1. (This deck is identical to New York lunch presentation from the day before.) Go to slide 14 “New approach to Fixed Price and Auctions: Early prototype.”

Look familiar?

Sorry it doesn’t look so great — this was the movie that got me to create a YouTube account — so I’m still working on how to best export files.

If we only keep in touch through my blog, the big news in my life is that I got engaged and wed in 2007. Since we’d been dating for eight years, this is either a non-event or highly shocking, depending on your point of view.

I proposed on New Year’s Day, and we got married in Minneapolis on November 3rd at the Mill City Museum. The honeymoon was in Japan. Both were fantastic events, which we really enjoyed. Pictures will be available soon, and I’ll reflect more alongside the photos.

At work, I continued leading the Platform Evangelism group, but I added a few new tasks. First, I ran our Developers Conference and took over the Developer Zone web site.

Lots of fun there, and it was nice to do something complex that I’d never done before. Lots of lessons learned, which I will try and put to good use in this year’s conference.

Second, I built up our Disruptive Innovation team. DI is a group of people inside of eBay who explore new technologies and Internet trends, to see how they could affect eBay.

We launched a handful of small projects, which you can find on our Innovation Blog at http://innovation.ebay.com. A larger project, eBay Desktop, is in public beta, and we’re working towards a 1.0 release. It was a good first year of getting started, and I think we’ll really be able to do a lot in 2008 that’s quite meaningful to the business.

I have more to say on a variety of topics, but I’m trying not to use it all up in the first post. I’ve been stockpiling ideas. My big worry now is that I’ll forget about them before I get a chance to post.

I don’t know if they expanded the number of pages that trigger this feature, if they’ve rolled the code to a larger set of servers, or both.

For example: “bcec” and “pizzetta 211“.

1. REST == HTTP GET
2. HTTP+POX == HTTP GET & POST
3. SOAP == HTTP POST, with interop issues

When I’m talking to people about web services, and I hear them use various terms, this is what I feel they’re talking about most of the time.

REST

REST almost always indicates HTTP GET with a query string. The results are probably XML, but lately they could also be JSON.

No other HTTP verbs are used (especially PUT and DELETE), and it’s highly likely that all requests are routed through the same URI.

For example:

http://api.example.org/rest?action=search&query=trachtenberg

HTTP+POX

Nobody uses this term. However, there are some web services that, while not “true REST,” use more than HTTP GET. I place them in this category.

These likely exist because the service allows you to submit a large quantity of data that is not human readable, so it does not make sense to place as part of a query string. Blobs of HTML and pictures come to mind.

For example, the eBay “XML API”. You can submit items over eBay web services. Since the item description is pure HTML, it exceeded the maximum query string length our web server would accept at the time.

Thus, the eBay XML API was invented: you HTTP POST an XML document, we return an XML document.

Again, like REST, there’s no concept of resources. Everything goes through the same URI. The action is indicated either as part of the query string or in POST body. (Or both, as in the eBay case.)

SOAP

SOAP is identical to HTTP+POX, except that you’re required to use XML Namespaces and XML Schema.

You are also going to have interop issues when trying to generate the SOAP envelope to send or parse the SOAP envelope that’s returned.

XML Namespaces and XML Schema are minor headaches, but people are willing to deal with them. People understand that, in theory, namespaces are good, even if XML Namespaces are a little funky.

XML Schema can be confusing. However, it does allow you to validate the response, which most people find to be somewhat useful. The fact that XML Schema may not be the best way to describe XML data is a different issue.

If SOAP merely had these two issues, people would work through it. The real problem with SOAP is that the specification is so confusing, people can’t build interoperable clients and servers. This drives people mad.

People know how to generate arbitrary XML (it’s just text after all) and send a HTTP POST request. They also know how to parse XML, particularly when they know ahead of time what they should expect. (That’s why PHP 5’s SimpleXML extension is a great web services client.)

What they cannot do is decipher a WSDL file to determine what crazy combination of XML the server is expecting (especially when the server is not following the standard). And, assuming they can get through that, they cannot figure out how to repeatedly hammer their SOAP client into producing the magical combination of XML necessary to placate the SOAP server.

That’s the difference between HTTP+POX and SOAP.

It’s not the complexity. Well, it’s not complexity in terms of needing to build up a large document. It’s complexity in terms of trying to understand the hundreds of pages of XML specifications to generate the request and not having good examples of working XML documents to crib off of.

As to whether the message name should go in the URI? Nobody cares.