[rumori] Grey Day

Steev [rumori] Grey Day
Wed, 26 May 1999 12:26:55 -0700 (PDT) (00927746815, Pine.LNX.4.05.9905261207251.3430-100000atflotsam.detritus.net)

On Wed, 26 May 1999, GASK wrote:


>All of these ideas are worthwhile, I suggest that all these and everyone
>else's ideas could be included by having multiple different versions of the
>greyday.org website.
>
>It is possible to program a page so that it chooses between several
>different versions upon loading, so you get a random choice of page when you
>go to the address. (Don't ask me how it's done, but a guy did it for my

yes, that's relatively easy to do. i'm not sure exactly what that would
accomplish. it might actually dilute whatever message we hope to convey.
but it might be useful...

since greyday isnt till october i figure we have plenty of time to get
this right. I want to be very careful to do this in the best way that will
get the most impact and media attention. so let's keep brainstorming.

As for Ralph's comments:
I agree that most people who are web veterans realize the idiocy of
the Greys' claims. However I wonder how many who are relatively new to the
web might not realize just how much the development of the web, and the
"Internet Economy" in general, is due to the free exchange of ideas and creative works. If it wasnt for freely given and copied software (like
Mosaic, Apache, BIND, Sendmail, etc) the history of the Internet would be
vastly different. In fact, the internet would probably look a lot like
AOL and there would be about 2 million users instead of 40 million or
whatever it's at now.

In the internet and computer industry more than almost any other, perhaps
even more than in "culture" or "art", nothing is done from scratch. Every programmer, and every html coder, is taught to (or realizes themselves
that they can) look at and copy other pre-existing code. We can
definitely find an important ally in the Open Source Software movement.

Yes, the Greys are misguided pawns. Of course many realize the stupidity
of GreyDay, but the media will report on it and already has (the New York
Times, the Village Voice, Wired News), report on it as the solution to a
"growing problem on the Internet". It's easy to get people to support some general vapid position like "Copyright on the Internet". And they have tons of those supporters listed. But what if you asked these supporters
whether or not they supported the free exchanged of ideas? Or the
corporate control of ideas? That's what it's really about, and people are
subscribing to one side or the other without really knowing what's behind
the issue.


smh

Steev Hise, Technical Thug
steevathise.org http://www.cyborganic.com/people/steev recycled art site: http://www.detritus.net -----------------------------------------------------------------
"We have become the tools of our tools." -Henry David Thoreau
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