August 27, 2008
Chatting about the Dem Convention right now
We’re live now, chatting away at irc://irc.freenode.net/#democonvo. (Dave Winer has had a chat going also, at #dnc08)
Categories: politics Date: August 27th, 2008
Let’s just see what happens
Hard to Read? Choose a style: Style 1 Style 2 Style 3 Default Toggle Sidebars
|
|
Born Digital - The Book!Born Digital, a book by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser — my brilliant friends and colleagues at the Berkman Center — has just been published. Yay! JP has posted some of the first reactions to the book. I can’t wait to read it.
Categories: digital culture Date: August 27th, 2008
Ten worst movie industry predictionsScott Kirsner has posted his ten favorite worst predictions about the movies, drawn from his just-published book. My favorite of his favorite: Jack Valenti’s. (I missed Scott on Science Friday…)
Categories: digital rights, entertainment Date: August 27th, 2008
Yet another way to avoid workingFantastic Contraption is a free, simplified riff on the old Incredible Machine game. Your aim is to move a box into a zone by hooking together some wheels and sticks. It lacks the inventive motor elements of the older game (set the balloon to pop to lower the basket that has the mice that will cause the elephant to move onto the scale that flips the lighter that sets off the rocket, etc.), but its simplicity also works in its favor. You may have a child that will love it. You might also. If not, there are bunches of other games on the site.
Categories: entertainment Date: August 27th, 2008
August 26, 2008
Jeans and blogging from North Korea
The NoKo blog is here. It gives a peak at North Korea from a Swedish, jeans-making perspective.
Categories: blogs, bridgeblog Date: August 26th, 2008
Ballpark, see “out of”DNC chat again tonightLast night’s IRC chat party was fun. I’m going to set up a room again tonight, starting at 8pm EDT, so we can watch the Democratic convention together: irc://irc.freenode.net/#democonvo. (If that link doesn’t work for you, you’ll have to download an IRC client. I use Chatzilla, an add-on to Firefox. Once you’ve installed it, plugging the URL into Firefox’s address bar should launch Chatzilla automatically.) (Dave Winer also had a chat going, at #dnc08.) See you then!
Categories: politics, social networks Date: August 26th, 2008
August 25, 2008
Twitter vs. IRC for Convention groupsnark?I love Twitter, but I’m wondering whether it’s the right tool for getting together to do a group-watch (we’ll laugh, we’ll cry) of the Democratic convention tonight. Would old-fashioned IRC be better? I like IRC as a way of watching an event together. So, suppose I set up irc://www.freenode.net/democonvo tonight and opened it to anyone who wanted to join. As opposed to Twitter, the group would be smaller, it would consist of people who were there only to talk about the convention, and it would encourage more back and forth because the set of readers is the same as the set of potential writers. (With Twitter, the people you read don’t necessarily read you.) On the other hand, Twitter brings together unexpected people who are highly unlikely to jump into any one IRC chat, especially mine. On Twitter, I’ll be able to read running commentary from Joe Trippi and Michael Turk (Democratic and Republican Net strategists). I can pretty well guarantee that neither will show up to an IRC chat that I throw. So, I’m not sure what to do…
Dave Winer’s got an IRC going right now. He’s at the convention as a blogger…
WE mag launchesWE magazine has launched with a set of articles by, and interviews with, a stellar set of folks, including Stephen Downes, Dan Gillmor and Ethan Zuckerman. You can read it online for free, or pay for PDF or a paper version.
Categories: media Date: August 25th, 2008
August 24, 2008
Scrivener is on our sideI blogged yesterday about wanting a word processor that reflects better how we actually write. Islamoyankee in the comments suggested Scrivener, a Mac tool I tried once but didn’t take to, for whatever reason. This morning, I took another look at it and found this paragraph on its home page, at the end of its product description:
This is how a company acts when its confident of its product and is genuinely on the side of its users.
I like Biden, but his Net policy sucks (apparently)Declan McCullagh has the goods (apparently) on Biden’s tech and Net policy record. It totally sucks and is completely out of step with Obama’s. Thankfully, Obama’s not appointing Biden as head of the FCC. I like Biden as a VP pick. He’s prepared in case the unthinkable happens. He’s got some real values as a person. And I think he brings not only foreign policy experience but also some bluntness to the campaign. But, have I mentioned that his Net policy sucks? (Apparently?)
Brad Sucks’ music video clichésBrad Sucks is declaring his Music Video Cliché Contest to be a success. Hard to argue with the collected works…
The Google Magic 8 BallYesterday afternoon, my assorted nieces and nephews clustered around the ol’ laptop, googling their name + the word “needs,” and reading aloud the amusing results. Amusing!
Categories: digital culture, misc Date: August 24th, 2008
August 23, 2008
A word processor I wantTypewriters were terrible tools for writing drafts if only because they had no facility for crossing sections out. At least with a pen, you could make a quick line through an entire paragraph that failed. Word processors still act as if we know what we’re writing. Oh, they’re obviously much better than typewriters, for which I have zero nostalgia. (”Ah, remember the month I spent locked in my room, typing the final draft of my dissertation? Sweet!”) Word processors let you swiftly delete failed paragraphs, let you undo mistakes and re-do mistaken mistakes, and awkwardly track revisions. But they’re not designed for writing when you’re unsure of what you’re writing. When you’re writing something hard, you probably work the way you do with a music composition system. You try out some notes. You play them back. You make a change. You shave and fit the pieces together. The same when you’re writing words. You try out a phrase, a sentence, a transition, a motif. You see how that affects the words around it. You make a change elsewhere, and now you have to hear how it presses on the ideas, words, and rhythms around it. Word processors don’t recognize that way of working. They treat drafts as continuous improvements, not as tentative attempts. They don’t let you toggle quickly between two versions of a paragraph, side by side or back and forth, so you can see how each works, the way you might weigh two photographs to see which one you want to keep. I don’t have a set of features I want. I’m just saying that word processors don’t work the way we write.
Categories: whines Date: August 23rd, 2008
McCain on Biden: Should have, didn’tIf McCain hadn’t become Karl Rove’s sockpuppet, this is what he might have said in response to the selection of Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate:
McCain’s actual response, in full, from his Web site:
Categories: politics Date: August 23rd, 2008
August 22, 2008
Chet EdwardsChet Edwards is the rumor of the day for Obama’s vp. Here he talks about how Democrats can win. He is very close to Obama in his thinking on this:
Categories: politics Date: August 22nd, 2008
What’s the deal with Microsoft? It’s not micro. It’s not soft.In an effort to counter Apple’s must-see Mac vs. PC ads, Microsoft is paying Jerry Seinfeld $10M to appear in Vista ads. Yes, nothing proves you’re hip like hiring a retired, 1990s sitcom star. Sure, I love Seinfeld repeats. But re-read my lips: Reeeee-peats. I think maybe the problem is that Microsoft, in its irked ire, is unable to see that on the Apple ads, even the PC guy — John Hodgman — is hip. Hodgman’s book, The Areas of My Expertise, is brilliant. Apple even gets cool guys to play the uncool guys. On the other hand, Microsoft has hired Michael Gondry to direct the ads. Expect the Eternal Wait-times of the Spotless Mind?
Microsoft has launched a blog about the development of Windows 7 Windows 7 codename: “Do-Over”?
Categories: digital culture, marketing Date: August 22nd, 2008
Putting some analog back into the digital copyright fightHere’s how the DMCA has worked so far: A copyright holder (henceforth “publisher”) notices an instance (henceforth “video”) of what it thinks is a violation of its copyright on a site such as YouTube (henceforth “YouTube”). The publisher sends YouTube a notice that the video infringes copyright. YouTube then has a choice: It can disagree that the video infringes, and leave it up, or it can take it down and let the video’s poster know that it’s done so. If YouTube chooses Door Number One, it becomes liable if a court decides the video really was infringing. So, inevitably, YouTube takes it down. The video’s poster can then counter-notify YouTube that the video is not infringing. (In this one example, YouTube’s lawyers will actually take a look to decide whether they think it infringes or not. But YouTube is very special in this regard.) On paper, this seems reasonable. And maybe if the whole thing were done with paper, it would be. But the claims of infringement can be compiled digitally — publishers like Viacom automatically generate lists of every instance of, say, “jon stewart” in a video’s title and submit lists of over a hundred thousand URLs, obviously without having actually reviewed any of the videos — while the response is analog, and thus hard, time-consuming, and risky. Now there’s been some good news. PS: Did you remember to join the Electronic Frontier Foundation to help protect your online rights?
Categories: digital rights, everythingIsMiscellaneous Date: August 22nd, 2008
August 21, 2008
Open science and the competition-collaboration sliderThere’s an excellent story on the front page of the Boston Globe today, by Carolyn Johnson, about scientists who just go ahead and blab about their data before the village elders have given them permission. Yay. The article says:
Laub is just saying what everyone knows.1 But the fact that everyone knows it and we’re ok with it is a sign of the problem with the system: The system we want maximizes knowledge and innovation, but the system we have swerves in order to preserve credit for individuals. From the discovery of the shape of DNA to AIDS research, we’ve seen some of the problems with the competitive model of science. But we also routinely see the benefits, as scientists work overtime in order to get credit for a discovery. And yet, the mix seems wrong. The competitive model made more sense when it was more difficult to share data anyway. The collaborative model is proving itself in unexpected places. It’s clear that a mixed model works — some competitive, some collaborative — but it’s not clear how far we can push the slider toward the collaborative side. My hunch, and my hope, is that it’s way further than we would have thought, especially since experience shows that the satisfaction of being recognized as a continuously generous member of a network can at least equal that of authors of intermittent, officially-sanctioned publications.
1I’m totally guessing about his, but I suspect that Laub actually talked with Johnson, the reporter, mainly about the virtues of open science, but noted that his group doesn’t give away absolutely all of its data…and it was only the last part of the sentence that made it in. As I say, I’m totally making this up, but the quotation had that sort of ring to it.
Categories: everythingIsMiscellaneous, science Date: August 21st, 2008
August 20, 2008
Tips that made me go D’oh! #8567 & #8568#8567 If iTunes — one of the least intuitive user interfaces around — isn’t transferring podcasts onto your iPod (which, except for the wheel, is a UI so badly designed that your first instincts are almost wrong): 1. Click on your iPod in the “Devices” section of iTunes 2. Click on the “Podcasts” tab in the window on the right. (See here for instructions and a screenshot.) 3. Click on “Sync” 4. Click on “Apply” in the bottom right. 5. Smite your forehead and say “D’oh!” (I’m not proud of this. It just never occurred to me that syncing podcasts would be off by default. And I had always clicked through the very top level of the device, not recognizing it as a preference pane. Hence the self-inflicted D’oh!.) #8568 If you are using Firefox and want to quickly scroll among the many, many, many tabs you’ve accumulated, install the add-on All In One Gestures and set the mouse wheel preference so that you can then: 1. Position your mouse cursor over any tab. 2. Spin the wheel away from you. 3. Watch the tabs fly by. 4. Spin the wheel towards you. 5. Watch the history of your tabs pass before your eyes. 4. Smite your forehead and say “D’oh!”
Categories: uncat Date: August 20th, 2008
Movement of humankindHere’s an animated explanation of how humans spread across the planet. (Thanks for the link, Greg!)
Categories: science Date: August 20th, 2008
August 19, 2008
[berkman] Hub 2 - Community-involved development via SecondLifeGene Koo and Eric Gordon are giving a Tuesday lunch talk on “Hub2: Creating Deliberative Publics through Virtual Worlds.” [I'm taking quick notes and will undoubtedly get some stuff wrong.] Hub2 is a partnership with Boston (Harvard is sponsoring the project) to enhance the community participation process. It’d be good to have a platform for deliberative process. But land use discussions typically ahve their own technical jargon. And it can be hard to imagine what a place will be like when all you have is a 2D map. It’d be better to be working in 3D space, so you can see what t’d be like to move these trees over there, or widen the path, etc. Instead of having the community react — yes or no — to a design, why not have the community participate in the design? Hub2 aims are providing a design process that is experiential, embodied, constructive. Hub2 heads towards “augmented deliberation”: Imagine, design, engage, activate (= IDEA). They’re using SecondLife for this. They hope citizens will use it as a design tool and come up with an affirmative vision of what they want. And because you can walk through the virtual space, you develop an informed opinion. Gene and Eric ask people to try out the space in various roles, e.g., a 33 yr old who walks her dog twice a day or as someone in a wheelchair. The project has set up Boston Island in SecondLife and have the last name “bostonian.” They are using it for augmented deliberation about Harvard’s Honan Library Park development in north Allston, MA. Local residents get together, try out layouts, leave comments (in visual flags). Residents can access the site either at home or using the public access systems in the library; the libraries have Hub2 staff people there to help people with the system. (They have thought about the fact that they’re putting public records into a proprietary data format, but SL is the best choice.) Over 60 teenagers have spent time on the system, along with about 30 other residents. That’s more than have participated in the traditional process. Q: I’m glad you’re dealing with the digital divide issues. But this is a 1.2 acre park out of 350 that Harvard owns in Allston… Q: Should we open this process up to the world? Q: Maybe you should be talking with SL about how to make the archives more open.
Categories: digital culture Date: August 19th, 2008
Free the white spaceGoogle is taking to the public in its lobbying of the FCC to make the “white space” available for wireless broadband. This is the space between designated channels. Right now, we use it as sort of bowling alley gutter bumpers between assigned frequencies, but given modern technology, we can make better use of it, if only we’re allowed to. Google has a form for sending a message to the FCC, as well as some useful explanatory materials…
Categories: policy Date: August 19th, 2008
Those lobbyists sure like to have a good time!The Sunlight Foundation’s new site, Political Party Time, tracks the hundreds of parties being thrown at the two political conventions by fun-loving groups who are merely interested in celebrating democracy, folks such as the RIAA, AT&T, USTelecom, and Bank of America.
Categories: politics Date: August 19th, 2008
August 18, 2008
Worst. News analysis. Ever.This could well be it. Of course, it may be fabricated, in which case, it’d be much less awfully funny, and funnily awful.
Categories: uncat Date: August 18th, 2008
Fred Stutzman’s FreedomFrom Fred Stutzman comes Freedom. Here’s how he describes it:
Freedom is free, although Fred wouldn’t object if you chipped in $10. And lest you think that Fred is a curmudgeon railing against the Net, check out his current post about his new course: Technologies of Friendship.
Categories: digital culture Date: August 18th, 2008
I am up-down dyslexicI know that I’m right-left dyslexic, although “dyslexic” can’t be the right (left?) word, can it? But I recently realized I’m also up-down dyslexic: if you tell me to climb the hill, I won’t roll down it, but if you give me a trapezoidal plug and a trapezoidal socket — like the small end of a USB plug, or a VGA plug — I will try to insert it the wrong way up 50% of the time. I assume this is tied into my extraordinarily low scores on tests for spatial ability. You know the test where they show you a cube unfolded into six squares, some with various shapes drawn on them, and then you’re supposed to figure out which squares are adjacent? Not only can’t I do that, I have trouble imagining them folded into a square. To me, they might be instructions for making an origami heron or the shadow cast by a fourth dimensional cube onto a two dimensional surface. Or Space Dominoes. I just can’t tell. This, by the way, make me the world’s most annoying chess player. Obviously, I can’t picture the board ten moves ahead. But I also can’t picture the board one move ahead. So, I have to actually move my piece to see what it would look like, and, if you’ll let me, to judge your possible responses, I’ll move your pieces too. My nightmare: I’m piloting a spaceship over the surface of the Empire’s Death Cube, which is folding randomly because of a warp in space-time, and my only hope is to fly to the left and insert the trapezoidal nose of my ship into the trapezoidal hole of the Death Cube’s energy portal. And then I look out my window and see that the Cube is made out of seafood. Oh, did I mention that I’m afraid of seafood?
Categories: uncat Date: August 18th, 2008
Lake reflectionsI just uploaded some photos of Lake Buel reflecting the sky, a theme I seem to like. (I’ve had vivid, overpowering dreams about sky and earth mirroring each other. I can’t convey the numinous feeling of them.) Anyway, here are a couple, and there are more at Flickr.
Categories: photos Date: August 18th, 2008
August 17, 2008
Best. Explanation of sub-prime mortgage crisis. EverJay Rosen calls the special This American Life episode on the mortgage/credit crisis “probably the best work of explanatory journalism I have ever heard.” After listening to the podcast yesterday, I’ve got to agree. Not only do I now understand what happened, I think I’m actually going to remember the explanation. Furthermore, the show focuses on the question that really bothers most of us: What the hell were we thinking? Didn’t we know that offering huge loans to anyone who walked in was unlikely to end well? The show interviews people at different levels in the process, and asks them exactly that. It is a great piece of journalism. And be sure to read Jay’s piece about it, which is both insightful and wise.
Categories: infohistory, media Date: August 17th, 2008
Dollar pacifismOne of the mailing lists I’m on, filled with pro-Obama folks, is exercised because the Borders book chain is prominently featuring Corsi’s hatchet job. Someone on the list is now suggesting that we each call Borders and tell them they’ve lost a customer. Not me. Corsi’s book is at the front of the store because it’s a best seller. It’s possibly a best seller because of large buys by politically motivated groups, as opposed to being a grass roots best seller, but, a best seller is a best seller. Also, publishers pay book stores to place their books at the front. So, there’s no reason to think Borders is engaged in an anti-Obama conspiracy. It’s just business, as venal and corrupt as usual. So, why not fight back via the marketplace by organizing a boycott of Borders, or less, drastically, simply letting Borders know that we may be skipping the next couple of visits? Go ahead. I wouldn’t picket you if you did. But, personally, I’m reluctant to use economic threats to affect political debate. I didn’t like it when radio stations refused to play even non-political Dixie Chicks songs, I wouldn’t stay out of a 7/11 that put a McCain sign up in its window, and I’d be angry at Borders if the right wing had gotten the store to move “The Audacity of Hope” off the front shelves because “it’s blatant political pandering.” We’re better off without these threats to the pocketbook. (Except sometimes.)
Categories: politics Date: August 17th, 2008
August 16, 2008
Philosophical lexiconThe new edition of the Philosophical Lexicon is out. Compiled by Daniel Dennett and Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, the PL compiles witty definitions of philosophers’ names. It focuses on recent philosophers, and it’s full of in jokes, almost all of which I don’t get. Here are some samples:
Isn’t this the sort of thing we’d do as a wiki these days? (BTW, I am listed as one of the many contributors, but it had to be 25 years ago and I don’t remember which is mine. Buber, maybe?)
Categories: humor, philosophy Date: August 16th, 2008
August 15, 2008
Whose advice would you take on the future of the Internet, McCain’s or Craig’s?Craig Newmark weighs in on McCain’s scary Net agenda. (Craig says something very nice about me, but I’m linking to him anyway.) Craig’s written about this before. For example: Why a president needs to know tech. And the cuticle on Harold Feld’s pinky knows more about the Net than all of McCain’s personal IM list does (because McCain doesn’t have one). Harold is, um, not impressed with McCain’s policy statement. To put it mildly. [Later: Part 2 of Harold's post is more substantive but not as funny.] And that ol’ AT&T veteran and certified visionary — he was right and AT&T was wrong — David Isenberg is equally aghast. Matt Stoller runs just the subheads of McCain’s policy statement. Hilarious. As Matt says, “Seriously, this is approaching Chuck Norris-level aggrandizement.” [Later] Susan Crawford, professor of law and ICANN rep, and one of the most clear-headed policy people arounds thinks McCain’s policy is “wistful.” It’s not just that McCain’s policy is ludicrousl |
