Three pieces of self-centered media news.

First, the Miami Herald today is running an op-ed written by David Stephenson and me about how bad the Homeland Security homepage sucks and some ideas about what can be done about it. (This expands on some stuff I’d written and David has been thinking about.)

Second, I got quoted in the NY Times on July 4 in an article about Mahir, the I Kiss You guy. The author of the article, David Gallagher, sent me a message to let me know that a Turkish newspaper covered his coverage and apparently quoted my quote.

Yeah, but they translate my comments as “Hollywood bize kendi ürettigi yildizlari sunuyor. Biz de internet araciligiyla siradan bir kisiyi yildiz yaptik. Fena mi?” Can’t they even get the oblative right? Besides, I think “yildizlan sunyor,” while correct in a pedestrian literal sense, really doesn’t capture the sense of what I was saying. I think “kisyildzik aryiskadilzi” would have been much closer, as I’m sure you all will agree.

Well, you know what they say: “No tiskilyazi is bad tiskilyazi so long as they spell your yaptik right!”

Third, Small Pieces got the worst review of any book in history in the Washington Post. The reviewer actually used the monkeys-at-typewriters trope. Feel free to console me with small gifts. (FWIW, I agree with his comments about the mysterious “we” in the book, although I made the choice intentionally.)

Gary Unblinking Stock has three pointers for us.

First, there’s a list of philosophical humor. I’m laughing. I think.

Second, Gary lets us know that the mnftiu book, Get Your War On, is coming soon. You can sign up to get a signed copy for $20 with all profits going to landmine clearance efforts in Afghanistan. (Here‘s the latest Get Your War On comic strip.)

Third, Gary points us to a site with funny fake banner ads.

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From James Sisk comes the following call to action:

I just finished reading up on the most recent linking case in the Danish courts, and came upon an idea I’d like your feedback on, (and possibly you help spreading). The basic idea is this: although there are many out there who would like to control who does and does not link to there sites, even the biggest of the big shots need use more then we need them. So. Any organization that restricts free linking gets “blackblogged” ( I want credit for this term). If you don’t let everyone link freely to your site, then none of us will link to you at all. Imagine if Google said, due to the restrictive policies of the church of Scientology, Google does not list links to their sites. Even if the Googles and Yahoos didn’t buy in, the risk of damage from losing the links they like, would almost certainly force a higher level of tolerance for the ones they don’t.

James Sisk
Senior Instructional Designer

Epic Learning

Good idea, but since this won’t happen only on blogs, maybe it should be “de-linking” or “a-linking.” “Hypolinking”? “Hacksawing” (to cut the links)? Or the old word for this: “shunning.” “Connect-shun”?

Of course, when it comes to the search engines, it would be a clear case of “ind-excommunication.”

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Transcript of the first sax solo at The Blue Note after musicians, thanks to neuro-implants, were able to play their “instruments” simply by thinking the music:

Tweeeeee
Fi fah di tweee di
Wow this works fa deeeee
Tweeee dah dah di fahhh di
Di dwah di brah bruh feeee di dah
Doo dweee That sounded like Coltrane dah
Ti fa di fah fah tweee dwah di fah
Brrraaah di Stop tinkling the ice in your glass
You fat fuck in the front row di fum di fraah
Twee fah di fah fah Tweeeee di di di fah
Fah di twee I’m better than Coltrane fah di
Dah dah di fee Coltrane got away with a lot di fah fah
Shit. Out of ideas. I’ll play fast. Di di dat di di
Di di di fah fi di fah di di dah fah di di fah tweee
Brraaaap Damn embrochure parameters
Braaaaap One more time so they’ll think it was on purpose
Braaaaap twee fah di fi fi dah fi dah fah
Faaah di dah I’m not as fat as you, you fat fuck dah dah
Di twee Am I? di fah di fah fah
Tweeeeeeeeeee.

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Some nice writing by Halley about what we lose as adults. And some nice writing by AKMA about e-learning within the larger context of learning and teaching.

Jeneane, who blogs movingly about her Aunt Penny, was the inspiration behind the “How’s my blogging” blogsticker, although she credits RageBoy with the original question: Why don’t we put our phone numbers on our blog sites? (My answer: Because I’d rather interrupt people than be interrupted.)

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Dethe of LivingCode writes in response to Elaine’s response to my piece on turning a lawn into a meadow:

Good tips for creating meadows (add our thanks to Elaine and her mother-in-law). We want to do this with our front yard (the back yard is kids’ play area and vegetable garden). Something about what you said reminded me of an article I read on English hedgerows—they date these by how many individual species are found in a hedge, roughly 1 species per hundred years. Not sure what the metaphorical implications of this are, maybe *diversity takes time.*

And I think the technical term for spreadiness is “promiscuous.” %-)

More serious alternatives are here: http://www.thesaurus.com/roget/I/168.html

Gary Turner writes:

I thought this might appeal to your sense of humour.

Gary’s right. It’s a meta-approach to “warchalking,” the instantly-amusing idea of adopting the old hobo chalk signs to mark when you are within WiFi range, because heaven knows there’s nothing worse than running your WiFi card over the beach only to find out that you were getting false positives from old tin cans and crumpled foil candy wrappers, not from the pile of gold doubloons and lost engagement rings you were hoping for.

Martin Roell blogs enthusiastically about some thoughts inspired by Gary Turner‘s site where he has recorded the voices of a handful of his readers and co-bloggers. “I could suddenly feel the Internet,” writes Martin.

(Martin blogs in German, which is something of an obstacle for many of us, including me, even with the absurdist help of Google’s translation tool. On the other hand, where else are you going to see the word “faktenfaktenfaktenreichen”?)

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I was interviewed yesterday by a radio station in the area of the US with “big states with pointy corners,” as the host put it. It went fine, except for one patch. “Isn’t it easier to come out of the closet on the Web?” the host asked.

Here’s what went through my mind:

The host then asked, “But isn’t it easier for gays to come out online?”

And so I probably sounded either homophobic or so conflicted about my own sexuality that I’m unable to talk about it. Oh well.

Ten minutes later, I found myself thinking about what I should have said:

For the record, how homophobic was I growing up in the ’50s and ’60s? Enough to worry as a teenager that I might be queer. Not enough to ever call someone “queer.” Enough so that about a third of my circle of hippie friends in college waited until they graduated to come out of the closet. Not enough to change the way I felt about those friends. Enough so that I had some very stupid cocktail chatter as a graduate student about why gays weren’t taking enough risks in their loving because no child could result (ah, the days before AIDS). Not enough to keep talking when my housemate came out of the closet. Enough, plenty enough.

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Elaine Nelson sent me the following message in response to my comments about trying to turn my lawn into a meadow (and about their ripeness to serve as the second term in a metaphor):

I’m getting ready to buy my first house, and was discussing garden plans (right now it’s a big square lawn, a good croquet size) with my mother-in-law. She is an avid and amazing gardener. (See here for a photo from her back porch.)

I mentioned my desire for a meadow in one part of the yard…she said to never, ever use those “meadow in a can” things; instead, get a few good specimens of self-seeding annuals (she mentioned poppies, yarrow, foxglove and daisies), dig a few holes in your existing lawn, plant these at 18″(?) intervals. Mow around them the first year, let the grass grow with them the 2nd year, and the third year you’ll have an honest-to-god meadow.

YMMV, of course, since this is in the Pacific NW, and with a larger yard, at that.

hmmm, but for metaphor credit:

Web:
tearing up the existing (end-to-end) structure [grass] and attempting to build a new (closed) structure is a mistake…the heartier structure will always attempt to build over/through the other one. the only way to build a smarter structure is to add in the seeds of smartness and allow it to take over gradually until it becomes its own end-to-end structure. [note that the plants recommended by Mom are all grass-like in both their hardiness and…can’t think of the word…spreadiness.] the stupid but catchy system wins!

or something. it seemed to me at the time to be a good metaphor of patience in general, waiting for nature to do what it does best. (which goes to the 2nd point: if your metaphor expresses a constant of human (or otherwise) existance, then it should certainly be applicable to multiple fields of human endeavor. then again, IANAP (where the P stands for Philosopher).)

So, I person I don’t know takes the time to craft a response that is informative, personal and thought-provoking. What a gift. Nice to meet you, Elaine.

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Dave Rogers points to an article from the WS Journal (by Lee Gomes) posted at MSNBC about whether the cyberworld needs its own cyberlaws.

Is there really a cyberspace full of “cybercitizens” who need only be accountable to their own “cyberlaws”? A loose-knit group of law professors is bucking one of the big fads in the legal field by calling that whole idea “cybersilly.”

Dave’s response is pointed.

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From a mailing list (quoting a quote from a quote, so hell with it) comes four places providing privatized domain name resolution. You can register names with them with extensions such as .”agent,” “.mp3.” “.love,” and hundreds of others. But there is, of course, a rub. The domain name servers that do the look-ups when you click on a link don’t recognize those extensions. So, you either have to modify your browser to use them, or, in one case, the names actually mask conventional domain names:

http://www.New.Net: “Enable your browser to see New.net domains.” (You can also become a registrar, selling New.Net names. Hmmm, is “avarice.amway” taken?)

http://www.Name-Space.com: “Clients who host their DNS with Name.Space are mirrored in the domain ‘.XS2.NET’ for compatibility with legacy domains. (i.e. name.space = name.space.xs2.net) ”

http://www.NameSlinger.com: “To view this and other NameSlinger Websites, you should enhance your browser. ”

http://www.MOX1.com: “3. Download the plugin.”

The only way I can imagine these succeeding is if ICANN makes such a hash of it that balkanizing the Web begins to look good. (See Bob Frankston on ICANN.)

The Bob Frankston Corner

Bob has posted his thoughts about Bluetooth. These amplify and clarify the thoughts he dashed off in response to my coverage of the Bluetooth foodfight.

Bob has posted a terrific article explaining clearly the benefits of an “end-to-end” (= “stupid“) network by explaining how caller ID works within the “smart” (= closed) telephone network and how it would work if it were implemented in an Internety way. (For why it’s difficult to finance an end-to-end network, see NetParadox.com.)

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