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January 13, 2005
The government is urging Americans to exercise for an hour every day and to switch to a diet that emphasizes whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. In addition, the government says that we ought to speak Latin at home, only watch PBS, and sprout wings. Advised but not mandatory: Wolverine-like knuckle implants.
January 12, 2005
There’s a, shall we say, lively discussion going on over at the blog for the Berkman conference on blogs, journalism and credibility. It’s an invitation-only conference and that’s stirred a lot of questions about whether appropriately representative sets of people have been invited. Are there enough bloggers? Are they the right sort of bloggers? Some are saying that not enough big-readership bloggers are there; others say not enough “struggling” bloggers are there. I suspect there is an age skew, with an under-representation of the people under 30 who collectively are doing something remarkable with blogs to which the question of credibility makes as much sense as the question of punctuality. But a conference is allowed to frame the question it’s interested in, and this one is about the interesting intersection of blogging and journalism, not about everything that can and should ever be said out loud about blogging.
If you’re in an only a slightly more sober mood, there’s a discussion of the intersection of blogging and ethics.
By the way, the event will be webcast.
Don’t forget, you’re invited to an open discussion at the Harvard Berkman Center tonight, 6-7:30 pm. I’ll talk for 15-20 mins about why it’s important to think of the Web as a world and not just as a medium. Then we’ll talk and eat pizza.
By the way, if you want to know what Marshall McLuhan meant by “medium,” which is not what I mean by it, check Mark Federman’s article.
There’s an article, by Joseph P. Kahn, with lots of fun facts about Tom and Ray, the Car Talk guys, in today’s Boston Globe. Here’s a snippet I enjoyed:
Targets of the show’s humor sometimes fire back. After Tom made a crack on-air about a tailgate problem the Dodge Caravan was having, suggesting in his usual irreverent manner that Chrysler Corp. had “paid off” investigators to forestall a recall, a highly unamused Chrysler representative demanded a public correction and got one — sort of.
Tom did correct the record during a subsequent show, saying something to the effect that no money had actually changed hands and that Caravan passengers were only being ejected through the back doors of moving vehicles, not the sunroofs and side doors as he might have mistakenly said.
Also:
Ray: “One of the big [automotive repair] chains approached us, but we didn’t want to stand in front of their store and tell people to get their cars fixed there. We couldn’t. Because they [expletive] everybody.
Car Talk is the most widely-heard show on NPR. And here’s a hint: If you tell an NPR producer that you have an idea for a new program, she’s highly likely to reply, “Yeah, it’s Car Talk for what?”, as in Car Talk for computers, Car Talk for health, Car Talk for ventriloquists…
January 11, 2005
Ory Okolloh, the Kenyan Pundit, is back in Nairobi, working with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. Her blog entries bounce from what life is like these days in Kenya to why it’s like that. Great reading.
SplitCoastStampers is a site for people who create art using rubber stamps. The site’s nicely done, with a blog, and a gallery to share ideas. You can upload or download free cards, create your own album, share tips and techniques (“Faux Leather with Masking Tape“), and “Send cards to soldiers in Iraq through Splitcoast’s very own Stamp Your Heart Out campaign.” In a sign that this is a true community, members turn to one another for off-topic advice: Tips for flying with toddlers, support for Floridian members hit by the hurricanes, a discussion of why our kids their parents are uncool.
Sorry, but I think this site, and a million others like it, are very cool.
The Hacker Foundation has created a site to act as a clearinghouse of information about survivors of disasters. From the press release:
“THF is releasing the SLA backend to anyone who requests it & opening our survivor data to the public,” said Emerson Tan, Director of Packetstorm Security. “As more of the world gets connected via the Internet, we believe the SLA project has global potential to be used in tracking IDPs, thwarting the child slave-trading of orphans from such disasters, and assisting aid agencies & NGOs responding to humanitarian efforts similar to those in the Darfur region of Sudan.”
You have to admire the people who did this. Lord love the Web and webizens like these. But are international aid agencies and governments really going to entrust this data — who’s missing, who’s been confirmed dead or alive — to The Hacker Foundation? Of course, it doesn’t have to be a universal list for it to be useful. And maybe the UN will take advantage of the software and host it. Maybe some local governments will use it in particular disasters. But I have trouble believing that this particular incarnation is going to take off. I hope I’m wrong, because the world could use such a service. Am I missing something? (Thanks to Greg Cavanagh for the link.)
January 10, 2005
Drunkenblog has a fascinating interview with two of the people Apple is suing for sharing a pre-release version of Tiger. The stories ring true, but you never know: These were guys who naively thought they were letting some pals share the coolness of kicking around a beta version. But Apple is falling on them as if they were selling hot CDs by the truckload.
You want to know? You really want to know? Go ask Matt Stoller…
I’m leading another open discussion at the Harvard Berkman Center this Wednesday. The topic is: Is the Web a medium? The answer – and I will brook no disagreement! – is that, yes, it’s a medium, but the Web matters because it’s also a world. I’ll kick off the session with about 20 minutes on what the hell I mean by that (still working on it!) and why it matters. Then it’s an open forum.
It’s open to everyone. And we serve pizza. This Wednesdsay, 6-7:30pm, at the Baker House in Cambridge (map).
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