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March 17, 2006
I haven’t been able to get to writing up my comments about the sources of Wikipedia’s reliability, but here’s the podcast of the discussion we had a couple of nights ago at the Berkman Center. [Tags: wikipedia podcast media ]
When the Pew Research Center was doing its latest poll (33% of Americans approve of Bush), they asked respondent to say the word that comes to mind when they think of Bush. Here are the top ten responses in descending order:
Pew asked voters to say what word comes to mind when they think of Bush. The top 10 responses in descending order were:
incompetent
good
idiot
liar
christian
honest
arrogant
strong
integrity
ass
Note that when “stupid” is added to “idiot,” it becomes the top choice by a wide margin. [Tags: george_bush politics pew]
March 16, 2006
I thought last night’s discussion of where Wikipedia gets its authority (and what “authority” means when it comes to Wikipedia). I may write up my notes at some point and I believe the Berkman Center will post the session as a podcast sometime fairly soon. But I should note that the Harvard Crimson’s small write-up of it gets it a bit wrong; it seems to imply that I was arguing that Wikipedia is unreliable and that SJ Klein, my friend and Wikipedian, had to step in to defend Wikipedia’s honor. In fact, my premise was that Wikipedia is remarkably reliable, but not for the traditional reasons. [Tags: wikipedia]
Terry Heaton is the second person in a few days to sing the praises of Pandora, a service that helps you find music you didn’t know about. (Gianluca Baccanico is the other who recommended it.) Sounds not just fun but important. I think I’ll go take me a look-see… [Tags: pandora music terry_heaton gianluca_baccanico ]
PodSlam for Peace
The Just Media Fund is giving away a bunch of iPods, including one of the upcoming video models, for participating in their Web-based poetry slam contest. The contest features poetry performances by 15 Denver poets, all poetizing about something related to Black History Month.
By the way, the Open Resource Group built the PodSlam site using open source tech that is being developed to conversationalize politics. (Disclosure: I’m on ORG’s advisory board. Thanks to Britt for the link, and for founding ORG.) [Tags: orgware open_resource_group politics poetry britt_blaser podslam ipod apple ]
March 15, 2006
STAMPS (System for TAgging Messages, Post-Inferential Semantics) is a research project that lets you a tag a physical space via your mobile phone. Others who traverse that spot can then see the tag you left. This will work with ShoutSpace, an app built on the wifi platform that shows you messages left by other users. Cool! (Thanks to Branko Collin for the link.)
[Tags: wifi stamps everything_is_miscellaneous EverythingIsMiscellaneous mobile smartmobs]
Matt Frei, in his Washington Diary at BBC.com, argues that W has become the nice guy. “The rank and file of his own party are now the nasties.”
Matt points to only two pieces of evidence: The ports deal and Bush’s support for a guest worker program for illegal immigrants. These are indeed two issues where I think Bush is right-ish: The uproar over the ports deal was over-simplified, borderline racist, and damaging to what remains of our reputation (that W has done so much to tear down) as an adult country ready to engage with the rest of the world. And Bush’s immigration proposal is way better than the Republican Great Wall of Mexico plan.
But two issues about which Bush isn’t dead wrong does not get him moved into the Nice Guy column in my ledger. [Tags: bush politics dubai bbc matt_frei]
Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican Party, wrote to me today. The subject heading is “Their real agenda.” Here’s how it opens:
This week, liberal Democrat Russ Feingold called on the Senate to censure the President for a program that is successfully stopping terrorists. After months of searching, Democrat leaders are finally beginning to find their agenda: take away the tools America needs to fight terror. In the last 24 hours, fringe groups like MoveOn.org and Democrat leaders from John Kerry to Harry Reid to Dick Durbin have rallied to Feingold’s side, praising his grandstanding as a “catalyst” for the investigation of the President.
Weakening our national security is their agenda. Is it yours?
The Democrats’ real agenda is to weaken national security? I’ve heard Mehlman speak a few times and I think he’s a smart and personable guy with a sense of humor about himself. But this strikes me as a particularly low attack.
Granted, I’m just a liberal, fringe-groupie Democrat. (Congrats to MoveOn.org on being marginalized and demonized in a single email message!) [Tags: politics republicans ken_mehlman]
March 14, 2006
Want a reason why Network neutrality is important? Preston Gralla has one:
A Canadian cable company is already charging customers a premium for using competing VoIP products, and users are complaining that Comcast is purposely degrading the quality of Vonage connections.
…Canada’s Shaw Communications offers its own VoIP service, and it charges anyone who uses a competing service a $10 “packet prioritization” fee for Quality of Service enhancements.
[Tags: voip digital rights preston gralla network neutrality]
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