I hereby make zero commitment to keep on twittering, but I’ve found it oddly enjoyable for the past 24 hours.

Yes, yes, I know how unlikely it is, and why should anyone care about the nano-activities of people you only know marginally if at all, and let’s all sneer, etc. etc. etc. But, besides what may turn out to be the short-lived attraction of what Twitter was designed for (and for some it will be long-lived), it is a fascinating platform for lord-knows-what to develop.

Connection hates a vacuum. Or is it that connection constructs the distance it overcomes? Before we could Twitter, we didn’t need to. Now that we can… [Tags: twitter ]

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Andy and Susanne Carvin are videoblogging what their learning as first-time parents: How to breastfeed in public, diaper bag essentials…

I can’t wait to see what the videoblogs look like on their second time around…and especially the diff. The story in our family is about how my sister (who was and is a wonderful mom) carefully bathed her first born in the special little tubby, with the special little towel and wash cloth. With the second one, it was just a dip under the kitchen faucet and a pat down with paper towels. (Actually, I made up the part about the paper towels.) [Tags: babies parents videoblogs andy_carvin susanne_carvin]

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The public radio show “Whad’ya Know” is wrapping up it’s American Idol-style hunt for a new song, and Oliver Brown — ukelele laureate, Wikipedian, and someone I’ve known since he was in fuzzy baseball-themed jammies — is a finalist. Listen to his song, The Girl with the Cotton Candy Hair, and immediately vote for him (ignore those other finalists, worthy though I’m sure they are), by sending a message to [email protected] with the subject line ” VOTE FOR SONG #2, “Girl with the Cotton Candy Hair” by OLIVER BROWN.”

Act now! The contest ends soon! Well, March 23. Oliver is funny, eccentric, a high school teacher…what’s not to like? [Tags: oliver_brown ukelele npr music]

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As pointed out in the current WordWays, if Brad and Angelina’s daughter, Shiloh, adopts Brad’s last name… [Tags: spoonerism brangelina wordplay wordways humor]

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John Cass spoke with Mercenary Audio and got their side of the story about why they fired Drew Townson . Drew has been asked by his lawyer not to respond, but says (through our mutual friend) that he strongly disputes the company’s account. [Tags: blogging drew_townson mercenary_audio digital_rights blogosphere]

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Salim Ismail, a founder of PubSub and then of Confabb.com has joined Flickr’s Caterina Fake running Yahoo’s Brickhouse, a semi-autonomous unit that’s supposed to innovate, innovate, innovate. (You can read about it in the blog of Bradley Horowitz, Salim’s new boss, among other places.)

Salim is going to stay at Confabb as chairman. (Disclosure: I’m on Confabb’s board of advisors.) But clearly his focus will be on Brickhouse, the type of fun enterprise companies like Yahoo are very smart to start up. And Salim is a great choice for it. (Brickhouse is behind Yahoo Pipes.) [Tags: salim_ismail yahoo confabb brickhouse business caterina_fake pubsub]

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You know you’re late to the party when you’re trying out a technology after the Wall Street Journal has reported on it, but I finally enrolled in Twitter.com.

For one day, it’s been fun, although if I can’t get it to work with IM, I can’t imagine I’ll remember to continue. (I still don’t do SMS texting. Over the legal age limit.)

It does raise the question of how granular our self-presentation is going to be. Where does it end? Synaptic RSS feeds? “I’m extending my triceps. Vesicles filling with acethylcholine…reaching action potential…Extension achieved!..More in 0.015 seconds…” [Tags: twitter everything_is_miscellaneous ]

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Drew Townson started a blog. Two weeks in, his fifth post was an announcement of the birth of his baby son, along with an adorable photo. (Mazel Tov, Drew!)

Then he was fired. For blogging.

He had asked his employer, Mercenary Audio, if he could blog on the store’s web site. Nope, said Mercenary, even though Drew has over the course of 25 years created a name for himself as an audio engineer and producer. (Check Google and the AMG All Music Guide.)

So, Drew started his own personal blog. On it he did not mention Mercenary, did not link to Mercenary, did not sell or offer any products or services that might be construed as competing with Mercenary. It just wasn’t about Mercenary. He didn’t even use his own name.

His boss learned about the blog when coworkers passed around the posting with the adorable photo of his newborn son. His boss then fired Drew by leaving him a voicemail that Drew picked up when he got home from the hospital.

From this we may conclude several things:

1. Mercenary wouldn’t know good marketing if it drove by with “Good Marketing” vanity plates.

2. The first amendment has been rescinded at Mercenary Audio.

3. The reports of a douche bag sighting at Mercenary seem quite plausible.

(This post is based on email correspondence with Drew, who is a friend of a friend.) [Tags: digital_rights blogosphere ]

Some of my colleagues at Harvard Law’s Berkman Center (did I mention it’s Harvard Law) point out that the First Amendment doesn’t actually cover this case. Details details! (I actually did know that, but was being all rhetoricalish. With this note I’m being accuratitious.)

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At EverythingIsMiscellaneous.com, I’ve posted about the joy of reading an edition of Hamlet that surfaces hundreds of years of scholarly disputes about the meaning of Shakespeare’s words, disputes that often are without resolution. We don’t know what the old bird/bard meant, but that’s all the more reason to love him! [Tags: shakespeare everything_is_miscellaneous hamlet hermeneutics ]

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The FTC has posted comments on its workshop on Net neutrality held on Feb. 13 and 14. Here is a pdf of Jay Sulzberger’s lucid explanation of how the Net works — ports ‘n’ protocols — and exactly why the Net is essentially different from cable TV. (The PDF is 280 pages long, but Jay’s comments are are a mere 12 pages of typescript — easy and fun reading.)

Also of special interest: eBay‘s comments and joint comments by Senators Dorgan and Snowe [Tags: net_neutrality jay_sulzberger ftc ]

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