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February 2, 2005
BradSucks.net, an online band of one who both gives away and sells the very same songs, is #20 on a major Australia radio station. The song is “I Think I Started a Trend”(mp3).
BTW, Brad most definitely does not suck. You can prove it to yourself here.
Personal Democracy Forum is sponsoring an IRC chat during the State of the Union. Since PDF is non-partisan, it’s actually sponsoring three: Democrats, Republicans, Free for All. If you want to participate, go here any time after 8:30 EST.
I’m not sure I have the fortitude to sit through the address – I’m a weak, weak person – but if I do, it will only be because of the IRC.
From the State of the State address by the governor of Maine, John Baldacci:
“…Tonight I am announcing ‘Connect Maine,’ a broad and aggressive telecommunications strategy for this state. Connect Maine will give nearly every Mainer the opportunity to plug into the global economy from their community. It will ensure that 90 percent of Maine communities have broadband access by 2010; 100 percent of Maine communities have quality wireless service by 2008; and Maine’s education system has the technology infrastructure that leads the nation.”
Yeah, the details count, but still: Cool! (Thanks to Jock for the link. And thanks to Dewayne Hendricks for working on the Maine initiative.) [Technorati tags: broadband maine]
Jean Warner blogs her Volunteers in Mission trip to Kenya, complete with photos, and becomes (whether she knows it or not) a BridgeBlogger. You get a real sense of the country as seen through her very individual eyes.
Jean confesses at the top of the blog:
Before and during our trip to Kenya, this site functioned as a traditional blog, i.e., we posted notes in chronological order. However, now that the trip is over, I have chopped up our notes and reposted them — often along with a photograph, additional information on the topic and one or more links.
Sounds like an excellent way to proceed, especially for a set of blog entries intended to have some internal coherence. It’d take a pretty hard-hearted BlogCop to object that it doesn’t pass the Blog Purity test. [Technorati tag: gv-kenya]
February 1, 2005
Steve Johnson, one of my favorite writers, has a piece in the NYTimes about software that collaborates in the thinking process. He elaborates in his blog, complete with screen captures of DevonThink at work. The software does a semantic analysis of what Steve’s written and his research notes. Now if only I had ten years’ worth of research notes stored in my computer! (Maybe Steve would let me borrow his.)
On Wednesday I’m going to lead the postponed session in the semi-regular series at the Berkman Center. This time, I’m going to try out a presentation I’m giving in a couple of weeks at a conference. The topic has something to do with taxonomies and tagging. (Yes, it will repeat some material in the dinner talk I gave last week, and a bunch of stuff from the Library of Congress speech. But it will have new stuff on tagging.)
It’s 6-7:30pm at the Baker House (map). It’s open to the public and pizza will be served.
The OpenNet Initiative has found that in the process of blocking access to 31 pro-North Korea sites, the South Korean government has blocked 3,167 unrelated domains. Apparently this happened because the NK sites were on servers outside of NK that SK blocked. (The OpenNet Initiative is sponsored by the Berkman Center, U of Toronto and U of Cambridge.) [Technorati tag: korea]
I missed this until I came across it a Susan Crawford‘s site, but apparently Google is starting up an Internet phone service. The TimesOnline article bases this on an employment ad looking for a “strategic negotiator” to help the company to provide a “global backbone network.”
So, if Microsoft is trying to expand by getting Windows into our living rooms, perhaps Google is trying to get itself inserted wherever there’s a telephone…including wifi phones, if bastards like Verizon let up their headlock on state legislatures. [Technorati tags: google voip]
From an article by Wes Simonds at Wifi Planet:
The terms of the bill essentially give Verizon and other local carriers the right to veto all citywide hotspot plans similar to Philadelphia’s in the state of Pennsylvania beginning Jan. 1, 2006.
As Jock Gill suggests, we could use some model legislation to preempt this type of anti-user, corporate welfare in other states. [Thanks to Dewayne Hendricks for the link.]
This proposal to make Israel and Palestine the 51st and 52nd states seems to be serious. While the site explains that it only takes a majority vote of the US Congress to add a state — there’s a Constitutional flaw for you! — it oddly says nothing about asking the Israelis and Palestinians. [Thanks, Mark D., for the link.]
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