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[Tags: infohist history_of_information information joho ]

Last Thursday, I had a discussion with Charlie Nesson and Aaron Shaw at the Berkman Center about the first article in this issue. You can see some clips of the conversation here:

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I just received about 100 bounced messages indicating that I have apparently spammed much of the world with a message in which I state I am a lonely Russian woman who just can’t wait to meet you.

This isn’t the first time my email address has been abused this way. Is there anything I can do about it?

[Tags: spam spoofing ]

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In July, I blogged an idea for a system that would make it much easier to do quick an dirty edits of podcasts. The basic idea was that the software would convert the speech to text and then let you edit the text, using the revised text (with hidden time-codes) to cut and paste the original recording. I thought it was a good idea.

So did Ryan Shaw and Dan Perkel … three years ago. I just got an email from Ryan (responding to my talking about this idea in the issue of my newsletter I just sent out) saying that he and Dan put together a prototype for a class at Berkeley. He points us to a brief description, some slides, and a prototype that he says is “probably broken.” The description describes a different, and interesting, facet of the project, but, Ryan writes in his email, “Edits to a transcription text in a browser-based editor were translated into edits to an underlying audio SMIL file, playable in RealPlayer.”

[Tags: audio podcasts ]

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I thought this was a pretty charming video from the Boston Globe.

Getting that close to a potential president — Dem or Rep — is pretty thrilling. I still remember the day I shook Bobby Kennedy’s hand as he campaigned through a town near where I lived in 1967.[Tags: politics obama new_hampshire ]

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It’s only going to continue to go downhill. McCain’s going to get more distracted and muddled. Palin‘s just going to get nastier and nastier.

From here to November, the McCain campaign’s got nothing left except personal attacks. It’s bad for our democracy. We know everything we need to know to make up our minds. Let’s just vote now.

[Tags: politics obama mccain ]

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Roberto Polillo has scanned and posted stunning black and white photos of jazz greats he took in the early to mid 1960s. (Disclosure: I had dinner at his home last night. Thanks, Roberto!)

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Julian Beever makes incredible sidewalk art trompe-l’Å“il that photographs in 2-D amazingly well.

And that’s not even the most impressive!

[Tags: julian_beever art sidewalk_art ]

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My wife just blew my mind. I thought I knew the basics of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I’ve always cottoned to it because you have to like a religion in which people get to argue with their god. But I thought it was obvious that Abraham was arguing to save the innocent.

Nope. My wife, who is a scholar about these things (although she denies it), says that on the contrary, the traditional Jewish commentators take it for granted that G-d will save the innocent. And, indeed, He brings Lot out, even though Lot is only semi-innocent. In fact, Abraham is arguing that the presence of the innocent ought to save the guilty.

Why would having ten righteous people in a city be reason enough to save the guilty, given that either way, the innocent were going to be saved? That’s where the Jewish discussion of this passage begins. And maybe it’s where everyone’s discussion begins. But not me. I had it quite backwards.

[Tags: sodom gomorrah religion judaism ]

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I just watched Mike Wesch’s talk at Library of Congress about YouTube. Mike, as you undoubtedly know, has made some astoundingly lucid and compelling videos that explain the Web that takes away the last excuses for not “getting” it. Brilliant stuff. This talk is not one of those videos. It’s a 55 minute lecture, with lots and lots of examples, explaining the importance of YouTube. And, like his own videos, it’s compelling, brilliant, and moving.

[Tags: mike_wesch youtube ]

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Yesterday afternoon, my assorted nieces and nephews clustered around the ol’ laptop, googling their name + the word “needs,” and reading aloud the amusing results.

Amusing!

[Tags: google games ]

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