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April 7, 2006
Liz Lawley did some excellent live blogging of a conference on women’s participation in computing, put on by the National Science Foundation’s Information Technology Workforce. Her coverage begins here. [Tags: liz_lawley gender itwf itwf06]
April 6, 2006
This has been out for a while, but it’s hilarious: A mashup of Toy Story and Requiem for a Dream. (It even features personal fave BradSucks‘ music.) [Tags: mashup humor bradsucks]
April 5, 2006
At wikocracy, you can edit the Constitution, PATRIOT Act, Roe v. Wade and more to your liking. Of course, since it’s a wiki, if you don’t drive toward consensus, your changes won’t take.
For example, here’s how the Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage in the current iteration up at the site:
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word `marriage’ means any legal union between two people, as defined by the State in which that union is formed, so long as such a definition conflicts not with existing federal law. This is to ensure that a culture of equality prevails in our nation and that the ideals of our founding carry on into the twentyfirst century and beyond.
Cool experiment. [Tags: wiki law ]
There is a great thread that starts with Jay Rosen picking up on Bill Keller (editor of the NY Times) complaining that in the blogosphere arguments never end. It’s a throwaway phrase, but Jay is right to pick up on the mindset in which it’s a plausible complaint. Jeff Jarvis solos on the melody, and Scott Rosenberg brings it on home with the observation that the complaint is really about who gets to end the argument.
This is one of the top five most important effects of the Internet*: We are not going to settle our arguments. There’s enough room on the Web to permit that. You argue for a bit, maybe you learn a little or maybe the argument hardens your position so that you become a little stupider, and then you move on to something else. That’s why the “conversation” meme is so powerful: Conversations are explorations, not title fights.
The big question is whether we can adapt this lesson of the Web to the real world with its finite space and inescapable proximities. If we’re never all going to agree, can we at least all keep talking? [Tags: blogs bill_keller nytimes jay_rosen jeff_jarvis scott_rosenberg postmodernism]
*No, I don’t have a list of the top five. I was bluffing.
March 31, 2006
I loved my KayPro II.
I loved it not only because it was my first computer, although that helped. I loved it because it taught me so much; I learned about computing, and not just about a particular operating environment. I loved it because within a year I could teach myself to write assembler programs for rescuing crashed WordStar documents and manage files. I loved it because I could carefully follow directions to double the clock speed by actually soldering jumpers on the motherboard. I loved it because even I could read its schematic.
I don’t love my current PC. It’s a big honking machine and I like how it works: 3.2mh processor, 0.75T of storage, two screens, etc. But I’d ditch it tomorrow for a bigger, faster machine. My emotional attachment is zero.
As DRM locks down my machine so that it becomes more like a TV, I’m going to feel more alienated from it.
Many Mac owners feel attached to their machines for a variety of reasons: Its elegance, its Unix hackability (in the good sense), its not-Windows-ness. Of course, we’ll see how much Apple’s love of DRM weakens that good feeling over time.
I do not expect to love a computer again. I would be happy to be surprised.
[Tags: windows apple microsoft macintosh kaypro]
March 28, 2006
Last night I cleared US Immigration in the Montreal airport. I was the only traveler in the hall. The immigration officer was about thirty-five.
IO: What’s that button on your jacket?
Me: It’s for OneWebDay
IO: What’s that?
Me: It’s like Earth Day for the Web. It celebrates the value of the Web.
IO: Like free speech?
Me: (Getting nervous about where this is going) Yes, that’s one important value of the Web.
IO: The Internet is great for free speech.
Me: Absolutely. But now there are threats that might limit it.
IO: Limit free speech on the Net?
Me: Well, track and identify people by what they write, which, especially in other countries, could be used to crack down on dissidents.
IO: (stamping my papers) Ok, you’re all set. Keep the Internet free.
Me: A whole bunch of people are working on it. Thanks.
This was a charming conversation, and it’s great to have a face emerge from a bureaucratic process. But I have to wonder: If my button had said “Out of Iraq!” or “Legalize pot!” or “Impeach Bush!,” would the conversation have felt so innocent? [Tags: OneWebDay]
March 22, 2006
There are 598,000 hits on “matzah” at Google and only 328,000 on “matzoh.” Google doesn’t recognize “matzah” as a word legitimate enough to have a dictionary link in the blue strip at the top, but it does so recognize “matzoh” (“Results 1 – 100 of about 328,000 for matzoh [definition]”).
I wonder how often that happens.
And I wonder if someone can come up with a clever name for when a variant with more Google hits isn’t recognized as a word by Google’s dictionary sources. [Tags: google dictionary matzoh matzah tagging taxonomy everything+is+miscellaneous]
WGBH, one of Boston’s NPR affiliates (89.7 FM), is broadcasting two interviews in Jennie Attiyeh’s ThoughtCast series this Sunday, 10-11pm. Writes Jennie:
The first half hour is an interview with theHarvard political scientist Samuel Huntington, who authored “The Clash of Civilizations,” and the second is an interveiw with Megan Marshall,on her new biography of the three Peabody Sisters who helped found the Transcendentalist movement in the early to mid-19th century.
Meanwhile, over at PRX you can hear her interview with David Ferry who recently translated Virgil’s Georgics.
Oh, Jennie, when will you stop pandering to the mainstream?
But seriously, isn’t this just the sort of thing we all wanted the Net to do for us? That is, make room for everything from talking dogs to freelance intellectuals? Occasionally at the same time?
[Tags: podcast thoughtcast jennie+attiyeh wgbh ideas virgil]
At Corante, Civic Minded is a new, promising blog devoted to the Internet’s effect on democracy.
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 ]
March 13, 2006
I’m hosting another in my intermittent series of discussions about webby topics. On Wednesday night, the topic will be: What’s happening to the authority of knowledge? The fact that an article appears in the Britannica confers some authority on it. That an article appears in Wikipedia does not. What does? What does this mean for knowledge and power? Stuff like that.
It runs from 6-7:15pm, and it’s open to everyone. It’s at the Berkman Center and we serve food. [map] See you there?
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