It’s been a while since I used Seesmic, the video twitter site (or, as I think it would like to think of itself, the YouTube Made Easy and Instantaneous site, or possibly the YouTube Meets Social Networking site). Here’s one I did last night:

ChopsticksFrom a Beijing hotel room

Seesmic does indeed make it incredibly easy to record and post videos. And I sort of like the idea of occasionally recording a thought on video and posting it on my blog. Seesmic lets you copy and paste the code into your blog. But as the above makes clear, it makes a little thought look like a full-size video. I could, of course, just embed a link to the video at Seesmic. But I like embedding the video itself. I’d like a way to indicate that the video is of a quick, little thought. So, maybe doing it halfsize would work:

ChopsticksFrom a Beijing hotel room

(My connection right now sucks, so I can’t tell if that worked. Sorry.) Other ideas about how to present a video that is really just a quick thought? How could Seesmic help lower expectations? [Tags: seesmic ]

4 Comments »

Cofounder of the Berkman Center and legendary law school teacher Charlie Nesson is taking on the RIAA…

[Tags: berkman RIAA copyright copyleft RIAA charlie_nesson ]

1 Comment »

I built up on my nerve and successfully used the old-fashioned elevator at the hotel I’m at in Frankfurt. It’s a continuous, and continuously-moving, loop of open cubicles, large enough for two skinny people, or one American. No waiting, no doors. You step in as an empty compartment approaches and hop out as it moves past your floor.

The clerk assures me that there have been no injuries, although it seems easy to hurt yourself: mis-time your exit and you will be part way between the elevator and the floor as the elevator moves on. I’m surprised the lobby isn’t littered with severed arms and torsos split cleanly in two.

On the other hand, I only got in once the clerk assured me that if I panicked and was unable to force myself to hop out, it doesn’t turn the compartments upside down at the top of the loop.

Damn thrilled-crazed Europeans!

[Tags: elevators europe human_vegematics ]

27 Comments »

[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:

1
2 [Note: In this I misspeak and say info is noise; I meant to say that noise is info. I just noticed my error. Oops.]
3
4
5

3 Comments »

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 ]

11 Comments »

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 ]

Be the first to comment »

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 ]

2 Comments »

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 ]

13 Comments »

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!)

3 Comments »

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 ]

2 Comments »