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July 31, 2007

Facebook is the opposite of what I'm looking for

Somewhere, I like to think, there is or will be a network comprising only those who can find it. And when I finally stumble in there, they'll say, "We've been waiting for you."

It's not Facebook, a "social network" of 30 million or so.

I signed up for Facebook so I could see the Washington Post's Compass app there, after reading Facebook: Ripe for News Applications? by Amy Gahran, writing at Poynter's E-Media Tidbits blog. She quotes fellow Tidbitter Steve Outing:

I've heard Rob Curley [Vice President of Product Development for Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive] say that in developing their Facebook application, The Compass, his team didn't think it made sense to have a headline widget for Facebook; they wanted to do something that Facebook's younger crowd might be more likely to use....

Here's the link to Compass, but unless you've already signed up for Facebook, you won't see it. (Facebook is a walled garden, not indexed by search engines.)

First comes a survey with 10 obvious questions on political issues (abortion, bring the troops home, gay rights, etc.) with 5 positions, from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree, with "No opinion / indifferent" in the middle. Then you get a cool compass to put on your profile. I chose #3 -- the slacker option -- every time and got the predictable this:

But here's the money quote (literally), below. When you install the app, these come checked by default, and you can't uncheck the first one on any application:

Get productive with the best Facebook Apps at Lifehacker pointed up a resemblance to early AOL and Prodigy: Only tools made specifically for Facebook work there. I may have an idea, but I probably can't create it, since I'm not a developer. On the Web, with open-source and free software, mashups and little utilities, I probably could.

Today
Sheila removed the The Compass application. 11:33pm
Sheila added the The Compass application. 11:30pm

Creepy. Facebook tracked everything I did, and wants me to tell all my friends what I'm doing. You can update your status -- At work, At home, At school... -- anytime. Not me. Wherever I am, I don't want the burglars ("She's at work. Let's cruise by...") and political telemarketers to know that. ("Look, she's home. Call now!")

I'm not looking to put my life online.

(If you want to deal with me professionally, I'm on LinkedIn, which demands little.)

Among 30 million people and the many thousands of groups they've created, I hoped to find something to like, but the tools there don't seem fine-tuned enough to find it.

I quickly saw I'd have to try the most obscure interest I have. I lived in Gambia, West Africa a long time ago and eventually spoke pretty good Wolof. I typed in "wolof" and found seven groups, including one for "toubabs" -- white people -- who speak Wolof, with 26 members writing short. ("We talk only wolof.") But Wolof is not a written language, so everyone writes phonetically, and those who learned it in Senegal write it with a French accent. Boggling.

There's another group, in English, with 1,526 members, devoted to the classic tomato-and-garlic-based rice dish found throughout West Africa, Jollof rice (that French accent writes Jollof, says Wolof): Jollof Rice Lovers. The Jollof rice recipe page has only one version, but you can't see it or any of these Wolof links if you're not a member of Facebook.

How does that feel?

Historically, walls on the open Web don't last. Prodigy and AOL ain't what they used to be. (Prodigy ain't, period.)

The groups I saw would work better as Web sites running nimble interactive interfaces that would make it easy to illustrate your typing with stuff -- whatever it takes to show and tell it all.

Google turns up a passel of Jollof rice recipes elsewhere. I know some other Wolof speakers who won't be found on Facebook, but they might find their way via search engine to a self-selecting community of interest.

(I've been playing with building a free Ning network devoted to just such a community. It's not social -- don't care who you are or what you're doing, just what you have to say or show about the topic. When/if it happens I'll let you know. You're all invited.)

There's a Facebook backlash in the blogosphere now, from many angles.

Jason Calcanis is too popular there. Last week he rightly ranted that clicking to accept all this attention is ... just clicking: "You spend so much time checking off what you'll do that you never do anything. ". The image at right shows the requests that awaited him as he wrote. (After that post, everybody wants to be his friend.)

Facespam:

The act of trying to befriend strangers on Facebook for the purpose of pursuing sales or other business “opportunities”
-- Arve Bersvendsen

Howard Dean Sent Me a Message on Facebook?. Micah Sifry meets a political avatar.

So, this afternoon I got an email reading, "Howard Dean sent you a message on Facebook." (This is after I decided to accept his friend invitation yesterday.) Well, it wasn't really from Dean. What I did get was an email from the person who is paid to "be" Howard Dean on Facebook, or rather, one of the staffers behind his profile, Stephanie Taylor, the managing editor of Democrats.org...It is absolutely true that an organization like the Democratic Party needs to have a presence wherever large numbers of people congregate (can you imagine the Ds, or the Rs, with a table at a ball park, by the way?), but does it really work make sense for them to do it through a fictional character called Howard Dean who is really run by a committee of staffers?

Doc Searls headlines his mention of this, Not your friend, but a remarkably unable simulation.

Shelley Powers is not bothered by imposters, but by The Ugly Face of Facebook -- the "bias and bigotry in Facebook against older people." With examples.

And,

another reason I lost interest in Facebook, other than my disinterest in the distraction, had to do with the recent story about Facebook and Zukerberg being sued because another company says he stole their code and concept. The suit is still ongoing and who is to say whether it has merit or not. But one thing I noticed among the Facebook fans is that they were less interested in the merits behind the suit–the possibility that the code and idea may have been stolen–and more concerned about losing their special place and that harm could come to their 'hero'. They were completely apathetic about whether Zukerberg stole the code or not. If the courts ruled he did, as long as they still have their 'special place', they would be indifferent to the finding and Zukerberg would still be their 'hero'.

Creepiest of all, I learned, from Shelley's link to when everything new is old again at Small Change, that "you can’t delete your account on Facebook, only deactivate it. "

So I've been captured, for all eternity, or as long as the member list is archived, whichever comes first.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:28 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

Dear RSS readers, you'll only see excerpts now

If you read this blog in an RSS reader, you'll only see excerpts now, with a headline link to the post. The company wants you to visit the site.

I hope you'll find it worth your while to click those links, and I'm very sorry for the inconvenience.

Full or partial feeds, feeds with ads, clickthrough rates on partial feeds -- all have consumed lots of bandwidth across the blogosphere. Maybe some bloggers -- influencers -- reading dozens of feeds daily will no longer take the time to click through to the full post, and will no longer point here.

I hope not, but there's nothing I can do about that.

This is making me rethink how I blog. If I lead with a photo, the caption could be the entire excerpt. If I write a "soft" lead and the "nut 'graph" is down aways, I could mislead you.

On those days I toss out a pile of links, do I try to fit the jist into 40 words, an RSS haiku?

Much to think about.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:13 AM | Permalink | Comments 3

July 28, 2007

Senate kills more federal money for national ID; Would a chip make you feel safer?

Support for a national ID card seems tied to where you stand on issues of security and privacy -- if you fear an attack more than you fear Big Brother, you may think it will make you safer. Personally, I think sophisticated would-be terrorists will counterfeit whatever they need -- the collected information would be stored in a national database available to all sorts of government employees who cannot be made secure.

Technology can't make us safe. It may make some feel safer, but couldn't we find a cheaper way to manage our fears, one that doesn't also turn America into a remake of Casablanca -- a nation of people "with papers," and of desperate others trying to obtain them through the Resistance at Rick's (Cyber)Café Américain? Land of the free and home of the brave, remember?

Read on...

A still from Casablanca, part of an interesting scholarly analysis of the movie at Bright Lights film journal.

Senate rejects extra $300 million for Real ID. ZDNet:

By a 50-44 vote mostly along party lines, the chamber set aside a Republican-backed amendment to a homeland security spending bill that would have spread $300 million across the states to help them implement the so-called Real ID Act.

The Senate also agreed unanimously to adopt an amendment, proposed by vocal Real ID critic Max Baucus (D-Mont.), which prohibits the use of any of the spending bill's funding for "planning, testing, piloting, or developing a national identification card."

The votes leave just $50 million in additional Real ID grants for states in the the final bill, which passed by an 89-4 vote late Thursday and is now headed to the president's desk. President Bush has previously vowed to veto the entire measure, but it was not immediately clear whether that was still the case.

The remaining grant figure appears unlikely to satisfy state officials, many of whom have blasted Real ID as an "unfunded mandate." The Department of Homeland Security projects the cost of Real ID for states and taxpayers over the next 10 years at more than $23 billion....
.
...The law dictates that, starting on May 11, 2008, Americans will need a federally approved, "machine readable" ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments or take advantage of nearly any government service.

The Real ID bill still stands, but states would now be required to fund it themselves. Some have simply opted out.

(In Rhode Island, House Resolution No.5474 ENTITLED, JOINT RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REAL ID ACT OF 2005 {LC1868/1} was introduced February 7 by Reps. Gemma, San Bento, Rose, Scott and Fox and referred to the House Judiciary Committee.)

An ID implemented by Alaska, bearing the governor's photo and info; travel agent Sally Huntley is suing the state DMV over its implementation after a bill authorizing it passed the state Senate, died in the House and was implemented anyway. More at her site, my Alaska id.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn -- co-sponsor of the bill defeated Thursday -- wrote an op-ed in The Tennesseean yesterday (Repeal this mandate, or at least pay for it):

What could unfunded mandates mean? Higher property taxes and tuition costs. Less money for lower classroom sizes, less money for teachers — that's just the beginning. Little wonder Tennessee legislators have joined 16 other states in passing a resolution opposing the Real ID Act.

... Instead of pretending we are not creating ID cards when we obviously are, Congress should carefully create an effective federal document that helps prevent terrorism — with as much respect for privacy as possible.

Either way, it's the federal government's responsibility to foot the bill.

Ironically, the Providence Journal's Kathy Gregg, in a story Tuesday about increasing numbers of state "contract employees," in Rhode Island, reported that one of the contracts includes some money related to Real ID:

Administration officials seem hard-pressed to explain how some contract employees got hired, for example: the $280,000 a year no-bid contract awarded Marlboro, Mass.-based Project Solutions Group for the services of “Karen Barth.”

In a series of interviews over the course of a week, the Department of Administration’s new information-technology chief John Landers said the firm was initially selected, in February 2005, for an $80,325 contract from among the many firms listed on “master price agreement.”

...According to Landers, she is currently poised to work with the DMV on the installation of a new $13-million “DMV modernization system,” after the winning bidder is chosen for that project. A DMV spokesman confirmed that the state is also paying Barth’s way to Washington in September to talk at a conference about the new security features states will have to encode in their driver’s licenses by 2009 under the federally mandated "REAL I.D." program. The spokesman, Charles Hollis, said he did not know her background in this arena.

Maybe that expense won't be necessary now. The defeat of the immigration bill and the failure of this effort to throw a little more money at it may doom it. We can't afford it.

Or maybe we'll do it ourselves. Libertarian Katherine Mangu-Ward wrote in Reason Online July 3 (Is Real ID a Real Problem? ),

When artist and Rutgers professor Hasan Elahi, a Bangladeshi-born American citizen, found his name on an FBI watch list, he started calling the FBI every time he planned to fly, to avoid trouble. But he got paranoid (and, as they say, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you). He worried that he "might be shipped off to Gitmo before anyone realized their mistake."

So Elahi started putting his whole life online. He carries a GPS device in his pocket, which offers casual visitors to his website an image of where he is at all times. Icons lead you to snaps of food, airports, toilets (not while he's on them, thankfully), and just about everything else he encounters in his frequent work-related world travels.

Elahi is just the wildest example of what normal people do every day when they fill out customs cards, update their Facebook entries, show bouncers their drivers licenses, and allow credit checks. More cars, phones, etc. have GPS devices (plus, check out Google's new faux GPS for mobile phones, and my previous musings on the privacy implications of Google's Street View feature), so another chip in your pocket, embedded in your ID, will be superfluous.

But you probably still won't feel safer with that chip in your pocket. Here's an idea: The Iraq war is fueling such anger against the United States, as well as costing us some $447 billion at the moment I type this. (It has cost Rhode Islanders more than $1,800,000,000.)

Let's end the war, make a deal for the oil and, as a nation, stop behaving in ways that make people want to hurt us. That would make me feel a lot safer.

Here's the cost of the war as you read this.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 4:31 PM | Permalink

Benefit auction: Annie Leibovitz portrait of Springsteen on eBay till 3 a.m. Sunday

Update: The work sold for $9,250.

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ signed photograph of Bruce Springsteen on eBay, closing in 12 hours, 20 minutes, at 3 a.m. Sunday.

The seller is the National Priorities Project, the folks who maintain the Cost of War counter ticking up the tally for Iraq. I found it while researching that for my next post. It says here, at NPP,

Annie Leibovitz has donated to the National Priorities Project this signed print of a Bruce Springsteen photograph taken in Philadelphia in 1999, and as previously seen in her book, American Music. NPP is auctioning the photo on Ebay, and 100% of the winning bid will go to support the work of NPP.

The current high bid is $6,150.

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ - limited edition, 6 of 20, signed artist print of Bruce Springsteen.

Taken of Bruce Springsteen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1999. Photograph can also be seen on p. 234 of Annie's book, American Music. Newly acquired, directly from the artist.

* Valued at $5,500
* Color print
* 20" x 24"
* Unframed

-- Annie Leibovitz on Wikipedia.

-- A stunning gallery at PBS of Annie Leibovitz work, including the John Lennon/Yoko Ono cover shot for Rolling Stone photographed the day John died.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:40 PM | Permalink

July 27, 2007

Friday tunes: Soulful Beatle covers, Roger Waters, Archies; Thunderbird to split from Firefox; Time may not exist;; Sample Web radio

Roger Waters In Mumbai 2007 [no label 2CD]

The first CD is available today, the second will be up Sunday.

Funky16Corners Radio v.28 - Rubber Souled Pt1: Soul covers of Beatles tunes

Playlist:
Billy Preston – Eight Days a Week (Exodus)
Music Company – TheWord (Mirwood)
Bunny Sigler – Yesterday (Parkway)
Stevie Wonder – We Can Work It Out (Tamla)
Chris Clark – Got To Get You Into My Life (Motown)
El Chicano – Eleanor Rigby (Kapp)
Junior Parker – Tomorrow Never Knows (Capitol)
Bill Cosby – Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (WB)
Soulful Strings – Within You Without You (Cadet)
Bud Shank – I Am the Walrus (World Pacific)
Soulful Strings – Hello Goodbye (Cadet)
Soulful Strings – The Inner Light (Cadet)

The Archies When They Rocked: 1968-69

The Archies were the Beatles of virtual bands -- innovators whose sugary hooks and catchy choruses spawned a legion of inferior imitators (The Bedrock Rockers, Jabberjaw). The Riverdale High quintet scored several hits in the late '60s, but 'Sugar, Sugar'-- the No. 1 song of 1969 -- remains the band's claim to fame.

Phooey: Mozilla Thunderbird to Find New Home as Mozilla Foundation Focuses on Mozilla Firefox at mozillaZine.

The mail program suffers from neglect compared to the killer browser.

On her weblog, Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker has announced that Mozilla Thunderbird is to move to a "new, separate organizational setting" as the Mozilla Foundation continues to focus ever more closely on Mozilla Firefox.

Shelley Powers asks Where is Mozilla Heading:

Years ago, Mozilla received flack for focusing on developing an application framework rather than just a browser, a move that ultimately paid out over the years. Now, I'm seeing a reverse trend: a focus away from a framework and towards one product, AdobeF…urh…Firefox.

I don't know if Thunderbird can survive as a product of a separate organization. I suspect it can't, especially when the origination of such an organization is based, more or less, on the product parent saying, "We have a kid no one wants anymore. We've decided we really don't like being parents, after all. Would someone like to adopt it?"

Measuring change:
Newsflash: Time May Not Exist
Not to mention the question of which way it goes...

This is my kind of headline, but I'm not exactly comfy in the world of quantum mechanics. There's not a lot to chunk out in this discussion. Well, maybe this...

“I recently went to the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder,” says Lloyd. (NIST is the government lab that houses the atomic clock that standardizes time for the nation.) “I said something like, ‘Your clocks measure time very accurately.’ They told me, ‘Our clocks do not measure time.’ I thought, Wow, that’s very humble of these guys. But they said, ‘No, time is defined to be what our clocks measure.’ Which is true. They define the time standards for the globe: Time is defined by the number of clicks of their clocks.”

Rovelli, the advocate of a timeless universe, says the NIST timekeepers have it right. Moreover, their point of view is consistent with the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. “We never really see time,” he says. “We see only clocks. If you say this object moves, what you really mean is that this object is here when the hand of your clock is here, and so on. We say we measure time with clocks, but we see only the hands of the clocks, not time itself.

Sample Web radio stations: Tun3r: These squares are all radio stations. Click anywhere to get started, or drag orange needle...

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:18 AM | Permalink

July 26, 2007

UFOs over Shakespeare's birthplace? Rice paddy art; Not your ordinary cat photo

Over 100 see UFOS over Stratford, comes from the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald -- yes, that Stratford, Shakespeare's hometown -- which, unhelpfully, suggests we buy the paper for the "full story."

This is too rich.

STRATFORD was the scene of an unexplained multi-sighting of unidentified flying objects on Saturday night—witnessed by more than 100 people near the town centre.

Four bright objects appeared in formation above the Warwick Road area, and were later joined by a fifth, at around 10pm.

The formation—which appeared without any sound—lasted 15 minutes and baffled those watching from the ground before fading away.

Witness Tom Hawkes saw the lights along with 15 other people celebrating his girlfriend’s birthday at the One Elm in Guild Street.

...Mr Hawkes captured the remarkable images on video, as did other customers at the One Elm. He is planning to send his clips to relevant agencies to be examined.

The Daily Mail ended up with Hawkes's video, and streams it with UFO sightings bring town to a standstill:

Sceptics dismissed the UFOs as nothing more than hot air balloons, fireworks or even lanterns which had broken loose from a local rugby club.

Others, however, claimed the speed and agility of the objects was unlike any known aircraft and said the odd movement, lack of noise and the length of time in the air discounted any man-made explanation.

And, in case you were wondering, people who weren't in the bar saw them, too.

I'm speculating they're time travelers from the future, tourists who wanted to see the Bard's hometown through the ages.

Rice paddy art: Like Peru's Nazca Lines, the rice paddy art of Japan seems meant to be viewed from above. From Pink Tentacle, where you'll find several other examples,

Each year, farmers in the town of Inakadate in Aomori prefecture create works of crop art by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety.

The results are spectacular.

It's not Photoshopped, or sprayed on. They plant in a pattern.

More images at this Japanese site..

The vet's back room:

At Chips Quinn Scholars:

La Shinda Clark, photographer at The Philadelphia Inquirer and 1995 (Chips Quinn) Scholar, won third place for feature photos in the National Press Photographers Association 2003 Best of Photojournalism contest. In the photo, volunteer Cameron Tarzwell, 13, cleans loose hair that has been shaved from an anesthetized cat, Princess, in preparation for an operation. Tarzwell has been assisting a veterinarian for four years. The photo was one in a picture story on a spaying and neutering program in Chester County in Pennsylvania.

I'm glad I never saw my cats crucified like that. I guess I thought they just went limp and that was good enough.

About Chips Quinn Scholars: How it began: Program a memorial to editor who embraced diversity. Chips -- John C. Quinn Jr. -- died in an automobile accident in 1990 at the age of 34, having left the Journal to become managing editor of the Poughkeepsie Journal. The program aims to develop what he couldn't find then -- a network of journalists of color. There have been 1,080 Scholars since 1991. About the program

That photo was one of the rare sightings of Chips in a tie.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 3:21 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2007

Providence Geeks meet tonight

The monthly Providence Geeks gathering happens tonight in the AS220 storefront at 115 Empire St. beginning at 5:30. Grab a beer and a nametag and mingle with a wide range of folks interested in the local tech scene.

Cofounder Jack Templin set the tone in his announcement of the very first geek meet in February 2006:

Topics of conversation will vary as they will at any gathering of geeks, but many of us will be talking about AJAX, Mashups, Startups, and Web Services.

There's always a brief presentation of an interesting local project and tonight's is by software developer Jeffrey Hagen of Providence startup Digication.

Digication provides an easy way for schools to create online communities and for teachers and students to showcase their work. Digication is founded by faculty at RISD’s Art + Design Education Department. Digication was made available to US schools in August 2006, within 10 months, it has attracted users from over 1000 schools in all 50 states in the US.

Providence Phoenix news editor Ian Donnis profiled the geeks in last week's issue. From Geek Power,

Providence Phoenix photo Geeks, from left: Soren Ryherd, Providence Geeks co-founders Jack Templin and Brian Jepson, Matt Obert, Sam Killay and Jef Nickerson.

Getting Rhode Island’s geeks out of their solitary fluorescent-lit dens was a natural, says Templin, his tongue partly in cheek, since, like artists and entrepreneurs, they are marked by a passion for their work and a strong interest in sharing ideas. While the dinners are decidedly casual — the chance to grab a taco and a beer from AS220’s in-house Taqueria Pacifica — a different Rhode Island start-up is highlighted at each dinner, and more than 100 geeks, their admirers, and the simply curious cycle through in the course of a night.

As simple as it sounds, Templin says, there’s no replacement for making the creative entrepreneurs at these get-togethers aware of one another, and their work and needs: “Who’s doing what down the street? How is it complimentary? Who has money to invest? Who has needs for my talent? We’re seeing hiring, collaboration, investment. We’re seeing all that stuff,” he says, “and that stuff adds up.”

It's called a dinner because you can munch through the presentation: The adjoining Taqueria Pacifica offers food and a bar, but don't expect banquet tables. Come as you are, of course.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:38 AM | Permalink

July 24, 2007

Finished Harry Potter (no spoilers)

Updated to flesh out some thoughts, add some links

Months ago, I preordered Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for my grandson Dylan, who originally got me into the series with him when he was 8.

When it came to the order form, the "Bill to..." part went to me, obviously, but I hovered over the "Send to..." before dutifully filling in his name and address.

His mom called Saturday to say the book had arrived by regular mail, and to ask if Dylan could spend the night with us so she could go to the SoundSession parade.

"Have him bring Harry Potter," I said. I thought I might get to start the book when he took a break to play some online games.

Dylan, who's just turned 10, arrived with Deathly Hallows, but he wasn't reading it. He explained he wants to start again at book one, which he had loaned to his cousins. Until it came back, he'd read other books. He seems to know he may have been a bit too young to understand the full sweep of the Harry Potter experience. He's ready now, and doesn't want to miss a thing.

I asked if I could keep Deathly Hallows until I finished it, and he agreed

I was working last night, subbing for a vacationing colleague, so I had Monday to myself. Just before 3 in the afternoon I finished the book. I felt I had to inhale it because I was tired of tiptoeing around the writings and rumors of those who had already read it or read about it or rumors about it.

But now that I've finished it, I'm still avoiding them. I want to have my own experience with books and ideas first, if there's anything to experience.

I'm tired of violence and war and greed, and the series has plenty of that, supercharged -- the uses of power over others in the wizard world range from saving a life to programming betrayals (sometimes in high officials) by shouting Imperio!, one of three Unforgiveable Curses.

With so much power, peace is a survival strategy.

Would a second series in The Potter Dynasty Saga be about the next generation's Hogwarts, one beyond the Dark Arts? Dylan would love to go to Hogwarts rather than to public school.

Hogwarts' magic and spells are a form of technology, coupling intention with action. If you lose your keys, our Muggle technology offers a key chain that beeps if you clap just right, and you follow the sound till you spy or unearth your keys. How much easier to say, "Accio keys!" -- with feeling -- and let the keys come to you.

Future technologies will not be about bigger and faster computers and phones. They're likely to eliminate them, actually. The real frontier may be the development of human intelligence and capacities that will render these crutches unnecessary. Whatever you can imagine is probably possible, maybe in the lifetime of Dylan and his generation.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 3:24 AM | Permalink

July 23, 2007

Transcript, video of CNN/YouTube Democratic debate

Updated 9:43 p.m.
Transcript at CNN, where you can play the entire debate on the homepage. YouTube didn't stream it, to the consternation of many.

9:54 a.m.
The CNN/YouTube debate: Tonight's forum with the Democratic presidential candidates holds out the hope that Internet users' questions can overcome politics as usual. Or is this just a gimmick? Los Angeles Times:

First up, the Democratic contenders, Monday night in Charleston, S.C., a TV event moderated by Anderson Cooper. At CNN, they've been promoting the night like it's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," urging the nation to take a seat at the table — no jacket or tie required — while remaining coy about the process: It took John Roberts, co-host of CNN's weeklong "CNN/YouTube Debate Preview," 55 minutes last week to mention that "CNN will be choosing which questions are used."

Details: Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, Obama, and Richardson at the Citadel in South Carolina. 7 p.m. on CNN.

You may watch the 2989 questions have been turned into videos and uploaded to YouTube.

MSNBC's First Read:

It's YouTube, and one assumes CNN is going to take advantage of the fact that they can't be held responsible for the user questions. Will they cross some question lines that they wouldn't do with their own moderator? The candidates, we assume, have prepped for that outcome.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:43 PM | Permalink

July 22, 2007

James Moody afterglow, tunes; Ambient sound: One-minute vacations

Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez
Jazz saxophone legend James Moody played at Waterplace Park last night as part of the climax to Black Rep's weeklong downtown Providence SoundSession festival. Amazingly, James is 82.

You might want to listen to James Moody's Lazy Afternoon on this lovely Sunday in Rhode Island, temperature an easy 75. The tune is at Geezer Music Club, a blog so geezer it predates Rock Around the Clock..

Ted Barron, at Boogie Woogie Flu has a photo of James Moody in 1951, a couple of Moody tunes and a confession to make in a post titled Moody's Mood.

A few short clips are buried on the CDs page at JamesMoody.com.

Ambient sound: At Aaron Ximm's Quiet American, "One-minute vacations are unedited recordings of somewhere, somewhen. Sixty seconds of something else. Sixty seconds to be someone else."

My goal with Quiet American is to sketch in sound the experience of being in an unfamiliar place.

The work on this site is not a replacement for travel. But if you are willing to listen, you may be transported.

...Please use headphones.

The ambient sound of the "vacations" -- 287 so far -- ranges widely: daytime bazaar in Panama, Voodoo Festival in Benin, West Africa, nighttime insects in India, opera in a Norman cathedral, a thunderstorm in Portugal....

There is also a page of field recordings made in Vietnam in 1998. Evening chant at Thien Mu monastery in Hue.

I enjoyed clicking around the other pages of this simple site, too, reading what Aaron has to say about it all and listening to sound snippets.

Headline award: Tiny brain no obstacle to French civil servant - Yahoo! News

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments 2

July 20, 2007

Mp3s: Hendrix '68; Checkers cracked; Tax non-filer acquitted; Iran arrests spying squirrels; Fake Steve Jobs

Experience: Jimi Hendrix Miami Pop Festival 1968. Live at Gulfstream Racetrack, Florida, May 18, 1968.

Foxy Lady, Fire, Hear My Train A Comin', Purple Haze and some announcements -- twice: "...this is a relatively short set and, as a bonus, we are offering the set from two different soundboard sources."

At Bigo. Also there: Thurston Moore, Rashied Ali, Ginger Baker. Art Blakey, Improv -- "two improvisational pieces by Thurston Moore and free jazz/avant-garde drummer Rashied Ali performing live at the Cooler in New York on March 1, 1997. As a bonus, we have included the epic jam by Ginger Baker and Art Blakey at the Munich Olympics in 1972."

And Miles Davis, New York, 1969.

Reload: None of the above: Bill offers voters a way to put action in dissatisfaction: force a new election. Boston Globe:

Massachusetts voters sick of holding their noses on Election Day could get another option: none of the above.

The proposal would let voters reject all candidates and demand a new election.

"Occasionally, when you get an application for a position, none of them are qualified," said William H. White , a retired systems analyst from East Dennis spearheading the scheme, who testified yesterday before state lawmakers.

Can't win: Computers crack (checkers). BBC:

A Canadian team has created a computer program that can win or draw any game, no matter who the opponent is. It took an average of 50 computers nearly two decades to sift through the 500 billion billion possible draughts positions to come up with the solution.

It took an average of 50 computers nearly two decades to sift through the 500 billion billion possible draughts positions to come up with the solution.

Fought the IRS, won: Shreveport (La.) Times: Local attorney acquitted on federal income tax charges Cryer stopped filing income taxes more than 10 years ago

A Shreveport attorney who has challenged the government for years on the legality of filing federal income taxes has been acquitted on charges he failed to file returns.

A federal jury unanimously found Tommy Cryer not guilty this week on two misdemeanor counts of failure to file.

And according to Cryer, the prosecution dismissed two felony charges of tax evasion prior to trial.

..."The court could not find a law that makes me liable or makes my revenues taxable," Cryer said. "The Supreme Court has ruled that the government cannot impose an income tax on anything but the profits and gains. When you work for someone you give your service and labor in exchange for money, so everything you make is not profit or gain. You put something into it."

This is nuts: Iranians arrest 14 squirrels for spying: Islamic Republic's intelligence agents allege rodents were carrying advanced Western spy gear

'I' is somebody else: Mike Schramm at The Unofficial Apple Weblog has changed his mind about trying to discover who's writing the anonymous Fake Steve Jobs blog (The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs).

Mike writes, (Leave Fake Steve Jobs fake),

The other day, I posted a little summary of the latest attempts to discover the identity of anonyblogger Fake Steve Jobs. At the time, I thought finding FSJ's identity out would be a good time, a fun mystery to solve. Many of you (most of you, I'd say) disagreed, saying that it didn't matter who FSJ was-- as long as he wrote strong, insightful (and often hilarious) pieces about what Apple was up to, you were willing to let him have his anonymity. And after hearing your good points, I have to tell you (because this doesn't happen very often): I changed my mind, and decided to agree with those who wanted FSJ to stay FSJ.

Then, today, FSJ decided to post this, his first thoughts on people trying to discover his identity...

CNet has the story: Fake Steve Jobs lashes out against 'invasions of privacy'

The " 'I' is somebody else" quote is from Rimbaud.

Uninquiring minds: This Modern World: How the news works. Tom Tomorrow casts a jaundiced eye...

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:25 AM | Permalink

July 19, 2007

'I Was an eBay Voldemort'; Harry Potter launch on the Sabbath is a problem in Israel

I Was an eBay Voldemort: When his order of Deathly Hallows from Deep Discount arrived Tuesday, he put it on eBay...

Yishai warns stores over Harry Potter book launch on Shabbat - Haaretz, Israel.

Harry goes on sale at 2:01 a.m.on Saturday, the Sabbath, when most businesses, by law, are closed.

The deputy prime minister and minister of industry, trade and employment, Eli Yishai (Shas), opposes the launch of the new book in the "Harry Potter" series on Friday night. Yishai said he intends to issue indictments and impose fines on local distributors of the book who violate the Hours of Work and Rest Law.

Yishai called on book stores not to sell the book on Shabbat, and instead to begin selling it Friday morning or postpone its sale until after the Sabbath.

...Yishai said Tuesday that "there must be a limit to the desire to be like other nations."

Wikipedia: During Shabbat -- between Friday night at sundown and the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night -- 39 categories of activity are prohibited:

1. Sowing
2. Plowing
3. Reaping
4. Binding sheaves
5. Threshing
6. Winnowing
7. Selecting
8. Grinding
9. Sifting
10. Kneading
11. Baking
12. Shearing wool
13. Washing wool
14. Beating wool
15. Dyeing wool
16. Spinning
17. Weaving
18. Making two loops
19. Weaving two threads
20. Separating two threads
21. Tying
22. Untying
23. Sewing stitches
24. Tearing
25. Trapping
26. Slaughtering
27. Flaying
28. Tanning
29. Scraping hide
30. Marking hides
31. Cutting hide to shape
32. Writing two or more letters
33. Erasing two or more letters
34. Building
35. Demolishing
36. Extinguishing a fire
37. Kindling a fire
38. Putting the finishing touch on an object
39. Transporting an object between a private domain and the public domain, or for a distance of 4 cubits within the public domain

All modern activities are traced back to these 39, with lively debate about which is the grandfather principle.

I have no idea where selling Harry fits here. Maybe "38. Putting the finishing touch on an object"?

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

July 18, 2007

James Madison, Harriet Miers, Yassar Arafat, Osama bin Laden and 100 open-source downloads

King George W.: James Madison’s Nightmare. Notes on the Constitution by journalist Robert Scheer, USC professor, SF Chronicle columnist and editor of Truthdig:

George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the “foreign entanglements” that George Washington feared would destroy the experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution....

...When the prime author of the U.S. Constitution explained why that document grants Congress—not the president—the exclusive power to declare and fund wars, Madison wrote, “A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments.”

Because “[n]o nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare,” Madison urged that the constitutional separation of powers he had codified be respected. “The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war ... the power of raising armies,” he wrote. “The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them.”

Checks and balances were specifically built in to our nation's principles to avoid the possibility of a dictator hijacking the ship of state.

With former White House attorney and withdrawn Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers refusing to respond to a Congressional subpoena to testify on the U.S. Attorney firings, a Constitutional showdown seems to be building.

Another round in the executive privilege fight: Salon,

Tuesday was another banner day for executive privilege. Responding to subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee regarding the investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, an attorney for former White House counsel Harriet Miers informed the committee that Miers will still not comply with a subpoena requiring her to produce documents and appear before the committee, and the Republican National Committee asked for more time to consider whether and how to comply.

In a letter to committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., Miers' attorney wrote that his client has been "specifically directed" by President Bush "not to appear, not to produce documents in response to the subpoena, and not to provide testimony."

AP reports that "A Judiciary subcommittee will meet on Thursday to consider the White House's executive privilege claim."

Arafat died of AIDS, confirms Palestinian leader. Israel Today.

'New' bin Laden tape Is 5-Year-Old, Re-Released Footage. Prison Planet, but they seem to have the goods:

The footage first appeared in May 2002, having been released by a Pakistani security official to the Al-Ansaar Islamic news agency, based in Birmingham, England. This CBS video clip clearly shows the same footage as the apparent "new" tape.

Here is a screenshot from the 2002 tape (right) compared to the new tape (left). Notice the sloping mountain in the left background.

Sources indicate that the footage was shot in either October 2001 or March 2002, with the earlier date being the favorite as Bin Laden's appearance matches with the footage from a different tape that was released in October 2001.

Al-Jazeera said they had the footage as far back as October 2001, but chose not to air it as they saw it as "not newsworthy" and "nothing more than a PR stunt." Six years later, and with the footage having been released on two separate occasions already, the western media insinuated that the tape was new and splashed it everywhere as a top headline.

More photos, video, speculation at Gateway Pundit.

100 Open Source Downloads

No, it’s not the “Top 100,” nor does this list contain the “only” 100 open source downloads you should consider – there’s a big ocean out there, so please keep swimming.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 12:27 PM | Permalink

July 17, 2007

Vitter stonewalls; 84 sq-ft dream house; Businesses back out of Second Life; What's in Red Bull

AP
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., left, listens as his wife Wendy Vitter speaks to the media during a press conference in Metairie, La., yesterday.

Vitter offers apology but gives no answers -- nola.com | Vitter archive

Vitter: "Those [New Orleans] stories are not true" at Your Right Hand Thief.

Senator David Vitter:

Unfortunately my admission has encouraged some longtime political enemies, and those hoping to profit from the situation, to spread falsehoods too-- like those New Orleans stories in recent reporting. Those stories are not true.

This statement virtually guarantees that Vitter will be forced to resign sometime this year, probably in weeks, as more disclosures occur and corroborative evidence is unveiled.

The New Orleans blog also pulls together The Vitter affair: as it stands now

Writer Christopher Tidmore, a Republican candidate for the Legislature who wrote the original Louisiana Weekly stories alleging Vitter had a continuing relationship with Wendy Cortez, was present outside the hotel conference room....

Tidmore stood by his stories.

"Repeated interviews with Wendy Cortez, not only by Louisiana Weekly but also The Times-Picayune have developed an open and shut case that the woman in question, also known as Wendy Yow, had a series of trysts with David Vitter," Tidmore said. "Her identity is not in question.
-- Vitter says he's 'sorry,' returns to work, The Lafayette (La.) Daily Advertiser

(Links to Tidmore's original reports are in Thursday's post about Vitter.)

Tongue in cheek: "Maybe family values are about forgiving, forgetting and moving on." -- Pearson Cross, a political science professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. -- Vitter's statement raises questions in the Shreveport Times.

Woman content living in 84-sq. ft. dream home

"Two solar panels provide electricity. A tiny propane tank allows Dee to cook in her $10,000 home on wheels. "

Her monthly heating bill in winter in Portland, Ore., is $6.

The Boat Is About to Rock (Again) in Internet Video

What's Inside: Red Bull

Virtual marketers have second thoughts about Second Life - Los Angeles Times: Firms find that avatars created by participants in the online society aren't avid shoppers.

For some advertisers, the problem is that Second Life is a fantasyland, and the representations of the people who play in it don't have human needs. Food and drink aren't necessary, teleporting is the easiest way to get around and clothing is optional. In fact, the human form itself is optional.

Avatars can play games, build beach huts, dress up like furry animals, flirt with strangers — sometimes all at once.

Their interests seem to tend toward the risque. Ian Schafer, chief executive of online marketing firm Deep Focus, which advises clients about entering virtual worlds, said he recently toured Second Life. He started at the Aloft hotel and found it empty. He moved on to casinos, brothels and strip clubs, and they were packed. Schafer said he found in his research that "one of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia."

Think of it as a puppet show.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments 3

July 15, 2007

Books that grab you, besides Harry Potter

WaPo books editor Ron Charles writes a nice column today (Harry Potter and the Death of Reading) in which he confesses what he really thinks about the saga of the Hogwarts hero -- "repetitive plots, the static characters, the pedestrian prose, the wit-free tone, the derivative themes" -- and why it bothers him:

"Harry Potter" and a few other much-hyped books devour everyone's attention, leaving most readers paralyzed in praise, apparently incapable of reading much else.

Gifted writers produce books that transport us, that we race home to read, that we wish would never end, dot all our histories. But how to find them?

Rebecca Blood collects reading lists, which are a fine place to start.

Book Spot's Reading Lists is a portal to many more, by age, genre, whatever you like.

Here are some lists -- mostly for mysteries -- that I've bookmarked before reserving books at the library. (Yes, the library. Buying books unseen seems to me expensive and risky. We take home a dozen at a time, and if one's a dud, we don't feel compelled to finish it to "get our money's worth.") Use the Library Lookup bookmarklet in your browser -- get it on the right side of this page, or check out the original page at this link.

The 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century. Independent Mystery Booksellers Association
Best Recent Mysteries. Austin Public Library Good Reads.
Mystery. The Agony Column Book Reviews and Commentary
Looking for a Mystery?. Resources for School Librarians

Here's a tool:

What Should I Read Next?
Enter a book you like and the site will analyse our database of real readers'
favourite books (over 32,000 and growing) to suggest what you could read next.
These are our suggestions based on readers' recommendations.

I entered the name of author Lee Child, whose Jack Reacher character, a former military police officer who, by choice, owns nothing but a folding toothbrush and a bank account he accesses via Western Union -- stars in a series of thrillers we tore through this spring.

After asking if I meant "Killing Floor" by Lee Child -- one of the titles -- the site suggested:

Blind Bloodhound Justice - Virginia Lanier See Amazon UK | US
Motion To Dismiss - Jonnie Jacobs See Amazon UK | US
Hark - Ed McBain See Amazon UK | US
The Two Minute Rule - Robert Crais See Amazon UK | US
One False Move - Alex Kava See Amazon UK | US
Jian - Eric Van Lustbader See Amazon UK | US
Potshot - Robert B. Parker See Amazon UK | US
The Switch - Elmore Leonard See Amazon UK | US
The Hundredth Man - Jack Kerley See Amazon UK | US
Scavenger Hunt - Robert Ferrigno See Amazon UK | US

(Links are live in the actual results.)

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:28 PM | Permalink

July 13, 2007

Think links: Old boy mp3s, DJ Spooky! Owsley lives; Yucky ice cream

Mp3s & musical etc. Eric Clapton Minnesota Night [EC Is Here, 2CDs] Live at the Civic Centre, St Paul, MN, April 18, 1987

Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band: Live To Run [no label, 1CD] Live at the Tower Theatre, Philadelphia, December 31, 1975.

James Taylor Fillmore East 1971 [no label 1CD] Live at Fillmore East, New York, January 25, 1971.

DJ Spooky: How a Tiny Caribbean Island Birthed the Mashup

Warner Music To Stream All Its Music Online For Free

Online Radio Is Saved; SoundExchange Will Not Enforce New Royalty Rates on Sunday

AT&T willing to spy for NSA, MPAA, and RIAA. That will boost sales. Not.

All in your head: The Owsley interview. For the unrepentant patriarch of LSD, long, strange trip winds back to Bay Area. S. F. Chronicle.

Face-Blindness ( Prosopagnosia ) and stones

Modelling time travel in fiction

Enough thinking, have some dessert: 101 Frightening Ice Cream Flavors From Around The World Squid, ox tongue or corn? No? Maybe charcoal, garlic or pit viper?

10 things your restaurant won't tell you

And remember, Grandma is Not Food.

Weekend bliss follows...

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:56 AM | Permalink

The warm (gold) yellow (submarine) iPod

Skin:


Gizmodo photo

Yellow Submarine iPod Forthcoming, Loaded with Entire Beatles Catalog? Maybe. Charlie White at Gizmodo.

Or may be this...

You can imagine it however you like.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:32 AM | Permalink

July 12, 2007

La. Sen. Vitter's fall began before the D.C. madam

AP
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., left, and Republican presidential hopeful and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani visit the site of one of the levee breeches that caused severe flooding during Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans, Saturday, June 30, 2007.

They harder they come...: Louisiana blogs Your Right Hand Thief ("Laughing off hard truths in New Orleans") and Adrastos are all over the pedestal tumble of conservative Rep. Sen. David Vitter of Metairie, whose "family values" persona crumbled when his name turned up on the D.C. madam's phone log; his political future followed suit as more details of his New Orleans lifestyle went national, headed for Leno and Letterman monologues. (Vitter, who co-authored the 2004 Federal Marriage Amendment while a member of the House, is chair of Rudolph Giuliani's Southern campaign, and had been touted as a VP candidate who would balance Rudy's socially liberal history.)

Musical interlude: John Lennon:

You can shine your shoes and wear a suit
You can comb your hair and look quite cute
You can hide your face behind a smile
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside...
-- "Crippled Inside," from Imagine
Audio at the Internet Archive | Video: The stereo music video

Fallout: Now, of course, the GOP is between a rock and a hard place. If they pressure Vitter to resign, Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco gets to name the replacement to his Senate seat. The Shreveport Times reports today (Republicans are pondering their next move over Vitter scandal),

BATON ROUGE -- Some top Louisiana Republicans are discussing whether to ask U.S. Sen. David Vitter to resign and packaging a deal with Democratic Gov.
Kathleen Blanco to appoint a place-holding Republican to take his spot.

Politically, it might be tempting for the Democrat -- whose frustration with the administration after Hurricane Katrina was broadcast daily -- to add to her party's one-vote majority in the Senate. Alternatively, Vitter stuck in the Senate, shunned but unable to resign, would be a GOP nightmare. The downside might be that the Connecticut for Lieberman party's Sen. Joe Lieberman would retaliate by switching to the GOP; if the eventual special election for Vitter's seat resulted in a Republican win, the Senate would be tied.

Primary sources:

Josh Marshall's videocast above, lets you take your own measure of the senator: The author of Talking Points Memo pulls together a Vitter family-values campaign commercial and excerpt from a 2006 speech in support of the Marriage Protection Amendment, and cable news anchors' reporting on a 2000 campaign interview come back to haunt Mrs. Vitter.

Sidebar: Background

How David Vitter Got Nabbed in Madam Scandal. WaPo, yesterday.

-- Louisiana Weekly, June 3, 2002: Congressman is accused of having an alleged affair with prostitute
-- Louisiana Weekly, March 29, 2004: Congressman Denies Affair With Prostitute

The author of both, Louisiana reporter Christopher Tidmore, who is now running as a Republican candidate for the state legislature, issued a statement Tuesday: Tidmore Vindicated, Responds to Vitter Revelations

More, including yesterday's Tidmore: The Tragic Situation that Surrounds David Vitter, at his campaign site.

-- Salon, October 29, 2004: There is a house in New Orleans: "Rumors involving a prostitute and a secret alliance with neo-Nazi David Duke trail the Republican Senate candidate in Louisiana."

-- Sen. Vitter's official site

-- Wikipedia site for Sen. Vitter

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

July 11, 2007

Prince gives away music, packs halls; China food safety head executed; Social networks; Time's best sites

It's too hot -- 87 percent humidity, like it's the dog days of August already -- to do much but point and run back into the air-conditioned bedroom.

AP
Prince performed in Minneapolis last Saturday.

Prince Points the Way to a Brighter Future for Music at Wired.

...(Prince) most recently outraged the music establishment by saying he'll give away CDs of his Planet Earth album to British fans who purchase next week's Mail on Sunday newspaper. In light of the giveaway, Sony/BMG refused to distribute the album in Great Britain, provoking outbursts from music retailers who had been cut out of the action.

Neither the Mail on Sunday or Prince's camp would divulge how much the newspaper paid Prince for the right to give his album away, but it's clear Prince was paid upfront, and that nearly 3 million Mail on Sunday readers -- plus everyone who bought tickets to one of his shows -- will receive the CD for free. The giveaway almost certainly contributed to Prince selling out 15 of his 21 shows at London's O2 Arena within the first hour of ticket sales. The venue (formerly the Millennium Dome) holds around 20,000 people. If the remaining six shows sell out, the series will gross over $26 million.

Combined with the undisclosed fee paid by the Mail on Sunday, it's not a bad take for someone who's involved in a "very clear devaluing of music."

Prince's latest gambit also succeeded by acknowledging that copies, not songs, are just about worthless in the digital age. The longer an album is on sale, the more likely it is that people can find somewhere to make a copy from a friend's CD or a stranger's shared-files folder. When copies approach worthlessness, only the original has value, and that's what Prince sold to the Mail on Sunday: the right to be Patient Zero in the copying game...

Strict accountability: China food safety head executed

The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, has been executed for corruption, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.

He was convicted of taking 6.5m yuan ($850,000; £425,400) in bribes and of dereliction of duty at a trial in May.

The bribes were linked to sub-standard medicines, blamed for several deaths.

No "Helluva job, Zheng" for him!

Who you know: 10 Most Beautiful Social Networks

35 Perspectives on Online Social Networking

Avoiding Walled Gardens on the Internet

If the future of this Web interests you, don't miss this interview with Cluetrain co-author Doc Searls: SAP Global Survey: Doc Searls. (Yeah, the headline isn't illuminating.) Bruce Sterling gives it a better one in his takeout: The Static Web and the Live Web.)

3. What is the biggest surprise to you on how social media has developed?

I've got to admit that I don't like the term "social media." When I hear or read it, I tune out. My problem isn't with the word "social," but with the word "media." It's a loaded word, framed by a hundred years' experience with pre-Net "media" that reduced everything to "content" (another word I dislike) that was then "delivered" somehow. There is a a sense of distance to "media" that I believe diminshes our understanding of the Net. It's a bugaboo with me, and I'll admit to being pretty much alone with it.

4.You described the term Web 2.0 as the name for the next bubble. Do you still think this is true? Is it true of social media as well?

I've said "Web 2.0 is what we'll call the next crash," as well as the current bubble. and I still believe that. Social Media as a "meme" may sink with the same boat. The more useful distinction is between the Live Web and the Static Web. The Live Web today is branching off of the Static Web. Much of what we call "social" happens there, though I dislike the "media" term because it's old and freighted with concepts inherited from TV, radio and all that.

To understand what I mean, consider what we're saying when we call the Web a collection of "domains" and "sites" with "locations" and "addresses" that we " build" -- and where we look for "visitors" and "traffic." We're saying the Web is real estate. We conceive it in terms we've borrowed from real estate and construction....

I can't remember where I read this, but I like this definition of Web 2.0: "You create the content, we keep the revenue."

Not Mickey Mouse: Unusual Cell Phones

NextWeb: 50 Best Websites 2007. Many offer tools or functions rather than "content."

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 7:26 AM | Permalink

July 9, 2007

Free mp3s: Local bands from Tennessee; R.I. musician coming back from NYC to AS220

Greetings from Knoxville - Songs by local musicians

Jack Lail, managing editor of multimedia at the Knoxville News Sentinel, emailed after I blogged about his site's abandonment of registration, and of fees for their UT sports site.

Jack thanked me for the mention, and noticed that this blog notices music, so he sent along this news:

A month or two ago we did a free CD. There is a zip file download at the link before. It's a sampling of bands in the knoxville area. Not sure anyone in Providence would care, but, hey, it's free music.

It sure is: Read their music writer Wayne Bledsoe's comments about the bands at the link above, and/or download the Greetings from Knoxville album (53MB)

If you know of other cities that have showcased the best of their local bands, I'd love to know about them.

Later: I showed Jack the mp3 site we made at projo.com in 2000, still going strong with more than 1,000 bands, some of which are no more. So it's also grown into the recent spotty history of recent Rhode Island music. Rewriting the code would be a huge project, so it does what it could do in 2000 -- gets you there.

The styles are all over the lot (there's a jukebox, by genre). We asked for holiday music and got church choirs.

The latest to sign up (timing is everything) is a classically trained pianist-singer-songwriter, Shannon Corey. From her blurb:

Originally from Providence, RI, she has been seen regularly around New York, playing at famed venues such as The Knitting Factory, The Bitter End, and the now immortalized CBGB’s. Shannon Corey’s debut album will please devotees as well as new fans. Having received the praises of fellow artists and critics alike, including being named High Times Magazine Unsigned Artist of the Week, her pop-rock-classical sound is absolutely infectious...

One of the basic ideas behind this music site has always been to let readers hear what a band sounds like before they pop for the cover at a club. Shannon will be at AS220 Saturday, July 28 for $6. Here's her Web site.

I'm glad Jack Lail sent me that email. It led to all the rest of this.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:52 PM | Permalink

July 8, 2007

Live Earth videos; NYT calls for U.S. to leave Iraq

Nunatak, from Antarctica, at Live Earth 2007

More Live Earth videos at YouTube

NYT: Editorial: The Road Home. It begins,

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.

and ends,

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans’ demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened — the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.

This country faces a choice. We can go on allowing Mr. Bush to drag out this war without end or purpose. Or we can insist that American troops are withdrawn as quickly and safely as we can manage — with as much effort as possible to stop the chaos from spreading.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 4:43 AM | Permalink

July 7, 2007

Update: Live Earth live now on Bravo, Sundance, Web

Saturday, 3:01 p.m.
I'm watching it on Cox digital cable on Bravo, Ch. 62 on my TV, and on Sundance, Ch. 163. They're not the same -- right now, Bravo is mainlining the N.Y.C. concert, Sundance has highlights from Shanghai.

MSNBC and CNBC are not there now, despite their listing as sources on the Live Earth site.

11:50 Friday night:

AP Photo/Rick Rycroft
An Australian Aboriginal, left, dances on stage as Natalie Pa'apa'a of the band Blue King Brown performs during the first Live Earth concert in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, July 7, 2007.

Online: Live Earth is under way, with the first concerts in Sydney, Australia and Tokyo happening now.

Stream it at MSN. If you're using Firefox or another non-I.E. browser, you should be transferred to an alternate player. If that doesn't happen, try this one.

TV: TV schedule.
Over the air: NBC airs them in prime time, 8-11 p.m.
Cable: MSNBC broadcasts concerts Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; CNBC,
8am-2am; BRAVO, 9 a.m.-2 a.m. est; UNI HD, 4 a.m.-2 a.mt; SUNDANCE
4 a.m.-2 a.m.

Lineups for each concert, start times and more are at this factsheet.

If you're up early, you can catch Yusuf ( formerly Cat Stevens) in Hamburg, where the concert starts at 8 a.m. EDT. You might be channel-flipping if you want to catch the London start at 8:30 a.m.

New York's concert at Giants Stadium begins at 2:30 p.m.

Notable:

Nanatuk, the science team’s indie-rock house band at the Rothera Research Station in Antarctica, will air at 10:30 a.m. You can get a preview at NPR's Live in the Antarctic, It's Nunatak.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 3:01 PM | Permalink

July 6, 2007

Mp3s: Clapton's Buddy Holly; Nico scores movie; 100 best games; Octosquid; Apple Mp3s? ...

Vacation continues...

Friday mp3s: Eric Clapton channels Buddy Holly: Maybe Baby and Peggy Sue.

His time: Providence-raised Nico Muhly -- son of painter Bunny Harvey and filmmaker Frank Muhly -- gets the composing credit for the movie Joshua, opening today in some cities. If it takes off, it may play here. L.A. Times review: Having it all: Love, money, a creepy kid

His mom writes, "I think he underplays everything. He just had 4 nights of the Boston Pops playing a commissioned piece..check out his website which is more like a blog at this point...lots of hidden writing in the projects etc."

Playing around: EDGE'S Top 100 games of all time. Video games, that is. The best filter, I think, for playable free games, with reviews, reader comments and walkthroughs, is Jay Bibby's Jay Is Games.

Octosquid: : Curious creature caught off Keahole Point. Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports on what may be a new species found off the Big Island. See it large..

Another view:

Michael Darden | West Hawaii Today (reg. req.)
A squid-like creature, rescued from a Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority deep water pipe filter, swims in a fish tank June 27 at the facility.

Scientists all agog at 'octosquid'. Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

Squid and Octopus at N.H. Public Television may help you figure out which parts are which.

Apple Mp3s?: The music industry nobs have finally figured out what we're doing by Fake Steve Jobs (no credible link). Interesting discussion in comments in response to his succinct dissection of the music industry. It begins,

So you've no doubt seen this story or one like it explaining that Universal Music Group won't renew its iTunes deal. And you've seen people saying that the majors are trying to "recalibrate" their relationships with us. Actually what's happening is they're crapping in their pants. They woke up one day and realized that we've got 80% share of digital downloads. Suddenly all the power in the value chain resides in one player. Oops.

Here's the thing. These guys could have done what we did. In the early days of the Internet, everyone figured the majors would build digital distribution arms. But they didn't do it, because they didn't understand technology, and they didn't want to invest in building this expertise, and they were freaked out about piracy and paralyzed with fear. So we stepped in. We made the big investment. We hired programmers. We developed software that's easy to use and works flawlessly. (If you think that's trivial, think again. It's huge.) We ran the system. We promoted it, we marketed it, we haggled with all the majors and struck deals. We took all the risk, which was considerable. Now we're reaping the reward. And the majors want a bigger slice. Um, for what? We did all the work. Ain't gonna happen, slick....

A comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice theory, but completely wrong. Record companies own the music, the IP, and those back catalogs are piles of infinite money (unless infinite copyright goes away). What's happening is distribution is becoming a commodity, so iTunes is going to fade away eventually, too. Apple is a middleman and the Internet eliminates the need for middlemen. Arbitrage like this works for a while, but at the end of the day the record companies are going to get bought out by other media-owning companies like Disney....

Apple may own distribution, but they can never call it Apple Records.

See me, read me: Knoxville News Sentinel drops registration, fees for sports site: Editor Jack McElroy's blog announced:

But now online advertising is a booming business, and we believe that building as large an audience as possible is the ticket to long-term success.

Here's knoxnews.com. GoVolsXtra, their University of Tennessee sports site, has dropped paid subscriptions and is now free.

American dream: Inside an Indian Call Center Amar C. Bakshi (Harvard '06) talks to "Alan" and "Jim" at a call center in Chennai:

...Speed is of the essence. These callers need to make 30 sales a month, one per day. They dial 700 numbers each day to accomplish this. Machines answer 300 of those calls. 200 people just hang up. 195 say their parents or the homeowners are gone. Of the remaining 5, only one pulls through. Lots of talk. Little love.

Yet these men embrace their proximity to America, the land of opportunity. The same things that drew them to the call center life -- the ability to rise through the ranks fast based on merit (sales) -- also attract them to America. Vimesh and Saravama both see America as a place where “money flows" without getting trapped in the hands of a few corrupt elite -- at least better than in India. Vimesh tells me, “it's a place where rules must be obeyed” and no one is beyond the law. In Chennai, they complain, the rich stay rich because they break the law and horde wealth...

Ants, we're all just ants...

There's video, too. This is the new new journalism.

Peer review: Damage Report Most of the two hundred journalists who left The Dallas Morning News landed on their feet. Those who stayed are not so sure. Columbia Journalism Review. (Both DMN and projo are owned by Belo.)

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

July 5, 2007

T-Mobile's wifi plan could chop bills; Olbermann video; 'Sicko' rallies Texans; eBay does Craigslist

We sparkled like it was 1947 Tuesday night, fortunately, since last night the sound of fireworks competed with the drone of heavy rain. Parties on either side of us became muted as they moved indoors. Don't you hate it when 4th of July gets rained out?

More vacation links:

Smart fun: Can you name all the U.S. Presidents? You have 10 minutes. Nice interface. Clue: Don't forget Arthur, Cleveland, Hayes, Taft, Harrison...

Catching up with...: Sly Stone's Higher Power: Fame & Scandal at Vanity Fair.

Video: Keith Olbermann, "Special Comment: Bush And Cheney Should Resign" | Transcript. Olbermann as Edward R. Murrow. Somebody has to.

Related: Through the Looking Glass, Darkly, by Dana Milbank, WaPo. Tuesday's White House Press briefing.

Libby judge questions Bush commutation as Judiciary Committee prepares hearings. http://rawstory.com/.

Bush Rationale on Libby Stirs Legal Debate

Similarly, in a case decided two weeks ago by the United States Supreme Court and widely discussed by legal specialists in light of the Libby case, the Justice Department persuaded the court to affirm the 33-month sentence of a defendant whose case closely resembled that against Mr. Libby. The defendant, Victor A. Rita, was, like Mr. Libby, convicted of perjury, making false statements to federal agents and obstruction of justice.Mr. Rita has performed extensive government service, just as Mr. Libby has. Mr. Rita served in the armed forces for more than 25 years, receiving 35 commendations, awards and medals. Like Mr. Libby, Mr. Rita had no criminal history for purposes of the federal sentencing guidelines.

and

Libby's sentence not unusually long Though Bush calls the 30-month prison term 'excessive,' records show defendants convicted of similar crimes served jail time.:

Several federal prosecutors interviewed by The Times also said they were concerned that Bush's decision would send the wrong message to judges, giving them reason to lighten sentences and undermining the goal of a more uniform justice system.

"Consistency and fidelity to the law are extraordinarily important. We have expended a lot of credibility to get judges to buy off on this," said one senior federal prosecutor who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

"I don't know how I am going to advise my people," the prosecutor said. "I cannot tell you how depressed and disgusted people are around here with this decision. It really undercuts law enforcement."

If mercy is coming back into style, how about mercy for more of us? It would certainly help the state budget to separate people who really need to be taken out of circulation from the those whose punishment is harsher than the crime.

Free calls from home: IPhone-Free Cellphone News. David Pogue of NYT raves about the new product the iPhone launch overshadowed:

It’s called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home, and it’s absolutely ingenious. It could save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, and yet enrich T-Mobile at the same time. In the cellphone world, win-win plays like that are extremely rare.

Here’s the basic idea. If you’re willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone. When you’re out and about, it works like any other phone; calls eat up your monthly minutes as usual.

But when it’s in a Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spot, this phone offers a huge bargain: all your calls are free. You use it and dial it the same as always — you still get call hold, caller ID, three-way calling and all the other features — but now your voice is carried by the Internet rather than the cellular airwaves. ...

...T-Mobile gives you a wireless router (transmitter) for your house — also free, after a $50 rebate. Connect it to your high-speed Internet modem, and in about a minute, you’ve got a wireless home network. Your computer can use it to surf the Web wirelessly — and now all of your home phone calls are free.

...The cool part is that, depending on how many calls you can make in hot spots, the Wi-Fi feature might permit you to choose a much less expensive calling plan. If you’re a heavy talker, you might switch, for example, from T-Mobile’s $100 plan (2,500 minutes) to its $40 plan (1,000 minutes). Even factoring in the $10 HotSpot @Home fee, you’d still save $600 a year.

Illustrated short review -- also thumbs up -- at Engadget.

Enlightening self-interest: Sicko Spurs Audiences Into Action: One audience anyway, in Texas. Remarkable. At Cinema Blend:

...Outside the restroom doors… the theater was in chaos. The entire Sicko audience had somehow formed an impromptu town hall meeting in front of the ladies room. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is Texas goddammit, not France or some liberal college campus. But here these people were, complete strangers from every walk of life talking excitedly about the movie. It was as if they simply couldn’t go home without doing something drastic about what they’d just seen. My redneck compadre and his new friend found their wives at the center of the group, while I lingered in the background waiting for my spouse to emerge.

The talk gradually centered around a core of 10 or 12 strangers in a cluster while the rest of us stood around them listening intently to this thing that seemed to be happening out of nowhere. The black gentleman engaged by my redneck in the restroom shouted for everyone’s attention. The conversation stopped instantly as all eyes in this group of 30 or 40 people were now on him. “If we just see this and do nothing about it,” he said, “then what’s the point? Something has to change.” There was silence, then the redneck’s wife started calling for email addresses. Suddenly everyone was scribbling down everyone else’s email, promising to get together and do something… though no one seemed to know quite what. It was as if I’d just stepped into the world’s most bizarre protest rally, except instead of hippies the group was comprised of men and women of every age, skin color, income, and walk of life coming together on something that had shaken them deeply, and to the core....

Get my drift? Thousands of rubber ducks to land on British shores after 15 year journey. At The Daily Mail.

Conversation pieces: Church Bulletin Bloopers:

By here I was laughing out loud:

* Low Self-Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 to 8:30 p.m. Please use the back door.

* Ushers will eat latecomers.

* For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

* On a church bulletin during the minister's illness: GOD IS GOOD Dr. Hargreaves is better.

* Special thanks are due to the minister's daughter, who labored the whole evening at the piano, which as usual fell upon her.

eBay vs. Craigslist: Kijiji. Kijiji Providence.

Craig doesn't care: "My take is that anything that helps community is a good thing," Newmark tells cNet: eBay squares off with Craigslist, launches classified service

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:04 AM | Permalink

July 3, 2007

Reaction to Libby commutation; I'm a baby elder now

Still on vacation

Editorials Hit Libby's Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card. Roundup of editorial opinion today at E&P.

Anger as Bush commutes ex-White House aide's jail term. AFB.

Democratic Underground and Free Republic are awash.

and...

.

The voice in my head is still the same as in my earliest memories.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments 6

July 2, 2007

Appeals court won't delay Libby prison term; Bush Commutes Libby’s Sentence

I'm on vacation. It's a pause between parties. Friday was my fourth wedding anniversary, Last night, my daughter threw a surprise party at Nick-A-Nee's for my 60th birthday, tomorrow. That's when the family gathers, with lobsters...!

This is huge news. Paris Hilton is not above the law. Scooter Libby is. This is not the America we pretend it is.
.
Appeals court won't delay Libby prison term. Reuters.

Bush Commutes Libby’s Sentence

Fitzgerald Questions Whether Equal Justice Prevails in Libby Case

Firedoglake:
Americans Think Scooter Should Do the Time: "According to a new SurveyUSA poll, people actually do care about this case and don’t like what has happened — 60% think Libby should serve his sentence. Only 21% agree with the President’s decision."

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:47 PM | Permalink

July 1, 2007

Fourth of July postcards

Circa. 1908. Published by Osborne, Ltd., 22 E. 21st New York City.

This is one of 77 Fourth of July postcards in an excellent and diverse collection by James R. Heintze of American University in Washington, D.C.


Here are a few more, with Heintze's captions:

Ellen Clapsaddle, ca. 1911. Printed by International Art.



An excellent example of a Native-American card.

Youth holding a flag and firing a toy pistol at a cat.PFB series 8252. Approx. 1908

Ca. 1906, Ullman Manuf. Co. Little girl with bonnet holding flag. "Months of Year" series, no. 55.

Very stylish apparel for a special day.

So you won't have to scroll back up, here's the link to the rest of them.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:53 AM | Permalink