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Worst spring ever.
Transcript of William Gibson's speech to the Director's Guild to America.
Emergent technology is, by its very nature, out of control, and leads to unpredictable outcomes.... As indeed does the emergent realm of the digital. I prefer to view this not as the advent of some new and extraordinary weirdness, but as part of the ongoing manifestation of some very ancient and extraordinary weirdness: our gradual spinning of a sort of extended prosthetic mass nervous-system, out of some urge that was present around the cooking-fires of our earliest human ancestors.
Blogumentary trailer. (16megs via fimoculous)
Call me crazy, but it seems like having to reboot your phone is a step in the wrong direction.
I guess it's better than having to reboot your car though.
A professional photographer gets hooked on the idea of cellphone cameras: "Why will wireless camera phones revolutionize the photography industry?"
We're dogsitting a little black pug. You know, the ones with the bulging eyes and the smooshed in face. Of Men in Black fame? Anyway, her name is supposedly Fury. But that's just not right so we have taken to calling her Snorty. She's definitely a Snorty. So far no one has seen her and not been reduced to blubbering baby talking "oh you're so cute - yes you are" hysterics. It's amazing. People absolutely love her. Snort. Drool. It's like a law of physics or something.
Single guys should get this dog. I mean if you don't want to be single anymore. Who knew?
Maybe they haven't heard of blogs?
The Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting proposals to develop an ontology-based (sub)system that captures, stores, and makes accessible the flow of one person's experience in and interactions with the world in order to support a broad spectrum of associates/assistants and other system capabilities. The objective of this "LifeLog" concept is to be able to trace the "threads" of an individual's life in terms of events, states, and relationships.(via MeFi)
J. just got us tickets to the Matrix for Friday at 5:00 at 2nd ave and 12th street. Call now and get one if you want to join us.
WFMU broadcasts to the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area and beyond over 91.1 and WXHD 90.1 FM and Internet streaming. Their studio signal reaches their 90.1 transmitter in New York's lower Hudson Valley via satellite feed.
Station manager Ken Freedman installed a 5GB iPod at the transmitter in Mount Hope to cope with the inevitable loss of the satellite feed during the thunderstorm season. By using a phone to dial in to a remote control unit at the transmitter site, station staff can switch to the iPod instead of satellite audio. The Apple device is set on continuous random play from a playlist containing the extensive collection of "Live at WFMU" CDs (live music recorded at the radio station's studios).
David Weinberger takes an impassioned look at the digital rights management (DRM) mess we are getting ourselves into.
We're screwed. Not because we MP3 cowboys and cowgirls will not have to pay for content we've been "stealing." No, we're screwed because we're undercutting the basis of our shared intellectual and creative lives. For us to talk, argue, try out ideas, tear down and build up thoughts, assimilate and appropriate concepts - heck, just to be together in public - we have to grant all sorts of leeway. That's how ideas breed, how cultures get built. If any public space needs plenty of light, air, and room to play, it's the marketplace of ideas.As usual, extremely well written.
There are times when rules need to be imposed within that marketplace, whether they're international laws against bootleg CDs or the right of someone to sue for libel. But the fact that sometimes we resort to rules shouldn't lead us to think that they are the norm. In fact, leeway is the default and rules are the exception.
Fairness means knowing when to make exceptions. After all, applying rules equally is easy. Any bureaucrat can do it. It's far harder to know when to bend or even ignore the rules. That requires being sensitive to individual needs, understanding the larger context, balancing competing values, and forgiving transgressions when appropriate.