"The future masters of technology will have to be lighthearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb." -- Marshall McLuhan, 1969
Online Video Watch » Blog Archive » Web 2.0 in Perspective
Topic: Society
9:31 pm EDT, Apr 12, 2007
For an quick overview of web 2.0, check out this video by Michael Wesch. It is the best explanation I have come across of the ways web 2.0 is changing communication. Thanks to Sean Bohan for the pointer. But now that we’re there, let’s take a step back. The nightly network news has a viewership of about 26 million people according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. That number has declined steadily over the past 25 years as cable and the internet became more prevalent news sources.
By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
Joshua Bell graces the DC Metro, and almost no one notices. This is an amazing read.
Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died Wednesday. He was 84.
Johnny Cash's longtime lakeside home, a showcase where he wrote much of his famous music and entertained U.S. presidents, music royalty and visiting fans, was destroyed by fire on Tuesday.
Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, lived in the 13,880-square-foot (1,289-square-meter) home from the late 1960s until their deaths in 2003.
"So many prominent things and prominent people in American history took place in that house -- everyone from Billy Graham to Bob Dylan went into that house," said singer Marty Stuart, who lives next door and was married to Cash's daughter, Cindy, in the 1980s.
Stuart said the man who designed the house, Nashville builder Braxton Dixon, was "the closest thing this part of the country had to Frank Lloyd Wright."
When Cash moved there, the road was a quiet country lane that skirts Old Hickory Lake. Kris Kristofferson, then an aspiring songwriter, once landed a helicopter on Cash's lawn to pitch him a song. Roy Orbison was his next-door neighbor for a while.
The landmark video for Cash's song "Hurt" was shot inside the house.
"It was a sanctuary and a fortress for him," Stuart said. "There was a lot of writing that took place there."
Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys lives on the same road as Cash. "Maybe it's the good Lord's way to make sure that it was only Johnny's house," Sterban said.
Indiana Court: MySpace postings are free speech - Yahoo! News
Topic: Internet Civil Liberties
12:32 pm EDT, Apr 10, 2007
A judge violated a juvenile's free-speech rights when he placed her on probation for posting an expletive-laden entry on MySpace criticizing a school principal, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled.
"While we have little regard for A.B.'s use of vulgar epithets, we conclude that her overall message constitutes political speech," Judge Patricia Riley wrote in the 10-page opinion.
In February 2006, Greencastle Middle School Principal Shawn Gobert discovered a Web page on MySpace purportedly created by him. A.B., who did not create the page, made derogatory postings on it concerning the school's policy on body piercings.
The state filed a delinquency petition in March alleging that A.B.'s acts would have been harassment, identity deception and identity theft if committed by an adult. The juvenile court dropped most of the charges but in June found A.B. to be a delinquent child and placed her on nine months of probation. The judge ruled the comments were obscene.
It's funny when people think of online discourse as different, somehow set apart.
Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship.
What's the driver? Why now?
Kathy Sierra, a high-tech book author from Boulder County, Colo., and a friend of Mr. O’Reilly, reported getting death threats that stemmed in part from a dispute over whether it was acceptable to delete the impolitic comments left by visitors to someone’s personal Web site.
And this:
Since last October, she has also had to deal with an anonymous blogger who maintains a separate site that parodies her writing ...
... a blog for a limited audience ...
"It makes me feel like I live in Iran."
I'm interested in how "anonymous comments" is defined by these folks. This is one of those areas were many people lack an understanding of how the Internet actually works. For instance, MemeStreams doesn't allow "anonymous comments" in that you have to make an account, but it is certainly possible to have an anonymous account. We do ask for age, real time, and whatnot, mostly do to COPPA. But nothing is stopping people -- here or anywhere else -- from using anonymous proxies and other methods to protect their identity. People do so here, and we are friendly toward that, to the degree they are not abusing the system.
Banning "anonymous comments" isn't really something that is possible, or a good idea.
YouTube’s Favorite Clips Aren't Copyrighted - New York Times
Topic: Intellectual Property
10:45 am EDT, Apr 9, 2007
Vidmeter, which tracks the online video business, determined that the clips that were removed for copyright violations — most of them copyrighted by big media companies — comprise just 9 percent of all videos on the site. Even more surprising, the videos that have been removed make up just 6 percent of the total views (vidmeter.com).
Sites caries a high level of credibility and relevance in regard to the debate(s) that surround Wolf. In November of 2004 while embedded with a Marine unit, he filmed a soldier shooting an unarmed and wounded combatant. (article) Here is that video, followed by commentary from a three start military official.
I spoke to Wolf by telephone while he was still in prison a few weeks ago and asked him if his advocacy made him selective in what he videotaped at the protest. Would he turn off the camera to protect his friends? A partial transcript of our conversation follows [link to full interview in story].
Kevin Sites: If there had been a situation where you saw a protestor beating up a police officer, or you saw them committing arson, would you have shot that?
Josh Wolf: I wasn't there to shoot that.
Kevin Sites: No, but would you have shot that?
Josh Wolf: That's a question I would have made in that moment...
Kevin Sites: Well, that's what I want to ask you. If I asked you to take sides, if I asked you to take a side of journalism or activism, you know, which side are you taking here? Because you're asking for the protection of journalism yet you're also seeking to be an activist.
Josh Wolf: Would you not say that Thomas Paine was an activist for the Declaration of - or the independence of America and also...
Kevin Sites: But I would say that he would not be claiming to be journalist, he would be claiming to be an activist. That's all I'm asking you to do, is take sides. Are you claiming to be an activist or a journalist?
Josh Wolf: I don't. I see that advocacy has a firm role within the realm of journalism.
Kevin Sites: Right, but as an advocate, you have to be willing to allow yourself to be jailed and expect the consequences of your actions. As a journalist, you're asking for certain protections, you know, from those consequences. That's why I'm asking you, you know, which side do you want to step on at this point.
Josh Wolf: My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public. That is my number one accountability.
Kevin Sites: But that truth is through, as you said, a prism of your own political convictions.
The US government's plan to boost energy savings by moving Daylight Saving Time forward by three weeks was apparently a waste of time and effort, as the technological foibles Americans experienced failed to give way to any measurable energy savings.
Reuters spoke with Jason Cuevas, spokesman for Southern Co. power, who said it plainly: "We haven't seen any measurable impact." New Jersey's Public Service Enterprise Group said the same thing: "no impact" on their business.
