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Top 10 Google First Names

January 31, 2006

 

tiananmen and the capital of China

David Isenberg points out that if you do an image search on “tiananmen” at Google.cn, you get tourist photos, while if you search on “tiananmen” at non-Chinese Google, you get the uncensored images we expect…and, most surprisingly, if you search Google.cn for “Tiananmen” (note the initial capital) you get the uncensored photos. Fascinating. (David acknowledges Sid Karin and Sam Smith.) [Tags: china google politics digital rights]

Categories: digital rights, politics Date: January 31st, 2006

18 Comments »

[berkman] Wikipedia’s lawyer

Brad Patrick is giving a Tuesday lunchtime talk at the Berkman. He’s outside counsel to the Wikimedia Foundation, the group that owns Wikipedia. (Brad reminds us that Wikipedia needs a ®, which means I’d rather not use it.) Wikipedia is heading towards having its millionth article. [The millionth article ought to be "The Millionth Wikipedia Article."]

Wikipedia volunteers include: users, editors, administrators, stewards, arbCom (arbitration committee) and OTRS (Open-source Ticket Request System?). A global but small team of lawyers handles the legal issues.

Some questions and answers:

Wikipedia only keeps one cookie, identifying your user name. Server logs are kept for several months.

About 15,000 people have made ten or more edits to the English version, and about twice that for worldwide.

Q: Does the fact that victims of libel could edit the entries themselves change the legal aspects?
A: This question is being addressed. E.g., A German court is wondering if Wikipedia has any obligation not to print the name of a dead hacker known as Tron.

Q: Why is Wikimedia insisting on the ®?
A: [Not Brad] Open software groups have trademarks, e.g., Mozilla, Apache, etc.

Q: When does a user complaint become something that is Wikipedia’s legal responsibility?
A: We usually have the tools in place to respond to legitimate complaints. The intent of the foundation is through the community of users and dialogue to get better articles. When it can’t, it goes to the Help Desk.

Q: How about how you operate in rights restricted countries?
A: I haven’t been involved in Wikipedia’s relationship with China. It’s an ongoing issue, continuing negotiation.

Q: How often are you getting sued these days?
A: At the moment, there’s no pending lawsuits in the US. [Wow!]

Q: Lots of places republish Wikipedia content, which is fine under the terms of the GFDL. Do you see any abuses of that?
A: No.
Q: Suppose they use content and aren’t compliant with the license?
A: The primary problem is who is going to do the policing? The foundation isn’t out to hunt down every users of Wikipedia content that isn’t doing so according to Hoyle. It’s part of the process.

[Tags: wikipedia berkman digital+rights]

Categories: everythingIsMiscellaneous Date: January 31st, 2006

2 Comments »

January 30, 2006

 

Empire State Buildings

All photos taken at the Empire State Building gift shop.

Looking up at Empire State Building model

Looking up at Empire State Building model

Looking up at Empire State Building model

Looking up at Empire State Building model

Looking up at Empire State Building model

Through the lens of a telescope
Statue of Liberty through the lens of a pay-per-view telescope

[Tags: empire state building nyc photos]

Categories: photos Date: January 30th, 2006

2 Comments »

Fact-based ethics for bloggers

Coming up with a “code of ethics” for bloggers makes about as much sense as coming up with a code of ethics for people who say things. The diversity of blogs makes a code of ethics not even a pipe dream but a pipe nightmare.

But…

We in fact do have some ethical expectations for people who say things. We expect you not to lie (without good cause), to let us know if you know you’re unreasonably biased (e.g., “Of course, that company does pay my salary” or “But, I was married to her for six years, so maybe that’s biased me”), and be capable of responding to a well-intentioned question without socking us in the nose. We don’t need a Code of Good Talking to formalize that. Rather, those are the conditions that enable us to converse in the first place.

There are some facts about blogs that pertain pretty generally, and those facts — features of the landscape, if you prefer — give rise to what I think are some reasonable ethical expectations. For example:

Fact Ethical rule of thumb
Blog posts are persistent Correct errors because erroneous posts may be around for many years.
Blog posts get linked to by others When you change a post, indicate that you have done so to prevent posts linked to it from becoming incomprehensible.
Posts may be read by people who don’t know who you are Unless there is some reason not to, provide some contextual information about who you are, or who your pseudonym is.
Someone may find a single post via a link and have no further context Be transparent about relationships that may influence you, perhaps by providing a persistent link to a disclosure statement of some sort.
The common ground between the author and commenters may be unknown Respond in a way that tries to find the common ground rather than assuming there is none.

Nothing too surprising in this list of rules of thumb, of course. It’s the tie back to facts that interests me. Is doesn’t imply Ought, but Is whips Ought into condition.

[Tags: blogging ethics]

Categories: blogs Date: January 30th, 2006

8 Comments »

Weekend in NYC

Having asked for your help trying to figure out what the four of us should do in NYC this past weekend, here are some highlights of what we ended up doing. Keep in mind our multiple restrictions: two shabbos-keepers, four vegetarians, one crutch-assisted walker, one whiny adult…

On Saturday we got up late and went to the Museum of Modern Art’s Pixar exhibit. (We’d bought tickets ahead of time online, but there wasn’t much of a line.) Somewhat disappointing. The wide-wide-wide screen movie they put together for the exhibit was mesmerizing and makes you wish Pixar gave itself permission to do a non-commercial film. The rest consisted mainly of items to please fans, although some of the items by themselves were beautiful, clever, or intricate in their design. Surprisingly little on the how-to, which was ok with me, Still, I was hoping to see more of Pixar-as-art…whatever that means.

We also spent some time on the fifth floor of the MoMA, which is hard to beat. (By the way, the MoMA is poorly designed for wheelchair access, at least in the special exhibit space.)

We went up the Empire State Building. Ten on a Sunday morning turns out to be a good time to go: No lines. The building is still very tall. (I plan on posting some photos soon to prove that point.)

The Darwin exhibit at the Museum of Natural History was good but a little disappointing, focusing more on eye candy than on telling us how he got to his idea. It covered big influences, such as the revolution in geology, Darwin’s observation of artificial selection, and Malthus’ writings, way too briefly. It was more about Darwin as an isolated genius.

We also went to the planetarium and saw a by-the-numbers show that starts with our night sky (spectacular) and then zooms out to the farthest edges, narrated by Tom Hanks presumably because Morgan Freeman was unavailable. It sounds better than it is: Our 15-year-old son came out of it feeling that he hadn’t learned much. Me too. The ramp around the planetarium provides a walkable timeline of the universe that’s pretty interesting, and the floor around it a gives helpful comparisons … “If the planetarium were Jupiter, this bubble would be the size of Google’s market cap”… that type of thing.

We had a great dinner at the Udipi Palace, one of five Indian kosher vegetarian restaurants within a block. How weird is that? The food was delicious and the waiter (owner?) was very helpful. And, for NY, pretty cheap.

We also spent a lot of time wandering around. The weather was eerily good for January, and the wandering was fantastic.

NOTES:

1. The plug converters (US to Europe) range in price from $20 to $4 in the frequent electronics rip-off stores in NY.

2. Random overheard comment made by a middle-aged man to his companions as they entered the observatory of the Empire State Building: “This building is going to be really tall by the time I get done with it.” Say wha’??

[Tags: nyc the big apple gotham]

Categories: misc Date: January 30th, 2006

5 Comments »

January 29, 2006

 

CDC preparing for pandemic?

David Stephenson has noted some small changes at the Center for Disease Control site that would be useful if the site were to become a center for information during a pandemic such as we may well be facing with bird flu. They’re small changes that will be useful in any case because they make it easier to find fresh information. [Tags: cdc avian flu david stephenson]

Categories: politics, web Date: January 29th, 2006

1 Comment »

Fillibustalito! Fillabustalito!

My senators — Kennedy and Kerry — are doing their duty to protect us from granting virtually unlimited power to the executive branch. My senators are fillibustering.

Are yours? We don’t have a lot of time left and apparently we only need eleven more Senators. Why not give yours a call today? [Tags: politics alito fillibuster]

Categories: politics Date: January 29th, 2006

4 Comments »

January 28, 2006

 

The future of Islam

Islamicate blogs a review of Reza Aslan’s No God but God about the history and future of Islam. The review makes me want to read the book… [Tags: islam islamicate reza+aslan reviews books]

Categories: bridgeblog Date: January 28th, 2006

4 Comments »

The fate of Dumbledore

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not read the 6th Harry Potter, and have had cotton swabs in your ears for the past six months, read no further!

Our daughter, Leah, recommends DumbledoreIsNotDead.com. It has shaken her confidence in the deadness of the guy. (I am refraining from issuing my official I Told You So until the final book comes out.) [Tags: harry potter fan sites dumbledore spoilers]

Categories: uncat Date: January 28th, 2006

1 Comment »

Bush step down

The “Bush Step Down” demonstrations an hour before the State of the Union are appealing to me. unfortunately, I’m going to be on a train… [Tags: george bush politics]

Categories: politics Date: January 28th, 2006

1 Comment »

January 27, 2006

 

Isenseuss

Here’s the talk David Isenberg gave at O’Reill eTel. It is, rather amazingly, a disquisition about freedom to connect, done in the style of dr. Seuss.’ [Tags: david+isenberg f2c freedom+to-connecf]

Categories: digital rights Date: January 27th, 2006

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The NYC Shabbos-keeping, crutch-walking challenge!

We’re seeing off our daughter who is going to study in Florence (yes, Italy, not Florence, NJ, although I’m sure the latter is totally lovely and rich in Renaissance art) for a semester. So the four of us, aged 15 to 55, are going to spend a couple of days in NYC, since the plane departs from JFK. We’re staying near Times Square. Here’s the challenge:

A couple of us are Shabbos-keeping Jews and thus can’t go in motorized vehicles or pay money from Friday evening through Saturday at around 7pm. (There’s a great worldwide database of kosher restaurants at Shamash.org, by the way.)

But wait, there’s more: One of us is on crutches after knee surgery and another of us is having a back problem and can’t walk for much more than hour without having to do some serious sitting. The back-problem person is also generally whiny, is never satisfied, and will probably spend most of the day looking for good wifi signals.

We already have tickets for the Museum of Modern Art on Saturday.

Other suggestions? [Tags: nyc]

Categories: misc Date: January 27th, 2006

13 Comments »

RageBoy fan notes

All I know about Krugle.com is that it’s launching at Demo, it has something to do with “vertical search” and code, and it’s had the incredibly bad judgment to hire RB to blog for it. Also, my friend Steve Larsen seems to be involved. (These are all actually very good signs.) [Tags: rageboy steve larsen krugle]

Categories: misc Date: January 27th, 2006

6 Comments »

January 26, 2006

 

Steve Johnson at Davos

Steve is in Davos and describes describes well an experience I often have at conferences: Wandering alone, having failed to hook into anyone’s dinner plans. But his has a little twist at the end. [Tags: steve johnson davos conferences]

Categories: conference coverage Date: January 26th, 2006

2 Comments »

Hoder in Israel

Hoder, the Iranian blogger is in Israel. He writes:

I’m going to Israel as a citizen journalist and a peace activist.

As a citizen journalist, I’m going to show my 20,000 daily Iranian readers what Israel really looks like and how people live there. The Islamic Republic has long portrayed Israel as an evil state, with a consensual political agenda of killing every single man and woman who prays to Allah, including Iranians.

I’m going to challenge that image.

[Tags: hoder israel]

Categories: bridgeblog Date: January 26th, 2006

5 Comments »

Blawg, blawg, blawg

Mark Liberman doesn’t like the word “blawg.” Denise Howell, who coined it, responds charmingly, and even manages to work in her phrase “doorknob spam.”

Meanwhile, in the Arrested Development we watched last night, there was a reference to Bob Loblaw’s law blog. (Bob Loblaw is just such a good name, but only if you say it aloud.) [Tags: blawg deniseHowell arrestedDevelopment bobLoblaw markLiberman law blogs language doorknob spam]

Categories: blogs Date: January 26th, 2006

4 Comments »

January 25, 2006

 

The Internet makes friends

Ok, so that’s not quite the appropriate take-away from the new Pew Internet & American Life study. Its subtitle is more accurate:

The internet and email aid users inmaintaining their social networks and provide pathways to help when people face big decisions

The first nine pages summarize the findings.

Here’s an almost-randomly chosen snippet to give you a taste of its flavor:

Robert Putnam argued in 2000 that people are seeing friends and relatives much less than they were in the mid-1960s. For example, family picnics decreased by 60% between 1975 and 1999, and card playing went down from an average of 16 times per year in 1981, to 8 times per year in 1999.

Yet evidence from the Social Ties survey show that the situation is not so dire. For one thing, we did not ask about picnics; we asked directly about social relations. This leads to a focus on social networks, whomever they include and wherever they are located. For example, friends and relatives are now spatially dispersed rather than concentrated in neighborhoods. The difficulty of traveling to get together may explain why picnics have declined as a way for friends and relatives to meet. Yet other ways of interacting have flourished, on- and offline.

Americans have an average of more than 200 relationships with friends, relatives, and acquaintances…

Lee Rainie of Pew says, “We worked with some terrific network sociologists to get this right and try to place it in the larger context of social change over the past generation.” Looks good. It’s even well-written, a real plus for a research report (but not a surprise for a Pew Internet report). [Tags: internet pew leeRainie]

Categories: digital culture Date: January 25th, 2006

1 Comment »

The black smoke issuing from my computer was a valuable diagnostic aid

Yes, I had a scary moment last night. The case for the linux computer my nephew Greg and I put together a few weeks ago – I’m using the computer initially for writing my book – came with a little board with eight LEDs that dance in joy when the computer starts. Those wires shorted, melting their insulation and making me realize I don’t yet have a backup routine for the computer.

After disconnecting the melted wires and cracking a window in my home office, all is well.

Categories: uncat Date: January 25th, 2006

1 Comment »

StopBadware

The Berkman Center, along with the Oxford Internet Institute, Consumer Reports Webwatch, and a bunch of corporate sponsors, have launched StopBadware.org, an attempt to organize volunteers to create a database of purveyors of malware.

Sounds good! And it’s got a great set of people/organizations behind it. [Tags: adware malware berkman]

(Disclosure, I’m on the board of advisors of SiteAdvisor, a company using a different technique to compile a similar database. The initiatives seem to me to be complementary.)

Categories: web Date: January 25th, 2006

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Google in China

“…purity is an idea for a yogi or monk…
Well, I have dirty hands.
Right up to the elbows,
I’ve plunged them in filth and blood”
JP Sartre*

Google is going to censor results for Chinese users.

Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s Senior Policy Counsel, puts the problem well: “While removing search results is inconsistent with Google’s mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission.”

It’s a tough world. Most of what we do is morally mixed. The consequences aren’t unambiguously good and our intentions are never pure. Google has apparently gone through some genuine soul-searching. I know Andrew and have the highest respect for him; if you had the privilege of spending time with him, you would too.

So, I find myself torn. Doing the work of a totalitarian state is bad. Of course. But Google plans on noting on results pages when results have been censored; alerting Chinese users to the fact of censorship could have a positive political effect. Apparently Google also plans on having a link to the US-hosted version. And they won’t host user data on servers under Chinese jurisdiction so they won’t have to turn users over to the Chinese police.

That helps. But is it enough?

If forced to choose — as Google has been — I’d probably do what Google is doing. It sucks, it stinks, but how would an information embargo help? It wouldn’t apply pressure on the Chinese government. Chinese citizens would not be any more likely to rise up against the government because they don’t have access to Google. Staying out of China would not lead to a more free China.

I’m not sure I’m right. Maybe my assessment of the likely consequences is wrong. And the high ground has its appeal, not least of which is that it keeps my hands clean. But the Chinese government is a big gob of repression plopped onto the middle kingdom, spattering our clean white robes.

At least it shows once and for all that Google’s motto is just silly in a world as complex as this one.


*I found the quote in this interesting discussion of Elie Wiesel’s Dawn.


Some other opinions:

Rebecca MacKinnon:

At the end of the day, this compromise puts Google a little lower on the evil scale than many other internet companies in China. But is this compromise something Google should be proud of? No. They have put a foot further into the mud. Now let’s see whether they get sucked in deeper or whether they end up holding their ground.

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch:

Oh, the irony. Less than a week after we hear that Google is ready to fight the US government in part to defend its users, now comes news that Google will cave into the Chinese government’s demands for its new Google China web site. However, the issues aren’t directly comparable. Moreover, while I’m no fan of Chinese censorship, I like some of the way Google is reacting to the demands. Come along, and we’ll explore the entire censorship situation in China, the US and some other places you rarely hear discussed, like France and Germany.

Ethan Zuckerman:

The devil’s in the details. And the attention taken to detail tells me that Google has thought long and hard about what they were doing and come up with a compromise. It’s a compromise that doesn’t make me happy, that probably doesn’t make most of the people who work for Google very happy, but which has been carefully thought through. And that, I think, gives some reason for optimism.

[Tags: google china]

Categories: digital culture, digital rights Date: January 25th, 2006

22 Comments »

Congress’ secret spec

Ed Felten writes about his attempt to find out about the VEIL content protect technology specified in the Sensenbrenner/Conyers bill that would mandate that electronic devices plug the “analog hole.” (The analog hole is the fact that analog playback can be converted into digits. E.g., point a digital camcorder at a movie screen. Or, play a DRM’ed mp3 on your computer and use digital recording software to intercept the analog signal on its way to your speakers. More here , here and here.)

Ed contacted that company that sells VEIL and asked for a copy of the specification. He was told that that was no problem so long as he ponied up $10,000 and agreed not to talk about the spec. And that was only for the decoder side of the tech. The encoder stuff is too secret for anyone to see at any price.

So, Congress may pass a law that mandates a privately-owned technical spec that citizens aren’t allowed to see and expert citizens aren’t allowed to evaluate. Ed wonders whether even Congress has been allowed to see it. (And if they did, do we trust Congress to perform the required technical analysis?)

Says Ed: “We’re talking about television here, not national security.” [Tags: digitalRights analogHole]

Categories: digital rights Date: January 25th, 2006

1 Comment »

January 24, 2006

 

Global Voices email update

Want to get the latest updates from bloggers around the world but you just don’t have time to check an RSS feed? Global Voices is now willing to insert daily digests straight into your inbox. [Tags: globalVoices]

Categories: bridgeblog Date: January 24th, 2006

1 Comment »

A journalistic practice that needs to die

Two paragraphs before the end of the AP story about the Canadian national elections, the reporter, Beth Duff-Brown, writes:

William Azaroff, 35, voted for the left-of-center New Democratic Party but conceded a Conservative government was likely to win.

”I think it’s a shame,” said the business manager from Vancouver, British Columbia. ”I think the last government was actually quite effective for Canadians. I think a Conservative government is just a backlash against certain corruption and the sense of entitlement.”

I’m sure that William Azaroff is a perfectly nice and thoughtful 35 year old and a considerate business manager who motivates his employees and contributes consistently to the bottom line. But with over 60% of the electorate turning out in this election, why are we hearing from him instead of my friend Molly in Toronto or the 14th customer at the Vancouver Pastries 2 Go shop?

Isn’t this simply a way for the reporter to get her opinions in?

Why isn’t there an industry guideline forbidding this common technique? [Tags: media]

Categories: media Date: January 24th, 2006

7 Comments »

In thanks – George, Laura and Jack

Since the Bush Administration will not release White House photos of Bush and Abramoff, even though the pitctures were taken with tax payer money, I figure it’s our patriotic duty to release our own.

George Laura and Jack

(Hasn’t anyone already photoshopped a Brokeback parody photo of George and Jack? They have the hats for it.) [Tags: gerogeBush jackAbramoff]

Categories: humor, politics Date: January 24th, 2006

8 Comments »

January 23, 2006

 

Participatory publishing

John Blyberg has put together a virtual card catalog that lets you build your own, share it with others, and create catalog card facsimiles complete with “handwritten” annotations. [Thanks to Ed Vielmetti for the link.]


O’Reilly has announced the “Rough Cuts” service that gives readers access to works-in-progress: If you buy a book before it’s been published and then watch it being developed. Pretty damn cool.

Yet another assault on time: As more and more events turn into processes, what the hell do we need the present before? [Tags: johnBlyberg libraries taxonomy tagging EverythingIsMiscellaneous oreilly publishing books time]

Categories: everythingIsMiscellaneous, media, taxonomy Date: January 23rd, 2006

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Podcasting a dinner

A couple of weeks ago, Mary Hodder mentioned that she was coming to Boston and we talked about putting together a dinner. I offered to host it at our house, and it turned into a get-together on the “Save Our Internet” theme. All of which is to say that Dan Bricklin came with his podcasting gear and has posted a set of interviews he did there.

Yes, now we’re podcasting dinner. [Tags: danBricklin podcast]

Categories: digital rights Date: January 23rd, 2006

4 Comments »

January 22, 2006

 

Lessig: Is Google Print fair use?

Larry Lessig has posted a video of a presentation on whether Google Book Search (AKA Google Print) is protected by Fair Use. His conclusion: Yup. But how he gets there is fascinating and informative. Why wouldn’t you want to hear one of the nation’s top law professors clearly addressing such a fundamental issue? [Tags: lessig google googlePrint law copyright digitalRights]

Categories: digital rights Date: January 22nd, 2006

1 Comment »

January 21, 2006

 

The $100,000 Bottom-Up Pyramid

Zephyr Teachout and Britt Blaser, both veterans of the Howard Dean Internet campaign, reflect on how to fix what’s going wrong at the well-intentioned Since Sliced Bread contest. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is sponsoring the contest, offering $100,000 to the person who comes up with the best idea for improving the lives of working women and men. 22,000 ideas were submitted which “a group of diverse experts” winnowed to 70, a process some felt was too top down.

This is a fascinating case in which a bottom-up process is supposed to squeeze out a single winner, the contest is intended to advance the social good, and the reward includes a hefty chunk of change. [Tags: seiu zephyrTeachout brittBlaser]

Categories: digital culture, politics, web Date: January 21st, 2006

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January 20, 2006

 

The Zorking of Iraq

Defective Yeti has a funny transcript of the invasion of Iraq as a text adventure. Here’s how it begins:

Oval OfficeYou are standing inside a White House, having just been elected to the presidency of the United States. You knew Scalia would pull through for you.

There is a large desk here, along with a few chairs and couches. The presidential seal is in the middle of the room and there is a full-length mirror upon the wall.

What do you want to do now?

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> LOOK MIRROR
Self-reflection is not your strong suit.

> PET SEAL
It’s not that kind of seal.

> EXAMINE CHAIRS
They are two several chairs arranged around the center of the room, along with two couches. Under one couch you find Clinton’s shoes.

> FILL SHOES
You are unable to fill Clinton’s shoes.

(Thanks to Deborah Elizabeth Finn for the link.) [Tags: iraq humor defectiveYeti]

Categories: humor, politics Date: January 20th, 2006

3 Comments »

The media gets Wikipedia wrong again

This is a message, verbatim, Jimmy “Wikipedia” Wales sent to a mailing list I’m on. (I asked his permission to run it, and turned some urls into hyperlinks.)

The Associated Press:
“The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the collaborative Web encyclopedia, reached a temporary settlement with a Berlin court that will let users access the German-language version of Wikipedia at http://de.wikipedia.org, hosted in the United States, instead of its usual http://www.wikipedia.de.”
— Businessweek

Another version:
“The German version of Wikipedia returned to the Internet on Friday after three days offline, a blackout prompted by a lawsuit in which the parents of a dead hacker objected to the site’s use of his real name.”
— Forbes

This is so mindbogglingly wrong that I don’t even know where to begin.

1. The German version of Wikipedia is *always* at http://de.wikipedia.org/

2. The site was never shut down not even for a single instant

3. The http://www.wikipedia.de/ domain belongs to the German Verein (a club of Wikipedia users, a local chapter).

4. That domain has never been used to access the encyclopedia. There was always a courtesy notice on the 404-not-found page there, telling people the correct URL.

5. The Wikimedia Foundation has never been served process about any action against us in German court.

6. The Wikimedia Foundation has not reached any temporary settlement with any Berlin court — we have no contact with any Berlin courts.

7. The German Verein was ordered very briefly to not point people to the http://de.wikipedia.org/ — a rather stupid order which was quickly reversed — but in any event an order with absolutely no material meaning since that domain has never been used to access Wikipedia at all.

BTW, I wrote about the Wikipedia-Seigenthaler affair in my newsletter. [Tags: wikipedia jimmyWales media]

Categories: media Date: January 20th, 2006

5 Comments »

Request for Program: Notetella

I remain surprised that I can’t find a program that lets me do the most basic of research tasks: Take notes. on books…you know, the paper-based web sites we used to read.

Oh, sure, there are word processors and various outliners, some of which are terrific. But note-taking has some specific requirements. So, here’s my RFP for a program I’m calling Notetella for purposes of discussion. (”RFP” is short for “Easy for you to say.”)

It’s got a stand-alone client and a Web portion.

Client

The client lets me enter the bibliographic data for a source I’m reading. The form defaults to showing me all the other notes I’ve created for this source…as if I were writing my notes on a piece of paper.

I can enter notes about the book, with a field for the page the note refers to and a field for my comments

I can tag each source, author and note with multiple tags. It shows me a list of tags I’ve used for this book or project.

The app lets me create a project (e.g., “Article on Pitchers”) and associate a set of sources with that project. The tags I create while working on that project stay associated with it.

Projects can apply to a single article or a cluster of chapters.

I can slice, dice and cluster all those notes at will.

When I put a note into my article, it preps a footnote entry for me suitable for pasting into my article.

It can turn bibliographic entries into text formatted and marked up according to the style I specify.

If I use a note when writing an article in my word processor, I can easily (not sure how) let Notetella know that I’ve used it so I don’t use the same quote twice inadvertently. (This is probably the only feature that couldn’t be implemented as a straightforward database app.)

Web

Why should I have to enter all that data myself? If anyone else has created a bibliographic entry for my source, the Web piece shows it to me.

It also shows me everyone else’s notes on that book.

I can search by book, author, tag, Noteteller (i.e., other participants in the system).

I can leave comments on other people notes.

Every Noteteller gets her own page at the site, as at Delicious.com.

Notetellers can declare particular books or projects to be private, although public is better

I can upload/download notes and projects from my client.

I know there are pieces of this around. There are some great outliners. There are Web-based systems such as Cluebacca and Clipmarks (which got a nice mention in the WSJ today), but they’re also not aimed exactly at my particular needs…and I think my needs in this case are fairly common among people reading books for research.

Sure wish I were a software developer. A really good one. With lots of free time. And an Hawaiian beach house. (Why not?)

Categories: misc Date: January 20th, 2006

5 Comments »

January 19, 2006

 

Google holding the line

I know lots of people don’t trust Google, and the company certainly has its faults, but I still think it’s the biggest company around that’s on our side in the battle over the future of the Internet.

Two recent issues trying Google’s mettle:

1. Preston Gralla reports that Google has refused to pay special fees to BellSouth and Verizon as part of a tiered service approach that would let the carriers decide who and what type of content gets preference on the Internet.

2. Howard Mintz reports in the Mercury News that Google last year refused to comply with a Bush administration subpoena asking for all the Google searches from any one-week period. They’re apparently trying to catch guys who masturbate to pornographic images of children.

In both these cases, Google could be acting in a purely self-interested way. I actually believe it’s a mix of self-interest and principle. Either way, it’s good to read about a company with clout standing up for what turn out to be our interests as well.

[Tags: google digitalRights]


Mark Hall makes the interesting point that Google’s stand on the subpoena might become a competitive advantage that inspires others to adopt the same stand…engendering market forces that protect us against government intrusion. He points to newspapers as an example. But, as he says, we shouldn’t have to rely “on the power of market forces and profit incentives to secure our fundamental constitutional rights.”

Categories: digital rights Date: January 19th, 2006

6 Comments »

Blogging an IA paper

Jason Toal had a paper accepted for presentation at the IA Summit. It’s called “The Life of Tags,” (abstract) : “Our paper will pursue potential opportunities for adding a usable layer of rules to the process of tagging.” The sorts of rules are like those in cellular automata systems, such as the game of Life. The abstract puts aside using ontologies to disambiguate tags. Sounds interesting.

So, the first thing Jason did upon hearing his (their?) paper had been accepted was to set up a blog to work on it in public. I know doing this isn’t news, but it still gives me just a smidgeon of hope. What a difference from how research was done ten years ago!

By the way, at the blog I found a link to STEVE — Social Terminology Enhancement through Vernacular Engagement — a project developed by a group of museums to enable social filtering of their collections. Jason writes: “Steve is an attempt to democratize a collections catalogue, not by replacing the curators perspective, but by adding an additional layer of information provided by the public.” Cool. [Tags: jasonToal iaSummit ia taxonomy EverythingIsMiscellaneous museums cellularAutomata]

Categories: everythingIsMiscellaneous, taxonomy Date: January 19th, 2006

3 Comments »

FYA*: Little bloopers of content, metadata and evolution

Headline in the Brookline Tab:

Vatican Denies Church’s Appeal

No, the Pope has not stated that Catholicism is unappealing. Rather, a local church’s appeal not to be closed was denied.


While I like being told metadata such as what’s the maximum number of stars used in a rating system, I found this from the Boston Globe’s Calendar section to be odd:

Restaurants reviewed by the Globe’s regular critic, Alison Arnett, are rated on a scale of zero to four stars, four being the highest. [Emphasis added.]

Is there a single instance of a rating system using stars to indicate negatives? Just wondering…


And there’s this, which was sent to my sister without attribution:

quarterhorse
Quarterhorse

*FYA= For Your Amusement.

Categories: humor Date: January 19th, 2006

6 Comments »

January 18, 2006

 

Rebecca Blood interviews me

Rebecca has posted an email interview with me. The topic is blogging. [Tags: rebeccaBlood blogging]

Categories: blogs Date: January 18th, 2006

3 Comments »

Dan Bricklin’s wikiCalc

Yesterday, I saw Dan Bricklin demo his new project, wikiCalc. It’s a wiki spreadsheet. Like a spreadsheet, it does calculations on figures in a grid, and lets you enter formatted, cell-straddling text. Like a wiki, it lets anyone with permission make changes. It’s such a good idea that I thought we must already all be using it.

It’s in alpha, so it’s not yet a full-featured spreadsheet, but it’s getting there quickly. Because it’s AJAX-y, the cell editing is interactive. And it’s open source.

Great idea and looks like a cool implementation.

[Tags: wikicalc wikis danBricklin spreadsheets "web 2.0"]

Categories: web Date: January 18th, 2006

1 Comment »

Accountability vs. anonymity

Bruce Schneier replies to Kevin Kelly’s warnings about anonymity.

I’m with Schneier on this one because of the practical consequences, in the real world, of limiting anonymity and increasing the ability to tie our online identities back to our real world ones. [Tags: anonymity bruceSchneier kevinKelly]

Categories: digital rights Date: January 18th, 2006

1 Comment »

What went wrong in Iraq?

Andrew Sullivan reviews two books and starts to piece together how “a noble and necessary decision to remove the Saddam Hussein regime result[ed] in such a chaotic occupation.” I find it a plausible explanation. No big surprises in the piece except that the sources are Paul Bremer and Bush pal Fred Barnes. [Tags: iraq georgeBush andrewSullivan politics paulBremer]

Categories: politics Date: January 18th, 2006

1 Comment »

Filibustalito

You can get your Senators’ phone numbers here if you’re inclined to urge them to filibuster Alito.

I’ve been trying to call Kennedy and Kerry, and I’m happy to report that their lines are busy. [Tags: politics alito filibuster]

Categories: politics Date: January 18th, 2006

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January 17, 2006

 

The end of coverage

[Note: I think I may be saying something tired, obvious, and oft said. So what else is new?]

Thinking about Dan Gillmor’s talk today it seemed to me that the journalistic conniption we’re going through is going to be resolved in part by giving up on the notion of coverage. (I asked Dan about this afterwards; he hopes I’m wrong.)

The notion that a newspaper can “cover” the day’s events has always been a myth. Just ask Ethan about “coverage” of Africa in even the best US newspapers. In the post-paper world, we’re not going to be able to even pretend we’re achieving coverage. And even if citizen reporters around the world provide more information about more events than were dreamt of in the MSM’s philosophy it’ll be clear that we’re each reading a tiny slice based on personal and social interests. The concept of “coverage” doesn’t make sense in the post-paper world.

That’s scary, the way losing values and assumptions in serious transitions is scary. But I think it’s inevitable. (And that’s almost always an indication that I’m wrong.) [Tags: media journalism]

Categories: media Date: January 17th, 2006

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