Posts for January 2007

Joe Biden implodes

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot...Joe Biden on Barak Obama: I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.

Oops. I think I know what he was trying to say, but even that would have been inappropriate and bigoted. What he actually said was just flat out idiotic. *shrug* This media stuff is tricky, isn't it Joe? Buh bye.

January 31, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Kenzoid's Autonomous Zone: Episode 11

Here is the blip.tv page, and direct MP3 download link for the January 30th episode.

I listen to Cameron's G'Day World #176, and comment on some of his questions as well as Bruce Sterling's post of the Vernacular Video essay. Also some thoughts on podcast workflow, and title updates.

(Note: by the end of the interview, I was liking Ross Dawson's points a lot better. Sorry for dissing him based on the early part of the interview! Bygones. I may check out his blog.)

Links:

January 30, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Vernacular Video

Great essay (bloglinked by Bruce Sterling): Vernacular Video

January 29, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

UseAMap and Many Eyes

Found a couple of potentially useful sites today; both look pretty interesting. UseAMap is a free service that provides you with a map that has a short URL, You can create a map, annotate, add directions, etc., then generate a short, easy-to-remember name for the result (based in the useamap.com namespace). Pretty cool!

Many Eyes is another Yet Another web-based data visualization tool. It's from IBM (skunkworks of some sort I suppose), and it looks very cool. You can view and discuss visualizations, and upload your own data sets if you register. I really believe that tools like this will fundamentally change how we deal with large amounts of data. As they improve, it will become easier and easier for the average citizen to evaluate the data behind complex political, economic, and scientific debates. (as well as track price trends in the Orgrimmar Auction House...hey, a Tauren's gotta eat!)

UPDATE: *grumble*...Many Eyes requires a Java plugin...this is teh suck. Google showed the capabilities of Javascript with the Gapminder World beta; no need for a plugin to do this! -1

January 25, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Kenzoid's Autonomous Zone: Episode 10

Here is the blip.tv page, and direct MP3 download link for the January 23rd episode.

Just a quick review of a couple of novels by Charlie Stross: The Atrocity Archives, and The Jennifer Morgue. Two thumbs up for each!

(I've been quite the Stross-fanboy lately...but his writing rocks, so he deserves it.)

January 24, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Tipjar essay live and kicking

A while back, I moved my 2002 essay on tipjar payments for artists to sourceforge, as part of a project (called indiemuse) that would build tools for such a payment infrastructure. Eh....indiemuse never went anywhere, I don't even think I own the domain anymore (still a good idea, though!), and eventually, my project was culled by sourceforge. Ick!

So I just realized a few weeks back (while reviewing my 404 reports from this site) that my tipjar essay link at my rants page was dead. All hail version control...I pulled out the copy that went to sourceforge, updated it a tiny bit (fixed email address and formatting), and put it up here. Enjoy.

January 21, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Charles Stross fan-atic

Charlie Stross is GOD. If you like thought-provoking science fiction, just go starting buying his stuff right now. (He's got links at his site. And while you're waiting for the Amazon overnight package, you can start Accelerando online!)

I'm presently re-reading Accelerando (for I think the 5th time) on my Nokia 770, my paperback copy of it is out on evangelical loan, I've finished The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue since Christmas, and I just started Glasshouse. Whew! Nothing dings less than a 9 out of 10 on the Ken-meter so far.

I've read Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise as well, but I've worked around his parallel universe series (The Merchant Princes) so far, because fantasy tends to be a lot harder for me to really dig (I think I unconsciously don't want to break the spell of Charlie-worship). But I'm going to have to go buy The Family Trade and give it a whirl. The man is too good.

Of course, I'll wait a bit. I've got other ass-kicking authors (Ken Macleod and Alastair Reynolds for starters) still left in my Christmas pile. Joy.

January 21, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Standard deduction for insurance?

One of my resolutions for this year was to develop an informed position on universal health care. While I'm best described as an anarcho-libertarian nutball, I've always wondered about our health care system. I've also personally watched as people I know (without insurance) got sick, went into the hospital, got well, and had to declare bankruptcy to get out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. These are people who have regular jobs, pay their bills, and are pretty conscientious about their finances. But they didn't have insurance, because they couldn't afford it, and their employer didn't provide it.

After seeing this happen more than once over the past few years, I've started poking around a bit and thinking about it. This is the most powerful and wealthy country in the history of the world...certainly we can figure out a way to make sure that people who get sick don't lose their life saveings? That people won't avoid going to the doctor because they feel they can't afford it? Surely there are opportunities that we can explore, both in the standard government-sponsored universal healthcare realm, and in others.

I realize that some people may be thinking they COULD have bought insurance and chose not to, you know? I bet they have a nice cellphone plan. While to a certain extent I agree, I also see that as the kneejerk response of a flinty-hearted bastard with employer-subsidized health coverage. Coverage that a) is a tax benefit to the company, b) a hiring perk, and c) CAN'T BE DENIED to the new employee. So it's not like we're talking a level playing field here. If person works for a company that doesn't health care as a perk, the decision to purchase insurance is quite a bit more expensive than for someone who does. Companies benefit...but not people. I like people more. *grin*

So with this already in my list of things to research this year, I'm pleasantly surprised by reading that the State of the Union address may include a new prosposal on healthcare. First glance, it looks good; a proposal to give taxpayers a new standard deduction for healthcare sounds like a good leveler. I may actually watch the SotU for the first time in several years. The proposal may go nowhere, but it's certainly worth listening to.

If what I've seen so far this week is any indicator, Dubya would have done well to have had a Democratic Congress for his entire term of office. He might have focused a bit more on actual Republican small-government fiscally-conservative policies, and strayed a bit less into whacko territory. Corollary: as bad a President as I think Bush will be considered by history, our recent Congresses (in particular the 108th and 109th) may very well be even worse. No oversight, no thoughtful deliberation...no work. Maybe, just maybe, our democracy is creaking back into gear again. One can only hope.

January 21, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Kenzoid's Autonomous Zone: Episode 9

Here is the blip.tv page, and direct MP3 download link for the January 16th episode.

It's been awhile, and I actually have several recordings in the player that I've decided to toss (at least for now) because of the amount of time that's passed since they were recorded (days or weeks, even). As of right now, I'm not going to upload unless I can do so within a couple days of recording. Hopefully, this restriction will get me back in gear!

Just a stream of consciousness rant about Accelerando, by Charles Stross. I wax on the coolness of his ideas on the exocortex.

Links:

Hopefully I'll stay more up to date!

January 17, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

G'day World is back!

OK...it apparently never really left. But around the time the host, Cameron Reilly, headed across to the US from Australia last October in search of VC money, I stopped getting new podcasts on the feed. It took me a bit to notice...then I guessed that Cam was just heads down in meetings and such. But I finally went and looked, and there's new stuff up! So it appears the podcast feed moved slightly around that time, and I didn't catch it. Good news is, I've got about 20 episodes of my favorites Aussies to catch up on!

I'd say welcome back, Cam...but you never really went anywhere. So I guess it's welcome back for me instead!

January 15, 2007 permalink | Comments (2)

Wikileaks

Wow. Wikileaks: Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 2.1 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.

They expect to go live in February or March of 2007, with technology including modified versions of Tor, Freenet, and PGP. Should be interesting

link from Contrary Brin

January 12, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Go listen: Eben Moglen's Plone keynote

Eben Moglen (the FSF's chief legal counsel) gave the keynote speech at the Plone Conference 2006, titled Software and Community in the Early 21st Century. This was probably the best single podcast I listened to last year...it is profound and inspiring. I highly recommend it. Available at the Internet Archive (here's a direct MP3 link for the impatient among you; the Internet Archive link includes video and streaming options).

January 11, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Amie Street pretty nice

I'm listening to the punk radio feed from Amie Street right now, and it's pretty nice. I'd been reading about Amie Street here and there, and finally decided to check them out. They've got an interesting pricing model...all music starts out free(!), and increases in price along with it's popularity (measured in downloads), up to a max of $0.98. Which ain't bad at all.

There's the obligatory Web 2.0-ish recommendation tool (earning you free music when you recommend songs), a Shockwave player, yada yada. And everything is pure MP3; no DRM involved! Worth checking out. If I know you, perhaps I'll recommend something!

January 9, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

SL client GPL'd!

Wow. Not like I'm the first out of the gate with this, but it's important to me: Second Life client source released under GPL2. Awesome! I already had the libsecondlife project on my list of things to play with this year...this is just the icing on the cake. Many thanks, Linden Lab...you get a lot of grief from us SL users, because you set high expectations. You deserve it sometimes, too...but forward-thinking acts like this make me throw you a big huzzah!

January 8, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

The Play of Imagination

I was watching Joi Ito's Wow presentation at 23C3 (excellent, btw), and he made an interesting reference to a paper by John Seely Brown. I tracked down the reference to a working paper by Brown and Douglas Thomas called The Play of Imagination: Extending the Literary Mind. (the most up to date version of the paper I could find is here).

I'm only partway through it, but it looks outstanding. It starts with a discussion of the history of MMOs (their background in the world of MUDs, etc.), but is really about how the evolution of these games has brought an environment that provides for a fundamentally different learning experience than today's (and yesterday's) standard classroom. Definitely worth reading.

January 5, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Amazing world stats viz tool

Holy crap. The Gapminder World beta is one of the most amazing visualization tools I've ever seen. Web-enabled (ie, it's grabbing it's data via Google Subscribed Links), allows linear, semi-log, log-log axes, a moving time dimension, two sets of attributes on plot points (via size and color)...this thing kicks SERIOUS ass. Just click the play button on the default plot, and watch income per capita (log) plotted against life expectancy move over time, from 1975 to 2004. THIS is the future of data visualization. (data from Gapminder, a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software that visualise human development).

link from Peter Van Dijck's Guide to Ease

January 4, 2007 permalink | Comments (1)

Welcome to the Blogosphere

The blogosphere is a paradigm shift; a change in the way people interact. One of the interesting things to observe is changes in relationship balance of power; for example, the newfound ability for a customer to talk about a satisfying (or unsatisfying) experience, and have the world hear. Combine a weblog with search engines and a consumer's request for info, and you get some surprising results. Results that a company doesn't always want people to hear.

Word of mouth is a hugely effective recommendation medium, and according to the pundits negative word of mouth is more telling than positive. (What's the anecdote? You tell 3 people when you're happy with a product, and 11 people when you're mad? Something like that.) With the advent of blogs, people can now share their feelngs about a company with a MUCH larger audience than before. Companies...they don't always like that. Of course they're happy for praise; but talk smack, and they get annoyed fast.

A friend of mine just discovered this the hard way. He wrote a cautionary blogpost about a mistake he made in purchasing a product. Note: He made the mistake, and ADMITS he made the mistake. He did ask for a refund (which was denied), but dropped it quickly. (No refunds on software! No refunds! *sigh* A post for another day.)

His reason for making the blogpost was simply to remind folks to carefully read documentation for purchases before buying (he made an assumption about the product that was incorrect, which rendered it useless for his purposes). He even including a link to the website, and a positive comment about the company.

Boom.

His personal-nerd-weblog (much like this one), which normally has 0-1 comments per post, presently has 12 on this entry. The company posted to it's own forums about it, with a (IMO) self-serving thread in which they attempt to rally their fans to go and support them (posting a link to my friend's blog).

It's probably not a bad product. The entire situation, however, has been handled terribly on the company's part (from the customer service point of view). I wouldn't buy anything from the company at this point with a 20-ft. pole...and I DO make software recommendations. Both to friends, and at work. And hopefully, a little bit of Google juice will come into play, and my friend's post will show up when product reviews are Googled. It's a classic example of a company overreacting to a negative comment in this new world.

Welcome to the Blogosphere.

January 2, 2007 permalink | Comments (1)

Earlier posts -- Later posts