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

Also on:

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).

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!

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!

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.

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

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.

Good interview with Peter Gabriel where he discusses digital music distribution, the future of the industry, and The Filter (an app that generates instant playlists for iPods, based on mood, what you might like based on what you like, etc.).

I’ve always like Peter Gabriel. He definitely gets it

link from Pho

Also on:

(File this one under no one cares but me, but it’s my frackin’ blog, I’ll talk about what I want…)

Careful reviewers of my website (LOL) may notice that my reading list has experienced quite a slowdown over the past few months. This is due to several issues:

• Catching up on some TV/movies (esp. Battlestar Galactica)
• Games, games, games! World Of Warcraft, Second Life, and HalfLife 2 have taken their toll
• Slack in supply train. I use books as Christmas wishlist suggestions, so I have to stop buying them myself around September

Never fear, though. With the holidays right around the corner, I should be getting a number of the books that have been holding in my queue as gifts. Since most of them are things I’m chomping at the bit to read, I’ll be charging right through them, and the reading list should churn along quite nicely.

I know you all feel much better now. *grin*

Well, late this month, my annual subscription fee to Second Life will come due. I’ve been thinking for several weeks now about whether or not to pay it and continue with a premium account. I think I will.

On one hand, the decision is easy. I’ve succeeded in my desire to make the account self-funding; a combination of occasional content sales, general frugality wrt purchases, and careful selling on the Linden Exchange means that I have more than enough money in my account to pay the yearly subscription fee ($72). Cool! But I could also spend that money on other things, and drop my SL account to the Basic level, which is free. Is Second Life worth it? Especially lately, with the huge registration increases, the accompanying stress on the Grid, seemingly incessant grey goo attacks, etc.?

I pondered it, and decided that it was. Absolutely. It’s one of the most exciting places on the Net, and provides an opportunity to be on the leading edge of experimentation in virtual commerce, digital content, and free expression. I have my Second Life phases; I’m in-game quite a bit for a few days or a week, and then don’t bother to login for some time. This coming year, I’m planning on spending more time in-game, and doing some SL social networking (along with scripting, machinima, etc.). Heck, I’m coming up on my 4 year anniversary, and I’ve probably got fewer contacts than most people who’ve been here a month! *grin* I should work on that.

So I’ll see ya on the Grid next year, definitely. My avatar is KZ Pasteur; feel free to drop in and say hi.