It’s all official on the FlickrBlog now…Flickr does geotagging. VERY cool…I’m going to start playing with it as soon as I get home. Includes a separate privacy setting for location, which makes a lot of sense. API, yada yada…awesome stuff.

link from TechCrunch

Also on:

Michael Robertson (formerly of mp3.com, now of mp3tunes.com, sipphone.com, and linspire.com) has just announced a major enhancement to mp3tunes’ Oboe locker. The free version of the locker formerly could only be used with music freely available on the web; now you can upload 1000 songs, or 1 GB (whichever comes first) into even the free version, and have everything available on up to 3 different PCs, streamable on demand, and connected to devices like the Nokia 770. Great idea, Michael! And I love the statements he makes about how you’ll be treated:

• It’s YOUR data and we won’t lock you in.
• You decide where your music will play, not us.
• We won’t use patents or DRM (digital restriction management) to block others from using our system.

He’s making sense to me! And the price is right, since I still haven’t even converted a gigabyte of music to MP3s yet. Heck, even the upgrades are cheap; $20/year for 2GB, and $40/year for unlimited storage, unlimited PC access. There are already plugins for Winamp and iTunes, and you can apparently play back music on a Tivo, which is pretty cool. I’m looking forward to playing around with this.

Surprise, surprise…when I submitted this post on a UK man facing jail over photoshopped child porn images to BoingBoing, I was pretty certain it was going to make it. Sure ‘nough. Of course, that means there’s presently (as of this morning) a post sitting on one of the world’s most popular websites, referring to that story, with my name right next to it. And a link to here. Talk about freaky. I thought I’d post some thoughts.

First off…I DO NOT LIKE CHILD PORN!! I DO NOT LOOK AT IT…IT IS DISGUSTING AND DEEPLY DISTURBING! CLEAR ENOUGH!!? I thought I’d get that out of the way. *grin* Problem is, every time I type the aforementioned phrase in this post, I end up in it’s Google index regardless. Ick. Semantic Web, where are you?

So, to clarify my thinking, here. The important part of the story isn’t about specifics. Rather, it’s the nature of the offending material.

In one sense, it’s nothing new…obviously, there was written word pornography long before digital photomanipulation or virtual reality. But as the imagined/created material becomes more and more lifelike; more and more indistinguishable from reality, we become even more disturbed by it.

What’s the difference, for example, in watching an X-rated movie filmed with real people, and in watching one created with machinima in Second Life, or another virtual world? Sure, today we can tell the difference…but is that necessarily even the point? Does the fact that we can tell it’s not real matter? And what about tomorrow, when we can’t? What about an X-rated movie filmed with a real actor and a CGI partner? How about CGI partner, that’s um…not human? (Don’t panic, this could mean, for example, some sort of sci-fi alien. Or a zombie [double ick]. Or whatever.] The point is, when does this become pornography? When does this become illegal? Why does it become illegal (note: I’m not suggesting it’s doesn’t…or does, for that matter. I’m just asking the question here.)

It’s also interesting to note again the difference in perception between sex and violence. Remember the Hot Coffee mod in Grand Theft Auto? Simulated sex that raised a huge controversy…simulated sex, only unlockable via a hack, in a game that otherwise rewards the player for performing acts of random mayhem and murder. Bizarre.  Why is virtual murder ok, and virtual sex not?

Of course, the child sex issue raises additional issues…right? It unmistakeably would, in my opinion…if there were an actual child involved. Pictures taken, etc. But in the case of the UK man, there is no child. He photoshopped pictures of adults. No cropping in other photos; he just altered the adult ones. Weird, eh? How do you define what’s what? What about the super-realistic vector art recently profiled on BoingBoing? If he’d started with that, there would have NEVER been an actual person involved…but (unlike with drawings, for example), it’d be almost impossible to tell that.

We’ve merely reached the tip of the iceberg here. As I mentioned in the BoingBoing post, I actually bumped into the UK post in a Second Life blog, where the author was using it as an example in a larger piece relating primariy to “age play” in Second Life.

For those who don’t know, Second Life is a really cool online virtual world that’s open-ended. Unlike Everquest or WoW, there’s no game to win, or level grind, in Second Life. It’s “just” a world. And a player’s avatar is completely open…there are folks who look like giant bunny rabbits, and robots, and vampires…and 10-year old girls. (note: the Second Life main grid is intended for 18 and over only, so the actual person behind the keyboard is probably an adult). And yes, SL has a thriving sex industry…escorts and sex toys, dungeons and BSDM. When those things intersect…what happens?

And what about 5 years from now, in a virtual world that makes SL look like Ultima Online does today? Where we can barely (if at all) tell the difference between real-world video and game-generated content? Strange days are coming…

Kung Fu Monkey: “Wait, Aren’t You Scared?”

The man has a gift, that he can be so right, and so funny, simultaneously.

Ah, this is a priceless find; a review of the new Will Ferrell movie, Talladega Nights – The Legend of Ricky Bobby…at a racing news site (Insider Racing News). It appears that the reviewer has mistaken a satirical comedy (hey, it’s Will Ferrell, folks) for some sort of NASCAR documentary:

• While all of this was going on we were also introduced to the wife of the team owner, an already drunk, booze swilling, barely conscious harridan. By the time they introduced Ricky Bobby’s nemesis Formula 1 driver Jean Girard, it didn’t even faze me that he was driving the #55 car.
• The much-ballyhooed wreck, which sidelined Ricky Bobby, consisted an ugly but non-injury accident that for some reason convinced Ricky that he was on fire. Considering that fire is without a doubt a driver’s worse fear and you couldn’t help but wonder why they would pick such a situation to joke about
• In the short period of time it took to present this farce, they managed to minimize the severity of drugs in racing, the impact of wives the likes of Pattie Petty, DeLana Harvick, and Stevie Waltrip, and suggest that team members won’t hesitate to take out a competitor to benefit their teammates. Well, that one we’re not too sure about.
• Now I can already hear the shouts of, “Oh, for cryin’ out loud! Lighten up!” and you’d be right except for the efforts of NASCAR to stomp out anything and everything relating to the history of the sport in an effort not only to broaden it’s appeal, but it marketing capability as well.

Ooohhhkay. I get that you’re a little upset…but this wasn’t a Discovery channel presentation on the sport, you know? It’s a COMEDY. A slapstick, farcical summer comedy. Did you laugh at Zoolander? I wonder if the fashion industry was shocked by their presentation there? How about Happy Gilmore? Terrible stereotypes of golfers! *gasp* I’d say lighten up, but I’m not sure some people know how to…

This is really the sort of thing that shows off the amazing capabilities our tools now provide us. Jon Udell writes an outstanding technical blog that I follow religiously. He made a throwaway comment a few days back about an event that occurred in London in March; the celebration of the 30 year anniversary of the publication of Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. The event included a brace of cogent speakers on the topic (including Dr. Dawkins himself), and was recorded. Said recording, of course, is available on the Internet, and was obligingly linked to by Jon. Moments after reading his post, I had a copy of the audio. I’m listening to it now, as I do weekend chores, and it’s great stuff. Thanks so much for the pointer, Jon!

I may not have my flying car yet, but this is almost as good. *grin*

link from Jon Udell

UPDATE: A note: even if you’ve never read The Selfish Gene, I still think this is a great download. It’s no substitute for the book itself (a must read, in my opinion), but it’s a great discussion of some of the ideas that Dawkins has championed for his entire life, and that have had a huge impact on my understanding and view of the world. The Selfish Gene is something that you cannot unread.

Holeee crap…Meraki Networks is a company building mesh networking hardware and software based on the Roofnet Project at MIT (in fact, most of that project team is presently on sabbatical, working at Meraki). They’re selling mesh repeaters starting at $49…crazy cool stuff! And lines are open now; there’s a summer beta program. AND they’re designed to be hackable by the owner (you can ssh into ’em). Rock ON, Meraki! I will have me one of these.

Wow…talk about Getting Things Done! Thanks to my webpal Dave Slusher, I have an empty (really, empty! Not even one email!) personal email inbox for the first time in…uh, well…I don’t even know. A LOOONGG time. Dave just started working the GTD ropes, and is chronicling it on his blog and podcast. Since I love being a joiner, I figured what the hell…I’ve been hearing about it for awhile as well.

This stuff works! I’m certainly not going about it completely straightforwardly; I’m kind of edging my way in. But I have an empty inbox! wooo-freakin-hoot! And that feels good. It’s a perfect reward to push me further into the GTD-space. Thanks, Dave!

Democracy (an open source Internet video/TV platform) has posted an article comparing the Democracy Player and iTunes. Worth reading. Gist: the Democracy Player is already probably a better desktop player (Windows, Mac, or Linux), but it doesn’t yet have the ability to sync videos to iPods (or any other player, for that matter). That’s on the list, though, and when finished will make the app a real heavyweight in this space.

A couple of quick, cool posts…

• ladyada: Cigarette pack cellphone jammer
• timbl: Slicing and dicing web data with Tabulator