February 2008
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As with basketball
Mark Pesce notes, Jimbo has learned, through experience, that the “minor” language versions of Wikipedia (languages with less than 10 million native speakers), need at least five steady contributors to become self-sustaining. In the many wikis Jimbo oversees through his commercial arm, Wikia, he’s noted the same phenomenon time and again. Five people mark… Continue reading
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Sobering thought of the day
George Bush and John McCain say The Surge is working. But how? Here’s John Robb’s explanation. If you’re impatient, go straight to the last short paragraph. The Sunni Tribal Awakening (rather than “the surge”) has radically slowed violence in Iraq by bringing it back to the levels of activity seen in 2005. That’s a… Continue reading
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Aggregaphobia
Who likes being categorized, unless the category flatters them in a way that agrees with their soul’s sense of who and what they are? Woody Allen famously said* (in the great Annie Hall), “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member”. I see that statement… Continue reading
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Fractal footprints
The interesting thing to me about the footprints above, aside from their nature as photography fodder, is that they resemble the layout of the two intersecting paths at Winthrop Park, where I took the shot. You can see the paths on Google Maps if you look for the intersection of JFK and Mt. Auburn in… Continue reading
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Will the Clinton Era come to a graceful end?
In Can Mrs. Clinton lose?, Peggy Noonan writes, We know she is smart. Is she wise? If it comes to it, down the road, can she give a nice speech, thank her supporters, wish Barack Obama well, and vow to campaign for him? It either gets very ugly now, or we will see… Continue reading
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Aggregation aggravation
Before I got pointed to this post by Steve Hodson, I hadn’t seen this post by Brian Solis, pointing to egos.alltop.com (“We’ve got egos covered”), which features my blog among others on the “egos” list. Alltop, a creation of Guy Kawasaki, describes its purpose this way: We help you explore your passions by collecting stories… Continue reading
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TechTuesday near Boston
I’m thinking of making it to Tech Tuesday: Gadgets & Gathering, next Tuesday, February 12, at Skellig Irish Pub in Waltham. Might be a long shot, since I’m on a flight to New York for XXX the next morning at 6am. But it’s a monthly thing. If you live around here, check out Dan Bricklin’s… Continue reading
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Advice du jour
Dave: Turn Yahoo into The RSS Powerhouse in every way. Build all new systems around RSS. If it isn’t RSS it doesn’t fly. Continue reading
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Ask not what NOLA can do for you…
… ask what you can do for NOLA. Starting with a BarCamp. Specifically, BarCampNOLA, where it says, In addition to connecting digital folks, sharing what we know and what we’re working on, maybe we can pick a team project to do as well. I’d like to find a struggling small business we could… Continue reading
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Fun with trends
britney, ledger. obama, clinton. mccain, romney, huckabee. Roll your own. Continue reading
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Security at all costs
New Operation to Put Heavily Armed Officers in Subways, the headline says. It begins, In the first counterterrorism strategy of its kind in the nation, roving teams of New York City police officers armed with automatic rifles and accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol the city’s subway system daily, beginning next month, officials said… Continue reading
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Lets tawk
There’s a New Conversation is happening next week in New Yawk (my home skyline, though I’m from Jersey… you know, where New Yawk teams play). Wednesday, 1PM at the SAP Customer Center, 95 Morton Street. It costs money, but less than some cheap seats at professional ball games. It’s a Cluetrain follow-up. Occasioned by the… Continue reading
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Lessig on Obama
Check out Larry Lessig‘s video on why he supports Barack Obama. It is, as always, thoughtful, persuasive, and masterfully done. Here’s the text. It’s strong stuff. But the video is stronger. It’s not a speech. It’s the video equivalent of a visit your home, your psyche. And your heart. Watch and listen. Continue reading
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Listen out
Voices Without Votes, from Global Voices and Reuters. Very interesting stuff. Continue reading
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Obamarama
I’m a registered Independent, which means I can’t vote in today’s primary in California. Other states allow Independents to vote in party primaries, but alas, not my state.* For what it’s worth, I’ve mostly been a none-of-the-above voter for a long time. I’ve voted for Green, Libertarian and other third party candidates in various contests.… Continue reading
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Also sprach Gabriele
I took three years of Deutsch in high school, but I gave them all back when I was done. Still, I do recall enough to gather that Gabriele Fischer put Das Cluetrain Manifest to good use in her latest editorial in brandeins Online, titled Gesprächs-Angebote. Via Nicole Simon. Continue reading
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Patent de/reform
First thing we do is kill all the inventors is a post on pending patent reform that Britt Blaser posted last year; but seems especially appropriate to re-visit as new law comes closer to being made. Too often, as we focus on clashes between titans (witness the current writing about Microsoft maybe buying Yahoo so… Continue reading
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Advertising vs. Newspapers
Robert Niles in OJR: News publishers like to point to television, free news online, English literacy rates and slew of other reasons to explain their readership losses. But the contempt that newspapers show for their readers by burying their editorial content beneath their remaining advertising surely is not helping keep readers around. He goes… Continue reading