Ideas
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Unday
Climbing while Rome burns FCC Chair Brendan Carr likes to climb towers. I did too, decades ago. That kind of thing runs in my family. I also salute the workers who do it. As does Carr. That’s the claimed reason why he climbed the KELO TV tower in South Dakota last summer, and WCTI TV* a few days Continue reading
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If privacy matters to you, this is a required assignment
I’m kinda proud of the stars we’ve been bringing to our salon series here at Indiana University since 2021. And there are none I’m more excited to welcome than Helen Nissenbaum, who will be here on Tuesday to speak both in person and on Zoom. The title of her talk is “Why Obfuscation is (still) Continue reading
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My Three Hooks
For many years, I attended an annual gathering of folks who wanted to save the Internet for future generations. Aspirational guidance was provided by the metaphor “big hooks:” ones meant for catching big fish. Since I was a kid, my life has always been about big hooks, especially ones that maximize personal and collective agency, Continue reading
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Ecology vs. Egology
Back in 2008, while working for a startup, Hugh MacLeod and I contrasted the distributed, decentralized, participatory tech development culture of the time with the centralized, top-down kind that had dominated for the prior few decades—and, let’s face it, still does today. Hugh drew the cartoon above to illustrate what we thought was going on Continue reading
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What-Happenedings
Though it may take longer. Usually does. I say some stuff I trust will eventually prove true in Pew's Imagining the Digital Future report on being human ten years from now. Be theres. In The False Intention Economy: How AI Systems Are Replacing Human Will with Modeled Behavior, Katalin Bártfai-Walcott lays out the battlefield between the real Continue reading
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The Interknit
I just looked for the word “weave” among my half-million photos, and found this: We’ve been trying to solve identity problems online since the Internet showed up, roughly in the middle of the curve in the image above. It wasn’t much of a problem before then. Consider what Walt Whitman wrote in Leaves of Continue reading
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The Future, Present, and Past of News
Eleventh in the News Commons series. all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. —Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in Ulysses News flows. It starts with what’s coming up, goes through what’s happening, and ends up as what’s kept—if it’s lucky. Facts take the same route. Continue reading
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Laws of Identity
When digital identity ceases to be a pain in the ass, we can thank Kim Cameron and his Seven Laws of Identity, which he wrote in 2004, formally published in early 2005, and gently explained and put to use until he died late last year. Today, seven of us will take turns explaining each of Continue reading
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On solving the worldwide shipping crisis
The worldwide shipping crisis is bad. Here are some reasons: “Just in time” manufacturing, shipping, delivery, and logistics. For several decades, the whole supply system has been optimized for “lean” everything. On the whole, no part of it fully comprehends breakdowns outside the scope of immediate upstream or downstream dependencies. The pandemic, which has been Continue reading
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Beyond the Web
Note: This post was updated on the morning of 17 October 2023 (the one when I am writing this) to help me prepare for the latest salon in the Beyond the Web Salon Series, themed Human +/vs. Artificial intelligence, which is happening at noon today, co-hosted by Ostrom Workshop and the Hamilton Lugar School, both at IU. To prep for Continue reading
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Redux 002: Listen Up
This is a 1999 post on the (pre-blog) website that introduced my handful of readers to The Cluetrain Manifesto, which had just gone up on the Web, and instantly got huge without my help. It was also a dry run for a chapter in the book by the same name, which came out in January, 2000. As best I can recall, Continue reading
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We’ve seen this movie before
When some big outfit with a vested interest in violating your privacy says they are only trying to save small business, grab your wallet. Because the game they’re playing is misdirection away from what they really want. The most recent case in point is Facebook, which ironically holds the world’s largest database on individual human Continue reading
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Social shell games
If you listen to Episode 49: Parler, Ownership, and Open Source of the latest Reality 2.0 podcast, you’ll learn that I was blindsided at first by the topic of Parler, which has lately become a thing. But I caught up fast, even getting a Parler account not long after the show ended. Because I wanted to see what’s Continue reading
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Be the hawk
On Quora the question went, If you went from an IQ of 135+ to 100, how would it feel? Here’s how I answered:::: I went through that as a kid, and it was no fun. In Kindergarten, my IQ score was at the top of the bell curve, and they put me in the smart kid Continue reading
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Reality 2020.05.08
In The Web and the New Reality, which I posted on December 1, 1995 (and again a few days ago), I called that date “Reality 1.995.12,” and made twelve predictions. In this post I’ll visit how those have played out over the quarter century since then. 1. As more customers come into direct contact with Continue reading
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Saving the Internet—and all the commons it makes possible
This is the Ostrom Memorial Lecture I gave on 9 October of last year for the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University. Here is the video. (The intro starts at 8 minutes in, and my part starts just after 11 minutes in.) I usually speak off the cuff, but this time I wrote it out, originally Continue reading
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At Root an Evanescence
A Route of Evanescence, With a revolving Wheel – A Resonance of Emerald A Rush of Cochineal – And every Blossom on the Bush Adjusts it’s tumbled Head – The Mail from Tunis – probably, An easy Morning’s Ride – —Emily Dickinson (via The Poetry Foundation) While that poem is apparently about a hummingbird, it’s the Continue reading
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On Amazon, New York, New Jersey and urban planning
In a press release, Amazon explained why it backed out of its plan to open a new headquarters in New York City: For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70% of New Continue reading
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#RectangleBingo
This is a game for our time. I play it on New York and Boston subways, but you can play it anywhere everybody in a crowd is staring at their personal rectangle. I call it Rectangle Bingo. Here’s how you play. At the moment when everyone is staring down at their personal rectangle, you shoot Continue reading
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Idea: Woodstock vs. TED.
So I just read about “a 50th anniversary Woodstock celebration that would include TED-style talks.” Details here and here in the Gothamist. This celebration doesn’t have the Woodstock name, but it does have the place, now called the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Since the Woodstock name belongs to folks planning the other big Woodstock 50th birthday party, this Continue reading