We set a new record for the amount of rain in November — and we might break the record for the most rain in any month (set in like 1890). Then Sunday, it started snowing. Right now, it’s 10.8 degrees and there’s still snow on the ground here. This is a "must" write about.
It was a throw-away paragraph at the bottom of a page in the business section of last Thursday’s Seattle Times, a little blurb from AP about actions of the US Copyright office. The significance of the decision was evidenced by the headline: "Cellphones’ reuse one of 6 new rights."
I sat it aside to research and forgot it — until I started shopping for cellphones online (again) this weekend. Then I remembered something about cellphone owners being allowed to break software locks on their cellphones. Hmmm. This means any phone can be an unlocked phone, right?
Technology Review reports:
A Nokia research project could one day make it easier to navigate the
real world by superimposing virtual information on an image of your
surroundings… on the screen of a camera phone…. The field of augmented reality, in which supplementary information from
a computer or the Internet is overlaid onto the real world, has been
the topic of science fiction and serious academic and military study
for years… However, at this time, Nokia has no plans to transform MARA into a
commercial product. "Creating a prototype and creating a product are
very different things," says Murphy.
From one of my MCDM students.
Podcasting As Active Learning: My 8 minute presentation at NCA, San Antonio, on experimenting with podcasting as a learning tool in COM300, Spring 2006, at the University of Washington.
From the program, session 40742:
The panelists are early adopters of podcasting for instructional development. Podcasting is an internet-based audio/video distribution technology allowing subscribers to automatically receive updated content for listening/viewing via computer or portable media
Listen …
mp4 @ dotMac,
mp3 @ UW
There is a new (beta) website serving the “conference community.” Anyone can add a conference to the database - it currently has 16K+ conferences.
Using Web2.0 technologies, the site has a built-in reputation management system (to try to thwart spam as well as provide information on the crediblity of a conference). Like ePinions, it allows registrants to review/critique conferences that they have attended. Watch an interview (QT) with founder Salim Ismail.
I’m intrigued. Two years ago, I tried something like this — a repository of interesting conferences and local Seattle events — using TypePad as a database. My students didn’t seem interested enough to add content, and it was too much work for a solo effort. Community is a Good Thing for a project like this. Hmm. How to add a custom RSS feed about Seattle events to a web page … (tip)
In effect, this is what conservative radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham initiated when she suggested her listeners call a hotline set up to report a toll-free voter protection hotline. (tip)
… This is what I’m thinking. Tell me if you think I’m crazy. This is what
I’m thinking. I think we all need to call 1 888 DEM VOTE all at the
same time. And, by the way, when you call, when you call the number —
and remember, it’s ‘Dem Vote’ not ‘Dumb Vote’…
CERT provides background on Denial of Service Attacks, "an explicit attempt by attackers to prevent legitimate users of a service from using that service." The proposal Ingraham made on the air falls in the first category of attacks: "attempts to ‘flood’ a network, thereby preventing legitimate network traffic."
If behavior like this isn’t sue-able, it should be. At a minimum, the
FCC should fine the stations and consider this inappropriate use of
public airwaves when license renewal comes ’round again.
Edited to add: Their website lists Seattle AM1300 as KOL-AM (three letters?!?) … but in 1975, KOL-AM changed its call letters to KMPS-AM. There is no KMPS-AM affiliation noted on the KMPS-FM site … and Google brings up nothing. No one local to write to, I guess.
Chris Anderson points me to Ethan Zuckerman’s excellent summary of a talk he gave last month: “What Happens When Things Get Free?” This is tres timely for me, as I’m talking to my class tomorrow night about how digital goods change the economic model of scarcity.
Notes on Tarleton Gillespie lecture - Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture - Communications Dept, Monday @ 3.30.
Lessig has a nice piece in the Financial Times about network neutrality. (The Financial Times? I love the paper …but it’s not exactly a mainstream American paper. Apparently domestic media don’t care. But I digress.)
His analysis focuses on YouTube’s success. I agree with him 100% until he gets to the bit about broadband competition. Then I disagree because of this:
In the US, at least, broadband competition is dying. There are fewer
competitors offering consumers broadband connectivity today than there
were just six years ago. The median consumer has a choice between just
two broadband providers. Four companies account for a majority of all
consumer broadband; 10 account for 83 per cent of the market.
kegill
kegill2
seaphotog
