I’ve been carrying around one of my father’s — or perhaps his father’s — old toys for several decades. It’s a wonderful, if well worn, red and chrome vertical toy steam engine of a type made between 1921 and 1931 by Empire Metalware in Two Rivers, WI, an Empire Metalware B31. So far our biggest obstacle to getting the thing in a working state was finding a cord that would deliver electricity to the heater. Yesterday, we finally found one that, while it was not of the wonderful old school rayon covered cable, still managed to do the job. No used appliance store, hardly any hardware, no electric specialty shop could help us get the cord. Finally we found one at a small Ace Hardware — not old school, but it makes the connection.

Well, it sorta worked initially and it sorta didn’t. Of course having fittings and washers that hadn’t been replaced in over 40 years is one reason. But with power delivered we were hopeful we could get to the next level. The thing did heat water even if it didn’t much turn the fly wheel or pump the piston.

Vinegar fixed that problem by de-liming all the joints and pipes. Soon we were turning the wheel and letting off steam. But the de-liming also exposed even more leaky seals. As you see below, we do have more work to do.

A completely repaired and restored Empire would look and work like this:

To get our machine fixed even close to that level, we’ll be following IndianaRog’s great repair advice and improvising a bit on our own. It won’t be a one day deal — then it took a week — with a break for me to be sick in the middle — just to get the cord. And thanks to Rog, I’m on the trail of a replacement whistletop too through Don Stilson of New York.

Comments No Comments »

Steve Snow at right. Gates at CenterWhen I met Steve Snow, he was not only embarking on a life-changing journey, he was embarking on a journey in which he changed others lives as well.

Charlotte’s Web (here in 1997) was conceived before the Web was really or readily available to all. Steve saw potential for strong and broad democratic involvement aided by technology that would transform communities like Charlotte reaching out to the homeless and to public housing equally with outreach to those more privileged.

Charlotte’s Web had a fantastic start then ran into trouble, mostly political due to it’s involvement with various parts of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg government each of whom had a financial stake and so a policy stake in the enterprise.

Steve somehow managed to manage CharWeb through that time and into the future until about 2001 when Charlotte.com picked up the project and Steve left.

Steve was an outspoken advocate of full-community participation in the online community. He helped found the Association for Community Networking and advocated for access for the homeless.

Steve still cared about and was involved in community even in his counseling and consulting practice in Asheville, NC, which he named CommCure. In his own biography on the CommCare site, he described himself this way:
“Among his primary interests academically are integrating human needs and technical infrastructure and Jungian applications of SandPlay in virtual environments. He also has a deep commitment to addressing complex trauma in children and adults, with a special emphasis on men who commit domestic, family or interpersonal violence, an area for which he is a regular speaker in national and international conferences.”

The final sentence rings true especially as it pertains to Steve’s commitment to others: ” If you are interested in talking about any of these things, please send an e-mail note and he’ll reply quickly.”

If only that were still true in fact as well as spirit.

Steve died suddenly on December 27th in Asheville, NC.

About the photo: 4/11/96 - Steve Snow, on the right, is shown with Bill Gates, founder and chariman of Microsoft, during Gates’ visit to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Virtual Library. GARY O’BRIEN/Charlotte.com

Alert! @andycarvin be talking about Steve Snow (and maybe Steve Cisler) on Talk of the Nation tomorrow December 31 at 2pm EST.

Comments 1 Comment »

Circa 1958 at the Ackland
While at the Ackland Museum for the Circa 1958 show, we came upon special recreations of four wonderful participatory pieces in the same room.

Allan Kaprow’s untitled piece, which dominates the room, is made from chicken wire, a step ladder and newspaper — the idea is that the piece exists only for the length of the show then is gone, except for notes about its creation.

Robert Morris’ Box with the sound of its own making is a sealed crafted smooth box with a long tape loop inside. The sound on the tape loop is the sound recording during the construction of the box itself.

George Brecht’s Three Chair Events (1961) places three chairs in the museum in various places. Originally one outside, one in the gallery and one in the bathroom, but for this show in various rooms in the museum. The public is invited to sit on the chairs and “observe” what’s happening around you.

The fourth and most fun is Yoko Ono’s remake of her early Painting to hammer a nail in. The reimagined version is not much like the recreation seen here on the blog, but is a special Ackland Circa 1958 version.

The Ackland version is a gold framed mirror film covered piece of wood with the invitation “Yoko Ono invites you to drive a nail in the mirror.” This opportunity is made realizable by a wooden handled hammer attached to the easel by a gold chain and a box full of nails built into the easel frame.

More like the original than the Ackland version

The tilted mirror was pretty well full of nails of all sizes and shapes by the time we arrived (the show ends January 4th). But we managed not only to get our nails in the mirror but whilst driving them in, we discovered a secret sonic dimension to the Yoko Ono mirror piece.

By dropping a nail, from the top of the piece, you get some very nice random but not unpleasing tones as the nail bounces among its secured cousins like a musical Pachinko ball. Two to four nails released together still give musical results; any more and you attract the negative attention of the room’s guard.

Note: I’m interested in doing an homage/recreation/reimagining of Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts within the next year and am planning now. Join me here and bring your ideas.

Comments No Comments »

UNC at Charlotte folks picked up on the UNC - Chapel Hill flash mob/rave in the library scene almost to the letter.

University of Virginia also flash raved in their library on December 12 in pale imitation of Chapel Hill’s earlier library rave:

College of Charleston may have been the first to follow Chapel Hill:

In my day we did this without wearing clothes…

Comments No Comments »

Larry Lessig tweets that his “site has been hacked, so some big news of the day is posted at jz’s: http://ping.fm/Kx1vp

A quick look at the http://lessig.org sites shows that some hidden gambling spam was added to his site resulting in that site becoming dropped by Google. Seems to work for me now.

Unrelated is the more important announcement posted on Jonathan Zittrain’s “Future of the Internet and How To Stop It” site.
The quick version: Lessig is leaving Stanford and heading back to Harvard to start directing the Safra Center on ethics at the Law School.

Comments No Comments »

Although I was teaching Smart Mobs and Fred was teaching Technologies of Friendship, I didn’t notice any of our student in this video shot last night at 11 pm in UNC’s Undergraduate Library.

Comments 1 Comment »

The Public Domain
James Boyle’s new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind, is out from Yale University Press and for free download. His site for the book (see link on book name) is chocked full of video and other great supporting materials.

Jamie introduced me to many of the Creative Commons concepts via his earlier groundbreaking book, Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. After reading that book in 1996, I managed to get Jamie, Mark Hosler (of Negativland) and the late Anne Branscomb (author of Who Owns Information) up to Charlottesville, Va to speak to the Wahoos. Jamie was such a hit (all three were each in their own way) that the Federalist Society invited him to be one of their speakers. This lead to one of my favorite Boyle moments. In his self-introduction, he said “If we transposed political positions onto the map of the United States, the Federalist Society would be in Maine and I would be somewhere to the west of Honolulu, so you should be skeptical of the arguments I put forward.”

Boyle delivered a great talk at Duke last week which you can watch here: “A Song’s Tale: Mashups, Borrowing and the Law” (requires RealPlayer or on YouTube below). This talk links copyright to gospel music, Ray Charles, Kanye West, Hurricane Katrina and Jesus to a good woman and a gold-digger (for starters).

Comments 2 Comments »

I met Jef back in the very late 70s when he was with Touch the Mime Group. He got me to collect old green bar computer printer paper to use in some of their skits. Jef told me that the skit was about the dehumanizing effect of computers. Only after I saw Touch play the skit did I realize that Jef thought that being dehumanized by computers was a bad thing!

Here’s a sample of Jef the Mime warming up the crowd as they come into the Ocrafolk fundraiser this past Friday night.

Comments 2 Comments »


Comments 2 Comments »


Carrboro Creative Coworking founder Brian Russell takes a group on a tour of the new Coworking space. If you look closely you will see an Orange County Commissioner, a Carrboro Alderperson or two, a Mayor and lots of tweeple from the Greater Carrboro area.


Brian Russell introduces Carrboro Creative Coworking with Carrboro Alderman Dan Coleman and Economic Development James Harris. Many Triangle tweeple in the background.

Comments 4 Comments »

ContextMiner
Our Knight News Challenge proposal for ContextMiner has been moved up to the next level. That means we get to refine and expand the proposal and answer additional questions like:

What will you have changed by the end of your project? (no more than 1800 characters please)

And this must be done by Thanksgiving!

Wish us luck, give ContextMiner try if you’d like and vote us up on the Knight News Challenge site!

Earlier ContextMiner post here.

Comments No Comments »

I’m actually reading these articles more deeply than the ones I scan and bookmark on Delicious for later:

“Maelstrom Over Metadata” in Inside Higher Ed

“A debate is carrying on in the undercurrents of the academic Web, pitting those who defend libraries’ core mission of open access against the membership organization that collects and operates a massive online catalog on which many of them rely.” OCLC acquiring copyright on all catalog records created by its members puts WorldCat at odds with Open Library, Zotero and LibraryThing say many including Aaron Swatrz on his blog which I’m also reading.

“Jeff Shear’s History of “Cynthia,” the World War II Spy” at History News Network.

“This is the true story of how a spy known as Cynthia, Madame Elizabeth Brousse, was used by the desperate British and their American friends in the three-day old Office of Strategic Services to nudge the course of history.” The story promises to be steamy and historic and to correct past historical mistakes including but not limited to: she wasn’t even blonde. Her hair was auburn or “perioxided,”

Comments No Comments »

Odd shoutouts to “Cathedral and Bazaar” and Open Source from Alex Castellanos on CNN at 12:10 AM CT Nov. 5, 2008.

Comments No Comments »

The latest from the New York Times Special Edition folks just hit my mail box. They now have video and a PDF of the print edition.

New York Times Special Edition Video News Release - Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.

Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:06:10 -0500 (EST)
From: New York Times Special Edition
To: pjones
Subject: HUNDREDS CLAIM CREDIT FOR NEW YORK TIMES SPOOF

November 12, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
writers@nytimes-se.com
917-202-5479
718-208-0684 415-533-3961

“SPECIAL” NEW YORK TIMES BLANKETS CITIES WITH MESSAGE OF HOPE AND CHANGE
Thousands of volunteers behind elaborate operation

* PDF: http://www.nytimes-se.com/pdf
* Ongoing video releases: http://www.nytimes-se.com/video
* The New York Times responds: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/pranksters-spoof-the-times/

Hundreds of independent writers, artists, and activists are claiming credit for an elaborate project, 6 months in the making, in which 1.2 million copies of a “special edition” of the New York Times were distributed in cities across the U.S. by thousands of volunteers.

The papers, dated July 4th of next year, were headlined withlong-awaited news: “IRAQ WAR ENDS”. The edition, which bears the same look and feel as the real deal, includes stories describing what the future could hold: national health care, the abolition of corporate lobbying, a maximum wage for CEOs, etc. There was also a spoof site, at http://www.nytimes-se.com/.

“Is this true? I wish it were true!” said one reader. “It can be true, if we demand it.”

“We wanted to experience what it would look like, and feel like, to read headlines we really want to read. It’s about what’s possible, if we think big and act collectively,” said Steve Lambert, one of the project’s organizers and an editor of the paper.

“This election was a massive referendum on change. There’s a lot of hope in the air, but there’s a lot of uncertainty too. It’s up to all of us now to make these headlines come true,” said Beka Economopoulos, one of the project’s organizers.

“It doesn’t stop here. We gave Obama a mandate, but he’ll need mandate after mandate after mandate to do what we elected him to do. He’ll need a lot of support, and yes, a lot of pressure,” said Andy Bichlbaum, another project organizer and editor of the paper.

The people behind the project are involved in a diverse range of groups, including The Yes Men, the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK, United for Peace and Justice, Not An Alternative, May First/People Link, Improv Everywhere, Evil Twin, and Cultures of Resistance.

In response to the spoof, the New York Times said only, “We are looking into it.” Alex S. Jones, former Times reporter who is an authority on the history of the paper, says: “I would say if you?ve got one, hold on to it. It will probably be a collector’s item.”

-30-

Comments 1 Comment »

Congratulations to all the folks who have worked with us on Folkstreams.net especially for this award, Paddy Bowman and Tom Davenport for their work on Educators and Generations Portals for Folkstreams.

Dorothy Howard Folklore and Education Prize

Dorothy Howard (1902-1996) grew up in the Progressive Era, receiving a teaching degree from the North Texas Normal College (now the University of North Texas ) in 1923. During her career as a teacher and principal in Texas, New York, and New Jersey, Howard integrated folklore into her curriculum by having students collect and study playground chants and jingles as a way of introducing them to poetry; research their names and their meanings to study spelling; and write about such traditions as ravioli making to develop their writing skills. Howard’s interest in children’s folklore and education enabled her to bridge a gap between the Victorian “armchair” study of children’s culture with the field-based studies we conduct today. In 1938 she received her doctorate in education with a study of games that combined these two styles of study. Her pioneering work shows us that folklore can be used in the curriculum in a way that is rich and meaningful. The Dorothy Howard Prize honors both Howard and those who have followed her lead in folklore and education.

The prize competition is open to all individuals and organizations whose work effectively encourages K-12 educators or students to use or study folklore and folkloristic approaches in all educational environments. Such works include but are not limited to curriculum materials, publications, audio and video recordings, multimedia publications, and exhibits. Work produced in the two calendar years prior to the annual AFS meeting is eligible for consideration.

Nominations should identify the author(s) or creator(s), publisher, date of publication, and describe why the nomination deserves consideration. Statements should not exceed three double-spaced pages. Entries must have been published within the past two years. Anyone may nominate work by submitting three copies of materials, or in the case of non-print work, three copies of detailed descriptions and any relevant supporting materials to the address below. In the case of particularly extensive or expensive materials (e.g., multimedia kits), a single copy may be submitted, but please still include three copies of the nominating statement/description.

Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

• Does the product add significantly to the body of folklore and education literature or resources?
• Is the material appropriate for intended age groups and subject focus?
• Do the materials have the potential to engage their intended audience fully?

Please send submissions to Luc D. Guglielmi, Department of Foreign Languages, Kennesaw State University, 142 Pilcher, 1000 Chastain Road, Kennesaw GA 30144-5591. The prize amount is $100, and the next deadline for submissions is August 1, 2009. The recipient of the Dorothy Howard Prize will be announced during the annual Folklore and Education section meeting during the American Folklore Society conference each October.

2008 Recipient

The 2008 committee is pleased to announce this year’s award recipient is the website Folkstreams. This site is a powerful resource with national and international appeal and potential for use. This easy to navigate site currently provides 106 documentary films which represent a wide slice of the American experience and provides a valuable learning tool for educators, students, folklorists, cultural studies specialists, film studies students, and the general public. Folkstreams.net provides information on filmmakers, blog opportunities, ways to access links, copyright information, links by subject and region and a guide to best practices in film digitization. There are both educator and generations portals which have links to excellent discussion questions, a range of related activities that incorporate several learning styles and suggested activities which promote critical inquiry, student application of the ideas and techniques for students’ own community research.

Comments No Comments »

will.i.am’s new song “It’s A New Day” http://is.gd/6YTP A little post-election euphoria

Retweeting @aarahkahak: Johnny’s in Carrboro in McSweeney’s “My Son James’s Favorite Snacks From the Local Tienda” http://twurl.nl/0dqwo2

Vandana Shiva at UNC tomorrow (11/11) at 5:30 in the Global Education Center. I met her in Delhi; very impressive. Go hear http://is.gd/6T4b

Seen in Carrboro Citizen: School lunch for this Monday= nachos with beer & cheese & salsa

“Programming is a conversation with information in the same way science is a conversation with nature.” Michael Tiemann

Little Stevie Wonder doing “Fingertips (parts 1 & 2)” http://is.gd/6syM Jazz harmonica and bongos at their best! Live in 1963

Comments No Comments »

I picked up the Flip Mino that the J-School ordered from Amazon for me this morning. I took one very short clip and it looked pretty nice. Then I went by the Art Building where I saw a guy sitting the the gallery with a computer and a very large printer. He was, and prolly still is, Joel Slayton of zero1.org; he explains what he was up to for the past week. Hint: see title for this post.

Comments No Comments »

I was lucky enough to catch the dBs reunion on Saturday at a get out the vote rally at the Johnson Center for Undergrad Excellence. Chris Stamey and Peter Hosapple backed by Mitch Easter on bass and Will Rigby on drums. I first saw the frontmen and perhaps Mitch as the Sneakers then the H-Bombs then the dBs.

Listening to the reformed dBs reminded me that I need to digitize my vinyl of “Re-precussions” and “Stands for Decibels”.

In the meantime, Boston Globe writer Geoff Edgers writes to tell us of his mid-life quest to reunite the Kinks. To that end, Geoff sends a link to this trailer for a documentary of his efforts. He gets help, so far, from Sting, Robin Hitchcock, Paul Weller, Zooey Deschanel and others.

I love Geoff’s banjo/guitar duet with Weller and his vocal Duet with Sting. Hope to hear the Kinks together soon.

Comments No Comments »

ContextMiner logo
Chirag Shah created a great tool for archivists called ContextMiner which helps the archivist set up an automated set of directed web crawls across various media repositories, like YouTube. It’s already working pretty well in the pre-beta phase and has a nice set of users. But we thought that ContextMiner could do more for more people.

Chirag and I showed ContextMiner to John Conway at WRAL.com and Kirk Ross of the Carrboro Citizen and we all agreed that exploring the web globally could make the communty building job of local and regional news sites much more effective. How effective? We asked Dr. Sri Kalyanaraman, whose conceptual and empirical publications have identified a sense of community as one of the critical aspects in online information environments, to give us a hand in measure the effect on community building and ContextMiner.

We want to make sure we do a good job of community building ourselves so we asked Michael Tiemann president of the Open Source Initiative and vice president of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat to help us out with that part and to make sure we have the licensing and IP clear for community use and reuse and modification.

Now we had a great team that could help guide ContextMiner from pre-beta to a robust product for media aggregation and community building for news sites of all kinds but with special attention to local and hyperlocal sites.

Next step is to seek funding. With the help of Jennifer Gallina of the J-School, we put together a proposal for the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge.

We submitted the proposal today and will hear later in the month.

In the meantime, if you’d like to read the proposal, it’s here AND if you create an ID you can help rate the proposal at the same place.

Note: Our proposal does a better job of describing ContextMiner that I did above, but this picture will help some too.

How ContextMiner works

Comments 2 Comments »

“iPhone. Now with free AT&T Wi-Fi.” So read text messages and email from ATT today.

AT&T is now offering free AT&T Wi-Fi access to our iPhone™ customers. That means free AT&T Wi-Fi access at thousands of hotspots nationwide, including Starbucks®.* Hotspots are available in cafes, bookstores, airports, hotels and universities nationwide.

While this is really nice and all, it’s as much a deal for AT&T as it is for those of us with iPhones. We already have unlimited data over the Edge network so we do have access at all those places for free already. Slower but free all the same. It never would have occured to me to buy wifi access at a Starbucks for my iPhone. Let the Edge lead (for free)!

But using the Edge is in the end slightly more expensive for AT&T than wifi. Here they are providing both in Starbuck or the airport and they say “pay for the one that cost us the least or have the one that cost us the most.” In the airport, they push a web page at you to sign on to wifi. Fair enough, but if you let your phone go to sleep, you have to logon all over again. It’s so annoying that I usually give up and just use Edge anyhow.

Now we all win. No log in web pages. Faster and better battery savings with wifi. Cheaper for AT&T and for me too!

Or so I thought.

Then I read this:

Accessing AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots is easy

Activate Wi-Fi from the settings icon on your iPhone.
Select “attwifi” from the list of available networks.
Enter your 10-digit mobile number and check the box to agree to the Acceptable Use Policy.
[doesn't AT&T know my 10-digit moble number already?]
Tap “continue.”
[why can't it act like other open or openish networks? AT&T knows if it's an iPhone or not]
You will receive a text message from AT&T with a secure link to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot.
[almost as annoying as before]
You will not be charged for the text message. [Thanks, Paul]
Open the text message and tap on the link for 24-hour access to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot.
[will I have to do this every time I connect? Yikes, it's worse than before! when my phone goes to sleep, do I have to start all over again?]

Comments 1 Comment »