Accept no substitutes

Month: September 2006 (Page 1 of 4)

Orkut has 1/4 of all Internet Users

in Brazil! That makes Orkut ripe for fishing expeditions by Brazilian police, but Google, the owner of Orkut, is having none of that — or are they? Stories seem to change with the hours as Google agrees to comply with a Brazilian judge’s request for records then says they will not but then says under certain conditions they will.

Remember that’s one quarter of all the Internet users in Brazil; there were 25,900,000 Internet users in Brazil as of Dec./05 so about 6.5 million Brazilians on Orkut. Get the latest news here.

Reading and dinner with Julie

Was over at the Regulator last night for Julie Powell’s reading and signing of her book, just out in paper, Julie and Julia (now subtitled “My year of cooking dangerously” in hardback subtitled “365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.” Afters we headed out to Crook’s Corner to test the shrimp and grits. Julie had met chef Bill Smith earlier in the day when she recorded a show with DG Martin for WCHL.

Lulu Blooker Prize organizer and podcaster, Jason Adams and his wife Ren joined Julie, Sally, Michael (Julie’s official escort/driver for this leg of her trip) and me at Crook’s. We got to catch up on some ideas about blooks and the Lulu Blooker Prize (Julie was last year’s winner and one of this year’s judges; I was a judge last year and will be again this year) and about those who Julie calls her “Bleaders” — I guess “blreader” can’t be pronounced and “breader” would have problems too.

Julie is looking forward to a visit home to Austin for the Texas Conference for Women on October 12 and on getting to work on her new project — learning to be a butcher. These are I think somehow related.

One big gripe, not with Julie, but with the radio: WCHL used to podcast DG’s Who’s Talking? show, but the last update shown is back in July 2006 or in November 2005 depending on where you click on the show’s home page. So I can’t be sure when the show will run or if we who need to timeshift to hear it will ever get a chance to do so.

BTW Crook’s Corner is the sponsor of DG’s show according to WCHL’s website.

Julie (sans Julia) Tonight

Julie Powell

Just heard from Blooker Prize winner, Julie Powell, who will be reading and signing the paper (and I presume hardback) copies of her book, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, TONIGHT, September 29, 2006 7:00 PM at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham.

She’s in town and ready for BBQ and sweet tea and nanna puddin. If we can work out a trip to Allen and Son before her reading, we will.

It was a delight to be a Blooker judge and to get to read Julie’s book after having followed her adventures on her blog at Salon. This year Julie will be one of the Blooker judges herself.

If you like cooking, eating or being alive, you will love Julie and Julia.

Elizabeth Edwards and (Virtual) Community

WUNC carried a story this morning about Elizabeth Edwards and her new book, Saving Graces. Edwards writes that email groups for grieving parents were an important support community for her. Her physical community and her virtual communities both play an important in her working with her grief.

WUNC describes the show this way:

Former North Carolina Senator and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards appeared on national television yesterday. But Edwards wasn’t campaigning for office or talking about fighting poverty, he appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show in a supporting role only. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, was the main attraction. Mrs. Edwards has written a memoir about her rich life, a devastating loss and the power of community. Rusty Jacobs reports.


You can listen to it here [mp3].

Question Me via Wiki – Berry College talk

On October 19th, I’ll be down in Georgia at Berry College speaking as part of the Evans Speaker Series. I have a topic, but I decided to try out the “ask me questions on a wiki” technique to provide focus on that topic and to make sure that I at least touch on the points that folks down there feel are important. Yes, I’ll probably use some of my speaker’s prerogative to bring up issues that may have escaped discussion down there. What I definitely want to do is to not leave concerns unaddressed. I can learn from what used to be called the audience and I can even prepare to be a better speaker and more of a participant in a conversation that will continue with me as I travel and without me among the folks there in Georgia.

The wiki is available here.

What: Evans Speakers Series: Expression, Repression & Association: What happens when intellectual property laws, social networks and privacy collide
When: Thursday, October 19, 2006 – 7-8:30 p.m.
Where: Science Auditorium, Berry College, Mount Berry, Georgia

danah boyd talk Boing-Boing-ed

danah at ibiblio
Ken gets the credit as he deserves. He said, “Hey, I think Boing Boing readers would like to see the video of the talk that danah boyd just gave here.”

Then he wrote Cory.

Now the talk is Boing Boing-ed in this article.

Ken says:
“danah boyd, the latest speaker in the ibiblio.org speaker series, is up on the ibiblio.org web site. In this talk, she gives an awesome, in depth talk on social networks and why people are using them. She touches on the history of social networks, how the online communities came into being, and some of the forces working on them today.”

Cory says:
“There’s no better speaker on social networks than danah boyd — prepare to have your mind blown.”

Fred is the man behind the visit. Thanks to him especially for setting it all up.

Right Wing Bloggers Bash

Yes, right wing bloggers do often bash. But they will also be putting on a bash in Greensboro on Saturday October 7. They will be restrained (perhaps uncharacteristically) ,holding the meeting to a half day. Kory Swanson lets us know the details via Simon:

The John Locke Foundation cordially invites you to Carolina FreedomNet 2006

A North Carolina blog conference with our special guest: Scott Johnson
– Blogger for the influential Power Line blog. “The 61st Minute: Inside the Eye of Hurricane Dan”

Saturday, October 07, 2006 from 8 am til 2 pm at Sheraton Greensboro at the Koury Convention Center, Greensboro, NC

Price: $25

Carolina FreedomNet 2006 is a half-day blogger conference open to all. It will feature two panels of well-known North Carolina bloggers and a luncheon with a keynote speech by Power Line’s Scott Johnson. Included in the ticket price for all registrants (whether bloggers or not) are free Wi-Fi in the conference area, a Continental breakfast, admission to the two panels and the luncheon. A limited number of rooms ($118 per night plus tax) have been reserved for registrants. Phone the Sheraton at (800) 242-6556. The full conference schedule is listed below:

8:00 a.m.-8:30 a.m.: Registration and Continental breakfast
8:30 a.m.-8:45 a.m.: Welcome session
8:45 a.m.-10:15 a.m.: Local vs. Global: What Should Be Your Blog’s Focus? Panelists are Raleigh’s Lorie Byrd of Wizbang, Greensboro’s Sam Hieb of Sam’s Notes, Charlotte’s Sister Toldjah and Raleigh’s Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee.
10:15 a.m.-10:45 a.m.: Break
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Panel: How Has The Blogging Phenomenon Affected Politics and Political Discourse? Panelists are Townhall.com’s Mary Katharine Ham (formerly of Durham), Jeff Taylor of Charlotte’s The Meck Deck, Scott Elliott of Election Projection and Durham’s Josh Manchester of The Adventures of Chester.
12:15 p.m.-12:30 p.m.: Break
12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m.: Luncheon and keynote speech.

Craig Silverstein is selling out!

As of this afternoon, 420 people had registered and have been sent tickets for the October 26th talk by Craig Silverstein! The hall only holds 500 people. After those 500 are filled, I understand that a video fed room will be added — kinda like the “cry room” in old movie theatres or in current mega-churches.

The Health Sciences Library site for the talk
has been updated to include a bit about the panelists — all good folks who will get to respond to Criag’s talk and to ask any of your questions that Craig may have not quite addressed in that talk — Dean Barbara Rimer of the School of Public Health, Dean Jose-marie Griffiths of the School of Information and Library Science, Health Sciences Library Director Carol Jenkins, and Social Networking expert Fred Stutzman. The panel moderator will be the immoderate Paul Jones.

In case you’ve forgotten, the dope about the talk is here in this blog and here at the Health Sciences Library site.

Corp Blogging in NYTimes

In the Circuits Networking section, Matt Vilano writes on corporate blogging, the support for it and the lack of training and education for the same in an article entitled “Blogging the Hand that Feed You.”

Of particular interest: “A joint study released this summer by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute, an organization that helps companies set up Internet rules for employees, indicated that fewer than 2 percent of 416 responding organizations have educated employee bloggers about the First Amendment and privacy rights.”

IBM leading in Patent Reform

I posted a note on the JOMC490 class blog about IBM’s latest moves to clear up the global (and US) patent mess. Once again IBM leads the nations in not only pushing for but modeling best practices for patent reform.

A nice side story: IBM called on “[m]ore than 50 patent and policy experts from the United States, Europe, Japan and China [who] exchanged views for two months in May and June on a wiki, an online site that can be added to and edited collectively.” The policy can be found here.

Disclosure: IBM occassionally funds part of ibiblio.org through their Shared University Research grant program.

M$ hopes to Wallop MySpace

Just as FaceBook gets cocky and MySpace starts selling music, Microsoft decides that it needs to be in the social networking game. Just announced is Wallop – Get into Wallop, Make it Yours! The blurbs explain that Wallop is “Under your control. Socialize with the people you know — and want to know — in a safe, ad free environment where you control who has access to your personal account.”

You must be invited to join after submitting a little essay telling why you should belong to “the exclusive social experience where it’s easy to ‘be you’ and connect with the friends you choose.” (italics is theirs).

Yes it’s Beta.

Flash programmers are encourged to make mods and sell them on the site. This reveals the unique aspect of the site:

Wallop is a new type of social networking site combined with a marketplace for buying and selling graphical effects called Wallop Mods for your profile. At Wallop we believe the next wave is all about self expression online similar to the ways we express ourselves in the real world by purchasing clothes, decorating a room or wearing jewelry. While Wallop is great for communicating with your friends, it is also a rich platform for Flash designers and content creators to develop Mods and make money doing it. We make it easy for you to design and create Mods that allow people to express themselves!

FaceBook Expands, Fred Pans

I woke up this morning to the news that FaceBook was “opening up the gates” which means ditching the only thing that made FaceBook interesting and perhaps different from Friendster, MySpace, Orkut, Tribe, etc. You used to join your own special community online. You used to have to have a connection to enter a new community. Now you pile in with the rest of them. The rest of them being any of the tons of other choices out there as mentioned above plus various blogspheres like Xanga, Live Journal, Blogger, etc.

Fred lets loose on the opening in an intelligent new posting on his blog.

Perkins Library Killed by FaceBook

Perkins Library was my friend. He/she/it/they had been my friend for a while now. That was before FaceBook began their jihad against fakesters. Not that Perkins was a fake. She/he/it/they represented the Library in its fullness, its aspect as a social creature or at least a social building with a social awareness, an interactive and responsive organism — not unlike the living Geisel Library protrayed in Vernor Vinge‘s Rainbows End.

Perkins isn’t the only Library to be destroyed by FaceBook, Jason Griffy over in Tennessee sees a trend and reports in from there. More Libraries killed. Vanished and not allowed to return.

FaceBook, about the be bought possibly by Yahoo!, is retracing the missteps of the faded Friendster as Fred notes over at Unit Structures.

The Blogging Section of the SLA-IT has the story on the University of Kenntucky Library.

FaceBook bring back my Library friend!

British Library says Copyright Law Needs Fixin’

via EduPage, which summarizes CNet’s fuller article of 25 September 2006:

The British Library has called for a wide-scale revision of existing copyright law, which, it said, inadequately addresses digital content, putting too much control into the hands of content producers and owners. Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, took aim at digital rights management (DRM) technology in particular, saying that it allows content producers to prevent legitimate uses of content, such as for academic purposes, for archival efforts, or for making content available to people with disabilities. Calling the problem a global issue, Brindley said that without “a serious updating of copyright law to recognize the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass.” The Open Rights Group supported the library’s call for revising copyright law, saying that the current situation “allows publishers to write whatever license they like, which is what is happening now.” The British Library also said the question of orphaned works should be addressed–works whose proper copyright owners cannot be located easily or at all.

Lynne Brindley is a member of the Wilson Academy with whom I visited in Granada earlier this year. She has a great pull out quote in the CNet article: “Unless there is a serious updating of copyright law to recognize the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass.”

Fred on Social Networks this Wednesday

What: The SILS Research Colloquium – Fred Stutzman will discuss his current research in the areas of social movements in social network services as well as some of the follow up work conducted on his Facebook research.

When: this Wednesday, September 27th at 3:30-4:45 pm

Where: Manning 208.

[My problem: Sally is giving a talk, “Elizabeth Spencer’s Voice at the Back Door and the Legacy of Reconstruction,” at the same time in a different building]

Julie/Julia Project’s Julie in Durham – Friday

Julie Powell

Blooker Prize winner, Julie Powell, will be reading and signing the paper (and I presume hardback) copies of her book, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, this Friday, September 29, 2006 7:00 PM at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham.

It was a delight to be a Blooker judge and to get to read Julie’s book after having followed her adventures on her blog at Salon. This year Julie will be one of the Blooker judges herself.

If you like cooking, eating or being alive, you will love Julie and Julia.

« Older posts

© 2024 The Real Paul Jones

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑