Accept no substitutes

Category: Alumni and other friends (Page 6 of 38)

Radio Wally!

Elizabeth Brownrigg writes to all graduates of the Warren Wilson to let us know that she and Writing Program Director Peter Turchi will be on WUNC State of Things today at 12:40 pm (and will be rerun this evening at 9 pm and on Saturday upcoming at 6 am). Elizabeth and Peter will be talking about:

Swannanoa Writers: The master’s of fine arts program for writers at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa celebrates its 25th anniversary this summer. Program director Peter Turchi reflects on the program’s famous
names, its traditions and its future.

Jones in Business Line (India)

Just took a couple of questions from a reporter at Business Line (India) about intellectual property as part of the conference build up for the “Owning the Future” Symposium. Sample questions and answers below:

1. What is the relevance of IP rights to the layman – not a scientist or an IT bureaucrat?

Every layman has an investment in IP and in innovation. Not just an upstream investment that provides reduced costs of products and increased speed of innovation, but — as Eric von Hippel details in his 2005 MIT
Press book “Democratizing Innovation” — every purchaser is a potential innovator, a part of the final and unpredictable design and redesign of products. You want to be able to use the hammer you just bought to crack
nuts as well as pound nails. You want to add features to your car or to a skateboard. You also want to add to software, to electronics and to other products and images in ways that the original designer could not have
possibly anticipated. Without legal access to the means of innovation, your choices are reduced or even erased.

2. Also comment on this slogan of the fast-growing online faction of IP skeptics, “Ideas exist in air, and that is where they should be.”

I searched for this phrase on Google and it wasn’t found. Our IP skeptics must not be making much headway with it ;-> More seriously and from a slightly US point of view, I am a Jeffersonian when it comes to ideas and
property. This phrase echoes that of Thomas Jefferson writing to Isaac McPherson in 1813 [see
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html for a more lengthy quote from that letter]

“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.”

Doc on Airports today; Google on Cali Libraries; BBC on Media Use

Three quick links to posts of interest, highly unrelated.

Doc is writing live from the Logan Airport about the state of emergency at US and UK airports.

The Official Google Blog
blogs their side of the University of California Libraries announcement about joining the Google Book Project in a posting by John [Price]Wilkin, Interim Co-University Librarian, University of Michigan.

BBC reports “Young adults are moving away from traditional media” in an article titled “Young drive ‘radical media shift’ : The “networked generation” is driving a radical shift in media consumption, says UK telecoms regulator Ofcom”

In the footsteps of Xeni

Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing has a blog, radio show segments on NPR and more about her trip from Delhi to Dharamsala (and beyond).

I’ll be on the first leg of pretty much the same trip in only two weeks.

I appreciate any traveler’s hints or must-sees that you list — email me, AIM, Gtalk, Gizmo, Skype or leave a comment.

Part of my time will be visiting with the folks from the Tibetan Technology Center, the Tibetan Children’s Villages, Tibetan Multi-Education Center and Tibetan sites hosted at ibiblio.org.

In Delhi, I’ll be at the Red Hat (India) and Indian Institute of Technology Symposium “Owning the Future” about Open Source etc as you might have guessed.

Streaming from MCNC

We’ve moved about half the ibiblio bandwidth over to our new servers at our new location at MCNC. Ken and Don really did a fine job on the move and in the process did a lot of cleaning up of streaming set ups and the like. All in all, the move went fairly smoothly. All the stations and all the ibiblio sites that rely on streaming are working reliably and we should be able to even handle additional listeners and perhaps another radio station now.
We’ve moved up the connection stream which should have some positive effects for our various listeners. Local access points are peered in the same room as our servers! Not to mention the cost savings that we are already realizing.
We have some changes in the network set up to be done at MCNC that could prove to be interesting. And some collaboration on mesh and peer-to-peer streaming experiments in the wings.
We’ll also be among the first using National Lambda Rail in a service as well as research capacity.
Woo Woo! And much thanks to Ken and Don who were up late last night.

ibiblio to MCNC and NCREN

We’re moving ibiblio physically and networkedly to MCNC and NCREN. In theory, folks that go to ibiblio for software, radio, legal music, archives of history and technology resources (to name a few categories) will only see better performance and better response. We’ll see opportunities for stronger research relationships, more innovative networking solutions and experiments (we already do IPv6 streaming with those groups), more economic hosting, better opportunities for expansion as needed, and access to better bandwidth availability and pricing.

First to be moved will be the radio streams. They should change tonight if all goes as planned.

I just did an brief interview with the MCNC PR folks. I said something like:

We are delighted to be working with an innovative and creative and affordable group like MCNC and with Joel Dunn and Mark Johnson in particular. MCNC really stepped up with some imaginative solutions to our bandwidth situation and added extremely reliable hosting (far above industry standards) while allowing us to keep our involvements in Internet2 and National Lambda Rail (among others). Thanks to their good work, ibiblio will be cutting its operating expenses by 2/3s while increasing bandwidth, increasing research involvment, getting room for expansion and will be located in an extremely well-planned and well-provisioned computerroom at the nexis of the RTP commercial and educational network crossroads of our region.

Guns of Charlotte

He called the police station to try to get them to take a handgun he found when cleaning up his parents house as they were moving to a retirement community. The operator at the Charlotte Police station told him to take it to a pawnshop or a gun shop and he’d get good money for it. My old friend persisted. He wanted the gun destroyed and the registration marked as such. He hadn’t lived in Charlotte for a long time and in his new home state they were careful to get rid of handguns.
When the officers showed up to take the gun, the first one asked almost kidding but not quite that he be given the gun as a gift. It was a real nice gun.
My friend insisted that the gun be destroyed. The officers looked at him quizzically. Then took the gun and left.

Afterwards I found this article in the New York Post:

GUN SHOPS’ ROTTEN GOODS MAKE FOR SOUR APPLE

By Andy Geller

May 25, 2006 — The nation’s five worst-of-the-worst gun dealers sold weapons that were used in 64 Big Apple crimes, new statistics revealed yesterday.

The majority of the guns, 44, came from the Hyatt Coin & Gun Shop in Charlotte, N.C.

Hyatt, which sold 405 guns used in crimes across the nation last year, was fifth on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives list of the top five sellers of guns traced to crimes.

Topping the nationwide list is Badger Outdoors of West Milwaukee, Wis., which sold 537 guns. It was followed by Trader Sports of San Leandro, Calif. (447), Elliot’s Small Arms of Jefferson, La. (442) and Don’s Guns and Galleries of Indianapolis (431).

Based on ATF statistics from 1994 to 2001 – the latest available – the center said that in addition to the 44 guns sold by Hyatt used in New York City crimes, Trader Sports sold 11, Don’s Guns sold four, Badger sold three and Elliot’s Small Arms sold two.

And this recent Creative Loafing article about the surge in homicides and in robberies in Charlotte in the past year and a proposal to deal with the problem by getting guns off the street:

[…]

Since most of the crimes were gun-related, local, state and federal law enforcement teamed up to target illicit firearms traffickers who were supplying young people with guns.

“In every city where they have done this it has been met with resistance, but ultimately been very successful,” said assistant city manager Keith Parker.

Making an Operation Ceasefire-style program work here would mean dramatically reforming Mecklenburg County’s chaotic, under-funded court system. Removing a city’s worst criminals from the streets requires targeted prosecution and a refusal to plea bargain. For a criminal justice system like Mecklenburg’s, which uses plea bargains to stay afloat, that could prove to be a challenge.

But with gang members moving to the Charlotte area in record numbers, and the city’s homicide rate at a 10-year high of 85, something has to give. After robberies jumped 32 percent in 2005, police learned armed robbery was becoming a gateway crime for young gang members.

Nearly a third of robbery suspects under 18 were identified by police as gang members, while only 11 percent of suspects between 21 and 30 were.

[…]

A visit to rPath and a PT Saga

rPath
Tucker and I took a trip to Raleigh for the ribbon cutting, eating and drinking and talking and celebrating of rPath‘s new space near I-40 and NC 55. Erik Troan (CTO) and Billy Marshall (CEO) have really grown an impressive company and have some wonderful folks working with them including Michael K Johnson, Nathan Thomas and more folks I met tonight for the first time.

Representative Brad Miller of the 13th District was there to help cut the ribbon and to congratulate rPath for having been chosen to receive a $100K Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Department of Energy.

The afternoon temperature was over 100 degrees. The drive over was about 30 minutes at 65 mph. As soon as we pulled off the Interstate, the PT stalled. After about 5 minutes, I could start it again and get to rPath World Headquarters.

On the return, we drove around Cary a little. All was fine. We got on the highway. Sure enough we made it off the ramp and to the first stoplight where — the PT stalled. After 2 minutes, I could restart it only to have it fail soon after. Then after 2 more minutes, I could start it again. By using the handbrake at the next light, I kept the rpms up over 1500 and kept the car working til we got the rest of the way home.

Some how appropriate that RPMs were involved after visiting Erik Troan the inventor of the RPM (Red Hat Package Manager).

But grrrr. We now know that these things don’t fix the PT stalling when hot and driven fast problem: anything in the 60K mile tuneup, cleaning the throttle housing etc, firmware upgrade, power steering pressure sensor, fuel pump, EGR (exhaust gas recovery), and multi-switch and shift cable (these last two not really a candidates)..

Sharks at the beach; Carroboro gets uncool!

Down on Oak Island where we saw a 4 foot sand shark pulled onto the pier a few yards from our room. The seas have brought in a lot of seaweed which is washing on the beach and bathers. Neither the seaweed nor the shark have detered anyone from being out on the beach and in the warm water.

But in Carrboro, things are getting decidedly uncool. The new Carrboro News reports that the Carr Mill management has banned “unauthorized performers” from the very public Weaver Street Commons. The Dancing Man, the flute player CJ, and even the beloved Hooping Women. (Other sources include Herald-Sun and Concerned Citizen WillR).

Jones to India (end of August)

From August 22 – 30, I’ll be in India for the first time starting out in Delhi where I’ll be a panelist at the “Owning the Future: Ideas and their role in the digital age” symposium sponsored by Red Hat India and Indian Institute of Technology, then heading up into Himachal Pradesh to Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj for a few days.

If you have any suggestions for me — what to see, what to do, what not to do, what to take, how to survive the monsoon season in the Himalayas etc, please let me know here or by email.

Rudy and Brian’s Wedding Partry (PT stall)

Right after BarCampRDU, I headed back to get to Ruby and Brian’s Wedding, but first my PT, which had been fine, stalled out just off of I-40. It would not start for a loooong time. Finally someone helped me push it off the road and there and then as I was punching in the AAA number, it started and ran fine all the way home.
It was a lovely wedding which will be I’m sure fully described and photo-archived at the Ruby and Brian site. I can say that the DJing was fine, the guests a delight, the food — Indian catered by CurryBlossom — was fantastic, the ice cream on a stick was Loco Pops! The best Mexican treat north of the Rio Grande. Mango-chili yum yum and Mexican chocolate with cinnamon triple yum!
I’ll have to say that Brian’s poetry selections from Pablo Neruda were wonderful (since I helped a bit there and got a couple of my faves in and that I was delighted how appropriate they were for the occassion).
The ceremony began with a selection from the Mass. Decision on Same Sex Marriage being read. The trick is that no one, or not many of us, realized what the source of this odd discussion about the rights and responsibilities of marriage could be until the end of the reading.
Yes they have a Flickr tag-driven photostream.
Many good ones from Doc Searls and by MisterSugar

Gates embraces Knowledge Commons — for pharma

David Bollier writes insightfully about the Gates Foundation‘s frustration with the ways that secrecy and competition is slowing down AIDS research. In an article titled “Is Hell Freezing Over? Bill Gates Embrasses the Knowledge Commons” Bollier begins:

The only story more newsworthy than “man bites dog” has got to be “Bill Gates champions open sharing and collaboration.” Yes, the high priest of proprietary software – whose company has ruthlessly used its copyrights and patents to stifle competition and innovation – is now recognizing the virtues of the knowledge commons…. for AIDS research, at least.

Yesterday, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would require that any researcher who get its grant monies for HIV/AIDS research will have to agree to share their scientific findings. The Gate Foundation was apparently frustrated that two decades of secrecy and competition among AIDS researchers have impeded efforts to come up with an AIDS vaccine. Scientists often decline to share their research because they are trying to obtain patents, withhold data until it is published, or simply protect their institutional turf.

Read more.

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