Tag: Web, Blogging and Computers

Blahging

Bloggers talking to bloggers about blogging.

Darren and Will share their notes from the same presentation at a blogging conference. It’s great that they are enjoying themselves and all but why do their notes give me the willies? Will noted the comment: “if you talk about something long enough, you will become an authority on the topic.” Yikes!

How about this one: if you isolate yourself and others from legitimate expertise, you will appear smarter than you are.

Tags and Five Degrees of Trackback

I wrote something over at John of Argghhh!!! (remember: one “r”, two “g”s and three “h”s) and then got trackback to the comment. Here is what I wrote:

These times your country are living in are perhaps too “interesting”, under the logic of that Chinese curse. One thing we up here have up on you in recent history is experience with division. The calls to “unity” remind me of the Quebec separatist era of 1965 to 1995 – which has largely and surprisingly dissipated, perhaps if only for a time.

The ideological divide is obvious to all. Yesterday, during NPR’s call-in after the inauguration one particular caller, phoning-in on the dedicated “Republican line”, was so full of anger and hate at his perception of the anger and hate of the Democrats/liberals it really got me to wondering. Up here, due to our looser and dynamic confederation, the provinces right now have greater autonomy than the feds impose overall control (this shifts decade to decade) compared to your states and feds. We do not now expect national “unity” anymore so much as a working peace. What makes that possible, however, is one province, Ontario with roughly 40% of the entire population which plays national trump card. You lack that fluke of history and also lack the Parliament. So the anger expressed in that 1-2% swing in the national vote becomes the main story as states have too little power to effectively form blocks on issues as might be expressed in a Parliamentary form of democracy. Gridlock.

There must be a better outcome than the triumph of 51% over 49%. It really can’t be enough to say the 49% are now wrong anymore than that other 49% was in 1992 when your Federal goverance was reversed and the then minority was subject to ridicule. I fear, however, if the attitude of that caller is indicative of the common mood. When asked what he would give to foster greater unity he said he would give “my value to the liberals as well as a place at my church” – of course only if they would sub-ordinate themselves. Little dignity and individual autonomy in that. How would a person who saw things in the 49% be the slightest bit attracted to that pew? The core of mutual disrespect is a bad situation.

So what to do? After the very close call of Quebec separatism in 1995, we worked towards a greater asymetrical arrangement where provinces got to express themselves more indiviually. But that donesn’t really appear possible for the US now. If I were a US liberal, I would focus on the local and the state level and forget for this term and likely the next the prospect of running Washington. My goal would be swinging states back and that takes time. Either that or creating enclaves much as the South and Prairie states have in the liberal eras – move to New York, Oregon.

Neither of those outcomes are, however, “unity”. Is the best you can expect is successive slim majorities one way or another?

My trackbacker at Random Fate, a blog I have not read before, then wrote this:

An observation from Canada

Alan, a Canadian, left an long, excellent comment to a post at Argghhh!, where John points to a discussion by Silfray Hraka on selective quotations. At the risk of falling prey to selectively quoting, here is the key point that I liked from the comment at Argghhh!:

There must be a better outcome than the triumph of 51% over 49%. It really can’t be enough to say the 49% are now wrong anymore than that other 49% was in 1992 when your Federal goverance was reversed and the then minority was subject to ridicule. I fear, however, if the attitude of that caller is indicative of the common mood. When asked what he would give to foster greater unity he said he would give “my value to the liberals as well as a place at my church” – of course only if they would sub-ordinate themselves. Little dignity and individual autonomy in that. How would a person who saw things in the 49% be the slightest bit attracted to that pew? The core of mutual disrespect is a bad situation.

In other words, if we refuse to respect those who don’t see the world the same as we do, how can expect things to be any different than they are now, with little discussion but instead opponents shouting past each other, accomplishing nothing but adding noise and anger?

Read the entire comment (it’s the first one after John’s post), but be sure to read the discussion that John pointed to first which is also well worth reading.

The internet is an interesting thing. What I wrote originally was a comment gone somewhat mad – I had originally thought I was going to post one sentence. But I like what I wrote and John doesn’t mind so I posted. What I really like about it all is that it is four degrees of separation between the article written in the Washington Monthly, to the post at Silfray Hraka, to the post at John’s, to my comment at John’s, to the post at Random Fate. Is that four degrees or five?

One thing we do not have in the internet is a means to track these connections other than the sometimes trackback with is linear rather than a net. It would be interesting to be able to have gathered organically the other comments which have spun off the original article in the Washington Monthly. If the original article could have unique ascribed to it by the author, then this would be possible but some sort of tag reader would have to be created that could display the hub article and all the related discussions down separate spokes. Could that be created?

…and am I really “left an long”?

Cheapest Mobile Blogging

This summer I plan a road trip that includes hotels with internet hook up. I want to maintain this site for the two weeks I am away but want to spend as little as possible doing that. I also plan to visit some US micros for photo-laden posts at A Good Beer Blog. I have no laptop. What would you recommend? What is the absolute cheapskates’s approach to mobile blogging?

Update: I am keeping this up top for a few days. I need more butt kicking from portland as well as a good idea or two. One question – what is the most backwards laptop available second-hand which you could use? A Tandy 100?

More On Tags

So now that Technorati is tagging allowing for the indexing of the web, shouldn’t categories broadcast the same system of ? I was going to put a referral tag into my Regiopolis post below and then I realized that my post had now text and each photo was already a link. I categorize such posts under “Kingston” so shouldn’t that category broadcast its Kingston-ness? Thankful I am to the masters that be of this my blog as that category already has an RSS link and maybe this is already solved in that sense. It would be nice if that RSS were able to be directed to Technorati or my public centralized aggregator of choice so that it automatically was picked up along with all other posters of posts with that same tag.

Concurrent to this, it seems to me, will be the responsibility to ensure that your categories make sense. “Stuff I Like” might be one of the less useful categories…but as long as the automated aggregation could be turned on or only could be broadcast to a sensible taxonomy such as wikipedia has organically created the inspecific or unspecified categories would not be an issue.

Oh, to be a boy again and have all the smarts it would take to create a “rel-” tag based aggregatron from which I could sell tasteful yet lucrative advertising.

Further: Shouldn’t this be as easy as those broadcasting tags stores are introducing as described at wikipedia?

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a method of remotely storing and retrieving data using devices called RFID tags. An RFID tag is a small object, such as an adhesive sticker, that can be attached to or incorporated into a product. RFID tags contain antennas to enable them to receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver.

Mr Fourth?!?!

Mr. Fourth! Both Gen X at 40 and A Good Beer Blog take a fourth at the 2004 Canadian Blog Awards. I feel like the Canadian swimming team.

So what does that get me? A cheese tray even? Many thanks for all who voted…just not often enough. I think over half the votes were from me. Oh, well. Maybe with some Heritage Canada funding I can make the medal podium. I really want to hear the Gen X at 40 anthem and see the Gen X at 40 flag slowly raised.

Lessig on The Connection

I just listened to Lawrence Lessig on NPR’s show The Connection discussing the Creative Commons license and somewhat in support of “Free Culture” his book on how corporations control creativity. Here are my immediate lunch-hour thoughts which may be either quite pithy and brilliant or junk I will fully disavow by supper:

  • I was happy to hear that generally he considered the control of collaboration to be an artists option which should be supported and that access and use without the permission of authors is extreme and unbalanced. He discussed, by comparison, how the flourishing of art through audience participation is encouraged by the Creative Commons license. Without such a generic license, he says, lawyers inhibit creative collaboration through insisting that someone own the specific work prior to it being created. However, this is only another agreement – a better license – rather than no license. Without a generic license, specific licenses caused an obstacle. What the Creative Commons provides is better law rather than lawlessness. This, I think, is very good and may distinguishes Lessig from Doctorow.
  • He indicated that under copyright the rules for content in text differed from that in film and music and image. The “next generation of blogs,” however, will mix to create more powerful social commentary. Why? The power to “review” already exists. Is it the right to reference or to illustrate that is being demanded? The first, referencing, is likely available – I have never really worried out citing an expression as a fact – but the second is very problematic. Should I have the right to illustrate my creativity with yours without your agreement? Sadly, Lessing stated, incorrectly, that he thinks right to put music in NPR show as an illustrative background is a right. It is not unless there is payment. It is merely a license that it bought by NPR and paid for with the proceeds go back to the authors and other interest owners. He also said bloggers now cannot do what NPR can. That is true but merely because the copyright organizations like Canada’s SOCAN does not have a rate for internet use of music. Is that an illegality? It is neither prohibited or permitted, just as whistling another’s tune is not. Silence in law is not prohibition. Through various court rulings in Canada, we have something of a gap for now that is recognized in law, at least in Canada, which may make us something of a sanctuary at the present time. We may presently be the lucky nation for those purposes. But should the rights of bloggers and their desire to illustrate their creativity with the creativity of others come before the rights of those others to their creativity?
  • He came out with the knee-jerk useless statement “The future is illegal.” Apart from the inability to know what that could mean even in the context of a downloading teen with a computer, I just do not think that this is true. The future is merely not defined.
  • He suggests freedom is prevented when the control of culture is restricted to a few but why should the goal of unfettered progress take precedence over the interests of owners of each step in the inventive, progressive process? The digital medium of information really adds nothing to the consideration of that core question any more than previous electronic media or mass media have in the past. Are we not simply being intoxicated by the demands of speed – which demand is merely a product of the possibility of speed? Should the capacities of technology govern our human relations?
  • One caller spoke of the need to be specifically paid – she has worked for 20 years to create and audience she needs to sell her CDs. “So we all have our frustrations,” Lessing responds, less than effectively, but a wider range of choices to be made available to artists. The license is merely a technique to make money. Don’t use it if you do not want to. He reiterated he does not support piracy. He cites, however, a recent restrictive sampling case from a US court and its result that entirely barred unpermitted use of another’s work was left as an unargued point – an implicit wrong. He followed by an implicit good, Mixter, a wep space that allowed consensual collaboration. But this is a false dichotomy, an unpermitted unlicensed taking compared to a permitted licensed use and necessarily contrary to what he indicated to the musician of 20 year’s effort. If her work can be sampled without consent, then there is piracy. Plain and simple. He also made what appeared to be an error in analogy, comparing sharing his ideas when speaking with sharing an artists expression – this is a strict division in copyright law. You have no right to the idea just the particular expression of the idea. Software programming interestingly fuses the two as their are both the idea and the expression (due to, in a way, being both the instruction and the execution). Perhaps this is the problem. The analogy from software and cretivity to other media and creativity may simply not hold – yet it pervades this discussion.
  • For Lessig, the de-commoditization of software outside of proprietary interest as an extraordinary collaboration is a “dramatic model” which one presumes intelf makes it compellingly applicable elsewhere. He speaks too much of the need for generic “experimentation”. But can it really be transferred to creative activity in which the artist must have their specific work recognized as a unique commodity to be paid over a lifetime? Are we perhaps enamoured by the new technology to the point we are forgetting that the proposed general progress will create unacceptable consequences. How different is this really from earlier industrial revolution stages which sees the craftsman and artist crushed by the new, in this case, freeing them from the burden of stable income? In cooking they say do not pick up a hot pot without some idea of where you are going to put it down. There is as yet none of that good sense in this question.

Please comment, question and kick at will.

PS – not only did I originally spell it Lessing, I do have this desire to call him Doris.