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Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Dose of reality 
| | ...as necessary and timely as Doc Searls' call to action on this issue is right now, his attitude toward what will happen and how, is based, I am sorry to say, in unrealistic thinking about how Washington operates. It is a reflection of how tech has historically fared, not a contemplation of how things have changed since 1996. |
| | Read the whole thing, which concludes, |
| | Searls is right about one thing: The time to start working on this issue to keep the Internet out of strict corporate control is now. How we tech gets at this problem and manages to secure the world that Searls and others believe is possible - at the same time it makes normal users feel secure - needs more thought and, then, some well-timed action. |
Turpis In Pacem
| | Sam was much loved, not only by our friend (and Sam's "mom") Susie Lockheed, but by fans who got to know Sam and Susie through countless newspaper and TV stories, especially in the last few months, since Susie put up Sam's blog. |
| | If you were lucky enough to see Sam recently on Regis & Kelly or Inside Edition (which ran just yesterday), you know what a hoot the little dude was. |
| | Our sympathies to Susie & family. |
Dept. of Promotions
Casts of wisdom
| | If it were printed in paper format, Chris Lydon's Postcard from Tunis would be in 1-point type. Fortunately, you can read it all online, where it shouldn't be shorter, because it's chock full of insightful one-or-more liners. Examples: |
| | Yet the friendly chatter (as at all Internet gatherings) is animated by rumors that all the old terms of authority are changing; that an anti-gravitational architecture is taking over; that the liveliest domain on the Web in the long run tilts anti-national, anti-imperial, anti-chauvinist, even anti-commercial; that the god inside the machinery favors the new networks of expressive individuality and the evermore vibrant diasporas of culture and human interest... |
| | We cocky, loud American Romans are so much better at talking than listening. We are so much more intent on kicking ass than on picking up clue phones. We are NFL obsessives in a soccer-playing world. And we have way too many toys. |
| | ...we come to the Internet space with big hang-ups about ownership and control, with lawyers and a vast system of armaments to protect "intellectual property." The problem is not just the habit of appropriating the cultures of the world as part of the "gift economy." It¹s more that we feel an inherent ³open source² logic in the Internet itself, a universal copying machine, which is itself the engine of a superabundant "gift economy" in culture. One way or another, the property claims will have to go. |
| | ...one would have wished for some grander visions. This apparently last summit on a revolutionary technology did not invoke a revolutionary idea. If we believe in the Internet, we should be implementing, as Andrew McLaughlin of Google said, ³the best connectivity for the most people,² now. From a rural development perspective, Ashok Jhunjhunwala of the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras, could barely believe that "nobody has set a goal at this summit: that every village should be connected." |
| | Chris's program is one of the best podcasts out there; but it would also be good to hear on more public radio stations. |
Back, up
| | I'm back. And lemme tell ya, it doesn't suck to be in Santa Barbara. We had breakfast out by the pool this morning, overlooking the town and the Pacific, with the Channel Islands off in the distance. It's starting to haze up now a bit, reminding me that we're headed into the rainy season. But that's a small price to pay for the amazing grace of living here. |
| | Got a lot of nice pix from seat 4D on the shady side of a United 757 yesterday, while flying from Boston to San Francisco. The whole set isn't up yet (it stops somewhere in Nevada), and I need to fill in the descriptions. |
| | Tomorrow we head up north to be with family for Thanksgiving. There's a lot of work and prep to get out of the way, so expect light blogging. |
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