connecting*the*dots

Now *this* is the internet I imagined when I left the cd-rom gaming industry in ‘97.

It’s only a preview, but it’s so_much_fun. If the experience continues to evolve along its current path… wow. Great job, Microsoft!

The A9 Yellow Pages team has to view this as steep competition, as it directly challenges their Block View feature (which they invested a lot of time and resources into capturing and developing).

Maybe now focus can shift to improving search precision, allowing us to tap into store inventories to help us find *exactly* what we’re looking for; the rest of the results equation — proximity and recognition — is now officially covered.

(via Techcrunch)

(via neatorama)

That’s right, I said powder blue. Saturday night, I caught the Grandmaster show at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC (about 30 seconds from downtown Chapel Hill).

I’ve never experienced DJ Muggs live before, so I didn’t know what to expect from him other than some bumping bass and high pitched wails. I mean, basically, could he move the crowd in unexpected ways?

The answer? No, not really.

After getting us fired up with some Cypress Hill classics, he kinda came off a bit rehearsed and sluggish. His intro loop and beat for GZA to hit the stage with must’ve repeated itself fifty times, and it was a vocal sample, so whatever meta-context it held was lost after the first eight repetitions.

Now GZA… well, that’s a completely different story.

GZA rocked the show. He jumped from their new shit, back to his old shit, back to Wu shit. I mean, he got the crowd hyped so much, at times I felt like I was watching Geldof control the audience within the movie The Wall (all you Floyd heads, check the above image). I know Wu is an iconic act, but these kids were younger than ten when Enter the Wu Tang - 36 Chambers dropped in ‘93. I dug the vibe; I guess it just felt a bit surreal.

In between flexin’ his skills, GZA paused a few times to school the crowd on the meaning of Wu-Tang, the social importance of lyricism and the enormity of ODB (RIP) — his tribute acapella flow to ODB was amazing, as he stressed the realness of the man that so often got twisted in the glare of the media; his testimony brought the crowd to a respectful silence.

GZA brought it hard, but also brought a mature flow and presence to the stage, which was a perfect contrast to the young-buck style of Kaze (put on by 9th Wonder), the local kid that opened up for him. After rocking the mic with the flavor of a master lyricist — hitting topical, emotional and stylistic memes — Kaze brought his boys onstage with him, introducing them to the audience by telling us to picture them on his grandmother’s porch. They didn’t get on the mic, but backed him up with energy, shooting the crowd with their cell phone cameras, posing and basically, enjoying their fifteen minutes.

Kaze’s flow was tight, but he saved his best for a 2 minute acapella drop on the US occupation of Iraq, George Bush and the lessons of karma. The entire crowd went nuts for his words that cut like a knife through the bullshit propaganda of the times. Keep an eye out for this kid.

More show photos at my flickr spot.

Friday, April 7th at Cat’s Cradle - Ghostface Killah and M1 of Dead Prez. I’m there.

(via cocaine blunts and hip-hop tapes)

Now, this is a great example of investigative reporting. Better yet, an example of collaboration between the mainstream media (albeit a local CBS news team) and citizen media.

That first cop needs to be fired.

UPDATE: Apparently, that first cop feels he might be fired. He sued to try to block the airing of the footage.

(via Boing Boing)

Conferences often resemble a living, breathing, talking gallery exhibit… with bad food; an expensive, explicit exhibit, which usually fails to inspire me (not as an artist’s juxtaposed take on light and mass might).

That being said, I’d pretty much do anything to make it to the TED conference; the annual gathering of the world’s top philosophers, technologists and intellectuals created by the father of information architecture, Richard Saul Wurman and now run by Chris Anderson.

Well, thanks to Ethan, we can now all sit in on the experience via his live-blogging of this year’s event.

You know, he’s bound to get more than a three minute spot in the future.

The cover is for my grandmother’s memoirs, and the working title is, “It Is Me.”

I’m thinking about keeping the image clean on a white background, but that could change. As could the image. I’d greatly appreciate any constructive feedback.

Insight:

1. Reva Patrick is of full-blooded Irish decent; the orange and green suit her soul
2. I do know that the title isn’t correct English (she was an English teacher)
3. Milton Glaser’s Dylan poster was an inspiration

What Everyone Should Know About Islam and Muslims
by Suzanne Haneef
Islam And The Muslim World - (pg. 127)

In order to understand what is happening to Muslims, it is necessary to have a look at what is happening to the Muslim world. During the past century-and-a-half, the entire world has gone through tremendous upheavals, particularly in the realm of religion and values. While Europe and America were experiencing a profound loss of belief in religion, due in part to the irreconcilable conflict between science and what was supposed to be the “revealed World” and in part to the changes in people’s values and outlooks as a result of massive changes in technology and patterns of living, the Muslim world too was experiencing a great crisis in the realm of religion and values.

During this period, due to a complex interplay of forces, while the hold of Christianity was weakening in the West, the influence of Islam was also becoming attenuated in the East. As a result, many Muslims so far lost sight of the true reality of their faith that masses of them took the traditions of their societies, some of which were from Islam and others from sources other than Islam, to be Islam itself. Their understanding of Islam as a dynamic, revolutionary system of life shrank until all that remained to them of it was a set of confused, quasi-Islamic traditions, some faded remnants of Islamic values and behavior, and perhaps (but often not even that) praying and fasting in Ramadan, reading the Quran when someone died, and celebrating the Festivals. Others went to the opposite extreme, placing great emphasis on the worship aspects of Islam while ignoring all the rest of its teachings, especially in the area of striving, seeking knowledge, developing resources, political responsibility, cleanliness, etc. Muslim children living in areas outside the Arab world learned from pious but often ignorent teachers to pronounce the words of the Quran without understanding anything of their meaning, much less living by them, while in other places, youngsters grew up still more ignorant of Islam, believing it to be something related to the older generation which one is supposed to respect but which has no relevance or place in contemporary life.

At the same time, the Western influence emerged in the Muslim world and little by little grew stronger and stronger. In the past this trend was fueled by Western imperialism and the presence of Western officials, as well as by Christian missionaries and westernized, often Western-educated, natives who had returned home from a sojourn in Europe or America. Later industrial and commercial interests, finding a ready market for Western goods and expertise in Muslim countries, enthusiastically accelerated the process. Muslims became uneasily conscious of their own material backwardness and lack of modernity in comparison with the West, assisted by contact with Western goods and the lure of its life-styles, conveyed to every part of the globe by Western movies, media and propaganda. The West was seen as a glamorous utopia, and adoption of some of the trappings of its culture was looked upon as the instant way to modernization and progress.

Unfortunately, what was adopted were not the outstanding and excellent aspects of Western culture but only the most superficial and harmful ones, which were simultaneously applauded by many onlookers in the West as obvious signs that the Muslim world was now beginning to wake up and come of age: the old equation of bars, boogie and bikinis with progress and modernity. Under the impact of all this, many Muslims accepted Western society’s dictum that religion, moral values and the pursuit of meaning to be given no serious emphasis or importance in society. Its criteria of being civilized material advancement and the discarding of traditional values were accepted by them as the true measure of greatness of a society without their grasping the essential fact that genuine civilization must rest on a firm base of sound spiritual and moral principles, lacking which material progress simply becomes de-civilizing, de-humanizing and destructive.

Consequently, the present era has seen the emergence of three basic types of Muslims, who have their counterparts in other faiths as well. One is the individual for whom Islam is merely a vague tradition which more often than not he prefers to have nothing to do with, who subscribes himself “Muslim” on his passport simply because he is not a Christian or a Buddhist or anything else. He may either profess some outward tokens of respect for Islam or may reject it totally, but in any case it does not occur to him to guide his life by it or to try to practice it faithfully, and he regards those who do so as backwards and stupid.

This is understandable enough in view of the fact that almost invariably such individuals lack knowledge and understanding of Islam as a total world-view and system of life; moreover, they provide an example of real understanding and commitment to Islam. Such a “Muslim” may never have prayed in his life and may not even know how since he was not taught. For him Islam is simply a relic of ancient history. He may feel an occasional twinge of pride in his Islamic heritage when it is mentioned and may even come to the “defense” of Islam when it is attacked. Or he may think about it once in a while when someone dies (”Where am I going to go when this happens to me? Oh, well, God is merciful”), but he is too preoccupied with his daily activities and with his family and possessions and pleasures to follow up this train of thought. Many social problems and vices have by now crept into the lives of such Muslims, including an increasing incidence of divorce, sexual license, alcoholism, and total loss of values and direction. Basically, they are Muslims-by-name, no different either in their concepts or behavior from people who have no religion and no values, for in fact they hate neither, and they are often very hostile to Islam and to Muslims who adhere to it faithfully.

The second group are the traditional Muslims. They may understand the basic concepts of Islam, may have some degree of Islamic knowledge and may follow the Islamic teachings to some extent, but they do not understand it as a complete and dynamic system for all aspects of the human being’s life, nor do they adhere to its requirements in all aspects of their lives consistently and as a matter of principle and obligation. In their minds, Islam is often intermixed with many pseudo-Islamic practices common to their societies, many of which are completely contrary to the Islamic teachings although they have acquired some sort of an “Islamic” sanction or flavor, and with many westernized ways of thought and behavior as well. They definitely believe in God and Islam, but in a theoretical sort of way which does not carry enough conviction to move them steadily and consistently towards a totally Islamic orientation and way of life. Because they do not conceive of Islam as a complete system for all aspects of life, they are often critical or look down on those who do as having “gone too far” in the matter of religion.

The third group consists of those Muslims who understand the religion they profess as a total system and who have consciously decided to pattern their lives according to it. Their world-view and frame of reference is that of Islam, their obediance, loyalty and devotion are for God alone; their goal is the hereafter: and their community is the community of believers. Many among this group are highly educated individuals who have arrived at such a position as a reflection on what is happening in the world around them. They are a unique group, part of the small yet strong company of true believers in God who have been lining in submission to Him since the first prophet, Adam (peace be on him), walked on earth, in obedience to His guidance.

Without question, to reach such a level of Islamic commitment requires an understanding which, due to very faulty and inadequate approaches to Islamic education even in “Muslim” countries, few are able to attain. Moreover, the appeal of westernization and modernity is so strong that few people in the Muslim world have yet grasped the fact that material advancement is not necessarily the road to either true self-respect or satisfaction, and that it has not brought real happiness and well-being to the peoples of the West, but instead a staggering array of societal and environmental problems because it has been divorced from the spiritual and moral dimensions which are as integral and essential a part of the human being’s nature as is his material aspect.

When we survey the Muslim world today, you see a confused and troubled picture in which political instability plays a major role. In spite of the Islamic requirement of a leader elected from among the people who consults with them in the conduct of affairs, in very few countries of the Muslim world today are the governments elected by the people and responsive to their needs, or capable of providing leadership and stability to their countries: rahter they are, by and large, the rulers and the ruled. And although in most cases the professed Islam and often made a public show of piety, among the rulers of the Muslim world in recent years have been many who were dictators and oppressors of the most vicous sort. They stifled all criticism and dissent in their societies, whether by individuals, groups or the press, by sadistically oppressive means, making ruthless use of highly-trained secret police and intelligence services to supress anyone they considered a threat to their unbridled power; they filled the prisons of their “Muslim” countries to overflowing with tens of thousands of sincere and committed Muslims, many belonging to the intelligensia, who were trying to call for a revival of Islam in their societies or to question the policies or actions of the ruler. Hair-raising nazi-style tortures were applied to countless numbers of them under which many died, and some of the best among them were executed for fabricating “crimes” in order to silence the voice of faith so the ruler might continue unimpeded in his relentless drive for absolute power.

County after country in the Muslim world has seen rulers of this kind during the past half century or more, men who, although often Muslims themselves, hated and feared the very name of Islam because it constituted the only real challenge to their unchecked power and ambition, and who threw all their energies into trying to suppress it by opressing Muslims.

[…]

No more than a day after posting an open letter to Roger Cadenhead about the past and future of RSS, Dave Sifry backs out of the scrum.

Folks,

Effective today, I’m resigning from the RSS advisory board. I was honored to be invited to the list, and give thanks to Rogers Cadenhead for asking me to join. I think that given Dave Winer’s position on the state of the board, and at his personal request, that it is best for me to resign.

Dave

–
David L. Sifry
Founder and CEO, Technorati, Inc.
dsifry@…
415 846-0232 (Mobile)

Winer, think you could write an open letter to someone, anyone, regarding the American occupation of Iraq?

Kevin Powell is apparently running for a seat in the 10th Congressional District out of Brooklyn, NY.

“I have watched America go through many changes over the past few years, because of September 11th, because of the war in Iraq, because of Hurricane Katrina, because of the exploitation and manipulation of our values and our differences, and I want to use my voice, in Washington, DC, on a national stage, in a way that affirms our humanity, not denies it,” said Powell via a statement.

“America is not the country it once was, but we are still not the country we can be either,” he added. “It is time for new leadership, a new generation, to push us forward, and I want to be a part of that wave of fresh ideas, of new visions, for these times, for the 21st century.”

Vote or die, people! A brilliant Colbert Report interview is on the line here.

(via SOHH)

All signs point to George W. Bush being a man of God, right? I mean, apparently the man upstairs told him to go to war — and we’re now at war — so there must be some truth to the observation.

Ludwig Miles van der Rohe, the architect of architects, famously stated that “God is in the details.” Just as compelling of an absolutist argument is the entire argument for Intelligent Design, which essentially states that life is too complex for evolution to produce our existence, so a master creator must have designed every particular detail of our being to work within a grand scheme of this stage we call Earth.

Using such logic — living in the modernist world of W. — wouldn’t that hold our most innocuous squakings and flubs as being divine instances of truth? That Freud guy had some major God love running through his veins, eh?

The Huffington Post
W: “My Government”
by Marty Kaplan

Here’s how W is defending the Dubai decision: “The more people learn about the transaction that has been scrutinized and approved by my government, the more they’ll be comforted…”

For a moment, set aside the “trust-me” part of this, and focus instead on the “my government” bit.

If he’d said “my administration,” I wouldn’t have blinked. “My cabinet” would also have raised no hackles. If he really wanted to use the word “government,” then how about these pronouns as antecedents for “people”: “their government” or “our government.”

But no, he said “my government.” I don’t think that’s just a garden variety Bushism, a trivial malapropism. I think it goes right to his understanding of who he is, and who we are. It’s not a Freudian slip; it’s an Orwellian siren, an anti-democratic red alert.

The founding documents of our nation talk about the government, our government, a government, any government. If my is used, it’s said on behalf of the citizens, not their rulers.

But W really believes that it’s his government. He doesn’t see himself as a steward, a trustee, a caretaker, someone who temporarily gets to steer the ship of state because of the momentary consent of the governed and an enduring set of rules. No, he believes it’s his ship, his state, his rules — his and his ideological fellow-travelers.

The heads of some countries with parliamentary systems, like India, sometimes say “my government”; when they do, it means ‘my Cabinet,” “my temporary ruling colition,” “my majority” — which could fall in an instant, if there were a no-confidence vote.

But in the US, we don’t have governments that get made and dissolved year-round; we have Administrations, that get formed every four years.

In the American context, unless it’s an ordinary citizen like you or me speaking, let’s recognize the expression “my government” as what it really is: a deeply troubling oxymoron, the inappropriate yoking together of a democratic institution and — well, a moron.

In 1998, I found myself working for my first professional web design agency. I stress professional not only for the brilliant talent within the walls of the shop and the output they generated, but for their business etiquette as well. You see, I was specifically trained that when speaking with a client, I was to refer to my design iterations as “our” ideas and “our” designs. Self-referrential language shifted the focus of the client from the team to the individual, and within such a big money, high-pressure profession, that’s the last thing an account executive wants to deal with.

How does this anecdote fit with this latest Bushism? I honestly don’t know. But if it isn’t too much too ask from his highness, how about acting professional and pretending for a minute that we’re in this together, because unfortunately, we are.

(via Matthew Gross)

I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. No sooner than I blink(ed) the title had already formed in my post.

Malcolm Gladwell is now blogging. And as you might expect, he’s not writing about his garden. His mea culpa positions his blog as a vehicle to document offline feedback and attribute sources for stories which aren’t footnoted in his New Yorker articles.

Sweet.

Now if he would only redesign the site before I begin to go into convulsions.

UPDATE: He’s switched to a new template, which is much more readable and friendly to me avoiding seizures. It’s kinda fun watching someone in the process of tweaking their blog into a format that suits them.

Angela, Teri and I made the hour plus long drive to catch BRMC at Cat’s Cradle last night in Carborro. It was my first time seeing or hearing their act, so I really didn’t know what to expect.

Amazing.

Their sound was part rock, part alt-country and they rocked deep into the night, moving from ballads to heavy guitar pieces.

I’m coming back for more this Saturday night: GZA (Genius) and DJ Muggs. Insane in the Wu-Tang!

This one is dated 1489. Amazing… and beautiful.

Artist: KRS-One
Song: The Truth

==========

(Chorus)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Her truth is not hard)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Gimme the truth!)

Listen to the lyric as the negative is shrinkin
It’s shrinkin out your life when you decide to change your thinkin
One of the first things we gotta switch around of course
Is Jesus Christ, and him dying on the cross
You’re looking at the cross, surrounded in it’s mystery
With Jesus on the cross in a, total misery
Now seperate Jesus from the cross so you can see
The truth about the cross, and the cross’s history
The cross was created by the Roman government
It’s only purpose and use, is cap-i-tal punishment
But Jesus Christ, was all about the revolution
While the cross was used as Jesus Christ’s execution
See what if Jesus Christ, was hung upon a tree
Upon every church wall, that’s exactly what you’d see
If Jesus Christ, was shot in the head with no respect
We’d all have little gold guns around our neck
If Jesus Christ was killed in electic chair, now get it
You’d be knealing to the electric chair with Jesus, still in it
You gaze upon the cross, and you see the execution
You yell stop the violence but the cross you’re still using

(Chorus)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Her truth is not hard)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Gimme the truth!)

So I say listen, listen, open up your third eye vision
God is not down with religion
Religion they be sellin it, listen up, God is intelligent
Reading of the bible is irrelevant
You gotta look within yourself, not a scripture
KRS-One comes to rearrange the God picture
If you sit and believe, you can acheive
If you sit and accept, you don’t know, what’s correct
or incorrect, take for instance Adam and Eve
The first two people on the planet, or so you believe
Their first time in heaven kids they had, Cain and Abel
Huh, now let me show you why the story’s unstable
According to the story, according to what you believe
There was only Cain, Abel, Adam, and Eve
on the whole planet, now use your intellect
and tell me, what did Cain and Abel do for sex?
Upon the whole planet there was not another
Could it be for sex, heh, they were looking at each other?
Hold up! I thought the church wasn’t into that
But wait, still yet, there is another fact
How did the world get populated?
Now tell me if I’m wrong, but obviously Eve had it goin on
Think for a minute, I know it gets notorious
But yo G, check out the chorus

(Chorus)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Her truth is not hard)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Gimme the truth!)

Nas, a blogger from Jordan whom I recently began reading, writes today about Jordanian Muslims attempting to use Oprah as a means to spread the love of the Prophet Mohammed. Kinda funny and spot on:

[…]

Today I read an article about a “campaign� of sorts that was started (as I’m lead to believe) through the discussion boards at IslamOnline’s website. The purpose was to “vote in droves for our prophet on Oprah’s Web site to draw the world attention to our religion and the prophet of Islam�, according to a user named Hadeel.

This is in reference to…

“Oprah Winfrey announced a hero voting competition, she asked people to send true stories about a teacher, a firefighter, a parent or a relative, who has done something extraordinary for them.�

IslamOnline even sent an email to the show to ask for a comment and recieved none. It is mentioned of course in the article as if it were an insult that the Oprah Winfrey Show, the biggest talk show in the world with virtually millions and millions of viewers, would not reply personally to their email.

Let me list the reasons why I find this whole thing absurd:

1. First of all its not even a voting competition! It’s a webpage where you enter a story about a hero in your life that has helped you in some way or form. The page even has 2 long paragraphs detailing exactly what they’re looking for. They are looking for real life modern examples such as firefighters who save your life, neighbours who helped you out of a bind. Not a Prophet, or a historic figure!
2. Second this is in my opinion done as one of the latest reactions to “defend the Prophet�. I draw this conclusion based also on the fact the cartoon fiasco is mentioned in this very article.

Listen, when it comes to defending the Prophet pbuh, and when it comes to spreading awareness and knowledge about Islam, I am all for it. In fact I’m first in line. But there are channels of which to do it, ways and means of which to approach it. One one hand, going out to the streets and burning embassies or churches is definitely not one of them. And on the other hand flooding Oprah’s website with “I vote for the Prophet as my hero� contributions that are so obviously misplaced, is not the way either.

Please people, I implore you, think harder. Or just think. We have the perfect example right in our history: the Prophet pbuh sent emissaries all over the place with simple scrolls to present to kings and rulers, to call them to Islam. He warned them not to hurt even a tree on their journey for God’s sake! But note not only the non-violent method used here but the way in which the message was presented.

So please everyone… leave Oprah alone

(they should’ve never started airing her show on our tv’s)

Is this what my child will look like? An Infobaby?

Btw, friends and family, I’m pretty sure that neither myself, Angela or anyone else is currently developing my infobaby.

(via swissmiss)

Remember the SNL clip, “Lazy Sunday,” where two dudes from the Long Island comedy troop Lonely Island hit the streets and blew up a hip-hop trip to go see The Chronic of Narnia?

I posted about it two months ago with a link to the youtube.com hosted clip, and actually thanked NBC and SNL for finding local talent and participating in the share and share alike culture of Web 2.0. Apparently, NBC really doesn’t get it:

The New York Times
A Video Clip Goes Viral, and a TV Network Wants to Control It

When a video clip goes “viral,” spreading across the Web at lightning speed, it can help rocket its creators to stardom. Alas, the clip can also generate work for corporate lawyers.

As anyone with an Internet connection and a love of cupcakes can tell you, “Lazy Sunday” is a tongue-in-cheek rap video starring Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg of “Saturday Night Live.” NBC first broadcast the video, a two-and-a-half-minute paean to New York’s Magnolia Bakery, Google Maps and C. S. Lewis, on Dec. 17.

Fans immediately began putting copies of the video online. On one free video-sharing site, YouTube (www.youtube.com), it was watched a total of five million times . NBC soon made the video available as a free download from the Apple iTunes Music Store.

Julie Supan, senior director of marketing for YouTube, said she contacted NBC Universal about working out a deal to feature NBC clips, including “Lazy Sunday,” on the site. NBC Universal responded early this month with a notice asking YouTube to remove about 500 clips of NBC material from its site or face legal action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. YouTube complied last week. “Lazy Sunday” is still available for free viewing on NBC’s Web site, and costs $1.99 on iTunes.

Julie Summersgill, a spokeswoman for NBC Universal, said the company meant no ill will toward fan sites but wanted to protect its copyrights. “We’re taking a long and careful look at how to protect our content,” she said.

YouTube and others in the new wave of video-sharing sites have so far managed to avoid major legal problems even though they often carry copyrighted material without permission.

“This is an example of the copyright troubles that are waiting for YouTube, Google Video and all the other video hosting services that rely on user-posted content,” said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group.

Several online commentators noted that NBC’s response to YouTube, while legally justified, may have been short-sighted. The online popularity of “Lazy Sunday” has been credited with reviving interest in “Saturday Night Live” at a time when it is in need of some buzz.

Ms. Supan said VH1 and other television and movie producers were increasingly putting their own clips, trailers and music videos on YouTube in hopes of jump-starting their own viral phenomena.

“We got e-mails from college students, and a lot of them said it’s the ‘Lazy Sunday’ clip that turned them on to potentially watching ‘S.N.L.’ again,” she said.

Exactly. I hadn’t watched SNL in years and that skit actually brought my eyeballs back to NBC. How much profit is enough? Don’t they realize that the viewers who watched the skit the night it aired represented the cut-off point of ROI before the blogosphere, Kazaa, etc. started passing it around? For the last two months, they’ve received extra eyeballs because of the video-sharing, which has put money in their pockets directly or indirectly. This is the thanks we get?

Dumb… like a stump. Instead of busting out the lawyers, why not take these lemons and make some lemonade. Here’s an idea for all of you suits in NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. land:

• Work out a deal with YouTube, Google and whomever else so that you receive a fair cut of the ad revenue from any page with your copyrighted content being displayed
• In turn, YouTube, Google, etc. can evolve their upload interfaces to include a “channel” option
• If I upload something taken from, say, NBC, I simply choose “NBC” in a pulldown menu and upload the video
• Once verified as an NBC property — post-upload — the *additional revenue* of click-through ads goes straight into NBC’s pocket

Multiply this scenario by the potential number of unbundled clips, contributing users and video services over a continuum of expanding users and I think you just might be able to afford that ski trip to Aspen this year.

Asshats.

UPDATE: A Boing Boing reader tells the following story:

YouTube user “aretired” posted a clip from Thursday’s CBS Evening News showcasing Jason McElwain, the autistic highschool basketball player who scored 6-3 pointers in the final four minutes of the game. The video clip shot up to #15 in alltime viewings on YouTube with 1.5 million hits in just three days — then, it was suddenly and inexplicably pulled.

User “aretired” reposted the clip and was again pulled within a day, still no explanations.

CBS sent DMCA complaints for not just that McElwain clip, but all 11 of the user’s other CBS-related clips that had up till now gone fairly unnoticed, by anyone. And, despite their huffing and puffing and pulling over a 2-minute feel-good piece of the year, you can still catch your fill of Oprah, Letterman, Degeneres, Dr. Phil and other CBS content at YouTube.

Do they want us to hate them?

(originally uploaded by jdlasica)

If Andrew Keen is a believer in the old saying that even bad press is good press, well, he’ll be amped by his coverage in the blogosphere today and in the near future.

I had planned on deconstructing his pathetic ass-kissing of pure capitalism and his simultaneous propagandizing of Web 2.0 as communism, but after reading Jeff Jarvis’ post, “Snobs.com,” there really isn’t much left for me to say.

Well, that’s never true.

Keen theorizes on the future of blogging, podcasting, etc:

In the Web 2.0 world, however, the nightmare is not the scarcity, but the over-abundance of authors. Since everyone will use digital media to express themselves, the only decisive act will be to not mark the paper.

My favorite twist on Keen (which Jeff so aptly points out) is that he both blogs and has a podcast site. Hell, the guy was a player wannabe in the first go round of Web 1.0. I’m not sensing a perspective with merit, I’m sensing bitterness. Check out this quote from Keen’s year 2000 Digital Hollywood conference bio:

Andrew Keen, Founder and CEO, AudioCafe: Andrew Keen is a leading visionary in the audio business with almost ten years of experience as an entrepreneur, salesman and writer in the industry. Having single-handedly founded Audiocafe in 1997, Keen has driven the development of the site’s content and business development. His model of integrating commerce, community and content is now acknowledged as the most viable business model for building a successful Internet business model. From its origins in 1997, Keen has built an Internet site well branded and respected throughout the audio, music and Internet industries. As the Founder of the company, Keen has personally recruited the entire management team at Audiocafe — including Eric Hall (President), the founding COO/CFO at Yahoo! and an executive at a number of other successful Internet start-ups, and James S. Thompson (COO), an experienced senior executive and veteran entrepreneur with five start-ups under his belt. Keen has also [blah, blah, blah…]

Keen is “an entrepreneur, salesman and writer in the industry” who apparently created the “model of integrating commerce, community and content [which] is now acknowledged as the most viable business model for building a successful Internet business model.” The audacity of the claim isn’t the only thing that has me rolling; “commerce, community and content” are all foundational elements of the Web 2.0 that he disses.

Does the added voice of his neighbor scare him that much?

Maybe Andy’s simply afraid that he won’t be able to recruit from a world full of endless talent to prop his career; after all, we all can’t have such spiffy titles to chose from.

We’re now a month away from the public launch of Krugle; a service that has positioned itself as the one-stop shop for developers to find open source code. If they can pull this off — provide an organized and retrievable library of structured code snippets — they’re bound to fast-track open source development, both within traditionally closed domains and innovative, freelance environments alike.

A snippet from Dylan Tweney’s Wired article:

Krugle, which launches officially next month, indexes programming code and documentation from open-source repositories like SourceForge and includes corporate sites for programmers like the Sun Developer Network. The index will cover around 100 million pages of what company founder Ken Krugler terms the “technical web” — high-quality technical pages for professional programmers. (By contrast, Google’s index covers about 11 billion pages.)

“This winds up being a window on all the open-source code in the world,” said Krugler, who estimates the Krugle index will contain between 3 and 5 terabytes of code by the time the engine launches in March.

The new service joins other source-code search engines like Koders and Codefetch, but Krugle intends to differentiate itself by allowing developers to annotate code and documentation, create bookmarks and save collections of search results in a tabbed workspace. Saved workspaces have unique URLs, so developers can send an entire collection of annotated code to a co-worker just by e-mailing a link.

Krugle also contains intelligence to help it parse code and to differentiate programming languages, so a PHP developer could search for a website-registration system written in PHP simply by typing “PHP registration system.”

If Krugle can be as intelligent as they claim, providing the capability to reduce gloms of source code into retrievable objects, not only by language, but by micro-functions as well, this could be the beginning of something huge.

The Contract And The Ammunition

No, I’m not talking about a professional hit. Well, kinda. Let me explain.

For the past three months, I’ve been volunteering part-time with the Participatory Culture Foundation, managing their Bounty County blog. In essence, I post submissions from organizations or funded individuals who are looking to pay individuals from the development community to complete specific open source bounty projects. I also cull the web for existing bounties, posting them within the Bounty County realm for one stop shopping.

One-stop shopping is becoming a theme in this post.

With the percept of open source evolving beyond the realm of specific code or pure ideology into an actual infrastructure for developers to find usable code and then smartly reshare structured, organized code snippets (Krugle), opportunities are beginning to reveal themselves; opportunities beyond just increased productivity within corporate or home offices.

Bounty County is a centralized location for developers to find open source bounties — a much more forward thinking concept than it’s current static execution. If Krugle can harness the energy of the open source development community, it only makes sense to develop a dynamic marketplace for sponsors to:

• post project bounties
• provide pointers to source material
• update project status

Well, I’ll be damned. That short list just happens to be the core features of the static Bounty County site.

Hey, Chris! Getting Nick and Ken together might not be a bad idea, no?

Translation: “A cartoon targeting the prophet, Bush�

(via The Black Iris of Jordan)

Just who are these fuckin’ guys anyway?

vnunet.com
RIAA aims to ban CD ripping
by Iain Thomson

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has reversed its position on CD ripping and now wants the practice outlawed.

In a filing to the US government concerning digital rights management the RIAA and other copyright industry associations said the fact that CD ripping is widespread does not make it legal.

“Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorization,” the filing stated.

“In this regard, the statement attributed to counsel for copyright owners in the MGM v. Grokster case is simply a statement about authorization, not about fair use.”

This is a complete reversal of the RIAA’s previous policy. In last year’s Supreme Court MGM v. Grokster case a representative of the RIAA described ripping a CD and putting it on an iPod as “perfectly lawful”.

“It is no secret that the entertainment ‘oligopolists’ are not happy about space-shifting and format-shifting,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a statement. “But surely ripping your own CDs to your own iPod passes muster.”

Unbelievable. The RIAA is Exhibit A as to why I financially support the EFF. Didn’t we get past this litigious moment in time when we were passing mix tapes between friends in the early 80’s?

Unchanneled, unbundled, uncontrolled music distribution can tremendously benefit three out of the four constituents in the music industry — the fans, artists and labels — if the technology is enabled and monetized properly. Citizen media and file sharing software has already provided the inroads to extrapolating the concept of personal mix tapes by exponential factors, but since the RIAA is a cabal of thug lawyers, knee-deep in the politics of the power structure of the record industry and big business — busy hawking the propaganda of “musicians starving by the thousands” due to copyright infringement — artists are left out of the conversation surrounding their own work.

From the RIAA self-descrption on their About Us page (emphasis mine ):

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry. Its mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members’ creative and financial vitality. Its members are the record companies that comprise the most vibrant national music industry in the world. RIAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States.

In support of this mission, the RIAA works to protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists; conduct consumer industry and technical research; and monitor and review - - state and federal laws, regulations and policies. The RIAA also certifies Gold®, Platinum®, Multi-Platinum™, and Diamond® sales awards, and recently launched Los Premios De Oro y Platino™, a new award celebrating Latin music sales.

The RIAA are suits providing a perceived value service for a constituency of labels. Innocuous transfers, such as cd-rom to iPod, shouldn’t even be a part of the conversation, but the legal hawks at the RIAA need to keep their battle alive, cash in their hours on the job and make further cases for battles in this war, one that is bound to fail.

Why?

When we reach the tipping point for successfully monetizing a post-modern world — where citizen media receives micro-payments for media views and not click-throughs or micro-purchases instead of bundled viewing through industry channels — this argument will simply become moot. As new technological systems for production and distribution are built, the creative talent inside and out of the development community will begin to leverage the services.

• It’s already happening at myspace.com
• Have you seen what you can do with iLife?
• Hell, even I’m a movie director in my spare time

The evolution of citizen production technologies, along with rich forms of free advertising, networking, marketing and sharing delivered by blogs, will not just simply come to a screeching halt.

And that’s why the RIAA is stepping up their “intelligently designed” game.

I tend to sit on the optimistic side of this battle. Explicit, absolute hierarchy expressed via controlled management will not survive this explosion of technological innovation. It simply can’t. For as much energy and resources it takes to create, manage and govern a structured, old-money universe with closed systems of infrastructure, it takes a fraction of such time, energy and resources to release expression into the newly networked ether.

But these facts won’t stop the lawyers of the world from doing their best from stopping it. Check out this snippet from the bio of one of their leaders:

Mitch Bainwol
Chairman And CEO
Recording Industry Association of America

Mitch Bainwol joined the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as Chairman and CEO in September 2003. As a seasoned policymaker, he is one of the Washington’s most recognized and respected strategists and possesses a unique blend of political, legislative, and communications skills.

The Washington Post recently called Bainwol a “Top D.C. Lobbyist and Man in Demand.” Several years in a row, Capitol Hill’s Roll Call newspaper hailed Bainwol as one of the 50 most influential “politicos” in Washington. He was also named by Entertainment Weekly as one of the most powerful people in show business and Campaigns and Elections magazine named him a “Mover and Shaker.”

[…]

Bainwol is a “recognized and respected strategist” in Washington DC; he’s a lobbyist. Music is reinventing itself from too many directions for him or anyone else representing this controlled system to make it last long-term.

Fuck the RIAA!

Artist: Deltron 3030
Featuring: Del Tha Funkee Homosapian
Song: Madness

==========

In the year three thousand and thirty everybody wants to be an mc
In the year three thousand and thirty everybody want to be a dj
In the year three thousand and thirty everybody want to be a producer
In the year three thousand and thirty everybody want to tell ya the meaning of the music

I must appeal to you people with your faculties
Cuz everybody else is gonna laugh at me
People try to get over and take a crack at me
The universe is one and I can see what rap can be glorious
Put in the Smithsonian my podiums for holy hymns
But you see who’s controlling them
Fuck myself off cuz of the egotistical mode I’m in
No I can’t slap you no five
When you and your cutty is talkin shit about me outside
People take pride in what they have no hand in
Sorta like a phantom holographic handsome
But deep inside he wants to do what his man done
Just because his peers jeer and and clown
When you’re six foot deep no one hears you now
They say were not compatible like deers and cows and owls
So many rules and regulations say you’re not allowed

I’m caught in the grip of the city Madness (X4)

If I had to describe the way I survive its like vice squeezin
The reason I’m black and still breathin
Heathens will breed heathens so
Everybody’s suspect I must check your ID
Cuz you lookin sheisty you might be intelligence
Someone that Del’s against
Opposite or positive
When I drop the law against nature be faithful
Why should I hate you we ain’t that different
We may act differen’t in some ways
But we still grouped together like a fuckin survey
Sufferin and fuck em all’s the motto
I’m trapped in a bottle
My music’s gettin hollow
And that’s what happens when humanity you follow
Where every leak or info is hard to swallow
Sell your Marlboros and car insurance
Put niggas on the moon and can’t pay for your burdens
I smoke herb and rock a turban
Meditate on the world and whats occurrin
A lot of white boys like the style and copy
Dig in something deeper and you’ll peep that we’re not free
It’s not about the seperation it’s about the population

I’m caught in the grip of the city Madness (X4)

Simple minded people always point the finger
To bring it to a close as if life is their role, they path
When all paths are intersections
It depends on the persons perception
When I’m mad as fuck you get shot
To tis so is bad luck
I believe you held something back for too long
It grew strong
And enegy got its own will
And people think they make music still
But music is there with out you or me we just manipulate
For better or worse so let it situate
I get to make records and dough
Paid out the ass hole
And still seen as another face on the totem pole
Conquer, my sponsors are monsters
And everybody thinks that I owe them one
I’m glad I love music and life
cuz it’s easy to see the pain and strife and end it all tonight

I’m caught in the grip of the city Madness (X4)

I didn’t grow up with Johnny Cash on my record player or in my tapedeck. I guess that’s probably the case for most guys coming of age in Jersey in the mid-80’s. The bands that introduced me to rock ‘n roll were The Cars, Dire Straits and Pink Floyd. Johnny Cash was a blurry legend, a few generations before my time, falling into the class of Elvis and Hank Williams. Sure, I heard him, but I never really felt him. He represented a completely different universe of emotions.

Or so I thought.

I just got back from Walk The Line, and I’m still caught up in the afterglow. I’m going to shut up now and go find my Cash album and drift off to sleep.

Israel’s genius is mind-blowing.

As soon as the rest of the world begins to draw the ire of the Muslim world, Israel swoops in with a coup de grâce, stealing back all the affection for themselves. Yes, Israel is about to pull some serious poltergeist shit:

The Independent
Israel plans to build ‘museum of tolerance’ on Muslim graves

Skeletons are being removed from the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem to make way for a $150m (£86m) “museum of tolerance” being built for the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

Palestinians have launched a legal battle to stop the work at what was the city’s main Muslim cemetery. The work is to prepare for the construction of a museum which seeks the promotion of “unity and respect among Jews and between people of all faiths”.

Israeli archaeologists and developers have continued excavating the remains of people buried at the site - which was a cemetery for at least 1,000 years - despite a temporary ban on work granted by the Islamic Court, a division of Israel’s justice system. Police have been taking legal advice on whether the order is legally binding. The Israeli High Court is to hear a separate case brought by the Al Aqsa Association of the Islamic Movement in Israel next week.

The project, which a spokesman said had been conceived in partnership with the Jerusalem municipality and the Israeli government, was launched at a ceremony in 2004 by a cast of dignitaries ranging from Ehud Olmert, who is currently the acting Prime Minister, to the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Israeli branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre declined to comment yesterday and has had no role in the project.

Durragham Saif, the lawyer who brought the Islamic Court petition on behalf of three Palestinian families, Al Dijani, Nusseibeh and Bader Elzain, all of whom have members buried at the cemetery, said: “It’s unbelievable, it’s immoral. You cannot build a museum of tolerance on the graves of other people. Imagine this kind of thing in the [United] States or England. And this is the Middle East where events are sensitive. If this goes ahead in this way it is going to cause the opposite thing to tolerance.”

Mr Saif said he had written to the Israeli State Attorney, Menachem Mazuz, seeking police enforcement of the original order. He said on a visit to the site he had entered three out of five tents where excavations were being carried out. “I was shocked to see open graves and tens of whole skeletons there,” he said.

Ikrema Sabri, the Mufti of Jerusalem, demanded a halt to the excavations and said the Muslim religious authorities had not been consulted on the dig. Saying that the cemetery was in use for 15 centuries and that friends of the Prophet Mohamed were buried there, the Mufti declared: “There should be a complete cessation of work on the cemetery because it is sacred for Muslims.”

Under Israel’s “absentee property” law the cemetery was taken over by the Custodian of Absentee Property after the 1948 war. Mr Saif said the Custodian had no right to sell the cemetery to the Jerusalem municipality in 1992. While parties to the work are resting part of their case on what they say was an 1894 ruling by the then Sharia court that the sanctity of a cemetery could be lifted, Mr Sabri said that ruling meant that only a Muslim could make such a decision.

Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority, which is carrying out the excavations, said it was common in Jerusalem to build on cemeteries. Adding that in such cases the bones were reburied, she said: “Israel is more crowded with ancient artefacts than any other country in the world. If we didn’t build on former cemeteries, we would never build.”

So let’s recap recent recent events, shall we?

• The United States begins a war in Iraq to fight an “ism” over “there” so it doesn’t have to be fought over here. In the process, at least 30,000 innocent Iraqi’s have been killed
• A Danish newspaper feels that it needs to spice up the religous debate, so it decides to publish 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohhamed — knowing full-well the beliefs of Muslims and depicting The Prophet
• Now Israel is digging up “friends of the Prophet Mohamed” in order to develop a “museum of tolerance” and their defense is, “If we didn’t build on former cemeteries, we would never build”

That last excuse sounds very familiar:

Steve: Not much room for pool is there?
Teague: We own all the land. We have already made arrangements to relocating the cemetery.
Steve: Oh, you’re kidding. Oh, come on. I mean that’s sacrilege, isn’t it?
Teague: Oh, don’t worry about it. After all, it’s not ancient tribal burial ground. It’s just… people. Besides we have done it before.

Brilliant. I have no idea why radical Islam exists.

(via Jesus’ General)

Steve Gilliard on the cartoon controversy:

What I don’t find surprising is the wave of liberal anti-Muslim commentary. After all, it took a major effort by the President to prevent lynchings after 9/11, and then 8,000 Muslims were expelled for reasons having nothing to do with national security.

And let’s face it, we have a lot in common with the Danes, or so we think.

But reality is very different.

Most major US newspapers will not run these cartoons any more than they run racially or sexually offensive cartoons. They wouldn’t run a cartoon mocking church buildings being burned either. To the most vigorous defenders of free speech on the planet, in a country which allows all manner of hate speech, these cartoons will not be shown, because they are needlessly offensive.

But what is lost in all the rioting is how badly the Danes handled this.

The government admits they wanted to force a culture war. The problem for them is that Danish Muslims, feeling outnumbered and under siege, went for help. They toured the middle east, showed the cartoons to leading Islamic scholars and then, the ambassadors asked to speak to the foreign minister, and despite the advice of 22 Danish ambassadors, refused.

Now, I can’t speak to being a Muslim, but I can speak to being an outsider.

There is always the tension of never truly being accepted. You see things, cartoons, TV shows, and you wonder is there a hidden insult there, are you being depicted fairly.

Hell, people routinely tell me they had no idea I was black online.

I know what it’s like to walk into a classroom of 200 people and be the ONLY black person in the room. In that situation, you either deal with it or retreat.

For a lot of minorities in Europe, not just Muslims, but Africans and Asians as well, there is the sense of being an outsider even when you try to fit in. You teach your kids the language, they root for the local sides, they go to the schools, but at the end of the day, you get a nice slap in the face by people who wish you would disappear.

But you’ve played by the rules and there is no reward.

Now, some folks play on this to push their version of Islamic revivalism, and the right talks about how they’re coming to take over, and why they don’t just fit in.

Well, if you’ve ever been accused of not fitting in, despite your best efforts, it can make you angry or even worse, doubt yourself. You wonder if it’s you or because people dislike the way you look.

No one wants to be excluded from the society they live in, but at some point, you’re faced with a challenge to your dignity. In this case, an insult to your religion. And the Danes stubborn refusal to deal with this as it became a crisis, says much about their racial attitudes.

A lot of Europeans believe, like a lot of people, that if the Muslims go away, all their discomfort will end. But it won’t. As Pat Robertson noted in his usually subtle way, Europeans are having less children. Well someone has to pay taxes to support the growing numbers of elderly and if there aren’t enough Europeans, they will have to import workers.

And while people say “well, they should just accept that they live in Europe”.

Ok, and I say, what is the reward? A scut work job, racial contempt from cab drivers to government officials, a continuing message that you don’t belong and if you object to being insulted, you can leave?

You can’t have it both ways: you cannot say you want an inclusive society, yet when people demand basic respect, and muslim leaders went to the government and the courts, insult them for doing so.

It is hard enough to be different in the US, it must be that much harder in a monocultural society like Denmark.

My attitude here is simple: I respect Muslims and their concerns because I want them to respect mine, enough so that they reject terrorism and inform on those that do embrace it. We cannot say reject terrorism and then mock what they see as holy. It’s as if we’re doing Osama’s work for him, and I don’t want any part of that.

Exactly.

Sometimes the truth truly is stranger than fiction:

Four months ago, in the midst of writing an essay about Web 2.0, I threw out an example of a potential service that reflected the best qualities of the movement. Well, it’s now a reality; Welcome coComment.

Man, I love this industry; a thought one day, a full-fledged service another. Now if I could only score an invite to use my dream service of discourse.

UPDATE: The folks over at coComment just sent me an invite. Thanks, guys!

Can you think of anything more disrespectful to engage in than armchair quarterbacking a eulogy?

The Rev. Joseph Lowry was extremely tight with Corretta, as was Jimmy Carter; I’m quite sure they crafted their words as she would have appreciated. Did they both allude to current policies of the Bush administration in a negative fashion? Damn straight. I think they knew Coretta a bit better than the rest of us.

We, the general public, should have felt privileged to have experienced their goodbye to a close friend, no matter the words they chose to use. Matalin’s perspective is chock full of political spin and disrespectful racial condescension. Unfortunately, her rhetoric is only the tip of the iceburg:

• Redstate Racists
• With Regard To Today’s Funeral Political Rally
• Not Even Funerals Are Sacred to Liberals
• Classless Acts
• More Pravda

UPDATE: Thankfully, clear thinking does exist in the blogosphere as well:

• As long as we’re on the subject of manners…
• An honorable service
• Coretta Scott King Knew

(via Crooks & Liars)