Accept no substitutes

Author: Paul (Page 19 of 146)

Planning Ahead – Upcoming Events & Projects (Some Soon)

Tuesday brings the “Our Stories, In Focus” project to the UNC Student Union following up on the kickoff event at the Hargraves Center. Bring your mementos and your stories for scanning and saving and to be turned into part of a community art project. Chapel Hill News story here.

The Download and Donate site for the INTRAHealth OPEN Project is in full swing with a remix of Youssou N’Dour’s song by Peter Buck of REM coming up soon (and perhaps featuring a special guest). Bring Open Source software to bear on the health initiatives in Senegal and the rest of Africa and hear some great remixes from Nas, Afrissippi, Beef Wellington, Hawke, Duncan Sheik, Q Burns Abstract Message and Toubab Krewe with Umar Bin Hassan (of the Last Poets).

Planning for the International World Wide Web Conference to be held in April 2010 in Raleigh is underway with interest groups at LinkedIn, FaceBook, and an ongoing blog where our most recent announcement is that David Burney of New Kind has joined our advisory board (see the blog for more and more recent news).

Still exploring partners and sites and ideas for 18Hn6Pz an homage to Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts” which introduced the world to the word “happening” almost 50 years ago. We’re part of the February 2010 CHAT aka Collaborations: Humanites, Arts, Technology Festival and we have partners in the Humanities, Arts and Technology — but we could use more and more. (Note that the 18Hn6Pz is a Google Doc that you can edit, amend, and append.

Tired of paying for .gov info that you’ve already paid for? Time to get the Government Printing Office in gear and on the Net. How to do that? Help get Carl Malamud appointed Public Printer of the United States.

Carl Malamud for Public Printer of the USA

Carl == Data
Carl Malamud of Public Resource is running a net campaign for the office that many of us have never heard of but which is of great importance to our professions and to our country.

Potential Tweet:

We need @CarlMalamud of http://public.resource.org as Printer of the US http://is.gd/kQpz ! Read why and sign up here http://YesWeScan.Org

What Carl says:

For over 20 years, I have been publishing government information on the Internet. In 2008, Public.Resource.Org published over 32.4 million pages of primary legal materials, as well as thousands of hours of video and thousands of photographs. In the 1990s, I fought to place the databases of the United States on the Internet. In the 1980s, I fought to make the standards that govern our global Internet open standards available to all. Should I be honored to be nominated and confirmed, I would continue to work to preserve and extend our public domain, and would place special attention to our relationship with our customers, especially the United States Congress.

Access to information is a human right and the United States of America is the world’s leading producer of information. As the publisher of the United States, GPO plays a vital role in promoting useful knowledge, promoting the progress of science and useful arts, and promoting and preserving the public domain.

[more at http://yeswescan.org ]

UNC Law Cyberspeech Symposium – New Keynote

Kevin Martin has given in to the pressure of labor. Not organized labor but the biological labor of his wife and soon to be born child. I wish them all well.

In an effort to find the person least like Martin to stand in as keynote speaker, the First Amendment Law Review asked me to speak up and speak tomorrow at the UNC Law School at the Cyberspeech Symposium— schedule here:

9:00- 10:00: Registration
10:00- 11:15: ISP Liability Panel 11:15- 11:30: Break
11:30- 12:45: Cyber-Bullying Panel
12:45- 1:45: Lunch
1:45- 2:45: Keynote Speech by Mr. Paul Jones
2:45- 3:00: Break
3:00- 4:15: Network Neutrality Panel
4:15- 4:30: Closing

Panelists:
Susan Brenner – NCR Distinguished Professor of Law and Technology at the University of Dayton School of Law
Clay Calvert – Co-Director of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment at the Penn State University,
John and Ann Curley Professor of First Amendment Studies at the Penn State University College of Communications
Robert M. Frieden – Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications and Law at the Penn State University
Leslie Harris – President and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology
Dawn C. Nunziato – Associate Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School
John Palfrey – Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School
Robert Richards – Co-director of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment at the Penn State University, Distinguished Professor of Journalism and Law at the Penn State University
Hannibal Travis- Professor of Law at the Florida International University College of Law
Alfred C. Yen – Professor of Law at the Boston College Law School

The State of Jones and Federal Computer Week

Frank Stasio
I’ll be on WUNC‘s The State of Things on Monday February 16 at noon (EST). I’ll probably be talking with Frank Stasio about:

ibiblio.org !!!!!

And upcoming things from or involving me and ibiblio:

*International World Wide Web Conference 2010 (April 10) in Raleigh
*18 happenings in 6 parts a revisioning of Alan Kaprow’s piece 50 years later for the CHAT festival at UNC to happen in February 2010
*extending radio on the net (which was invented at sunsite/ibiblio)
*cloud computing for virtual computing labs (working with NCSU and IBM)
*intrahealth.org/open open source and open music for african health programs promoted by free remix downloads based on Youssou N’Dour’s contribution.
*launchpad at renci with entrepreneurship program
*North Carolina Writers Network
*Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 – Present and my poetry in general (see sidebar to this blog for some)

*classes on changes in journalism and in emerging tech and life.

*reference stuff and older interviews:

Send ibiblio $$$$ and LOVE

On the print/electronic text front, I added a bit to a story in Federal Computer Week‘s February 10th issue in an article called “CEOs seek review of government applications” written by Doug Beizer. I had quite a bit to say, but this sorta sums my response up:

“That said, open-source solutions probably should compete on their merits, which are many,” Jones said.

[writing disclaimer: I am responsible for only one “said” in that sentence – pj]

[Note: This article was almost immediately commented on by Katherine McGuire, Vice President of Government Relations for the Business Software Alliance, a closed source, pro-DRM, organization. Prior to joining BSA, McGuire served seventeen years in the U.S. Senate in various unelected capacities]

Riddling on the Kindle on Marketplace

Kindle the First
Took a call from Janet Babin of NPR’s Marketplace to speculate on the upcoming Kindle announcement and to talk about how the Kindle fits into publishing and reading. Will air, if it does, on Monday.

But like many opportunities to opine, the data came in after the recording. Yikes! Almost as soon as I got off the phone with Janet, the ever alert Woody Hartzog sent me a breaking story.

I had said to Woody, in preparing to talk with Janet, that the upcoming battle isn’t so much between e-book readers — Kindle is the only one that seems at the moment to have momentum — but between the Kindle and smart phones. Google had just 24 hours earlier announced that the books from their Book Search would become available on a variety of smartphones — only iPhone and the T-Mobile G1 immediately though. This was a move that in part was meant to chill the Kindle announcement a bit, but also to show some movement in the phone reader area. Up til Thursday, Mobipocket which is owned by Amazon was the major “ebook on phone” application.

So far I had a take on that: real reading as I have seen being done on the Kindle wasn’t happening on smartphones because of the form factor. Too small on the phone for the kind of scanning browsing reading that recreational readers practice whilst in transit. Kindles have been most successful among folks who are reading on the airplane, waiting for the airplane, stuck in a hotel room or lobby, or on vacation. In short transit reading, reading books that would probably not be kept in a personal library for all that long. Add reading in bed to the mix plus vacation reading — both of which I would call transit reading — and the Kindle is a great choice. Plenty of books in a one book form factor, you never lose your place, the lighting is convenient and not obtrusive, more books are available with only a short wait. Not free exactly. Libraries provide that service. Not building your personal or business library — but that may be something reserved for boomers and beyond any way.

Bottom line. Kindle has a niche that phones won’t quite fill. But look for a battle there.

Sure enough. The article that Woody sent shows Amazon firing back at Google. Amazon announced that there would be Kindle reader for smart phones. Not time line and no specific phones and no direct reference to Mobipocket either. I assume this is mostly a press release battle leading up to the Monday announcement at the Morgan Library by Amazon.

Yesterday, I ran in to an editor for a University Press. He has a Kindle and he loves it! But his press, while they offer Kindle versions of their books sell only a few. Whew! As this supports my claim that Kindle is for transit reading nd recreational reading.

But here is how he uses his Kindle: He reads manuscripts on it. Book manuscripts for academic books run easily to and over 350 pages. 8 or 10 of those and you are talking serious bulk and weight. But the Kindle is happy to hold those and more whilst keeping his place and keeping all the pages together! A limited marketplace to be sure, but a very appropriate and smart way to use the device. Too bad I learned of this too late — but in a brief radio story it wouldn’t and shouldn’t have been included. (still a good story for here).

I’m afraid I wasted a lot of time talking about how the Thor Tool decision changed publishing by creating tax pressure on inventories (while not taxing those inventories directly) [yes it is complicated], leading to the pulping rather than the storing of slow selling books. Authors and publishers hate the decision that took books from storage. Instant publishing and publishing on demand have held out hope for slow sellers but until the promise of direct digital sells there was really no respite for writers who wrote other than blockbusters or quick sales titles. I care, but that’s too much for the Marketplace marketplace to take in it seems.

Speaking of marketplaces. We didn’t talk that much about price. $360 for a device to read? Yikes! There are netbooks below that price for sell on Amazon now.

Fearless and unfounded prediction for Monday’s announcement:
Kindle will have video viewing capability and a partnership with Hulu (if not others). Anything less will be anti-climatic.

UPDATE: The radio show and the Kindle announcement are now out. My discussion with Woody above is closer to what got air on Marketplace than my fearless and unfounded and completely wrong prediction on this blog. On air, I said:

The question that you have to ask is, how much reading do you want to do on your phone, or do you need a separate device to do that reading. That’s really about to be answered in the marketplace.

Always good to mention the product or show name in your quote ;->

The Kindle announcement was anti-climatic
. Nice to have a slimmer, longer lasting device with a simpler interface, but the price is still the same — in the netbook range. And except for text to speech, which I have to hear to evaluate, there isn’t much additional innovation presented. Still black and white.

IntraHealth OPEN and Youssou N’Dour promote Open Source for Health in Africa with music downloads

Coming February 6th at this location from Youssou N’Dour and IntraHealth! Follow IntraHealthOPEN on Twitter

Download a song, open the future of a continent.

Featuring: Youssou N’Dour, Nas, Estelle, Peter Buck, Q-Burns Abstract Message, Toubab Krewe, Afrissippi, Duncan Sheik, Beef Wellington, Hawke

Youssou N’Dour believes a song can change lives. And major recording artists from around the globe have joined him to release a series of remixes in support of IntraHealth OPEN–a new initiative that will change how people think about health, technology and the developing world. Help put the latest advances in open source technology into the hands of Africans to solve the most critical public health issues of our day.

Music can make a difference, and so can you. We invite you to download the remixes of Youssou N’Dour’s single “Wake Up (It’s Africa Calling)” for free, and encourage you to make a donation to this important work.

It’s an “open source song” in support of open source technology, designed to open up endless possibilities for the developing world.

Why Open Source?
Open source technology is ideally suited for application in low-resource environments, being collaborative, transparent and free of licensing and upgrade fees. It encourages independent, affordable and creative solutions to the biggest health and infrastructure problems in the developing world, from shortages of doctors and nurses, to access to maternal and child health care, to distribution of the medications needed to fight and prevent infectious diseases. Using Web-based interfaces, mobile phones and PDAs, open source systems can provide far-reaching and innovative tools to support increased efficiency, productivity and performance of health services and information to meet the needs of families and communities across the continent.

Most importantly, with targeted training and support, open source solutions can enable African developers and health professionals to create, customize and grow systems themselves based on their needs and realities.

IntraHealth: A Catalyst for Public Health & Open Source in Africa. IntraHealth mobilizes local talent to create sustainable and accessible health care in developing countries. As part of this mission, IntraHealth has been collaborating with African governments and private institutions to design and apply open source solutions to strengthen their ability to use health information for strategic health policy and planning.
Working to connect and support new and on-going technology efforts, the IntraHealth OPEN initiative will emphasize forming global alliances, expanding access to infrastructure, and developing new skills and tools that are cost-efficient and technically viable at the country level.

Inauguration Poetry

Poems written for special occasions rarely measure up. Seems like the more important the occasion the greater the level of failure. US Presidential Inauguration poems have not had a happy history.

The first poem read at an inauguration was Robert Frost’s “Gift Outright” read at the John Kennedy inauguration. Frankly, Frost had it easy. He had published the poem two decades earlier in “Witness Tree” (1942) and won the Pulitzer Prize for that book. The poem was already known by Kennedy from their time at Harvard. Well-enough known that Kennedy suggested a few tweeks to the poem. In the final line, changing “would” to “will” for example. At 86, Frost was already a well-known master of poetry, but even he could not resist overdoing it. He added an overlong tedious preface to the poem (called sometimes “The Dedication”). Either by luck or by art, the wind seemed to blow his pages out of his hands as he started to read or some say he couldn’t read the print. In any case, we are lucky to left with his reciting the poem “Gift” sans preface in the cold January air.

Jimmy Carter sought to built the poem presentation into a tradition when he invited James Dickey to write a new poem and read it at his inauguration. Dickey’s poem, “The Strength of Fields” isn’t a bad read. Dickey’s slightly avant garde typography did cause some problems for many newspapers that printed the poem (in my memory at least) and for some readers. Oddly, Dickey isn’t often counted in the poets having created official inaugural poems in many current news stories.

Poetry took another rest until the election of Bill Clinton. Clinton invited former-Arkansas poet (then living in North Carolina) Maya Angelou to write and read her poem at his inauguration. Her poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” which began “A Rock, A River, A Tree” was considered completely overboard in its reach and political inclusiveness — what made Whitman one of our greatest didn’t seem to be working out for Angelou according to critics. Nonetheless “Pulse” sold over a million copies.

For his second Inaugural, Clinton invited another Arkansan Miller Williams to create and read a poem. Williams’ poem, “Of History and Hope,” was almost immediately forgotten. It’s not a bad poem but it is a very safe poem. Not audacious like Angelou’s nor experimental like Dickey’s nor well-tested and already loved by some like Frost’s, just safe and not very challenging.

This was the lineage that poet Elizabeth Alexander entered today as she recited her “Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration.” The poem hints at formality without becoming a strong mind-sticking rhythm and rhyme machine like Frost built in “Gift” or falling into a staggering plod like “Dedication.” It never reaches for an experimental edge as Dickey’s “Fields.” It lacks the audacious energy of Angelou but avoids some of her silliness — although for some that silliness is the attraction of Angelou’s “Pulse.”

I fear that Alexander is more like Miller Williams than William Carlos Williams. Safe reliable sincere and not very memorable.

On the other hand, the Rev. Joseph Lowery begin his benediction by reciting the last verse of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing” a poem also known as the lyrics of the Negro National Anthem (1899). That poem seemed fresh and relevant and timely and appropriate for the occasion especially coming from the 87 year old Lowery. And both memorable and moving.

Science Online 09, The Opposite(s) of Property, Steam Power and Carrboro Obama Fest

The weekend so far has been jammed. I started out at a Science Online 09 pre-conference event, a Coffee Cupping at Counter Culture in Durham, spent Saturday morning at the conference, headed over to Duke Law for the Opposite(s) of Property conference which was also a celebration of James Boyle’s new The Public Domain, today we had a more successful and better lubricated run of our Empire Steam Engine (B31 from the mid-1920s) and a pause to celebrate both MLK Day and Inauguration Day a little early in the Carrboro way.

Counter Culture Coffee
Counter Culture, where the #scio09 cupping was held, is a fair exchange coffee roaster and wholeseller. There about 50 Science Online folks (about 1/4 of the conference attendees) were initiated into the practice and culture and vocabulary of coffee cupping.

Science Online 09
The Science Online 09 aka #scio09 Conference was booked up — we don’t sell tickets so it can’t really sell out — having hit our limit of 200 attendees in October. This is the third conference and at each one I’ve been less involved in organizing it. Anton and Bora really have it completely under control. It was a smoothly run professional conference while still keeping in touch with its popular and lovingly amateur roots. Folks were asked to bring fruit for example and they did. We had plenty of good fruit. Speakers were held to time by the audience and the audience took charge when they didn’t. Not in a bad way but in a way that reminded speakers that they were to be primarily moderators who kicked off and managed discussion. The sessions were more on content and style now and less how to set up a blog or how to make a business. A very good session on the Science Commons during which many of the folks speaking at the Duke Law School at the same time were mentioned was my cue to head over to catch that conference. If you were at #scio09, please take a few minutes to fill out this feedback form.

Opposite(s) of Property
I arrived at Duke just as David Lange, one of my favorite lawyers, was responding to Jedediah Purdy‘s presentation on the History of the Public Domain. David has so much fun with ideas and language that even as he references material that is totally unfamiliar to me I will follow him and relish the experience. Boyle, as noted earlier in this blog, is also a performer of the first order and was a pleasure to see and hear. The discussion was both erudite and good humored. You’ll be able to catch it here at the Duke Law site as The Opposite(s) of Property. (soon).

Empire B31
Tucker and I dismantled the piston, fly wheel, steam cylinder and drive on our 1920s Empire Metalware Steam Engine (B31) and cleaned it all up then lubed it with turbine oil. Wow! what a difference it made. The steam can really work well now and the fly wheel flies! The machine had been struggling against metal wear and liming and steam leaks from 50 year old seals. Now de-limed, mostly resealed and well lubricated, it can build up a good head of steam and run for a long time. Next to make some devices for it to drive and to put it to work. One other big challenge is to replace the steam whistle. The original copper pipe was broken off some time in the past 40 or so years after it was bent in storage. We don’t even have the broken part to use as a model for building a new one. Any suggestions welcome.

Joe Thompson
This evening, we were over at the Orange County Campaign for Change’s pre-MLK pre-Inauguration party at Carrboro Century Center. We came into a performance on the Andean Pan Pipes by Victor (???) who was accompanied by several enthusiastic children hopping to the piper. The highlight for me tho was hearing 90 year old fiddler Joe Thompson of Mebane play and sing. Joe had the whole place rocking in an old time way as he sang “I Shall Not Be Moved.” Later in the set he mashed “Got Oil in My Vessel” with “Amazing Grace” as he was joined a bunch of backups singers and lively audience hand clappers. You can hear his Kennedy Center performance here.

Carver/Heath: Changing the story

Volume E of the Heath Anthology of American Literature
I got a note yesterday by the editor of the latest edition (number 6 if you are counting) of the Instructor’s Guide to the D. C. Heath Anthology of American Literature. Some years back, I wrote the headnote, selected the story and wrote the Instructor’s Guide section for the wonderful short story writer, Raymond Carver. I had chosen “A Small, Good Thing” as the story. In part, because it was a nice length. In part, because it represented a story that was a rewrite of earlier story “The Bath.” But mostly because it represented the power and skill of Carver in his later stories as they began to focus on redemption rather than desperation. An added bonus was that after the first editions of the Anthology hit the street, Robert Altman did a movie, “Short Cuts,” based on several of Carver’s stories including “A Small, Good Thing.” A great story with a lot of opportunities for teaching about writing and story-telling.

But Edition 6 will not, does not, have “A Small, Good Thing” as the story. A better story (I would say) and a better known story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” is in its place. Time to rewrite the Instructor’s Guide! I wish it had been an opportunity to rewrite the head note as well.

If you follow Carver’s posthumous literary life, you will have seen that “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” is a disputed story with a disputed history. Carver’s widow, Tess Gallagher, favors an earlier version of the story, then called “Beginners,” as the true Carver and says, then shows that Carver’s editor Gordon Lish radically rewrote “Beginners” cutting half of its length, changing characters’ names, retitling the story and more. Gallagher attempted to publish the original story and several others including the pre-Lish, pre-“The Bath” “Small, Good Thing.” Last I noticed, Carver’s publisher, Knopf had refused her requests and had blocked her for seeking another publisher.

As noticed here about a year ago (December 24, 2007 issue), Gallagher found a home for her argument that Lish overreached and overedited in the New Yorker. The New Yorker published the entire pre-Lished “Beginners” and in an online only version published “‘Beginners,’ Edited.” I and others think that these publications make the case that Lish improved Carver, but there is plenty of room for debate — but little room for all of that in the Instructor’s Guide. Still the teaching opportunity is now even greater! Below is my rewrite of one section of the Instructor’s Guide on Carver. I can now point teachers and students to a great and highly debatable example of a writer and editor in a highly engaged interaction.

Significant Form, Style, or Artistic Conventions

Carver’s work and the versions published have been subject to much controversy – most of this occurring posthumously – concerning the heavy involvement of editor Gordon Lish in the published versions of Carver’s stories, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” in particular. In December 24 2007, the New Yorker published the manuscript that Carver sent to Lish as “Beginners” as well as a version showing the edit imposed by Lish as he converted that manuscript into what we now call “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” Immediately readers and critics took sides as to which was the better story. This is a great opportunity to talk about the role of an editor and to discuss and evaluate Lish’s changes and Carver’s original.
Nonetheless, you would want to talk about “minimalism” in fiction. The style has become so pervasive that students may just assume that this pared-down method of storytelling is simply how one writes fiction. Frederick Barthelme writes that as a minimalist “you’re leaving room for the readers, at least for the ones who like to use their imaginations.” John Barth counters with this definition of a minimalist aesthetic: “[its] cardinal principle is that artistic effect may be enhanced by a radical economy of artistic means, even where such parsimony compromises other values: completeness, for example, or richness or precision of statement.” Carver was at first the most influential practitioner of minimalism (perhaps because of Lish’s editing), and then, through the rewriting (or reclaiming) of his earlier stories, a writer who repudiated the style.
Luckily, Carver’s stories can be used to show both the power of the so-called minimalist approach and its limits. Have the students first read the brief (ten-page) story “The Bath,” which was the earlier version of “A Small, Good Thing.” “The Bath” is an excellent example of what minimalism does well and can be more terrifying and unsettling than anything by Stephen King. Contrast-ing and comparing “The Bath” and “A Small, Good Thing” from Carver’s later, more expansive period will allow the students to participate in the intense debate about style. Carver preferred the second version, but he didn’t pass judgment on those who like “The Bath” best.
Another useful approach for showing the nuances of revision at work in Carver’s writing is to look at a few other versions of his stories. A particularly illustrative case is a short-short-story of under five hundred words that has been known as “Mine” (Furious Seasons), “Popular Mechanics” (What We Talk About When We Talk About Love), and “Little Things” (Where I’m Calling From). The last two differ only in title, but there are significant differences in “Mine.” Students need not be textual critics to talk about the choices that Carver has made in the various versions of his stories.
Finally, students can be asked to consider the effect of translating Carver’s story into film narrative by watching the relevant portion of Robert Altman’s Short Cuts.

UPDATE: Just heard from the Health editor and the Heath production folks. They are sending Volume E, the one with Carver in it, to production now! But they will accept a brief update to the headnote! I sent this as the penultimate paragraph:

Yet there is new controversy about Carver’s rewriting and of his relationship to his editors, particularly Lish. The recent publication of “Beginners” in the New Yorker, the story that would become – after extensive editing by Lish – “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” and the accompanying article and an online exclusive displaying Lish’s edits in detail show that Carver’s rewriting may have been as much an attempt to recover his stories as an enlargement of earlier minimalist works. Once some legal issues can be resolved, we will be able to have a much closer look at Carver’s process, intentions and art as well as an ability to evaluate the relationship between Carver and Lish.

1925ish Empire Metalware B31 Steam Engines in Action

I’ve been carrying around one of my father’s — or perhaps his father’s — old toys for several decades. It’s a wonderful, if well worn, red and chrome vertical toy steam engine of a type made between 1921 and 1931 by Empire Metalware in Two Rivers, WI, an Empire Metalware B31. So far our biggest obstacle to getting the thing in a working state was finding a cord that would deliver electricity to the heater. Yesterday, we finally found one that, while it was not of the wonderful old school rayon covered cable, still managed to do the job. No used appliance store, hardly any hardware, no electric specialty shop could help us get the cord. Finally we found one at a small Ace Hardware — not old school, but it makes the connection.

Well, it sorta worked initially and it sorta didn’t. Of course having fittings and washers that hadn’t been replaced in over 40 years is one reason. But with power delivered we were hopeful we could get to the next level. The thing did heat water even if it didn’t much turn the fly wheel or pump the piston.

Vinegar fixed that problem by de-liming all the joints and pipes. Soon we were turning the wheel and letting off steam. But the de-liming also exposed even more leaky seals. As you see below, we do have more work to do.

A completely repaired and restored Empire would look and work like this:

To get our machine fixed even close to that level, we’ll be following IndianaRog’s great repair advice and improvising a bit on our own. It won’t be a one day deal — then it took a week — with a break for me to be sick in the middle — just to get the cord. And thanks to Rog, I’m on the trail of a replacement whistletop too through Don Stilson of New York.

Steve Snow founder of Charlotte’s Web and community networking champion dies

Steve Snow at right. Gates at CenterWhen I met Steve Snow, he was not only embarking on a life-changing journey, he was embarking on a journey in which he changed others lives as well.

Charlotte’s Web (here in 1997) was conceived before the Web was really or readily available to all. Steve saw potential for strong and broad democratic involvement aided by technology that would transform communities like Charlotte reaching out to the homeless and to public housing equally with outreach to those more privileged.

Charlotte’s Web had a fantastic start then ran into trouble, mostly political due to it’s involvement with various parts of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg government each of whom had a financial stake and so a policy stake in the enterprise.

Steve somehow managed to manage CharWeb through that time and into the future until about 2001 when Charlotte.com picked up the project and Steve left.

Steve was an outspoken advocate of full-community participation in the online community. He helped found the Association for Community Networking and advocated for access for the homeless.

Steve still cared about and was involved in community even in his counseling and consulting practice in Asheville, NC, which he named CommCure. In his own biography on the CommCare site, he described himself this way:
“Among his primary interests academically are integrating human needs and technical infrastructure and Jungian applications of SandPlay in virtual environments. He also has a deep commitment to addressing complex trauma in children and adults, with a special emphasis on men who commit domestic, family or interpersonal violence, an area for which he is a regular speaker in national and international conferences.”

The final sentence rings true especially as it pertains to Steve’s commitment to others: ” If you are interested in talking about any of these things, please send an e-mail note and he’ll reply quickly.”

If only that were still true in fact as well as spirit.

Steve died suddenly on December 27th in Asheville, NC.

About the photo: 4/11/96 – Steve Snow, on the right, is shown with Bill Gates, founder and chariman of Microsoft, during Gates’ visit to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Virtual Library. GARY O’BRIEN/Charlotte.com

Alert! @andycarvin be talking about Steve Snow (and maybe Steve Cisler) on Talk of the Nation tomorrow December 31 at 2pm EST.

Accidentally Adding Sound to Ono’s Mirror

Circa 1958 at the Ackland
While at the Ackland Museum for the Circa 1958 show, we came upon special recreations of four wonderful participatory pieces in the same room.

Allan Kaprow’s untitled piece, which dominates the room, is made from chicken wire, a step ladder and newspaper — the idea is that the piece exists only for the length of the show then is gone, except for notes about its creation.

Robert Morris’ Box with the sound of its own making is a sealed crafted smooth box with a long tape loop inside. The sound on the tape loop is the sound recording during the construction of the box itself.

George Brecht’s Three Chair Events (1961) places three chairs in the museum in various places. Originally one outside, one in the gallery and one in the bathroom, but for this show in various rooms in the museum. The public is invited to sit on the chairs and “observe” what’s happening around you.

The fourth and most fun is Yoko Ono’s remake of her early Painting to hammer a nail in. The reimagined version is not much like the recreation seen here on the blog, but is a special Ackland Circa 1958 version.

The Ackland version is a gold framed mirror film covered piece of wood with the invitation “Yoko Ono invites you to drive a nail in the mirror.” This opportunity is made realizable by a wooden handled hammer attached to the easel by a gold chain and a box full of nails built into the easel frame.

More like the original than the Ackland version

The tilted mirror was pretty well full of nails of all sizes and shapes by the time we arrived (the show ends January 4th). But we managed not only to get our nails in the mirror but whilst driving them in, we discovered a secret sonic dimension to the Yoko Ono mirror piece.

By dropping a nail, from the top of the piece, you get some very nice random but not unpleasing tones as the nail bounces among its secured cousins like a musical Pachinko ball. Two to four nails released together still give musical results; any more and you attract the negative attention of the room’s guard.

Note: I’m interested in doing an homage/recreation/reimagining of Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts within the next year and am planning now. Join me here and bring your ideas.

Library Raves = Growing Phenom?

UNC at Charlotte folks picked up on the UNC – Chapel Hill flash mob/rave in the library scene almost to the letter.

University of Virginia also flash raved in their library on December 12 in pale imitation of Chapel Hill’s earlier library rave:

College of Charleston may have been the first to follow Chapel Hill:

In my day we did this without wearing clothes…

Lessig pwned and moving East

Larry Lessig tweets that his “site has been hacked, so some big news of the day is posted at jz’s: http://ping.fm/Kx1vp

A quick look at the http://lessig.org sites shows that some hidden gambling spam was added to his site resulting in that site becoming dropped by Google. Seems to work for me now.

Unrelated is the more important announcement posted on Jonathan Zittrain’s “Future of the Internet and How To Stop It” site.
The quick version: Lessig is leaving Stanford and heading back to Harvard to start directing the Safra Center on ethics at the Law School.

Boyle on the Public Domain and “I got a woman” with history

The Public Domain
James Boyle’s new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind, is out from Yale University Press and for free download. His site for the book (see link on book name) is chocked full of video and other great supporting materials.

Jamie introduced me to many of the Creative Commons concepts via his earlier groundbreaking book, Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. After reading that book in 1996, I managed to get Jamie, Mark Hosler (of Negativland) and the late Anne Branscomb (author of Who Owns Information) up to Charlottesville, Va to speak to the Wahoos. Jamie was such a hit (all three were each in their own way) that the Federalist Society invited him to be one of their speakers. This lead to one of my favorite Boyle moments. In his self-introduction, he said “If we transposed political positions onto the map of the United States, the Federalist Society would be in Maine and I would be somewhere to the west of Honolulu, so you should be skeptical of the arguments I put forward.”

Boyle delivered a great talk at Duke last week which you can watch here: “A Song’s Tale: Mashups, Borrowing and the Law” (requires RealPlayer or on YouTube below). This talk links copyright to gospel music, Ray Charles, Kanye West, Hurricane Katrina and Jesus to a good woman and a gold-digger (for starters).

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