Accept no substitutes

Author: Paul (Page 87 of 147)

Israelis twice as geeky as Americans?

Rick Smith sends this report from comscore about world-wide Internet use.

Among the interesting findings is that

[Of] the top 15 countries ranked by average hours spent online per visitor for March 2006, as a measure of engagement[,] Israel led the list, with the average user spending 57.5 hours online during the month — twice as much time compared to the average person in the U.S., which did not rank in the top 15 countries. Rounding out the top 5 were Finland, South Korea, the Netherlands and Taiwan — all countries with high broadband penetration.

Failure to pursue a national policy on broadband access has cost the US much of our lead in world-wide Internet services. A variety of nation policy directions in the top 5 countries (and in China) has created economic and social benefits to their citizens.

On other findings, MSN, Google and Yahoo! lead in both unique access and in page views. MSN being first in accesses. Yahoo! leading in page views. Google is second in both categories. But Wikipedia has shown the greatest growth in both areas.

comscore’s site version of the press release “694 Million People Currently Use the Internet Worldwide According To comScore Networks” is on their site.

The Watcher Returns in Marvel’s Civil War

Whose Side Are You On
The Marvel world is split in two. Billionaire industralist Tony Stark aka Iron Man is pushing for strong security to the point of putting other superheroes in Gitmo-like prison. Captain America is all about defending civil liberties and freedom for the heroes. What brought this Civil War, as the new Marvel series is called, on?

According to Wikipedia:

“The story opens with a reckless fight between the New Warriors, filming a reality television show, and a cadre of villains in Stamford, Connecticut. The battle goes awry for the heroes, resulting in villain Nitro creating an explosion that takes out a local school, the surrounding neighborhood, and all but one of the New Warriors. This event crystallizes a government movement to register all super-powered beings as living weapons of mass destruction.”

The most interesting reappearance to me is that of the Watcher. The Globe and Mail reports that Dr. Strange will explain: “He [The Watcher] only appears to record moments of great change and enormous upheaval. His presence now does not bode well.”

Chick Lit? The good and the bad and the inappropriately dressed

Bridget Morton writes to the Warren Wilson grads list that she has come to appreciate romance writing, that romance is the largest selling genre, that romance deserves NY Times reviews if ever mystery does, that romance seriously and sometimes humorously challenges the patriarchy, that reading romance makes you thinner, that romance …

Of course I agree. Most people don’t realize this but I was actually a romance cover model and the author of a couple of romance novels (with a friend) under my nom de chest exposure, Fabio.

Open Source Software for Public Health

In a conversation a minute ago with some one who asked “If you wanted to run a Public Health Department on Open Source Software, what would you use?”
Other than Linux as the servers and maybe Ubantu desktops, I was stuck. I’ll be looking for answers, but if you have any suggestions — particularly those that are specific to public health systems — please let me know.

Facebook to add 1000 corporate networks

According to TechCrunch, Facebook will be available at certain corporations much on the same terms (for users) as it is at universities; that is, users with an email address ending in a certain way can network with others. Say billg@microsoft.com would be in the microsoft.com facebook if such a network were to exist for microsoft.com.

Will Facebook have the same impact in a company as it does at a university?

LRW Knowledge Trust in Granada

Who was there:

Warning to Visiting Professors

The only instruction sheet left in my room at the Colegio Mayor Cardenal Cisneros told me about meal times and following that was a warning in four languages (Spanish, English, French and German):

Our visiting professors are kindly requested not to stay in short trousers, swimming trunks or tracksuits in common areas of the Colegio Mayor. We appreciate your collaboration.
Visitors must be received only in the lobby or in the Bar.

Beyond Broadcast at Berkman

I’ll be up in Boston next week for the Beyond Broadcast conference held by Harvard’s Berkman Center. The schedule looks great. I’m on a panel called:

What the emerging participatory web media services are doing

* This is a panel of ‘web-only media’- emergent participatory and social media entrepreneurs. This is a vibrant and growing field with new entrants seemingly coming ever day. From Our Media to YouTube, Odeo to BrightCove, Conversations Network to Global Voices – people are using new media to facilitate citizen participation not just through text and blogging but now with digital audio and video. Is this the future of public media? What are the opportunities for cross-pollination with public broadcasting? What is the nature of this ‘third zone’ of media that is not quite commercial or noncommercial, public or mainstream?

Panelists include; Lynne D. Johnson (videoblogger), Bill Gannon (Yahoo!), Paul Jones (ibiblio). Moderator: Peter Armstrong (OneWorld.net)

I’ve also proposed a Birds of a Feather discussion for Friday night’s dinner to extend the conversation called something like: Brainstorm: What technologies and practices will define the next media revolutions?
Which I describe thusly:

Some of this will come from the discussionn by the panels, but others will not have had time to gestate and will need to be made clearer in discussion with others who are passionate and imaginative. Not just tech. Not ideas without tech. But the interaction of personal, social and technical. But what? Bring your opinions and your guesses and your visions.

So if you’ll be in the Cambridge area come on by the conference and sign up for the BoF dinner. We’ll talk and–more importantly–listen.

Also if you have ideas on what should not be left out on the panel or at the BoF, let me know and I’ll do my best to get your ideas and concerns heard.

Poet’s Revenge

Fredrico Garcia Lorca was fast becoming the best poet and playwright from Granada and from all of Spain when the fortune of Spain took a spin toward right wing revolution and civil war. The local “Black Squad,” Falangists of the worst sort, executed Lorca for being a leftist, a homosexual and a poet in August of 1937.

But time takes it’s turn and after years of no Lorca in Spain but much Lorca elsewhere, Granada has been celebrating Lorca with parks, festivals, play revivals and museums. At the South end of town, there is a lovely city park with a Lorca Museum, but more true to the spirit of Lorca the park has become a new beach. There the young people of Granada bask in the sun in a celebration of youth and of life among the tall trees and flowers.

There were even children’s books about Lorca for sale in the various tourist shops all over Granada and in the airport at Madrid.

No where did I see a monument to the Falange or to Franco. But there is still an active Falangist Party in Granada. For some reason they “black out” the eyes of many of the people on their own website.

Vote Today

I may be in the wrong timezone still at least particially, but I did go vote today for judges and for the Orange County Commissioners. You should to.

At University of Granada

I’ve spent the day with meetings of the Louis Round Wilson Knowledge Trust meetings — so far. I’m now on a debate/talk with Nicole Wong of Google about economic and market effects of openness. I’ll be drawing on James Boyle’s Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society and on Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom and on Koleman Strumpf’s work on the market effect of file-sharing (that is none).

Virtues of Wandering

As a result of wandering, I ended up having a nice talk with Lynne Brindley and her husband Tim as we sat out under the shade by the river looking up at the Alhambra. Luckily I had Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks handy so’s I could refer to the chart on page 340 on patent revenues. We talked about more than that but that was a part of the talk. That and the Saint and James Bond amongst other things.

Also met up with Hafez Modirzadeh, who is here for the year on a Fullbright. Hafez is a musician and a scholar of music. We’ll catch up over coffee on Sunday.

Shower before dinner with the Louis Round Wilson Knowledge Trust folks.

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