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Category: Alumni and other friends (Page 35 of 38)

Soul Notes – this weekend

Soul Notes w/Creighton
Sally describes Crieghton Irons’ musical “Soul Notes” which will be produced this coming Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at the Kenan Theater in the Center for Dramatic Arts on the UNC campus.

“Soul Notes” is “the musical result of scores of personal interviews that [Creighton] conducted in Jamaica, South Africa, and the American South. These interviews, most of them with black and white musicians, explore the big issues surrounding race in intimate and vulnerable ways. Backed by a full rock band, a talented cast of 20 from all corners of UNC’s campus brings these interviews to life with the sounds of reggae, blues, rock, gospel, and bluegrass. “

UPDATE: Chapel Hill News did a nice long feature on “Soul Notes” today.

Louis St Lewis is a trouble-maker

Beautiful Thoughts
Louis St Lewis is a self-confessed trouble-maker of the delightfully artistic sort. Each Louis art opening is a little event of its own, but today’s opening at Tyndall Galleries was more special than most. For one thing, there was more of Louis’ work and the work is quite different from his collages and his early bone assemblies. But Louis, who was dressed in a sort of old Europe suit with thick pinned tie overdraped by a silk kimono, was in no way subdued. He relishes his status of bad boy in his bio and in his art. This work seems more pleasant to live with than his self-portrait in blood that inspired the Archbishop of Charleston to denounce Louis and to help him garner some serious attention both Good and Evil.
Painted Pony (Grande)
He is still a scavenger and an innovator. Several pieces in this show were drawn on linoleum tile that was pulled up from his studio floor. The textures and colors are so lovely and so appropriate that you do not think floor for even one second.
For more images of Louis’ work at Tyndall’s, go here, but better drop by the Gallery to appreciate the scale of the work.

UPDATE: Sylvia and Jane sent some pictures of the opening for is to enjoy.

Words of the Year 2004

Just now getting the finalists and the winners of the Words of the Year 2004 from the American Dialect Society (Thanks Connie). The votes were taken on January 7, 2005 in Oakland, CA.

Word of the Year

  • red state, blue state, purple state, n., together, a representation of the American political map. 36
  • Nominated:

  • flip-flopper, n, a politician who changes political stances; a waffler. 11
  • mash-up, n., a blend of two songs or albums into a single cohesive musical work. 2
  • meet-up, n., a local special interest meeting organized through a national web site. 2
  • wardrobe malfunction, n., an unanticipated exposure of bodily parts. 19

Most Useful

  • WINNER: phish, v., to acquire passwords or other private information (of an individual, an account, a web site, etc.) via a digital ruse. Noun form: phishing. 47
  • backdoor draft, n., the filling of military jobs through reactivation of former troops or through forced enlistment extensions known as stop-loss orders. 16
  • blog- as a prefix or combinging form in making other words: blogosphere, blognoscenti, blogarrhea. 1
  • fetch, adj., cool or stylish, from the movie Mean Girls. 11

Most Creative

  • WINNER: pajamahadeen, n., bloggers who challenge and fact-check traditional media. 36/52
  • hillbilly armor, n., scavenged materials used by soldiers for improvised bullet-proofing and vehicle hardening, esp. in Iraq. 11
  • lawn mullet, n., a yard neatly mowed in front but unmowed in the back. 29/27
  • nerdvana, n., geeks really geeking out; collaborative geekiness. 6.5

Most Unnecessary

  • WINNER: carb-friendly, adj., low in carbohydrates. 38/50
  • -based as in reality-based, faith-based. 14
  • erototoxin, n., a (nonexistent) chemical released in the brain of a person looking at pornography. 17/26
  • stalkette, n., a female stalker. 10

Most Outrageous

  • WINNER: santorum, n., the frothy residue of lube and fecal matter which sometimes is the result of anal sex. 3
  • clone and kill, n., raising a crop of humans for parts. 6
  • douche chill, n., interjection used to break a sudden silence after a verbal faux pas. 9
  • Jesusland, n., the country which will be the rump US after the blue states have seceded and joined Canada. 13

Most Euphemistic

  • WINNER: badly sourced, adj., false. 50
  • angel, n., a soldier killed in action. 7
  • partner reduction, n., divorce or severing of a romantic relationship. 2
  • wardrobe malfunction, n., unanticipated exposure of bodily parts. 15

Most Likely To Succeed

  • WINNER: red, blue, and purple states, n., the American political map. 21/46
  • krunked, n., cool, crazy. 2
  • mash-up, n., a blend of two songs or albums into a single cohesive musical work. 23/22
  • meet-up, n., a local special interest meeting organized through a national web site. 16
  • orange revolution, n., the recent Ukrainian political crisis. 5

Least Likely To Succeed

  • WINNER: FLOHPA, n., collectively, the states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, said to have been important in the 2004 American presidential election. From the postal codes for the three states: FL, OH, and PA. 41
  • holy toast, n., a grilled cheese with the image of the Virgin Mary, sold on eBay. 23
  • luanqibaozhao, n., Chinese for a complicated mess. 8
  • security mom, n., a female voter said to vote according to the protection of her family. 2

The unintentional Gates d’ ibiblio

Not Bill Gates but more the Gates of Christo done on the cheap. The effort, struggle really, to rewire Manning Hall to conform to some standard which I do not completely understand has finally reached our office here at ibiblio. As a result, we are mostly working from home, the library or at secret places where I’d rather not be aware of (being the boss).
The aesthetic effect on the office is not to be ignored. It can’t be ignored. Here are a few quick shots for your viewing pleasure. If only the plastic were orange. But then the grey translucent goes better with our office color scheme.

Save the Orphaned Works

Larry Lessig writes to many of us and asks us to pass on his call to bring attention to works that are under copyright, but are out of print and whose owners cannot be found. eldred.cc gives the details and gives a call to action.

Lessig’s letter follows:

Sorry about the intrusion, but an important opportunity has come up for you to have a positive impact on the direction of copyright law and I wanted to let you know about it directly.

Thanks to some prodding by a couple of great US Senators, the copyright office is currently considering whether to recommend changes to copyright law that will make it easier and cheaper for you to use “orphaned works” — works that remain under copyright but whose “owner” can’t be found. As many of you have written me, this is a real problem that affects thousands of innovative people every year. But the copyright office still needs some convincing.

To convince them, we need your help. If you have a relevant story, or a perspective that might help the Copyright Office evaluate this issue, I would be grateful if you took just a few minutes to write an email telling them your story. The most valuable submissions will make clear the practical burden the existing system creates. (One of my favorite stories is about a copy-shop’s refusal to enlarge a 60 year old photo from an elementary school year book for a eulogy because the copyright owner couldn’t be found.) Describe instances where you wanted to use a work, but couldn’t find the owner to ask permission. Explain how that impacted your ability to create. Or pass this email on to someone who you know might have a useful story to add.

The Copyright Office is already overworked and understaffed, so I’m not asking that you stuff their inbox with demands for action, or anything like that. They are not Congress. They are not even the FCC. Their role here is as fact-finder, so “just the facts, ma’am.” (Oops, do I need permission to use that?)

Everything you need to do this is online at http://eldred.cc. We’ve explained exactly what the copyright office is asking for, how and where to submit your email, and provided some examples of stories we’ve heard from others about how their creativity has been stalled when they’ve tried to use orphan works. If you have questions, there’s a contact email there for people who can help you out.

In spite of my usual pessimism, I think we have a real opportunity here to move the law in a positive direction. Please help us “promote the Progress of Science” (and that text is in the public domain), by showing the Copyright Office where unnecessary regulation hampers progress.

The Economist on Benkler on Sharing

David Bollier of On the Commons points us to The Economist (February 3, 2004) where an article in Economic Focus “The economics of sharing” gives the nod to Yochai Benkler‘s more complexly argued piece “Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the Emergence of Sharing as a Modality of Economic Production” [PDF] in the Yale Law Journal (November 2004).
David tells us that the Economist “expresses some surprise at the idea that ‘social sharing’ via electronic networks has become a potent sector of economic production right up there with markets and the state.”
On the Commons is full of pointers to other good readings in open source and open society.

McGuinn now all in MP3

Roger McGuinn writes to say that all of the over 100 songs in his Folk Den are now converted to mp3 format. When he started in November 1995, we had to use .wav and .ra. This really limited the places you could play the songs. But with mp3 you have a lot of flexibility.
Roger began putting up one folk song every month almost 10 years ago and hasn’t stopped yet. There are a lot of nice surprises along the way including a trio of Roger, Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry playing and singing “Sloop John B” November 2004, Frank Hamilton (once of the Weavers) singing with Roger on “Brazos River” January 1999, and a vintage tape of Roger (then Jim) at age 16 playing “John Henry” August 1998.
All the songs are under Creative Commons licenses.

Direct from Darfur

Mark McCarthy writes that he’ll be in town mid-day Monday February 28 through the evening of Tuesday March 1 on leave from the UN group in Darfur. This means he will not be here during my class time, but we’ll be working on setting up a time when he can give a talk and share his experiences and insight on running an IT operation in the midst of a serious humanitarian crisis.

Watch this space for details of his upcoming visit/talk.

He writes:

I can discuss my role as the Data Coordinator in the Humanitarian Information Center (HIC) for Darfur. We are part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Our role is to fill the information gaps that are present at the early stages of a humanitarian crisis.

I am the number 2 in the office. My manager deals with all the politics, planning, and headaches that I am glad to avoid. I have a team of 3 internationals and 3 national staff. In Darfur, the most immediate need was mapping. We needed to help the humanitarian actors get to the areas of need. They needed to know where the internally displaced persons (IDPs) were and how to reach them. Then we focused on mapping the needs in different regions and who was working to cover those needs.

The stage of the emergency we are at now has us beginning to take a hard look at information gathering and sharing amongst the agencies. Our mapping is pretty complete and we are shifting as appropriate.

Here is a link to information about HICs in general.

Podcasting in NYTimes

Life is not fair — and it wouldn’t take much to make it fairer. Dave Winer invents the code and the idea of adding a payload to RSS. (in 2001)He and Adam Curry shake down the details and promote the idea as podcasting. Today, it’s a front page story on the NYTimes (Saturday below the fold, but who wouldn’t be delighted with that). And the story only mentions Dave and Adam once in two www pages.

Since August, when Adam Curry, a former MTV video jockey, and David Winer, an early Web log writer, developed the podcasting technology, 3,075 podcasts have sprung up around the world, according to a Web site, Ipodder.org, that offers downloads of podcasting software.

The story is about odd content and about “control” neither Adam nor Dave get a quote. The story may want to be an everyman can do radio, but it’s more of the these silly people who can’t work from a script or edit want to do radio about God and cooking. The Times knows podcasting is important, but they give it the pajama treatment (I am writing this in my pajamas).

Jones-mania (literary version)

Just got email from Jan Hensley who is doing a photo display of writers from North Carolina saying that he, his camera and my old buddy poet Ann Deagon would be coming here next week so’s he can add my photo to his show. He’ll be putting together a show of photos and first books for the North Carolina Writers Conference in July. My only book, What the Welsh and Chinese Have in Common, has some age on it, but it’s also been sold out since it was published in 1990. You can read it online where it’s been since 1992.
Some more recent poems are “Unapproachable Edens,” “Birds and Fishes,” and “Dividing Waters (1954)”.

Geek’s Guide to Understanding Women

One of the amusements of being on the staff/board of the Linux Documentation Project is that we get documents that proport to be of interest to Linux folks that are actually odd looks-into the undeveloped minds of the authors. Often I cannot tell irony from confusion, humor from confession, insight from misstep.

One such document arrived today from (confused, confessing, or comprehensive) Canadian author, Dustin Harriman.

This 25-page HOWTO is called:
“Female Protocol HOWTO: A Geek’s Guide to Understanding Women”
Download the OpenOffice Document here
…or, alternatively there is an online HTML version here

This somehow syncs with the “meet-up” and “life on Mars” articles today.

Gillmor visit things that happened

Friday. Got to hang with Dave Winer for lunch and for a little look at ibiblio. John explained Osprey (for enabling bitTorrent). Got Dave lined up with Ruby and Brian for the evening. A very good connection for all of them.
Dinner with Anton, John E, Phil and Sue Meyers, Fred and Sally and Dan Gillmor. Good to see Phil and Dan reconnect and to hear them talk about the future of news. The rest of us were interesting too, but these two are the ones.

Saturday. Bloggers Con. Much written on this below and on the wiki. Successful beyond our wildest hopes.
Lunch with Henry Copeland (of Blogads) at Allen and Son. Others had escaped to Franklin Street. But we needed to give Dan a culural experience.
Dinner that night with Dan, Dave, Ruby, Brian, and Carrboro Alderman Mark Chilton at Tallula’s (see Conis entry). Good talk of wireless networks, towns, blogging and new technologies including podcasting.

Sunday. Off to G’boro to visit the folks at the News and Record where John Robinson and Lex Alexander are leading the paper into new areas of interactivity, transparency and citizen involvement. JR and Lex had invited local bloggers as well.
Good to spend time with Ed Cone and to have an expansive discussion of G’boro history and futures with him.
Dinner with faculty from SILS and JOMC — Jeff Pomerantz, Tom Kelleher, Deborah Barreau and Martin Kuhn (Martin is a PhD student who will be faculty soon enough). Talk here about new Public Relations developments through blogging and the net. Ethics. News libraries and access to archives and law.

Monday. Dan visited my class on Emerging Tech and Issues. The class has read his book and so Dan could also talk about his view of Silicon Valley and the future of jobs in tech and the internationization of all things tech especially.
This led nicely into a lunch with Matthew Szulik of Red Hat. Matthew was just back from India. Good talk about internationalization, open source attitudes outside the USA, varieties of attitudes toward intellectual properties and the like.
Got to spend more time with Matthew and even got to hear TJ explain the differences between covers, mash-ups and remixes.
Fred explained Lyceum to Dan.
Dan’s talk drew a nice crowd even on a rainy afternoon. He went over what he means by citizen journalism and about information sharing in the form of news. Good discussion followed and went on before I had to cut it off at 5:15.
Exceptional evening with Jennifer O’Bryan, Megan Barrett, Frank Daniels, Bob Young and Brett Dougherty. I cannot begin to capture all the good fellowship and talk that was had. I can say that few Americans can carry on such an indepth discussion of Canadian Football or even more specifically of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as can Brett. I am impressed in a very odd way. Bob, who owns the TiCats, had as you might imagine some amusing insights into the business of Canadian Football. I was sorry to hear that the TiCats’ mascot Bengal Tiger had passed on.

Gillmor visit

Just winding up a good and long visit with Dan Gillmor. Not only was it great to meet Dan and to spend time with him, but I also managed to catch up with some old friends and to meet some new neighbors and to get a peek inside the experiment at creating and maintaining an online town square at the News and Record.
I’ll be spending most of today catching up with the work that I set off to the side while spending the good time with Dan and others. But that is a a small cost.
The folks that work at ibiblio really made the whole, occassionally complex, visit a delight by digging in and helping out often above and beyond the call and by being creative and smart about it all.
We should have Dan’s talk online shortly and the bloggers con as well.
Dan’s ideas about how to help organize citizen journalists and how to make news more of a conversation are world-changing, but built on close observation and exerience reporting on technologies in Silicon Valley.

Dan Gillmor Today at 3:30

We’ve been having a great visit with Dan Gillmor, author of We The Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People this weekend.
Today Dan will be speaking to my class in Emerging Technologies and Issues.
Then later today:

Dan Gillmor public talk
We the Media: Grassroots Journalism for the People, by the People
Monday February 14, 3:30
Freedom Forum Conference Center
Carroll Hall, UNC
Learn More

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