November 2013
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How to rescue radio
Radio used to be wireless audio on a broadcast band. That’s still the short version of every dictionary definition. But now radio is streamed audio. That was already the case when webcasting* showed up in the ’90s, and even more so with the rise of Last.fm, SiriusXM, Pandora, rdio, Spotify and every other audio service delivered over… Continue reading
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Weekend Reading
In order of closing tabs: I hope my father dies soon. By Scott Adams. Strong shit. Stoic Week. Too late to participate, but not to be stoic. PeeperPeeper Catches Who Has Been Snooping on Your Private Messages. Yo, mall rats: Facebook and Cisco in Wi-Fi hookup to track your retail, social life. “Swap your data… Continue reading
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Linkings
Science, Tech & Politics A spectator’s view of the JFK funeral procession. (Shot by old friend Donald Hughes.) A photographer for his high-school yearbook, Hughes decided he had to document the passage of the president’s coffin on its horse-drawn caisson as it made its way from the White House to the Capitol on Nov. 25, 1963. … Continue reading
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Revisiting the last great comet
With Comet Ison on the horizon (but out of sight until it finishes looping around the Sun), I thought it might be fun to re-run what I wrote here in 1997 (in my blog-before-there-were-blogs), about the last great comet to grace Earth’s skies. — Doc Ordinary Miracles: Start Your Day With Comet Hale-Bopp Graphic by Dr. Dale… Continue reading
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Sunday reading
A short list today, posted from a plane about to depart for London from Newark… Culture Eminönü Waterfront, Istanbul: Invented Traditions, Pickles in Cups, Grilled Mackerel Sandwiches, and the Pitfalls of Nostgia. By Stephen Lewis in Bubkes. About the realization that most “national” traditions — be they architectural, musical, dance, culinary, sartorial, folkloric, etc. —… Continue reading
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Link pile-up
Photography Snowcrystals.com, by Ken Libbrecht of Caltech. Follow the links. Amazing stuff. Alexey Kltijov‘s also amazing snowflake shots, with an explanation of technique Freedom vs. Surveillance Eben Moglen: Snowden and the Future. Three brilliant speeches so far, with one more to come. Are access and correction tools, opt-out buttons, and privacy dashboards the right solutions to… Continue reading
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The most important Kickstarter ever
Fuse is more than a device and a smartphone app to go with it. The world is full of those already. Fuse is the first product in the digital age that can blow up every one of the silos built to trap personal data and limit personal independence. Fuse does that by putting you — literally… Continue reading
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A toast to strong women
Grandma Searls‘ footstone says “1882 – ” and is hardly and overstatement. She died pushing 108 in 1990, and was lucid, loving and strong in all the ways that matter. She was one of four sisters in her family. That’s them, with their dad, on the left. Grandma is the one on the bottom right.… Continue reading
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News with a Fuse
Culture Bubkes.org: Waterside Commerce, Istanbul: Cotton Candy Vendor At Day’s End and Waterside Commerce, Istanbul: Flower Vendor with Coat to Match. (Which get my votes for a perfect posts.) Prose in prison. By Andrew Sullivan. Source: Letters from Incarcerated Writers, by Andrea Jones in The American Reader. Perspectives Life on the Forked Road. By yours… Continue reading
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Wanted: Just-the-Facts Maps
In Google sets out future for Maps — Lays down gauntlet to Nokia with plans for personalized, context-aware and ’emotional’ maps in future, in Rethink Wireless, Caroline Gabriel begins this way: Google may be feeling the heat from an unlikely source, Nokia, at least in its critical Maps business. The search giant has put location awareness… Continue reading
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Is it too late to save the Net from the carriers?
In Big Cable’s Sauron-Like Plan for One Infrastructure to Rule Us All, Susan Crawford (@SCrawford) paints a bleak picture of what awaits us after television (aka cable) finishes eating the Internet. But that’s just in our homes. Out in the mobile sphere, telcos have been eating the Net as well — in collusion with cable.… Continue reading
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News to Use
Privacy vs. Surveillance On the privacy side: Surf safely with Web Pal. From Emmett Global and Customer Commons. Surveillance and Internet Identity. Francisco Correla in Pomcor. How to erase yourself from the Internet. By Andrew Tarantola in Gizmodo. Naked Capitalism: NSA Whistleblower: Government Failed to Stop Boston Bombing Because It Was Overwhelmed with Data from Mass Surveillance… Continue reading
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Shooting sundown showdown
I shot the sunset above a couple days ago in New Hampshire. Here’s another from the same set: And another: And another: And another: And another: Which are best? Are any really good? Or all of them? Or none? Some are obviously enhanced with digital tools: adjusted in brightness, contrast, exposure, color balance, vibrance, detail,… Continue reading
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Wheat vs. Chaff
John Havens has an excellent piece in Mashable titled “It’s Your Data — But Others Are Making Billions Off It.” In a Web overflowing with chaff, it’s a fine grain of wheat. But it’s also camouflaged by chaff posing as wheat. I can tell, because I was interviewed for the piece, which links back to… Continue reading