Archive for the 'General' Category

how do you teach majong players to use the internet quips barney

i’m wathching the stream of barney’s hearing
how is this being recorded
will it be edited
how and when is edit happening
what tools have we now to bring truth up to time

compulsive gambling at a game of skill
think about it
what is that
i don’t believe the compulsive gambler epithet thrown at poker
show me a compulsive learner of skill i show you a student
i am a student expressing truth
thinking poker is a way of thinking about truth
mainline to the necker cube
the riddle of three hats
poker a game three can play

opening witnesses good

they open with security
technology of the filters to keep the children out fails twenty percent of the time
teenagers fighting to get in to bars with fake id’s and fighting to play poker online
curious witness

now religion reverend hogan
son in jail for robbing a bank
the black hole of addiction
this can’t be real
i have to meet this kid
hey greg
you’ve got a friend out here
you need pokertracker and a lot of help from 2+2
either that or you are pathalogically stupid
which, as i think of it, is a possibility

cute guy with curly gray hair looking up and talking aristotle
let’s look at what our society is wanting
look at society wanting to play poker
who is calling the shots in the society of those who don’t want us to play
distinguish games of chance from games of skill
who pays the bills of those who put the opposition witnesses together
how is the program put together
who makes the witness list

i’m fighting for freedom to play poker
the law as old as momammed divides between gambling and games of skill
here it is simple
gambling on lotteries is irrational from any rational gambler’z point of view
games of chance give hope and take money at bad odds
playing games of skill is how you learn

maam congresswoman from indiana nails it
how can you bet a race horse race over internet and not bet poker
how do you know what party i’m in
you’re on that side of the room
why do we have pockets in our country in which locals can decide they don’t want to learn
folds fraid their man gonna gamble off their paycheck before they bring it home
who is this wonderful lady
the gentle woman from indiana

i’m for a constitutional right to play internet poker
i claim a right of expression to play poker with anyone and everyone on the net
i claim a right to learn and teach poker as researcher and professor
i am eon
dean of cyberspace
this is my school
i make it ours

gotta go get stiches out
***
email
Benjamin Decker
to me, Andrew, Zander

show details
10:45 am (2 hours ago)
Hi Professor Nesson. My Dad forwarded over your response.

How are you feeling? I hope well! I was so sorry to hear about your back. To be honest, when we first heard, we weren’t sure if it was real — after your avatarial address, we were half expecting you to scooter in on one wheel through the back door! Again though, thank you so much for inviting us to the conference. It really was amazing.

I stole the Goldsmith and Wu book from my Dad, and there’s one quote I thought worth sharing. It’s a John Barlow:

“Imagine discovering a continent so vast that it may have no end to its dimensions. Imagine a new world with more resources than all our future greed might exhaust, more opportunities than there will ever be entrepreneurs enough to exploit, and a peculiar kind of real estate that expands with development.” And “imagine a place where trespassers leave no footprints, where goods can be stolen an infinite number of times and yet remain in the possession of their original owners, where businesses you never heard of can own the history of your personal affairs, where only the children feel completely at home, where the physics is that of thought rather than things, and where everyone is as virtual as the shadows in Plato’s Cave”

Have you seen this one? What’s on the table here I think is definitely *both* (and equally) cyberspace and virtual space (by which I mean the web and metaverse constructions respectively).

Best wishes, and feel well!
Ben

think of our rhetorical space as 0.0 space
best idea wins
every time there is a fight
with judges drawn from the those who hear

the article in the new york times excites
democracy as a business plan compelled by an open environment
hello eve born again from adam

let the same offer be made by internet poker
run clean out in the open
including what you or what runs the code
what u make and where it goes
clean game from bottom up
let us see constitution

my email for today

andrew, i love your thought. i am forwarding this on to terry fisher and john palfrey. we have been thinking ourselves that we are coming up to the tenth anniversary of the founding of the berkman center, and feel the possibility of synergy here.

On 6/7/07, Decker, Andrew (Exchange) wrote:

I have been reading Jack Goldsmith ‘s and Tim Wu ‘s book ” Who Controls the Internet ” and noted that the tenth anniversary of ACLU v. Reno is coming up at the end of the month (June 26th ). Goldsmith and W u observed about this decision: “With Reno, the idea of an unregulated and post-territorial Internet seemed to many to have migrated from kooky obscurity to the law of the United States as announced by America ‘s highest court. ”

I also note an article in today ‘s edition of the New York Times titled “In a V irtual Universe, The Politics Turn Real ” (page E1 of the NY metro edition; copy attached in case you have not seen it).

I mentioned these to my son Benjamin Decker (who I think you know) and suggested that the 10 th anniversary of Reno might mark an appropriate moment to consider various issues relating to the developing of synthetic worlds in some sort of virtual forum. Although the time is short to organize something, perhaps there might be some benefit to hosting something online that could provide material for an upcoming piece in the Harvard Interactive Media Review. Some topics that might be worth addressing include :

1. Do terrestrial governments — those “weary giants of flesh and steel ” (Goldsmith and Wu) — have jurisdiction in cyberspace/virtual worlds, and/or should they?

2. Can and should virtual worlds be governed by independent, potentially more-democratic organizational forms of organically grown “govern ment” ? Would such governance be in lieu of RL governmental procedures or would the re be overlapping jurisdiction? If overlapping, how does Reno shape or define at least the boundaries i n the US?

3. As my son observes, assuming the need for an independent, novel form of governance, what kind…Engineer-Kings ; the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF ) ; a panel of luminaries such as Larry Roberts, Robert Kahn, Vint Cerf, Jon Postel, Dave Clark ; Distributed-Cognition Anarchy? Should a government be open, minimalist, and neutral serving mainly as an arbiter of disputes and enforcer of rules or should it pursue some agenda based on some consensus developed in some manner within the community ?

4. How would such a “government ” derive and maintain its legitimacy? What are the means by which it exercises powers of governance to enforce its authority/decisions?

5. H ow would a synthetic government fit within the tapestry of local, national and international governmental authorities? How would the ” laws” of a “government ” in one synthetic world correlate to those of another (perhaps a synthetic UN or League of Nations)?

I know it is very short notice but the topic seems ripe for attention.

Regards,

H. Andrew Decker
Senior Managing Director
Chairman, Global Telecom Group

what is the puzzle you are trying to solve

juan carlos and irene coming over to wish me well before flying to torino. we are teachers wanting to teach the world who see that we have means both to do it and to organize the doing of it. nicolas negroponte super hero, elegant in vision and making it happen.

they come to the door, pour wine for themselves in the kitchen, then come up here to the den where i feel most comfortable.

juan carlos starts with paen to anne margulies. she epitomizes what it means not to cheat. she has done the job of bringing university open crossing every legal T. She has the confidence of facts and of accomplishment.

Forwarded Conversation
Subject: dance master
————————

From: SchalickJ @aol.com
To: nesson @law.harvard.edu
Date: Mon, Jun 4, 2007 at 11:17 AM

Charlie, having watched you dance since 1998,… being totally hip-switched in my old age….I really missed you at Ames because your youthful mind keeps us all on our toes one way or the other.

We all did miss you. Spoke to Ogletree and we all know dancers win.

What struck me was the universal awareness that you ‘dance’ mentally in a way we all make best efforts to follow. Wishing you well in life’s dance. In your honor….as dance master….I talked first to a BBC World pal online (Humphrey Hawksley) then to Zittrain at Oxford. Berkman deserves … a keener awareness than is inside the Beltway or WhiteHall.

Cheers, and mend well.

Judy
Judith A. Schalick, LLC
Communications Strategies
“Putting People and Ideas Together”
Email: schalickj@ aol.com

See what’s free at AOL.com.

——–
From: Charles Nesson
To: “SchalickJ @aol.com”
Date: Mon, Jun 4, 2007 at 12:03 PM

what a nice note. thanks so much.
—
when appropriate (in my judgment) to an open project and not sensitive (in my judgment) in terms of privacy, i may post email to my blog. all privacy requests respected.

——–

lying back again now monday after is2k7 i realize what a lovely correspondence i have to carry on. i show my class john belushi dancing on his colleagues graves in the winter snow.

Forwarded Conversation
————————

From: Williams, Jeremy
To: nesson @law.harvard.edu
Date: Wed, May 30, 2007 at 11:31 PM

Charlie,

Terribly sorry that you cannot attend the conference you worked so hard to create, but of course hope reason isn’t serious and passes quickly. All the best.

——–
From: Charles Nesson
To: “Williams, Jeremy”
Date: Sat, Jun 2, 2007 at 11:43 PM

Jeremy, I am finally out from under percocet. No doubt you’ve long since returned to L.A. I am so sorry I could not hang out with you some while you were here. I would dearly love to get your reactions to the conference and your thoughts on next steps. It’s amazing to me that I have so little idea about what actually happened.
Fond regards,
-charlie
[Quoted text hidden]
—
when appropriate (in my judgment) to an open project and not sensitive (in my judgment) in terms of privacy, i may post email to my blog. all privacy requests respected.

——–
From: Williams, Jeremy
To: Charles Nesson
Date: Sun, Jun 3, 2007 at 12:12 PM

A great relief to hear from you. I hope the recovery speeds along.

I found the conference very stimulating and informative; it was a high just to be a part of it. I talked a fair amount the first day, but spent the second saying very little but absorbing a lot, especially in the two working groups I attended (libraries and RIAA).

I am sorting out my thoughts about it all and hope to write something this week to send to you and to share with my studio colleagues. The key topic of that will naturally be, given my perch, what divides different constituencies and what does not regarding the copyright-related issues. My one-line summary: there was more agreement than I expected about the desirability of protecting copyright (Terry noted a decline in resistance to it, I think, amoung students, to take an important example), but the gulfs in methodology remain significant and may prove more difficult to bridge than we’d like to think. That was evident in the RIAA session, probably one of the more “lively” ones!

Of course, the issues discussed at the conference went far beyond copyright and even beyond intellectual property. In that sense the conference succeeded in heightening my awareness, and I assume that of all the participants, of the nature and profound effects of the digital context in which IP issues are being debated and, more fundamentally, in which the function of University is being examined.. I believe it succeeded in achieving your basic goals in that regard.

Your presence was felt and spoken of constantly.
[Quoted text hidden]

——–
From: Charles Nesson
To: “Williams, Jeremy”
Date: Sun, Jun 3, 2007 at 5:56 PM

Thank you Jeremy. It is wonderful to hear from you. i very much look forward to working with you.
[Quoted text hidden]

——–

hello y.s.
i am so sorry that i did not get to spend time with you while you were here. what comes below from where i do not know yet it is the conversation medium and message.

As Laurence Kirschbaum, a longtime publishing executive who recently became a literary agent, told me at the conference, “Google is now the gatekeeper. They are reaching an audience that we as publishers and authors are not reaching. It makes perfect sense to use the specificity of a search engine as a tool for selling books.”

Google thought so, too, and designed the books project accordingly. In addition to forming partnerships with libraries, the company has signed contracts with nearly every major American publisher. When one of these publishers’ books is called up in response to search queries, Google displays a portion of the total work and shows links to the publisher’s Web site and online shops like Amazon, where users can buy the book. “We are helping the publishers reach consumers that otherwise might not have known about their books and helping them market their books by giving limited but relevant previews of the books,” Jim Gerber, Google’s director of content partnerships, told me. “The Internet and search are custom made for marketing books. When there are a hundred and seventy-five thousand new books each year, you can’t market each one of those books in mass market. When someone goes into a search engine to learn more about a topic, that is a perfect time to make them aware that a given book exists. Publishers know that ‘browse leads to buy.’ ” (Google says that it does not take a cut of sales made through its books site.)

(parts I, II, and III are here)

IV.

I knocked on the senator’s door.
“Come in,” she said, in her familiar, commanding voice.
“It is three o’clock, Senator.”
“Yes, my lunch meeting was cancelled so I’ve been in the office for a while now. Have a seat. I thought I would take some time to actually read the rest of what you wrote on this website. I find it quite interesting to say the least. Much of it is over the top, and—don’t cry—a little unsophisticated. But it is interesting. Are you ready to talk about it?”
She left no pause to let me answer her question.
“Let’s start with you telling me about ‘spontaneous right action,’” she said. I realized she already had some very specific topics she wanted to discuss, and that she was more than happy to direct the conversation, at least for the moment. “I see you referred to the concept a couple times in your posts. It sounds a little mystical to me, and you didn’t do a very good job of explaining it. So help me understand it.”
“Well, I hate to admit it, but I probably didn’t explain it well because I don’t think I really understand it well.”
“That’s fine, just tell me what it is.” That familiar tone of impatience was sounding again in her voice.
I was not an expert in Eastern philosophy, but I had dabbled in it somewhat. I told the senator that I understood spontaneous right action to be a concept in certain schools of thought within Eastern traditions such as Vedanta, Taoism, and Buddhism. Spontaneous right action described the consequence of certain waking and meditative states in which a practitioner would only act in ways that are ideal for the welfare of all beings. According to some descriptions, the practitioner exercises spontaneous right action when his or her consciousness aligns with the entire universe, aligns with godhead, or, in Taoism, aligns with the Way. In any case, in such a state, the practitioner is no longer simply his or her narrow self, limited to his or her own body and individual psyche. Instead, he or she is connected to a source that will inform and motivate only action that results in the greatest good.