Bloglines Catchup

I gave up on doing much of anything useful today; instead, I just kind of relaxed, did a little work on my ghost story, posted some comments to a friend about a draft of a novel she sent me a while back, watched Trainspotting, and turned to my bloglines subs to catch up… a little. There are too many posts to catch up on them all, so I’m going to (a) delete some subscriptions and (b) delete some of the subs I’m not really interested in tracking anymore, or which have stopped existing.

One site I will not be deleting is Joi Itoh’s Web, where I ran across a slew of interesting goodies:

Joi Ito’s Web: Artists Agree — P2P Lawsuits Are Not the Answer is a post about an article that relates claims by artists that P2P lawsuits are not the best way to defend copyright laws. Then again, in Japan, it’s getting to be a problem even playing cover versions of popular songs, something I think ought to be considered Fair Use.

Bloggers will be happy to know that Blog is now, really, truly recognized as a word. Well, those who care about that official crap.

Chris Anderson is writing a book and blog about the idea on which he based an article in Wired: The Long Tail of the Internet, which is something very interesting for small-scale artists, writers, and the like: how will the net free up distribution of things that aren’t in the stores because of physical-product production bottleneck (the limitations of how many products can be made and supplied to stores, versus what consumers actually want). Sounds ideal for projects like the band I was in until this year, and for all kinds of other things, out-of-print movies and books not the least example.

Of course, if ex-CIA director George Tenet gets his way, the net might not be good for much of anything, which would be a stunning step down from the complex infosystem it is now. With such a massive number of the American people in favour of limiting the civil rights of Muslims (never mind how few of them even understand how well-supported Darwinian evolution is—oh, education, education needs an overhaul), I wouldn’t be too surprised if he does get his way—hackers, fundamentalists, bloggers: what’s the difference? John Perry Barlow might see reason to reconcile with the Right in the interests of peace in America, but I am worried too much reconciliation might come off as acceptance, and these people need more than anything to be fought at every step of the way. Might as well move to Ukraine—or maybe not. After all, freedom is a global issue

Slowfood sounds like a pretty interesting movement, based not on vicious reaction to what they think is bad, but rather a positive proactive movement. Gokurosama is also an interesting Japanese concept, basically meaning thanks given for diligent hard work. Finally, for interesting ideas, Ito has some regarding democracy and society:

The age of mass media has crushed diversity and created a shallow culture. In particular, the focus of politics has been on voting, not deliberation or debate. As the Internet begins to provide people with a way to reach a wider community, it becomes increasingly clear that having a voice is more important than having a vote. People tend to over-estimate the short-term potential of new technologies and under-estimate the long-term potential. I will argue that although we are at risk of the Internet turning into yet another regulated channel, we have the ability to both prevent that and reverse the damage on culture and politics caused by monopolistic media.

This lines up very well with a discussion I recently had with my friend John Wendel regarding the repeal of the Fairness in Communications Act in America under Reagan and its deleterious effects on American politics and life in general.

Joi Ito is so very well worth watching. Everything here was found in a fascinating hour of catching up. I’ll definitely be back.

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