It’s been a while since I’ve just blogged something for the sake of being an on-the-spot blogger. Tonight’s blog group is visiting Pecha Kucha Night Boston #4, hosted by group member Brett Stilwell. The idea is that we geeky types will live blog, Twitter, photograph, film, and otherwise record the presentations as they happen. Pecha Kucha gives presenters 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide (that’s 400 seconds=6 minutes and 40 seconds) to give a presentation. The format could work well for SLA, perhaps.

The first fellow told us about a gallery in South Boston and the upcoming artificial intelligence conference in Boston. The second fellow wasted precious seconds by warning us that he’s likely to go over, then launched into a talk about ancient buildings and landscape in Mexico and New Jersey sprawl. The first woman told us about projects involving slums, seeking to understand how they work architecturally, and how to change them. She shared some photos of South American slums that made me really appreciate my home. The second woman brought us some amusement because she was having problems keeping up with her slides advancing every 20 seconds. She talked about urban mobility issues. The next man described designing a musem in Greece that integrates with the landscape as well as what’s inside. A woman who will do her dissertation defense in a few days introduced us to a museum she designed in China.

"Meet me at the coffee shop
We can dance like Iggy Pop"
–Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coffee Shop

Can someone please recommend a coffee shop or cafe in Seattle near the Seattle Center or Belltown that’s like Toscanini’s in Cambridge, Massachusetts: tea, coffee, steamed milk, inexpensive light snacks and/or sandwiches (ice cream a plus), a good place to meet folks as well as have folks drop by the table, and open wifi? I need to arrange a meetup, but lack the knowledge of establishments in that area.

I’ve heard that Tully’s and Starbucks are good locations, but I’m not sure either has free, open wifi. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a chain: just some place people can get to faily easily and that doesn’t mind a small group of people gathering for an hour or two.

Thanks in advance for any leads and help! I appreciate it!

John Perry Barlow asserts some ideas about the role of government in cyberspace in A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.

Greetings

There’s a new library cartoon called Turn the page
 http://librarycartoons.blogspot.com/inde…

If you liked the Unshelved strip, http://www.overduemedia.com/
then you’ll like this one!

links via LibrarianinBlack:
 http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/

I caught a bit on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Saturday that dovetails on yesterday’s post about YouTube and copyright law. Laura Sydell explores how some amateur videos are making money on the Internet, including videos from EepyBird.com: Entertainment for the Curious Mind, popular for films showing how the candy Mentos can make Diet Coke bubble. The creators managed to partner with Google Video’s Sponsored Video program to get some revenue through advertizing. The team has contracts with, well, Coca Cola and Mentos. They also made money from their video on Revver.

There’s actually quite a bit of chatter about the deals, including an article on Techcrunch.

Audio should be available on the NPR Web site around 1 pm EST.

Many people have told me to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, if I ever happen to be in Monterey, California. Since some of you are headed to Monterey in about two weeks for Internet Librarian 2006, I thought I should point out that next week’s (Sunday, October 15) edition of Nature is about the aquarium.

Pat here.

I came across an advertisement for this on the way back from lunch today — it’s a group that aims to compare the results of people learning about and having a structured conversation on a topic, followed by a poll, against simply having the poll from the start. The topics are those of interest to the Carnegie Mellon community. In some ways, this reminds me of aspects of Wikipedia society, although this is closer to an ideal. Understanding the hows and whys of Wikipedia is not a simple task.

Paul Graham is a well known IT essayist. Many of his essays are online, and are quite fun to read.

Bewarre of the Pirates! Thar they be!

Dude, Talk like a Pirate Day is next month.