SJ’s Longest Now

OLPC : How to repair an XO before soccer practice

Posted on August 15th, 2007 by metasj.
Categories: Glory, glory, glory, international.

Sophie and Philip from Quebec learn how to repair an XO. Joel Stanley, working at OLPC over the summer, showed them how to take one apart; when it was put back together, the keyboard wasn’t working… they took it apart again on their own and managed to reseat it.

Joel managed to catch some neat montage footage, mainly from the first time around, and asked them to introduce themselves in English and French. With a little help from Jamendo, the video was spliced into a cute short… enjoy.

0 comments.

Intel and OLPC trade noogies for neckrubs

Posted on July 13th, 2007 by metasj.
Categories: %a la mod, international, popular demand.

Intel’s Will Swope joined AMD’s Arenas and others on OLPC’s board last night. Designs of our Gen-1 machines won’t change, though this gives them input, along with our other members, on future designs. Intel will also continue making and marketing Classmates… though the comparisons between the devices are likely to become more helpful and less marketing. This is not the first rivalry set aside on the board; my cynical side is always delighted to see companies which are rivals in other arenas able to come together around our educational goals.

We have an Intel group working just one floor above us in Kendall Square; it will be interesting to see what they think.

Gizmodo sez: “Hell freezes over“, with a delightful jesus diaz illustration (above). But I’d say it only got momentarily cool down there; Intel has been working with open source communities and on education projects for some time. Keep your eyes on the fiery gates, however. My acronymic archnemesis may start open sourcing his platforms one day… See also: slashdot.

1 comment.

Getting Africa Wired

Posted on September 27th, 2006 by .
Categories: international.

Ethan Zuckerman and Eric Osiakwan updated us about the situation in
Africa regarding Internet access. Very fascinating. Growth will be very
steady and larger than other global areas during the next few years.
Wireless use in some areas is extremely important. Many people connect
to the Internet via satellite.  j
provides some notes.

Getting Africa Wired …

1 comment.

Posted a few long rants on wikipedia lists today

Posted on September 22nd, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

I’ll add direct links here later.  Comment on the mailing listgs for now, if you’re interested. 

2 comments.

Revolt in Thailand : is it a coup?

Posted on September 19th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

There’s a revolt underway in Bangkok.

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/-/topics/breaking-news/

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1800992,00050001.htm

BBC’s world have your say has live audio:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/

TV screenshots:
http://www.kwanzoku.com/index.php/archives/2006/09/were-ok-for-now/

Steady updates:
http://cowboycaleb.liquidblade.com/index.php/archives/2006/09/19/state-of-emergency-declared-in-thailand/

More:

• http://www.thaiphotoblogs.com/
• http://www.thailandqa.com/forum/showthread.php?p=72394
• http://www.thailandqa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11198
• http://www.thailandvoice.com/
• http://www.2bangkok.com/highemer.shtml
• http://www.thai-blogs.com/
• http://www.sgtowns.com/
• http://bangkok.metblogs.com/

(links via global voices)

Revolt in Thailand : is it a coup? …

0 comments.

At the Crossroads

Posted on September 2nd, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

An insightful and cutting essay by Aaron Swartz, candidate in the current Wikimedia Board elections, about the challenges facing Wikimedia.  It’s great to hear a fresh voice tackle some of these long-standing problems, from the perspective of someone who has been around for many years and paying close attention, if rarely jumping into the fray.

At the Crossroads …

2 comments.

Wikimania update

Posted on May 17th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

Registration for Wikimania 2006 is now open.  There’s no better way to spend August 4-6 … (defcon?  I mean really.)  You can swing into Boston early and pick up another hacker conference as well; either Hacking Days or SIGGRAPH.

Wikimania update …

0 comments.

Representing a diversity of perspectives across language divides

Posted on May 11th, 2006 by j.
Categories: indescribable, international.

Ethan, one of my favorite sparring partners in discussions about
most anything under the sun, carved out an hour the other week to
discuss language issues and equitable representation of the world’s
multitude of perspectives. We had an excellent discussion of the
subject, which became heated for a moment when it seemed we were
veering off into philosophy rather than a practical discussion of how
to improve the world’s current defaults.

He wrote a lovely blog post about the discussion here, and followed up with a quick evaluation of a metric we had discussed. (How can one not admire
a person who dashes off two new metrics before breakfast?)  But there are a few points where I would like to differ.

(editor’s note : where’d the rest of this post go? –2/2008)

1 comment.

Bloggership ; Wikimania volunteering

Posted on April 28th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

Two things:

Bloggership is going on right now; the web of scholarship, libel on blogs, and the predominance of blog discourse in shaping legal and other discussions.

And we’re having a pizza-laden Wikimania presentation today at 5pm at Berkman; come get a sneak peek of the new conference site and banners, and find out about the list of open tasks for the summer.

Bloggership ; Wikimania volunteering …

0 comments.

Wikimania Call for Participation, website

Posted on April 13th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

Wikimania 2006, August 4-6 2006, Cambridge MA :

Submit workshops, tutorials, and presentations for the 2nd annual Wikimedia Conference!  Present to hundreds of Wikimedians and collaboration enthusiasts from around the world   The earliest submission deadline is this Saturday;  See the full Call for Participation on the new conference website. 

It will be a fabulous event; not your usual conference.  Whether or not you have something to present, I hope you can join us. 

Wikimania Call for Participation, website …

0 comments.

Putclub

Posted on April 11th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

I was browsing for a quick quote, so it took me a while to realize I had discovered a bulletin board for serial transcription of English video….  incredible.

Putclub …

0 comments.

Wikipedia temp-blocked in Pakistan?

Posted on March 31st, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

Wikipedia was reportedly temporarily blocked by three ISPs in Pakistan today.  I don’t quite understand what this court order is suporting such actions, or why they might have reversed the block so quickly (it’s unblocked now); and hope for a more detailed confirmation from someone in the know.

China’s still blocking WP.  Someone claimed that Burma is as well; is this so?  And has Iran ever blocked it?  Sadly, I don’t know the answer.  This last part should be fixed.  

Wikipedia temp-blocked in Pakistan? …

1 comment.

anarchordia

Posted on March 12th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

I’ve been running into a bumper crop of Marxists recently.  So when I saw an ‘encyclopedia’ page about how society works leading off a section with “It should be clear that the dominant institution of our society is capitalism“, even though the page as a whole is clearly young and hastily written, I felt a familiar rant coming on.

First of all, society doesn’t have “a“
dominant institution.  And institutions of family, of civil society and
the existence of government, are vastly more pervasive and dominant
than the various religious, economic, and legal institutions.

Second, I hate to see fundamental innovations get locked into
early implementations. “Capitalism” isn’t a single institution. 
Neither the set of general philosophies that have used that title, nor
the various implementations, are ideal or even consistent over time. 
(That’s true of many high-profile one-word abstractions.)  The writer
above goes on to say ‘capitalism rewards maximizing short-term profit’
– no, it doesn’t.  The pursuit and reward of short-term profits is one
of those other institutions built into the fabric of modern society.

Rant over, man, rant over.  Now
for balance I should indulge a rant about the inadequacy of ‘ideal’
markets, and the complacency of those who feel they are the only
framework needed to scale discussions, comparisons, and decision making
from two neighbors inconversation to a networked billion-person
planet…

1 comment.

`SMSI – beginning with a bang

Posted on November 16th, 2005 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

First trial : see how many people can fit into 4,000 seats… the
opening session was quiet, packed, and not at all sensational. 
The audience was too large for them to carry out their desired
badge-check (getting thousands of people in and out of a two-door
badge-checking bottleneck in half an hour : difficult in New York with
a little planning; impossible in Tunis on a moment’s notice), so
despite not having found the place to pick up my pass, I was able to
stay for it.

The
presentation by Tunisia’s President Ben Ali would be replayed over the
course of the week, on national television, and on the TVs embedded in
buses to and from the Kram Palexpo hosting SMSI/WSIS, hundreds of
times. By the time I had been in Tunis four days, I was so used to the
inclusion of Ben Ali’s face in every publication and many
establishments, I no longer noticed it. 

The most sensational content was understated and between the lines;
presenters commenting on how ‘certain countries’ attending the summit
disrespect the rights of their citizens – particularly those who disagree with the administration; and on the
holding of strawman elections
in countries where political expression is censored.  Noone from
Tunisia responded to any of these comments, and it is the kind of
subject that one enters into with local residents at great social peril
(I feel certain that this is a social nuance exaggerated by proximity to
central Tunis).  I almost ended up at a gathering of the local
human rights group today, which would have been fascinating — if only
because I might have gotten sincere responses to simple questions about
life here.

`SMSI – beginning with a bang …

1 comment.

How to hold really big fundraisers

Posted on October 27th, 2005 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

Step 1 : Throw a party.

Step 2 : Make it really, really big.  10,000 people?  Almost there.

Step 3 : Don’t hold back.  Invite everyone;  make it a spectacle of an event. 

Step 4 : Only ask for 1/3 of the total cost of the event from the world
at large.  If this doesn’t come to a few million dollars, you’ve
done something wrong.

Step 5 : Put up a nice progress bar on your website to show people how well fundraising is going.

I guess it helps if you’re a major international body working towards the peaceful betterment of mankind. 

WSIS I reflections

 http://topics.developmentgateway.org/spe…
 http://topics.developmentgateway.org/spe…

How to hold really big fundraisers …

0 comments.

Boston to host Wikimania 2006, after close contest

Posted on October 24th, 2005 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

“>

On Saturday, Boston was
chosen by an 11-person jury to be the host city for next summer’s Wikimedia
conference (aka Wikimania
2006).  The week-long event on global
collaboration and free knowledge is being sponsored primarily by HLS’s
Berkman Center for
Internet & Society.   Over 50
speakers and 600 attendees from around the planet are expected to
attend – an energetic mix of Wikimedia contributors;
wiki maintainers and developers; academic researchers in law,
technology, and sociology; and librarians, educators, and
entrepreneurs. 

You can see part of last year’s program and
schedule on the old Wikimania
website.  This year will be even more amazing; to help out, sign up on our volunteer page.

The decision followed a month-long bid
process that culminated in a deadlocked jury and a week of
overtime
deliberation. 
The two finalist bids, for Boston
and Toronto,
were both so strong that a jury vote earlier this month was
inconclusive.  After asking for more information from both
bids and from
the global Wikimedia community, a second vote this past weekend was
5–4 in favor of Boston,
with 2 abstentions.

The Toronto bid
included a generous offer of from the University of Toronto’s

Knowledge Media Design
Institute, including free use of their new Boston bid is
supported by its own local team; by the Berkman
Center (offering space, funding
and enthusiasm); by the MIT Media
Lab’s electronic
publishing group (offering to host part of the event); and by
many smaller local
groups of the Boston event in various ways.

Boston to host Wikimania 2006, after close contest …

2 comments.

Awesome Geomap integration with WP

Posted on October 18th, 2005 by longestnow.
Categories: international.

Care of a German-Korean collaboration. You can add items to a map layer,
have resulting content stored in the db associated with WP articles,
and have tags show up on the map with the article’s name. Then you can
add/remove these items by layer…)

Click on the map to see the layered world-map itself.

Awesome Geomap integration with WP …

0 comments.

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