December 2010
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A toast to common genius
Although I appreciate being called “smart” (as Hugh MacCleod kindly does here), that adjective has always troubled me, no matter what, or to whom, it’s applied. Two reasons: 1) because I believe smartness is a far more common quality than our bell-curving institutions would have us believe; and 2) because the label too often serves… Continue reading
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Solved Science Theater 2010
This morning, while freezing my way down 8th Avenue to Piccolo on 40th to pick up a couple of cappuccinos, I paused outside the New York Times building to admire its stark modern lobby as KNX radio delivered the latest storm news from Los Angeles through my phone’s earbuds. In the midst of reports of… Continue reading
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The Internet doesn’t do this
The above, in order (1,2,3) is what I went through this morning when I searched for “emancipay” on Twitter. Not knocking Twitter here. I am knocking the fact that we haven’t come up with the open Internet-based (rather than silo-based) way of microblogging. Yet. But that’s what I’m hanging out in New York talking to… Continue reading
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How about a Mensch Index?
From Wikipedia (as of the 8 December 2010 edit): Mensch (Yiddish: מענטש mentsh; German: Mensch, for “human being”) means “a person of integrity and honor”.[1] The opposite of a mensch is an unmensch (meaning: an utterly cruel or evil person). According to Leo Rosten, the Yiddish maven and author of The Joys of Yiddish, mensch… Continue reading
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Curing High School
So I’m in the midst of my first encounter with PeerIndex, which I found through this Petervan’s Blog post. I’d been pointed to PeerIndex before, and to other services like it, and have always found them aversive. But this time the lead came from a friend and business associate, so I thought I’d check it out.… Continue reading
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Jay Rosen and the Watchdog Web
I have to say what nearly fifty thousand Twitter followers already know: nobody does a better job of following and writing about what’s going on in journalism than Jay Rosen. The dude just nails it, over and over and over again. His latest, From Judith Miller to Julian Assange: Our press somehow got itself on… Continue reading
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FreedomLeaks
We’ll start with four essential posts on the Wikileaks matter. First is Iran and the Bomb, by Hedrik Hertzberg, It’s this week’s Talk of the Town in The New Yorker. Here’s the pull quote: Perhaps the two biggest secrets that the WikiLeaks leaks leaked are that the private face of American foreign policy looks pretty much… Continue reading
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Some context on privacy
Searches: privacy: 1,390,000,000 privacy+policy: 3,400,000,000 results “privacy policy”: 837,000,000 results So if you’re looking for something about privacy that’s not a site with a privacy policy, you’re also looking at a high haystack/needle ratio. Just saying. Not sure what else that data says, such as it is. But it’s interesting. Continue reading
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What does cognitive science say about privacy and the Net?
Here’s what one dictionary says: World English Dictionary privacy (ˈpraɪvəsɪ, ˈprɪvəsɪ) — n 1. the condition of being private or withdrawn; seclusion 2. the condition of being secret; secrecy 3. philosophy the condition of being necessarily restricted to a single person Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition 2009 © William Collins Sons… Continue reading
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Some context on privacy
Searches: privacy: 1,390,000,000 privacy+policy: 3,400,000,000 results “privacy policy”: 837,000,000 results So if you’re looking for something about privacy that’s not a site with a privacy policy, you’re looking at a high haystack/needle ratio. Just saying. Continue reading