Travel advice - I am really enjoying Chris Cloud's travel blog; his most recent post about train travel is imbued with his lively & sardonic wit, and even includes a photo. I am surprised more people haven't started travel blogs. I expect that Chris's will be very successful.
6:52:10 PM
Web Publishing - it's time once again for me to pay homage to Phillip Greenspun, an MIT professor, avid photographer, and the author of Phillip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing. Today we point to his page entitled The Web Tools Review where he has a web page about web publishing that he tells us "is obsolete and is kept around out of consideration for the pain of people upon encountering broken links." Also of interest is his page of thoughts on writing. He is a gifted writer, and so naturally he begins his essay with a quote from Elements of Style.
5:42:49 PM
A secret plan to stop the war - Nixon had one, and now it appears that the copyright holders have one too. Assuming that this story is true, let's see how the copyright war ends.
5:21:08 PM
Another law blog - Geoffery Privateau is a Louisiana lawyer who has started a law blog that I know I'm going to like a lot just based on the name and tagline: Legal Outreach - Building Transparent Legal Structures Worldwide. The focus is on "legal structures free of corruption -- throughout the world." That's what he means by "transparent legal structures." He became interested in this topic during the course of a seminar he took on doing business in the Middle East. It became apparent to him that one of the major factors hindering investment and development abroad is the lack of a transparent legal system. Geoffery believes that we in the States tend to take it for granted, but internationally it is a huge issue. Welcome to the blawgosphere, Geoffery!
Would you please turn off the transmitter embedded in your shirt? - RFID tags are here and they're here to stay. But no one really even notices them. Well there's not much to notice now. You might have a SpeedPass from Exxon that you use to speed up your gas purchases. Other retailers like the idea and so it's catching on. Declan McCullagh is worried that these RFID tags represent a threat to privacy. He's right of course. Pretty much everything these days is captured in a database, and that alone will erode privacy as sure as water eroded rock to form the Grand Canyon. If you are really interested in the threat that databases pose for privacy then I highly recommend Simson Garfinkle's book Database Nation. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for the RFID tags.
2:51:37 PM
Outlining the Web - here's a site that seems to like to use outlines to organize information. Hmmm, good. Tarzan like outlines.
2:28:55 PM
Technology Anthropologists - I have talked before about the idea of being a technology anthropologist. It was a random phrase that popped in my head one day. Some of you remember Dian Fossey the anthropologist who went to Rwanda to live among, and thereby study, gorrillas. There was movie about her life called Gorillas in the Mist.
Anyway, I sometimes find myself observing people as they interact with technology as an anthropologist would observe, say, gorilla behavior. Now, I don't mean that I think that I'm somehow superior to others and I therefor see them as apes. What I mean is that I am fascinated by how the rapid intrusion of technology into our lives has forced us to grapple with strange tools. The gap between the capabilities of the tools and our understanding of how to best make use of them is somewhat akin to the gap between two closely related species.
Anyway, perhaps there is a safer metaphor. But the key thing is curiousity. I am infinitely curious about how we will learn to accommodate technology. Kids are interesting, but they aren't adapting to technology. It's just there and they use it. But adults, especially older adults are fascinating. I'm not the only one who is reporting on these strange encounters. Jenny does it frequently, and did it again today in a post that starts by referencing a Dave Barry article. Jim McGee does it too; his inclination is toward the effect of technology on business. But, of course, he's interested in technology in broader ways than just business, as his post today on the difference between technology and magic demonstrates.
Phil Windley has a post today on KmIrony that qualifies. Any others?
Oh, maybe it should be "technology archaeologist" as this post about the placement of Howard Rheingold's book discusses. And, by the way, I am aware that Dian Fosse was murdered. So just remember that if I die under mysterious circumstances it will just arouse the suspicions of the local authorities (not that their suspicions represent a significant threat).
