Blogs breed western corruption [Ars Techinca] 
5:40:14 AM      comment []   trackback []  



FCC Minister of Information.

The Evils of media consolidation will never get past our defenses. When the media fails to do its job at least there are humorists like Mark Fiore to help us laugh about it all.

[Corante: Amateur Hour] 
5:20:56 AM      comment []   trackback []  



The People's Mesh Manifesto.

Marc Canter has written a detail history of multimedia through his early developer/artist eyes, ending with a call to arms for what he calls the "People's Mesh"

Everything we need has been invented, now it's time to get it all to work together

One of the most exciting evolutions I see coming is how the technical and social standards established within the blogosphere will spread around the world.... [Corante: Amateur Hour]

 
5:15:49 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Gene Linked to Manic Depression. A newly discovered relationship between a flawed gene and bipolar disorder could lead to better treatments for the mental illness, scientists say. [Wired News] 
5:11:25 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Europe proposes right-of-reply. A European policy group is proposing that those who are criticised on the Internet should have a right to reply in the same space where the criticism appeared -- IOW, bloggers would have to give time on their blogs to the people they flame. I've always presumed that there was no legal interest in ensuring that people don't feel sad -- but rather, preventing real harm (which can be addressed through courts, should such harm be proposed).

The all-but-final proposal draft says that Internet news organizations, individual Web sites, moderated mailing lists and even Web logs (or "blogs"), must offer a "right of reply" to those who have been criticized by a person or organization...

* "The reply should be made publicly available in a prominent place for a period of time (that) is at least equal to the period of time during which the contested information was publicly available, but, in any case, no less than for 24 hours."

* Hyperlinking to a reply is acceptable. "It may be considered sufficient to publish (the reply) or make available a link to it" from the spot of the original mention.

* "So long as the contested information is available online, the reply should be attached to it, for example through a clearly visible link."

* Long replies are fine. "There should be flexibility regarding the length of the reply, since there are (fewer) capacity limits for content than (there are) in off-line media."

Link

Discuss

(via Lawmeme) [Boing Boing Blog] 
4:42:07 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Vipul Kashyap and emergent semantics.

Vipul Kashyap's home page says "I am a Fellow at the National Library of Medicine in the Medical Informatics Training Program. I am currently working on issues relating the Semantic Web and Medical Ontologies."

The part I found most interesting is at the end:

Some other areas which I am working on are Emergent Semantics which is based on the hypothesis, that semantics on the Semantic Web are more likely to "emerge" from various types of information available and interactions between participants as opposed to top down formal specifications. Towards this end I am taking a close look at statistical clustering and NLP techniques. Also of interest are techniques from cultural anthropology, such as consensus analysis and social networks.

Vipul is presenting a poster at WWW2003, so I might be able to meet him soon.

[Seb's Open Research] 
3:52:38 AM      comment []   trackback []  



PlaNetwork Conference: Networking a Sustainable Future.

I just got this in my inbox and thought it might interest readers of this blog.

Join Hazel Henderson, Douglas Engelbart, Joan Blades, Jeff Gates, Leif Utne and others at this exciting gathering of innovators from the world of IT,
environmental advocates, peace and social justice activists, independent media pioneers, and many others exploring how social networks, information technologies and the Internet can play a key role in accelerating positive global change. June 6-8 at the Presidio in San Francisco, CA. Special non-profit, activist and student rate: $95 for three days. Register now online at: http://www.planetwork.net

[Seb's Open Research] 
3:25:41 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Ridiculously easy group-forming via k-collector.

Communal topics and super-blogs. Matt on k-collector and shared topics: "If you click a topic name on my weblog now you don't get a local page but, instead, the dynamic k-collector page for that topic.  At the moment this is an aggregation of all the posts about that topic from anyone subscribing to the cloud." [Curiouser and curiouser!]

I hope to find time soon to compare this to the Internet Topic Exchange and investigate interoperability in both directions. More than ever do I believe that there is promise in loose community formation among bloggers. Many ingredients are there that weren't around only six months ago: more developers, many more bloggers (meaning more diversity and overlap of interests at the same time), and new complementary technology, such as the shiny new Technorati API.

Now, this is nothing more than educated guesswork, but I have a feeling that, say, a year from now, many of my favorite sources will not be personal blogs, but rather topical feeds that have been duly post-processed in some way by the collective intelligence of my microblogosphere.

While it makes me kind of sad to entertain the thought of progressively abandoning per-person subscriptions, I'm afraid I won't be able to keep up with all of those tremendously interesting new voices without the help of more sophisticated personal relevance filters.

[Seb's Open Research] 
2:46:40 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Will social software encourage polarization?.

A good post and a fascinating discussion over on Don Park's blog on the potential adverse effects of social software, starting from his observation of how the Internet affected people in his home country:

Korea is emerging as one of the most advanced Internet nation in the world.  Young Koreans, in particular, live and breath Internet, each belonging to large number of online communities.  One would expect them to be well informed and objective, yet they are not.  Their views are warped and often radical.  While all the world's information is at their fingertip, they consume information subjectively and produce misinformation biased by their views.  Adding highly effective social software to this is frightening to me.

[...] In a sense, social clusters form gravity wells which has its own local physical laws and is difficult to escape from.  Social softwares make it easier to create and grow such clusters.

Bill Kearney offers a counter-argument that I find cogent:

The fact that groups can form more rapidly will do more to devalue the ability of any one group or cult of personality. Yes, for those ununsed to the process it will be a terrifyingly vast expanse of rapidly changing groupings. Hang on, it's going to be a fun ride.

I guess the question could be summarized as "Does social software help people turn inwards or outwards?". (Personally, I don't think it can be answered without taking the context of use into account.)

[Corante: Social Software] [Seb's Open Research] 
2:45:41 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Distributed collective tweaking. Headmap: Declaration of Interdependence. A view of the future of the Internet and how it will impact the way we'll go about our business. Far-reaching, yet plausible if you ask me. (via Ming) [Seb's Open Research] 
2:44:32 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Wiki of all wikis.

WorldWideWiki: OneBigWiki. I didn't know there were that many public wikis. (And some are missing from the list - I should try to add them when I find time.)

[Seb's Open Research] 
2:42:16 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Marc Canter: The New Paradigm of Tools 
12:24:08 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Hellen Keller The Fraud?. Helen Keller: A Living Lie? A fascinating New Yorker piece by Cynthia Ozick that explores Helen Keller's writing career and all the questions of authenticity it raises. She was charged with being a "fraud, a puppet, a plagiarist" and she was defended by the likes of Mark Twain and Alexander Graham Bell. Ozick ultimately asks the question: "Do we know only what we see, or do we see what we somehow already know?" [MetaFilter] 
12:18:08 AM      comment []   trackback []