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On saturday I attended RootsCampNYC , and unconference dedicated to debriefing on the elections with a decidedly technological flavor. I shot some video with a Samsung SC-210 digital video camera (that I am returning tomorrow because it doesn’t play well with Mac despite what the box says.) The video above is a short interview with Sanford Dickert. I’ve got a few more videos up on YouTube .
Is it about privacy or transparency? Or just colossal failure of judgement? On Monday, AOL admitted making a 2-GB file with the search records of 658,000 people available for public download — exactly the sort of information the DOJ sought, and failed, to force Google to provide under the guise of protecting children. Recall that AOL, MSN and Yahoo all buckled to the pressure and released the information. The AOL data represented 1.5% of the search users in May, who were identified by number and not username, but whose vanity searches and map directions give them away. Reportedly, law enforcement officials are scouring the data for potential malfeasance. The Blogosphere was aflame last night.
This morning we had a really good Drupal Shop Talk with about a dozen participants. These calls are really great for getting to know other people working in the sector and find out what kind of development is going on. You can read the back channel transcript and my notes at groups.drupal.org The next Drupal Shop Talk will be on December 19th at 10am PST. And I do intend to record that one. If anyone is interested in working on editing the shop talk conference calls, please do let me know.
Just learned of Confabb via TechCrunch Confabb is a new service launching today that offers a centralized place to find information about all kinds of conferences. The site offers everything from speaker and event reviews to photos of the events after the fact through integration with Flickr. It’s an impressive full service site that could become the go-to spot for at least tech conference attendees and possibly a wider audience. This is an exciting development, I was just thinking to myself that it is so hard to stay on top of what conferences are happening where and when. It will be interesting to see how folks react to Confabb and if it gains market share outside of teh tech world. Many conferences could use help with their web presence, and if Confabb has nailed it that’s great!
Is it about privacy or transparency? Or just colossal failure of judgement? On Monday, AOL admitted making a 2-GB file with the search records of 658,000 people available for public download — exactly the sort of information the DOJ sought, and failed, to force Google to provide under the guise of protecting children. Recall that AOL, MSN and Yahoo all buckled to the pressure and released the information.
I just downloaded and listened to the new Tom Wiats track “Road to Peace” (i got it free from eMusic.com , you can also get it from Pitchfork Media for free (Waits has released it for free along with a few other tracks). I had no idea what I was in for. The song is a ballad about the conflict in the Middle East, particularly the Arab Israelli conflict and the resent war between Israel and Hamas. It is defitely worth a listen. It seems like there might be a resurgence of the “political ballad”. Earlier this year, Neil Young released an entire album of “war protest” songs called “Living With War”. I’ve got to say though, as much of a Neil Young fan as I am, I found “Road to Peace” to be far more compelling.
Time magazine named YouTube “Invention of the Year” saying: What happened? YouTube’s creators had stumbled onto the intersection of three revolutions. First, the revolution in video production made possible by cheap camcorders and easy-to-use video software. Second, the social revolution that pundits and analysts have dubbed Web 2.0. It’s exemplified by sites like MySpace, Wikipedia, Flickr and Digg – hybrids that are useful Web tools but also thriving communities where people create and share information together. The more people use them, the better they work, and more people use them all the time – a kind of self-stoking mass collaboration that wouldn’t have been possible without the Internet.
The DCCC launched a cool website that visually displays the links between corrupt republicans. Have any friends or family who are Republican voters? or who might be wavering? Send them this link. In other news, last night I saw Bil Clinton stumping for Patricia Madrid for New Mexico’s First Congressional District. The man is genius. He spoke articulately for nearly 40 minutes without notes. He is a rock star.
Catch me if you can! For one week only I am working from Albuquerque, NM!