The topic today is net neutrality. The internet today is an open platform where the demand for websites and services dictates success. You’ve got barriers to entry that are low and equal for all comers. And it’s because the internet is a neutral platform that I can put on this podcast and transmit it over the internet without having to go through some corporate media middleman. I can say what I want without censorship. I don’t have to pay a special charge. But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the internet as we know it. They say they want to create high-speed lanes on the internet and strike exclusive contractual arrangements with internet content-providers for access to those high-speed lanes. Those of us who can’t pony up the cash for these high-speed connections will be relegated to the slow lanes. [more...] [mp3]

I don’t know how Obama’s presidency is going to go, and I don’t hold my breath for any miracles. Any president of the USA has one hell of a challenge on his (or her) hands, and the O-man has inherited a bigger mess than anyone can clean up.

But, man if he wanted to make me happy, he could not have started in a place nearer to my heart than his Tech/Science platform, released today. First para:

The Problem: We need to connect citizens with each other to engage them more fully and directly in solving the problems that face us. We must use all available technologies and methods to open up the federal government, creating a new level of transparency to change the way business is conducted in Washington and giving Americans the chance to participate in government deliberations and decision-making in ways that were not possible only a few years ago.

A datalibrists dream.

Whether Obama can do what he plans or not, I don’t know. He may be great or he may be terrible: we’ll find out. But I am happy that on day 2, I feel, frankly, more excited by the concrete vision described here than in all the talk of hope and renewal that had me cheering with the rest over the past few months.

See the rest of the platform here.

Let’s hope whoever wins the looming Quebec election has such vision.

Among book lovers, there continues to be an prevalent negative feeling about electronic books, or ebooks. The reaction, one I myself have experienced, goes something like this: I enjoy reading books, I enjoy the feel and the tactile feedback, touch, smell, look, books can be marked up and carried around, they never run out of batteries, I can keep them on my bookshelf, they look great, and they are permanent; they are easier on the eyes than screens, and dammit, I just love them. I do not want to read a book in an electronic format. And so I don’t think ebooks will succeed, no matter what Oprah says about the Amazon Kindle.

While I’m sympathetic with that reaction (indeed I feel the same way about paper & ink books), it entirely misses the point of ebooks. Ebooks are not in opposition to print & paper books; they are a parallel tool to get the content contained in a book [more...]

Here is the test: One of my favourite books is:

Independent People: An Epic, Halldór Laxness; Vintage International

Find in a library

It works. Nice.

Britain showed at least that it still believed in some sort of system of accountability: heads of banks resigned. Nothing like this in the US. Britain understood that it made no sense to pour money into banks and have them pour out money to shareholders. The US only restricted the banks from increasing their dividends. The Treasury has sought to create a picture for the public of toughness, yet behind the scenes it is busy reassuring the banks not to worry, that it’s all part of a show to keep voters and Congress placated. What is clear is that we will not have voting shares. Wall Street will have our money, but we will not have a full say in what should be done with it. A glance at the banks’ recent track record of managing risk gives taxpayers every reason to be concerned [more...]

The project itself is still top-secretish, but we’ve sorta launched a weblog, called the Book Oven Blog. It’s about: “books, making books and our relationship with text.”

I just wrote a post today about typewriters and writing software…

I’ve recently come into possession of the old Underwood typewriter that was in the office of the house I grew up in. After my mother threatened to throw it out, I inherited the thing, and now it’s serving as a decorative piece collecting dust in our front entrance way. I used to love that typewriter as a kid – I remember writing stories and school assignments and once a contract between my father and me for the purchase of a Rawlings baseball glove (he would pay half and I would pay half out of my allowance, collected over several months)….[more...]

If you have any interest in writing something for us about books or writing or publishing (?), ping me…and, of course feel free to comment read or subscribe etc.

As we progress in this very early phase, I though it was worth taking a peek at this old presentation I did for DemoCamp last year, about my experiences with Collectik.net, my first commercial web project. I still think Collectik was a great idea (so great that google reader’s shared items implemented the base principles a year after us, but they have a slightly bigger budget). We built good technology too, and really, when you got into it, the UI was solid and understandable. But it was hard for people to “get in,” and because of various mistakes and lack of resources Collectik never really got off the ground.

This presentation looks at some of the mistakes we made, and suggests some ideas about how to make a successful, rather than unsuccessful web project.

Nice to jog the memory a little bit.

i podcast and create junk for a living
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