Who do you know? On “expert” systems vs P2Ps…

February 12, 2006

I’ve had this weird suspicion creep up on me in the past few days. Ever since February 3rd, when I read the LA Times article, That song sounds familiar about Pandora, a six-year old internet radio website which I blogged about on Wednesday, I have been turning over in my head several related problems: of […]

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“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

February 10, 2006

We average Canadians might bravely sing that “we stand on guard for thee,” O Canada, but it seems our (unarmed) border guards have contractual leave to flee for thee in case of approaching Americans: SURREY, B.C. (CP) — Officers at the busy Peace Arch and Pacific Highway Canada-U.S. border crossings south of Vancouver walked off […]

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A “well-formed formula” (wff) video

February 9, 2006

David Weinberger has expanded his resumé with an acting gig in a great little 3-minute movie called Get Human (the video). This is for everyone who has climbed the walls while groping up (or down) a phone tree. Great film — very wickedly funny, too. That part of the video with the phone tree options […]

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…if music be the food of love, play on…

February 8, 2006

There’s this tremendously theatrical 19th century painting called Pollice Verso (which means Thumbs Down), painted by Jean-Louis Gérôme in 1872: The painting depicts a view seen from the arena floor, where a triumphant gladiator, standing astride his fallen victim, looks up into the crowd to receive the message that will decide the stricken man’s fate. […]

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Official Announcement – government seal about to change

February 7, 2006

Announcement Originally uploaded by Yule. A friend sent this picture to me yesterday and I immediately put it on my Flickr account. Thought it was worth blogging, too… First time I’m blogging a photo directly from Flickr, too. Wonder if html works? Let’s try it: here’s the link to my account…

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Trove

February 6, 2006

I just found this interesting page on Zombie Time called the Mohammed Image Archive. As an art historian, I’m fascinated by this as a resource. It includes historical images of Mohammed from the early 14th century through to the modern period. The early images are from Arab/ Muslim sources, putting the lie to the notion […]

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Timelines

February 6, 2006

Making a time line is a skill taught to children when they’re still quite young. At least it used to be — it’s certainly recommended as a teaching strategy by homeschooling how-to books, irrespective of their ideological or religious agenda. Perhaps it’s a skill no longer taught in public schools? I’m wondering about this lost […]

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Addendum to “Connecting the dots”

February 5, 2006

Several hours ago, I added the following entry to my “Connecting the dots,” which I wrote yesterday but couldn’t post till today because the berkman server was down. Usually I don’t repost, but just now I checked my blog on another computer, and noticed that the addendum didn’t show up — weird. (Not much weirder […]

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Connecting dots?

February 5, 2006

Call me paranoid, but here’s something that bothers me: via very different sources, I came across two articles in the www.timesonline.co.uk today (Feb.4/06) that make very similar arguments, albeit for seemingly different purposes. Seemingly. The first, by Simon Jenkins, is called These cartoons don’t defend free speech, they threaten it. It begins with a soothing […]

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This is what Google censorship in China looks like

February 3, 2006

The husband sent me an interesting link this morning: click here to see a side-by-side representation of what Google’s dot-com search engine shows under “images” of Tiananmen Square on the one hand, and what Google shows in China under the same search term. It’s an effective visual-graphic representation of censorship in action. Screenshot courtesy of […]

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