May 2008
11 posts
Zzzzzzzz
Bumblin’ Along will be hibernating for a while as I shift my blogging efforts over to Blurring Borders where the Wordpress platform provides more flexibility and I can write at length about other important topics like development, technology and world affairs. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Every comment on this blog post donates $10 to... →
Link Dump on Political Transparency
I had the opportunity to attend the Berkman@10 conference these past two days. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts in the coming days, but I’ve blogged some of it at my blog, Copyrightings. However, one thing I wanted to highlight were a lot of people doing important work with government transparency. Here are some links, check them out: The Sunlight Foundation is behind much of...
A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science →
Crows are scary-smart →
Theory of ICTs in Human Rights →
$200 Oil
Where are the next generation planes which don’t need oil? Why aren’t the carriers placing a $50 million prize on the inventor that can solve that problem?
Inner-city crime - Back from the Brink - The... →
This article perfectly sums up why I love the Economist. Not only is the content spot-on and insightful, it is often dripping with wonderfully dry sarcasm. Case in point: “Outside a liquor store, a policeman pats down a suspect. The suspect’s trousers are halfway down his thighs. You might think this is an impractical fashion for someone who often needs to run from the police.”
Are the new viewers gone yet?
Forgot how amazing this was.
Things I Don't Like About My MacBook Pro
1. The button to unlatch the closed computer is too skinny 2. When closed, the pulsating light on the front is incredibly annoying, especially when I sleep three feet from the light 3. The entire machine gets much, much too hot 4. The battery’s life has suddenly decreased notably; getting 1.5 hours is a chore 5. If, by chance, static electricity build-up discharges when I touch the MBP, the...
April 2008
28 posts
Unintended Consquences II
Eating dinner last night with a food policy lobbyist I learned that food banks have been the victim of increased information flow. In the past, grocery stores donated excess food to food banks which in turn donated to the homeless. Now, with better models of consumption and purchasing behavior, supermarkets have less food they cannot sell. The result? Less food for charity.
Unintended Consquences
I used to often have some coins in my pocket which I would give to the homeless on the street. Now, as I pay with plastic, that event happens less. I wonder if this is a broader experience.
“Part of the issue with laptops being perceived as anti-social is that it is a...”
– Jan Chipchase - Future Perfect: English Caff Condiment Norms
In the past year, half of Yellowstone's bison... →
Music [from YouTube] Which Will Get Me Through...
Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show Redemption Song by Bob Marley Love is My Religion by Ziggy Marley Love Song by Sara Barielles Obsession by The Orion Experience (By the way, I’m very excited to be through finals for summer in lovely Chicago-land.)
“One year ago, the Inspector General’s Office — the independent audit...”
– Shocking new revelation: Unchecked government powers get abused - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
“From: Nicholas Kristof Subject: the power of art in september i traveled with...”
– Neat story about the power of graphics from a NYT’s columnist.
A Tale of Two Mergers
In the media/Internet sector, the past year has seen two important mergers: News Corp. + Dow Jones and Microsoft + Yahoo. Though I am no expert in M&A, it has been interesting to watch the two play out. When the Wall Street Journal was about to be purchased, the typical concerns over Murdoch’s editorial style were rampant. The WSJ is a stalwart of good, honest content without bias. News...
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form...
Churchill’s quote rings even more true after speaking with a professor today with a specialty in ethnic conflict. After his lecture in my comparative political systems course today, I went up and asked him a question about identity and democracy that stemmed from a conversation I had with a taxi driver. The driver was a Pashtun Afghani who had left his country in the early 1990s. As we spoke...
“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”
– Max Weinreich
Foreign Policy: The Top 100 Public Intellectuals →
Cast your vote.
Illiteracy
Can you imagine spending all your waking hours not understanding what all the letters around our world mean? Schedules, names, advertisements… they’d all be opaque. It would be like putting me in Shanghai, but for the 799 million illiterate people worldwide who can’t read and write, it happens in their native environment.
“What amazes Chipchase is not the standard stuff that amazes big multinational...”
– Cellphones - Third World and Developing Nations - Poverty - Technology - New York Times
“Rowling is basically trying to get copyright law to do a lot more than it is...”
– Techdirt: JK Rowling Appeals To Judge’s Emotional Side, Rather Than A Real Legal Argument Over Potter Guidebook
Urubamba, Peru - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia →
Bored in class, I decided to edit this Wikipedia article, but I experienced a weird feeling of epistomological arrogance as I changed other people’s words. Who am I to decide that my sentence is better than the current? Am I sure that the presence of bed and breakfasts is irrelevant? In the past, I’ve had no problem creating articles, but this was a new experience. I guess I’m...
Science As Art →
Neat photos.
Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook's new number two to... →
Big win for Facebook.
Legal Immigrants, Until They Applied for... →
Can you say Kafkaesque?
FCC approves emergency alert text-messaging system →
[Insert trendy, slightly condescending headline using txt-speak]
“Thus, Wikipedia is best understood as a cultural practice (the NPOV) rather than...”
– video vidi visum : virtual » Enlightened doubt : Wikipedia’s postmodern search for truth
ISBN.nu: Find the best price for books online →
I know at least one of my readers has had trouble recently purchasing books online. This site is useful for finding cheaper prices than Amazon.
The anatomy of an iPhone user (and why they want... →
Centralize!
I’m not happy with having my interactions with my social network be isolated in the walled gardens of Facebook, Verizon text messages and GMail. I love being able to search all of GMail since so much of my exchanges with friends are through gChat or email. With Facebook, at least I get to keep the content, but it is diffused between Wall posts and Inbox messages which aren’t...
March 2008
25 posts
Coming Soon, to Any Flat Surface Near You →
An oddly and annoyingly biased article about a cool technology.
The Obama Doctrine →
If, as his opponents insist, Obama does not have foreign policy experience, the best place to see his administration’s qualifications and leanings should be in his policy advisors. This article draws extensively on interviews with those people.
Change Congress Launch →
Question:
Can you prove to me that the world wasn’t created 10 seconds ago with all the memories, fossils and computer files that currently inhabit it?
“Soon, you’ll be able to print books found at the Internet Archive with...”
– The Internet Archive Keeps Book-Scanning Free
Visuals, ctd.
My post yesterday tried to quickly emphasize the importance of images (moving and still) in creating justified outrage over human rights abuses. I’ve been investigating some more and rediscovered Witness which is a human rights organization which provides cameras to document abuses of power. They also have the Hub which is a video sharing site focused on abuses of human rights. And in case...
Visuals
I’ve been following the tragic situation in Tibet with some interest as it unfolds. The largest demonstrations against the Chinese rule in decades have received a good deal of media attention, but it lacks a potency that other political upheavals have had. I think the reason for this is the lack of visuals coming out of Tibet. Tiannanmen Square has been forever seared into the consciousness...
Google for Non-Profits →
“The Chinese system of Internet censorship and media propaganda may have a lot of...”
– RConversation: Tibet… is discussion possible?