All posts in March 2008

Toward the end of this afternoon’s session on Open Broadband, I got a text message from Margaret. It didn’t say what was up, just told me to call her — which I knew was not a good sign. My father, Donald Geikie Adam, apparently will not come out of the sedation that has been enabling…

For as long as I can remember, every time I’ve been to an airport, the public address system has reminded me that the “threat level” for air travel is orange. That means it’s “High,” a riskier condition than “Elevated” (= yellow). But it makes me wonder how long the “threat level” has to stay at…

Not politically progressive, but I’ll just put notes in here as I observe stuff at F2C. Right now, Micah Sifry is announcing an initiative to get legislation onto the Web before it’s enacted.   The panel is interesting and impressive — Micah, Alec Ross, Matt Stoller, and especially Donna Edwards. They’re good-hearted, well-intentioned, alert participants…

Woke up this morning, got myself a train. . . .   Woke up at 4:45 this morning, caught Amtrak to Washington DC, Metro to Silver Spring, walked up Colesville Road to the AFI, and ducked directly into the Freedom to Connect conference, where the first face I saw was Frank Paynter. Skulked into the…

First, Margaret keeps wondering whether her job [prospect] will work out. She asked, “If you tell me 500 times, will it be true?” So far, I’ve worked down to 487, but it’s only been two days. I’ll count this as knocking it down to 486: “It will work out, and it’s great, I’m very proud…

My sweetheart has a very intriguing job prospect; I long to blab about it to the world, but I have to wait till everything is signed, sealed, and delivered. Nothing can stop me, though, from beaming with pride and affection.

This article about Jim DeRogatis’s change of heart relative to a recent R.E.M. album underscores my interest in retrospective evaluation of popular culture. As DeRogatis admits, reviews written in the heat of anticipation (positive or negative) are liable to mislead; a glance through the yearly awards lists shows how great the difference is between “what…

I can’t speak for you, but I see in Chad Jordan’s t-shirt design just a little too close a resemblance to Dorothy’s Transylvanian character in Cat and Girl.

Video of Clay Shirky’s presentation of Here Comes Everybody at the Berkman Center, and — well, I don’t buy everything Robert Cringely says in the following column, but these are the kinds of question with which we need to be grappling (Hat tip to Bruce).

Stephen Downes reports on Larry Sanger’s call for “philanthropists to ‘liberate’ educational content by buying it from publishers and posting it for free online.” It’s a very Disseminary idea, but even more so is Stephen’s reaction: “The money would be better spent helping volunteers make their free content better.”

My dad’s in the hospital with some fairly serious lung problems. Margaret’s mom has had a persistent fever. Margaret has had a nasty cough for several days. She caught it from Jennifer, who is feeling a little better, and who went back to Manhattan for a couple of days. Josiah and Laura will arrive for…

Yesterday’s sermon from Christ Church, New Haven. . .