On this eve of the Internet blackouts, in a broad showing of opposition to the short-sighted and politically funded PIPA and SOPA bills, I wanted to express my gratitude to my friend and artist Gwenn for her video on Scarcity vs. Abundance.
This is the real battle. Those who support the PIPA and SOPA bills are of the western dragon variety, which is about scarcity, hording, control, flames and threats. Contrast with the eastern dragons that bring good fortune. They’re more about abundance: the allowance of shared resources for the benefit of the art and artists, and for others who learn and benefit from this sharing.
I’m a grateful recipient of Gwenn’s kindness and love, and invite you to click on the dragon to watch her short video on this subject. Thanks Gwenn!
There are times when we have a list or a need, a pending task, too many papers on the desk… some reason to put regularly-scheduled life aside and just get things done. As I have a move coming up, I find that I have nearly all of these things before me at the same time: a couple of pending tasks for the next week, lists of things that need follow up, papers that need to be sorted (not all papers are coming with me). It’s time to get focused and get things done!
That said, I wanted to take a moment to point to my friend Gwenn’s colorful visit to the islands. Wonderful, spontaneous, reflective. A good reason to put aside regularly-scheduled life and take a moment to breathe.
The lists will wait. Thanks Gwenn for a view of paradise that I would not see but for your eyes and camera.
I support this video from Public Knowledge. It highlights the idiocy (arrogance?) of AT&T and Verizon, the two major wireless carriers that have imposed arbitrary data use limits on your use of your devices over the networks. “As a result, just about everything that you would use the 4G network for will put you over your limit.” That means you’ll either be paying way more for service after the first day (hour?) of use, or your service will be cut off, depending on your plan. And you’re going to pay extra for this?
<irony alert>
From a telco perspective: wouldn’t it be great to charge users for a month of service, but when those users have used up their limit, those “bandwidth hogs” get cut off? A month’s worth of fees for a day’s worth of service. Wow! The network needs go WAY down, and suddenly bandwidth is available again.
Or a different view: we have all this 4g and nobody using it. Nobody must want high speed access for their mobile devices! Won’t the regulators be surprised?
<end irony alert>
I encourage you to read their short version with graphics, or the whole paper online (also PDF). Do you experience a chilling effect?
This is a joint post with Digital Identity Coach, offering two perspectives on this singular event. This post is about the process of dealing with casualties, the methods of forensics, and honoring the victims of (human-based) catastrophes.
Last Thursday I met with a small group of people from Social Media Club Hawaii at Pearl Harbor for a unique tour of the Forensic Science services (Forensic Science Academy) of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC). We had a special opportunity to explore the process of identifying human remains—casualties of wars—and talk with one of forensic scientists doing this unusual work.
The basic idea: in wars, people from different countries, including Americans, die on foreign soil. All departments of the military have lost people. JPAC works with them all, and by extension, works with foreign governments to recover the remains and victims of battles. “The mission of JPAC is to achieve the fullest possible accounting of all Americans missing as a result of the nation’s past conflicts.” Read more…
On this eve of the Internet blackouts, in a broad showing of opposition to the short-sighted and politically funded PIPA and SOPA bills, I wanted to express my gratitude to my friend and artist Gwenn for her video on Scarcity vs. Abundance.
