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2009by Jon Garfunkel"Disregard the hype and the haters," PC Mag's longtime columnist John C. 2008by Jon GarfunkelYesterday I received an 750-word from the Wikileaks email address (@sunshinepress.org) in response to my critical article about the service. I'd love to reprint it, but the author had the temerity to preface it with the request "off the record." There are journalists who support the notion that a unilateral request of "off the record" need not be honore 2007by Jon GarfunkelIf you're like millions of Americans You've left Dan, Tom, and Peter before they left you. Evening News? You're on the road home. Morning newspaper?
Don't drive and read on the road to work.
Passing by the woods on a snowy morning...
Can't we just leave those carbon suckers in the ground? by Jon GarfunkelSearch Engine Land reports that ArsTechnica reports that the Computer & Communications Industry Association (an organization led by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and other software vendors) has created the Defend Fair Use initiatve. They'd like the big media companies to recognize fair use in their copyright statements. One can call it AstroTurfing (though no one will, since people side with the software companies over media companies), but they do raise a good point (even if the slogan "Stand up for your RIGHT to use the content YOU PAY FOR" is illustrated by a couple cuddling-- not standing up-- on the couch). It's such a good point, I think YouTube should take heed and listen!
by Jon GarfunkelDan Gillmor's Citizen Media blog, which normally just draws in the "citizen media gripes" in the comments like Seth, Delia, and myself (ok, I took a break for several weeks this summer), now has drawn a whole good deal more readers out of the woodwork. The impetus? In a post titled Another Gross Journalistic Failure, Dan offers a jeremiad against the mortage-morphing industry (previously known as the financial sector) and their apparent cheerleaders in the dead-tree business: by Jon GarfunkelI work in an industry segment where our software revolves around not one, but two, TLA's (Three-Letter Acronyms). They are BPM (Business Process Management) and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). The headline writers in the trade press love them, the names sometimes just function as "Brad and Angelina" due in the celebrity magazines. If there is room in the cosmic plan for Brad and Angelina to stay together, why not BPM and SOA? 2006by Jon GarfunkelIn honor of the Wikipedia community gathering across the river in Cambridge at the Berkman Center for the Wikimania 2006 conference-- or rather, exploiting the occasion that the wiki watchdogs will have their attention elsewhere until Sunday-- I edited an entry in Wikipedia. The entry I edited: the one for the word wiki. by Jon GarfunkelI thought I'd put together a bit of a teaser here for the upcoming series about the meme of “Shirky's Power Law” (it's already at 5,000 words in draft). Three years ago, Clay Shirky and Jason Kottke independently looked at some of the top weblog rankings and concluded that they reflected a power law distributed. Shirky used the data from the “Truth Laid Bear” list, which has been declining in relevance ever since. Kottke, on the other hand, used data from Technorati, which only launched a few months earlier and has been on the ascendence. But being as I'm writing about Shirky, I thought I'd look at the ol' bear's list before it goes into permanent hiberation. by Jon GarfunkelA guide to the various Worders in the New Media landscape. It's no longer just Writers and Readers. But one term doesn't fit all. word 'em up: 2005by Jon GarfunkelThe following statement appeared in a leaked memo from a Deputy Managing Editor of the most obsessed-about newspaper in the country: "People can use it any way they want to. It has no inherent ethical or moral quality, though it does have its own special power." I invite you to come up with a possible explanation of what "it" is: a) Wikipedia
b) a blog
c) a Colt .45
d) the new Oral-B computerized toothbrush
e) the 82nd Airborne Division by Jon GarfunkelI have a confession to make, which may surprise close readers of this space. Earlier this year, I wanted to actually start a blog-- you know, write off the cuff like a blubbering fool about any topic that crossed somebody else's mind. I needed help, some of my curmudgeonly correspondents to help breathe life into a made-up person named Fabio Folio. Nobody wanted to help, and then I discovered that a Google search revealed that “Fab Folio” was the name of a real person in Italy, so I retired the character. I'd like to say that my second choice was “Valerie Flame,” but I can't find the piece of paper where I wrote that. I bring this up to expand on some points about fake blogs (flogs?). by Jon GarfunkelApril First re-introduction: Today is my birthday, I am once again a prime-number age after what has been my longest stretch away from being in my prime, six years. (You do the math). My sister just gave me the best gift ever, a mechanical fifty-year calendar paperweight, which may outlast this operating system, if not social security. Also recently the National Review Online has had some problems understanding what content here is self-parody, so I thought I'd help out by republishing a foolish little piece I wrote on January 24th. According to my new paperweight, I spin the wheel and find out that it was a Monday.
by Jon GarfunkelThere's been a lot of talk about the "A-List" in the blogosphere-- the top bloggers who get all the attention-- and this often inspires speculation about parallel B-lists and C-lists. What many people don't know is that the designations go all the way to Z. Here is the full list:
by Jon GarfunkelI have a case for Walt Whitman being some sort of early blogger. It is the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Leaves of Grass, so no doubt he will be discussed in every school in this country this year. When researching "singer" as one of the main archetypes of today's bloggers, I came up with that term as I remembered that Whitman was fond of singing as a metaphor for celebrating oneself.
by Jon GarfunkelThis may be the first sonnet I've written in fourteen years. It was not expressly for Rebecca MacKinnon's Valentine's Day Sonnet Contest, though it's not too far from her requested themes of "love and blogging." Instead, it had a more utilitarian purpose. Bob Cox had written a loooong email to a group of a people about the state of blogging, and I wanted to respond to some of the points, and offer a link to my latest piece, yet not bore everybody with a tedious post. Inspired by my recent diet of Leaves of Grass, I started writing, and one rhyme led to another, and this is what I emailed a week ago...
2004by Jon GarfunkelFor no other reason than Mom wanting to take a break
from preparing and cleaning up.
We drove down to Jersey,
past the silent campuses at New Brunswick and Princeton,
and then up the Delaware, Washington crossed on Christmas Day
in 1776, he had gone to Trenton;
now we went the other way, to Lambertville,
to the Lambertville Station restaurant
where we served ourselves a buffet dinner by Jon GarfunkelMoveOn had a great message, but recently it's becoming twisted against them. Just to review the origination of the term: First they petitioned the Republican Congress to "move on" past the Clinton impeachment hearings (they failed). They revived it in urging President Bush to "move on" past the war threats on Iraq (failed again).
Since then, the GOP has blossomed into the party of no accountability. After all, accountability would be tantamount to admitting error, and admitting error would invite investigations, and that would just get in the way of the important things a government does, like wage war and cut taxes. As Dick Cheney said, in a Saturday night prepared release defending Rumsfeld: "People ought to get off his case and let him do his job." Move on, indeed. The talking points from Republican Senators today (outside of McCain and Warner) were on that message: let's not dwell on the past; let's focus on the present, and the future. I wouldn't be surprised if we have an incumbent President who campaigns on the same theme, to forget the past.
by Jon GarfunkelThe RNC must be pent-up for cash-- they are now reaching out to Massachusetts liberals! (Did anyone else get a pitch in the mail?)
I was thinking of sending them my annotations... but then realized that they wouldn't think it very funny. So instead I'm going answer their request and tell them that I have indeed been let down: I really expect Republicans, when they control the legislative and the executive branch, to spend less money...
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