Archive for the ‘et cetera’ Category

Ninja Magazine

.:download issue #1 (in French) -> via ninja-mag.com

Astronaut Remi Gaillard

Building the Future

Ezra Temko, Delaware’s youngest City Council member, spoke on the "Running for Office" panel Friday afternoon in front of the nation’s future progressive policy-makers at The Roosevelt Institution’s National Student Expo in Washington, DC, on July 11.
The 22-year-old Temko got his start in politics through the Roosevelt Institution, the nation’s first student think tank. Before starting an RI chapter on his campus, Temko hadn’t thought much about local policy; now he helps make it. "I think that Roosevelt is tremendously beneficial in helping you talk about issues and helping you to become vision-oriented to really answer questions," Temko said.

Temko is part of a group of more than 8,000 reform-minded students on seventy-five campuses who have funneled their political vigor into policy papers, lobbying efforts, and pragmatic dialogue with community leaders-activism that eschews bullhorns and raucous marches and instead seeks to work through a system that is often disconnected and at odds with the needs, interests, hopes and dreams of today’s youth.

The Roosevelt Institution’s third annual National Student Expo showcased the organization’s most innovative policy proposals of the year. "For students in college, it’s the make it or break it time for political involvement," said Orriel Richardson, a law student at George Washington University who is starting a Roosevelt Institution chapter on her campus. "You have the kids who protest the war and see that war persists and then they’re disenfranchised from the system, as opposed to a student policy think tank that lets you learn that, yeah, you can protest the war, but it’s one of a bundle of elements that need to be addressed to effect change."

.:Read more -> the nation

The Future of the Book

The no-loading features of a book really counter point the content (or books) found on a screen. All you have to do is read and breathe and turn the page. Incredible that books have lasted this long- there not going any where. While we do not recommend transferring your blog directly to a book, refer to lifehacker on how to do it.

The printed, bound, and paid-for book wasAAa€" still is for the momentAAa€" more exacting, more demanding of its producer and consumer both. It was the encounter, in silence, of two minds, one following in the other’s steps but invited to imagine, to argue, to concur on a level of reflection beyond that of personal encounter. via

However "networked texts" will have the last word. It is up to the system to decide which experience will be better for the value of the word.

Be sure to head on over to The Institute for the Future of the Book which will soon be releasing The Googlization of Everything..

Speaking of a new society, networked media sounds a whole lot better right about now. According to Jeff Jarvis, this new society is:

built on connections, links, transparency, openness, publicness, listening, trust, wisdom, generosity, efficiency, markets, niches, platforms, networks, speed, and abundance. buzzmachine

Hmmm, well then blogging also becomes a publishable source from here on out and no longer just an extension of personality. Maybe a "blook" is merely a longer book…

Alternative 2008 Olympic Coverage

"Tired of traditional media broadcasting the humdrum, sanitized, ‘G’ rated media coverage of the Olympics? If so, then here is the Unofficial Smart Mobs A-List of ‘8’ alternative ways to experience Olympic coverage.AA This list which should please your appetite and curiosity for understanding what is really happening in Beijing right now." via smartmobs

1.) QIK.com is probably the only user-generated platform that is offering an unprecedented perspective on what is happening live and uncensored from Beijing. No other platform offers real-time, instantaneous, people driven mediated coverage of the Olympics. There are about 18 individuals roaming around Beijing with QIK enabled phones live streaming to the the world what is happening at the Olympics in Beijing. The QIK Olympic channel can be found here:

2.) Dailymotion offers an eclectic range of sources which easily rivals YouTube in substance.AA Think of Dailymotion as the a€oeEuropeana€A non-Googlian alternative which attracts quality sources from all points of the globe.

3.) YouTube China /Taiwan offers an official Olympic Channel which is only available to countries which do not have official Olympic coverage.AA Check out BeijingOlympics2008 for coverage of one man and his camera via YouTube.

4.) Kyte.tv currently offers about 9 channels with approximately 2 dozen shows covering issues ranging from Falun Gong, Tibet and the Olympics.

5.) The Pirate Olympics isAA what Janko Roettgers asserts will arise when a€oecountless [Olympic] sports fans will look for video coverage of the Olympic games online while trapped [at work] in their cubiclesa€¦ and chances are at least some of them wona€™t head to NBCa€™s official web site but will try their luck elsewhere.a€A Read: Pirate Olympics: 5 Alternative Ways to Watch the Olympics Online for a list of alternative ways to experience the Olympics.

6.) Flickr is an unyielding source of first-person accounts highlighting a plethora of visual perspectives in Beijing.AA A picture may be worth a thousand words, but flickr delivers thousands of pictures related to just one word: Olympics

7.) Twitter is another unique way to keep abreast of what people are doing in Beijing. You can track what is happening in the twittersphere with the following hash# tag #080808 There are over 2 dozen individual twitter feeds spewing micro-content of what is happening, although only a few are really worth tracking.AA Sadly the only twitter feeds worth tracking are: NBCOlympics (for an American mainstream perspective) 080808news for an a€oeOfficial Olympic Games Data Streama€A.AA You need to dig around on twitter to find those individuals who are broadcasting micro-content via twitter.

8.) Last but not leastAA you can experience the Beijing Olympics from an Eastern perspective with CCTV.com, the official a€oewindow on China and the world. Also, check out Al Jazeeraa€™s coverage which is a clear counterbalance to CNN.

Western Style Philanthropy

Michele Fugiel poses some great questions about the private quality of "western" style philanthropy.

Why do we separate how money is injected to non-profits and profits from a role that quite often elsewhere is closely associated with the priorities of the government?

Foundation resources are money that would otherwise be added to federal and state treasuries, money otherwise taxed and used for public benefit. For this reason alone, the public should know more about how foundations are managed. (mitpress looks into "deep diversity")

Is there room for change? Big ups to Pierre and Pam Omidyar for "unleashing human potential" (among the other most generous 49 philanthropists) and Jeff Skoll for initiating Social Edge.

Could an Amazon share algorithms with a Pandora? An Amazon branched with a Pandora couldn’t happen because Amazon is Amazon, however to think that there couldn’t be an Panazon is ridiculous. How can market data be shared to promote social entrepreneurialism?

Knowing how the art business revolves one could go out on another limb and wonder why types of "museums" are the beginning and end recipients of "arts benefaction"… who’s in the middle you ask? Thousands if not millions of well-trained artists who do not know that they are artists…..

When given a theoretical $100 billion and asked how hea€™d spend it, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales offers the profound a€" and controversial a€" idea of distributing funds widely and letting people decide what they need on their own, even if ita€™s another Jack Daniels. via

China: No a€oeGo China!a€A banners at the Olympics

Reporter: Why the ban on banners or posters such as a€oeGo China!a€A being brought in?

BOGOC: This Olympic Games is being held in Beijing, and we are the hosts. Volunteers know that everyone will be writing a€oeGo China!a€A, which isn’t so bad in itself, but will we be able to read the signs written by the attendees from the other 200+ countries? Do we still let them in or not? If we think for a second, of the previous Olympic Games in Athens or the next Games in London, if they were to stop us from bringing in the banners we’d prepared because they can’t read Chinese, how would we be feeling?

Also, the five Olympic rings represent the unity of the five continents, as well as the meeting of athletes from around the world for fair and open competitions at the Olympic Games in a friendly spirit; the spirit of Olympic Games competitions is a fair and just competitive spirit. We want the Olympic Games to transcend all political ideology, be it China, Japan, America or France, so that all people can be just like the Olympic rings, and everybody can enjoy the celebration together, happily, advancing understanding of one another. The appearance of all sorts of banners at the venues would surely ruin this kind of atmosphere, which is why for the past several decades the International Olympic Games Organizing Committee has consistently insisted on implementing this rule. globalvoicesonline

RIP Jerome Holtzman

"As a baseball writer, columnist and historian for more than 50 years, Jerome Holtzman was a beloved figure and made an incredible impact on the game," Commissioner Bud Selig said Monday in a statement. via

Gap Evacuee Tells Story

The black van slid to a halt and the good doctor ejected himself from the shotgun seat. a€oeWea€™re evacuating!a€A he said, as he and two friends race-walked toward his house, next door to ours. Hea€™d had to talk his way past the police to get up the hill from Cathedral Oaks, sliding by only because his friends from Carp had left two Labs in his back yard before theya€™d gone to dinner.

Suzanne and I had been having our own dinner on Thursday evening when the lights finally died, after a half-hour of fritzing televisions and power-surging phone messages. We were in the Dream House, the one wea€™d bought in 2001 and moved into exactly one month ago. Wea€™d nested after extensive renovation, doing all the little things you do to make a place yours, down to the anal stuff of alphabetizing books by author, within categories, or happily noting when the hummingbirds found the feeder. When I flew back to the Chicago area for my last graduation as a professor and to check out our for-sale house there, the going-away salutations were tearful but Ia€™d already moved West in my head. I missed our cocoon. via independent