Aaron Swartz has stopped blogging – Now he is publishing an “online magazine” and attempting to uphold the high standards of real journalism. No more will I defend saying something simply because it is “the truth”. No, from now on, I am adopting the rigorous standards of professional journalists. I’ve been convinced that telling people the truth will just hurt them and, frankly, I’m a little tired of being mocked and shunned for my honesty, which goes completely unappreciated by you people.
Back in 1999 there was a big to-do about the incredibly wealthy Ira Rennert’s building of a massively huge house in Southampton, New York. Exposés were written about Rennert, how he aquired his money, and what sort of scary things he was going to do in his massive new compound. His neighbors sued to block him from building the monstrosity, claiming that, while 20,000 sq. ft. is fine and dandy, 42,000 sq. ft. is just a bit too ostentatious.
All this having nothing to do with me, except that when we were visiting the Hamptons last year, we drove by the Rennert compound and I was able to snap a few bad pictures of it from afar (close up it is surrounded by high walls of brush).
When you search for Rennert on Google Images, the *only* actual pictures of the house returned are those taken by me, which has led to the odd phenomenom of people using my photos page as a place for social commentary. I only found out about this today when I received a slightly inappropriate email from someone who was searching fro Rennert house imagery and stumbled across my site. Go figure.
NYT gets on the bandwagon praising Costco – I don’t get tired of hearing about a company that does a good business while paying its employees well. And a CEO who responds to Sam’s Club’s statement that they have lower prices by saying, “you can’t compare Hunt’s ketchup with Heinz ketchup,” I love this guy!
Auto makers using “hybrid” technology to give cars additional horsepower — not better mileage – It’s idiotic, a loophole in government tax credits, and a waste of good technology. And people who claim they are “going green” without making any “sacrifices” seem to lack all semblance of common sense.
Lafayette citizens vote to approve municiple project to provide high-speed fiber optic connectivity to every home and business – What a wonderful glimpse of what is to come. I’ve thought this should happen for a long time now.
Hillary Clinton continues to be a moron – Because clearly what we need more of is the Congress and Federal Trade Commission telling us what is and is not appropriate computer software for us to choose to spend out own money on to aquire for our own use.
Karl Rove’s America – Paul Krugman is far, far too restrained in talking about how very sickening Republican politics has become in the age of George W. Bush. As much as I bash the Democrats for not figuring out in the last six years what’s going on and how to adapt to it, I can almost feel sorry for them in their naivete and confusion about just what went wrong.
Personal blogs can do a lot to hurt — and very little to help — the academic job-seeker – “We all have quirks. In a traditional interview process, we try our best to stifle them, or keep them below the threshold of annoyance and distraction.” I get the impression that my blog may have hurt me with some of the jobs I applied for, but I can’t really know for certain. In my case, though, I was looking for a job that really fit my personality, so perhaps it was all for the best. There sure are a heck of a lot of cautionary tales out there, and certainly no one wants to get Dooced. It’s a really fine line, isn’t it? I’ve commented on this sort of thing before, I don’t really have any answers. It’s too early in the game. (via JP)
CSMonitor talked to Africans and attendees of the Live 8 concerts to get some perspectives on the Africa “problem” – There seems to be a bit of a disconnect here.
Preparing to dive in
Four years ago last month, I “crossed the line,” in the words of the Tustin Unified School District by bypassing their internet censoring software, and then shared my story on Salon Magazine. At the end of that article I pledged to do my part to protect civil liberties and help the spread of the internet as a democratizing force.
I’m proud to say that my high school dream has been fulfilled — on Monday I start work at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Back then I saw myself as a lawyer, but in the intervening years I’ve become less convinced that law is my passion. But my passion for understanding and shaping the development of the internet and new technologies as a force for social change has not lessened. And I’m proud to be able to join the Berkman team and, in my own little way, help nudge things along.
In preperation for my work I’ve done a bit more poking around the Berkman web, and found it in some ways frightning. After four years at Brandeis I felt like I had a pretty good handle on the pulse of the school and knew a lot of what was going on. Now I’m diving into something completely alien, and I see that I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the projects that Berkman is in some way connected to. Its weird being the new guy; I’ve gotten used to being the seasoned veteran.
But perhaps in another way it is good. By my senior year at Brandeis, the young whipper-snappers climbing the ladders of student government were treating me like a crotchety old has-been on his way out rather than a wise elder statesman. It was a really weird feeling, that shift from the knowledgable mentor role to “disillusioned old guy who just won’t let go and seems to stand in the way of everything we want to do.” Perhaps now is about the right time to really dive in to something completely new and exciting and different. Perhaps this is just want I need to get the passion back.
I never would have imagined, four years ago, that this is where I would be today. But I’m always telling people my simple philosophy that things generally seem to work themselves out. And I really do believe it. Just hang in there, and when you least expect it something great will happen.
Miller’s Time – And the opposite view.
The Anonymity Trap – Arguing that Time made the right decision and the New York Times was wrong in how they handled the Plame leakers.
Pigment in curry helps fight cancer – You may remember back in Jaunary the same was said about Alzheimer’s.
And here are the questions people should be asking about the Plame leak – Because what Novak said and what Pincus is saying are two very different things. (via Daily Kos)
Robert Novak’s original Valerie Plame column – My first time seeing it. He says two senior administration officials told him that Wilson’s wife was a WMD analyst at the CIA, but there doesn’t seem to be any indication that Novak knew she was an undercover operative. Did the administration officials know? Who knows?
Some very strange things are happening in Carroll County – The article does a good job of repeating over and over that the members of the Planning and Zoning Commission are being threatened with jail time for refusing to approve a development plan, but it never once tells us why. Now that’s some fine reporting!
A completely useless article on a potentially wonderful treatment for AIDS – So where are the details?