sj's Longest Now [v.1]

Wikipedia’s nationality is at risk.  Arguments have started up this week about whether Wikipedia has nationality, and whether it is associated in people’s minds with the US.  World Citizenship has not apparently been suggested. But the discussion turned up this gem, from (you guessed it!) dpbsmith:

Mike Newell has apparently written and spoken about a culture of bung — a “bung culture”, as it were — for the past year or two. Now that term , which may never have been popular before, has become indelibly linked to his name.

“Another conservatory”, “a boob job”, and “a fast car” are all identified with one another in the list of uses to which a bung may be put.

Bungs “have always been a part of football” — apparently they are kickbacks of one sort or another. Where this usage comes from escapes me atm, but I’m sure I will find out soon.

A painfully wonderful flash short:  Touchtone Genius  

You must also visit the composer’s website, where he tackles
interesting requests with a genius that extends far beyond
touchtones (Aaron Mandel, call your office) : songs to wear pants to.

But the greatest short I saw last year: “What can be changed“.  I want to see the original, without subtitles…

And finally, for doomsday preparations, you can’t do better than Martyr.net.

A friend I made just recently was trying to explain a fear of public exposure
— not precisely a passionate sense of privacy, as certain breaches
thereof were acceptable (being published in one’s own field, being
known for good work one had done, being a backup dancer on stage); but
a strong aversion to specific kinds of exposure (being published for a
lay audience, having comments published in a local paper, being a
singer on stage, having a web page, being written about publicly by
friends).  It made me think of what a luxury this is; of all the people in the world who have no access to exposure, nor any notion of what it might mean to be ‘overexposed‘. 

Reverends Mandell and Pierce gave sermons recently about survival in the modern world; specifically for children,
whose capacities to choose are frequently limited. Global Voices should
start including those of children — not yet old enough to have their
own sites, perhaps, but surely old enough
to think, react, journal, and speak.  I know some people who would
like this idea; for instance, I would love to hear thoughts on the
matter from Rebecca.  Mandell spoke of  reaching out to children; Pierce published a sermon from his church in Lawrence, on sinning by omission, which I find significantly less compelling [how many omissions would I unmake, if I could?  and how to prioritize among them?]. 

But reaching out, taking their voices seriously as we do those of adults, is a major step.  Let us take it.

Adam Curry edited his own encyclopedia entry.  Well, the
podcasting article, to be precise.  How do we know?  He
admits it.  But before he admitted it, and before he admitted his
edits were wrong, the community sussed it out.  Details below…

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/tech/2005/12/05/phillips.wikipedia.interview.cnn

The interviewer wasn’t pleased with her own Wikipedia entry. She ran a fine
interview, though. The segment was longer than most of the CNN segments
that hour. Both Seigenthaler and Jimbo looked a little beat; from
stalking himself on the wiki and tussling with the floor, respectively.

CNN is great about maintaining their own transcripts. Happily, the
local news division had the program on the projection screen in their
main conference room.

Thanks to Dave’s fabulous new game-industry blog
(now that he’s the associate dir @ MIT’s gaming lab, it’s about time he
got one up), I’ve been following some of the recent scandals and events
in the latest generation of games, something I haven’t done since
E3.   And today I was lucky enough to spend an hour with Cory Ondrejka at Berkman, someone I haven’t seen since Accelerating Change this time last year.

So I was reading up on the latest changes in Second Life, and ran
across this insightful take on Rockstar, from the cybersex-oriented Black Love Interactive:

Next time I see one of the developers of “Bully”, I’ll be thinking of Xmas prezzies from grandma.

…they’re planning for disaster by training the community to be more self-reliant (and going back to centuries-old roots in the process).  How did I miss this when it was first announced?

This afternoon’s panel on the resurgence of interest in Nuclear Power
got off to a quiet enough start; but climaxed in a few emotional
exchanges among its five panelists shortly before the end. 

An embarrassingly rough transcript (as usual, better
ones to come) is online.  A quick summary
: big power gorups are conflicted; both trying to support their existing
power investments and trying to pursue nuclear and other options
without taking on more risk than necessary.  Few energy activists
(or policy-makers in the right gov’t offices!) have the money or
authority to put their necks out, even when they feel they know the
right technical steps to make.

The big point that noone picked up was nuclear education :
how to educate the public about nuclear power; something which hasn’t
happened well.  This is also one place where Wikipedia-style
projects could help immensely… There wasn’t enough interest in the
panelist fesponses to tell how much if any they would care for such a
development.

Presroi has a new section for notes on lexicons around the world : Category-lexika
He also recently gave a well-received talk to a group of European KM mavens… let me see if I can post a link to the presentation.