Blogs
Sony and our National Security
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 11/17/2005 - 21:10(Originally published in Greater Democracy)
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about Sony's 'rootkit' that they had secretly been installing on computers around the world and the security issues it has raised.
As I read this, I felt compelled to write the following letter to my Congressperson, Chris Shays, who is chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.
Strega
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 11/16/2005 - 22:17It is a dark and stormy night and my spirits are matching the night. Fiona is in bed, still fighting off the remnants of a cold. I am run down, probably fighting the same bug. Kim is up visiting our friend Kimberly, outside of Boston.
Kimberly writes in My trip with breast cancer,” I am officially in Stage IIIA. Stage 5-year Relative Survival Rate - IIIA = 56% Source: American Cancer Society”. I am glad Kimberly is keeping a blog. I am glad that Kim has gone up to help. I know how hard it will be on everyone.
Pre-blogging the Daily Show
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 11/15/2005 - 23:15Today, we break new ground on Orient Lodge. You’ve seen live blogging of television shows before. Today, I ‘pre-blog’ the Daily Show.
This evening, Kim and I went to see the Daily Show being filmed. We got there early to wait in line because they overbook. We had a good discussion with the couple that was waiting behind us. After waiting in the green room, we got lead into the studio where they tape the show.
We were told that they don’t use a sound track, or an ‘applause’ light. A comic came out early to warm us up. He tried to get everyone as loud as possible. He was really good. He talked about how they didn’t want people to come watch the show, they wanted people to participate. It reflects a different aspect of why the Daily Show is important. It isn’t just an irreverent look at politics that matters, it is getting people involved. The audience is encourage participate.
Sharing Videos, part 2
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 11/15/2005 - 12:15Brett concisely writes, “Amateur writers are a hell of a lot better than amateur videographers.”
I tend to agree with him. The way I’ve put it before, imagine being able to view home anyone’s movies whenever and wherever you want. Personally, I’m not all that interested. However, I know a lot of grandparents that may be really interested in that.
One of the things that I like about text blogs is the commenting, the give and take. Last year, David Weinberger posted this entry about the convention bloggers. I created a video comment in reply, however most of the comments ended up being in text.
Sharing videos
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 11/13/2005 - 22:12Colin’s class is covering vlogs this week. I haven’t really played with vLogs, but I did recently read TechCrunch’s review of free video sharing sites, so I figured now is a good time to play with them a little bit myself.
As background, I have a Cannon PowerShut S410. It can record very brief video segments. I took a brief video of Fiona and started uploading it to the various sites.
Youtube is the oldest and most established. They convert the videos to Flash and add their watermark to the video. They take a little while to convert the video. They do a nice job of pointing out similar videos based on tags. Perhaps this is the flickr of the vlogs.
Castpost gives a nice URL and is easy to use. In a lot of ways, it feels a bit like blogger.
