Technology
Entries related to technology.
Maintaining Social Ties
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/27/2006 - 09:48The other day, Kim pointed out to me a large dent in the hood of the Prius. Based on the location, I believe it is from the branch that bounced off the car about a week ago when I was driving home from dropping Miranda off at school. I had thought that the branch hit the windshield and bounced off. Looking at the dent, it seems that a very big branch hit the hood and then bounced off the windshield as I drove on. I figure if I had of been a few moments earlier, it would have hit, and smashed the windshield.
One of the impatiens that Fiona brought home from school last year has been sitting in a kitchen window ever since. It has now started blooming again.
Pseudonymity and Anonymity online
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 11:43My online persona grew up in the world of MOOs, and I think that world can provide us some helpful insights in how pseudonymity and anonymity can work online.
Why is this important? Recently, there have been lots of discussions about anonymity and pseudonymity online. How can Craig’s List deal better with trolls and scamsters? How can Wikipedia better deal with people deliberately posting false information? How can we have better discussions in the comment sections of active blog sites? Would requiring some sort of consistent online identity help address these problems? What sort of level of verification should be used?
Podcasting for positive change
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/03/2005 - 13:23Recently, I’ve been emailing back and forth with a friend who is working on getting Person to Person Aid up and running. We got into a discussion about podcasting, and I’ve decided to take an email that I was starting to write to her and make it a more general discussion.
She wrote, “once our project p2paid.org is up, I’ll encourage our users to load their recordings. I’d love to hear music from the Andes directly from a village out there. It will give me the chills.”
It made me think of Global Voices. They describe themselves as “an international effort to diversify the conversation taking place online by involving speakers from around the world “ and recently won the 2005 Best of the Blogs for best journalistic blog in English. Thinking about what Paola said, it seems as if it would be great if there could be a few songs added to the conversation that Global Voices is interested in.
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.
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.
