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The Obama SMS: (Un-)gratifying instantification

Featured links from the CNET Blog Network The Obama SMS: (Un-)gratifying instantification--The thunder of Web 2.0 campaigning was stolen by old-school TV news coverage. Sites help you troubleshoot media-player problems--Find the source of glitches with Adobe's Flash Player, Windows Media Player, and Apple's iTunes and QuickTime. Composer John Adams talks about his past--Classical composer John Adams talks about his early days in San Francisco in this audio cast from the online version of The New Yorker. Making the cloud more consumable for enterprises--Cloud consumption is on the horizon. 3Tera thinks they have the way to move things forward.

Corsi: Critics of Obama might be "put ... in jail" if he's president

Appearing on the August 16 edition of C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Jerome Corsi, author of The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (Threshold Editions, August 2008), asserted that, if Sen. Barack Obama were elected president and someone were to write a book critical of him or to publish "a cartoon like The New Yorker," "Obama might just have to create a department of hate crimes and put them in jail." Responding to a caller's assertion that "we cannot question Obama," Corsi stated: Ma'am, you make some very interesting points. Senator Obama is now appearing to have the thinnest skin of anybody I've ever seen run for president. And, you know, it reminds me because -- if this is the reaction for writing a book, and remember, I did not commit a crime. I wrote the book. And under the First Amendment, that's supposed to be protected and allowed. And it's a critical evaluation of Senator Obama. But it has been pointed out, there has been many, many -- how many critical books of George Bush have there been? And George Bush doesn't come unglued at the people who write those books. It raises questions in my mind. If Senator Obama is reacting this ballistically -- this out of control, I mean, bouncing off the walls insanity, you know, concocting fake pictures of books that were never written attacking this -- 40 pages. Why didn't they write 140 pages? Because I wrote a book. What's -- how is Senator Obama going to sit in the Oval Office and handle a crisis? I mean, all an enemy of the United States has to do is write a book about him and he'll go insane -- or put a cartoon like The New Yorker with Senator Obama, Muslim garb -- and Hillary [sic] dressed as a -- you know, a black militant. And Senator Obama might just have to create a department of hate crimes and put them in jail. Where is the sense of humor here? Also during the broadcast, Corsi continued to compound the falsehoods in his book by falsely claiming that he asks in his book for "definitive proof" -- such as "drug testing" -- that Obama has stopped using drugs. Corsi's claim came after host Pedro Echevarria pointed out that the Obama campaign and several major news outlets, such as The New York Times and Associated Press, have noted that Corsi's assertion that Obama "has yet to answer questions" concerning whether "he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug use extended into law school days or beyond," is false. Indeed, even before the book's official publication date, Media Matters for America documented this falsehood, noting that Obama wrote in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, that he "stopped getting high" shortly after moving to New York City to attend Columbia University as an undergraduate, following two years at Occidental College -- a statement that contradicts Corsi's claim in Obama Nation that Obama has yet to say whether he stopped using drugs. On Washington Journal, Corsi said: What I'm asking in the book is where's the definitive proof? And I look for many uses of definitive proof. Where's the drug testing? Where's the other records? If Senator Obama wanted to establish this on the record, he could then or now do the drug testing and establish the issue. At least now it would establish it for now. Athletes are required to do this. They don't trust athletes to self-report on drug use. And, the questions that I'm asking now that the issue is on the table, put there by the senator himself, are questions I also say in the book, President Bush should himself have been forced to answer in 2000 and 2004 -- when he himself -- when the issue came up in his own campaign. In fact, Corsi did not ask about "drug testing," "other records," or "definitive proof" in any of the book's passages about Obama's past drug use. As Media Matters has noted, Corsi has previously mischaracterized the false claim he made about Obama's answers to questions about his drug use on at least two occasions and has issued other additional falsehoods while promoting his falsehood-laden book. From the August 16 edition of CSPAN's Washington Journal: ECHEVARRIA: You write on Page 77 of the book, looking at various aspects of Senator Obama -- CORSI: Sure, go right ahead. ECHEVARRIA: This about drug use. You say that "[s]till, Obama has yet to answer questions whether he dealt drugs, or if he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended into his law school days or beyond." The Obama campaign, from what it put out, came out with this, it said -- and you can find this also on the senator's website -- that "Obama has made clear repeatedly that he stopped using marijuana in college, which peers have affirmed." Went on to go on to quote statements from The State Journal Register of the Springfield [Illinois], The New York Times, the Associated Press and the Politico. Again, an example of your claim against what they say is false. CORSI: Well, you know, first of all, let me point out The New York Times and many of these other sources were -- have also been wrong dramatically about Senator Edwards, so their sources saying that Obama quit using drugs is probably just repeating what they were told, and I doubt they really did their own independent investigative research into the subject. Notoriously, people who use drugs, especially heavily, and Senator Obama says at Occidental, the drug use in college -- was his first college -- the drug use had actually become really habitual. In fact, he discusses how much of a habit it had become. For people who use drugs like that, their self-reporting that they stopped using drugs is usually notoriously inaccurate. But they'll repeat that to many people, who then repeat it as well. What I'm asking in the book is where's the definitive proof? And I look for many uses of definitive proof. Where's the drug testing? Where's the other records? If Senator Obama wanted to establish this on the record, he could then or now do the drug testing and establish the issue. At least now it would establish it for now. Athletes are required to do this. They don't trust athletes to self-report on drug use. And, the questions that I'm asking now that the issue is on the table, put there by the senator himself, are questions I also say in the book, President Bush should himself have been forced to answer in 2000 and 2004 -- when he himself -- when the issue came up in his own campaign. ECHEVARRIA: We'll take a look at various aspects of the book, but first to your calls. [...] CALLER: Good morning. And thank you for the book, sir. Appreciate it. CORSI: Thank you. You're welcome. CALLER: And I bought it a couple of days ago, so I'm reading it now. CORSI: Deeply appreciate it, thank you. CALLER: Mm-hmm. I -- we need something like this, because we cannot question Obama. Even his ears, he says, I don't like people talking about my ears, so we don't talk about his ears. But we talk about McCain's age, right? You didn't hear him say, "I don't like people talking about my age." So we're told what we can say, how we can say it. And thank you, sir, because we need to know about this guy. He's left us -- they're hiding it. And I'm not sure how -- with the press like it is if you can do much good. And I'd love to talk to you for two hours. CORSI: Well, thank you, ma'am. The mainstream media did not do its job. It was asleep. The mainstream media was busy making up epithets to use in case I wrote a book. I guess that's what they spend all their time doing. Ma'am, you make some very interesting points. Senator Obama is now appearing to have the thinnest skin of anybody I've ever seen run for president. And, you know, it reminds me because -- if this is the reaction for writing a book, and remember, I did not commit a crime. I wrote the book. And under the First Amendment, that's supposed to be protected and allowed. And it's a critical evaluation of Senator Obama. But it has been pointed out, there has been many, many -- how many critical books of George Bush have there been? And George Bush doesn't come unglued at the people who write those books. It raises questions in my mind. If Senator Obama is reacting this ballistically -- this out of control, I mean, bouncing off the walls insanity, you know, concocting fake pictures of books that were never written attacking this -- 40 pages. Why didn't they write 140 pages? Because I wrote a book. What's -- how is Senator Obama going to sit in the Oval Office and handle a crisis? I mean, all an enemy of the United States has to do is write a book about him and he'll go insane -- or put a cartoon like The New Yorker with Senator Obama, Muslim garb -- and Hillary dressed as a -- you know, a black militant. And Senator Obama might just have to create a department of hate crimes and put them in jail. Where is the sense of humor here? I think that Senator McCain made a very appropriate comment yesterday when he said, "Let's just all keep our sense of humor." And I think that the criticism of me, the things that have been said have been over the top, and I've -- you know, my wife was calling me up trying to ask me to explain all the words I was being called on television. ECHEVARRIA: From our line, for those who support Senator Obama, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Surowiecki on the "anticommons problem" -- The Gridlock Economy reviewed

In this week's New Yorker, James "Wisdom of Crowds" Surowiecki reviews a new book by law professor Michael Heller, The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives, which sounds like a terrific read: The situation that grounded the U.S. aircraft industry is an example of what the Columbia law professor Michael Heller, in his new book, ?The Gridlock Economy,? calls the ?anticommons.? We hear a lot about the ?tragedy of the commons?: if a valuable asset (a grazing field, say) is held in common, each individual will try to exploit as much of it as possible. Villagers will send all their cows out to graze at the same time, and soon the field will be useless. When there?s no ownership, the pursuit of individual self-interest can make everyone worse off. But Heller shows that having too much ownership creates its own problems. If too many people own individual parts of a valuable asset, it?s easy to end up with gridlock, since any one person can simply veto the use of the asset. The commons leads to overuse and destruction; the anticommons leads to underuse and waste. In the cultural sphere, ever tighter restrictions on copyright and fair use limit artists? abilities to sample and build on older works of art. In biotechnology, the explosion of patenting over the past twenty-five years?particularly efforts to patent things like gene fragments?may be retarding drug development, by making it hard to create a new drug without licensing myriad previous patents. Even divided land ownership can have unforeseen consequences. Wind power, for instance, could reliably supply up to twenty per cent of America?s energy needs?but only if new transmission lines were built, allowing the efficient movement of power from the places where it?s generated to the places where it?s consumed. Don?t count on that happening anytime soon. Most of the land that the grid would pass through is owned by individuals, and nobody wants power lines running through his back yard. The Permission Problem in the New Yorker, Gridlock Economy on Amazon (Thanks, Bruce!)...

Swap my Portland 1BR in SE for your SF place, Oct-Jan (mission district)

The Scoop: Portland is awesome, but I've been here 8 years and am I'm getting a little bit antsy. I'd like to try out a few months of living in SF, where I have a few friends and have spent some time roaming Valencia and loafing in Dolores Park. The swap could start in October. I have a flexible job that will allow me to work from our Oakland office (but I want to live in the city), though I need to be back in Portland for a project starting in mid to late January. I have cats, more on that below. The Place: My one bedroom apartment is the upstairs part of a 1910 house converted into a duplex, so you would have two downstairs neighbors and a shared basement with washer/dryer and exterior entrance for bringing your bike in. There's plenty of on street parking too. The square footage is about 700sf, much of that is a large kitchen and large bathroom, with a small living room at the front and a small bedroom at the back. There is a steep staircase in the entryway, your own front door, and part of the front porch. It's nicely and funkily furnished with retro leather chairs, a cool little dining table, a café table in the kitchen side nook, a queen bed, a clawfoot tub, succulents in little jars, stuff like that. It’s old, and a rental, so the appliances are cheapo (electric stove), the windows single paned, but it’s often called charming. I'll take as many photos as you want. It's really a cute place and I've lived there just short of two years. The floors are a little thin, so you can’t have rowdy parties that go late, but the neighbors are generally cool as long as you quiet down by 11pm. The Hood: Google map SE 20th and Hawthorne. The neighborhood I live in is rad. I'm just between Hawthorne and Belmont street, right off 23rd in the SE quadrant of Portland. There's a Hot Lips Pizza (organic, local) right around the corner, two bus lines that go directly downtown, and a bike avenue (Salmon St) one block up. The SE world is your oyster, and it goes like this: Mt. Tabor is 30 blocks east up Salmon, and it's a great big park area good for watching the sun set over the city or taking a brief wooded hike. Clinton and Division streets are just to the south, where you will find the awesome local market New Seasons (NewSeasonsMarkets.com) and People’s Co-Op, which has the only year-round farmers market in town. Three blocks away is Colonel Sumners Park, which everyone treats as their living room for sunbathing, tennis, wallball, kickball, and related hipster activities. Hawthorne shops and restaurants start about 10 blocks east, and include hippy stores, an offshoot of Powell's bookstore, pubs, etc etc. Belmont shops also start at about 30th and include the Pied Cow coffeehouse and hooka bar, the Aalto Lounge (hangout of many an indie rocker, especially the singer from Spoon), and Stumptown Coffee (recognized as one of the best coffee companies in the nation, direct trade, organic, if you're not yet a coffee snob you'll become one here). To the northeast at 28th and Burnside, about a 15 min walk, is the Laurelhurst Theater, which is a great second run beer theater, Crema coffeeshop (a freelancers haven), restaurants, dive bars, and a Whole Foods. It's all within easy walking distance through neighborhoods. Downtown takes about 12 minutes biking over the Hawthorne Bridge, with bike lanes the whole way. The Cat's Meow: So, the cats. They're two boy cats, cute and stripy, and they would either need to stay or come with me. If they stay, we could work something out, with me paying for all the food and litter and what-not. One is a cuddler and one is reserved, and both spend most of their time outside but sleep inside at night. It kind of depends on the situation, but I would be very appreciative if you loved them like your own. If the cats can come with me to your place, that would be great, too. The Icing: In ultimate fantasy land, I hope we could essentially trade friends and hit the ground running in our adopted cities. I want to swap in part because my creative energy is stagnating, and I hope a little change of scenery and exposure to new ideas will make me do the things I've been putting off. I'm a 25 year old lady, write for an environmental publication, and enjoy music and arts and bikes and independent fashion designers and other classic Portland pursuits. I have subscriptions to Ready Made, the New Yorker, and Cooks Illustrated, read lots of design and culture blogs, own a solid mp3 collection, and spend most of my time eating, drinking, and going to music shows. You can borrow my peeps, you'll love them. My friends are similar in tastes, great and smart and talented and friendly people who play and bike around and spend Sundays drinking spiked lemonade in the park. Once you meet a few of them, you'll see them everywhere, and then you'll know everyone in no time. You probably wanted to move here anyway, right? If you can do the same for me in SF, I hope we'll be pals and can do this swap thing again anytime after May. The Necessary Disclaimer About Weather: October and November are good months here. Mild with increasing chill but still sunny, and everyone knows the rain is coming and is spending as much time socializing as possible. It starts to get cold in November, but the shiznit doesn't really hit the fan until January, at which point you'll be back south. In December it starts to get dark at 5pm, and everyone kind of beds down for the winter. Heavy drinking of microbrews and local vodkas begins (or increases, we're really a drinking town, budget accordingly), and all the singles scramble to find someone to hibernate with for the winter. You'll get to witness all this, realize there are five months of utter gloom coming, and whisk yourself away while everyone else increases their Netflix subscriptions and begrudgingly attaches heavy duty fenders to their bikes. Or you'll make friends with some skiers and snowboarders, get amped about the season on Mt Hood, and move here anyway.

Knol is open to everyone

A few months ago we announced that we were testing a new product called Knol. Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects. Today, we're making Knol available to everyone.The web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the web. An enormous amount of information resides in people's heads: millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone. The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good.With Knol, we are introducing a new method for authors to work together that we call "moderated collaboration." With this feature, any reader can make suggested edits to a knol which the author may then choose to accept, reject, or modify before these contributions become visible to the public. This allows authors to accept suggestions from everyone in the world while remaining in control of their content. After all, their name is associated with it!Knols include strong community tools which allow for many modes of interaction between readers and authors. People can submit comments, rate, or write a review of a knol. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads from our AdSense program. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of those ad placements.We are happy to announce an agreement with the New Yorker magazine which allows any author to add one cartoon per knol from the New Yorker's extensive cartoon repository. Cartoons are an effective (and fun) way to make your point, even on the most serious topics.Everyone knows something. See what people are writing about, then tell the world what you know: knol.google.comPosted by Cedric Dupont, Product Manager and Michael McNally, Software Engineer