Meet me in the hallway

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Some conferences will allow participants to get online by providing a wireless network. Sometimes you can get that wifi to work, sometimes you can get power for your laptop. Another way that NetSquared is different from most conferences is that as we checked in we were given a personalized access key for the secure wifi, which works very well. Every table in the main hall has a powerstrip on it! The message is clear: this event doesn’t just allow us to blog it, they want us to blog it (and flickr it, chat about it, tag about it, etc.)!

They also are hosting a chat room (or “hallway”) for people who are participating in person and/or online. Another great way to follow what’s going on here is to read the blogs of everyone posting on the NetSquared website.

Compare and contrast

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Compare and contrast
So I’m in San Jose now, and this is my first time in Silicon Valley. I landed at the airport and caught a free shuttle bus to the nearest light rail station where I caught a train that took me within a block of my hotel. I’ve also noticed that a different line could take me to the Cisco campus where the conference will be.

I’m very interested in how Silicon Valley compares with the Research Triangle Park area in NC. Especially in the land use/transit/sprawl department, since so many of our regional neighbors in the Triangle seem so certain than transit will never work there. I’m sure SV is much larger, but it might also be newer – at least as a research/tech region. RTP was founded in the 50’s.

Continue reading “Compare and contrast” →

Watch Katrina unfold

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Dartmouth professor Quintus Jett, who has been working on and blogging about efforts to rebuild the social networks of New Orleans residents using open source methodology, points to this excellent interactive Flash movie that shows the steps of the flood from the first levee breaches to the near-total submersion of the city. This is very much worth watching.

Also, here is an audio interview with Dr. Jett about his innovative work combining organizational management, engineering, open source, and social networks.

Hacktivism paper released

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Inspired the by the latest Yes Men actions – see their parody websites for Haliiburton and the WTO – Alexandra Samuel has decided to release the full text of her PhD disseration on Hacktivism and the Future of Political Participation.

Is this ever timely! The paper’s conclusion “pulls it all back together and reflects on how hacktivism has been wrongly conflated with cyberterrorism as part of of the post 9/11 age of anxiety.”

I can’t wait to read it. But at 284 pages, I might be better off reading the chapter summaries on her web site. Thanks so much for publishing this and reminding us of it’s continuing relevance, Alex!

It’s no secret: Bush sucks

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Yes of course I’m shocked by Bush spying on us illegally. All of his assurances mean nothing now that even ignorant Americans suspect that he’s about as likely to lie to us as he is to stumble onto the truth.

But what I’m really surprised about is that the New York Times is quoting research done by USA Today!

According to an article in USA Today, the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting telephone records on tens of millions of Americans with the cooperation of the three largest telecommunications companies in the nation. The scope of the domestic spying described in the article is breathtaking. The government is reported to be working with AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth to collect data on phone calls made by untold millions of customers.

President Bush has insisted in the past that the government is monitoring only calls that begin or end overseas. But according to USA Today, it has actually been collecting information on purely domestic calls. One source told the paper that the program had produced “the largest database ever assembled in the world.”

– Ever-Expanding Secret – New York Times

I also noticed that USA Today has RSS feeds. I might have to start checking in with them more often.