Things people wish they hadn't said on the radio...

Excerpt from NPR's All Thing Considered report:

Teaching Kent State, 40 Years Later

by AMANDA RABINOWITZ

. . .

RABINOWITZ: But some Kent State University students, like Max Dunzik(ph), question whether they're being saturated with observances of an event that's no longer relevant.

Mr. MAX DUNZIK (Student, Kent State University): It starts to lose its luster after a while. Maybe like every 10, it's sweet, but the 41st, the 42nd, the 43rd, the 44th, like after a while, it's like okay, we get it.

. . . 

Oh yeah, that is "sweet" and we are sooooo glad you "get it".

...

What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

"It's still hard to believe I had to write this song. It's ironic that I capitalized on the death of these American students. Probably the most important lesson ever learned at an American place of learning. 

David Crosby cried after this take."

from liner notes of the Decade album

photo by John Filo

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Thinking Mind Tools

31/03/2010

HAND WERK POUND SHOP

 
Silence here for a couple of weeks. A busy period of making for Kids.Modern and forPoundshop (opening tomorrow), a pop-up-experimental-shop curated by Householdand Sara Melin. The shop space on Hoxton Street looks great, designed by architectFinn Williams and product designer Fredrik Paulsen. My contribution is an edition of 50 Hand Werk boxes, each containing a set of materials and forms, for abstract play.

Link: The Pound Shop
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On the Internet no one can see you're a manatee.

On the Internet everyone can see your humanity.

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kiss Spring comes

9.
by E. E. Cummings

there are so many tictoc 
clocks everywhere telling people 
what toctic time it is for 
tictic instance five toc minutes toc 
past six tic 

Spring is not regulated and does 
not get out of order nor do 
its hands a little jerking move 
over numbers slowly 

we do not 
wind it up it has no weights 
springs wheels inside of 
its slender self no indeed dear 
nothing of the kind. 

(So,when kiss Spring comes 
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss 
lips because tic clocks toc don't make 
a toctic difference 
to kisskiss you and to 
kiss me)

From: 

(Fine Print: If you would rather not receive my blathering and such please let me know and I will remove you from my list.)

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With a heavy heart...

Open letter to my friends...

Mark Zuckerburg is the CEO, founder, owner, and developer of Facebook.  When he developed the original FB concept he relied on two fundamental needs of human beings - friendship and belonging.  Mark's endeavor grew exponentially to the Facebook of today.  Today the two fundamental needs of human beings - friendship and belonging - are being used to coerce users into accepting greater and greater infringements on their personal privacy.

Writing for the Electronic Freedom Foundation Kurt Opsahl details Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa December 2009:

Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings.

Current Facebook Privacy Policy, as of April 2010:

When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. ... The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” ... Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.

Viewed together, the successive policies tell a clear story. Facebook originally earned its core base of users by offering them simple and powerful controls over their personal information. As Facebook grew larger and became more important, it could have chosen to maintain or improve those controls. Instead, it's slowly but surely helped itself — and its advertising and business partners — to more and more of its users' information, while limiting the users' options to control their own information.

... while limiting the users' options to control their own information.  AND, coercing with threats of loss of friendship and not belonging.  If you think I am being extreme try Deactivating your Facebook account.  Read and internalize the last screen of coercion that FB slaps you with.

AND after I did deactivate my FB account the I got the real surprise ... My account is not accessible to me, as I have deactivated it, but it is still accessible to everyone INSIDE the walled garden of Facebook.  So much for "deactivation". 

Sooooo, I have investigated Terminating my Facebook account.  First you have to log into Facebook (which among other things re-activates your account - if you have deactivated it - and displays a "Welcome back" message - more friendship and belonging coercion.)   Once back in you have to go to this link location: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account   Once there you must "Submit" ...then provide your password, again (like you weren't logged in in order to get to this place.)  THEN you have to answer the Captcha "What are these two words" requirement.  THEN you have to wait two weeks (without logging into Facebook - which would negate your "termination order".)  Can you say emotional and psychological manipulation?

Some of history's most despicable despots have used more humane methods of torturing their prisoners.

So, I love all of my friends and most of my enemies BUT I will no longer be held hostage by Facebook.

If you feel inclined to respond to any of this please send me an e-mail at wmeloney at gmail dot com as I will not be able to see anything that you post in FB.

Thanks

- Bill

William "Papa" Meloney
---------------------------
Voice: 270-215-4275

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Corrupt Power and bright shiny things

Apple May Be Gunning for Open Source Codecs

from GigaOM by Ryan Lawler

The latest indication that Apple is trying to strong-arm publishers to adopt HTML5 and H.264 came today, as Steve Jobs reportedly claimed by email that a patent pool was being assembled to “go after” Ogg Theora and other open source codecs.

Sure, I would like a bright shiny new iPhone.  I am just as susceptible to materialistic desires as the next person.

I do not feel that Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer or Mark Zuckerburg or the rest of the corrupt power brokers of the tech world should be so intent on oppressing Open Standard and Open Source endeavors.

We, the purchasing public, have empowered these Techno-dictators.  We have allowed ourselves to be dazzled by bright shiny things and in doing so have tacitly accepted their despotic behaviors.  

If - and it is a mighty big IF, Steve Jobs were to drop all the fabricated issues that he might have about Ogg Theora I can guarantee that sales of his "i" products would not change one wit.  My point is that Jobs stands to gain nothing from taking this Open battle to the courts.  Conversely, if Jobs (Apple, et al) doesn't continue to make better bright shiny things then people will look enviously at the next BST.

Steve, if you are going to play in the capitalist realm of profits please PAY ATTENTION to what is truly important.  (Stop pissing off discriminating and discerning customers.  Of course our number is tiny compared to the folks that simply want the next BST.) 

- Papa

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