apple juice

Classilla: Building a Secure Web Browser for Mac OS 9
and the Classic Macintosh OS

I know I’m a total nerd, but I love this stuff…

Now we’re trying the same trick with collaborative social technology, applying digital socialism to a growing list of wishes—and occasionally to problems that the free market couldnt solve—to see if it works. So far, the results have been startling. At nearly every turn, the power of sharing, cooperation, collaboration, openness, free pricing, and transparency has proven to be more practical than we capitalists thought possible. Each time we try it, we find that the power of the new socialism is bigger than we imagined.

via The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online .

This article neatly ties up a lot of the thoughts I’ve been rolling around. The big question is, how do we apply this logic to education? What do your SAT scores matter if you can’t collaborate with others? I’d like to make the terms ‘project’, ‘paper’ and ‘test’ synonymous with ‘group’.

And, I think ‘digital socialism’ is a much nicer term than ‘dot-communism’.

This NYTimes article, Psst! Need the Answer to No. 7? Just Click Here. Hits on the same idea, from a different angle:

Course Hero offers three million student-submitted items from 400,000 courses at more than 3,500 institutions, including lecture notes, study guides, presentations, lab results, research papers, essays and homework assignments. Users who submit such items can navigate the site free of charge; others pay a monthly fee. Mr. Kim declined to say how many users had registered beyond “hundreds of thousands” and said they included more than 1,000 professors using the site to refresh their teaching materials.

The emphasis is mine, but these professors are the ones who are seeing value in the network, and using it to better their own work.

It will be a defining shift in the education system, when sharing and cooperation are the norm for students.

I’m laughing on the outside and crying on the inside:

Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new “Lost Generation” of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness.

from Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era in McSweeneys via kottke.org

after reading inbox zero over at 43 folders i decided to take some decisive action on my work inbox.

i deleted or archived over 1000 messages today.

my inbox now stands at 10.

in flipping through the pages of emails, it’s amazing how much hits my inbox. i have a few more of the tips from the inbox zero articles to implement, but there is a satisfying calm now in at least one area of my life.

the free market is great, except when it’s not.

here’s a perfect example: municipal internet.

minneapolis is one of a few cities in the country that has rolled out a municipal wifi network. the price is decent, but the I’ve heard nothing good about the reliability. did you know, in stockholm, for example, that 100mbps internet is $11/month?

Yes, $11/month.

I pay ~$60/month for 12mbps down/2 up service from comcast. If I had a better option, I’d switch. The other options are:

Qwest, 1.5 down/.768 up is $40 (for those of us who don’t want their overpriced home phone service)

Or, I could pay $30/month for 6/1 service via the minneapolis wifi if I sign up for a 2-year contract.

So, why didn’t minneapolis focus on building a city-wide fiber optic network that could be resold to private companies?

Because private companies fight it tooth and nail. Americans pay more for their broadband than just about every other developed country. Think comcast, qwest or us internet want to compete with 100mbps service?

Nope.

I’m turning 31 this week. In conversations with a few friends lately, it’s come up that we’re certainly not sad to see the 20s go. we had some good times, 20s, but really, it’s time to move on. I didn’t really get wistful about it last year either, and after letting that thought cook for a year, it seems that my lack of emotion about the new decade was entirely appropriate.

Though as I settle into 2009, I think I’ve become a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the ways in which technology will change our lives. Maybe skeptic isn’t the right word. Curmudgeon, maybe?

curmudgeon |kərˈməjən| noun a bad-tempered or surly person.

Ok, that’s not it. Anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact that I am the opposite of if bad-tempered or surly.

Here’s an example: I just ordered some new notebooks, and I’ve spent some time researching what the best pens are for these particular notebooks. I dug out a fountain pen tonight- a gift from my father and reflected on the fact that a nice pen is quite a cool gift. Though, according to my research, a fountain pen might not be the ideal pen for a notebook.

I know that fancy notebooks are all the rage amongst some segment of the blogosphere. Why is that? A standard paper notebook (is it weird that I have to specify paper notebook?) is the lowest tech writing tool around. In the age of spotlight-searchable, mind-map brain explosions, who would write in a notebook?

What if we get 10 more years down the line and realize that all of this technology was, in fact, really bad for our brains. Would we all stop?

So, for my 32nd year, I’m trying to cut the difference, trying to find what we don’t want to lose. I realize in all of this thinking, researching, writing (err, typing) about notebooks I have in fact been using a computer the whole time. Computers are good for all kinds of things, but perhaps they aren’t the best for some important things…

I’d also just like to point out that have been trying to recall the word, luddite, for the past 15 minutes. It took a google search, starting with the Unabomber, leading to the wikipedia, then Bill Joy to Jacques Ellul and then finally to my dictionary application before I could match up the neurons in my brain.

We’ll see how this paper-notebook experiment goes. There are ideas that float in and out of my head all day long, and I’d like to try and capture a few of them. I’m sure a lot of them are garbage. But maybe a few are worth saving.

Well, it might make for more coherent blog posts, at least.

wow, this is apropos:

Grandma’s on the Computer Screen

That they were a thousand miles apart, their weekly visit unfolding over computer screens in their respective homes, did not faze either one. Like many other grandchildren and grandparents who live far apart, Alex and Joe Geosits, 69, have become fluent in the ways of the Web cam.

I just purchased a webcam for my grandparents so we could start video calling in a few days…