Metacentricities

This is the Wordle this blog made:

It’s kinda cool. Check out the tool.

How wonderful for these folks to choose to hold this conference while I’m on the East Coast! I’ll be heading to the Progressive Faith Blog Conference (I was a host of the Progressive Faith Blog Carnival a while ago.) There are a bunch of cool folks that are going to be there, and I’m excited to get to meet some of my favorite bloggers real live in person, and talk about the progressive faith blogosphere, and what kinds of things might come from it. And, of course, I’ll be blogging it!

A bit ago, I sort of gave my old colleague and buddy Beth a little bit of a hard time on a post about “Tagging for social change.” But Beth has been someone who has been ahead of the curve in the nptech world on tagging and folksonomies, and I have come to realize that in the same way that the nptech world needs people to help identify and corral the folksonomy a bit, I think that the same goes for the religious blogosphere. So, I’m now calling myself a tagvocate for the progressive faith blogosphere, and I’ll put up a post at some point soon about tags that I’ve used, and run into, that we should be advocating for. And, Beth, I might even sign up for that tagvocate email list.

technorati tags:nptech, tags, progressivefaith, progfaithblogcon

I had run into Democracy TV, a while back, but I re-discovered it in a much more mature state last week. It’s basically a platform which takes advantage of "Web 2.0" and bittorrent. Particularly, what it does is allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds of videos, download them, and watch them, within an iTunes -like interface (read: easy to use.) All of the videos are free, and almost all are independently produced - free of commercials, etc.

It’s really great - I’m now subscribed to Democracy Now video feed, Terra TV (nature,) TreeHugger TV (environmental/design,) MacTV (you know what that is,) and some other interesting stuff. Anyway, if you’ve got broadband, it’s absolutely worth checking out.  And the software is cross-platform, and open source.

technorati tags: video, tv, opensource

I’ve accumulated some neat links and webstuff that I’ve come across lately that are worth highlighting - things folks might be interested in. You can always check out my del.icio.us links - there’s new stuff all of the time.

• New Monasticism - I discovered that there  is, apparently, an interesting new movement "an attempt to discern the Holy Spirit’s movement in the abandoned places of the Empire called America". They even have a book. Something to watch.
• An interesting conversation on a new blog I’ve found, about "identity blogging" (as black, or gay, etc.) vs. personal blogging. I’ll have more on that later.
• Writing about recovery - I came across the website of a writer who is sharing her journey of recovery from childhood abuse. She has a great little manual for caring for one’s inner child.
• A compendium of sacred texts from many, many traditions.
• Digglicious.com - an addictive tool to find cool stuff - combines del.icio.us and digg. They both are very different, but since they both change fast, there are some cool things that just appear, like a japanese video about how to peel a potato in one step!
• If you ever wanted to know what liturgical season this is, here’s the place to find out.

technorati tags: websites, tools

Two "events" (I use the term lightly) occured in that world of ones and zeros this week that are worth a mention. I bet that most of you won’t care a whole lot one way or the other about either of these, but they are both really interesting object lessons in how the digital world and the real live flesh and blood world interact in very interesting ways.

The first issue is that Wikipedia, that wonderful collaboratively edited on-line encyclopedia, which has been shown to rival (if not completely outshine) it’s traditional competitors in terms of bredth, depth and accuracy, has blocked a group of IP addresses (read: specific computers) from making changes to Wikipedia. What IP addresses are those, you might wonder? Are they in China? Are they attached to some particularly annoying 14 year old boys that like to vandalize entries? Nope. They are attached to the US Congressional offices. Yes, you read me correctly. Apparently, a number of congressional staffers have been caught egregiously changing their congresperson’s bio, to be completely favorable, and vandalizing others. Sigh. I thought we were all adults. Oh, nevermind.

The second issue is in the world of gaming, particularly what are called Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). There is one, I think it’s the biggest (5.5 million players), called World of Warcraft (WoW.) Think elves and dwarves and swords and magic. I’m not giving it enough credit, but then I’ve never played it. Anyway, there has been lots of talk in the blogosphere (mostly in the part of the blogosphere I don’t read) about their "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy toward LGBT folk. There is some interesting analysis about the policy in that link.

It is no surprise that not only the best (like Wikipedia itself, which is an amazing emergent creation of collaborative effort, as well as WoW, which is really an amazingly creative endeavor) but also the worst (silly behavior and discriminatory policies as mild examples) end up in anything that makes its way into the digital world. It is, after all, no matter what our intentions, still a reflection of all of what is human.

technorati tags: wikipedia, worldofwarcraft, virtual

I got this from Digg - there is a Google earth beta for OS X floating around the net. It was a pain to download, so I decided to upload it to my server, for the few of you that might actually want it. It is a very cool app, glad it’s available for OS X now!

Here’s a shot of where I’m sitting now…

And yes, I’m supposed to be studying, in case you are wondering.

technorati tags: google, web, technology, mac, osx

As some of you might know, Firefox 1.5 is out. I love Firefox, although I have been using a browser based on firefox, called Flock, which is also pretty cool.

I found this gem on the web, care of Deb Richardson, which is one entry in a daily(!) vlog, that asks people whether they prefer IE or Firefox. It is, of course, a pretty skewed sample (she’s in a park near NYU), but still, most people she asks prefer Firefox. If you’re reading this on IE on Windows - just go get Firefox. You’ll be happier. I promise.

By the way, if you’re not sure what a vlog is (vlog is short for video weblog), my buddy Beth has been blogging about it for a while. I decided that I’m probably going to just jump right over podcasting, and go for vlogging, if I ever get beyond just being a blogger.

technorati tags: firefox, browsers, technology, vlog

On a tip from blog buddy Joseph (Radical Hapa), I started a Frapper group, which allows anyone who wants to, to put themselves on the map. So please, visit the group, and put yourself on the map (photo not required!)

P.S. Frapper seems like a very nice and interesting tool for mapping groups of people. Great use of the Google maps API! I’m sure that my nptech buddies Deborah Finn and Beth Kanter can figure out some way a nonprofit could use this well.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,” he said.

“Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

This was in an article about Apple.

It appears that if you’re looking for help from FEMA online, you’d better have IE 6 for Windows installed. An older computer with an older version of IE, Firefox or Opera on any platform, a Mac, Linux, sorry, dude, you’re SOL, gotta pick up the phone.

A quote:"Asked about the online limitation, a FEMA spokeswoman said the agency is aware of the problem and has asked its IT department to address it. Further attempts to reach FEMA’s IT unit for more specific information were unsuccessful this afternoon."

Okeydokey then.

Thanks to Fazia Riizvi for this one - there’s some good other stuff in that post.