Month: December 2011

Beth on Brushes (more education related ranting)

beth_art_ipad

Beth on Brushes:

I made this video of Beth lying in bed using Brushes on her iPad to trace a cartoon character. I was struck by the level of sophistication in her interaction with the app and made this quick video. All the voiceover was added in post, except for the part where I help her with the brush sizing.

Beth is four years old. Four.

[This is what art class ought to look like in 2011. I wish my son’s did. Go check out the video on Frasier’s page.]
Source: Fraser Speirs

Some of you have this all wrong. This isn’t whether I can afford to buy Noah an iPad. My complaint is that educators aren’t changing the way they teach fundamental skills for a world that already operates differently. Never mind how it will operate 20 years from now when my kid is finishing up his basic education.

Vegetarian mini-rant

Vegetarian mini-rant:

Somehow the moment you say you’re not eating meat people thrust a salad at you.  Not an eggplant or mushrooms or broccoli or pulses or grains or rice or pasta or rutabaga.  A salad.  A big pile of lettuce with some oil and vinegar on it.

[That is because most people only think of meat, fowl, and maybe fish as “eating”. There’s no belief that you could be satiated without it, and little thought given to whatever else is being served.]
Source: Sasha Dichter’s Blog

3 Misconceptions That Need to Die

3 Misconceptions That Need to Die (WMT, X):

At a conference in Philadelphia earlier this month, a Wharton professor noted that one of the country’s biggest economic problems is a tsunami of misinformation. You can’t have a rational debate when facts are so easily supplanted by overreaching statements, broad generalizations, and misconceptions. And if you can’t have a rational debate, how does anything important get done? As author William Feather once advised, “Beware of the person who can’t be bothered by details.” There seems to be no shortage of those people lately.

[1) Misconception: Most of what Americans spend their money on is made in China. 2) Misconception: We owe most of our debt to China. 3)Misconception: We get most of our oil from the Middle East. Now tell me you weren’t surprised at, if nothing else, how pervasive things like this are without facts. Shoddy reporting and willful suspension of disbelief will take us far down this awful road.]

Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How the Internet Works

Here’s the official White House anti SOPA petition.

Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How the Internet Works:

Joshua Kopstein:

When the security issue was brought up, Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina seemed particularly comfortable about his own lack of understanding. Grinningly admitting “I’m not a nerd” before the committee, he nevertheless went on to dismiss without facts or justification the very evidence he didn’t understand and then downplay the need for a panel of experts. Rep. Maxine Waters of California followed up by saying that any discussion of security concerns is “wasting time” and that the bill should move forward without question, busted internets be damned.

Bipartisan willful ignorance.

[Well said. Here’s the link again: The official White House anti SOPA petition.]
Source: Daring Fireball

Some Thoughts On The Louis CK “Experiment”

Some Thoughts On The Louis CK “Experiment”:

But this can also work for emerging artists. They won’t make as much money as Louis CK, but they also don’t need to make as large of an investment either. And over time, if their work is good, their audience will grow and the investments they can make and the profits they can make will increase.

[This piece was going OK until he got to the paragraph above. I know he said “emerging” artist, which implies some following already in place. But the truth is that kick starting something like this is really, really, low odds. Like Lotto low. And I’m not saying that everyone has to do a six camera shoot of their gigs. I bet you could get a great shoot done with six IPhones for goodness sake. But that’s not my point. There is definite chicken and egg problem here, where not enough people know who you are and what you are doing to make virtually any production pay for itself, let alone make you money (never mind “real” money). The lesson I’d take away from what he did was how much of the work he did himself. Something that the super powerful computers sitting on many of our desks make possible. Look at what people are accomplishing by mastering their craft, and then how relatively little technology it takes to get an amazing recording on the ‘Nets for all to enjoy. And think about it. He could have walked away with nothing (or less than nothing) for his efforts too.]
Source: A VC

Fight SOPA.

If you hate Big Government, fight SOPA.:

Nobody who opposes Big Government and favors degregulation should favor the Stop Online Piracy Act, better known as SOPA, or H.R. 3261. It’s a big new can of worms that will cripple use of the Net, slow innovation on it, clog the courts with lawsuits, employ litigators in perpetuity and deliver copyright maximalists in the “content” business a hollow victory for the ages.

A few years back, a former government official confidentially issued a warning to a small group I was part of, which favored some kind of lawmaking around technology. While this isn’t a verbatim quote, it’s pretty close, because it has been burned in my mind ever since: “In the course of my work I have met with nearly every member of Congress. And I can tell you that, with only a handful of exceptions, there are two things none of them understand. One is economics and the other is technology. Now proceed.”

Know-nothing lawmakers are doing exactly that with SOPA. As Joshua Kopstein says, Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works.

SOPA is a test for principle for members of Congress. If you wish to save the Internet, vote against it. If you wish to fight Big Government, vote against it. If you wish to protect friends in the “content” production and distribution business at extreme cost to every other business in the world, vote for it. If you care more about a few businesses you can name and nothing about all the rest of them — which will be whiplashed by the unintended consequences of a bill that limits what can be done on the Internet while not comprehending the Internet at all, vote for it.

[Go read the rest of Doc’s piece. And then get off your hands and get in touch with your congress people.]
Source: Doc Searls Weblog