My XO laptop arrived in the mail today! From my first couple of hours experimenting, I can tell that it’s an impressive little machine. I look forward to playing with it for the next weeks, which I will be sure and blog about. One of the first things I did was put the XO side-by-side…
Category: Information Society
Review: Castronova’s Exodus to the Virtual World
I just finished my advance copy of Edward Castronova’s Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun is Changing Reality (2007, Palgrave McMillan.) As anyone familiar with Costronova should expect, the book is provocative and entertaining. Costronova’s central premise is simple: as more and more people spend a larger percentage of their waking hours in…
Holiday cards and other emphemera in the digital age
By Dazed81, re-posted under a CC-license Sending out holiday cards is a favorite Christmas tradition of mine. For almost 20 years, I have gone to some effort to design, print and hand-write notes on the 50-plus holiday cards I typically send out. That said, holiday cards are starting to seem like an antiquated custom from…
Second Life Shaggy: combining viral marketing, social networking and virtual worlds
I just got word of an interesting marketing campaign for the pop star Shaggy involving Second Life, Facebook and viral videos. To highlight the release of Shaggy’s new single, Bonafide Girl, fans are being asked to join a Facebook group with the catchy title "If I Met Shaggy In Second Life, This Is What I’d…
I ordered two XO Laptops! Woo hoo!
I just got confirmation of some funds headed my way, so I went ahead and ordered a couple of those painfully cute XO Laptops from the folks at One Laptop Per Child. As I reported early, OLPC is offering a very special "twofer" where if you buy two XO laptops for $400, one of them…
Awesome Jonathon Coulton song featured on “Portal” Half-life game
Frankyboy sent me the link to a YouTube video of the song "Still Alive," which plays at the end of the computer game "Portal." The song is absolutely hilarious, twisted and infectious — which came as no surprise when I found out that it was written by uber-geek troubadour Jonathon Coulton. The singer is Ellen…
The Flickr Family Photos: Using Web2.0 to preserve family memories
My roommate Swifty has come up with a neat way to use the interwebs to add dates, names and places to his family’s old pictures using Flickr: I’ve started scanning the huge batch of old photos I borrowed when my Grandfather passed away. They are awesome. I created a Flickr account for my mother and…
Lincoln Center offers jazz education videos online
Jazz at Lincoln Center announces that they are now offering a limited selection of online videos of some of their jazz education classes for those who can not attend their programs in person. Not only can you watch the recorded lectures, you can see concert performances and commentary on those performances, all carefully tagged and…
Compare US presidential hopefuls on their international positions at “08 or bust!” website
My friends at Citizens for Global Solutions have created a neat new website called "08 or Bust" that tracks the positions of each of the major candidates for the US presidency on a range of international issues. The heart of the website is an interactive comparison chart that allows you to pull up the public…
XO Laptop “Two-fer” expires November 26 — help a poor kid get connected!
Just a reminder that those amazing folks at One Laptop Per Child are offering a very special "twofer." If you buy two of their incredibly cute "XO laptops" for $400, one of them goes to you (or your kid) and the other to a child in the developing world. I’m leaning toward getting one, which…