One of the things I miss most about cable television is C-SPAN. The opportunity to be exposed to thinkers, pundits, books is really incredible. Sure, a lot of dross shows up there. I always enjoyed finding an engaging intellect there. Some time ago C-SPAN started to put more archival video up: C-Span Video Library. Here’s…

Quote of the Day, from Clay Shirky’s Wikileaks and the Long Haul: The key, though, is that democracies have a process for creating such restrictions, and as a citizen it sickens me to see the US trying to take shortcuts. The leaders of Myanmar and Belarus, or Thailand and Russia, can now rightly say to…

Terrifc rant from my favorite internet pundit, Clay Shirky: And it looks to me like women in general, and the women whose educations I am responsible for in particular, are often lousy at those kinds of behaviors, even when the situation calls for it. They aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They…

Quote of the Day from Clay Shirky: Unfortunately for us, though, the intellectual fate of our historical generation is unlikely to matter much in the long haul. It is our misfortune to live through the largest increase in expressive capability in the history of the human race, a misfortune because surplus always breaks more things…

I didn’t go to the Web 2.0 Expo last week, but I did read Sassy’s concise wrap up. Some video from the conference is out there, here’s social software thinker Clay Shirky: Here’s Clay’s writeup.

Matt made me laff when he said: Next time I see Clay Shirky, I want a hug and a story of how it all makes sense somehow. Speaking of which, I miss Clay’s writings. Nothing new, no new newsletters or essays in a long time. Maybe he really is sitting on the mountaintop somewhere, explaining…

So it seems Caleb John Clark., sometime San Diegan and all-around-interesting guy, is still out in the world. He’s an east-coaster now — but I forgive him. Caleb’s one of the few people I have met a few times in person to talk about running communities. Others include Dennis Wilen and Matt Haughey, as well…

Clay Shirky’s latest essay, A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy, is so right on with what my gut, experience, and intellect tell me about groups and software that I find myself wishing I had written it. Some writing is so good it makes me jealous. Mind you, this essay is not for everyone. But…

Customer-owned Networks: ZapMail and the Telecommunications Industry is another great essay by Clay Shirky, one of many links on the side of this blog.

Lots of interesting chatter about SOAP, XML, APIs, and Web Services right now: Google’s Gaffe (this article asks if Google’s API is overly complicated by SOAP) SOAP Wars (the converse take) The always interesting Shirky with another take on Web Services/APIs SOAP vs. REST (Representational State Transfer) REST and Web Services Some interesting reading. Though…