Open Source Ethos

The intern book club has turned into my favorite reason to read hyper-music/tech-focused non-fiction. The last selection, and my favorite thus far, was Jonathan Zittrain's Future of the Internet.

I found most interesting his discussion about what the internet was built to do: 1) perform only actions universally useful since specific problems could be fixed later and, 2) trust that all its users were working towards the common good. In short, the engineers built dumb pipes that don't care what information is being sent or where it's coming from or going to.

It's insanely naive and endearing to me that people built a network on the assumption that no one would want to mess with it intentionally. I heart geeks. But those assumptions, especially about the lack of malicious intent, are how we arrived where we are today: a glorious place that's revolutionized how we interact with each other and a place where spam and viruses and copyright infringement abound.

What I find so fascinating about the theories underpinning the internet and code and collective endeavors like Wikipedia is that the way they're built run counter to capitalism. In the brick-and-mortar world, we pay people for knowledge, solutions to problems and functionality. Our Constitution specifically encourages creativity by granting people an exclusive right to license for a time their creativity for a cost. The value is created by retaining your right to keep information scarce and then profit from its sharing.

In the digital world, websites are easy to build because you can grab code from any other website; solutions to problems are shared freely so someone else probably has already fixed your problem and left you with time to fix another problem; and the network is flexible enough to accommodate any functionality you want to build on top of it. The value instead is created by sharing information to build something greater. This student gets that and his professor certainly doesn't.

So, are the "problems" with the digital revolution only those of mindset? That we're giving away things we used to sell? And now are we trying to overlay the old economy of goods-for-money onto an open source ethos when instead we should be rethinking altogether?

I don't know, but it's nice to stumble upon a new way to view the same problem, which is why I'm interested. So check it out: the book's available free via Creative Commons license or here's an interview for just a taste.

That's Rich

I love walking home from work while listening to This American Life. It gets me out of my head and satisfies the need for a story. This was their latest well-executed effort at lessening the modern jackass effect when discussing anything related to a bank. Their previous shows from May and October are excellent, too. Collectively, they gave me a warm fuzzy when I realized I sort of understood this.

Also, big props on act 2 from their Valentine's Day episode where they featured two amazing and brave little transgendered girls.

By now, everyone's seen Jon Stewart take down CNBC. 60 Minutes though matched CNBC's performance with this fluff piece on the FDIC.

Really. If you believe that, I got an ugly brown mp3 player to give away to...ahem, sell...Wired. No wonder the only place I see "Fast Company" magazine is on an airplane.

In other news, Apple is getting greedy with its new Shuffle. You now can only use Apple's (crappy and uncomfortable) headphones with it or you won't have volume or skipping control. Third-party manufacturers will have to pay extra for a special chip that enables the additional functions. That's rich.

The intern book club finally finished Larry Lessig's Remix. I think it'd be good for your dad to understand "the new digital economy" and how people use culture now. But for you and me, it's a tad simplistic and seems to aspire to more than it reaches. Jonathan Zittrain's Future of the Internet is next.

Club Passim now serves beer. Going there used to be an exercise in drinking cranberry juice when all you wanted was one single beer to make the folk go down better.

Holi!

OK, off to go see The Class and maybe finish off my Netflix backlog? A red envelope with In Bruges awaits.

True North

A few years ago Sarah Vowell pointed out this truism in "The Nerd Voice", an essay in "Partly Cloudy Patriot": it's the height of uncool to like learning in this country. The cool kids copy eachother's homework and are distinguished by how well they're able to get away with it. After high school, of course, the geeks all find each other and realize that they live more interesting lives anyway, but for 12 years, we live with the idea that you have to hide being interested in the past, the future and the world around you.

Welcome to Graduation Day Redux, boys and girls.

That's one of the developments I'm most looking forward to since the night DC exploded into cheers and honks and screams and high-fives and hugs: the geeks are out and proud again.

Two remarks that struck a cord:

As I walked to the White House the night of the election, the crowd was chanting "Pack yo' shit! Pack yo' shit! Pack yo' shit!"

My friend Emily's facebook status the next day: "Food tastes better, drinks are stronger, steps lighter, strangers nicer. It's like Mr. Rogers neighborhood."

As hopeful as I am about the coming four years, I'm dismayed to see the successful and accomplished Michelle Obama further morph in the public eye into mommy, fashion icon, and supportive wife. Hopefully, the fact that her husband seems to understand the compromises she's made will make a difference in domestic policy.

In other explosive stuff, I keep coming across examples of high speed photography of stuff while it's exploding - vases with flowers, teddy bears and balloons. Beautiful.

Also, I finally cleaned out my Netflix stash when I watched The Triplets of Belleville. It was a charming if occasionally slow animated film about a French kid who grows up into a Tour de France bike racer who gets kidnapped and later rescued by his grandmother and three fading stars of the French stage. The best part: when the tough, crusty, French grannies all turn out to be expert percussionists who play bicycle rims, newspapers, and their shoes with equal ease. It was beautifully rendered in an over-the-top caricature. Check out the trailer.

No Jazz Flutes

Ah, Syracuse. Depending on whether you're feeling charitable, Worcester, MA or Hanover, NH come to mind. I was there for a 36-hour trip this past weekend to have meetings and check out venues for a seminar we're doing there in April. It wasn't a bad time, but 36 hours was plenty. While there I got to listen to lots of suits talk shop about the intricacies of the FCC and communications law. A bit brain-numbing. On the upside, I got to sit in on a lecture by Pandora's founder Tim Westergren. He's a very cool former musician with a business model that will hopefully continue to make money and introduce people to new music as long as Soundexchange doesn't do them in. Since they need people to listen to all that music and categorize it in umpteen ways, they actually hire those poor, starving, non-touring, Berklee College of Music grads who had to take all that music theory! Drat. If I'd know that I would've stuck with ear training and contemporary harmony...that is, as long as it never involved listening to the jazz flute.

I tie my brain in knots regularly over FMC's finances: how to pay for things, how to justify them, how to pay just enough - not too much but not too little either - for what we need, and how to explain it all. Funny, I never thought about its innate alternate-universe-esque weirdness until I read this article in the Non-Profit Quarterly. If you work for a non-profit or are considering it, this article should be required reading.

Alas, non-profit accounting is not as amusing as Chad Vader (courtesy of the dude from Innova I met in Syracuse).

The Long Tail's Chris Anderson has a free preview on the Wired website from his new book called, in case you miss the point, "Free".

On the political front: Harold Feld considers how Clinton's constant style vs. substance charge is more about campaigning style and how Obama and Clinton are using the Internet differently. Can't finish this without asking why? Seems Nader can't properly answer that question either.

Well, at least I only got a few points in the Dork category...