What would Lincoln Twitter?

I got tagged by Bryan Person to come up with a "What would (insert famous name) Twitter?" (e.g., What would Jesus Twitter?)

Herewith my response:

What would Lincoln Twitter?

10. Ladies..Beard or no beard?...DM me.
9. This secession shit is so harshin' my mellow.
8. Two tickets to theatre. Don't feel like it. Any takers?
7. Thinking about freeing slaves. Pluses, minuses? Just no long emails, ok?
6. Seeing the Grants tonight. Last time, he got wasted and puked on my shoes.
5. @SalmonChase: Can't we get a better pic for the $5 bill?
4. @Sherman: More matches? Dude, that's three times this week. How's Georgia, BTW?
3. WTF? No Big & Tall shops in D.C.!
2. FRAK! On train to Gettysburg. Lost speech notes. Will have to freestyle.
1. Wondering what us Republicans will be like in 140 or so years....


I tag: Charles Hope, MissBHavens, Casey McKinnon, Mark Day, cc chapman

Did you BumRushTheCharts yet?

I did! Check it out, make a difference. We have the Power!

Jeff Jarvis. Stop calling it Television!

Jeff Jarvis has a lot, a real lot, of good things to say on his blog Buzz Machine. But he also has a most annoying habit of referring to internet video as "television" or "TV". Damn it Jeff, IT'S NOT TELEVISION. I don't know how you can in one post, praise Jeff Pulver for his petition to the government to not regulate internet video, and in the next post, continue to refer to this revolution as "television". Goddamn it Jeff, IT'S NOT TELEVISION.

Don't you see that when you do that, you give those idiots in Washington another reason to treat internet video like it is television? Something to be regulated, to be parceled out to the highest bidder, to be controlled by mega-corporations?

Please! Don't continue to perpetuate this false perception that internet video is just another kind of television. IT'S NOT TELEVISION.

Television is one-way. Internet video is multi-way. The fact that viewers talk to each other is even more important than that they talk back to the producer. You were among the first to point that out! IT'S NOT TELEVISION.

Television is centrally controlled and we are force-fed home shopping channels and infomercials because it lines the pockets of Comcast and Cox. Internet video is uncontrolled and diverse. IT'S NOT TELEVISION.

Television is homogenized to appeal to the lowest common denominator and not, heaven forbid, offend anyone. Internet video is wonderfully free to be and say and do anything. It's the ultimate in "if you don't like it, don't watch it". Nobody but you even decides what you can choose from. There's no power broker to apply "family values" pressure to. You have to make an even more deliberate choice to watch something. IT'S NOT TELEVISION.

Television is bored couch potatoes with glazed-over eyes flipping their remote in never-ending cycles of the same crap channels. Internet TV is inquisitive and engaged people choosing and evaluating and interactively critiquing, panning or recommending an endless variety of new and different things every hour. IT'S NOT TELEVISION.

Finally, the word "television" has come to be synonymous with "the vast wasteland". It speaks of bland, droning pap, of marketing pukes in suits with their "notes" on scripts. It says creativity is the last issue on the table, behind focus-groups, product placement and Nielsens. Television has become the metaphor for everything that is vacuous, vapid, tepid and tasteless about American culture.

Jeff, please... it's not television. It's something so much better.

Providence Atheists March '07 meetup

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Met up with a nice group of fellow non-believers, skeptics and free thinkers tonight. It was nice to bask in the glow of their acceptance and shared experience. Also posted some pics to Flickr.

A legendary chunk of MIT hardware

I attended BarCampBoston2 today. It was held at the Stata Center at MIT in Cambridge. Sitting atop a ledge on the first floor of this building is this legendary icon of MIT "hacking" or pranks. This police car was found by the campus authorities atop the Great Dome of the university. It was complete with blue lights flashing, a dummy police officer and a dozen doughnuts in front seat. The perpetrators had, amazingly, disassembled the car, taken the pieces up through a hole and reassembled the car on top of the roof.

SXSW "vi-twitter-ously"

I'm experiencing the SXSW conference this week "vi-twitter-ously". I couldn't go, but people I know or know of are there, and they're all Twittering furiously. Here's a taste from today:

stevegarfield Heading over to the Yahoo! BarTab Party at Light Bar 408 Congress at 4th, then GOOD/Creative Commons party at Uncle Flirty's 325 E 6th.

Zadi heading to yahoo party half a minute ago from txt Icon_star_empty

Scobleizer OK, we're on our way to Salt Lick (the original one, not the 360 one). I have my cell phone again. 425-205-1921. 2 minutes ago from web

rudyjahchan Anyone doing lunch in the next hour? My next window is after 3?

Twitter is an incredible force for keeping people connected and helping them find each other, even better than just a cell phone itself because you can reach many people at the same time. It's carrying around a group of friends no matter where you go. It's nice to feel connected like that.

Think about how many times you've been to conferences in the past and found yourself alone, wondering where the heck everyone you knew is, or where they were going for dinner, or where the slammin' party was that night. Twitter is great for keeping in touch, and it allows you to let out only as much info as you care to.

Like a lot of other people, I was skeptical about Twitter, but I've been quickly converted. No wonder they won the Web award at SXSW.

It's ironic that a few years back, people were concerned that the web and Internet were going to turn people into pasty house-bound recluses with little social interaction. It's having exactly the opposite effect. It's connecting people and bringing them together in myriad new ways. I've met so many interesting and different people through blogging and vlogging and I can't wait to go to PodCamp NYC and meet even more.

And next year, I'm getting to Austin if it kills me!

Twitter on, peeps!

Boston Media Makers - March 4, 2007

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Wow, this was the best meeting of BMM that I've been to. There were lots of great people and incredibly good conversation. This footage is what I took during the mingling and around-the-table parts. After this, we had a fascinating discussion on the question posed by David Tames of "Do production values matter?" There is very good coverage of that section on David's blog, as well as Beth Kanter's blog and Bryan Person's photos.

I got a Gorillapod!!

I just got my new Gorillapod. Here I am trying it on the oddest-shaped object I could find.

A mild day at Avery Point

I love this shot of a piece of large sculpture on the Avery Point campus of the University of Connecticut. This piece sits on an enormous lawn overlooking Long Island Sound. This campus was once a private estate, the mansion of which still stands - see the rest of the pics in this set. My wife and I spent some time walking the grounds and enjoying the spectacular outlooks. This mansion and its grounds are still used for weddings and other functions. What a place....