I am attending bootcamp this week, and am dragging through 9-10 PM days. Its not really dragging. It is cyclically interesting, but tiring. McCarthy Technologies

This is a good one, and so apropos of Super Bowl season, it is a new expression "ASTROTURFING" New York Times article (registration required) which has come to designate the kind of e-mail avalanche that robots and daemons can originate on the Internet that looks at first glance like some kind of authentic grass-roots writing campaign. I have heard this now in reference to e-mails that politicians get from lobbyist and special interests, and now it is being used by newspaper editors to generate letters to the editor. Its getting hard to tell the people from the avatars...

TONIGHT--The opening of Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age January 25 - February 21 | Chicago In These Times 2040 N. Milwaukee Ave. Opening Sat. January 25, 6-9 pm + featuring lots of new material! + including many local Chicago artists Sat. Jan. 25, 5 pm: Press conference with Kembrew McLeod. McLeod, a University of Iowa professor who has trademarked the phrase "freedom of expression." READ ABOUT THE SHOW and check out In These Times

Yesterday I set up my RSS newsfeeds again. I used Radio Userland for a couple of years when it was free, but my aim then was to use the feeds to have interesting items for my blog. I never quite got the whole process together. In this new iteration of my "nose for the news about news" blog, I am using blogger to write the blog, and another RSS program (free, not Radio Userland this time) to get the feeds. There are so many possible feeds, one of the hardest things is going through all the channels and experiementing to find which are worth signing up for and which aren't. Here's what the Poynter guy, Steve Outing is saying to newsies about RSS. I must admit that the OJR piece made me set up an RSS newsfeed again. The technology gets so much easier to use as these tools move from the stage of someone's vision to everyday use.

Why You Should Know RSS If you're a Web news publisher, you should know about RSS (Rich Site Summary, also sometimes called Really Simple Syndication), a simple and inexpensive content syndication method that's getting increasingly popular. Primarily used by "geeks" till now for monitoring news from many websites, RSS newsreaders are becoming more mainstream. So says J.D. Lasica in a must-read Online Journalism Review piece. He does a good job of educating us all on why RSS is important to news publishing operations.

There was a surge of interest in people's energy collectives and pedal-powered energy, as well as ways to "upload" power to the power companies in the late 70s and early 80s, especially when the government was offering tax incentives to produce your own power. There were people who worked to "get off the grid" without forgoing electricity. This article shows how WIFI, Linux and pedal-power are going to transform the developing world. If you don't think so, remember that one of inventors of this technology is the inventor of the Osborne & a one of founders of Apple....power to and for and by the people.People's power

"The court's decision has troubling ramifications for consumers, service providers and the growth of the Internet," Deutsch said. "This case will have a chilling effect on private communications, such as e-mail, surfing the Internet or the sending of files between private parties."

READ IT NOW "Well, Ms. Rosen, I'll tell you what: You forward all your e-mail unedited to a public mailing list, scan and post all your private written correspondence to the same list, give us all-read access to your hard drives and post 24-7 webcams in your boudoir and bathroom, and then I'll believe you understand the invasion of privacy your shrill insistence on flushing what's left of the Constitution down the toilet entails," Ferrell suggested. This is a real threat to free speech of individuals and a capitulation to corporate rights as somehow "higher" than individual rights.

10 Reasons not to go to War with Iraq, thanks to Alton Miller

Imagine a place where a case of censorship of free speech in the form of parody did not go to court, but was just settled by corporations. Imagine a world where corporations had greater rights than individuals. But wait, you don't have to imagine it, its happening....read about Thing.net, RTMARK.org and others being censored by Verio and Dow Chemical company. Is this the way the Internet is supposed to work?

Journlism Students: Why is it important to have a grasp of summary statistics? The average you read about may not mean what you assume...

A Touch of Class By PAUL KRUGMAN Read it A liberal and a conservative were sitting in a bar. Then Bill Gates walked in. "Hey, we're rich!" shouted the conservative. "The average person in this bar is now worth more than a billion!" "That's silly," replied the liberal. "Bill Gates raises the average, but that doesn't make you or me any richer." "Hah!" said the conservative, "I see you're still practicing the discredited politics of class warfare."

My DSL went down for overnight and into the afternoon. How reliant we become on the unseen through repetitive habit.

I had posted these, but when I changed my blog style, I lost them. These are eclectic but excellent links to a wide variety of sites: Earth As Art En_frame Daily and Overall Internet Population Wired News: Indian Villagers Pedal Wireless Illusions and Demos 802.11Hotspots.com, a directory of public 802.11 hotspots Plagiarism Guardian Unlimited | Special reports Shirky: Weblogs and Publishing Smart Mobs - The Next Social Revolution by Ho... Wired News: Mobile Junkies Reshaping Society? Economist.com | Internet topologyMIT OpenCourseWare | Home SBC Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Explorer :... Cyber NewseumPOLITPROP: Propaganda Media SearchDay - Google News Search Leaps Ahead - ... NewsWatch | Diversity Style Guide SmartSite by ZODGlobal Connections Home | PBS Milestones for Peace Digital Needle - A Virtual Gramophone Product Placements Go Interactive in Video Games Copyright Hurdles Confront Selling of Music online. About ownership and artists::: NPG MUSIC CLUB ::: Dot-Columnist- Online video games AlterNet: 12 Things to Do Now About Corporations Cronies in Arms Digital pilgrim Noah Wardrip-FruinTry out some the deconstructed browser & auto-interactive aspects of the program.

Blogs keep story of Trent Lott alive when mainstream media ignore read

from Peter M. Zollman via Poynter newsblog

More Than a Newspaper Peter M. Zollman on future publishing strategies The Newspaper Association of America held a first-time pair of conferences last week, the Readership Conference and the Future of Newspapers Conference. The consensus was: A newspaper has to be more than a newspaper to survive. Online is integral to the future, as are multiple products -- print, online, wireless, niches, mass, etc.

Watch out -- soon that CD you play in your house may not work in your car, thanks to the RIAA. Read the details.

Can't get away from new buzz about blogs for a minute. Now its awards for photoblogs. My nomination goes to phonezilla

How is DMCA playing out? After 4 years, read about the unintended consequences.

Begin at the beginning. To understand that hyperlinks, which seem simple, are the basis of a new form of knowledge and communication, start here with Vanner Bush's As We May Think