Archive for the ‘internet’ Category

jumping ship

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

I've left Facebook for good. In recent weeks I shed applications, then later removed most of my data (photos, posts, etc.), with each surreptitious nudge that they've given us in their relentless quest to end privacy. Previously I was irritated with the constant change in Privacy Policies on FB, but ...

Open Web Vancouver

Friday, June 5th, 2009

I'm attending (and presenting at) Open Web Vancouver next week, celebrating (and problematizing) with many others the many affordances and limitations of open source and open formats in our digitally mediated world. My talk will likely be rather policy-wonkish, as a current concern of mine (and a crucial chapter in ...

The end of free music?

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Last.fm (aka CBS) has finally thrown in the towel on free music. Well, I'm not going with them. It's not that Last.fm sucks; they still offer a great service, one that *might* be worth the subscription fee, even. But for those of us who are trying to give music away ...

Sharkbook and Twitnets

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

I'm going to call it now - Facebook has officially jumped the shark. This comes with apologies to those who thought FB died hours ago, when it made another attack-user-privacy-or-otherwise-degrade-user-happiness move. And gosh darnit, if this isn't the type of action the FB population was just starting to get used to. This ...

Room Enough For Everyone :: Canada On the Web

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

The Tyee is carrying Michael Geist's succinct report about the upcoming hearings at the CRTC over the future of Internet regulation in Canada. Most of these proposals don't make any sense - imposing Canadian content requirements on commercial Canadian websites is dubious at best - how would web content hosts ...

Vote for Fair Copyright and Culture

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

I've been brewing up a post that I'd hoped to release today, reflecting on the experience of indie music promotion and how it's changed in a very short time (2-3 years), but I'm putting that on hold, as there are more important matters to address. Specifically, the fate of creators ...

Northern Voice 2008 Day Two – accreted notes

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

13:30-14:10 Alan Levine. cogdogblog. voicethread. the internet is really big. Lost in Vancouver really hilar cinderella story told through PPT. http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools jumpcut=imovie in a web browser googlemaps api with Flickr, blabberize.com --------- 14:15-15:00 - Kris Krüg and Alex Waterhouse Hayward. "The Other Side of Two Dimensions" lots of pictures. thinking in 3D is what we do with digital photography and ...

Torrent Tracking on Open Networks 101

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Today is Northern Voice (I'm presenting tomorrow, but today is the unconference, most of which I hope to catch!), but right now I'm riveted to my laptop (poring over comments about torrent tracking) before I head out to UBC. Really good back n forth over at Nicholas Weaver's Random Thoughts ...

The Internet Is Filesharing :: On ISP Levies and Creators’ Rights to Remuneration in Canada

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

I was recently asked by the Songwriters' Association of Canada (SAC) to submit a briefing on why file sharing is inevitable, and why a levy system for ISPs makes sense. (The SAC is in the process of submitting a proposal along these lines to the Canadian government, in light of ...

The PhD – the comprehensive exams

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

So I'm diving straight into my comprehensives now. I'm building lists and checking them twice (and more). While building these reading lists is in many ways a very personal journey, I've decided to blog about the process so that I might get feedback from unexpected locales, harnessing the "wisdom of ...