May 02, 2003
Small Noticings
Technology: I found a company that offers free conference calling. I've already hooked my blog up to GeoURL, but it looks like I can do some nifty stuff with BlogChalking and BlogMapper, too. I'm learning about MoBlogging. Finally, I read Joi Ito's Emergent Democracy paper and my brain practically exploded. My main two impressions are that the whole "emergent" spin has a subtly authoritarian flavor that de-emphasizes the consciousness of the individual participating humans (including our ability and desire to BREAK rules, go against instinct, cut against the grain, all of which I believe are strengths), and that the main missing step in all this is the part that translates thought and discussion into ACTION, and encouraging that action. I will write a more detailed summary of my thoughts later.
Politics: I had to tell Adam, the presidential candidate, that he wasn't eligible to run due to the 35-year age limit in clause 5 of Article II of the Constitution. But then I realized I had misread his age. He'd be 34 upon election, but 35 before inauguration. I'm sending him campaign suggestions. He also tells me about how to (almost) register to vote online, which answers a question I had in an earlier blog entry. Evidently, there are constitutional loopholes that would allow Bill Clinton to become president again. I also found some Constitution Cliff Notes. Oregon State Bill 655 (the state "Super-DMCA") looks pretty scary. I wrote my rep (Greenlick) and senator (Ringo), and neither had heard of it. Ringo wrote back and it turns out he sits on the committee it's assigned to. His aide looked into it from my email, they realized they had concerns, and Ringo will be bringing up these concerns in the next public hearing. As I wrote in the followup email I sent tonight:
There are so many problems with it. For one thing, someone can be guilty of the crime even if they are not involved with any sort of transaction or usage. "... possesses, manufactures, develops, assembles, modifies, programs, promotes...". Not only that, but doing so with a device that can *manufacture* such a device. I admit I'm rather libertarian when it comes to technology freedom, but that's absolutely ridiculous.Surprising that neither had heard of it. Encouraging that one guy can just drop an email to his state representation and actually see change start to happen.