Stanford Center for Internet and Society

I must say, the end of the Bush era seems to have buried the part of David Brooks that got me so wound up, leaving only the part I treasure. Now all that remains is for him to announce he's a Democrat, and I will be able to make my love for him unconditional.

From his column today:

" The American legal system is based on a useful falsehood. It’s based on the falsehood that this is a nation of laws, not men; that in rendering decisions, disembodied, objective judges are able to put aside emotion and unruly passion and issue opinions on the basis of pure reason..."

Now this is going to be cool:

http://wave.google.com/

I urge you to watch the youtube video of the demo. Who knows if it's going to get critical mass -- but there's no doubt that is some beautiful coding.

The White House announced its Open Government initiative today... check it out at http://www.whitehouse.gov/open. My good friend Beth Noveck's fingerprints are all over this. I urge you to visit the site and participate in the "Brainstorming" phase. This is an exciting step forward in both participating and transparency for the Federal level in the US.

If anyone happens to be in Hong Kong next week, the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Center is having its conference on May 22nd at the Grand Hyatt.

All the info is here:
http://www.hkcs.org.hk/whatsnew/20090430/files/ADNDRC_2009_Flyer.pdf

By Steve Lohr in the NYT this weekend: "HERE’S the job description: You spend a few hours a day, up to 20 a week, at your computer, supplying answers online to customer questions about technical matters like how to set up an Internet home network or how to program a new high-definition television..."

From the NYT, via my friend Conor: "Last year, researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone.

The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.

“People with stronger friendship networks feel like there is someone they can turn to,” said Karen A. Roberto, director of the center for gerontology at Virginia Tech. “Friendship is an undervalued resource. The consistent message of these studies is that friends make your life better.” {...}

Paulette Kouffman Sherman, via my friend Larry: "Some researchers found that whether you are attracted to or repulsed by a man’s body odor may depend upon your respective immune systems. In one study, women were asked to sniff t-shirts over several days to see which smells they liked. Women preferred the body odor of men who had major histocompatibility complex (MHC) gene variants that are mostly different from their own. Some scientists explain that this particular bias assures that children may inherit a more diverse MHC and immune system and that if mates’ MHC genes are too similar than kids may not be as healthy...

I never thought I'd quote cracked.com on my blog, but Geoff Shakespeare did such a good job I couldn't resist (careful, I've cleaned it up a bit here, but the language on the actual article is fairly saucy):

"Albert Einstein said common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by the age of 18. It is also a result of some pervasive and extremely stupid logical fallacies that have become embedded in the human brain over generations, for one reason or another. These malfunctioning thoughts--several of which you've had already today--are a major cause of everything that's wrong with the world.

"Organisational sociopaths: rarely challenged, often promoted. Why?" by Richard J. Pech and Bret W. Slade

"Organisations sometimes select and promote the wrong individuals for managerial positions. These individuals may be incompetent, they may be manipulators and bullies. They are not the best people for the job and yet not only are they selected for positions of authority and responsibility, they are sometimes promoted repeatedly until their kind populate the highest levels of the organisational hierarchy. The purpose of this paper is to address this phenomenon by attempting to explain why it occurs and why organisational members tolerate such destructive practices. It concludes by proposing a cultural strategy to protect the organisation and its stakeholders from the ambitious machinations of the organisational sociopath.

From President Obama's remarks to the Turkish Parliament yesterday: "I know there have been difficulties these last few years. I know that the trust that binds the United States and Turkey has been strained, and I know that strain is shared in many places where the Muslim faith is practiced. So let me say this as clearly as I can: The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam. (Applause.) In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject, but also to strengthen opportunity for all its people.

I also want to be clear that America's relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world, cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstandings, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world -- including in my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them. (Applause.)