This is so cool. You can convert units. Currencies. You can ask for definitions “define soup”. You can do Roman numerals. You can do different base mathematics.

And, go ahead and try it. Cut and paste “82 7/16 inches in mm” into the google search bar, and hit return.

(82 7/16) inches = 2 093.9125 millimeters

That’s the distance my new tires cover in one full revolution.

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• Telepresence robots on a budget
• Interface design tenants for beautiful design
• Stage magic in virtual worlds
• and …
• The environmental impact of a website

Plus Microsoft is sponsoring and offering a free beer (free as in beer) — I can finally get back $4.00 or so out of the thousands of license fees over the years.

I’m planning to go and happy to offer a ride to anyone out my way if we want to make it a group outing.

Technorati Tags: IgniteBoston

I had the chance lately to study this material and work with it in a client workshop — great stuff.

One thing that stood out for me was Clay’s articulate discussion about how humans are intuitive processors of group dynamics; and that the social web allows us to extend our senses. For example, by clicking through facebook I can tell if John is mad at Mary, if Sheila and Julie are friendly — by looking at public wall comments, etc. I could see who’s in the same clique by the groups they join, by the apps the install at the same time — the same way I could identify cliques at the workplace or school.

Clay gave a nice talk at the Berkman Center in February, and there’s a video on the Berkman site and up at youtube. I especially love Clay’s comment that with the internet “Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly are all the same thing.” Note to self: must get to more Berkman events, it’s just down the road …

David took some live notes (it was nice to stop by Joho again, it’s been awhile but fun to drop in on old friends). Kellan plugged it here. And you can probably google a million other blogs; now a million and one

Technorati Tags: Clay Shirky, social web

This is the dark side of the long tail.  We talk about how the long tail can help small user communities aggregate around an obscure or non-mainstream interest.   We usually mean this in a positive sense, a local music band, or an out of print poetry author.   What if that interest is something that is decidedly non healthy, and what if site operators openly promote such interests and make it appealing for people to join and try the unhealthy behavoir?

The French have decided to outlaw it in this case.  I wish them luck.  How can any single nation state regulate the  internet?   If a US site operator uses a russian ISP and has such information available in French, or English for that matter, what can the French government really do about it?   This is the brave new world mankind created with the internet, full of wonderful new things but also with dark corners and alleyways that we have to teach our children to avoid.

I was catching up on Telecosm today and came across this post where he comments on Andy’s speculation that Kevin O’Hara’s departure from Level(3) might be preparatory to an acquisition of XO, Global Crossing and/or Sprint. He writes …

the company is still playing catch-up on the string of acquisitions it made for the past several years. Like a contestant at a speed-eating contest, they were plowing through hot dogs until they got to the one labeled Broadwing, and they choked. The Heimlich maneuver has included re-assigning leading executives to focus on the problem, and re-forecasting 2008 revenues, and now the departure of the President and COO. That’s a lot of indigestion, so I don’t think the company is ready to start shoveling in more hot dogs right now

I laughed so hard, this is quite the entertaining analogy. Having some good friends remaining at Level(3), I hope their dose of pepto-bismal  is getting things settled down (now there’s a site with a lot of pink!).

Technorati Tags: level3, ike elliot, andy abramson,