Net Neutrality video - a MUST see.

Save the Internet | Rock the Vote


For more information on this video and Net Neutrality visit

http://foureyedmonsters.com/neutrality/

The Grid is Coming...high speed internet...but not for you

It's all about the grid, a revolutionary concept that outdates the Internet structure as obsolete. Instead of linking together a "hotchpotch of cable and routing equipment" the grid is built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centers, no outdated components to slow the deluge of data....really interesting article giving a glimpse of what is coming down the data pike. It's actually here... but now only available to, you guessed it...providers and businesses.....

Although the grid itself is unlikely to be directly available to domestic internet users, many telecoms providers and businesses are already introducing its pioneering technologies. One of the most potent is so-called dynamic switching, which creates a dedicated channel for internet users trying to download large volumes of data such as films. In theory this would give a standard desktop computer the ability to download a movie in five seconds rather than the current three hours or so.

Comcast and Net Neutrality

From a Boing Boing posting by Xeni Jardin, here's an update on Comcast and the net neutrality issue. She writes:


The internet service provider has been under investigation for blocking file-sharing among subscribers, but announced a change of heart today, promising to treat all apps equally -- but they'll still slow down traffic for customers who consume larger amounts of bandwidth than others.

Since user reports of interference with file-sharing traffic were confirmed by an Associated Press investigation in October, Comcast has been vigorously defending its practices, most recently at a hearing of the Federal Communications Commission in February.

Consumer and ''Net Neutrality'' advocates have been equally vigorous in their attacks on the company, saying that by secretly blocking some connections between file-sharing computers, Comcast made itself a judge and gatekeeper for the Internet. They also accused Comcast of stifling delivery of Internet video, an emerging competitor to the cable company's core business.

Comcast has said that its practices were necessary to keep file-sharing traffic from overwhelming local cable lines, where neighbors share capacity with one another. On Thursday, Comcast said that by the end of the year, it will move to a system that manages capacity without favoring one type of traffic over another.

Link.

Update: here's a press release issued by Comcast about a hollow, face-saving, baloney-scented deal with BitTorrent announced today. The bit about "a capacity management technique that is protocol agnostic" effectively means that heavy P2P users will still be throttled, they just won't be identified by protocol.

Spring has sprung

We, Bruce and I, are getting our garden ready for planting. We've been composting through the winter and now it's time for rototilling and mulching the soil. And as my thoughts turn to the green and growth outside I'm reminded of the landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy. What he can do with stone, wood and plants is amazing. If you get a chance to see Rivers and Tides, do so. It's a documentary on Goldsworthy skill in handling nature and natural material in an extraordinary way. Here is a sample of his work.

Alta Mountains

I'm not a great skier but did manage to make it down some pretty impressive slopes.
Here are some views on my way down the mountain.

Photo credit goes to my husband, Bruce, who is a very impressive skier.

May the road rise up to meet you...

Our house, when I was growing up, was always filled with the smells of a boiled dinner on March 17th and the scent of green carnations that we wore to school. I meant to post this on Monday the 17th but was on a plane heading home, then yesterday I forgot..... so to share a bit of Irish sentiment I offer a listen to an Irish classic......




... and may the wind be always at your back.

My drive home

If you go to this you'll see my visual experience that I have each night as I leave work and head home. It's a twelve picture journey that starts at the end and ends with the beginning. I did try and straighten out the sequence but alas flickr did not oblige my efforts.

Obama in 30 Seconds

For those of you who are so inclined to stretch your production muscle moveon.org has a challenge for you....




Here's the past winner of Bush in 30 Seconds called "Child's Pay"

The 2 Billonth Photo on Flickr

It has been predicted that there will be more photos on Flickr than people on earth sometime in 2009.

And the auspicious honor of The 2 billionth photo goes to.....

Now, the two dollar question is, what is it?

Digital Pamphleteer

 Bill Simmon, filmmaker, blogger extraordinar  and friend  from my public access days in Vermont produced this video,  Digital Pamphleteer.  It's an interview with  Steve Benen, a political writer and blogger talking about what inspires him politically and how blogging is helping to change politics.

Jenkins on Obama

Here's an excerpt I pulled from Henry Jenkins' blog on Obama. It was posted Feb 18 and today is March 4, an important primary day for the democrats....Go Barack....

The article is lengthy but full of insight into our current political landscape. It starts off as:

Obama and the "We" Generation

Several years ago, I heard my colleague and friend Justine Cassell sum up what she had learned after more than a decade of tracking the lives of hundreds of young people from around the world she had been helping to facilitate through the Media Lab's Junior Summit. These young leaders had been working both face to face and via electronic communications to try to bring about changes in their society, focusing their energies on problems both local and global, and finding solutions through both policy and technology. Cassell is a linguist so one of the things that interested her was the language these young people used. Adult leaders, she suggested, tend to rely heavily on the first person pronoun: 'Here's what I will do for you', 'this is my position on the issues,' 'I have the experience needed to do the job.' By contrast, the youth leaders tended to deploy a third person language: 'what do we see as the problem here,' 'what do we want to do about It,' 'what are our goals for the next steps.' The young leaders were interested in the process as much as the product, trying to make sure that every perspective got heard and weighed appropriately before reaching a decision. They pooled information from multiple sources, valuing diversity of input because of what it would contribute to the final outcome.

All of this came back to me as I have been listening to Barrack Obama in recent weeks. Commentators have noted his tendency to use "We" far more often than first ("I")or second person ("You" pronouns, often with only minimal understanding of what is at stake in this language choice. Some of this no doubt emerges from Obama's experience as a community organizer, a very different role from Hillary Clinton's early experiences as a litigator or legal council for nonprofit organizations.

Obama has constructed not so much a campaign as a movement. Campaigns are very much top down organizations focused on short term results -- let's get this person elected president -- while movements are constructed bottom-up with more long-term goals -- let's reshape the American political landscape. What Obama has been building can last longer than the individual campaign because it is as much structured around connections between voters as it is around connections between the candidate and the electoriate. We see this in the use of MySpace, Facebook, and other social network sites, which both build on the set of social ties (of all kinds) that link voters together and also enables new people to get into contact with each other. I predicted in Convergence Culture that the parties and the political leaders were going to lose control of the campaign process in a world where the general public was increasingly taking media in its own hands. In a campaign season strongly influenced by grassroots media contributions, it is striking how many of the so-called "viral videos" -- from the 1984 ads and the Obama Girl spots through to the recent "Yes We Can" music video were dedicated to supporting Obama's efforts. Grassroots media makers seemed to be welcomed into the political process by Obama's staff and he seems to inspire more people to apply their craft as contributions to his efforts.

For the rest of the article go to:

www.henryjenkins.org/index.html

In case you haven't seen the Yes We Can video here it is:

 A look back in time (1950s) with no less than the Three Stooges, those cutting edge fellows working it out in motion capture.

World Debate streaming video

This is a video I produced (wrote, camera, edited and vo) a while ago. It's documenting the first international internet academic debate that occurred between the University of Vermont and the English Speaking Union in 2000. It runs appx. three minutes.

Dali Lama, the Torch and Steve

This is a  sweet story of one man's dream to have the Dali Lama be part of the procession that carries the Olympic Torch to the Beijing Summer Olympics.

It appears I have cracked the embedding code ... streaming video on demand.  Yah!

social bookmarking....check it out...

I've just created a social bookmarking page in del.icio.us. It took a couple of tries but after figuring out how to load a plug-in to access the tag button things moved quickly. Social bookingmarking does have advantages. You can reference your bookmarks from anywhere online. And you can share the information/link with others. I've started off with a small number of links but will be adding to this site as I continue in my exploration of what the Internet has to offer....

del.icio.us/klmcgregor

Salgado pics from EXODUS

February 1, 2008

Greetings and welcome to this blog.

Before I get started I must confess this is the last thing I thought I would ever do. I’m the person least expected to create a blog, really. I’m shy and often times not comfortable putting my opinions and thoughts out there, or here, for all to view and comment on. Timid by nature but not enough to eclipse my curiosity to learn new skills I’ve placed personal uncomfortableness aside for self-exploration on a larger scale. So here I am. I’ve visited my friends’ blogs and am amazed how well and with apparent ease they engage in dialogue and conversation dispensing humor and insight on matters of personal interest and global concern connecting to a community that reaches out to parts unknown from the mere stroke of the keys. It is this sense of community that draws me to this exercise and I enter the common ground of blogging with an adventurous spirit and a challenge to myself to “get over it” and enjoy the experimentation. This will be a space for exploring what comes my way and hopefully providing a connectedness for others in their self-exploration travels as well. I definitely see this as a work in progress. Enough said.

Other than being shy, who am I?

I hail from Vermont, born and breed and recently transplanted to Salt Lake City, Utah. I currently work in broadcast television, behind the camera. My past employment includes, media libraries, public access television, producing, directing, editing, camera and teaching. My camera experience includes musical performances (lots), sports, weddings, talking heads and experimental. I’ve had the great fortune to work with talented artists on a large-scale video installation, learning as I went along and hope to do more in this area. The documentary format also intrigues me. And I’m a strong supporter of First Amendment issues in the media and in every day life.

Recently I discovered the work of photographer Sabastiao Salgado, a photojournalist working on humanitarian issues in Third World countries. His images are riveting. Here’s a sample of his work from a recent exhibition in SLC entitled Exodus. The Leonardo a developing science/art center that is emerging in the community was the host.

In his own words:

Salgado on Exodus
An extraordinary journey through photography

“I was born in 1944 on a farm in the rural state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. When I was five, my father moved to the small town of Aimorés; in my teens, I went to Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo state, to finish high school and attend university.

After meeting Lélia Deluiz Wanick, who became my wife and later the curator of my shows and designer of my books, we traveled to the metropolis of São Paulo where I continued studying to become an economist. Every step was a move into a denser urban world. Then, in 1969, with Brazil under military rule, we left Brazil for Europe and found ourselves to become part refugees, part immigrants and part students.

Three decades later, we still live in a foreign land. It is not surprising, therefore, I should identify myself with exiles and migrants—people who shape new lives for themselves far away from their native countries. A Salvadoran waiter in a Los Angeles restaurant, a Pakistani shopkeeper in the north of England, a Senegalese worker on a Paris construction site—all these people share the same experience and deserve our respect. Each has traveled an extraordinary journey to reach where he is now; each is contributing to the re-organization of humankind; each is implicitly part of our story. In human history people have always migrated but something different is happening today. For me, the current population upheaval across the world represents a change of historical significance.

We are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, produce, communicate, and travel. Most of the world’s inhabitants are now urban. We have become one world. However, in distant corners of the globe, people are being displaced for essentially the same reason.”

—Sebastião Salgado on EXODUS

pics coming soon....still figuring out the technical specs.

. karen .