In his SmartMobs blog entry My Facebook friends: please read this, Howard Rheingold outlines the progression of his Facebook experience.

It is a pattern I first understood as a result of reading the work of Danah Boyd, to whom he refers an earlier facebook-focused post, explaining his decision to treat his Facebook community as public.

Through no lack of effort on his part, Rheingold's Facebook "community" has apparently lost a great deal of its personal and/or professional social context and come to resemble the readership of a newspaper or magazine.

Others have confronted what I view as related Facebook experiences by leaving altogether.

              

A Kossack finds that closing down his Facebook account is almost as difficult as checking out of the Eagles' Hotel California.

NPR's blogging timeline attracted lightning for appearing to credit Jorn Barger with leadership in the form's creation. The timeline mentioned in a somewhat derogatory way Justin's Links from the Underground, which some believe to be the first weblog, and ignoring several other important early contributors.

Only one woman is mention, and she isn't Brigitte Eaton, who IMHO deserved a place.

Omitting standard blog practice, the timeline offers no opportunity to file corrective comments.

Still believe in Santa? Escape Pod offers a dark science fiction story in which this universe's survival depends upon whether Santa Claus believes in it.

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Thus continues the net neutrality death dance ...

Lawrence Lessig pointed out this Wikipedia image, which summarizes the current facts of much of internet connectivity services consumer life:

As Wikipedia explains:

Chart self made using with "Fair Use" logos, used under fair use because it portrays the evolution of the companies that ultimately formed the current AT&T Inc.; no words can accurately portray this evolution as the image does. Cannot be replaced with a free image because they are all logos.

              

Go State!

The print version of NCSU's Computing@NC State won a 2007 award for excellence from the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Internet Group for University and College Computing Services.

              

Reading of Kathy Sierra's travails, I was reminded that occasional death threats, anonymous and face-to-face harassment were small parts of putting out a daily newspaper editorial page during the decades before the dawn of the Web.

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In essence, the big telcos want to turn the Information Superhighway into a high-priced toll road and force everyone who can't pay their Internet tariff off onto a cow path.

Really, the big telcos just want to push most of the job- and wealth-producing entrepreneurial energy of the Internet off into the mud. By doing that, they can make considerably more money in the short run, even though the general effect will be strangulation of perhaps the most dynamic aspect of the U.S. economy. At the same time, they will be able to arrange additional straightforward extraction dollars from your pocket.

They don't care in the least about the broad economic effects, or the eventual cost to them of suppressing economic activity.

They are myopically focused on using their almost monopolistic power over the expressways of the Information Superhighway to milk Internet users and Internet service providers for more revenue.

That is what the end of "Net Neutrality" will mean, if the big telcos get their way and Congress allows it to end.

Net neutrality is coming to a boil again in Washington, this time in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Drop by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce for a lot more information on this. Or visit save the internet for well-summarized information.

Either way, or neither way, let your Congressional Representative know that you favor Net Neutrality.

Or you can pay through the nose in new and often carefully concealed ways that are interesting in the Chinese sense, and watch U.S. Internet and Web innovation go the way of so many other, once vital industries.

              

Tiring of the life of a pixel-bound hermit, this morning I put my name on the BarCampRDU wiki as an attendee. What to present about will come to me later.

On the surface, BarCamp is a concept that fills me with nostalgia for my days as an NCSU undergraduate. That was in the halcyon (or notorious, depending upon your perspective) 1960s. The BarCampRDU wiki explains:

A BarCamp is an unconference where people interested in a wide range of technologies come together to teach and learn. Unfamiliar with unconference? Here's the idea in a nutshell. Rather than having scheduled speakers, everyone pitches sessions the morning of the BarCamp. Those sessions are put on a schedule, and lots of little groups form for intense group learning. Everyone is expected to teach, to talk, to participate. Yeah, its different from a regular conference - but it works!

The founding BarCamp rules declare that it is not a spectator sport:

Attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one. This is called sharing and we like it."

+1 on that ...

BarCampRDU is in Raleigh, at the Red Hat HQ on NCSU's Centennial Campus, on July 22, 2006. If you're interested, the time to sign up is right now. There is room for 150 attendees. About one-third of those places are taken as of this writing. (Update: The Wiki shows 114 registered as of 10:16 p.m., Wed., July 7.)

Sign up.

I'll look for your presentation.

Technorati Tags: BarCampRDU , BarCampRDU , BarCamp

              

Yes, I've missed Doctor Who. It is his affirmation of our collective humanity, foibles and all, that I truly miss. I may not enjoy seeing the Daleks again, should they turn up.

I might never have seen the Doctor again had it not been for YouTube and the explosion of old fashioned television on the the Web.