Thanks to Doc for a little timely inspiration. I'll post some of the architects' rendering of the Girls Club building (soon), future home of Avenue D Net and free wireless. Bandwidth for all!
DIY public infrastructure | Doc Searls' IT Garage
Yes, I still hate the word blog, so I won't use audioblog, except now. But Adam Curry has pointed to Hugo Schotman's posts on his audio setup. The goal is to do everything necessary in software, with no add-ons.
My apologies to the Maya fanatics out there. I'm very heavy on the geek factor here lately.
This is for Ken, my brother-in-law. He recently upgraded his ancient Macs, and he still has Japanese clients. Some of blogger Adriaan's favorite OS X applications (a kanji dictionary) could be useful to him.
chaotic intransient prose bursts: Them apps, hot 'n spicy
The good news keeps on coming, often from Adam Curry's Weblog.
Feedster is providing a number of specialized RSS feeds with a variety of enclosures. Break out NetNewsWire 2.0 and iPodder (or iPodderX) and suddenly there aren't enough hours in the day, or night. And RSS was supposed to save us time, right?
Scott Johnson dedicates his new feeds to Dave Winer, Adam Curry, and Andrew Grumet:
Recently released NetNewsWire 2.0 recognizes enclosures. Here's their page on the feature, and how to use Applescript to extract the enclosure.
Getting simpler. Here's a new Mac application that does the RSS/enclosure/iPod work for you. via Adam Curry's Weblog.
Before I get buried in work this week, I'm posting below part of an email I sent to Jay Dedman, whom I just met this weekend on the web. Part bio, part manifesto, it fills in some background on what I'm doing and why.
I wrote it just before I found Brandon Fuller's MT plugin. The tools are coming. What happens after that will be interesting. A MoveOn for media and social change?
(click MORE for the whole rant).
You asked for topics. I'll give you a narrative.
To review my life stages: musician, ethnographic filmmaking beginner,
idealistic PBS editor apprentice, nonlinear editing pioneer, network TV
hack, jungle stomping Maya maniac, community media developer and
weblogger. Now I'm looking for a better way to do all that.
I've got the shooting, editing, posting, local network building down, more
or less. So I'm trying to grab time as I can to learn about RSS, enough
terminal and Perl to try Grumet's scripts, sufficient familiarity with
BitTorrent to understand what Drazen is doing (or at least take advantage
of it), towards making posts of videos in enclosures easy enough that I
can start posting my NYC and Maya videos. Then keep moving in that
direction in the community - PS 188, Girls Club tech centers, net radio and video.
And if I keep a hand in TV, I think it will be a useful tool for getting executive
approvals on cuts, or doing long distance editing. I have a house in
Mexico. My dream is to sit there looking out over the town and the
volcano, doing some useful work in my later years. That can be done now if
you are a programmer (I'm not) a writer (maybe) a composer (yes) but
bandwidth limitations prevent the kind of offshore video editing I want to
do. That could change. And if I can do it then, anybody else in the world
will be able to do it. Then of course the economics of being a media
professional change completely - they already have for the most part - but
I've been riding that wave a long time.
So RSS/enc/BT is going to be useful on a number of levels: personal P2P
media publishing, personal broadcasting, custom network aggregation into
PVRs (like Grumet's PTV), and professional services. Googling for
"enclosures" I keep running across a Disney link - they've run with it for
broadband distribution already. Now it's time to tackle the tools and
bandwidth issues for the little guys. I keep watching for the municipal
wireless to happen here beyond the office worker theme parks (Bryant, Wall
Street, okay Union Square is closer) but that's why I'm determined to find
a way to give it away in our neighborhood. For me the digital divide is
Avenue D. Gentry behind us, housing projects in front.
Let's assume we get the tools and bandwidth, within the next year or two.
We get the killer app - what then is the killer content? Is it enough that
we can do these things? What is compelling in P2P media? Is this just
going to be a delivery system for porn and DVDs? A way to actually see a
blogger's cat? Is it going to be the elite chat system or the web version
of cable public access (marginal now, you've got to admit), while the
media storm goes on around it? Or is it going to enable, empower, create
economic opportunity, add your own cliche? If I get it for the projects on
Ave D, is it full of crap downloads the next week? Or does it bootstrap us
all to something else?
As we invent this, we're still in the fun, pirate, let's-put-on-a-show
stage. I'm savoring it. I went through this at the three "big" networks -
"Hey, we're turning shows around on our desktops! The suits and the unions
don't know what to make of us, but we're the future!" It turned into another version of the hi-tech sweatshop.
Now I'm trying to get a longer view. And if anybody is going to make money on it, we better be prepared to share the wealth. Otherwise it just makes the digital
divide wider. And that divide, by the way, is as close as the next guy on
the subway.
Anyway, that's the manifesto off the top of my head right now. Feel free
to pass it along.
Big day for me and other Movable Type users. Brandon Fuller has come up with an MT plugin to allow enclosures and generate RSS 2.0 feeds accordingly. Now I can stop bugging everybody about it.
Brandon Fuller | MT-Enclosures: A Movable Type Plugin
The jade masks of Pacal and the Reina Roja, buried in neighboring pyramids almost 1500 years ago, are on exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. My color photo shows the Reina Roja mask as it was being restored in Palenque in 2001.
Juntos por primera vez en 1500 años, Pacal y la Reina Roja | 2004-09-17 | La Crónica de Hoy
And, as a bonus, here's the Mesoweb report on the original discovery of the Reina Roja's tomb, by Arnoldo González Cruz.
Palenque Features - La Reina Roja
Via Doc Searls , a link to Om Malik, quoting a friend's essay on the history and current state of VoIP.
Om Malik on Broadband: The Voice over IP Insurrection
My editing station in the Peten last year.
Thanks, Bill - your timing is impeccable.
Lots of folks out there thinking about how to combine video, weblogs, RSS, community.
Jay Dedman's got a better handle on it than most. And he's here in Manhattan.
Momentshowing: How to make life easier explained very clearly
I gave my first Powerpoint presentation last summer. It went alright, not great. At least it had some good photos, instead of pages of talking points. And someone in the audience liked my phrase "involuntary economic development" when I talked about getting robbed on the river.
But I wish I had seen this first. Doc Searls provides a new link to an old (1998) essay of his.
IT'S THE STORY, STUPID -
DON'T LET PRESENTATION SOFTWARE KEEP YOU FROM GETTING YOUR STORY ACROSS
I decided to look into the photo management site (it's more than that) called Flickr.
I uploaded a few photos, set up a group, and browsed around. Take a look.
Flickr: Photos from davepentecost
One of my weekend projects - installing Final Cut Pro on my G3 laptop. It's supposed to require a G4, but of course there is a hack. That information and other reader reports are on this page from Macintouch.
The archaeological zone of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, attracts most of the tourists to the region. But the closest major airport is in Villahermosa, capital of the neighboring state of Tabasco, 2 hours away. Recently, tourism officials met to see how they can share the wealth and promote the attractions of Tabasco.
What's the big deal? Some of our best friends and colleagues have a stake in drawing visitors to the ruins of Palenque. That includes the artist who drew this archaeological rendering of the Palace, Alonso Mendez. Alonso is the best guide to the ruins, and an expert in the heirophanies built into the site by the classic Maya. Ask for him at Panchan if you visit Palenque.
We also believe more people should experience the Usumacinta River in order to help protect it. Palenque is the gateway to the Lacandon forest and the Usumacinta. Tenosique, Tabasco, could become the center for celebration of the river.
Tabasco Hoy || Proponen IP de Palenque alianza con tabasqueños
For anyone who cares about this walk in the woods of RSS that I'm taking, I'm leaving a trail of bread crumbs. This is the latest. It seems that Andrew's Perl script to generate RSS 2.0 feeds with enclosures requires a module that does not come pre-installed on Mac OS X.
Here is one person's experience getting that module to install properly.
Installing XML::DOM on Mac OS X [persistent.info]
Forbes.com: INSIDE MOVES - Beatles' suit could upset the Apple cart
I've sounded out MT developers about a plugin to publish RSS feeds with enclosures. No luck yet. But Andrew Grumet has come up with a script that is a step in the right direction. Thanks to Adam Curry for the link.
Andrew Grumet's Weblog: dir2rss, a Perl script
UPDATE: And for my own education in using Perl scripts:
MacDevCenter.com: Scripting Mac OS X
AppleScript and the Command Line
And off-topic but something I need to look at:
WebMonkey - Mac OS X for Web Developers
Via Boing Boing, environmental benefits to reading news online rather than on paper.
Lab Notes: Research from the Berkeley College of Engineering - Wireless ways to go green
Other news from Guatemala, regarding the Chixoy dam occupation: the country could maintain its power without it (then why did they go so deeply in debt to build it?), the occupiers have left, the government will investigate the foreigners who they say led the occupation.
PrensaLibre.com - Mercado puede sustituir a Chixoy
AP Spanish | 09/09/2004 | Campesinos abandonan hidroeléctrica tomada en Guatemala
PrensaLibre.com - Oscar Berger: Extranjeros serán investigados
Villagers from the area of the Chixoy dam, largest in Guatemala, have occupied it and demanded reparations for the massacre that occurred when it was constructed.
This appeared in one paragraph in the New York Times, but CNN online is carrying a longer story, from Reuters.
CNN - Mayan Indians seize disputed Guatemalan dam
Garrison Keillor has been getting more and more riled by Bush and his mob. This essay lays it out in his strongest terms.
European tourists far outnumber Americans in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. But that could be changing. This Times article will make more folks consider taking the trouble to visit SCLC, what we call the Lower East Side of Mexico. Nos vemos!
The New York Times > Travel > San Cristóbal Is Emerging From the Mist
Adam Curry has been building and promoting tools for the subscription and iPodding of RSS enclosures. We're seeing tools for every platform emerge. Now he seems ready to work on the publishing side. Maybe he can get something going. I've been bugging people but it hasn't shaken anything loose yet.
Adam Curry's Weblog - iPodder wmp
Another one for Will. Lucky kid.
Apple - Support - PowerBook - Do-It-Yourself Repair & Upgrades
The governor of Tabasco has announced that he will move to create an Usumacinta Canyon Reserve. This is incredible news for all of us who have been opposing the CFE's proposed dams on the Usumacinta river. Let's see what comes of it.
Tabasco Hoy || MAD, hasta el 2006
El que mayormente me llama la atención para comentarlo con usted, es la decisión, ya tomada por Andrade, de crear la Reserva Ecológica del Cañón del Usumacinta. Esta es una noticia de enorme trascendencia. Quizá esté usted enterado que el Plan Puebla Panamá (PPP) que en los casi cuatro años de gobierno de Fox no ha pasado de ser un proyecto deshilvanado, balbuciente y cuasi quimérico, contempla la construcción de tres grandes hidroeléctricas en la cuenca del alto Usumacinta, que empieza en Tenosique. Y ahí está esa amenaza latente para cuando menos la mitad del territorio tabasqueño.
Y es que de construirse esas tres presas hidroeléctricas en el alto Usumacinta, ello significaría una sentencia de muerte ecológica no sólo para los pantanos de Centla, sino para una porción mayor del territorio tabasqueño.
En previsión de tal calamidad, el gobernador Andrade anuncia la creación de la Reserva del Cañón del Usumacinta, una decisión que le agradecerán los tabasqueños de hoy y de mañana.