Category — New York City

It was the only right (ethical) choice that I had. You see I went down to google’s new york office tonight to see a colleague of mine speak on the future of the internet. I thought it was an open invite without any specific rules as to what I could do with the knowledge that I found there. I registered and attended until Google asserted the rules.

Sometimes… Google gets it wrong. You see I did not have any prior ruleset to know that they do not allow people to blog or otherwise publish their visit to such talks. They did not send one, it was not in any announcement that I received, and I’ve otherwise not seen one. However, there is a set of rules that prohibit blogging or publishing that they announced before the talk. Google said that if i wanted to blog or publicly discuss the event, I had to get their permission. If I’d have known, I would not have attended or been affiliated with the event in any way. I am a professor, was and still am, and by the very nature of my job, i cannot guarantee that I will follow their rules about publication or blogging. I couldn’t consent to them, so I had to leave. I don’t want to have to ask google for permission to speak about something that I already know a good deal about and am perfectly happy dashing an email off to colleagues to learn more. I don’t want to be obliged to them for any intellectual content or public knowledge at all beyond the general service they provide.

The rational that google said justified this request for secrecy and the privatization of knowledge was one of collegiality. I found that justification to be ironic. Colleagues share within the limits of their judgment. Collegiality is broken as soon as the judgment is turned into a ruleset, as soon as trust becomes moot and i no longer have to trust you, instead i just have to trust that you are following the pre-ordained rules. At that point in time of the announcement of rules, anyone in the room could be called colleagues, afterwards we were all subjects to Google and any collegiality was limited by Google’s rules. We were all constructed as lesser beings, less equal, more likely to damage others. We were ‘other’, and untrustworthy, which is the implication of the ‘no blogging’. If you want people to be friends, to become a community, you have to let them communicate, you have to let them establish the common ground by consent.

Thus I had to leave, as I was not going to be subject of Google beyond what I’ve already contracted. I could not consent to silence. I am surprised that the speaker in question would allow this rule, but not that surprised in the end.

Please if you have a talk where people who take ethics seriously are present, never change the rules after the fact, make them public beforehand.

Now I know 2 things,
1. Google changes the rules of public engagement to suit it’s own interpretations
2. Before I attend any future Google event, I should ask for clearly defined rules to be made public and distributed, so that I can decide to either be complicit or not beforehand.

Creative Business Card Designs.:

Creativebits blog has a collection of some really creative business card designs (many from the businesscards pool on Flickr): Link – Thanks Tara!
and
Neatorama

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I have like 500 business cards from pratt….. but i’ve been using streetcards by hugh,

Facebook | Message: Memorial Fund & Upcoming Fundraisers:
In response to multiple inquiries about both setting up a memorial fund as well as any local fundraisers, we have launched a website that will allow the Manhattan Hokies to raise both awareness and support for the victims and their families.

Please visit: http://www.nyhokiescare.org

for details.

Additionally, in the coming days, we will be announcing the details about a fundraising event in early May that will also contribute to this cause.

Thank you in advance for your support during these trying times.

Ut Prosim,

Steve Hole
President
Manhattan Hokies
www.nyhokiescare.org
www.manhattahokies.com

All:

Again, thanks to each of you who have reached out with thoughts,
prayers, and suggestions.

Let me also apologize for not responding to each of your individual
inquiries/questions – as you can imagine, the response has been
overwhelming.

As Hokie Nation, and the nation as a whole, grieves over the tragedy
at Virginia Tech, Manhattan Hokies has planned a candle light vigil to
be held at Washington Square Park on Thursday April 19th at 7:30pm.
There will be a moment of silence to honor the victims, families and
friends of those affected.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone else who might be interested.

Respectfully,

Steve Hole
President
Manhattan Hokies
http://www.manhattanhokies.com

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it wasn’t bad or anything like that, but last night we lost power. now giving that the last time the major outages happened, it took a week to recover, it really makes one wonder when you’ll get power back… when you lose power. the answer… 2 am. Still, it made me dig out some matches and candles, though i need better candles to read by… power outage in astoria always is proceeded by brownout so far in my experience. that just makes me want it to recover or go out, the flickering lights kill reading.

Planning for Library Camp Mid-Atlantic:
Planning proceeds apace – Jeremy Hunsinger is kindly checking to see if space is available at Pratt Institute, and has posted about the event to a mailing list he’s on. I will likely do the same on BUSLIB-L, assuming it’s OK with Dan Lester.
I’ve created a very brief survey for people who might be interested in attending:
Click here to take survey
Even if you’re not interested, please pass the information on to people who might be.

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the fine folks at the business librarian are… thinking of putting on library camp mid-atlantic. it could be fun.

Sometimes I Feel Like I’m The Only One Trying To Gentrify This Neighborhood | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source:
It’s getting to the point where I feel like I’m tilting at windmills. But I can’t give up—I know this neighborhood would benefit from the diversity of more people like me moving in. If you need a good place to live, come check out my ‘hood. It’s quirky, but it could use a few more creative types to get it jumping. But no developers—those guys just ruin it for the rest of us.

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the sad thing is…. some people think like this ….

I went for a walk this afternoon and decided to try some new food. I went to this little cuban restaurant…, I’d say on 47th street and broadway in astoria/LIC. I wanted to try the cuban sandwich. Of course, they were out of cubano, so I ordered what the person before me had which was chicken and dirty rice. so it is baked chicken with a bit of spice and some vegetables over what seems to be a pound of rice… for six bucks. The rice and beans alone , though it could be spicier, is more than enough for a meal, the chicken is tasty. Perhaps later in the week I’ll try the fish market. it too had a bunch of people in it for lunch.

My office won’t be ready until around the 1st ;0 and my dsl is off at home, so I’m currently using my phone for email and my office for the web…… such is life. My neighborhood is really nice in astoria ny, best buy and home depot are within walking distance, but broadway has everything one might need. I’m not done unpacking, though, i’m probably not going to finish unpacking my books for a long time, i think i brought to many for this apartment, we’ll see.

I received my first fresh-direct order yesterday and made a nice shrimp stir-fry last night. Not much new there, it is nice to get groceries delivered though, as there are a ton of organic and fresh choices, though… I have to admit that the plums aren’t as ripe as I’d like… oh well, at least the shrimp were.

so the move went well, I’ll have the pictures of the new place when i get things sorted. It is pretty nice and my landlord was extremely helpful in getting things done yesterday. It took about an hour to unpack the truck with some help from the Pratt metal shop. We unpacked on the hottest day of the year, drank quite a bit of water. Now I just have to unbox my stuff and get my office and bedroom setup. Then i have to get some groceries… My dsl isn’t up yet, so i’ll be offline most of the time. It comes on tomorrow night supposedly. (yeah right). Other than that, things are going pretty well, I’m going to swing by the office in a bit and take care of some business and after that I’ll wait for my landlord to call and say everything is finished at my place then i’ll head back home and work on the apt. some more.