Health Reform Battle Continues

The reform that is only a few decades overdue is still being fought against by some, for reasons mostly to do with the coming election and lobbying money. The legislators care deeply about those two things, and when they are in a giving mood, they care about their non-wealthy constituents. With a House Bill passed, and a Bill in the Senate passed as well, you might have the crazy idea that some sort of progress was being made. How little you understand how special interests can kill the best ideas in committee.

Crowdsourced Diagnosis of Professor’s Mystery Ailment

Linus' Law explains a lot. It explains why bugs in proprietary software products can languish for years (too few eyeballs!). It provides a reason to believe that, over time, entries on Wikipedia can converge toward accuracy. And, apparently, it's going to help Harvard Law prof (and cyberlaw giant) Jonathan Zittrain go home from the hospital faster.

Alice in Wonderland Quick Review

Alice in Wonderland is not really a film adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Nor would I really call it a sequel to the events of the original adventures in Wonderland. Combining elements, characters, and material from both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, this film adaptation of Alice's enchanting adventure takes place years after she fell down the rabbit hole.

Being Aware of Your Creative Powers

What is your present circumstance? Are you ready to admit to the one who brought all these elements into play so that you could experience yourself in this situation? This is the powerful first step to experiencing yourself as the powerful creator that you are.

What Open Access Means to the Law

I've been involved with a few initiatives seeking to promote wide access to scholarly articles, but have not spent as much time thinking about what open access means when applied to the raw materials of law: judicial briefs, caselaw, statutes, Congressional reports and hearings, executive regulations, grants, audits, and so on. This all changed on Wednesday, when Carl Malamud and Tom Bruce came up to the Yale Information Society Project during the afternoon to discuss the law.gov movement, and I joined Carl and Helen Nissenbaum of NYU for a panel on law.gov that same evening at New York Law School.

Happy Pi Day, and Happy Birthday Al

Today, March 14, is one of the days that is sometimes celebrated as "Pi Day", in honor of the best-known irrational and transcendental number, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, usually written as the Greek letter pi.

Jesse Ventura's Censored 9/11 Commentary

Editor's Note: The following column by former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura was removed by Huffington Post after it was published March 9 and replaced with a note that states the site "prohibits the promotion and promulgation of conspiracy theories -- including those about 9/11."

The Esquire Gamer Never Shoots for the Face.

I've always liked the kind of manliness that Esquire tries to evoke. The Esquire man wants to read advice about cufflinks, politeness, and how to order fancy drinks. Yet video games are now well established as a common domain of men -- not boys -- and it still isn't clear how an Esquire man would play them, or comment on them.

In Search of the Most Defensible YouTube Video

Lately I have been doing some research on online video distribution. Every day this topic is getting more mainstream, but I still avoid describing myself as a "YouTube researcher." If I did, I'm sure the first image to come to mind would probably be me closely studying a laughing baby (below; 98 million views on YouTube to date) or maybe the Evolution of Dance (131 million views). It's not that Media Studies has ever been held in particularly high regard as an important subject (though the cinema people keep trying), but when writing about online video there's an even greater presumption of frivolousness.

Does the Living Room Computer Have to Do Everything?

The newest system update for the XBox 360 now includes a number of social networking and Internet applications, including Facebook, twitter, last.fm, and Zune (Microsoft's attempt to compete with the iTunes store). For me, the integration of these services feels like a kind of weird collision of different neighborhoods and cultures.