Weekly Roundup: Hermann Hesse, Tim O'Reilly, and Barack Obama walk into a bar…
Posted in The Gnovis Blog
Maybe I’m still feeling the Tryptophan , but my favorite posts this week appear to be lacking a coherent theme, so I’m going to revert to simple bullet points. Just because they’re random, though, don’t assume they aren’t utterly fascinating.
Here at gnovis
- Trish announced the death of television – sort of – and, not surprisingly, was rewarded with several thoughtful comments.
- In my review of James Boyle’s latest book, "The Public Domain:
Enclosing the Commons of the Mind," I sent mixed signals but settled on a conditional recommendation. - Jed got all skeptical about social networks, suggesting that their structures may have a pacifying effect, particularly in comparison to more agile "Smart Mobs" systems of organizing.
Around CCT…
- The Serious Games class got even more serious than usual, tackling Hermann Hesse’s "Das Glasperlenspiel" (the Glass Bead Game). They consider the distinction between games and play , the importance of creative engagement , and the challenges of reading dense, old, translated texts . No word on whether they read all 550+ pages.
On the tubes…
- Last week, Lauren mentioned this call for the Obama Administration to resurrect the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). No news on that front, but we have seen some promising changes at change.gov: the introduction of OpenID for commentors , and a switch (following blogger scrutiny) to a Creative Commons license on all content .
- Tim O’Reilly isn’t satisfied, though — he wants revision control at Change.gov .
- Neither is Larry Lessig, and he’s got slides to prove it. His Change Congress group just launched Open Government , calling for media from the Obama team to be 100% remix-friendly.
And finally…
Good luck to those of you who are working on finals! If you’re excited about any of your papers, we’re already accepting submissions for the Spring…