No, this is not about the beloved NYC rock-opera musical. It’s about the differences (and benefits) of access vs. ownership; and a look at just what will have value when so much is available for free.

Kevin Kelly over at KK.ORG has just posted a very interesting essay on this topic, called Better Than Owning: Access is better than ownership. Take a few minutes and read it. Here’s an excerpt:

Very likely, in the near future, I won’t “own” any music, or books, or movies. Instead I will have immediate access to all music, all books, all movies using an always-on service, via a subscription fee or tax. I won’t buy – as in make a decision to own — any individual music or books because I can simply request to see or hear them on demand from the stream of ALL. I may pay for them in bulk but I won’t own them. The request to enjoy a work is thus separated from the more complicated choice of whether I want to “own” it. I can consume a movie, music or book without having to decide or follow up on ownership.

For many people this type of instant universal access is better than owning. No responsibility of care, backing up, sorting, cataloging, cleaning, or storage. As they gain in public accessibility, books, music and movies are headed to become social goods even though they might not be paid by taxes. It’s not hard to imagine most other intangible goods becoming social goods as well. Games, education, and health info are also headed in that direction.

In fact, take a few more minutes and read this piece posted by Kevin Kelly in January, 2008: Better Than Free. Here’s an excerpt:

The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it…

…Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.

Well, what can’t be copied?

And finally, if you’ve got 43 minutes to invest in getting a glimpse of the future of the Internet, watch this Kevin Kelly presentation at Web and Where 2.0+ in February 2008.
(The presentation is about ~23 min. and the Q&A, the other 20 min.)

Kevin Kelly’s “Web 3.0″
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J132shgIiuY[/youtube]

Whoa!

Has every state now gone blue?

No, there are still a few red states left. But what the above map does show, is the levels of flu activity in each state (as of today, November 11, 2008); lighter blue for minimal flu activity, and darker blue for raised levels of flu activity.

Google (that’s right, the search engine) has just launched a new service called Google Flu Trends. Google has observed that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses Google search data to estimate flu activity up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” or “flu symptoms” is actually sick. But trends do develop amongst the millions of searches done each day. It makes sense when you think about it; people might do a search themselves before they actually end up at their doctor’s office where their case of the Flu gets reported.

By making flu estimates available each day, Google Flu Trends may provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza, and may enable public health officials to better respond to seasonal epidemics and pandemics.

Learn more about Google Flu Trends here.

About twenty years ago, I was working next door to a shoemaker’s shop. One day, I was complaining to Joe (the Shoemaker) that my new sneakers kept coming untied. These shoes had roundish, nylon shoelaces and my standard shoelace knot that I had been taught as a child was not staying tight at all with these new laces.

Joe taught me what he called “the nylon shoelace knot,” and from that day forward, my shoelaces never come untied by themselves. But here’s the best part; a quick, firm pull on the two loose ends, and they come untied with ease. Beautiful!

Fast-forward to today; with the Interwebs being what they are, of course there is a website devoted to shoelaces – only shoelaces: Ian’s Shoelace Site.

I have now learned that this knot is called the Surgeon’s Shoelace Knot.

Ian’s Shoelace Site has tips on lacing shoes, tying shoelaces, slipping shoelaces, crooked shoelaces, shoelace lengths, shoelace tips for teaching children, shoelace tips for sports, shoelace tips for the elderly/disabled; shoelace tips for everyone!

This website will change the way you think about shoelaces. It’s never too late to learn to tie your shoes well!

I happen to love maps. So of course, I love my new Google Maps Plugin for Wordpress.

You like maps too?

Awesome US, World & State Wall Maps:
Raven Maps & Images

And you like on-line weather maps too?

Giant National Radar Composite (it’s huge!):
National Mosaic Enhanced Radar Image

Do you know of any other great map resources? Do tell; leave a comment!

Blue has always been my favorite color. (Take look around this site!) So the news today that Pantone has selected BLUE IRIS as its color of the year for 2008 really caught my eye; and I like this color a lot.

According to their press release, Blue Iris is “a beautifully balanced blue-purple,” that combines the “stable and calming aspects of blue with the mystical and spiritual qualities of purple.” Additionally, “Blue Iris satisfies the need for reassurance in a complex world, while adding a hint of mystery and excitement.”

Ahhh, that’s nice!

There exists a certain psychological state which tends to produce laughter, which is the natural phenomenon or process of “humor”, or “humor perception”.
–Thomas C. Veatch, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Here is the short scientific explanation of “funny,” and here’s the full version.

Here’s why I’ll try my best to avoid making puns ever again.

My favorite part of the above referenced paper: “Humor is emotional pain that doesn’t actually hurt.”

This story made the rounds in January, 2005 when it first broke, but I never saw it. I couldn’t resist posting it here now.

(Text and images from an email I recently received, and assorted web sources. FYI: SNOPES says it’s mostly a true story)

…Some news accounts (including the one sped from inbox to inbox in early 2005) asserted the orphaned hippo was swept into the sea by the tsunami that devastated numerous coastal countries in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004, yet wildlife officials were alerted to the imperiled hippo before Christmas, when hoteliers in Malindi spotted the little fellow, in the company of a number of adults of his kind, foundering in the surf off the coast. By the time wildlife officials arrived, Owen was alone, having become separated from his herd. Had he not been rescued, the ocean’s waters would have done in the youngster because long immersion in salt water would have led to fatal dehydration.

The dehydrated hippo was found by wildlife rangers and taken to the Haller Park animal facility in the port city of Mombasa.

Pining for his lost mother, Owen quickly befriended a giant male Aldabran tortoise named Mzee – Swahili for “old man”.

“When we released Owen into the enclosure, he lumbered to the tortoise which has a dark grey colour similar to grown up hippos,” Sabine Baer, rehabilitation and ecosystems manager at the park, told Reuters on Thursday.

Haller Park ecologist Paula Kahumbu said the pair were now inseparable.

“After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together,” the ecologist added.

“The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother,” Kahumbu added.

“The hippo was left at a very tender age. Hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years.”

She said the hippo’s chances of survival in another herd were very slim, predicting that a dominant male would have killed him.

Officials are hopeful Owen will befriend a female hippo called Cleo, also a resident at the park.

From a NY Times article today:

Urban Camouflage

Though street crime is relatively low in Japan, quirky camouflage designs like this vending-machine dress are being offered to an increasingly anxious public to hide from would-be assailants.

Check out the other great Urban Camouflage images here.

Just over 10 years ago, on October 15, 1997, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a several billion mile trip across the solar system to the planet Saturn.

About seven years later, on July 1, 2004, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft reduced its speed, and entered orbit around Saturn. The spacecraft is now more than half way through its four-year mission to explore the ringed planet.

The mission, called the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan also released a probe that landed on Saturn’s moon Titan on Dec. 25, 2004.

You can see the latest incredible images from the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan at the CICLOPS (Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations) website.

Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner: The Final Cut” opens Friday in NYC, and I really want to go see it. After 25 years, director Ridley Scott has re-released the film with lost scenes and plot lines added back in, and original effects scenes digitally scanned at 8,000 lines per frame, and then carefully retouched. This is the version that he was trying to make in 1982. After going over-budget at the time, the financiers of the film took over and Scott had to bend steeply to their wishes. A narration track was written and added, and the film was given a happy ending. Ironically, footage used as backdrops for the new happy ending — scenes of rolling countryside — were borrowed from Stanley Kubrick; out-takes from The Shining!

I saw Blade Runner in 1982 when it first came out. I can’t say I remember much beyond generally liking it. Nine years later, I happened to be in San Francisco, when the “Director’s Cut” of the film was released, and went with friends to see it at The Castro Theatre. This time I remember being totally entranced, and a bit spooked. It was late October 1991, and the news in San Francisco was already surreal enough; the Oakland-Berkeley Hills Fire had whipped out of control days before, and destroyed or damaged 3,469 homes and apartments in the hills just across the bay from San Francisco. It was the worst fire in terms of loss of life and property since the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906.

If the movie wasn’t dark enough, the local mood was darker. I drove past the fire area a few days later; it was like a nuclear bomb had hit Berkeley. There was nothing left standing for miles in each direction except for brick chimneys. It was so unbelievable. I was staying at my Aunt’s house up in the hills of Berkeley, but had flown up to Eugene, Oregon to visit some other friends a few days before the fire. I flew back to SF the morning after the fire, and saw the whole smoldering hillside from the airplane as we circled to land.

My Aunt’s house was spared by the direction of the wind that day.