Having demonstrated the formation of micro-communities over time, we then turn to the ongoing activity within active communities. We extend recent work of Kleinberg to discover dense periods of "bursty" intra-community link creation.

This paper by Prabhakar Raghavan of Verity was presented this week at the International WWW conference.

Free ACM registration required for download.

On the Bursty Evolution of Blogspace

We tested our predictions by measuring the spread of messages in an organization and also by numerical experiments that take into consideration the organizational distance among individuals.

This paper is sort of a follow-up to the Email as Spectroscopy paper. You can find a PowerPoint briefing on it at

http://www.hpl.hp.com/shl/papers/flow/justflow.ppt

Information Flow in Social Groups [PDF]

] A new anti-assault device for women wards off potential
] assailants with an 80,000-volt electric shock.
]
] Dubbed "exo-electric armor," the No-Contact Jacket looks
] like an ordinary fashionable women's coat. But an inner
] layer of conductive fiber carries a low-amp charge that
] delivers a nasty but non-lethal shock to anyone who
] messes with its wearer.

I want a full legnth trenchcoat version of this.. That when its charged, gives of sparks, crackles, and screws up 802.11 networks and cell phones in my immediate vacinity..

Wired News: Shocking New Jacket Hits Street

The following is adapted from a Clemens Lecture presented in April for the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut.

Kurt Vonnegut lays it down.

AlterNet: Strange Weather Lately

] Microsoft released a plug-in for Internet Explorer that
] is designed to protect sensitive documents from
] unauthorized editing or copying--an early step in its
] effort to encourage corporations to use its software to
] share sensitive information.
]
] The Rights Management Add-on, available in a beta, or
] test version, allows permitted users to view files, the
] company said. The Web browser plug-in is meant to help
] companies protect sensitive documents, e-mail and other
] Web-based data from being manipulated, forwarded or
] copied by unauthorized individuals.

IE beta plugs document leaks | CNET News.com

] It is difficult to find supportive things to say about
] George Bush unless your construction company is
] rebuilding Iraq, but it would be a droll irony if it was
] him we have to thank for Neil Young's latest creative
] renaissance.

New album coming out. He is bitching about Bush, FoxNews is already attacking him..

Relevant quotes:

"The US is like a baby with a bomb," ... "The reaction to France that the administration allowed to happen is so immature. These people have their own opinion - they're French! They're not fuckin' Americans, they're French ! Vive la difference, hello? And this big deal about Bush landing on an aircraft carrier? Talk about a six-year-old kid with a Tonka toy - we got it here." ... "I think the world today, at least the US and to some extent Britain now, is experiencing this kind of Big Brother thing," ... "It's not what we thought we were gonna be doing, a lot of the people's civil rights have been compromised, and we don't know what's going on. If I keep speaking my mind, will I be deported? I'm not very happy with the state of things. Music is being banned, and we have people in control of the radio stations who are the same people in control of the concert halls. They're also tied into the [US] administration and are sponsoring pro-war rallies. It's not good. It's interesting ." ... "The real point was, somebody asked the president what he thought and he said, 'It's America, it's a free country, they can have their opinion, but there's nothing we can do about it if nobody goes to their shows or plays their songs,'" "But he's so out of touch that his advisers haven't told him that their record sales spiked upwards when that happened, and while the airplay went down the sales went up and their concerts all sold out." ... "It's a robust time, probably the most fertile time for the underground and for revolution since Nixon. I'm not talking about political overthrow; I'm talking about just general cultural revolution. Bush has polarised the country and is creating this breeding ground for an opposition. In the next couple of months, they'll probably make it unpatriotic to be Democrat. It's pretty crazy."

Guardian Unlimited | 'Will I be deported?' Neil Young blasts Bush

] Welcome to the most respected, domesticated penguin
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] Penguin Warehouse, Inc. sells certified purebred
] penguins, useful penguin books, and many other items to
] make you and your new pet happy.

$700-$3000

Penguin Warehouse, Inc. - Buy a Pet Penguin Today

] It's nice down here, 220 feet below ground. It's dry and
] cool -- a springlike 60 degrees Fahrenheit. There is a
] breeze coming through the tunnels that smells like dust
] and something older than dust, the souls of the limestone
] miners, maybe, who began dynamiting this catacomb into
] existence 101 years ago.
]
] The only sound is a constant low thrumming, like the din
] of a ship's engine. There is a narrow roadway no wider
] than a country lane. A service van drives by, and then an
] electric golf cart. There are security guards, too,
] around every corner.
]
] "Keep it with you at all times," the guard at the gate
] had said, passing a fire extinguisher into the car as
] he'd waved me ahead toward a dim gray plaza, from which a
] maze of identical-looking gray tunnels snaked off in
] every direction.
]
] A fire extinguisher?
]
] Welcome to Iron Mountain, the largest commercially owned
] underground storage facility in the world. This is where
] Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, has deposited his huge
] and growing collection of historical photographs --
] approximately 11 million negatives, prints, slides -- a
] cache that represents a culturally significant chunk of
] the visual history of the 20th century.

Buried Treasure (washingtonpost.com)

] AOL Time Warner's cable division is expected to announce
] Thursday that it has begun selling unlimited local,
] in-state and domestic long-distance telephone service to
] subscribers.

Time Warner Cable dials in phone service | CNET News.com

Whatever changes will come for film will be as unpredictable and as ongoing, but issues of intellectual property and piracy may ultimately be the least of them. The music industry’s product is, for want of a better way to put it, a relatively simple, relatively traditional product. Audio recordings just aren’t that technology-heavy. Though there’s one aspect of the digital’s impact on music that’s absolutely central to film: sampling. Sampling music is possible because the end-consumer of the product is now in possession of technologies equal or even superior to the technologies involved in producing that product. Human capital (that is, talent) aside, all the end-consumer-slash-creator lacks today, in comparison to a music-marketing conglomerate, is the funds required to promote product. The business of popular music, today, is now, in some peculiarly new way, entirely about promotion.

William Gibson | Talk at Directors Guild, 05/17/2003