All Over The Air, But Not Online

CNN is going blog wild this week, and today featured particularly extensive coverage on Inside Politics, with a lengthy "Inside the Blogs" feature complete with iMac-and-Safari-wielding, perky-yet-savvy anchors. None of the stories seem to be on the Web however, except perhaps indirectly. (Note to CNN: when covering the blogosphere, put the stuff online.) Jeff Jarvis did his characteristic great job of providing insightful and accurate sound bites.

While looking for traces of these stories at CNN.com and not finding them, I did see this piece covering JotSpot from Demo, which while completely unrelated is nevertheless well worth the read.

Meta Pick

A bit of meta-physical gymnastics for you: my pick of the day is the Guardian Newsblog's Pick of the Day. (Via the Chief Blogging Officer, who is pleased to have been picked.) Worth it just to learn that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will be in theaters soon — with Mos Def playing Ford Prefect. Don't forget your towel.

Uncommon Creations

Check out these two fine examples of what Creative Commons has wrought (and it's not that far out of the starting gate):

The Staccato podcast: "Welcome to Staccato, where we feature music that probably won't get you sued. All tracks are available under a Creative Commons license. So is the show, of course." Via the Chris Pirillo Show on 1/27 (hour 3), which features an inteview with Staccato's founder Matt May and includes Matt's take on both the strengths and fallibilities of Creative Commons. Regarding the latter, Matt discusses how other rights considerations (i.e. ASCAP, SESAC, and BMI) might not go away simply because someone has tried to issue a work under a CC license. Matt selects his tuneage from the new releases feed at Archive.org/Open Source Audio.

Science Commons: "The mission of Science Commons is to encourage scientific innovation by making it easier for scientists, universities, and industries to use literature, data, and other scientific intellectual property and to share their knowledge with others." (Via Cory Doctorow on The Gadget Show.) To the blawgers out there: do me a favor and read the Science Commons description in full with these questions in mind: doesn't the realm of legal knowledge confront these same sort of obstacles, and wouldn't this kind of approach help overcome them in our arena as well?

Today's New Blawg (And One That's Been Around The Blawgk)

Hi Neil, nice to see you!

And welcome to your blog's Terrible Twos, Dennis, let us know if you require a Supernanny intervention.

The Other PopTech

It's happening: molded plastic in various shapes and invariably bright and cheery colors is overrunning my house. It's a war of attrition in which we mere humans haven't a prayer. Forget about the gray goo; it's the hard stuff that's bound to blot out the sun before you can say "attractive storage solutions." And it really doesn't matter how often you load up the car and head down to the local consignment store; things follow you home from there just to perpetuate the cycle. There are however at least 2 unassailable reasons to replenish your plastic menace from such establishments:

1. Perfectly good corn poppers ("So much for the technical specifications") for $2.00; and


2. Some other poor sap has freed the items from their packaging prisons.

Oh, and Kevin Marks is clearly collaborating with the non-biodegradeable nemesis; if he hadn't recently forwarded a pointer to the Baby NameVoyager, I and my minions would have far more resources to devote to the next declutter offensive.