While it’s no fun being stuck in an airport, it turned out to be the perfect environment to read this book. The story follows a high school hacker as he fights the “Department of Homeland Security” to reclaim American civil liberties after anti-terror tactics are taken to a new level. Having the real DHS making announcements in the background about threat levels and unattended baggage, only makes the story more real.

The book targets a younger audience than myself, but it’s still enjoyable. Doctrow does a wonderful job keeping the story believable, and explaining the security implications of the technology we use on a daily basis. Given the theme of the book, I do hope he’s successful in reaching a wide audience and sparking a healthy debate about “national security”, privacy, and civil liberties.

Below are the book’s sections and principles in bullet-points. I’ve spelled them out here for my own future reference (or for anyone who’s read the book and would like a quick reminder):

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. Don’t Criticize, condemn or complain
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want

Six Ways to Make People Like You

1. Be genuinely interested in other people
2. Smile
3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
6. Make the other person feel important — and do it sincerely

How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it
2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically
4. Begin in a friendly way
5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking
7. Let the other person feel that the idea if his or hers
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view
9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires
10. Appeal to the nobler motives
11. Dramatize your ideas
12. Throw down a challenge

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation
2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders
5. Let the other person save face
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvements. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest

“The new rules issued by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board earlier this year prescribe rate hikes of 0.08 cent per song per listener retroactive to 2006. They would also climb to 0.19 cent per song by 2010.” [cnet]

The fees are high enough that many small players (where small==independent) will be forced to shut down. The irony, of course, is that broadcast radio continues to pay no fees at all (and to not play the songs I want to hear, which might be why they get the free ride.)

For more on the issue, see:

• Shaken Internet Radio Stations Face Specter of New Fees Sunday (Via washingtonpost.com.)
• D-Day Sunday For Internet Radio As Court Rejects Royalties Appeal (Via TechCrunch.com.)
• Court declines to postpone Internet radio royalty hike (Via ars technica)
• Court rejects Webcasters’ plea for relief (Via cnet.)

And of course, the blog post that almost saved the day:

• Online Radio Is Saved; SoundExchange Will Not Enforce New Royalty Rates on Sunday (Via wired.com)

From the post:

“Local.com saw its stock price rise 52% today after it was awarded patent number 7,200,413 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. According to the text of the patent, it covers what they term “Enhanced Directory Assistance”, which will deliver keyword specific ad referrals based on user input via operator, SMS, WAP, or voice.

This is in addition to their recently granted patent number 7,231,405, which covers crawling the web and geocoding location based content.”

That second bit is even more troubling, since it could impact anyone crawling web pages for addresses. The unfortunate thing is that we’re just starting to see sites doing interesting things with scraping and geocoding — and many of the possibilities are actually quite helpful. For example, sites like Zillow already scrape property addresses from local tax records and plot real estate prices on an interactive map… Chicago Crime plots scraped crime reports… Heck, anything that scrapes content with an address for use in plotting on a map would conflict with this patent.

If the idea of locking down automated crawling and geocoding isn’t enough to raise concern, check of these listings of mapping-related concepts that may also end up off-limits if the patent race continues:

• Google Local Search Glossary
• Microsoft Virtual Earth and Local Search Patent Applications

(Via:

• Newest Mars Rover packs heat
• NASA’s next Mars rover is a laser-equipped monster
• Future NASA Rover Will Scare Aliens with Rock-crushing Lasers

)

For more, see:

• Today is America’s wiretap the Internet day (Via BoingBoing)
• Reminder: Monday is Wiretap the Internet Day (Via Wired)

“The theory is that games teach skills that employers want: analytical thinking, team building, multitasking and problem-solving under duress.”

What is a surprise though, is to hear that there are still people who are skeptical about using games for education. I mean, where would my mad dance floor skillz be without Dance Dance Revolution? Ok, bad example.

Looking back though, I fondly remember going to my elementary school library to play typing tutors and Oregon Trail (which taught us the value of 4×4 vehicles.) But past elementary school, educational games went away. At home, I was slingin’ LOGO and playing Zork, but my in-school computer use evolved into using spreadsheets and, eventually, programming Pascal.

The article does mention one important fact though:

“The gaming industry has already figured out that educational games don’t make money in the consumer marketplace. The new approach would instead market them directly to schools.”

This is key. You definitely don’t want some “education council” designing the games — they’re going to suck. You need professional game designers. And if you can organize enough of our tax dollars into funding such development, then you give the gaming industry a reason to take the educational market more seriously.

It makes me wonder what other real-world behavior (particularly economic activity) can be predicted by watching net usage. For example, it might be interesting to see a mapping between Google Music Trends data (which scans Google Talk conversations) and real music sales. Even better might be predicting stock market activity using search behavior…

On first glance, Google offering a 3D modeling program seems a bit strange. I mean, what could this possibly have to do with search, right? But the key is to look at it differently. If you’ve used Google Earth, odds are high that you’ve also tried looking a major city with the “3D Buildings” option enabled for that all too futuristic, flying-through-the-world experience. But what you notice when you do this is that there aren’t enough 3D models, and they tend to lack detail. So how do we get from flat, satellite photographs to rich 3D models of every building in the world? Well, you start by giving away a free, easy to use 3D modeling program that can import/export into Google Earth… And then you let your customers (happily) do the work for you. (Co-creation at it’s best.)

For more, see:

• How do I place a SketchUp model in Google Earth?
• Google’s 3D Warehouse

Below: an example SketchUp model (of the University of Texas tower) geo-positioned over a Google Earth map tile

Since UK citizens fund the BBC (at least, that’s my simplified interpretation), it is in the BBC’s interest to make their content easily available to all (paying) citizens. In other words, DVR’s, IPTV, and video iPod’s can be embraced rather then feared. Additionally, since their funding is somewhat fixed and consistent (ie., no spiky ad revenue), it is also in the BBC’s interest to reduce content distribution costs where possible to free up money for new content creation (ie., P2P file sharing amongst their customers is a good thing since it cuts the BBC’s direct bandwidth costs.)

Where it gets particularly interesting though, is that the BBC should be in no way threatened by the idea that their viewers will be copying, re-mixing, fast-forwarding, place-shifting, and sharing the content. With no need to track ad impressions, there’s no dreaded “30-second-skip” attacking legacy business models. Surly they still need to track customer interest to know which shows to fund, but that seems a lot easier then developing content based on how lucrative a viewing audience is for advertisers.

What’s great about this situation is how well it demonstrates the connection between business models and the ability to embrace change and adopt to consumer needs. In the States, we are at risk of legislation making it illegal to watch movies on one’s computer and even more illegal to share a video with a friend. In the UK, IPTV and P2P networks might just save the country money.

It wasn’t until later that it occurred to me how using Flickr for news represents a significant shift in media consumption. The images on Flickr are raw — sure, some of them are taken by professional photographers, but most are taken by regular people with digital cameras or camera phones. The images tell first-hand stories of being in a situation without the sensationalism that comes with traditional media channels. Something about it seems more pure and trustworthy.

“When Dave Newman waded out of the San Marcos River on Sunday afternoon, he was exhausted. He had just pulled Abed Duamni of Houston out of the swirling waters below Joe’s Crab Shack and deposited him, safe and sound, on the far shoreline.”

“Then Newman, of San Marcos, was handcuffed, put in a Texas State University police squad car and taken to jail, where he was charged with interfering with public duties.”

Apparently, the part of the river he saved Duamni from was marked as a “No Swimming” zone, and clearly, entering the water to rescue someone violated that restriction. Newman posted a $2000 bail to avoid staying the night in jail.

(Via statesman.com.)