Seriously, could someone make me one?

So, here's Violet's video response to the Boing Boing debacle. It doesn't give much new information, but it serves as a nice overview of what's been going on and it amused me.

In other news, there's now an Open Words forum up and running. For more info about what's going on, you can check out the development blog. Feel free to join it and start posting whatever you like (within reason, obviously). I'm hoping to get a fair amount of activity on there, so feel free to invite friends or whatever!

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 65: Something Awful's most recent Comedy Goldmine article features sock monsters made by some of the forum members. One of them is a rather awesome Jabberwocky. I want one!

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 66: I picked up the deluxe edition of City of Heroes the other day. It came with various additions, including the first three expansions for the game. The first of these is entitled "Through the Looking Glass"

A little update. Still confused.

So, yesterday I posted various bits, including stuff about the Violet Blue/Boing Boing situation. This morning I awoke to my RSS reader telling me that Violet had posted a couple of new things on her blog (which I only got around to adding to my subscriptions after posting about it on here). One of these is an update on the Boing Boing situation. There still doesn't seem to be any explanation of the goings on forthcoming (other than it could be something to do with Violet's relationship with Xeni Jardin). More interesting is the fact that more posts have been deleted, this time just being anything that has even mentioned Violet, some of them being quite important. Also, Boing Boing is apparently being very restrictive of the discussion of this issue, apparently deleting comments/questions from anyone who's (at least seemingly) pro-Violet.

Really, this issue isn't just about Violet and Boing Boing, it's about the ideas of freedom and transparency on the internet. It brings to light some important issues, such as that of who really controls/owns content on the web. It also shows how things can't be done "quietly", as there's eyes on everything online. Also, thanks to things like the wayback machine, deletion isn't the end. Even if you have no interest in what Violet or Boing Boing do, it's something to look into.

I've never been a reader of Boing Boing and I don't think I'm about to start.

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 64: I just looked up the Siouxsie and the Banshees album, "Superstition", on Wikipedia and stumbled upon the fact that they also released a covers album entitled "Through the looking glass". I should've noticed this before, as I actually have their version of "The Passenger" that features on it.

Collaboration and erasure

So, a few little things I fancied commenting on today.

First is the strange case of Boing Boing and Violet Blue (be warned, some stuff on Violet's blog is NSFW). To sum stuff up, Violet recently found out that Boing Boing deleted some posts she had made there. They don't seem to wish to tell her or anyone why exactly they've done this (which apparently happened a year ago). All they've said is that "Violet behaved in a way that made us reconsider whether we wanted to lend her any credibility or associate with her." and that they "were trying to do the right thing quietly and respectfully, without embarrassing the parties involved." Violet seems to be as in the dark about this as everyone else, stating that "I still have no idea what they’re talking about — except that it seems to be personal? — and really don’t understand why I’m being attacked, nor why they’re stating they kept it a secret (and are behaving this way) out of “kindness” toward me." There's lots to read about this and even I still haven't made my way through all of it. I'm a fan of Violet's work, so I'm on her side. I'll be interested to see if this ever gets solved.

Using Violet as a link, I'm jumping to NxE's Fifty Most Influential 'Female' Bloggers, where she appears as number 28. Also on the list (at number 41) is Cali Lewis from GeekBrief.tv, one of my favourite video podcasts. Looking through the list, I don't recognise many of the names, making me feel a tad "out of the loop". So, if anyone wants to point me to any good web stuff, whether it be blogs, podcasts or just anything along those lines, then feel free. I don't need any funny picture sites though, thanks.

Changing direction completely now, you might have seen the new Orange adverts. Their new slogan of "I am who I am because of everyone" is pretty much a translation of what Ubuntu means. I'm guessing it's meant to encourage people (at least in some abstract way) to communicate, rather than to collaborate and work together, the way Ubuntu does. I'm thinking it could be a bit too hopeful of me to start wondering if Orange might start producing phones running Ubuntu MID.

Sticking with ideas of collaboration, one of the newest TED talks is by Clay Shirky. In it he talks about institutions vs. collaboration and gives a great explanation of why stuff like open source software works and how he sees this as the future of technology.

Alice Pacino

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 63: There's an advert on Dave currently for a film called "The Recruit" (as it's playing on one of the other UKTV channels soon). In it, they show a clip of Al Pacino talking to a group of (I'm guessing) recruits and telling them that they've "stepped through the looking-glass".