The WELL: Topics in the inkwell.vue Conference

inkwell.vue.433: Steven Levy, In the (Google)Plex

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

It's our pleasure to welcome longtime WELL member Steven Levy to Inkwell. He'll be discussing his book, _In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives_. Steven is a senior writer for Wired, the former chief technology correspondent for Newsweek and the author of six other books. Washington Post describes him as *American*s premier technology journalist - a Silicon Valley insider who writes for the rest of us on the outside.*

_In The Plex_ has been a New York Times bestseller and is considered the definitive word on the search giant. It was chosen by Amazon.com as the Best Business Book of 20112. A recipient of numerous awards, Levy has written for many publications including the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, and Esquire. He wrote The Technologist column for Newsweek, and the Iconoclast column for Macworld. He has been a Japan Society Fellow and a Fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center. Before he covered technology, he wrote about music, crime, sports and culture, and once made headlines by finding Albert Einstein*s brain in a cardboard box in Wichita, Kansas.

We're all going to find Steven Levy's brain, and a great discussion about all things Google, here in Inkwell.vue over the next two weeks. Jon Lebkowsky leads the discussion. Jon is an author, activist, and technoculture maven who writes about the future of the Internet, digital culture, media, and society. He*s been ssociated with various projects and organizations, including FringeWare, Whole Earth, WorldChanging, Mondo 2000, bOING bOING, Factsheet Five, the WELL, the Austin Chronicle, EFF-Austin, Society of Participatory Medicine, Extreme Democracy, Digital Convergence Initiative, Plutopia Productions, Polycot Consulting, Social Web Strategies, and Project VRM. Jon also works as a an Internet strategist, consultant, and developer. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.431: Mike Godwin discusses SOPA, PIPA, and the Future of the Internet

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

On January 18, many websites went dark as part of a web strike protesting two proposed bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) proposed in the house, and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) proposed in the Senate. Both bills proposed to "rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods." Many Internet experts felt the bills would "break the Internet" and have a chilling effect on the sharing of legitimate content. Proponents withdrew the bills after the protest, in which some sites (Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing) were effectively offline - a symbolic gesture suggesting that these sites would be forced offline permanently if the laws were adopted.

While these specific bills were withdrawn, similar bills are expected, this time with more input from Internet experts.

We've asked Internet-savvy attorney and author Mike Godwin to discuss the context for these bills, the bills themselves, and what might follow now that they've been dropped. Mike was first counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and, from 2007 through 2010, general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation. He's currently a member of the Open Source Initiative board. Mike was one of the first specialists in Internet law, and supervised their sponsorship of the historic Steve Jackson Games case in the early 1990s. He was counsel for the plaintiffs for the Supreme Court case arguing successfully against the Communications Decency Act in 1996.

From 2003 to 2005, Mike worked with Public Knowledge, focusing on copyright and technology policy, including the relationship between digital rights management and American copyright law. he supervised litigation that successfully challenged the Federal Communications Commission's broadcast flag regulation that would have imposed DRM restrictions on television From October 2005 to April 2007, Godwin was a research fellow at Yale University, holding dual positions in the Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School,[9][10] and at the Yale Computer Science Department's Privacy, Obligations and Rights in Technologies of Information Assessment (PORTIA) project.

We welcome your participation in this conversation, which will run through the first of February. If you're not a member of the WELL but have a question or something to add, email inkwell at well.com. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.430: Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

Welcome to our annual State of the World jam on the WELL, or Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, which has been hosting high quality "social media" via sustained conversations since 1985, and has hosted our annual State of the World conversation for thirteen years, since 2000. So we've covered the first decade plus of the 21st century, and the world's been a little crazier and more volatile every year since we started. The reality we're in today is reflected in responses I got when I asked my online social network what they thought we would cover. They suggested a diverse list: climate change, Arab spring and social media-driven political upheaval, courage, "1984," Fahrenheit 451, the future of Occupy, global economics, underground economies, cyberwar, favela chic, dead media, the future of the Internet in light of pending legislation (SOPA etc.) and emerging alternative networks, space wars, and private drone fleets (for tactical protest command, celebrity capture, and industrial intelligence).

Over the last couple of years, I kept hearing this question: "Where the hell is my flying car?" We should all re-read William Gibson's short story "The Gernsback Continuum" as preparation for the next two weeks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gernsback_Continuum).

Who we are:

Bruce Sterling is a science fiction author, journalist, design theorist and critic, public speaker, and world traveler. Currently based in Italy, Serbia, and Austin, Texas, he spends much of his time on the road, and has a truly global perspective which you see in his novels, nonfiction pieces, and his blog, "Beyond the Beyond." In addition to his novels, Bruce has focused on the cutting edges of digital/hacker culture, climate change, global politics, and contemporary design. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_sterling. He founded the Viridian Design movement, the Dead Media project, and is currently fired up about augmented reality and design fiction.

Jon Lebkowsky has been an Internet evangelist and expert, web consultant/developer, social commentator, gonzo futurist, media analyst and critic, and sometimes activist. He was a cofounder of FringeWare, Inc., an early digital culture company/community, and has worked with and written for bOING bOING, Mondo 2000, Whole Earth, Plutopia Productions, Digital Convergence Initiative, Wireless Future, the Society for Participatory Medicine, EFF and EFF-Austin, the WELL, WorldChanging, SXSW, Social Web Strategies, et al. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lebkowsky

If you're reading this, and you're not a member of the WELL, you can still ask questions or send comments: just email to inkwell at well.com. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.429: Lewis Shiner, Dark Tangos

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

Inkwell welcomes novelist Lewis Shiner, who has been characterized by Black Clock as a "pop artist-cum-magical realist, or a sympathetic but sharp-eyed chronicler of American subcultures, or even a futurist" (http://blackclock.org/blog/interviews/2010/a-long-talk-with-lewis-shiner/). His novels include BLACK & WHITE (2008), SAY GOODBYE (1999), the award-winning GLIMPSES (1993), SLAM (1990), DESERTED CITIES OF THE HEART (1988), and FRONTERA (1984), all available in definitive edition trade paperbacks from Subterranean Press. His career retrospective COLLECTED STORIES was published in 2009, followed by the new suspense novel DARK TANGOS in 2011. All of his work is available for free download at www.fictionliberationfront.net.

Leading the conversation with Lew is Angus MacDonald, a writer who lives in Northern California. His work has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, and other publications. Angus hosts the WELL's science fiction conference. His day jobs have included retail sales (liquor, books, and electronics), technical writing, and currently field interviewing for the Census Bureau's ongoing random-sample surveys.

Take it away, Angus! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.428: Nancy Finn, e-Patients Live Longer, The Complete Guide to Managing Health Care Using Technology

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

We've really been looking forward to this conversation about healthcare and participatory medicine. Our guest for the next two weeks is Nancy B. Finn, a writer and thought leader on the impact of digital communication onorganizational behavior, healthcare and patient care. She is the author of _e-Patients Live Longer, The Complete Guide to Managing Health Care Using Technology_, published by iUniverse. This book, targeted to baby boomers, senior citizens and individuals who suffer from chronic conditions illustrates how simple communication tools including the Internet, email and smartphones, enable patients to be empowered, engaged and educated. She has also authored _Digital Communication in Medical Practice_ published by Springer, and targeted at a physician audience, and two books on business and digital communication: _The Electronic Office_, published by Prentice Hall and _Writing Dynamics_ published by the CBI Division of Van Nostrand Rheinhold.

Ms Finn is the Founder and President of Communication Resources, a consulting organization that offers advice and training workshops on the management of patient information and the transition to patient-centered care, For several years she held senior corporate marketing/marketing communication positions in high tech, publishing and financial services. She has also taught presentation skills workshops, communication and new media courses at universities in the Greater Boston area including: Boston University, Bentley College, Suffolk University and Leslie University.

She contributed a chapter: Finn NB. Communication: The Key to Good Medicine, Nash DB, Skoufalos A, Hartman M, Horwitz H, eds. _Practicing Medicine in the 21st Century_. Tampa, FL: American College of Physician Executives; 2006. Ms Finn is on the Board of Overseers of Mount Auburn Hospital, an active member of the Society of Participatory Medicine, and writes the Media Watch column for the Journal of Participatory Medicine. She is on the Health Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. She holds a Master*s degree in Education and a Bachelor*s degree in journalism from Boston University. Ms Finn has been a speaker at many national forums on communication technology topics, writes a healthcare blog: www.healthcarebasics.blogspot.com. and is a contributor to the blogs e-patients.net, and Trusted MD. She is the editor of a monthly e-newsletter, Your Health Care Advisor.

WELL member, healthcare analyst, and futurist Joe Flower will be leading the conversation with Nancy. Joe has explored the future of healthcare with an extraordinary variety of organizations across healthcare - professional associations, the World Health Organization, the UK National Health Service, the Defense Department, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, health plans, physician groups, and numerous hospitals.

He is a columnist for the American Hospital Association, and the author of hundreds of articles and the forthcoming book, "Healthcare Beyond Reform: Doing It Right For Half The Cost." His website is at http://www.imaginewhatif.com/.

Welcome, Nancy and Joe! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.427: Cyrus Farivar "The Internet of Elsewhere" Nov 28th - Dec 8th

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

This week Inkwell welcome's Cyrus Farivar as our guest.

Cyrus Farivar is an Iranian-American freelance technology journalist, radio producer and author currently living in the city of Bonn, Germany. He is the science and technology editor at Deutsche Welle English and is the host of DW*s weekly internationally-syndicated radio program *Spectrum.* Previously, he has lived in Oakland (California, USA), Lyon (France), New York (USA), Saint-Louis (Senegal), Melbourne (Australia), Berkeley (California, USA) and in a small village 20 km from Geneva (Switzerland). He was born and raised in Santa Monica (California, USA). His book, The Internet of Elsewhere * about the history and effects of the Internet on different countries around the world, including Senegal, Iran, Estonia and South Korea * was published by Rutgers University Press in April 2011. He reports for National Public Radio, The World (WGBH/PRI/BBC), and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He also freelances for The Economist, Foreign Policy, Slate, The New York Times, Popular Mechanics, and Wired.

Leading the interview will be our own <jonl>, Jon Lebkowsky.

Jon Lebkowsky is an author, activist, journalist, and blogger who writes about the future of the Internet, digital culture, media, and society. He*s been associated with various projects and organizations, including FringeWare, Whole Earth, WorldChanging, Mondo 2000, bOING bOING, Factsheet Five, the WELL, the Austin Chronicle, EFF-Austin, Society of Participatory Medicine, Extreme Democracy, Digital Convergence Initiative, Plutopia Productions, Polycot Consulting, Social Web Strategies, Solar Austin, Well Aware, and Project VRM. He*s also a web strategist and developer via Polycot Associates.

Welcome to Inkwell, Jon and Cyrus. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.426: Philip Fradkin, "Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death and Astonishing Afterlife," Nov 10-24

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

This week we welcome Philip Fradkin to Inkwell.vue to discuss his new book, "Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death and Amazing Afterlife."

The American West in 1960 held a tremendous allure for a young man from the East Coast; and working on a newspaper, the inexperienced writer thought, would allow him to observe and document all aspects of the lives and landscapes to be found in that dramatic land. That premise proved to be correct. For 51 years Philip Fradkin wrote at all levels of the craft of nonfiction. His writing appeared in newspapers, magazines and 13 books. During that time he was a newspaper reporter, urban riot specialist, war correspondent, environmental writer, high-ranking California state official, magazine writer and editor, photographer, author, book publisher, bookseller, university lecturer, academic library consultant, and substitute county librarian. Prizes, including a Pulitzer, came his way. After half a century, Fradkin has decided to end his writing career by the end of 2011 and explore other things that matter to him. "Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife" is his thirteenth and lucky last book. It is the summation, in some ways, of a longer and less extreme life than Everett Ruess experienced.

Leading our discussion will be our own <tnf>, David Gans. David is a musician, writer, journalist, and photographer. He was a co-founder of Inkwell.vue and still serves as co-host of the forum as well.

Welcome to Inkwell, Philip and David! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.424: Alex Pareene, "A Tea People's History"

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

This week we welcom Alex Pareene, author of the ebook, "A Tea People's History."

Alex is a Senior Writer for Salon.com. He has been writing about politics professionally since he dropped out of an elite Northeastern university in 2005. His work has appeared in New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Awl, and Vice. This is his first satirical history ebook.

Leading our discussion will be Mark McDonough, <mcdee> here on the WELL. Mark has been a denizen of the Well for 20 years. He has an actual college degree in "American Civilization," although as you might expect, his liberal college professors told him nothing about the important revelations in "A Tea People's History!"

In real life, Mark does software quality assurance - "Hey, it's a living and I'm good at it!" - and has co-authored a book on alcohol treatment

Welcome Alex and Mark! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.423: Occupy the WELL

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

Across the globe people are coming together to "occupy" spaces, creating ongoing General Assemblies, which are headless meetings, attempts to practice the difficult collaborative art of direct democracy and address issues of economics and political organization that, many would say, have brought all the people of the world to the brink of disaster - while a very few have accumulated piles of money and created safe havens. What began as an effort to Occupy Wall Street and challenge the assumptions of big finance has become a large and growing global network of dissent. The purpose of this forum is to have our own public General Assembly on the WELL. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.421: Poetry Festival with Jane Hirshfield and Mary Mackey

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:42:00 PST

Our conversations online are often linear, literal, meaningful - too rarely simply beautiful. However poets, like the rest of us, have found their way online; google "poetry" and you get 313 million hits. Among our members here on the WELL are two accomplished U.S. poets, Jane Hirshfield and Mary Mackey. We've invited them to Inkwell for a two week poetry festival, starting now. They'll be posting some of their poems, and discussing the craft and process of thinking and writing poetry. Jennifer Simon, host of the WELL's poetry conference, will lead the discussion.

Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven collections of poetry, including the just released Come, Thief (Knopf, 2011), After (HarperCollins, 2006), which was named a 'Best Book of 2006' by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and England's Financial Times and shortlisted for England's T.S. Eliot Award; and Given Sugar, Given Salt (HarperCollins, 2001; finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). Author of a now-classic book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, Hirshfield has also edited and co-translated three books collecting the work of women poets from the distant past and recently published a best-selling Kindle Single, The Heart of Haiku, on the 17th-century Japanese poet Basho.

Hirshfield's honors include The Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the 40th Annual Distinguished Achievement Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, an honor previously received by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams. She has been a fellow at MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bellagio. Her work has been featured in six editions of The Best American Poetry and appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement, The American Poetry Review, Poetry, Orion, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. She has presented her poems and lectured at festivals and universities throughout the U.S. and in China, Japan, the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Poland, Lithuania, and Ireland.

For more information about Jane Hirshfield, including the full schedule of readings this fall for Come, Thief, please visit http://www.barclayagency.com/hirshfield.html or www/facebook.com/janehirshfield

Mary Mackey received a B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from The University of Michigan. Her published works include six collections of poetry, including *Breaking The Fever* (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006) and *Sugar Zone* (forthcoming from Marsh Hawk Press, October 1, 2011); a short novel (*Immersion**the first novel published by a Second Wave feminist press); and twelve other novels (*McCarthy's List,* Doubleday; *The Last Warrior Queen,* Putnam; *A Grand Passion,* Simon & Schuster; *Season of Shadows,* Bantam; *The Kindness of Strangers,* Simon & Schuster; *The Year The Horses Came,* Harper San Francisco; *The Horses at the Gate,* Harper San Francisco; *The Fires of Spring, Penguin,* *The Stand In,* Kensington Books, *Sweet Revenge,* Kensington Books; *The Notorious Mrs. Winston,* Berkley Books; and *The Widow*s War,* Berkley books.) Her two comic novels (*The Stand In* and *Sweet Revenge*) were written under the pen name *Kate Clemens.*

Mackey*s poems have been praised by Wendell Berry, Dennis Nurkse, Ron Hansen, Dennis Schmitz, and Marge Piercy for their beauty, precision, originality, and extraordinary range. Three times Garrison Keillor has featured her poetry on his program The Writer*s Almanac. Her work has appeared on The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle bestseller lists and has been translated into twelve foreign languages including Japanese, Hebrew, Greek, Russian, and Finnish.

Former Chair of PEN American Center, West, she has served on the Governing Board of PEN Oakland. A fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, she is an active member of the St. Mary*s College Creative Writing Program Advisory Board, the Poetry Committee of the Northern California Book Awards, the National Book Critics Circle, and The Authors Guild. In Spring 2009, the San Francisco Branch of the National League of American Pen Women established the Mary Mackey Short Story Prize. Mackey was one of the founders of the CSUS Women*s Studies Program. She also founded the CSUS English Department Graduate Creative Writing Program along with poet Dennis Schmitz and novelist Richard Bankowsky. In 1978 Mackey founded the Feminist Writers Guild with poets Adrienne Rich and Susan Griffin and novelist Valerie Miner. From 1989-1992, she served as President of the West Coast Branch of PEN American Center involving herself in PEN*s international defense of persecuted writers.

For the last twenty years she has been traveling to Brazil with her husband, Angus Wright, who writes about land reform and environmental issues. At present she is working on a series of poems inspired by the works of Brazilian poets and novelists. Combining Portuguese and English, she creates poems that use Portuguese as incantation to evoke the lyrical space that lies at the conjunction of the two languages. More of her poetry can be found at www.marymackey.com. A full schedule of her readings and workshops is posted on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/marymackeywriter?sk=info

For more biographical information please see: www.marshhawkpress.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mackey http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Mackey/e/B000APXUQ6/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

An extensive biography is also available in the *Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series,* Volume 27, published by Gale Research, Detroit, MI: 1997.

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, our discussion of poetry will be led by Jennifer Simon, who also writes poetry, hosts the Poetry conference on the WELL, and is a long-time fan of Jane Hirshfield and Mary Mackey. [Read entire topic]