"ICANN opened up a whole new can of corrupt extortion worms when it decided to sell .anything to .anyone who can .afford it. Lawyers for brands already fighting over names they want will be .suing." ~ Yasha Harari
Fresh Baked Goods
Laughzilla the Third (2012)
The Third Volume in the Funny Stuff Cartoon Book Collection Available Now.
In a wide-ranging session at SXSW today, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt and Director of Google Ideas Jared Cohen discussed everything from Syrian dissidents to robots taking our jobs.
Following reports that Britain’s GCHQ had intercepted data being transmitted between Google datacenters, Schmidt said that the company’s resulting security upgrade had left him “Pretty sure that information within Google is now safe from any government’s prying eyes.”
In addition to increased encryption, which Google has discussed publicly to a degree, Schmidt said the company had made further undisclosed improvements to its security in recent months.
While some critics may suggest that “pretty sure” isn’t sure enough, it would be a fool who suggested any system was completely secure in every way with complete certainty – and if the Snowden revelations over the past year have taught us anything, it’s that spies have been relentless in exploiting any weak point in the secure flow of information across the Internet that they can find.
Elsewhere in the talk, Schmidt discussed how he believed that improvements in encryption technology over the next decade would prevent the ‘Balkanization’ of the Internet in countries like Iran, which has said it is planning its own state-controlled, isolated version of the Internet. Schmidt said he believed this technology would make it impossible to shut down free communication by citizens online.
Mozilla today announced that its Persona authentication system will no longer be developed by the organization. Its full-time developers have been reallocated to other projects (including Firefox accounts and Sync), and Persona’s ongoing development has been entrusted to its existing community.
For those who don’t know, Persona is Mozilla’s answer to social networking logins offered by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Developers can implement the service for authentication across smartphones, tablets, and desktop browsers.
Mozilla promises it will continue to host Persona, has no plans to decommission it (at least not in 2014), and will continue to support it:
Specifically, Mozilla staff will continue to resolve critical bugs, service disruptions, and security issues. Moreover, Mozilla’s new network operations center will handle tier 1 incident response for Persona. The center’s robust, human-backed, 24/7 monitoring will further increase Person’s reliability and improve incident response times.
Mozilla says it has stopped funding new feature development for Persona because it received less adoption than the organization hoped it would. Nevertheless, support will continue as Mozilla says it still believes that Persona is a great alternative to passwords.
The company revealed the BrowserID service in February 2012 and then launched a beta of the renamed Persona in September 2012. The company also updated the tool’s privacy policy in February 2013 to emphasize what data is collected (very little), and what isn’t.
In short, for the time being Persona will continue to work as it has to date. If you’re waiting for new features, the community is asking for input via GitHub pull requests, IRC, and the mailing list.
Bob Horan creates video and motion graphics content at Ticketleap. You can read occasional things he says on Twitter or look at things he eats on Instagram. This post originally appeard on his Medium blog.
Here at Ticketleap we have a really strong belief in something. We believe it so damn hard that it basically fuels everything we do. We say it all the time:
Experiences are greater than things.
For us, it’s a truth. It’s so easy for us to say, but quite frankly, it’s hard to explain. We love events. And events are planned experiences. But why are experiences so great? What is an experience? What do they mean??
My god, are we even here right now?!?
Whoa. Reign it in.
Clearly it’s a lofty concept to grasp. But, for an event creator, understanding the meaning of experiences could help you turn a forgettable event into a transforming one.
And in terms of just, you know, being a person, experiences are what make up our lives. So being able to understand them? Well, that could bring meaning to your life. Maybe that sounds overly dramatic to you, but to us, that’s something worth exploring.
Victor Turner — anthropologist, timeless stud, and eyebrow enthusiast
Taking a look back into what’s now referred to as Event Studies, we find anthropological research into human rituals. In 1969 an anthropologist named Victor Turner took an existing ritual theory and described something he observed as “Communitas.”
You see, there are stages to a ritual. It begins with being separated from the normal, then there’s a transition into another realm of being, and ends with the reincorporation into everyday life.
Turner found that when people are together, and they make that transition into this “new realm” then they suddenly have something very unique and special in common. A togetherness is formed and this is called “Communitas.”
People experiencing the same event, at the same time and in the same space, are in that sense “equals.” This has tremendous binding power.
There’s been a lot of research that supports the existence of these “Communitas,” but you already know that they are real. They’re experienced all the time. High-fiving the stranger next to you at your team’s sporting event. Soldiers returning from war that feel closer than brothers. The entire Breakfast Club for God’s sake!
Greatest example of Communitas
Shared experiences have the ability to fuse people together, sometimes people who wouldn’t have even made sense together outside of that context. Simply put, that’s powerful.
Reversion
The final stage of this process is called Reversion. When a ritual, or an event, comes to a close the participants must revert back to normal life. An individual goes from a special state to an ordinary one.
For a planned event experience, you want people to feel a sense of change here. If there isn’t one then the experience was neither special nor memorable. These feelings can range from accomplishment to renewal to even loss.
Imagine the feeling of missing colleagues and friends after a conference. That’s the loss of “communitas” and is what drives people to attend future events. These feelings are what bring meaning to the experience. They enrich our lives and the feeling is addictive.
It’s the reason planned events exist. We seek to escape the ordinary and we crave unique experiences with others. As humans, we always have.
Sure, social experiences can happen whenever and wherever people are, but…
…planned events exist solely to facilitate these types of experiences. A planned event is a way to control them. Perhaps it sounds ridiculous to try and invoke scientific theory in order for you to improve your class at the local rec center on the art of pickling vegetables.
But meaning can be found in every event.How meaningful depends on the manner in which people are involved and engaged. No matter how small, an event experience has the power to engage people, let them escape the ordinary, and build relationships.
Meaningful experiences are what make up a meaningful life. And we see no reason why at least one of them can’t be that vegetable pickling class.
Less than a month after completing its acquisition of Nest Labs, Google today revealed Nest products are now available for sale on Google Shopping Express. This means you can now get a thermostat or smoke alarm delivered the same day, assuming you live in San Francisco or Silicon Valley.
Currently there are just three products available: two Nest Protects for $129 and one Nest Learning Thermostat for $249. We’d expect that not only will be there more Nest products this year, but Google will be pushing hard to get them into more hands. Google Shopping Express is just a first test.
The Internet is abuzz with the news that Amtrak is trying out a writers’ residency program after a group of writers called for the idea on Twitter. The railway gave another social media-related experiment a try this week with its #AmtrakLive train ride from Los Angeles, CA. to Austin, TX for a small group of SXSW attendees interested in live-tweeting and networking along the way.
I wouldn’t normally think to take a 30+ hour train ride to an event like SXSW. If you’re like me, Amtrak is more for nostalgic rides and short commutes than it is a long-distance option. Still, the trip turned out to be both energizing and restful.
Amtrak’s case has been helped by the TSA’s insertion into the flying experience. I used to love airports and flights, but now they’ve become something to be dreaded.
#AmtrakLive’s cohort, which took up most of a sleeper car, was an interesting mix of entrepreneurs, writers, social media folks and others. Programming stayed fairly light, though a few members took some time to pitch their latest projects and startups. Since we were all headed to SXSW, we came to the trip with a similar purpose, but our diverse backgrounds and the train’s contained environment made for an inspiring ride.
I’ve heard of other hackers trying hackathons and startup events on trains in the past, but it’s meaningful that Amtrak is taking a first with #AmtrakLive by directly planning the event.
To be clear, it wasn’t a perfect ride. The major wireless networks don’t have full coverage of the remote Southwest, so we spent a large part of the trip offline. That might be a boon for those of you who are more productive while unplugged, but you’ll also need to plan your work schedule around the times when you’ll unexpectedly go dark. I also couldn’t figure out a way to keep the door to my room closed, and the blaring 30 minute-interval loudspeaker announcements starting at 6:30am were quite the killjoy.
As tech enthusiasts, it’s easier for us to rely on the latest technologies. As modes of transportation go, mass flight is newer than the locomotive, but we shouldn’t overlook the rails, which have the potential to be more affordable, relaxing and fun if you can spare the extra time.
I’m not calling for all of Amtrak to turn into a startup bro party train service, but the upcoming official writers’ residency launch and #AmtrakLive are reminders that the American rail system is ready and waiting for a new generation of connected riders. Now, if only we could convince Amtrak to install nation-wide Wi-Fi.
Now that we’re on the ground at SXSW, you can head here to keep up on our coverage of the event.
Disclosure: Amtrak sponsored the event, but had no influence over our coverage.
