Eben Moglen, Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University,
and founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of the Software Freedom Law
Center, will speak about “Freedom in the Cloud: Software Freedom,
Privacy and Security for Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing” on Friday,
February 5, 2010, 7-9 pm. This event will be webcast live.

* What: ISOC-NY Public Meeting: Eben Moglen – ‘Freedom In The Cloud’
* When: Fri. Feb 5 2010 7pm-9pm
* Where: Room 109, Warren Weaver Hall, 251 Mercer Street NYC (SW corner
of West 4th) (See note below)
* Webcast: http://www.livestream.com/isocny

* Note: Use the entrance on the west side since construction blocks the
Mercer Street entrance. Must bring ID.

–

The great thing about living and working in NYC is that there is a steady stream of conferences to attend, such as the fast approaching digital labor conference entitled ‘Internet as Playground and Factory.’ The problem is that since I live 1/3 of the year in San Juan and often get stranded and stuck when my mother gets hospitalized, as is the case now, I am often not in NYC. Depending on my mom’s prognosis tomorrow, I may or may not make it but I am working on my slides and revamping a few of my thoughts as I would like to attend.

My new title is one I think some readers of the blog might enjoy: “Fsck Purity: The politics and pleasures of free software” (thanks karl) and the talk will be part of a panel “The Emancipatory Politics of Play” with Chris Kelty, Fred Turner, and Ben Peters. If you are interested in attending, register soon as it is free and open to the public but requires advanced registration. There are also already a collection of short interviews videos available, the one by me is a basic discussion of the politics of free software, conducted at the end of a very long teaching day, so I am not sure it makes any sense. I never watch my own interviews so I can’t quite be the judge

Brands are most often associated with the world of crass consumerism but they can play a key role in fomenting political change. Or so claim some pretty clever thinkers and activists and they will be giving talk about the importance of branding for democratic politics, this Monday at 7 PM, at the Change You Want to See

Please join us this Monday, October 26th as we continue our series on Symbols, Branding and Persuasion with an exploration of branding in the context of electoral and legislative politics. We’ll start with a presentation by media theorist Stephen Duncombe, author of Dream: Reimagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy and the forthcoming Branding the New Deal. Afterward Jessica Teal, design manager for the Obama 2008 presidential campaign will join Duncombe for a conversation via video skype.

Like it or not, propaganda and mass persuasion are part of modern democratic politics. Many progressives today have an adverse reaction to propaganda: ours is a politics based in reason and rationality, not symbols and fantasy. Given our last administration’s fondness for selling fantasies as reality, this aversion to branding, marketing and propaganda is understandable. But it is also naïve. Mass persuasion is a necessary part of democratic politics, the real issue is what ethics it embodies and which values it expresses.

Looking critically at how the Roosevelt Administration tried to “brand” the New Deal and how the Obama campaign leveraged principles of marketing and advertising gives us an opportunity to think about different models of political persuasion.

Memefactory @ NYU, originally uploaded by the biella.

At this point in my career, I can’t really see myself organizing much of anything as it is time I don’t seem to have. But after I saw Memefactory, I decided that it was well worth my time to get these guys and their computers to NYU. With help from a string of organizations at NYU, Memefactory will be performing a souped up, updated version of their masterful performance tour of Internet memes on October 9th. It is SO worth checking out. (ps, we remixed this poster though we did not get much of the bling)

******************

If one were to assume there might be any kind of end to the meaningless drivel on the web, one would be wrong. For this very reason, we present MemeFactory NYU. We’re lucky enough to have been invited by NYU to present our second, full-length MemeFactory during which we wax philosorapsophical about the state of popular (and some unpopular… and some überpopular) internet media.

That means about one and one half of one hours of 3 projectors, 3 gentlemen, more pictures of cats, videos of fails and power ratings over 9000 than any previous MemeFactory. We’d call it bang-for-your-buck, but damn… this shindig is $Free! So don your pancake hat – or your furry suit, we wont judge – and get ready to Get Down, get WeeGee’d and of course… Crank That.

http://wwksf.com/nyu

To recap:

WHEN: October 9 7:30-9:00.

WHERE: Warren Weaver Hall RM 109, http://cs.nyu.edu/web/Location/directions.html (Free and Open to the Public)

WHO: What We Know So Far http://www.whatweknowsofar.com/NYU

WHY: Because it is not another academic lecture but lively performance filled with nothing but insight and humor for die-hard Internet memeologists and newbies alike. Take the plunge with the memefactory!

SPONSORED: NYU @ Free Culture, Council on Culture and Media, Center for Religion and Media, NYU ACM’s Chapter

One of the best things about living in NYC is the music. It is overflowing here, so much so, I honestly get a little overwhelmed. But every few months I decide: I am going to see a string of live shows and do so and then retreat for a few months until I can muster up the will and money to dive again.

The picks for the next few weeks are a local NYC Indie-folk band Kind Monitor playing around the corner from me in Joe’s Pubs (there are rumors it will start with a Ukulele act!) And then soon after I will see The Cave Singers from Seattle playing at the Bowery Ballroom. I hope to catch The Books but they are not passing through anytime soon, which brings me to the tech-related part of the post..

I am surprised–and could be wrong and hope that I am proven wrong–that there is no webbie 2.something tool/site that allows you to punch in your favorite bands and zip code-mile radius and that then sends you email alerts for up and coming concerts.

Security Conference in the tri-state area! Looks great and they have a great title.

ps– I am sure this won’t turn up a response but what the heck, this post is about security and dogs: If you want a real security dog who is compact and a DOLL/sweet-as-good at home, I have the dog for you. Pictured above. I am serious.

The Inaugural Interdisciplinary Conference of the Virtual Communication, Collaboration and Conflict (VIRT3C) Research Group at the University of Hull has circulated a call for papers:

Our plenary theme is ‘Developing the Virtual Society: Conflict in Adoption of Online Collaborative Networks’. As virtual society develops, and peer technologies and practices pump in its heart, this conference brings together academics of all disciplines to discuss conflict in the adoption of collaborative networks. This is a time of confrontation between older forms of communication and organization and new ways of sharing, collaborating and acting collectively. We seek to explore conflicts emerging in the transition from, and resistance to, horizontal participatory networks, as well as conflict within collaborative networks. We welcome suggestions for panels and papers on any area relating to our theme, and particularly in the following areas:

• Network Theory
• P2P and FLOSS methodology adoption
• FLOSS methodology
• Open source conflicts and forking
• Adoption by NGOs and the developing world
• Adoption by social movements, hacktivism, cyberconflict
• Institutional resistance to networks
• Online P2P places and conflicts

We encourage especially contributions, including, but not limited to, politics, economics, computer science, business, psychology, sociology, and law.

With your abstract of no more than 300 words please include the following information:

Name, postal address, email
Institutional affiliation and position (if applicable)

Please send abstracts in Word or pdf format to the organisers at
athina.k((((((@)))))gmail.com
Provisional Deadline for abstracts: 15th January 2010

For those in New York and interested in Public Transit and getting reliable information from the beast of an organization that is the MTA, you may be interested in the Public Transit Data Summit with beer!

WHERE: 148 Lafayette St, NY, New York, 12th floor (map)
WHEN: Tuesday, August 25 at 6pm
WHAT: Meetup to discuss how the MTA and the developer community can best collaborate.

I doubt the Path will receive much air time but I just had to include the logo above as it is my favorite transportation logo, not only because it looks cool but it signals the TIGHT relationship between NJ/NY, a relationship that nonetheless can be pretty tense. Here though is the relationship represented in Total Harmony.

So when I like something, I tend to REALLY LIKE it. One of my great likes is the Brooklyn-based performance group What We Know So Far. They focus on Internety/geeky/memey things and give a really entertaining and clever show. In just 2 days, New Yorkers will have the chance to see Not One, Not Two, But Three of their performance pieces at the Third Ward.

So what I am saying is that if you are in like an 80 mile radius, you should go.

If you miss it, that is sort of ok as we are hosting them at NYU on October 9th.

Here is an announcement NYC area folks might be interested in:
***************************************************
Skillshare for Everyone Who Thinks They Don’t Need A Skillshare on
Security Culture
Don’t be Stupid, Protect Yourself:
A Security Culture Skillshare for Everyone Who Thinks They Don’t Need
A Skillshare on Security Culture

(and for others who may simply want a refresher, or even better, for
those who don’t even know what security + culture means when written
or said together)

Where?
The Change You Want To See
84 Havemeyer Street
Brooklyn
L to Bedford, G to Metropolitan, J to Marcy

When?
Tuesday, August 4
7:00pm

What for?
You’re a revolutionary and you already know your shit. You never
send inappropriate text messages. You always encrypt your
e-mails. You triple vouch everyone you work with. You are known to
shout in open and public meetings `WHAT ABOUT SECURITY CULTURE?` or
you ignore it because security culture is `alienating` and was the
downfall of some action you were part of 5 years ago. And of course,
you NEVER use social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.
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