In July I couldn’t blog about a major episode in the Belgian political crisis – I was on holidays in the Walloon area of Belgium, in a cottage without electricity, and without access to the web. Today there is another sequel in the Belgian political crisis which has now been going on for about 15 months. By now most Belgians are suffering from political depression: they are no longer able to swallow yet another glass of this soap. Yet if anybody out there is still interested (I am, even if also politically slightly depressed), below the fold is a short summary of the last two episodes of the Belgian crisis. Warning: this post requires some knowledge on the Belgian political labyrinth, which I’ve tried to sketch “here”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/09/19/the-ingredients-of-the-belgian-cocktail/
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Since Daniel is refusing to comment on the current world-historical situation, I refer readers to his comments about the social construction of disability at the Virtual Stoa. Oh, and I’ve had a lot of fun watching the Dalek Work Out video with my kids, which he might like to check out.
I suppose that I ought to make this clear; I’m not going to be writing anything, on CT or any of my other blogs, about the current global financial markets meltdown. This is basically because of my professional commitments; as you know, I’m a stockbroker by trade, and what with one thing and another, I’m in a more responsible position than I was when I started blogging. Going through my reasons in a numbered list:
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As promised, in honor of One Web Day, I’m posting information about one of my favorite Web sites and I encourage you to do the same, here or on your own blog. I’m always on the lookout for sites that make a difference in people’s lives and one such site is WalkerTracker. It is no exaggeration that it has had a direct impact on my everyday life as I have become a serious walking enthusiast and thus get more regular exercise now than I had ever before.
WalkerTracker helps keep track of one’s daily steps encouraging a healthy lifestyle by offering all sorts of neat statistics and graphs of one’s step measures. Of course, one doesn’t necessarily need a gadget (i.e., a pedometer) or a tool such as this site to go out on walks, but I have found it extremely inspiring and motivating to be able to keep track of my steps and see the progress I make over time. My daily goal is 10,000 steps (that’s about 4-5 miles) and on average I’ve managed to come close to this each month since I’ve started in April, 2007. I’m excited to be averaging almost 12K this month. [click to continue…]
I’m on leave this year as a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Berkman is an amazing community of people working on important and exciting projects concerning the social and policy aspects of the Internet. In just three weeks of affiliation, I’ve already participated in countless wonderful conversations with people who share my passion for studying digital media and have learned lots about related issues. My main goal for the year is to write a book on Internet use and social inequality. My biggest challenge will be staying focused on that task instead of starting up numerous collaborations with my colleagues given the many areas of overlap in our interests.
Berkman sponsors some great events that are open to the public. This Tuesday evening will be one such event: a talk and reception celebrating the recent release of the book Born Digital by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. I’m still working on a separate post about the book, but wanted to post a note now given the date of the event. This will be a great opportunity to meet lots of people affiliated with the Digital Natives project upon which the book is based.
As currently proposed this bailout seems like an almost comically bad idea. I encourage all our US readers to get on the phone to their representatives and start bitching Monday morning. I am also very interested to hear what knowledgeable people such as our own dsquared think.