parker higgins

Several months ago, I decided that the most responsible relationship to have with Facebook was none at all. I deactivated my account. After a rocky five years of ups and downs, I just couldn’t take their arcane and irresponsible positions on privacy.

• [I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat (but farm it right) | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/meat-production-veganism-deforestation)
  Thought-provoking review of a new book about the practicality of eating meat. The book’s author argues, and the pretty strongly vegan-leaning reviewer agrees, that meat can be farmed with a minimal or beneficial impact on the environment if the global agriculture system were to be heavily reformed.
  (tags: [article](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/article) [review](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/review) [environment](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/environment) [vegetarian](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/vegetarian) [vegan](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/vegan) [agriculture](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/agriculture) [food](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/food) [meat](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/meat) [guardian](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/guardian))
• [Forking is a Feature – Anil Dash](http://dashes.com/anil/2010/09/forking-is-a-feature.html)
  Interesting collection of thoughts from Anil Dash on forking as a feature, and not the “nuclear option” of a f/oss community project.
  (tags: [anildash](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/anildash) [linux](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/linux) [linustorvalds](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/linustorvalds) [opensource](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/opensource) [freesoftware](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/freesoftware) [fork](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/fork) [git](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/git))
• [The Museum of Soviet Arcade Games](http://adangerousbusiness.com/2010/01/05/the-museum-of-soviet-video-games/)
  Absolutely amazing walkthrough of a museum of Soviet Arcade Games outside of Moscow. This is too cool. Also cool is the Flickr set he links to at the bottom of the article.
  (tags: [arcade](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/arcade) [videogame](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/videogame) [ussr](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/ussr) [russian](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/russian) [gallery](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/gallery) [museum](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/museum) [moscow](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/moscow))
• [Walking in Midtown, without using avenues : The New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/09/13/100913ta_talk_friend)
  Charming description of a trip through midtown without stepping foot on the avenues. (It’s an update on something John Updike once wrote about.) I think about this kind of thing all the time when walking in Manhattan.
  (tags: [humor](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/humor) [newyorker](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/newyorker) [manhattan](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/manhattan) [nyc](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/nyc) [midtown](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/midtown) [article](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/article))
• [YouTube – Disney’s Blam – Up](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1rVF8Np4xw)
  Spot-on parody of the really terrible “Blam!” thing Disney’s been doing, applying that treatment to the opening montage in “Up.” Watch for “INCONCEIVABLE!”
  (tags: [cartoon](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/cartoon) [animation](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/animation) [disney](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/disney) [up](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/up) [pixar](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/pixar) [blam](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/blam) [funny](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/funny) [video](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/video) [youtube](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/youtube))

• [hey, c'mon](http://www.viruscomix.com/page528.html)
  Beautiful comic about the difference between the way you perceive things and the way they are.
  (tags: [comics](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/comics) [funny](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/funny) [beautiful](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/beautiful) [art](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/art) [inspiring](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/inspiring))
• [Statement by Apple on App Store Review Guidelines](http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/09/09statement.html)
  Apple has gotten rid of their insane restrictions on how programs could be written for the iPhone! Still have problematic app store practices and restrict downloading code from in an app, but this is a step forward
  (tags: [apple](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/apple) [iphone](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/iphone) [appstore](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/appstore) [apps](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/apps))
• [Free Software Needs Free Tools :: Benjamin Mako Hill](http://mako.cc/writing/hill-free_tools.html)
  Fantastic article by Mako about why it's important to use free tools (hardware and software) when developing free software.
  (tags: [free](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/free) [freesoftware](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/freesoftware) [foss](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/foss) [programming](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/programming) [mako](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/mako) [software](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/software))

I’ve just gone on something of a spree adding reviews of the last few books I’ve read to Goodreads.

• [Inside the secret world of Trader Joe's – Aug. 23, 2010](http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/20/news/companies/inside_trader_joes_full_version.fortune/)
  A (reportedly) rare look at Trader Joe's, grocery darling. It's owned by Aldi Nord, which is a story in itself. "Trader" Joe Coulombe "doesn't remember" how much he sold the chain for in 1979.
  (tags: [traderjoes](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/traderjoes) [food](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/food) [fortune](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/fortune) [business](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/business) [aldi](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/aldi) [article](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/article) [grocery](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/grocery) [shopping](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/shopping))
• [Michael Zimmer.org » Blog Archive » Facebook Places Privacy Falls Short, Part 2: Opting-Out](http://michaelzimmer.org/2010/08/25/facebook-places-privacy-falls-short-part-2/)
  Michael Zimmer details the steps of opting out of Facebook Places, as his wife struggles with the process. Until you've opted out, you can be checked into locations by your friends, and those check-ins remain even after opting out unless you manually delete them.
  (tags: [facebook](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/facebook) [privacy](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/privacy) [stupid](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/stupid) [geo](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/geo) [location](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/location) [places](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/places) [optout](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/optout) [evil](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/evil))
• [The Future of Internet Search – Project Syndicate](http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson23/English)
  Esther Dyson discusses the future of search as more action-oriented and vertical. I know that's been the future for at least five years now, but I still believe. Great Bill Gates quote: "The future of search is verbs." Bing!
  (tags: [estherdyson](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/estherdyson) [technology](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/technology) [search](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/search) [internet](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/internet) [future](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/future) [google](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/google) [searchengines](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/searchengines) [semanticweb](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/semanticweb) [column](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/column))
• [Common as Air – By Lewis Hyde – NYTimes.com](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/books/review/Darnton-t.html)
  Robert Darnton reviews Lewis Hyde's new book about considering intellectual property from a constitutional perspective. Sounds good!
  (tags: [robertdarnton](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/robertdarnton) [book](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/book) [review](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/review) [lewishyde](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/lewishyde) [copyright](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/copyright) [ip](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/ip) [nytimes](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/nytimes))
• [The billionaire Koch brothers’ war against Obama : The New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all)
  Charles and David Koch are multi-billionaire Obama opponents and shadowy Tea Party supporters. They're responsible for huge amounts of environmental damage, and funding bad science to cover that up. If they were from anywhere other than Wichita, they'd almost certainly be Bond villains
  (tags: [obama](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/obama) [environment](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/environment) [newyorker](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/newyorker) [teaparty](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/teaparty) [article](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/article) [business](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/business) [oil](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/oil) [koch](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/koch) [corruption](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/corruption) [climate](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/climate))

• [Amid ongoing budget woes, LA unveils nation's most expensive school with $578M price tag – latimes.com](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-taj-mahal-schools,0,5324947,full.story)
  There are so many goofball facts in this piece about the country's most expensive school (named after RFK) being built on the site of the Ambassador Hotel. The talking benches line killed me, and the fact that Trump wanted to put the world's tallest building on the site is hilarious.
  (tags: [education](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/education) [school](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/school) [la](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/la) [latimes](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/latimes) [rfk](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/rfk) [ambassador](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/ambassador) [article](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/article) [funny](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/funny))
• [Anti-Piracy Failure Takes Down Creative Commons Videos | TorrentFreak](http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-failure-takes-down-creative-commons-video-100812/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Torrentfreak+(Torrentfreak))
  An apparent case of copyright being used incorrectly and explicitly for censorship, where an anti-piracy group issued takedown notices to political videos over which it had no rights. The embedded video, "Du bist Terrorist" ("You are a terrorist", includes English subtitles) is a good example of the strong anti-surveillance and pro-privacy sentiment in Germany; it was one of those taken down.
  (tags: [germany](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/germany) [privacy](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/privacy) [surveillance](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/surveillance) [video](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/video) [torrentfreak](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/torrentfreak) [gvu](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/gvu) [dmca](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/dmca) [copyright](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/copyright) [censorship](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/censorship))
• [Copycats vs. Copyrights – Newsweek](http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/20/copycats-versus-copyrights.html)
  There are a couple of nitpciky points I'd make here — teachers advocate copying all the time, that's how we learn; the "incentive" justification for copyright and patents is primarily associates with common law countries and isn't universal — but all in all this is a pretty good mainstream analysis of the fashion copyright proposals. Brings common sense to the table, which is always welcome.
  (tags: [copyright](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/copyright) [fashion](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/fashion) [chuckschumer](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/chuckschumer) [ip](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/ip) [newyork](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/newyork) [newsweek](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/newsweek) [ezraklein](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/ezraklein))
• [From the Desk of David Pogue – Three Unknown Features of the iPhone 4 – NYTimes.com](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/technology/personaltech/12pogue-email.html)
  Pogue points out that the new iPhone, as a (slightly) more general purpose computer than the Kindle, can do text-to-speech with its iBooks. Exactly the same feature Amazon got sued over. No mention of this yet by the Author's Guild.
  (tags: [amazon](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/amazon) [apple](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/apple) [nytimes](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/nytimes) [davidpogue](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/davidpogue) [technology](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/technology) [kindle](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/kindle) [iphone](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/iphone) [ibooks](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/ibooks) [authorsguild](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/authorsguild) [accessibility](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/accessibility))
• [Samsung Blu-ray players won't play Warner, Universal movies after firmware update, require a rollback — Engadget](http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/22/samsung-blu-ray-players-wont-play-warner-universal-movies-afte/)
  Updates to Samsung Blu-ray players, which like all Blu-ray players require constant updates to play new movies, broke playback of Warner and Universal movies. Ladies and gentlemen, DRM!
  (tags: [drm](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/drm) [bluray](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/bluray) [samsung](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/samsung) [stupid](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/stupid))

• [Germany to roll out ID cards with embedded RFID – International Business Times](http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/44536/20100821/identity-cards-with-rfid-chip-on-track-in-germany.htm)
  Germany's ID cards will have mandatory RFID chips beginning November 1. This is a bad idea.
  (tags: [rfid](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/rfid) [surveillance](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/surveillance) [germany](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/germany) [goverment](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/goverment) [privacy](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/privacy) [article](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/article) [id](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/id))
• [The Imbroglio Over the Ground-Zero Mosque — New York Magazine](http://nymag.com/news/features/67635/)
  A really thoughtful article addressing the proposed Muslim community center two and a half blocks from Ground Zero. There has been a lot of ink spilled about it, but this article is really good.
  (tags: [muslim](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/muslim) [worldtradecenter](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/worldtradecenter) [mosque](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/mosque) [groundzero](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/groundzero) [article](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/article) [newyork](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/newyork) [islam](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/islam))
• [The 72-Hour Expert](http://weeklystandard.com/articles/72-hour-expert)
  A really funny and insightful article from P.J. O'Rourke about spending a few days in Afghanistan. Obviously I don't agree with Mr. O'Rourke on everything, but his descriptions and interviews seem to be on point.
  (tags: [afghanistan](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/afghanistan) [politics](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/politics) [pjorourke](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/pjorourke) [weeklystandard](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/weeklystandard) [article](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/article) [interesting](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/interesting) [funny](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/funny))
• [YouTube – RSA Animate – 21st century enlightenment](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo&feature=player_embedded#!)
  A really interesting presentation, in that animation style I love, about what enlightenment might mean in the 21st century.
  (tags: [video](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/video) [youtube](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/youtube) [rsaanimate](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/rsaanimate) [enlightenment](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/enlightenment) [animation](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/animation) [21century](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/21century))
• [The Volokh Conspiracy » The High Cost of Copyright:](http://volokh.com/2010/08/18/the-high-cost-of-copyright/)
  An explanation of the real costs of copyright, by way of a recent example. A treasure trove of amazing original jazz recordings has surfaced, but will likely never be released for copyright reasons.
  (tags: [jazz](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/jazz) [copyright](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/copyright) [volokh](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/volokh))
• [The most isolated man on the planet. – By Monte Reel – Slate Magazine](http://www.slate.com/id/2264478/pagenum/all/)
  An incredibly interesting story of the last member of an uncontacted tribe in the Brazilian Amazon. He's been given 31 square miles to live in, but shot the last person who attempted contact in the chest with an arrow.
  (tags: [brazil](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/brazil) [amazon](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/amazon) [interesting](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/interesting) [environment](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/environment) [language](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/language) [natives](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/natives) [anthropology](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/anthropology) [rainforest](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/rainforest) [jungle](http://delicious.com/parkerhiggins/jungle))

Over the last four days, the SoundCloud blog has posted a series of interviews with Creative Commons users on the site. I think they’re all interesting, and not just because I conducted three of the four of them. I was really floored, though, by the last one we ran, interviewing the musician and sample maker Stretta. Stretta really gets it.

Last week at Drumbeat Berlin, I had the pleasure of seeing Gabriel Shalom present on a project called Junto. We discussed the project that evening and the next day, and agreed that we should each post our ideas on the new perspectives the Drumbeat audience provided. He put together a video blog post about it, and my (long) post is below.

I’m very proud to have been involved with SoundCloud’s major feature release today, which includes (among other awesome things, like a track tag explore page) deeper integration and support for Creative Commons licenses. Among the changes were the addition of prominent CC badges to track players, the development of a CC landing page, and the long-awaited introduction of advanced search–including, naturally, search-by-license-type.