In the Only Surviving Recording of Her Voice, Virginia Woolf Explains Why Writing Isn’t a “Craft” (1937)
Dan Colman, Open Culture, 2016/08/10

Compare what we say about information today with what Virginia Woolf says about words in this the only surviving recording of her voice: "(words) hate being useful; they hate making money; they hate being lectured about in public. In short, they hate anything that stamps them with one meaning or confines them to one attitude, for it is in their nature to change." What a world we live in, where we can hear the living words of great people now long since passed on. I am inclined to agree with Woolf here; I have never thought of writing as a 'craft'. But I don't think of it as an art either. It is something else.

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Facebook Cripples Ad Blockers on Its Site, Gives Consumers New Control Over Ads
Garett Sloane, Advertising Age, 2016/08/10

I love how removing my control over ads is now called "new control over ads". At least I have an explanation of why Facebook has been loading so slowly recently. My own browser still doesn't show ads on Facebook, so maybe the battle over ads on Facebook is still raging. If the advertisers win, I will not be using Facebook in the future. More on Engadget.

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Hello, Hollywood! How to Add a Little Green Screen Magic to Your Videos
Tracy Schaelen, 3C Media Solutions, 2016/08/10

I enjoyed this presentation on how to make green screen videos (and how to use them in the classroom) not only because the presenter is enthusiastic and engaging but also because the video offers very detailed instructions describing how to make the videos. Also, here's some free stock video to use with your green screen. This is from the Online Teaching Conference that was held June 16 & 17 at the San Diego Convention Center. Here's the Virtual Tool Kit she references in the video, more stock footage, and the Fuse app to capture and transfer video directly to Camtasia from your phone.

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Peer production in an integral and intersubjective framework
Michel Bauwens, Integral World, 2016/08/10

There's a lot that's interesting in this paper and yet I think the most interesting work is in the first section where P2P (peer-to-peer) is defined. In the second section and thereafter we get into a type of metaphysics that doesn't interest me (but is of great interest to critical theorists). Just more taxonomy. But learning, inference and discovery are not states, as a taxonomic approach would suggest; they are processes. The third section looks at "intersubjective modes", which is more interesting, but I find it conflates between markets, which require a measurement system, and networks, in which only structure is important (there's a bit of a back and forth on whether reciprocity is required, without which of course markets can't exist). So, ultimately, can P2P be a "mode of production"? Maybe, but "participants cannot live from peer production, though they derive meaning and value from it, and though it may out compete, in efficiency and productivity terms, the market-based for-profit alternatives."

It's worth noting the parallel between this and the thesis in Patrick Watson's The Struggle for Democracy, which is essentially that democracy presupposes wealth.

• The Struggle For Democracy - Genesis
• The Struggle For Democracy - Reborn In America
• The Struggle For Democracy - Chiefs and Strongmen
• The Struggle For Democracy - The Tyrrany Of The Majority
• The Struggle For Democracy - The Rule Of Law
• The Struggle For Democracy - The Last Citizens
• The Struggle For Democracy - The First Freedom
• The Struggle For Democracy - The Price Of Democracy
• The Struggle For Democracy - A Soldiers Duty
• The Struggle For Democracy - Whither Democracy
• The Struggle For Democracy - Reflections On The French
• The Struggle For Democracy - The Curtain Rises

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