Call up somebody, have them log on to your EtherPad page and you and friends can edit notes together in real time. Simpler than Google Docs, this is something to look into. Definitely.
Kevin putting it out there
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Really Simple Collaborative Writing
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Digital Youth Report
Over at BoingBoing Cory Doctorow points us to a 3-year multi-million-dollar research effort to discern what the youth of America are doing online, and whether it is good for them or not.
Two-pager, White paper, Book: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out (download), Digital Youth homepage
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Google posts 10,000,000 pictures from Life magazine
There are about 2 million photos up already. Go ahead, browse. Wonderful history. Life magazine was the premier photo magazine in the US for many many years, in the heyday of magazine, when there were only a half dozen really popular ones.
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Bowling Alone in a Recession
Reading the news today, a paragraph from David Brooks stands out as a prediction on the social fabric of the US as they (we?) enter into a prolonged recession.
Finally, they will suffer a drop in social capital. In times of recession, people spend more time at home. But this will be the first steep recession since the revolution in household formation. Nesting amongst an extended family rich in social capital is very different from nesting in a one-person household that is isolated from family and community bonds. People in the lower middle class have much higher divorce rates and many fewer community ties. For them, cocooning is more likely to be a perilous psychological spiral.
Having seen this first-hand as a consumer in Japan, and as a provider of services (education), I can attest that adjustments are harsh, but usually not swift. If you can start to rebuild your personal infrastructure, and adapt, you will eventually achieve both an adjustment of expectations and possibilities that will leave you with a cleaner outlook on the world.
The title refers to a book about socialization in the US. Will follow up later.
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French Stories by a kid
Xeni Jardin over at BoingBoing found this great kid telling stories in French. It’s 4 minutes, and she will steal your heart. Try to match the English words with the French ones, some are similar, others are not.
Once upon a time… from Capucha on Vimeo.
