A bunch of the key figures in the creation of the internet speak about some of what they worked on:

Why do we still have to "save" work when working with a computer? Do you have to "save" when using pen and paper, or paint? The most important question here is, does breaking out the "save" function into a manually triggered activity actually add something useful?

I was just revisiting a essay/speech called Hackers and Painters. It highlights one of the things that we are trying to create at IDMI: beautiful software. The core idea is that Computer Science is really three different things lumped together into one: one is basically math, another is basically a natural science, and the third is hacking. Hacking is what we are interested in, creating well designed software that solves real problems in useful ways.

Contrary to what many people will tell you, the real reasons why lots of features don't exist or don't work well is not technical. Instead, the wireless carriers often turn off features or deliberately cripple them. This radio spot covers the core of the issue well:

http://onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/03/02/04

The French far right wing party, Front National, led by Le Pen, set up a headquarters in Second Life. Not long after, a very active and surreal protest sprung up, including all sorts of things from banners to exploding pigs.

Here's a description of the scene, it is quite ridiculous and fascinating:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/01/stronger_than_h.html

Computers and software of all kinds have generally been designed and built by engineers for a broader population to use. Computing is becoming ubiquitous, and the skills for using computers are becoming as standard as reading and writing. Yet few of these tools are designed for everyone to modify them. We are teaching read-only computer literacy to the vast majority of students. No one would advocate only teaching people to read without teaching them how to write. We need to think the same way about computer literacy.

Media literacy isn't just for media academics and artists anymore. More and more disciplines are waking up to the realization that moving beyond simple text will increase the levels of communuication and make the discussions more fruitful. The new Journal of Visualized Experiments is a great example of read/write media literacy for scientists. The key is that the experiments much be describe with video rather than only text. I heard about it from this article about the future of the scientific paper: Is this the end of the scholarly journal?

This weekend couldn't have been possible without your input and most importantly - your attendance. A bunch of us have dumped photos to http://flickr.com. If you took pictures, don't forget to upload and tag them with IDMI, DrupalCamp and DrupalCampNYC2. If you have any video or podcasts, please tag them and add a link to the post-mortum page.

http://barcamp.org/DrupalCampNYC2PostMortum

Speaking of which, we are making plans for the next camp, and we need your feedback - worked and what didn't. If you have any summary blog posts or comments, please add them to the post-mortum page.

It's time to fire up those decentralized neurons! DrupalCamp NYC 2 is
this weekend!

once again we are welcomed with open arms to polytechnic university in brooklyn. on saturday & sunday (20/21 jan) we will convene from 10 am - 7 pm to discuss, program and hammer on our favorite open source content management system.
more information - http://barcamp.org/DrupalCampNYC2.

please bring an open mind, a picture id (our host requires photo identification for weekend entry), a laptop with a fully charged battery, video dongles or vga converters, a power-strip, and some red bull (sugar and sugar-free). don't forget to make a list of your problems to solve, tips and techniques!