BlogTogether

The N&O’s Greg Cox wants bloggers to weigh in on the best barbecue joints in the Triangle.

New schedule starting tomorrow for the Raleigh Bloggers Meetup: second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at 6:30PM at the Raleigh Times Bar in downtown Raleigh (14 E Hargett St.). See Josh’s wiki for more information.

The 105th edition of The Tar Heel Tavern will be on my old digs, Science And Politics, with no particular theme or topic. Just send your week’s best by Saturday night to: Coturnix AT gmail DOT com

I’m here in Wilson Library, sitting next to Will Raymond, Kirk Ross and Bob Bradley. Ruby Sinreich is here, and Corey Reece, and a lot of other interesting UNC students, faculty and staff. No sign of Doctorow or Paul Jones, yet. OK, they’re here. But, quick, look at a picture of Corey’s son. Paul tells us Doctorow’s visit is sponsored by ibiblio, the j-school and Carolina Free Culture, “and paid for by Duke.” [Claps and laughs.] CD: “Bits are never going to get harder to copy … networks get faster and faster … no future where networks will get harder to log into, more expensive … from here, bits get easier and easier to copy.” Explanation of how DRM is based on cryptography. “There’s a reason we put letters in envelopes.” EFF. Doctorow’s talk is being recorded. Link will be up in a couple of weeks here (see his 2004 talk in this same room here). “The key is the smallest secret we can keep.” More about DRM and breaking the crypto behind it and how it’s broken every day, “because DRM doesn’t work.” Mean time between an iTunes release of a song and availability on p2p network is 3-4 minutes. “We need to get used to copyable bits.” Science fiction writers don’t and haven’t predicted the future. “If we did predict the future, it was a mistake. We predict the present or the near past.” People expressed they hated reading online even though they spent all day reading things online. Didn’t believe them. But computers good for reading lots of little things in quicker and quicker succession. Buy $1000 worth of CDs in a record store, you can rip and burn and mashup and put onto iPod and and … but with DVD can legally only watch it. Good news for writers is ebook is … ebooks act as an enticement rather than a replacement. Copying is inherently a social activity. When I make a copy for you, it carries a little bit of reputation. … the more copyable something is, the easier it is to make it sociable. “Step 3, a chastened America returns to the mall.” Creative Commons. Join EFF. Get involved locally with extraordinary community of student movement Free Culture.

NC State’s Institute for Emerging Issues has an interesting blog about innovation.

A little less than two weeks ago, we announced a happy hour event to gather Triangle bloggers together to eat, drink and chat with Duke University about their new DukeEngage student service program. All in all, tonight’s event was a success, and enjoyable. First off, a shoutout to Maxwell at Serena Restaurant and Bar. He and his crew served us well, and I promised him we’d be back for another event. The food is good, the beer cold and the wifi free and strong. Bloggers and others in attendance tonight: Bora Zivkovic, Adam Vandenberg, BC, Jim Buie, Steve Cory, Laura Leslie, Stephen Fraser, Anton Zuiker, Jackson Fox, Will Raymond, Ryan Irelan, Josh Staiger, Dave Johnson, Bill Higgins, Karl Bates, David Jarmul, Mike Krempasky, Steve Field, Dan Barkin, Dan Kimberg, Carly Knight and Eric Mlyn. After informal chatting, we gathered standing around a table and listened to Mlyn tell us about DukeEngage. He seems to be very open to ideas and proposals and advice from all, bloggers included: “community partners will be important,” he said, and later encouraged us to contact him with ideas and proposals. (I’ll be following up with him about StoryBlogging, and a proposal to take a group of students to Vanuatu for a service project.) Kimberg and Knight, both Duke seniors, briefly explained why they think the Duke service program has promise — Knight’s face lit up with enthusiasm. Kimberg has raised more than $100,000 to fund his project Student U that ges college students to teach Durham middle school students. At the end of the event, a group of us debated ways for WUNC and other local media companies to improve their online offerings, and we explored the opportunities for Duke to empower their students to communicate, both online and offline, about their service efforts and travels and academic pursuits. Quite a stimulating conversation. So, thanks to our sponsors (Duke, and their consultans Edelman), our host (Serena) and all the bloggers who joined us for this event. UPDATE (from David Jarmul): bq. Thank you so much for inviting us to join your BlogTogether group last night at Serena. What an interesting evening! We went there expecting to tell people about the new DukeEngage program but ended up learning even more ourselves, about the possibilities of incorporating blogging and similar techniques into DukeEngage and other activities at Duke. Eric and I have already made plans for a follow-up conversation to explore this with some of our colleagues.

Bora and I are here in Serena Restaurant and Bar, getting ready for the blogger happy hour. Please join us. (Mike and Steve from Edelman just walked in.)

All bloggers in the Triangle are invited to a happy hour tomorrow evening, 6pm at Serena Restaurant and Bar in RTP.

Paul Jones alerts us to another campus visit by Cory Doctorow. bq.. What: Pwned: How copyright turns us all into IP serfs Who: Cory Doctorow Quick on Cory: Boingboing editor, EFF, SciFi Writer, Disney-obsessed Copyfighter, Fulbright Chair at Annenberg UCSD When: 2 pm Thursday February 22nd (aka 2/22 at 2) Where: Wilson Library Sponsors: ibiblio.org, UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Free Culture Carolina, School of Information and Library Science “Cory’s previous trip to UNC”: http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/pub/mirrors/speakers/doctorow/. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow Cory will also be speaking at Duke as part of the Provost Lecture Series “From Myspace to Homeland Security: Privacy and the Totalitarian Urge” 5:00 p.m. – Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center p. See you there.

Billy and Sean are really pushing Greensboro Blogger MeetUps, now using a new website to rally the troups. And they are having a blogging teach-in at the Library there today as well (as we speak).

The 104th edition of The Tar Heel Tavern is up on Freelance Writing for Nonprofits. The theme is ‘paying tribute’. Next week, the carnival will be on my old digs, Science And Politics, with no particular theme or topic. Just send your week’s best to: Coturnix AT gmail DOT com

Kivi is hosting The Tar Heel Tavern tomorrow, so send your entries ASAP:

I am also hosting The Tarheel Tavern this weekend, the premiere carnival of North Carolina bloggers. My theme is “Paying Tribute.” Since we are close to President’s Day, and nobody I know actually honors our presidents on the day, I suggest we honor a person in our lives or history who really does deserve an extra bit of love and respect from us, via our blogs. NC bloggers can submit a post to me by Saturday night at kivi AT writingfornonprofits.com.

We’re here at Mardi Gras Lanes on family night, dancing to the loud tunes and throwing those balls down the lanes. I’ll post pictures when I get home Pictures are here. Bloggers (and family) bowling: Bora and his daughter, R; Steve Corey and Jean; Bharat & Soumya; Brian and Ruby; Jackson & Erica; me and Erin and our daughters.

Chapel Hill Town Councilwoman and blogger Sally Greene writes about the council’s recent decision to approve a big downtown development project, in the post Lot 5 Decision.

Triangle-area bloggers are invited to a BlogTogether happy hour Wednesday, February 21, 2007 from 6-7:30pm at Serena Restaurant and Bar (5311 S. Miami Blvd, RTP). There will be free food, free drinks and free wifi, courtesy of Duke University. This BlogTogether event is a chance to gather together with the region’s bloggers, eat and drink on a sponsor’s tab, and give that sponsor our thoughts on being engaged with the regional community. (More events like this will follow as we find creative ways for the area’s institutions and organizations ways to meet local bloggers.) Duke has just announced a huge new service initiative called DukeEngage, funded to the tune of $30 million by the Duke Endowment and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (See press coverage here and here.) bq. The program will provide Duke students with opportunities to collaborate with nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations that address poverty, housing, education, AIDS or other social issues; with a financial institution to explore how investment affects life in third-world countries; or an art museum to increase outreach to low-income children, among other things…The initiative also includes the creation of a Duke Center for Civic Engagement, which will serve as a university-wide clearinghouse for civic-engagement and service-learning projects. Eric Mlyn, who will be the founding director of DukeEngage, and two Duke students will join us for this meetup. They’d like to hear our ideas for how Duke students can engage in our local communities. Come share drinks and your suggestions, hopes and expectations (I’ll be pitching the StoryBlogging effort, for example, to suggest Duke students help us gather 1000 North Carolina oral history postings by the end of 2008.) For more information, send a message to . Disclosure: How did this event come about? Edelman, a blog-aware PR firm working with Duke, suggested Duke connect with local bloggers; David Jarmul, Duke’s associate vice president of news and communications, contacted me (we’re both Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and in a book club together); I was looking for a sponsor for a Triangle Bloggers Happy Hour.