I’m very very pleased to see that Automattic has landed a massive chunk of change and will now be kicking ass with a much firmer foundation beneath them. If I had money, I’d invest in them too because Automattic is the group behind WordPress and BBPress, some of the best open source software available today.

We use WordPress for Orphan Army and several other blogs while BBPress is the awesome Bulliten Board we’ve adopted for our forums. I feel very good about those decisions now knowing that both programs are likely to have a very bright future ahead of them.

Keep up the good work over at Automattic! Here’s hoping the company never gets bought out by AOL or some other big dumb soul crushing giant! Huzzah!

In an attempt to win 5000 bucks we created a short film about cookies for a contest a week and a half ago. There were almost no submissions at the time we entered and the quality of the existing videos was quite poor, so we thought our chances to be good. The film is a bit technical, and I think it’s also rather dull, but it got us to the final round (mostly based on the competition). The five finalists were all invited to D.C. to screen our films for industry experts who would then crown a winner.

I didn’t meet dubya in my time at the capital (though I think he may have flown over me), though I did have an opportunity (albeit slight) to influence public policy while I was there. The screening was part of a town hall on behavioral advertising on the web held the the Federal Trade Commision. They are starting to look into what kind of (if any) regulations need to be placed on web advertisers in regards to consumers’ privacy rights. The town hall was remarkably interesting and terrifically boring at the same time. The big names in the industry were there (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft) and basically opposed any sort of government control. They also promoted the idea that if consumers didn’t trust them, business would dry up and they would disappear overnight so that regulation by the government was unnecessary. Though it made me wonder, does anyone really trust Microsoft? Watchdog groups were also present, but they didn’t really seem to have any plan of their own to promote, or perhaps just had too many… (more…)

Geotagged YouTube videos are sprouting up on Google Earth. Now you can see what your neighbors are posting or find clips from your favorite places in the world. I’ve been using to explore Southeast Alaska and Aaron was revisiting Armenia.

It doesn’t look like all of our geotagged videos are in place yet and I’m not sure what the update cycle is like but it’s going to become a really incredible tool in the next couple years. I just updated our Buy Back Alaska video so that it should eventually appear on or around the state capitol building. Heh heh.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released it’s annual report on the most corrupt members of Congress and Alaska leads the pack.  Of the four senators on their list, good old Sen. Ted Stevens and Sen. Lisa Murkowski are both present.  Picking up any slack is the perennial Rep. Don Young, who is named in CREW’s list of corrupt Members of House.  I’m proud that Alaska is able to shine so brightly as our Northern Star, leading the way, and leading by example.

Beyond DeLay: The 22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and two to watch)

There was an article in the Juneau Empire about a teenager who paid cash for an airline ticket and took off without her parent’s permission or showing any form of identification.

Why can teenagers fly without ID? I thought we had to show ID because we were scared of terrorists and criminals but it doesn’t seem like a 29 year old presents any more danger than a 17 year old. This isn’t a new rule. How many people have been flying without ID? Have they done any damage or caused any problems?

It seems like parental permission is a good idea for kids under 18 but I’m still not convinced that ID is necessary. If people who appear to be between the ages of 13 and 17 are jetting around without ID, why make the rest of us go through the hassle?

They’ll probably close this up soon but it’s the perfect loophole for a modern day Frank Abignale Jr. to exploit.

UPDATE – Apparently there is no rule requiring people to show ID on airplanes and you can travel without one if you submit to a secondary screening. For more information about the government demanding to see our papers, check out John Gilmore’s identity project.

Here’s the Juneau Empire article:

• Teenager buys one-way ticket to a nightmare
  Loophole allows youth to fly without parents’ permission

If you’re interested in publishing video to the internet I strongly recommend visiting makeinternettv.org, the site is packed full of useful information for first time and more advanced users. It was a resource I referred to several times in my work on the Alaska Robotics site and still visit when thinking about how best to present our work.

The site walks you through equipment selection, shooting, editing, obtaining licenses, publishing, and promoting your work. There’s even a distilled version for people feeling a little overwhelmed.

The journey is even-handed, comprehensive, and sprinkled with objective commentary. The site is produced by the Participatory Culture Foundation, the same group behind Miro, and while they make a strong case for their own player and feed based video in general, it’s clear that they’ve gone out of their way to provide all the information you need to make an educated decision of your own.

I also recommend reading Nicholas Reville’s essay on the future of video.

Technorati has been fascinating me lately. The site tracks bloggers and other producers of independent content so that it can provide a live overview of the internet. I’ve been using the site to get feedback and learn what people are saying about our films and comics.

By typing akrobotics.com into their search I can see who has links to our content and often dig up some interesting posts about our films and comics.

Technorati Profile