"Coveting possessions is unhealthy. Here's how I look at it:

All of the computers on Ebay are mine. In fact, everything on Ebay is already mine. All of those things are just in long term storage that I pay nothing for. Storage is free.

When I want to take something out of storage, I just pay the for the storage costs for that particular thing up to that point, plus a nominal shipping fee, and my things are delivered to me so I can use them. When I am done with them, I return them to storage via Craigslist or Ebay, and I am given a fee as compensation for freeing up the storage facilities resources.

This is also the case with all of my stuff that Amazon and Walmart are holding for me. I have antiques, priceless art, cars, estates, and jewels beyond the dreams of avarice.

The world is my museum, displaying my collections on loan. The James Savages of the world are merely curators."

"LACMA’s website has begun releasing publication-quality digital images of out-of-copyright works in its permanent collection. It appears to be the first major museum to do this, and that’s big news. It may herald the end of 'zombie copyrights.'"

The networked exchange of knowledge and the free access to information and educational resources are important prerequisites for the future of democracy, culture, and society. The Institute for New Culture Technologies/t0 has been investigating key questions of information societies since the early 1990s and has built an international competence platform for the critical use of information and communication technologies.

Interesting post/comment thread on why businesses are often closed or "translucent" rather than transparent. Not everyone involved is interested in making a big announcement, don't want to be a "hot startup" just want to put their heads down and work "tending their own garden", "translucency == storytelling"—sharing finished ideas (rather than process?) is more convincing (and profitable?), dealing with "undisclosed conflicts", helpful private exchanges over email.

VC industry has a really complicated relationship with access to information. Another post (forget where) pointed out that it's truly a social undertaking. Everyone wants to be first, based on speculation. While it would be fun to have open/leaked access to these kinds of communications (I'm sure it would tell a different story) "openness" can't really apply here in the way it can to journalism. the point of journalism is to tell stories. The point of VC is to grow companies. One requires exposé, the other requires discretion.

Fred Wilson:
"At Union Square Ventures, we pride ourselves on our transparency and openness. Wednesday's Airbnb post and Paul Graham's followup posting of our email thread on that opportunity is a good example of where being open benefits everyone involved, from Airbnb, to Y Combinator, to Union Square Ventures, and mostly to entrepreneurs out there who have always been curious what really goes on.

But there are plenty of times when we are not open. If an entrepreneur comes in and pitches us on an investment, we don't blog about it. We have all sorts of things going on in our portfolio right now that we'd love to talk about but obviously we can't and won't. And when we make an investment that the people involved decide should be kept quiet, we are fully capable of doing that."

"biases in computer systems can be difficult to identify let alone remedy because of the way the technology engages and extenuates them. Computer systems, for instance, are compar- atively inexpensive to disseminate, and thus, once developed, a biased system has the potential for widespread impact. If the system becomes a standard in the field, the bias becomes pervasive. If the system is complex, and most are, biases can remain hidden in the code, difficult to pinpoint or explicate, and not necessarily disclosed to users or their clients. Further- more, unlike in our dealings with biased individuals with whom a potential victim can negotiate, biased systems offer no equivalent means for appeal."

"Noam Galai took a few photos of himself in 2006 and uploaded them to his Flickr. A few people liked those photos, but he didn't think of it. Over time, he began to see his photos popping up all over magazines, the internet and as street art. Then it began appearing on commodities (clothes, books, etc.). Now, it's being used as a symbol of protest in Iran. The crazy part is that nobody asked his permission.

Fstoppers are responsible for this great video narrative, titled The Stolen Scream, which details Galai's story, and the process of watching himself become an anonymous global icon with no control over how his image is used (in one case, the photo was attributed to someone else entirely). He even mentions that when he tried to register the photo with sites like Getty Images, they told him the image would never sell.

All in all though, it's a great story about the dissemination of digital media over the Internet and the inevitable conflict between those who create it and those who use it"