Daily Archives: September 15, 2004

Jimmy Carter at Google

Former President Jimmy Carter spoke at Google today. He came to speak about The Carter Center, a non-governmental agency that does amazing work around the world to help the poor and suffering.

He spoke about human rights: the human right to be free, the human right to live in a good environment, the human right to be healthy, the human right to be alleviated from unnecessary suffering, the human right to live in peace. Human rights were the cornerstone of his presidency and he proudly boasted that during his four years, he focused on promoting peace – no guns were fired, no bombs were launched, no missiles were dropped. We saw a film of the great things that the Carter Center has done and he spoke of his work at Habitat for Humanity.

He answered questions from the audience. My favorite was when a Googler asked how he dealt with problematic or hostile governments – he responded with “their governments or ours? … it’s a lot easier to deal with their governments.” ROFL.

(For Joe.) One Googler asked him how to assure a democratic election this year. He spoke of how in Venezuela, they use digital election ballots but everyone got a paper ballot printed out that they then submitted in a paper system. Thus, people were assured that their vote was identical to the digital system and there was a backup to be counted in case of trouble. ::sigh:: It’s going to be an interesting election.

He spoke about how essential understanding other people were and encouraged Googlers to get involved in the poorer regions of their communities, to understand the people that provided services to them.

All and all, it was a bit odd. I got to shake his hand, i got to listen to amazing Democrat rhetoric with well constructed progressive framing. And yet, we all knew that he was there because Google(rs) have just made a lot of money and the Carter Center wants Google(rs) to donate.

Digital Street Game

The baby of Michele Chang and Elizabeth Goodman, formally known as fiasco has finally been fully born. Please welcome Digital Street Game into this world!

Digital Street Game is a hybrid game of misadventure set on the streets of New York. It’s a battle for turf, a contest of wills – in short – an excuse to explore the city.

Players compete for turf by performing and documenting “stunts” on the physical streets of New York in order to claim territory on a virtual map. Stunts are comprised of a random combination of 3 elements: 1) an object commonly found in the city (e.g. bodega) 2) a street game (e.g. stickball) and 3) a wildcard/urban situation (e.g. happy hour). Players interpret these elements as they wish, then stage and photograph their stunt in order to claim a spot on the map. The more stunts players perform the more turf they claim. But of course some players may want to compete for the same territory. In order to hold on to territory, players’ stunts must score high with the rest of the game community.

Don’t Think of an Elephant: Blogging Lakoff’s class

First, Lakoff’s new book Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate–The Essential Guide for Progressives was just released today on Amazon. It’s co-authored with Howard Dean and Don Hazen.

Second, since so many people have been curious about Lakoff’s class, i decided to create a blog that would document the class. I’ve added the class notes that Mary and i have written as well as the additional documents that we’ve read for the class. This should be a great way for folks to follow along in the class, or at least partially.