Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Can you say that three times fast?

If so, you’re probably somebody like Richard Doherty, research director of the Envisioneering Group, talking in Adage about MySpace.

Ah, to see ourselves as others see us…

I didn’t know that the Nobel Foundation had posted a bunch of our family photos in Frank’s Nobel biography.

Regular readers of this blog have seen Frank with devil horns, posing with that notorious imp Richard Feynman, but I also really love this angelic photo of him giving a very long-ago talk.

Also, I must confess, the way I looked playing guitar in my early twenties…

What does it sound like?

Listen for yourself as the baby Hippocampus erectus nibbles, tink-clinking like alien faint wind-chimes. Then stick around to play UCSD’s seahorse game…

This moment of zen tranquility comes to you via Marc Abrahams of the Ig Nobels. Did you notice that his blog has a new URL now? Thanks, Marc.

Seth Godin asks:

Is “I accept responsibility” the new “Your call is very important to us”?

It’s a phrase getting lots of play in DC right now, as Dick Cheney and Michael Chertoff theatrically “accept responsibility” for misdeeds that were, in fact, clearly their fault but for which, also clearly, they expect no punishment.

I will point out that Google News Search turns up 240 results for “accepts responsibility”, a very popular moral stance among convicted felons…

Julie and Ted Leung’s laptops were stolen

Sad story, great blogpost. Among minor losses: her blogroll. Leave your URL in the comments if you were on it.

Chris Bliss can juggle and the Beatles can sing…

Ballplay as percussion, the naked passion of geekery, and other stuff you never knew could make “Golden Slumbers” better–thanks to Dervala for the link!

SXSW Interactive just put schedule info online

Shortlist recs: tagging, creating passionate users, more tagging, and bloggers in love!

David Weinberger has a tag line for Boston…

“And what did you get on your SAT’s?”

And that’s the conservative Manchester (NH) Union Leader. Here’s John DiStaso , two days ago, with a story that no other paper is following up:

Are Republican donors still paying big time for the legal defense of convicted 2002 phone-jamming conspirator James Tobin?

The Republican National Committee’s latest financial report shows a disbursement of $1,771,360.21 on Dec. 15 to the Washington law firm of Williams and Connolly LLP, which has defended Tobin since he was indicted in December 2004.

The RNC last August acknowledged doling out $722,000 for Tobin’s defense in 2004 and early 2005.

Yesterday, RNC spokesman Aaron McLear wouldn’t say what the latest disbursement to the firm was for.

If it was for Tobin, well — ka-ching. That’s a total of $2.5 million.

That ka-ching comes to you–not from Betsy Devine, a tax-and-spend liberal from way back–but from a very conservative NH newspaper, the only one trying to cover this cover-up…. Republicans too are unhappy with their national party’s slither down into corruption. Shame on the national press for letting this slide.

Cory Doctorow, looking noir and full of energy in London, waiting to speak at Suw Charman’s February 7 Open Rights Group (ORG) meeting. The corporate push to get “digital rights management” built into future hardware has moved to Europe. IMO, they’d be better off targeting the largescale commercial pirates in other ways! Punishing teens who make mashups to show their friends is a fruitless, mean-spirited use of their shareholders’ dollars, pounds, and Euros.

My favorite Cory-isms on DRM:

• “There’s nobody out there who wants his next TV to be able to do fewer things than the one he has now.”
• “In the US, we killed the Broadcast Flag by convincing politicians it would be unpopular to start breaking people’s televisions.”
• “It’s a bad idea to build your business model on the idea that you can make bits of information hard to copy.”

In addition to Suw and Cory, I met or re-met there…

• Simon Willison (yes, that Simon Willison)
• Natalie Downe (my turn to buy the drinks, next time we meet)
• Ben Metcalfe (thanks for the tube ticket, Ben!)
• Kevin Anderson
• Tom Morris
• Tom Steinberg
• James Cox (Imajes)
• Glyn Wintle
• Michael Holloway

I did not, however, meet “Mike Arrington”, whose name got on the wikilist even though Mr. TechCrunch was in Arizona at Demo…

A good time was had by all–if in London, make your way to the next one!