In it, Hyde traces the history of the idea of copyright from the Reformation to the founding of the United States of America. Not surprisingly, the essay is an exhilarating read. As he is unpicking the ideas that inform the Copyright Clause of the U.S. Constitution, he makes a distinction between commercial republicanism and civic republicanism:

We have at least two republican traditions in this country, the civic and the commercial. The commercial comes later in our history and is the one most of us are familiar with. It values above all on the private individual seeking his own self-interest. Commercial republicanism assumes that property exists to benefit its owners and that owners gain virtue or respect in one another’s eyes by increasing the market value of the goods that they command. The government in such a republic leaves each citizen alone to follow his or her own subjective sense of the good life. Liberty is negative liberty, a lack of all coercion. Where questions of social well being or the common good arise, government is given little role in answering them, the assumption being that if answers are to be had at all they will arise automatically if paradoxically from the summed activity of private actors seeking private ends.

All of these things–self-interest, property, virtue, liberty, the public good–are situated differently in civic republicanism. Here autonomous individuals and private property are also valued, but property is assumed to exist in order to free the individual for public service. Liberty in this instance is positive liberty, citizenship being directed toward acknowledged public ends, above all toward creating and maintaining the many things that must be in place before there can be true self-governance (a diverse free press, for example, literacy, situations for public deliberation, and so forth). Social well being in this view cannot arise simply by aggregating individual choices; private interest and public good are too often at odds. Citizens acquire virtue in the civic republic, therefore, not by productivity but by willingly allowing self-interest to bow to the public good. Civic virtue is not something anyone is born with; it is acquired through civic action.

I’ve often been accused (especially back the States) of being a socialist. I’ve known for quite some time that I’m not actually a socialist: I lack the requisite faith in a central government to right all wrongs. Nevertheless, I’ve struggled to find a term that actually describes the way I believe a society should work. Namely that the benefits conferred on us by the society we live in should be returned in some way. Hyde’s definition of “civic republicanism” comes closer than anything I’ve seen. More research is required, but I may well start describing myself as a “civic republican” (note the lowercase “r”).

I encourage you to read the entire essay. I promise you won’t regret it. Hyde is an extraordinary writer.

Full Disclosure: I’m biased, since I’m already a huge fan of Lewis Hyde’s work. Last year, I finally read Trickster Makes This World. I was thouroughly impressed. The book was exquisite, eminently quotable, thoroughly researched and exceedingly well argued. I’ll just repeat here what I said in my review of the book: “This is about as perfect as a non-fiction book gets for me.” In other words, when I grow up and become a writer, I want to be Lewis Hyde.

For the past several years, Rachel Sussman has been traveling the world taking photographs of organisms that are 2,000 years or older. Her photographs are superb, but I highly recommending visiting her blog where she has been chronicling her journeys around the globe and the extraordinary organisms she’s met along the way. If you’re impatient, you can get a quick overview of where she’s been and what she’s seen on this Google map.

I’m still exploring her blog, but my favorite so far is the underground forest. These plants are fascinating in and of themselves, but I love Rachel’s story of how she learned of the plants while seeking out baobabs.

christine and i awoke early the next morning back in jo’burg, just in time to bid goodbye to diana and leave again. first stop: the pretoria botanical garden, where i had arranged to meet with dr. braam van wyk, a biologist there. i had first contacted braam to get information on the baobabs, and it turned out that he was wealth of information on other oldest living things as well, especially something referred to as underground forests, which are clonal colonies of pyrogenic geoxylic suffrutices. think of them as whole trees that have retreated underground, where only the very tips of the crowns make an appearance above ground. the underground forests could be hundreds of thousands of years old, as like other clones they could in theory be immortal. these have the additional advantage of not having had to survive through an ice age. i photographed what i could see at the botanical garden (which to, quote braam, is an ugly botanical garden.) more about these fascinating plants later.

I’m also quite fond of the Fortingall Yew, the oldest known tree in Europe. I’d love to go see the Fortingall Yew. Maybe I can work it in when I finally take that whisky tour of Scotland.

He contends that the Web has actually increased our attention spans, because it allows us to follow our passions (in the same sense that you follow someone on Twitter):

Our focus on cultural bits doesn’t mean we are neglecting the larger picture. Rather, those bits are building-blocks for seeing and understanding larger trends and narratives. The typical Web user doesn’t visit a gardening blog one day and a Manolo Blahnik shoes blog the next day, and never return to either. Most activity online, or at least the kind that persists, involves continuing investments in particular long-running narratives—about gardening, art, shoes, or whatever else engages us. There’s an alluring suspense to it. What’s next? That is why the Internet captures so much of our attention.

Indeed, far from shortening our attention spans, the Web lengthens them by allowing us to follow the same story over many years’ time. If I want to know what’s new with the NBA free-agent market, the debate surrounding global warming, or the publication plans of Thomas Pynchon, Google quickly gets me to the most current information. Formerly I needed personal contacts—people who were directly involved in the action—to follow a story for years, but now I can do it quite easily.

The link took her to a site that looked like Twitter and asked for her Twitter password:

If you receive a similar DM, do not click the link or enter your password.

If you have entered your password, you should change your Twitter password now.

Other people seem to be having the same problem. There also appears to be variant: hah, I think I seen u on here.

The site appears to be down now, so hopefully this scam has reached its end.

Update: The scam site is back up now. I took the opportunity to add a screen shot in the hopes that it makes it more easily identifiable, as it’s a slightly different look and feel from the current Twitter design

I’ve been toying with the idea of running most of my microblogging through a StatusNet (formerly laconi.ca) installation, so I thought I’d see if Tweetie 2 worked with my test installation of StatusNet. It turns out, it doesn’t work. Replies, messages, and search all work. Timeline, however, doesn’t work, and returns a “Not found” error.

After some poking around, I finally figured out what the problem is. Tweetie 2 uses the new statuses/home_timeline Twitter API call. The current release of StatusNet (0.8.1) doesn’t support statuses/home_timeline.

It looks this API call will appear in the next release, as there is a commit to the StatusNet git repository that adds support for it.

At the moment, you have three choices. You can run the development version of StatusNet, you can wait for the next version of StatusNet to be released or you can apply the changes in the commit to version 0.8.1.

I went for the latter option, and can confirm that StatusNet works with Tweetie 2 if you apply the changes. You can download my tweaked files, if you don’t want to apply them yourself. (Note that these files come with no guarantee, and I take no responsibility for any issues that you might have with them.)

Also note that Tweetie 2 has username collision issues, so you can’t currently use more than one account that has the same username.

I thought I’d give it a go, and it appears to be working rather well. Here’s how to do it:

When adding a new account, click on the gear icon just to the right and under the Password field.

This will take you to the Advanced Settings screen, where you should enter the following details:

• API Root https://identi.ca/api
• Search API http://identi.ca/api

Then simply return to the Add Account screen and add your identi.ca Username and Password.

Most features appear to be working, although I haven’t tested this thoroughly. If you try it, let me know how it goes.

Update: Unfortunately, it seems that setting up identi.ca with the same username as a twitter account on Tweetie 2 somehow overrides the settings of the twitter account. Both my identi.ca and twitter usernames are “otrops” but they use different passwords. Now when I try to refresh my twitter stream I’m greeted with an “Unauthorized. Coul…” error message. I’m assuming this wouldn’t happen if the either the usernames were different or if the passwords were the same (not that I’d endorse using the same password). I’ve added this to the atebits Get Satisfaction identi.ca thread. Apparently I’m not the only one who has this problem.

Update 2: Atebits has replied on both Get Satisfaction and on twitter. The twitter / identi.ca username collision is a known issue and is being worked on.

Earlier this year, a few people decided to do something about this and created ErnestMarples.com, which provides a postcode API to not-for-profit websites such as PlanningAlerts.com, Jobcentre Pro Plus and The Straight Choice.

Last week, Royal Mail issued a cease and desist letter to ErnestMarples.com, effectively shutting down not only ErnestMarples.com, but all of the sites that depend on their API.

This has been covered elsewhere by the Open Rights Group, Tom Watson, The Guardian Free Our Data blog and Boing Boing. Since they’ve already done a stellar job of discussing the issues surrounding this story, I’ll keep the rest of this short:

This whole thing makes no sense to me. The postcode database was created with public money, yet Royal Mail demands exorbitant license fees for the use (or perceived use) of postcode data from sites that are providing a free public service.

If you’re as baffled by this as I am, I encourage you to sign the petition, which asks the Prime Minister “to Encourage the Royal Mail to offer a free postcode database to non-profit and community websites.”

Update: You can also vote for a free postcode database on the OSPI site.

(Thanks to Joe Lanman, who pointed me in the direction of a recent thread on the MySociety mailing list and got me thinking about this issue.)

Apostrophes suggesting possession or association are not to be used within the body of a proper geographic name (Henrys Fork: not Henry’s Fork). The word or words that form a geographic name change their connotative function and together become a single denotative unit. They change from words having specific dictionary meaning to fixed labels used to refer to geographic entities. The need to imply possession or association no longer exists. Thus, we write ” Jamestown” instead of ” James’ town” or even “Richardsons Creek” instead of ” Richard’s son’s creek.” The whole name can be made possessive or associative with an apostrophe at the end as in ” Rogers Point’s rocky shore.” Apostrophes may be used within the body of a geographic name to denote a missing letter ( Lake O’ the Woods) or when they normally exist in a surname used as part of a geographic name (O’Malley Hollow).

And it’s not just the United States. In Guidelines for the Consistent Use of Place Names (PDF), Australia also abolishes apostrophes, though for very different reasons:

In all cases of place names containing an element that has historically been written with a final – ’s or -s’, the apostrophe is to be deleted, e.g. Howes Valley, Rushcutters Bay, Ladys Pass. This is to facilitate the consistent matching and retrieval of placenames in database systems such as those used by the emergency services.

And here in the UK, the city of Birmingham recently abolished the use of the possessive apostrophe on road signs, much to the dismay of apostrophe protectors and militant grammarians.

The opponents of the apostrophe — of which there are more than I ever imagined — seem to be equally militant. In fact, they go so far as to demand that we kill the apostrophe. It’s been suggested that killing off the apostrophe is the only possible cure for the greengrocers’ apostrophe.

This is nothing new. George Bernard Shaw railed against apostrophes:

I have written aint, dont, havent, shant, shouldnt, and wont for twenty years with perfect impunity, using the apostrophe only when its omission would suggest another word: for example hell for he’ll. There is not the faintest reason for persisting in the ugly and silly trick of papering pages with these uncouth bacilli.

I do love George Bernard Shaw — even more so when he’s ranting — but I’m not entirely convinced. I’m decidedly not a militant grammarian, but I don’t think English would look like English without the apostrophe. Maybe I’m just old school.

The apostrophe can be confusing. Until the apostrophe is killed off by the haters, the Plain English Campaign has a helpful guide (PDF). Alternatively, you could just follow William Safire’s sage advice:

Reserve the apostrophe for it’s proper use and omit it when its not needed.

Update: In the interests of presenting both sides of the arguement, I felt obliged to mention The Apostrophe Protection Society. I hasten to point out that I in no way endorse the web design or indeed the HTML of their website.

Update 2: Michael Quinion has written an excellent essay on the possessive apostrophe, which is where I discovered Australia’s Guidelines for the Consistent Use of Place Names (PDF).

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

Last night, I read this in 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School:

Design a flight of stairs for the day a nervous bride descends them. Shape a window to frame a view of a specific tree on a perfect day in autumn. Make a balcony for the worst dictator in the world to dress down his subjects. Create a seating area for a group of surly teenagers to complain about their parents and teachers.

Designing in idea-specific ways will not limit the ways in which people use and understand your buildings; it will give them license to bring their own interpretations and idiosyncrasies to them.

Design for just one person: it sounds easy, but it rarely happens.

Paradoxically, our abundance of documents means we set little store on preserving any one item. And regardless, our long-term track record for preservation is laughable. Few works were better known in ancient times than the plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus, yet barely any exist now. Even Plato barely survived history’s guillotine—throughout medieval times, Plato was unknown in the West, living on only in Muslim countries and in footnotes to other Greek authors. Had the Muslims been worse stewards, or been conquered by marauding Christians who needed kindling or toilet paper, Socrates would have died in vain.

I recommend you go read the rest of the article now.