free software Archives - Page 2 of 2

Awesome software to help you think

Mindmaps and mindmapping software are awesome! I rarely like using computers for what I can use paper and pencil, but mindmaps and mindmapping software help organize complex ideas better. They're simple, effective, and, best of all, fun. I can only speak for the software I use, Freemind. Besides basic mindmapping functionality, it has some bells and whistles but I haven't used them yet. It's also free software that runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Before working on a paper or presentation I used to start by 1) collecting and writing a few notes to be sure not to forget, then 2) I'd order them in an outline, and 3) edit. Erasing and reordering was important, so I'd use a blackboard or whiteboard if I could,…

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March 26, 2011

Blog / Freedom

Creating more freedom

The New York Times wrote yesterday about Eben Moglen, whom I wrote about recently. "We have to aim our engineering more directly at politics now," he said. "What has happened in Egypt is enormously inspiring, but the Egyptian state was late to the attempt to control the Net and not ready to be as remorseless as it could have been." ... If revolutions for freedom rest on the shoulders of Facebook, Mr. Moglen said, the revolutionaries will have to count on individuals who have huge stakes in keeping the powerful happy. "It is not hard, when everybody is just in one big database controlled by Mr. Zuckerberg, to decapitate a revolution by sending an order to Mr. Zuckerberg that he cannot afford to refuse," Mr.…

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February 16, 2011

Freedom

Freedom today

The freedom for consenting adults to do what they like is as fundamental a freedom as I can think of and the protecting of it one of my most important interests. About once a week I say something like "I'm a big fan of consenting adults doing what they please." I'm not a fan of people preventing consenting adults from doing what they like or a person involving someone who doesn't consent. I find its purest (or at least most influential and inspiring to me) statement in Henry Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, the re-reading of which on the occasional Martin Luther King's birthday is one of my favorite pastimes, along with the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution. I find centralizing power enables some of the…

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February 6, 2011

Blog / Entrepreneurship / Freedom / Humor

Why I avoid proprietary software

I was helping a colleague install some software on an Apple computer a week or two ago. In the process we had to install a c compiler, which was Free Software. I don't remember the details, but somehow Apple had set it up so he had to register with Apple to install the software. I'm sure there was a way around it, but Apple set it up that way. There's a scene in Silence of the Lambs where Anthony Hopkins is in a jail cell in the middle of a room and hands a file to Jodie Foster after making her reveal secrets about herself. When he hands it to her, he purposefully brushes his finger against hers -- a brilliantly directed small but revealing…

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January 23, 2011

Art / Creativity / Education / My Favorite Posts

New Bryant Park in Motion Videos

First, here is MTA Arts for Transit Page on Bryant Park in Motion (EDIT: Arts for Transit changed the page to one on Union Square in Motion) -- created by me and four students and NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program:Â Molly Schwartz, Igal Nassima, Brett Murphy, and Eyal Ohana. Below is an overview of the piece, starting from Bryant Park at the corner of 42nd and 6th, then entering the station and viewing the piece. By coincidence, a family of five happened by the piece while I was taping. All five, especially the three kids, are fascinated by it, peer in it, and enjoy it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIfi71_ffG0 Below is just the kids and family from the previous video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwg1BhkAFU Below is a common viewing pattern involving an…

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March 10, 2010

Art / Creativity / Education

Public Art

My first big public art piece is up: Bryant Park in Motion, co-created with four students -- Brett Murphy, Igal Nassima, Eyal Ohana, and Molly Schwartz -- at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), supported by MTA Arts for Transit and Submedia. The piece was created at no cost to the MTA. BPIM will be on display March 2010 at the base of the northeast entrance/exit stairs to the 42nd St Bryant Park subway station. The works consist of animations activated by viewers motion past the display, recalling zoetropes, early animation devices, and the MTA's own Masstransiscope. As with Summ Kunce's nearby permanent installation, Under Bryant Park, also commissioned by MTA Arts for Transit, each animation is inspired by a…

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March 2, 2010