Brewing = Niang Zao / NNi issues

It was learned by this reporter that 'Niang Zao' is the Romanized equivalent of 'Brewing' in at least one Chinese dialect. The proposed barcamp beer session title is hereby revised to "Bier. Niang Zao. Technology."

Yesterday's post on this blog discussed the idea of a BarCampMilwaukee session connecting three cities with rich histories of brewing beer; Berlin, Qingdao and Milwaukee. Requests have gone out to people connected with Berlin and Qingdao to see if they have an interest in participating in a collaborative session.

Got some good news today with respect to that project. Darrick H has registered to participate in BarCampMilwaukee. He has some ideas on ways to make the participatory nature of barcamp sessions workable via the internet with fairly common technology for participants both in Milwaukee and in remote locations.

Got some bad news today concerning the beer session. National Day, a main Chinese holiday which begins 01 October, may prevent a Qingdao connection to BarCampMilwaukee from happening in 2006. The connection with interested people in Qingdao will be pursued, however. If people in Qingdao who are passsionate about technology hear about the opportunity to BarCampMilwaukee, they may prefer to connect for the session even though it's a national holiday. If the BarCampMilwaukee/Qingdao connection won't work in 2006, perhaps the three-way session for "Bier. Niang Zao. Technology." can be scheduled for a separate time or possibly during a future barcamp.

Even if the three-way beer session is done after BarCampMilwaukee, there will still be at least one collaborative session with remote participants on 30 September or 01 October.

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Below is the initial list of issues for the ** Monday ** 18 September 2006 NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 6:50 pm weekly gathering at Atlanta Bread Company (West) by Fox River Mall, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA. The weekly issues list will be updated in a post in this blog by 3 pm on 18 September.

1. Google and Microsoft vie for Earth domination http://uk.news.yahoo.com/12092006/152/google-microsoft-vie-earth-domination.html An updated Google Earth was released 12 Sep 2006, with a {“timescale slider used to scroll through time”}. Yoda’s real-time SkyNet/Big Brother monitoring may become a reality sooner than expected. Download it and try out the new feature.
2. Google Interesting Items Module: Recommend Searches, Pages & Gadgets http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060911-091407 Even though the new Google tool, Interesting Items For You, was given good reviews, it won’t likely land on this author’s computer for a while. One totally unnecessary thing is more interesting items. That category is already at 412% of capacity.
3. Intuit and Google get together on QuickBooks http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060913-7738.html Smart move by both Google and Intuit to combine the top SMB accounting package with the top search engine and top SMB online ad-placing company. As more people make buying decisions online, this partnership is bound to be good for both sides.
4. Google direct tap into the ‘net http://villagevoice.com/news/0637,gustin,74433,5.html Google’s new NYC HQ sits right over “one of the country's most important…physical connection points of the world's telecommunications networks and the World Wide Web.” Now we know where Neo will jack in! The article mentions Skynet…
5. TOR anonymizing proxy servers seized in Germany on child porn charges http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060911-7709.html The bad news is, German authorities seized some TOR anonymizing proxy servers. The good news is TOR routers appear to be working as promised (keeping searches anonymous); the overall TOR system appears unaffected by the loss of seized servers.
6. "Pirate parties" raid Europe, US http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060911-7710.html The Pirate parties are a good omen. To me it indicates a renewed interest in self-government and an attempt to use the information and communication power of the internet to make improvements on the political scene.
7. Flash RAM replacement promises high speeds http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060911-7711.html PRAM (phase-change RAM) from Samsung is expected to be available in 2008, be “up to” 30 times faster than flash RAM, and last “up to” 10 times longer than flash. Guess that means I’ll soon be throwing out that slow puny 1 GB flash drive I just bought.
8. News on new iPods http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060912-7723.html Lots of specs here on the new iPod lineup. An 8GB nano is available, and you can get Bejeweled & other games at iTMS for $5. Top of line is an 80GB iPod. Disney movie downloads are now available from Apple, and iTV is on its way…Apple vs TiVo?
9. Live.com goes live http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060912-7724.html If you haven’t checked out live.com yet, you should. People have different ways of using the web, so it can be useful to try out different approaches to common tasks, e.g. “Image and Video searches…are more powerful...than their Google counterparts”
10. Chairman resigns, indictments likely in HP board brouhaha http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060912-7727.html For me, the most disturbing thing about this entire article was the second to last line. “Dunn will stay on HP's board after being replaced by HP President and CEO Mark Hurd as Chairman of the Board.”
11. Facebook will be opened to ‘non-students’ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/technology/12online.html Will Facebook cease being as popular amoung college students now that the doors are being thrown wide open? Maybe this is just an opportunity for another college student entrepreneur/geek to build something to take its somewhat exclusive place.
12. Coming Zune http://seattleweekly.com/news/0637/zune.php Microsoft doesn’t seem to be gathering much marketing momentum for Zune. Its main value at this point appears to be as a way to keep Apple innovating on the iPod. The iPod has definite deficiencies; competitors' efforts will make Apple fix those issues.

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