typos, misprints, translation errors

I’ve been keeping a running contest for the best typos I find during the course of my workday. Contestants have been misspelling of “literacy”, misuse of “Internet penetration”, and “public” without the critical L. Those were all from early drafts of writing I’ve edited. Today’s favorite comes from the Boston Globe, which published an article about dental hygenists lobbying the state legislature. They wrote:

The state’s dental hygienists are advocating for several bills, including a proposal that would expand their representation on the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Density.

Perhaps a freudian slip/nod to George McFly? “you are..my density”

Berkman@10

We’ve been talking about the Internet… past, present, and future challenges, at the Berkman Center’s 10th birthday party, Berkman@10.  It was also announced this morning that we’re finally going to be a university-wide center.  This reflects the already uber-interdisciplinary nature of the work, and will be fun to get to know other part of the university.  Dean Elena Kagan kicked off the day, encouraging the crowd to help her lure Jonathan Zittrain back to Harvard, which led into Jonathan’s always-evocative talk about generativity, information appliances, and a zillion Seinfeld-like anecdotes to illustrate all these concepts.  It’s fun to see so much of this conversation come together, after two years of working on his book and trying to communicate it clearly.

We moved quickly on to talk about the Internet’s impact on democracy and the political process.  This includes everything from access to basic information, and the transformative impact it can have on everyday life, to the slope of the freedom curve and media control and censorship.  The major question I want to see taken up seriously is:

Are we better off? Is the political environment we have because of the Net more or less conducive to strong democracy?

Springtime in the Mountains

Many eastern skiers consider a trip to Tuckerman’s Ravine the only way to close out the ski season. It isn’t until they have taken a few runs on the Left Gully and had a beer in the bowl that they can pack away skis for the summer, and bring out the bikes, kayaks, and other warm weather gear. That’s what brought me there this past weekend — that, and because it’s a good excuse to get out of the city, away from e-mail, and towards some QT with good friends.

But it’s a surprisingly popular destination for a lot more than your average die-hard skier. Hiking up the not-easy 3 mile access trail are people in shorts and sneakers, not a jacket, much less a snowboard or even a sled, in sight. They go up to Hermit Lake, talk to the caretakers, maybe even learn that Edward Tuckerman was a botanist from the 1830’s (as I did). They might go up to the bowl and play on the snow. I heard one mother tell her young child that they would take a nice long break when they got to the snow — where they’d take pictures — before heading down.

What is it about snow in the springtime that draws people so much? Especially to a place like Tuckerman’s, which isn’t the safest or easiest to get to place to spend a day?

Maybe it’s the same thing that drew people there in the 1920’s, when the ravine saw skiers for the first time. An adventure, a vacation, or both.

Then again, maybe it’s that Tuckerman’s in the spring can look about how we all dream winter to be. The snow isn’t where we need to shovel it, it’s in the mountains. The temperature is a comfortable 50 degrees, and the sun is shining bright.  It’s funny that we have to wait until spring to get that kind of winter.