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Here's a fascinating photo essay on "urban renewal" in Boston. It shows "Medieval Boston" (1920s) and the dramatic changes it has suffered in automobile-induced destruction projects since. It's heartbreaking to think what Boston, still one of America's most livable and walkable cities, could have been were it not for the wholesale demolition that allowed us to build things like… the evil, crushing new city hall.

Thanks to Ben for the pointer.

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Dave has an interesting story:

The first clue that something weird was happening at Microsoft around RSS was when Sean Lyndersay picked me up for dinner on the first night of my visit. I asked what part of Microsoft he worked for. He said he was on the RSS Team. I gulped. You mean there's an RSS Team at Microsoft? Yeah there is.

Update: You know what's ridiculous? CNET publishing this story about Dave's scoop. The story is inferior to Dave's post in every way: longer, less informative, uncontextualized, less fun to read, and surrounded by ads. Yet it contains only a tiny excerpt and one nearly-invisible link to Dave's story. Since Dave is the source, why not just link prominently and quote without worthless wholesale paraphrasing?

I know. The answer has something to do with the reporter's training and other cultural experience in a medium that rewards novelty, where scoops and angles made sense.

This sort of writing is not useful anymore. Writers, figure this out.

I'm here at the Berkman Thursday meeting listening to Urs Gasser speak about what he calls "information quality". He started out talking about a few cases where the implicit meaning of quality with respect to information meant accuracy. While this made sense for some fairly straightforward issues (e.g. fake herbal medicines or lies in the news), I found it a pretty simple and obvious definition.

Then he talked about information as being relational between communicating entities. That makes more sense, because different individuals will have different goals for a piece of information. And now he's pulling in transnational legal issues that arise when stuff published on the internet gets delivered in a place that has different libel or hate speech laws.

At this point, the definition of information quality seems so broad that we couldn't possibly conclude anything about it in general. And Urs pauses for questions; I ask this (bluntly). First answer: yes, there are many aspects. Second answer: there are some internet-specific issues in information quality, like Wikipedia edit wars (I don't quite believe this). Thirdly, these issues are not just theoretical but also relevant in practice.

I am still not convinced, but I am listening.

Urs thinks there are three approaches worth considering:

1. Laissez-faire. We don't want to even think about internet info quality regulation; no one has the power to regulate quality. The problem with this argument, in my opinion, is that information quality is fundamentally dependent on social exchanges and there is a power balance in those which will always serve to regulate it in the context of that social structure. Good and bad fight it out over time and the good lives (J.S. Mill).
   I asked about why this is even possible. Mal asks a similar question: info quality is transactional, so just producing more information without adding more informed transactions implies a vacuous definition of information. As if you want produce information by adding speakers. Bah.
2. Information order model. An authority, like China but also possible a democratic society, making choices about information quality regulation. Also consider the BBC and internet forums with a moderator.
3. A decentralized model. Starts with the assumption "information quality is imporant" but admits it's hard to define and there are fundamental reasons we cannot produce a valuable shared normative definition of information quality.

Now we go off on a tangent and talk about markets for a while. Google seems like a sort of information market in the sense that it values each website. There are different approaches (reputation systems, etc.) and they have different advantages and disadvantages. I think this is what Urs' paper is about, so I'm hoping that means this will get more specific.

I want to ask: what problems are you trying to solve?

I don't really think there is such a thing as information quality. There are such things as trust, lies, information availability, listening, speaking, publishing, believing, regulation, communication, relationships, and censorship. But is there some meaningful common ground?

On blogs, Urs notes, that we don't have laws to establish social contracts for information-related transactions. Some bloggers explicitly state poilicies. On top of this, I think that all bloggers take part in implicit social contracts, unwritten assumptions that underlie communities and cultures and help people communicate.

Urs has to leave… which I think is kinda lame, but quite forgivable. I'm still not sure he's talked about anything specific enough to be meaningful.

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I'm not a big fan of Chrysler's recent bling-ified production designs. But the Chrysler Firepower show car is just gorgeous. Check out that interior! This car has style far beyond the ugly agglomerations of doodads one expects from Detroit.

The choir I'm in, New Century Voices,
has a concert coming up this Sunday 6/19. It's at the Swedenborg Chapel
in Cambridge, MA. Swedenborg Chapel is located at the corner of Quincy
and Kirkland streets near Harvard Square. The suggested donation is $10.

New
Century Voices is dedicated to performing new works by local composers.
The performance will include the premier of Michael Veloso's "All
Natural Male Enhancement," a piece written on texts from e-mail Spam.
Other local composers represented will include Elizabeth Knight, who is
a student at Longy, Krishan Oberoi from Rhode Island and Jeremy
Jennings. We also include works of some better known composers, Randall
Thompson, Edward Elgar and Paul Hindemith; the "Six Chansons," on texts
by Rainer Maria Rilke.

If you like choral music, there is
definitely something here you'll like; if not, there are a few things
you'll at least laugh at. I hope to see many of you there.

A
reception will follow the concert. All proceeds go to the Swedenborg
Chapel. (The Swedenborg Chapel is the stone church on the corner of
Quincy and Kirkland streets, across the road from Memorial Hall and
Sanders Theatre.)

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David has a long, thoughtful post on the pathology of this region:

After a decade of living here, I see the reactionary narrow-mindedness that lies under New England's progressive face. This region still votes Democratic and champions liberal causes, certainly. But the landscape, so seeded with history and the evidence of past successes, breeds a poisonous conservatism that never looks beyond its own feet, and never thinks past yesterday.

This is a deep and scary observation. It puts Boston somewhere on the scale between Silicon Valley (where a “conservative” might wish it was 1999) and Paris (where someone is always frowning at you for violating some ancient rule of etiquette). I find it personally threatening because a conservative, hidebound environment is the worst place to write software; it's important to leverage the malleability of program code to try out new ideas and back out of the stupid ones. On the other hand, maybe the growing generation of hackers will carry an attraction to change into the halls of power.

This is all very interesting because it combines questions of industry development and city (vs. suburb) growth with broad cultural analysis. One of America's pivotal characteristics—a lack of history—is self-effacing, and as this plays out, the implications will touch just about everyone.

Ice cream in the Boston area, ordered roughly by quality.

Toscanini's: some of the most delicious ice cream available anywhere, period. This is serious, classy ice cream—well, as serious and classy as it gets. Their Belgian Chocolate is undeniably sumptuous, even for a chocolate non-addict like me. Other wonderful flavors include the buttery Cake Batter, a respectable interpretation of Indian Kulfi, and my personal favorite, Ginger Snap Molasses. Stores in hip city locations such as Harvard Sq and Central Sq.

Bedford Farms: what Tosci's is to hipster city ice cream, Bedford Farms is to candylike country goodness. My experience here is less comprehensive, but their White River Junction was so delicious that I rank it very highly. Sadly, their cookie dough was unremarkable except for its low dough nugget density, but I did sample their PB&J which was both authentic in flavor and delicious. Very generous portions, comparatively cheap; two stores (too far away!) in Bedford and Concord.

Herrell's: the ice cream of my youth, if by youth you mean the summers I spent at Williams College trying to convince my officemates to hold a "meeting" at Herrell's vendor Lickety Split on Spring St. Luckily, several Herrell's stores grace other parts of Massachusetts, including a convenient location in Harvard Square. Their flavors are generally excellent, and their peanut butter and, dear lord, Malted Vanilla is not to be missed.

Steve's Famous Ice Cream: legend has it that Steve Herrell founded this ice cream chain, had a quibble with his co-founders, and sold it to go off to found Herrell's (see history). The only Steve's location I know is downtown at Faneuil Hall. They sport the best waffle cones I've found locally; incredibly tall and with a softer texture than most. The ice cream is on par with Herrel's and perfect on a hot day in the city. Or a day when it barely gets to room temperature indoors. Whatever.

Brigham's: although their world headquarters and two retail stores are in Arlington, five minutes from my house, I'm ashamed to say I've never been to a Brigham's store. But I have sampled their flavors from the grocer's freezer with delight. Their Big Dig ice cream—vanilla with caramel, brownie chunks, and chocolate chunks, is one of the best things in Stop-n-Shop and goes wonderfully with almost any hot baked thing. They have a real, and utterly delicious Strawberry, and their Peppermint is also one of the finest examples of that flavor I've ever sampled.

Cabot's: this diner in Newton is the Boston area's best place to go for a greasy dinner and a sundae. Decor out of the 60s, and it's real: that place has been around a long time. Their sundaes come in two sizes, which should really be called "for two" and "y'all ain't ever gonna finish this." Surprisingly, you will eat a burger, fries, and a whole sundae at Cabot's, and come back for more after you spend several hundred years digesting. (I'm not sure whether Cabot's makes their ice cream, or if they order it from somewhere, but they definitely assemble a mean sundae.)

Lizzy's: this shop in Waltham gets pretty crowded at night, and with good reason. I've only been once, but it will definitely be on the plan for my next Waltham restaurant excursion.

J.P. Licks: I want to love this local chain of four stores, but when I go it's mostly for proximity rather than taste. JP has remarkable ability to recreate a flavor in ice cream form—the first time I went, I couldn't resist trying the Cucumber—but the results are uninspiring. You can get a tasty ice cream here, but there are usually only a couple of flavors I like on the menu. Locations in at least Arlington, Davis Sq, Newton Centre, and JP (Jamaica Plain).

Cold Stone Creamery: this national chain wants to be the Starbucks of ice cream. They have wide waffle cones that are more like bowls, and offer smoosh-in services so you can create your own flavor. Which you'll really want to do, because the ice cream base flavors are simply not that good. But if you've gotta have gummi bears and peanuts in white chocolate ice cream, try it. There's a store in the Fenway area near the AMC movie theatre.

Ben & Jerry's: outlandishly overrated. This is one step from the sort of ice cream you'd get out of a screw-drive vending machines in a polyethylene bag. Too much sugar, horrid texture, careless smooshing-in of whatever sounds good without sufficient attention to comprehensive flavor, and astroturfed grass-roots appeal when you're really buying from Unilever. Edible, but pretty much the best way to overpay for ice cream whether you get it from your grocer or one of their stores.

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I am urged to try Christina's, Emack and Bolio, and probably several others in many lists. Sadly, I missed the Scooper Bowl downtown because it closes at 6 on workdays. Next year I'll schedule a vacation day.

Tonight the Berkman Blog Group is going on a field trip. We'll visit Boston's Institute for Contemporary Arts, and each blog about their exhibit Getting Emotional. The exhibit is about works that depict emotion.

Take a look at the ICA's page on the exhibit. Take a look right now, then come back and read the rest.

The two photographs on the ICA's page were extremely jarring for me. The photo on the left, of a woman on hands and knees apparently screaming, was very moving for me. Maybe my avoidance of television is re-sensitizing me. But that's not all.

The photo on the right, of a basketball player either cheering or freaking out, isn't on its own as moving as the screaming woman. It does strike a chord, though.

Alarmingly, what's really freaky is the emotional dissonance evoked by the presentation of these two pictures together. Part of that is their appearance on my tiny little screen, catching me unaware because I was expecting, like, jumbles of paint representing "confusion", not actual photos of real live people actually freaking out.

The effect of this was so strong that I couldn't look at that page. I switched away from it very quickly. And I had the oddest feeling, not sadness or fear or pride in connection with the individual photographs, but a mental (not emotional; my mind hurt!) pain at the simultaneous evocation of such dischordant emotions. I think it actually gave me a bit of a headache, and I am prone neither to strong emotional reactions to pictures nor to headaches.

I wonder whether I will experience the same pain at the exhibit tonight. I am worried about that. But also intrigued.

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Should have been an alternate title for this New York Times article. Not to imply that I don't think the valley's cool.

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Here's a wonderfully insightful article, explaining that positive and negative affect condition the mind to approach challenges in different ways. Consequently, pretty things can be more usable.