Juliette and I would like to introduce you to our new baby boy!

Kepler Cezzar Zilar

Born on July 23, 2009 at 6:32am in New York City.

He weighed 5lbs 7oz, is 18in long and is healthy from top to bottom. The nurses have been calling him the little astro-nut.

You cen see more posts, pictures and video of Kepler and our new family on our Futuretree blog. Or you can see the full gamut of Kepler photos and videos on Flickr.

He says,

“To digitize collections and sell the product in ways that fail to guarantee wide access would be to repeat the mistake that was made when publishers exploited the market for scholarly journals, but on a much greater scale, for it would turn the Internet into an instrument for privatizing knowledge that belongs in the public sphere.”

“Yes, we must digitize. But more important, we must democratize. We must open access to our cultural heritage. How? By rewriting the rules of the game, by subordinating private interests to the public good, and by taking inspiration from the early republic in order to create a Digital Republic of Learning.”

Umair Haque begins to define the interaction rules that are starting to define the 21st Century.

(via swissmiss)

If Twitter is like being blind in a candy store, these tools let you know which candy to try.

One year ago today on Valentine’s Day I proposed to my wife, Juliette, through a crossword puzzle in her copy of The New York Times. Jim Horne, the writer behind WordPlay, the New York Times Crossword Blog was kind enough to publish our story. Read more…

There’s an old joke, so old that I don’t even know for certain where it originated, that’s often used to explain why big corporations do things the way they do. It involves some monkeys, a cage, a banana and a fire hose.

You have to read the whole first part of the post. It applies to everyone. The rest talks about the release of Python 3.0 – and I have to say, I have never been inclined to learn Python, or really even look into it until now – until someone has taken the care to present it in a smart way. Even if I never do anything with Python, I am now more inclined to think of it in favorable terms.

Also, the post generally highlights the work of competent people, and the world needs more of those. Great Work!

We all appreciate a good hoax from time to times, but being duped by someone with an agenda solely for the good of a brand, not only sets up a betrayal of trust, but adds very little depth to the brand itself.

“One thing pretending to be another is always a betrayal of trust. If these brands really want to engage communities online, they’re going to have to learn how to stop lying to us and start interacting honestly with us.” – (Derek Powazek)

There is no doubt that this is exciting and we all want to be in on the experience of figuring out where this came from, but when the joke is over, we are not left with anything meaningful to speak of, and someone put their time into this. It’s flat, depthless, and plain boring. Moving on to something else.

The Drudge Report is exactly the same as it was back in ’96 when I wrote a report in my high-school English class on The Future of News on the World Wide Web. In fact, I do believe the quality of the content was just as pedestrian as it is today – which by the way, the design compliments very well.

“The site feels like a chaotic newsroom with the cutting room floor exposed. I think that’s part of the excitement — and good design.” – (link)

I was asked recently if I could think of a successful blog or site that purely existed on the web, and wasn’t tied to another medium. The first example that came to mind is Drudge.

Thanks to Jason for the well written piece.