Speakers in the News »

5/26/06
GINA TRAPANI

The June edition of Wired features the magazine's annual Rave Awards. The best blogger award goes to Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker. Notes the magazine: "Trapani was writing Java for Gawker Media when head honcho Nick Denton tapped her to edit the blog Lifehacker. That proved to be an inspired choice. As a programming geek, Trapani- was accustomed to bringing machinelike efficiency to code, and the 30-year-old has been just as adept at streamlining everyday tasks. Her blog posts – 18 a day, on average – offer advice on how to manage a bursting inbox, improve sleep with special algorithms, and vanquish viruses in both your computer and your nasal passages. Trapani’s mission is to give everyone the tools to optimize daily life." At the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival, she applied her expertise to the "DIY Now More Than Ever" panel.

12:00pm CST | +

5/25/06
MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG

Molly Holzschlag pens an insightful essay on A List Apart about how the ever-increasing adoption of web standards is leading to a truly international web: "So what’s gotten me so excited? Well, there is something really interesting that I didn’t begin to explore until just this year, which is how deeply entrenched in markup, CSS, and even JavaScript the creation of internationalized, localized, and multilingual websites really is. We know that crafting a more accessible website relies on understanding and using web standards including (X)HTML and CSS. It’s interesting to see how the same practices relate directly to the design and development of internationalized sites. While interest in web accessibility has increased over the past several years, another, quieter interest area has been just as important to making sites available to more people. Internationalization is a word most of us have heard, but that few understand. Internationalization, which is often written shorthand as i18n (first letter, 18 letters, last letter), refers to the practice of designing and developing a product, application, or document in a way that makes it easily localized for target audiences that vary in culture, region, or language." Holzschlag led the "WTF: WaSP Task Force Panel -- Getting the Job Done Right" session at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival.

11:17am CST | +

5/24/06
LAWRENCE LESSIG

An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's new documentary about global warming, opens today in New York and Los Angeles. Writing on his blog, Creative Commons co-founder Lawrence Lessig strongly urges all residents of cyberspace to make the time to see the movie: "I will rarely ask favors of those who read here. But this is one. No issue is as important. I doubt you will ever see an argument as compelling. And though this is a beautiful and pasisonate film, it is, in the end, an argument that gets built upon the ethic that guides at least some conversation in places like this — facts, reason and a bit of persuasion. I push for you see this because of the peculiar economics of theaters. Unlike blog posts, that are equally as available always, whether or not this film gets seen is a function of what happens in the next four weeks. If many see it, then many more will have the opportunity. So if there is a time to see it, it is early and often." Lessig spoke about copyright law at the SXSW Interactive Festival in 2002 and 2003.

11:40am CST | +

5/23/06
MATTHEW HAUGHEY

Leave it to Matthew Haughey to create the killer app for the new Mac application called macsaber. After loading the software onto his new laptop, he recorded a hilarious re-enactment of one of the Internet's most infamous mini-celebrities. As Haughey explains, "Over the weekend, a new app called macsaber came out. The moment I realized that geeks everywhere would be swinging their new laptops around, my first thought was how stupid that must look and how that could easily become another Star Wars Kid parody. My new macbook showed up today and I downloaded macsaber. The rest is internet history. I went for accuracy, combing my hair down, putting on tight khakis and a striped tight shirt, and following his first set of movements." The founder of Metafilter, Haughey spoke on the "How to Grow Your Online Community" panel at the 2005 SXSW Interactive Festival.

10:58am CST | +

5/22/06
TONY PIERCE

The first weekend of inter-league baseball play has come and gone -- and who can forget the brawl between Michael Barrett of the Chicago Cubs and AJ Pierzynski of the Chicago White Sox. Everyone's favorite blogger Tony Pierce, sings eloquent praises to Barrett's well-delivered punch in a recent post on his blog: "Its a good thing i dont have a pregnant wife right now because i would name the child michael barrett pierce regardless of what sex the infant ended being. Tonight i will sleep well. I will kiss a teenage girl and she will kiss me back and ask me how my day was and i will tell her the story of michael barrett. Sadly she doesnt understand sports because she's European (she even insists that soccer is a sport) but i will try to explain to her that the white sox are like a younger brother. One who you have to share a house with because of blood and laws and history. But you dont want to share the house with them. You're supposed to love them but you dont. and you never will. And even if they move away you still wont love them. She wont understand this because she knows that i have two younger siblings who I love very much and at that point i will tell her that i have a very dark heart full of contradictions, but one thing is crystal clear -- the White Sox are the enemy. More so than the cardinals or the Yankees or even our current administration who lies and tortures and raises our gas prices. The White Sox are worse." Pierce was involved with two panels at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival: "Better Blogging Brainstorms" and "Blogging While Black Revisited".