After an unsettling outcome in Eldred v. Ashcroft, Lessig is now turning his attention to the problem of corruption — of our political process, of policymakers, of drug salesmen and doctors — and has dedicated the next ten years of his life to this problem. To Lessig, the other problems (like copyright extension in Eldred v. Ashcroft) won’t be addressible until we remove the underlying corruption which plague our lives.

So that’s a bit of background to what I’m about to ask you to do — go now and watch the 1 hr Google video presentation of his latest creation, “The Corruption Lecture”. He claims its in alpha version, as I imagine it will be tweaked and modified extensively as he gets practice giving it again and again — but it deserves a look now, as it is.

Watch “Lessig on Corruption” on Google Video now.

This talk presses a lot of my buttons, both because of how it relates to current politics and issues, but also my own personal philosophy about accountability, social equality, the responsibilities of the individual, etc. I need to find a way to involve myself in the things I care about, lest I stand on the sidelines and go crazy. As Lessig says at the end of his story, fear of failure — even the certainty of it — is no excuse. If not us, then who?

Maybe its just me , but I wouldn’t have picked Conde Nast to acquire Reddit. Looking at their list of brands / magazines, its mostly fashion — GQ, Jane, Glamour, Details — the only thing tech-related I can see is Wired (the magazine) and wired.com (the website). But it could be that they plan on putting Reddit technology to work in other domains besides tech news. Will be interesting to see where this goes.

a note on http://www.jot.com tells users of the deal, and says they can sleep soundly knowing they still have access to all their data.

However, as the details page mentions, no new accounts will be allowed until they integrate with Google’s systems.
JotSpot provides a free personal wiki, which can be used to collaborate privately or publicly. They also have a ‘tiered’ service, where you can buy more space or add users or encryption. I just got an account there a couple weeks ago, so I’m glad I didn’t miss the window.