Obama Poster Child

18 responses to “Obama Poster Child”

1. 

   curiousbrandt

   Feb 19, 2009 at 5:12 pm

   Rock on!

   —
   Seen on my Flickr home page. (?)

   Reply
2. 

   The Rocketeer

   Feb 19, 2009 at 5:18 pm

   Steve, you have been living a charmed life… always popping up in the news or culture. I’m really glad they chose your photo too! This is awesome!

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3. 

   biotron

   Feb 19, 2009 at 6:49 pm

   i think you should turn "crowdsourcing" into a trademark / restricted social network site and patent the name, or some such *

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4. 

   Doug_Dirac_Delta

   Feb 19, 2009 at 6:54 pm

   very cool

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5. 

   el_oregoño

   Feb 19, 2009 at 7:50 pm

   yeah. trademark that phrase. and sue the AP.

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6. 

   TomiTapio

   Feb 21, 2009 at 12:20 pm

   (gets sidetracked)

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7. 

   jurvetson

   Feb 22, 2009 at 2:38 am

   elove/biotron: ownership should only apply to large numbers.

   Rocketeer: thanks!

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8. 

   !MimosaMicheMichelle!

   Feb 22, 2009 at 6:18 am

   Oh, no. That word will go in the dictionary one day. Just like Beyonce’s bootilicious is now in the dictionary. That is what usually happens if a word is used in the media or a book and becomes quite popular. I will start using that word too. Yes, it is a very nice photo.

   President Obama made a wonderful visit to Ottawa last Thursday and 2000 people waited for him in the cold in front of the Parliament building knowing they would not see him. He was so nice. He asked Prime Minister Harper to go out and wave to the crowd, (very unplanned), and he did it again upon leaving. He also impressed our Prime Minister who said Obama was very likable and natural. The President made an unplanned stop at the market and bought some maple-leaf-shaped cookies for his daughters and a few other things. He wanted to pay with Canadian dollars but was offered the cookies free. People got to shake his hand and have a photograph taken with him. All was spontaneous. Imagine the people who meet him that day. They had no idea that would happen when they got up that morning. This man is charming Canadians. He said he loved Canada and he thanked all the volunteers who came to Washington to help in the campaign.

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9. 

   biotron

   Feb 22, 2009 at 1:50 pm

   i can’t speak for elove, but i was joking (star denotes irony) and suspect he was following me too…

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10. 

    jurvetson

    Feb 22, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    Ah, yes, I presumed you were joking. My reply was too dry it seems. The ownership of ideas is such a strange subject, borrowed from the economies of the past. I heard the large number comment from a Microsoftie; I think it was Charles Simonyi. It also makes me think of Sergey and Larry at TED a few years back showing how compute power has made it plausible to automatically generate all possible haikus. They could copyright the entire landscape of the genre…

    MImosa: He sure knows how to work the crowd. Thanks for the report from up North.

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11. 

    biotron

    Feb 22, 2009 at 5:34 pm

    the lack of usual smiley qualifier threw me for a second, as did Mimosa possibly taking me seriously too. sorry 🙂

    it is indeed a thorny subject and fascinating… at first, i almost deliberately misinterpreted your comment with a mock call for clarification:

    "ownership should only apply to large numbers" –

    … "of" or "by" ? 🙂 – immediately thought of Venter, the race and the numbers involved in the human genome… then immediately reversed the thought to entertaining some pan-galactic IP democracy… then checked the Best Before Date on my Shredded Wheat *

    i guess in some ways it’s all a matter of scale and intent. i can freely understand people wishing to retain some degree of remuneration for their "creative efforts" (for want of a better phrase) but see this becoming increasingly redundant even on a microeconomic scale.

    the fact that traditional forms of labour-intensive skill and craft have partially disappeared from certain forms of conceptual art doesn’t seem to lessen the astronomical prices people are prepared to invest in some works. that is one realm where preserving the ownership of the idea is all-important, and interesting in terms of demonstrating how the appeal and power of a good idea can lead directly to large wads of cash money. i’m sure you know much more in both theory and practice about this than me 🙂

    apart from the ill-gotten gains of any "comprehensive spoilsports" who had the technological capacity to predetermine "artistic" eventualities and would actively sue any "plagiarism", i think in theory the steady dismantling of any notion of inherent, mystically-defined artistic of creative "genius" is not such a terrible thing (with a mild pardon to the Eastern sages of antiquity).

    this is not to say there are not outstanding individuals producing fascinating creative work, but rather that we should be wary of elevating them to some untouchable pedestal given that they are (albeit usefully) articulating combinations of material and form that are purely unmanifest potentialities – as with "all possible haikus".

    grading the fruit of their efforts is such an inexact science but usually a purely democratic process too, even if one that is heavily influenced by megabuck marketing drives, spin and propaganda, reliant upon "comfortable" models of what is "in", "popular", "acceptable" etc…

    i’m always reminded of the classic case involving Mike Batt and the John Cage estate, as well as the Irdial case against Wilco – anyone with time and interest in IP law should read this, straight from the horse’s mouth – very, very interesting, particular the update footnote at the bottom.

    the idea of "visionaries" making educated guesses about the statistical probability of certain patterns or trends becoming reality – as opposed to consulting crystal balls – and thereby "shaping the future" is a different intellectual hot potato altogether 🙂

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12. 

    el_oregoño

    Feb 22, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    yeah. kidding too. peace out

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13. 

    !MimosaMicheMichelle!

    Feb 27, 2009 at 12:13 am

    biotron, I know you were joking but my answer was serious with the intention that it be interpreted whichever way suits Steve. The statement, Beyonce’s bootilicious is now in the dictionary, is actually true. So why not another person’s word. That is how language grows. The possibility is there. Certain conditions must be met though, as I explained.

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14. 

    biotron

    Feb 27, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    thanks mimosa, and yes – of course anyone can in theory create a neologism that becomes popular.

    "whichever way suits Steve" is the contentious point here, because a word will tend to be democratically-shaped by how it passes over into popular use and serves to represent a particular cluster of concepts, however responsible Steve was for the creation and context of this particular one. once it becomes popular, it can be torn free from its semantic moorings over time 🙂

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15. 

    !MimosaMicheMichelle!

    Mar 2, 2009 at 3:27 am

    @ biotron, thanks. It is my answer that Steve can interpret to his own liking, not the meaning or evolution of the word. 😉

    Yeah, “crowdsourcing” !!

    @ Steve, here, your name is mentioned en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing

    But not here
    fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing
    en français.

    so this should be corrected.

    Look at this
    crowdsourcing.typepad.com/

    Reply
16. 

    !MimosaMicheMichelle!

    Mar 6, 2009 at 4:35 am

    So now they are talking on the news about Obama’s rapidly greying hair probably from the stress of the new job.

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17. 

    best account

    Mar 29, 2009 at 1:41 am

    Steve, keep in mind that your picture was not a near pixel for pixel match. Garcia’s picture was per Tineye’s analysis.

    So there is a distinct difference.

    http://www.robertphotoblog.com/2009/obama-hope-photograph/

    Reply
18. 

    biotron

    Apr 7, 2009 at 1:21 pm

    i already miss Propane Dasu *

    Reply