Who is Nick?

Asking all my life.

Author: Nick Kempinski

  • How can we “trust” News again?

    Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

    Recently, The Knight Foundation has jumped on board the “fake news” bandwagon to assemble a commission1 to look at the challenges faced with the News today2. They are putting up a whopping $2.5 million. Combine that with other initiatives and you’re looking at roughly $4.5 million3.

    How ’bout – if I come up with a solution, I get the money?

    Here’s my 4 part plan ( 3, with part 2 as an I & II ):

    Protect the word “News”

    There’s loads of words and symbols in organizations and companies that have meaning.

    • Corporation, Inc., LLC.
    • Trademarks ™, Registered Trademarks ®, Copyright ©, Prescriptions ℞

    You can’t willy-nilly throw them around. If you do, there could be consequences.

    “News” should be recognized as one of them.

    Legislate protections of the word. Create symbology.

    I am not a news organization. I am a blogger and pretty much anything I write about here is personal and editorial [enf_note]In public, and still subject to laws, at least in Canada[/efn_note]. I don’t pretend to be News

    Calling yourself “news” should have meaning.

    Stop the Greed Part I: No public trading

    I believe that publicly traded companies kill specific industries. The striving for a +% at any costs kills long term vision and makes companies do pretty dumb things.

    i.e. Last year company A did $2 Billion, but because of trading, it’s only if they make $2.1 Billion that they are a success. if they make $1.9 Billion, then they fail, and people start selling and loosing fail. When really, they made $1.9 Billion!!!

    Media Companies, and more specifically News organizations can’t be subject to any of that.

    Stop the Greed Part II: No buy or sell

    This blog uses Ghost, and over and above the platform and software they’ve built – the organization is non-profit, open and transparent. Additionally one of the interesting legalese they’ve embedded is that it cannot be bought or sold.

    That doesn’t mean people don’t get paid well. That doesn’t mean it can’t grow to be a massive organization.

    It just means Ghost will remain Ghost. If it fails, and I’m hopeful it won’t, if a new organization takes the mantel, it still won’t be Ghost.

    Perhaps clauses like these, similar to various corporate clauses, is what would define these new News organizations.

    A Journalistic Bar

    Lawyers have a very interesting structure, I think could be looked at.

    The first hurtle is to be called to the bar. Here in Canada you get called up once you pass law school. In the States, there’s more nuance, but ultimately pass the Bar exam, and join the bar association, your in. You could skip to the end without school, but good luck.

    After that there are several incentives to keep you going. Money through ownership and billable hours. Status through high profile cases. Satisfaction saving people ( on either side ). Career growth by becoming a judge and moving up the circuits. There are several more, but the diversity of motivation is my point.

    • Post graduate education
    • Certified Peer Group
    • Diverse Motivation

    Combine ’em all

    If you were to combine all of these you would have a structure to nurture, grow, educate and incentivise journalists to stay true to their ethics and convictions. And sure, just like lawyers there are some who may stray a tad from the ethical line – there is still a watchdog “bar” making sure they don’t step out too far.

    Then after indoctrinated into the Journalistic scribe, you end up in a system that helps you nurture the future without the compromise or desire to sway the ethics or push/tow the line you other media properties are, so that hopefully you could sell and make the big bucks.

    Dear Knight Foundation:
    Please make the cheque out to Nicholas Kempinski

    This post was originally published on one of my old blogs. I backdated this to the original publish date.

    Footnotes

    1. Knight Foundation Announces Major Trust, Media and Democracy Initiative to Build a Stronger Future for Jounalism
    2. Pew Research: 2. Trust and accuracy 
    3. With $4.5 million, Knight is launching a new commission — and funding more new projects — to address declining public trust in media

  • Connecting continents

    Photo by Marjan Blan | @marjanblan on Unsplash

    There’s something humbling that as we advance in technology, we still need big fat cables under the ocean.

    Recently, Facebook & Microsoft dropped their’s, though it won’t be running till early 2018

    Last year, Google & NEC turned on theirs.

    Gatekeepers to the pipeline

    If you don’t like Google, Facebook & Microsoft and still need to get your digital signal hard-lined to Europe, fear not – I was amazed at the size of the List of international submarine communications cables

    Is hardware making a comeback

    With physical devices like honking cables under the ocean; balloons and drones connecting wifi hubs; Alexa, google home, apple home; anything Elon Musk does – are we getting back to the hardware1?

    This post was originally published on one of my old blogs. I backdated this to the original publish date.

    Footnotes

    1. With the increase in orality, is there an increase in physicality?

  • Going Ghost Again

    Ethernick.com is now running off
    linode.

    Thought it was a good time to expand and play. Not many hosts are offering something
    relatively cheap to run node. I’ve been antsy to see how Ghost is doing
    in a real world context.

    As of now, my previous medium hosted publication,
    The aether, has been moved onto ghost.

  • Will my invention change the way we poop?

    Will my invention change the way we poop?

    And other important questions that aren’t being asked.

    Photo by Julien Maculan on Unsplash

    There is no question the iPhone changed every owner’s washroom regiment. We don’t need that pile of readers digests anymore.

    But did anyone see that happening?

    Probably not, no one can see it all. But did anyone think about the interaction like that?

    As the Internet of Things (IoT) advances and we put the internet in things like blinds and make new crazy things that never existed before, who is stopping to ask, or to teach to ask, what are the ecological ramifications?

    I’m sure they are asking what are some of the ramifications, after all every VC pitch needs to know “why” and even the risks. But I’m not 100% sure we’re looking at the whole picture of risks.

    Typer in Spelling Bee
    • Spelling Bee contestants are typing as the spell. Their brains are being hardwired to know the alphebet in 2 dimensions.
    • Kids are touching every glass like surface wondering why the pictures aren’t moving.
    • We are now talking to our computers like people: “Siri”, “OK Google”, “Hey Alexa”

    What else is being rewired?

    How we interact with our technology shapes us. Sure the technology itself is cool – but I honestly don’t know who’s really thinking about our future generations and how they will be shapped by these things.

    This post was originally published on one of my old blogs. I backdated this to the original publish date.

  • Class through media choices

    What if the future of class is media choices?

    • Those who can put the phone away.
    • Those who choose podcasts over video streams.
    • Those who still read long form articles.
    • Those who produce vs those that consume.

  • Sputnik Moments

    Two things I like about this article.

    One – Sputnik Moments

    In recent months, China has quietly given the United States a series
    of new Sputnik Moments

    Although a tad fear mongering, still very very cool phrase

    Two – Quantum Communications

    China successfully tested the world’s first quantum satellite
    communication – relying on the physics of quantum entanglement to send and
    receive provably secure messages.

    I beg your pardon? What did it just say? Quantum Satellite Communication

  • The value of information is immediacy

    The more we get comfortable in our information age, the more valuable it is for immediacy.

    Tidal uses immediacy with invested artists to get subscribers.

    Record labels leverage it in negotiations with Spotify.

    You want to watch Game of Thrones without spoilers? You’ve got to watch it sooner.
    Maybe you should pay for HBO.

  • Broke my phone, Stupid Rogers

    My iPhone 5C is dead.

    Again

    I thought we had lost it, but a friend saved it. Then in my excitment to tell the story of the saved iPhone,
    I chucked it across the room and now the screen is broken. Dead again

    Rogers now wants to charge me a stupid amount of money for not the newest iPhone 6…. ummmm?? What?

    So until I come up with either some $$ or another plan… it shall remain dead.

    Update: April 17, 2016

    Never go to a “franchise” location!

    Finally went to a real location, and while I didn’t get the latest 7. I got the SE for Free.

    Much better. Plus it fits in my 5C case perfectly

  • Watching Mastodon. Carefully.

    I want to sign up to one of the mastodon instances

    I Just can’t pick right now. It’s like registering for [insert absurd name here]@hotmail.com.
    Or using hotmail or yahoo for an aplication to any tech job. I feel it will be important soon.

    What’s really good is that Mastodon is the layer missing from Twitter. If twitter is the hum
    and churn of a busy street. Mastodon are the shops and cafe’s along the way. Pop in an out of
    mini communities all while being connected.

    I’m surprised more businesses haven’t spun any instances or communities up yet

  • The dark side of McLuhan’s Tribal Man

    The dark side of McLuhan’s Tribal Man

    Does the Global Village have a few dark alleys?

    If you don’t know McLuhan’s theory, here’s my super-duper simplified a-little-too-much version of it:

    Around 1964, McLuhan theorized that as technology advanced it would become a digital central nervous system of information connecting all media like our physical central nervous system connects our senses.

    In this connectivity, mankind will revert back to an oral society, back to a time of Villages — but this time a Global Village. In turn, it would rekindle us back to a tribal-like life.

    Now to break it down:

    Yes, his central nervous system theory was a prediction of the Internet. Usually, the mic drops here, we stop.

    But wait, there’s more.

    His Global Village is happening everywhere. It’s in every craft beer you drink, every food truck you eat at, pop up shop you buy a bar of elderflower artisanal soap from; every digital nomad you meet; every tattoo and piercing; every lumber-sexual you see drinking an Old Fashioned variant with locally source gin or whisky.

    What does an oral society have to do with all of that?

    The underpinning of most of McLuhan’s theories is how we interacted with a medium is far more important than its content. It changes us by interacting with it. The radio dial and transistors; understanding that invisible waves can transmit voices through the air; using the theatre of the mind to pretend that the announcer is talking just to you. All of this is more important than how captivating the content is.

    The medium is the message

    How does media make lumber-sexuals? It’s the consequences of how your brain rewires itself slightly when interacting with a medium.

    The dominant medium of choice can influence how your mind works, in essence, your thoughts.

    Back to the Lumber-sexual thing.

    Orality.

    Yup – there’s that word again

    Story Telling. Oral Traditions. Great grandmothers teaching grandmothers a recipe. Learning a childhood lesson through a bedtime fable. The sound of someone else’s voice as you remember what you’ve learned. It rings with a sense of history.

    McLuhan referred to this oral time and the time of the Tribal Man. And like the term Tribal, a sense of history comes. The exploration of it — asking yourself, when Mom said she was drinking an “Old fashioned” what was that? When Dad was showing me a picture telling me about camping — what was up with the mustache and toque? How would I look with a mustache and toque?

    And the exploration of history deepens:

    • How did my grandfather make moonshine?
    • My grandparents sold their own butter to make ends meet. How can I do that?
    • Every tattoo is a story to tell; a visual history of your life.

    Sure — this isn’t the exact same. Our current Orality is driven more through digital channels, but it’s still word of mouth.

    The craft and artisanal resurgence are nice and all, I’m a huge sucker for that scene, but with the latest wave of Xenophobic-like politics happening in the US & UK, I’ve started wondering, is Orality a part of it?

    What are our darker tendencies when we are Tribal?

    If you’ve traveled as I have, you have walked into a place you shouldn’t have been. All eyes staring up at you wondering who you were, asking themselves “What is this stranger doing in here? Don’t they know better?”

    Now imagine going farther back in time. What happens to that situation in a more primitive world: Slavery. Salem witch hunts. North America’s genocidal colonization. Farther. Holy Wars. Dark Ages. Roman Conquest. Genghis Khan. Vikings. Farther.

    Humanity has a history before the written word of being fiercely loyal and territorial, perhaps to a fault: racism, religious wars, family feuds escalated to extremes causing neighbours to kill. Our history is full of a darker side when anyone mentions “protecting our own.”

    Oh did I bury the lead… McLuhan said so himself …

    McManus: But it seems, Dr. McLuhan, that this tribal world is not friendly.

    McLuhan: Oh no, tribal people, one of their main kinds of sport is butchering each other. It’s a full-time sport in tribal societies.

    McManus: But I had some idea that as we got global and tribal we were going to try to — — 

    McLuhan: The closer you get together, the more you like each other? There’s no evidence of that in any situation that we’ve ever heard of. When people get close together, they get more and more savage, impatient with each together….The global village is a place of very arduous interfaces and very abrasive situations.

    If you can get past that part and watch the rest – I think it will also help with where I’m going. Though – take out the old man complaining about the young wippersnappers.

    Originally posted by me on Medium; then on Substack