Tuesday, February 08, 2005

PacMan Must Die: Cooperative Physical/Virtual Gaming. Students at the Future Applications Lab in Göteborg, Sweden have developed "PacMan Must Die," an innovative video game with a playing field distributed across mobile wi-fi-enabled devices belonging to all the players. The game combines dynamics of play in physical places with the world of video games in a new way. To win, players have to cooperate with one another physically. More [Smart Mobs] 8:22:14 PM    comment []

The God-Awful McDonald's Blog. An object lesson in how not to do a corporate blog: This lame site was created by McDonald's as part of an advertising campaign. It's patronizing, phony and downright counterproductive to the message. PR pro Kevin Dugan tears it apart in a posting, and he's right. Sheesh. [Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.] 8:20:19 PM    comment []

From The Filter (Berkman Center): Blogs in China, Politics in South Korea: Reports on Filtering More news on the great "Firewall of China" emerged this month regarding censorship of blogs. The OpenNet Initiative -- a research partnership of the Citizen Lab, the Berkman Center, and the Advanced Network Research Group -- published a report analyzing patterns of blog-filtering by Chinese blog-providers at the behest of the Chinese government. The report explains that blogs are censored based on keywords, including the names of political leaders, references to Tiananmen Square, and terms related to the Falun Gong movement. While the filtering systems are "relatively coarse," the study documents blocking of entire blog posts and the substitution of banned words with characters like "*." Chinese officials also made another wave of arrests in the state's crackdown on online gambling. ChinaTechNews reports that the three-month campaign has resulted in 58 arrests. OpenNet Initiative Report Gambling Crackdown Also, the OpenNet Initiative has just released a report on South Korea's blocking of North Korea-related sites and the inadvertent blocking of a much larger number of unrelated sites. This collateral blocking, done by ISPs at the government's direction, prevents South Koreans from accessing sites on the same servers as the political sites, but with no pro-North Korea content. The Complete Report (Edited to embed urls.) Other coverage of China and Korea on A blog doesn't need a clever name. 2:35:40 PM    comment []

David Post Predicts Grokster Will Be Overturned (Ernest Miller). Over on the Volokh Conspiracy, Prof. David Post predicts that the Supreme Court will overturn the Grokster decision 7-2, while mostly reaffirming the Sony/Betamax standard (Grokster Loses Appeal! Peer-to-Peer Technology Struck Down!). [Copyfight] 6:27:18 AM    comment []

The Human Rights Case Against Attacking Iran. A foreign military attack on Iran would be an utter disaster for the cause of human rights. By SHIRIN EBADI and HADI GHAEMI. [NYT > Opinion] 6:27:16 AM    comment []

War of words. The U.S. sends mixed signals to Tehran on its suspected nuclear activities as a new IAEA report finds evidence that Iran is secretly maintaining a uranium-enrichment plant. [Salon.com] 6:26:47 AM    comment []

Can USA Today bring down Rafsanjani?. UPDATE: - Shargh newspaper today has published the interview with Rafsanjani on its frontpage (PDF File), titled "I can resolve US-Iran problems," without mentioning the main story. Now it's officialy Rafsanjani's propaganda tool. USA Today has published a very interesting piece about Hashemi Rafsanjani and the possibility of his running again for president. The article looks like good publicity for him at first, but what Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, his son, has said to Barbara Slavin, the report, can shatter all his father's hope for another term, if proved with some evidence. His son, interviewed here last week, says the family is not eager to see Rafsanjani run again because "we have everything" already. But Iran needs him again, Hashemi says. And then this, which is really unusual: Rafsanjani's son says that, if elected, his father will change Iran's constitution to reduce the power of Iran's supreme religious leader and make the position a ceremonial role akin to "the king of England." The latter can easily get him and his father into serious trouble, because he has talked about limiting the power of Khamemeni which is the ultimate taboo in today's Iran. When I linked to this on my Persian blog, I was sure they would easily deny it. But now I wonder if the reporter has a recorded tape from her interview with Mehdi. Because if she has, this single interview could bring down Rafsanjani and ruin all his ambitions for the future election. And that is exactly what Khamenei wants. By the way, is there anyone in the U.S. who still believes Rafsanjani's promises and wants to work with him? I hope you all take a look at his resume, which USA Today has carefully picked: Rafsanjani also has a dark side. He has been linked in the Iranian press to the killings of dissidents during his presidential terms. In 2000, Rafsanjani ran last in parliamentary elections for a seat from Tehran after a journalist, Akbar Ganji, accused him of involvement in the deaths of 80 writers and dissidents. Rafsanjani and his family deny the accusations. But a former intelligence officer who could have testified against him, Saeed Emami, died in prison under suspicious circumstances in 1999. Ganji was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for "spreading propaganda about the Islamic regime." ... Among the victims was an Iranian intellectual, Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani, who died in prison in 1994. [A]n arrest warrant was issued in Germany in 1996 for Rafsanjani's intelligence minister, Ali Fallahian, for organizing the assassination of three Kurdish dissidents in Berlin in 1992. Rafsanjani was also president in 1994, when Iranian agents blew up a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing more than 80 people, and in 1996, when Iranian-backed Saudi Shiite terrorists blew up the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American airmen. Iran's alleged involvement in the Khobar Towers attack is one of many reasons for deep hostility toward Iran among U.S. government officials. [Editor: Myself (English)] 6:26:41 AM    comment []

EFF: Best Practices for Online Service Providers. "Here we offer information for people who run and use OSPs in order to help them make sound, ethical decisions about how to safeguard private data and preserve freedom of expression online." [Hack the Planet] 6:26:19 AM    comment []

Year of the Rooster in Story and Song. Today on Soundcheck, celebrating the Lunar New Year in story and song. We'll speak with two musicians devoted to preserving the traditional music of their native Tibet...and celebrating the New Year in Vietnam. [WNYC New York Public Radio] 6:26:03 AM    comment []

R.I.P., Karl Haas: Music Broadcaster Karl Haas Dies at 91. Karl Haas, who brought classical music to millions of listeners through his syndicated radio program, "Adventures in Good Music," has died. [WNYC New York Public Radio] 6:24:49 AM    comment []

What's really going on in Afghanistan?. It may be somewhat difficult to know at this point. American Journalism Review's Kim Hart reports: [Salon.com] 6:21:18 AM    comment []

When Is a Doctor Too Old? Or Too Young?. All doctors, old and young, have their talents and deficiencies. Does the practice of medicine have a natural life span? By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.. Have Your Very Own Species, for a Price. The Wildlife Conservation Society will be auctioning off the chance to name a new species of monkey. By HENRY FOUNTAIN. [NYT > Science] 6:16:48 AM    comment []

Podcasting De-Mythologized. Lisa Williams has done a smart, 4-minute video explainer about podcasting. Now, if we could only give the genre a more accurate name. It's about sending MP3s to devices of various kinds, not solely the iPod. Watch Williams' piece anyway. [Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.] 6:15:10 AM    comment []

What Websites Do to Turn On Teens. When teenagers surf the web, they often have different goals than adults do. But some interesting features draw them in: big type, lots of pictures and a reasonable dose of respect. By Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News] 6:15:06 AM    comment []

Avoiding the Real Challenge. President Bush's latest deficit-steeped budget, for all its talk of reining in spending, is a monument to misplaced political capital. Mr. President, Let's Share the Wealth. My idea of how to fix Social Security goes by the infelicitous name "asset-based welfare." By DAVID BROOKS. Spearing the Beast. President Bush's plan for our retirement may be social, but it doesn't supply security. By PAUL KRUGMAN. [NYT > Opinion] 6:14:03 AM    comment []

A little bit of history.Lotus Notes. I saw a note a couple weeks ago marking the 15th anniversary of Lotus Notes going on sale. Now for most of you, that mean absolutely nothing. To those of us who were systems integrators back then, it was a big deal. To my company MicroSolutions, it was  HUGE deal. It also marks, what I think was one of the greatest missed opportunities in the history of personal computing. Lotus Notes should have been the front end and backend for the internet.  It should have been the first WebServer. It should have been the first browser. It obviously wasnt. It was the first collaborative computing application that could allow people around the world to share information. Touch informatin  one time, make it available to everyone. Unfortunately, it was priced as if it were a proprietary mainframe application from an era when closed systems were considered a good idea. Prices started at $62,000. Even at that price, it was an amazing application that changed the way my and our customers businesses worked. It made us all dramatically more productive, and accelerated the acceptance of multimedia and email into corporate America. It set the precedent of connecting companies electronically with their customers. Below, is an article that I wrote for Computer Reseller News. From 1992 through 1995, when AudioNet was really kicking in and I didnt have the time, I wrote a weekly article for them. This is the one I wrote about Notes. I thought i would bring it back in commeration of its birthday. Below the article, I also added my “resume” from back then. Talk about a blast from the past, but its funny to look at now. So enjoy the laugh !  . . . [Blog Maverick] 6:09:58 AM    comment []

This is where Steve Gillmor says I Told You So. As has been made a bit too abundantly clear, I am no fan of the iPod Shuffle. (No, I don't dislike it, either; I just don't think it's great for podcasts. For me, anyway.) Now comes James Lileks, who writes, I've had my iPod shuffle for three days now, and it's become my favorite iPod. Not just because of the size and weightlessness, although that helps, but because of the Autofill feature, which loads up the Shuffle with tunes grabbed at random from your collection. I have about 10,000 songs or so. As you might expect I rarely get around to listening to most of them. I could dump them all in a big iPod (interesting how the standard issue iPod now seems like a MAINFRAME in comparison) and use the shuffle feature, but when you have 10,000 songs you are always compelled to see what's next, whether it's better than this. When you have 100 songs, and A) have no idea what comes next and B) haven't heard 60 of them in a long long time, if ever, you tend to listen. At least I do. It's like a radio station in a world with one frequency whose program director and listener are the same person. I never hit NEXT; for the first time in a long time, I listen. I pay attention. Right now I¹m listening to a Pat Metheny tune I would probably skip, because I've heard it before — but it made me realize how many things I don¹t listen to anymore because I think I know them, when in fact I just recognize them. And some songs I don't know at all. [The Doc Searls Weblog] 6:09:16 AM    comment []