Thursday, June 30, 2005

Iran's New President. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won Iran's presidential election, offered a populist economic platform that challenged the corruption of more than a quarter-century of clerical rule. [NYT > Opinion] 7:04:14 AM    comment []

The Silver Lining in Iran. Religious hard-liners in Iran are losing their grip by tightening it. By Abbas Milani. [NYT > Opinion] 7:03:46 AM    comment []

Online Dating? Thin and Rich Works Here, Too. Three economists found that the most important variable in online dating, for both men and women, is looks. By HAL R. VARIAN. [NYT > Technology] 7:03:36 AM    comment []

Dennis can show us The average great philosopher, as well as the average above-average philosopher: Now we know what the average Great Philosopher looked like. But you may be saying to yourself: That’s all well and good, but what should I look like if I want to be in a top-ten department? Here’s your answer. Link. 6:59:52 AM    comment []

GPS enabled Monopoly!.  . . . by way of Robbin Hamman ! [Smart Mobs] Robin posts: Hasbro (the board game company) has launched an online edition of Monopoly - but keep reading because it's a lot more interesting than that! To play, you select a cabbie (I'm backing Brian), buy some properties, put a few flats and hotels, then press go. As the taxi moves around London, it's tracked via GPS and each time it passes or makes a pick-up/drop at one of your properties your score increases. Here's the blurb from Hasbro: "We have turned London into a real-life playing board, and real taxi cabs into real-life playing pieces. All you have to do is make as much money from rent as possible, from five other cabs who are your opponents in the game. We've kitted out 18 cabbies with GPS (Global Positioning System), meaning we can pinpoint their exact whereabouts in London. They will be going about their normal day, picking up and dropping off customers all over town. All that you've got to do is spend the £15m we give you on properties from around the Monopoly Here & Now board, distribute your apartments and hotels and choose your cabbie. You are placed into a game with your cabbie and 5 other taxi drivers, all travelling around London. Every time one of the other cabs stops outside one of your properties, you get paid rent. Any time your cabbie lands on a property you don't own, you pay up. Simple!" What a cool idea! (Thanks for the link Paul) 6:53:29 AM    comment []

Life in credit card silos, cont'd. Eric Norlin: The class action suit claims that ALL account holders that may have been exposed to a breach should be notified - whether fraud has occurred or not. The distinction here is important: Until this point, US law has defaulted to the idea that the individual does NOT own the information a company possesses about them (via interaction), but they do have rights of control over that information. UK laws are quite the opposite (they emphasize ownership). This argument is actually an argument around the *control* aspect: do I, as an individual, control my account to the extent that I can demand to know whether or not a potential breach has occurred? Or do I not control it that much? If ownership is not the issue (as it is *not* under current laws), then *where* are the lines of control drawn? This is one to watch. [The Doc Searls Weblog] Also check out Doc's post on Little FM transmitters. It explains the physics (and policy) behind poor performance for those transmitters you use to get sound from your portable device through your car stereo. Maybe more significant for you, Doc tells of a step that would improve that performance, with no soldering, fancy tech, or huge expense: Make the antenna longer by adding a headphone extention cord: female at one end and male at the other. Put it between your audio player (iPod, Archos or whatever) and your transmitter. Stretch it out. The signal increase is remarkable. My Belkin TuneCast II is useless without it, and a workhorse with it. Here's one that Radio Shack sells. 6:51:49 AM    comment []

Jailing Reporters, for What, Excactly?. William Safire: The Jailing of Judith Miller. The Supreme Court has just flinched from its responsibility to stop the unjust jailing of two journalists - not charged with any wrongdoing - by a runaway prosecutor who will go to any lengths to use the government's contempt power to force them to betray their confidential sources. I don't agree with Safire's view of Miller, whose journalism during the Iraq war run-up was atrocious. But she is a journalist, and does not deserve what is happening to her now. The nation doesn't deserve it, either, and the trend is dangerous. We are turning the act of journalism into a crime, giving the bad guys more license than ever. The effect on citizen journalism will not be obvious, at first. But there are going to be times when everyday folks, not normally journalists, deserve the same protections that we have given the pros in limited circumstances. If the pros are this vulnerable, the citizens will be in even worse shape when push comes to shove. I'm working for everyone's right to do journalism, to bring to light things that powerful people and institutions would rather keep quiet. If you think Miller's quandry is not an issue for you, please think again. [Dan Gillmor's blog] 6:43:30 AM    comment []

Model house pirating TV. Went to the RCA show this morning! good stuff. will go again this afternoon for some more pictures. Broadcasting House, by Matthew Falla, is a project which came out of a collaboration with Grizedale Arts in the Lake District, UK. It is a small model house that periodically transmits a pirate broadcast over the air to the user's TV. Most of the visitors to the Lake District are not interested in the contemporary art and the local and tourist population's reactions to Grizedale seemed at best apathetic and at worst hostile. However, what visitors seem to like are souvenir models and trinkets. In particular, the small, caricatured houses, exemplified by the company "Lilliput Lane." Falla decided to use these objects as a vehicle for Grizedale to reach a much wider (unsuspecting) audience. The models lies dormant for a month after being purchased. It then starts to transmit a short range pirate broadcast, taking over live TV and replacing the regular television broadcast with an alternative, scheduled broadcast. [unmediated] 6:34:03 AM    comment []

Troops' Silence at Fort Bragg Starts a Debate All Its Own. There is a debate under way about why the troops who listened to President Bush's speech on Iraq Tuesday night did not applaud. By DAVID E. SANGER. [NYT > Washington] 6:33:21 AM    comment []

Vlogs in iTunes!. Via my man Duncan - iTunes 4.9 not only supports podcasts (extremely cool) but videoblogs:  . . . Hey, that's not an MP3... it's an Amanda Congdon! You have to search the podcast directory to find them - I'm waiting for mine to show up. And, it's not nearly as cool or functional as FireANT. But it could change everything and introduce videoblogs to the masses. How long before our audience grows exponentially? People will be turning their TVs off in droves. Films will have a new distribution outlet. We'll go through more growing pains. It's an exciting time for personal media. [unmediated] 6:32:52 AM    comment []