Tuesday, September 27, 2005

finally, progress. So I spend most of my life reflecting on how little progress I've made in the stuff I feel most strongly about. But now, finally, some progress. Dick Hardt is brilliant. Watch (and copy) the style. Learn tons from the substance. (My pride is tied to the style only). [Lessig Blog] I've copied after having seen Lessig and slide shows became a fresh, new thing. 11:09:39 PM    comment []

The Guardian: Beware the bomber, not the bomb. Here is my latest comment i wrote for the Guardian. Please take a look and let me know what you think: Beware the bomber, not the bomb The west should focus less on Iran's nuclear capability and more on those likely to have their finger on the button, writes Hossein Derakhshan [Editor: Myself (English)] 11:08:36 PM    comment []

Income Down From 1999, Tax Data Show. The total income of Americans in 2003, adjusted for inflation, was 4 percent smaller than in 1999, new tax return data showed yesterday. By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON. [NYT > Business] 11:05:54 PM    comment []

Podcasting Goldrush Is On. There's money in them thar audio files! Not much, yet, and obstacles abound, but podcasters are mining everything from commercial sponsors to paid guest appearances in the quest for profitability. By Steve Friess. [Wired News] 7:13:44 PM    comment []

China upgrades media controls, fears smartmobs. The Chinese government has increased controls over media content, announcing a ban on materials which go "against national security and public interest". Devices covered by the new rules go beyond just laptops: Services that provide online news stories, that have bulletin board systems (BBS) or have the function of sending short messages containing news contents to individual mobile phones are all subject to the regulation. Perhaps in the spirit of learning from that which one opposes, the new regulations have an interactive, participatory, wisdom-of-crowds aspect: The public will help information departments at all levels supervise news sites. Anyone who finds unhealthy online stories can visit http://net.china.cn and report. Rebecca MacKinnon argues that one reason for this crackdown is fear of smartmobs. [Smart Mobs] 7:13:39 PM    comment []

Iran Warns of Retaliation for Vote on Its Nuclear Activities. The warning was part of Iranian Foreign Ministry's official response to the resolution that was passed Friday at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency. By NAZILA FATHI. [NYT > International] 7:11:59 PM    comment []

Academic Feeds [del.icio.us]. Podcasts of lectures about technology and media, mostly from Bergen. [jill/txt] 7:11:54 PM    comment []

We swim in an ocean of media. A study found that two thirds of test subjects' waking hours were spent using media. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories] 7:11:13 PM    comment []

The Expectation Of Privacy In A Very Public Chatroom [unmediated] 7:08:17 PM    comment []

Beth on whether N.O. Crimes Exaggerated or not: In her article "The Uses of Disaster," Rebecca Solnit points out that official post-disaster stories--characterized by victims rampaging out-of-control--often conflict with actual post-disaster events--characterized by survivors helping each other.    Because disasters are accompanied by a breakdown  in authority, officials must emphasize the dangers of no-government-living in order to regain their control.  Yet post-Katrina, the official story was undercut by the fact that the biggest horror was created by government--the chaos at the convention center.  (I wrote a somewhat better summary of Solnit's article here.) Now the LA Times reports that Bush and others are blaming the horrible convention center stories on media exaggeration: "It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds were being done," Bush said Monday of the Superdome. His assessment is one of several in recent days to conclude that newspapers and television exaggerated criminal behavior in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, particularly at the overcrowded Superdome and Convention Center. What really happened, say officials, was that government officials were helping people at those centers, and the media just made it more difficult: Bush, of the National Guard, said that reports of corpses at the Superdome filtered back to the facility via AM radio, undermining his struggle to keep morale up and maintain order. "We had to convince people this was still the best place to be," Bush said. "What I saw in the Superdome was just tremendous amounts of people helping people." But, Bush said, those stories received scant attention in newspapers or on television. This story adds another dimension to Solnit's hypothesis.  In this case, the authorities regain control by turning the site of a failure into the site of a success . . . and by undermining the credibility of the media that helped spread mistrust of government.  Still, the official emphasis is placed on governmental actions rather than on civilians helping each other. [iBeth] 7:06:58 PM    comment []

Three Benton headlines: BIG BROTHER IN BEIJING [Commentary] It remains to be seen whether Big Brother in Beijing is a match for the power of the Internet. With 100 million cybernauts, China has the world's second-largest Internet population, after the U.S. with 135 million. The ability of Chinese surfers to communicate with each other on a massive scale has already made a mockery of state censorship of information. [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] (requires subscription) BITTORRENT GETS 8.75 MILLION FROM VENTURE-CAPITAL FIRM BitTorrent, developer of one of the most popular software programs for acquiring free video and other large files on the Internet, has raised $8.75 million from a venture-capital firm. BitTorrent says it will use the funds from DCM-Doll Capital Management to improve its infrastructure and make it more appealing to Hollywood. The investment comes as file-sharing companies are scrambling to legitimize. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that file-sharing service Grokster and StreamCast Networks, which operates the Morpheus service, could be held liable for their users' actions. [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Jefferson Graham] VIDEO GAMES ACTUALLY CAN BE GOOD FOR YOU Games for Health is an offshoot of The Serious Games Initiative (www.seriousgames.org), which seeks to push the evolution of games technology to aid in problem solving, public policy and social issues. Some of the highlighted projects and potential benefits: 1) Patient treatment. The U.S. Navy is testing Sony's Eye Toy, a camera that connects to the PS2 and transfers the person's image onto a TV screen, along with the interactive dance mats used for the game Dance Dance Revolution, says the project's principal investigator, Mark Wiederhold of the Virtual Reality Medical Center in San Diego. The idea is to create programs to help rehabilitate soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. 2) Training. U.K.-based Blitz Games is developing Interactive Trauma Trainer, a PC game-style simulation program to help prepare battlefield surgeons for decision-making and treatment in combat. Another program being tested, New Dawn Estates, a role-playing simulation developed by pullUin Software of Vermillion, S.D., helps certified nursing assistants learn nursing-home treatment protocols. 3) Prevention and education. The Federation of American Scientists and Brown University have created Immune Attack, a 3-D game about the immune system to help high school and college students better understand the complex subject. [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR:Mike Snider] 4:53:13 PM    comment []

Fortifying DOD's network defenses, by Frank Tiboni, Federal Computer Week. Eugene Spafford, a computer sciences professor at Purdue University who has testified before Congress on cybersecurity, questions whether it's possible to develop new systems without investing in long-term research. Attacks on DOD computer networks are on the rise as adversaries attempt to bypass the United States' formidable defenses and launch attacks from the inside out, experts say. Defending DOD's networks will require a combination of efforts, Spafford said. He outlined six steps DOD could take to strengthen the department's network defenses. They are: * Buying systems based on security features rather than cost. * Limiting access to systems. * Removing systems from networks unless those systems are absolutely necessary. * Restricting who can add hardware and software to networks. * Requiring proper training and supervision for network managers and computer users. * Establishing careful network-monitoring practices. 9:52:07 AM    comment []