Saturday, May 06, 2006

Links for the Week - May 6/06. A Real Solution to Terrorism: For a cost of what Bush is spending every hour in Iraq, we could buy and distribute enough anti-insect bed nets to struggling nations to protect 40 million vulnerable children and save about 200,000 lives a year. Bush won't pay for it, but we can. Thanks to the NYT for the link to Jeffrey Sachs' Millennium Promise campaign. US Dollar Collapse May Be Imminent: There is growing evidence that the value of the US dollar will soon plummet, setting off a collapse of stock, housing and other markets denominated in the dollar.  [...] You need to be very skeptical of advice from people who make their money hawking commodity futures, but this article makes a lot of sense. As I have said before, if your assets are all tied up in investments that depend on a strong dollar, you're taking a big risk. Peer to Peer and the Gift Economy: If you're looking for more details on how a grassroots, P2P, Internet-enable peer production 'gift' economy could work, replacing the current dysfunctional pseudo-'market' economy, here's a great article by Michael Bauwens. Exit of the Exit Polls: The mainstream media were embarrassed in 2004 when their exit polls incorrectly (?) predicted a sizeable victory for Kerry over Bush. So what are they doing in 2006? Improving the exit polls so they are more reliable and representative? No, they're scrapping them. Don't let it happen! Thanks to deconsumption for the heads up. [How to Save the World] 7:27:02 PM    comment []

Threat Modeling The Library. In a long interesting article in Wired on "The RFID Hacking Underground," I came across this quote: While it may be hard to imagine why someone other than a determined vandal would take the trouble to change library tags, there are other instances where the small hassle could be worth big bucks. The article went on to describe how checking out books is automated. So, here's the an interesting attack: Discover which out of print books sell for a lot on Ebay. (I once paid $50 for a copy of Vernor Vinge's True Names and Other Lies. It's hard to buy gifts for some folks.) Discover which libraries have the book in question. Enter library, replace the ID in the tag with the ID of Harry Potter and the Discount Bin Paperback. Check out the book as normal. Return Harry Potter and the Discount Bin Paperback. Profit. Repeat indefinitely. This is actually a variant of an attack which happens today. Jerks People steal first editions, rare books, and expensive books from libraries all the time. The automation of the check out process means that they don't even need to hide the book in a foil-lined bag. [Emergent Chaos] 10:35:22 AM    comment []

The Wunderkammer of Teaching, at Slaves of Academe. I forget who pointed me at this, but it's very thoughtful on the subject of just what the heck we all think we're doing educating students in colleges, as against the students' expectations, and the results of the impedance mismatches. An essay worth returning to from time to time, I suspect. 7:17:27 AM    comment []

what do you do when your kid starts ninja-looting?. You know how we worry about our kids online? Liz Lawley’s latest post on Terra Nova mentioned her consternation when a professional connection contacted her to tell her her teenaged son was ninja-looting an instance and would she please log on to tell him to stop. Actually, this has to be an ideal situation, for the kids at anyrate. At school meetings we parents have been told repeatedly that problems like bullying and even drugs, violence and drunkenness with older kids are best combatted by families knowing each other. Kids are safer when the people around them know them and know their parents. Most of the parents who are scared about what their kids might get up to online probably don’t even know to worry that their kid will be ninja-looting - but of course learning not to ninja-loot is as important as learning RL social conduct. What an ideal situation, having ones kids explore online in an environment where people who know them are around and able to ring or IM a parent. World of Warcraft surprisingly enough can actually provide that sort of small-enough neighbourhood world - there are never more than 1000 or so people Horde-side online on my server, and that may be a small enough community to actually keep track of. [jil/txt] 6:52:42 AM    comment []

Dan (parenthetically, in a post about the influence of blogworld conventions on MSM ones): (For good reading about a history of traditional media outlets using blog material without attribution, see The Huffington Post, The Raw Story, Majikthise and USC’s Online Journalism Review) 6:51:54 AM    comment []

Spime Watch XV: Xbox Blogjects. *Kind of a nice proof-of-concept here. http://gamesfirst.com/?id=1295 Now, if they could somehow leverage this network to design and create better XBox games.... [Beyond the Beyond] 6:51:25 AM    comment []

Lileks examines currency. Mark Frauenfelder: Jame Lileks comments on paper currency from around the world. As Coop notes, It's "jawdroppingly weird old ephemera, pleasantly seasoned with acerbic comments." [Boing Boing] 6:50:21 AM    comment []

Japan Plays Weighting Game. In a crushing blow to self-esteem advocates everywhere, Japanese seem to love a new game for the PS2 that rewards drastic weight loss with love. By Brian Ashcraft and Lisa Katayama from Wired magazine. [Wired News: Top Stories] 6:40:35 AM    comment []

Here's what large denomination U.S. currency looks like. The Bureau of Egraving and Printing has illustration online. In case you, you know, need to know. For some reason. $5000 Federal Reserve Notes Series 1918 Green Seal $10000 Federal Reserve Notes Series 1918 Green Seal $10000 Federal Reserve Notes Series 1928, 1934, 1934A & 1934B Green Seal face face face   back back back 6:31:32 AM    comment []

Dave Pollard is Seeking Advice on a 'Plan B' for Backup and Migration of this Blog. Earlier this week another of the most popular Salon bloggers, political satirist World O' Crap, bailed out and moved to a new blog host. The Salon community is trying to hang together, using a Blogger blog, until we find out what the gang at Salon.com have in mind, now they've announced that no new Salon Radio Userland Blogs will be created until a new blog policy has been established. But defections have been rampant, with the number of active (daily posting) Salon Blogs down from a peak of over 200 to fewer than 50 today. I don't want to move, but a lot of readers have been complaining again about slow page loading times and iffy performance on the comments server. The big problem with moving now is giving up the enormous and hard-won Google rank I've achieved where I am now e.g. #1 for "save the world", #1 for "natural enterprise", #1 for "generosity economy", #1 for "model intentional community", #2 for "business innovation", #2 for "boycott list", #6 for "wisdom of crowds", #6 for "personal knowledge management", #7 for "gift economy". A related problem is creating some continuity for my tables of contents -- the carefully maintained lists of nearly 1500 articles on 54 different subjects I've been maintaining since I began this blog just over three years ago. . . . .  . . . So I need the advice of those who know far more about blog technology and Google rankings than I do. . . . I keep hoping that Salon will come to the rescue, and keep the existing URLs if they switch to a new blog tool, or somehow otherwise make the migration automatic or easy. Or that Radio Userland will merge with one of the newer, growing blog tools and look after the redirections for me. But it's time for me to be realistic, and at least be ready to move if it becomes necessary. Your advice would be appreciated. Please be gentle -- I'm not an expert in any technology, and I'm looking for a simple solution. I just want to write stuff that people find useful, and have people be able to find it easily. [How to Save the World] 6:30:52 AM    comment []