Wednesday, August 28, 2002

Christian Crumlish is looking for pointers to philosophy-oriented weblogs. [Scripting News] Is it wrong that I feel a certain pride that a Salon blog like our very own wonderful Radio Free Blogistan got mentioned in Scripting News? =)
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Tolmans quest. Boston Phoenix Aug 28 2002 3:21PM ET [Moreover - Boston news] Interestingly, the writer of this article (which is a good read - Tolman's one of two candidates worth paying attention to for the Mass. governorship) quotes a blog...in print, he quotes a blog. Huh.
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Who's responsible for the effects of Hacktivism?. Last month, international hacker group Hacktivismo released/announced two tools that aim to bring democratic principles (freedom of expression, access to information) into countries with repressive governments by subverting their internet firewalls. In this interview, group founder Oxblood Ruffin discusses the ethics and issues surrounding their work: What if someone is imprisoned, beaten or killed for using Hacktivismo's tools? On the other hand, how do the largest IT companies (Cisco, Microsoft and Oracle) in the world's most powerful democratic country justify selling their products to these regimes, when they know the technology will be used to curtail citizens' democratic rights? [kuro5hin.org] The other k5 story that jumped out at me today. I did a research project on hacktivism a few years back, and still try to keep up with what's going on in the community. Of course, now I work for a company that provides censorship tools to China. The question of responsibility when a piece of software is used and then the user is persecuted for it has come up over and over again in regards to PGP. If I were to write a tool that allowed Chinese citizens to get access to the open Internet and a user was imprisoned/killed for using it, I'd feel horrible. I'd send letters to congressmen, I'd send letters to corporations doing business with China...but I wouldn't blame myself, the software, or the user. The responsibility lies purely in the hands of the Chinese government - they're the ones who choose to deny their citizens' human rights, not me. The bigger issue to me is how to deal with the Ciscos, the Microsofts, the Oracles...I work for Cisco, as I've said in the past, and I'd far prefer that we did not do that kind of business with the Chinese government. I don't personally work on any software or hardware that is or could be used in a censorship role, but my salary is still partially paid for by China buying censorship firewalls. I try not to think about that - it makes me angry, sick, guilty. I am aiding and abetting an abomination, on some level. So what can I do, besides quit? Writing letters won't work. Sure, I'm a shareholder, but not enough to be listened to. This isn't apartheid South Africa we're talking about here - China is a far larger market for American companies, and the issue is far more murky...while I believe that the Chinese government is an unfree dictatorship, exploiting its people and denying them their rights, I can't find a strong enough moral reason to not do business with them at all. So how do we get corporations, as customers, shareholders, and/or employees, do stop doing certain kinds of business with the repressive governments of the world? Any ideas?

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Lord of the Swastika: Political Backgrounds in SF and Fantasy. The cover art is pretty typical: a tall blond hero boldly faces a crowd of misshapen mutants. Only the swastika emblems on his sleeves are distinctive. The cover says "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad, but the flyleaf declares the book to be "Lord of the Swastika" by Adolf Hitler. A brief biography follows, describing Hitler's emigration to the US in 1919, followed by a career as SF author and illustrator. Before the novel itself, there's a list of other Hitler SF novels, including "Emperor of the Asteroids", "The Twilight of Terra" and "The Thousand Year Rule". This article discusses both this curious book, and what it tells us about SF and Fantasy in print and on screen. [An earlier version appeared on Radio Free Tomorrow.] [kuro5hin.org] One of a couple interesting articles at k5 today. I've read Spinrad's "Iron Dream" - it's disturbing, especially put alongside something like "The Turner Diaries". Spinrad had a run in the '70s where he may have been the most important working sci-fi writer, at least within the scope of science fiction - his relevancy to the outside world has always been rather...limited. But "Bug Jack Barron", "The Iron Dream", "The Void Captain's Tale", "Child Of Fortune"...not always entertaining, rarely easy, but definitely important. The article is worthy of notice beyond the Spinrad discussion. Science fiction has always been prone to disguising conservative or otherwise unpleasant political/social settings in swords and sorcery, ray guns and aliens. Thomas M. Disch discusses this at length in his great book on the cultural impact of science fiction, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of. Check it out.

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by the way - picked up three of the new Rolling Stones SACDs yesterday - Aftermath, Beggars Banquet, and Let It Bleed. Wow, they sound excellent. The drums are the most obvious change...there's a lot more reverb to them, hints of echoes in the background... "Sympathy For The Devil" sounds fantastic, with the pseudo-tribal drums lurking in the background. Keith's guitar parts sound great as well...you can hear the guitar string jangle and distort just a little bit after each solo section on Sympathy. All told, definitely worth buying if you're a Stones fan and you've got an SACD player. I haven't given them a listen on a regular CD player yet, but I can't imagine it sounds crappy. Also picked up Marianne Faithfull's newest, chock-full of collaborations (Beck, Blur, Billy Corgan, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp). The song she does with Jarvis Cocker (and most of the rest of Pulp, for that matter), "Sliding Through Life On Charm", is the best Pulp song I've heard since Different Class. I need to listen to the whole album a few more times, but I think I love it.

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[Scripting News] This is really disturbing.
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augh. The same issues with our New York coders that made me want to kill everyone yesterday are rising up again in today's training class. I can't stand this any more...
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and it turns out that html posts just fine through IM. I'm going to have to switch to a Jabber client, though...there's a 2k max per AIM message, which may not be long enough. Posting like this should give me a lot of new options - remote posting from frickin' anywhere without having to open my radio server to the world. Plus, there's just something cool about sending an instant message and having it end up on my blog. I love technology. So I sign my lease today - which reminds me that I need to follow up with the guys who are, in theory, moving my stuff. I haven't heard back from them for a while...

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Ignore this - just testing out to see how html works in im posting...
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Hmm...this posting through an instant messaging client has lots of potential fun to it. I think I need to write myself some tools...
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Birth of Nerdc0re -- My novella on Salon [bOing bOing] Excellent story - read it this morning while waking up, really really liked it. I need to buy Cory Doctrow work now.
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I'm With Dick! Let's Make War! [New York Times: Opinion] OK, Maureen Dowd can go with the Guardian when it comes to headlines. Here she's advocating invading Saudi Arabia rather than Iraq, but really, the headline's the best part.
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US war machine stalls at Iraq question. Washington dispatch: Donald Rumsfeld has indicated that Britain's support could be a deciding factor on whether to attack Iraq, writes Julian Borger. [Guardian Unlimited] I love the Guardian's headlines. No newspaper in the world has headlines as intelligent and pointed. See the above...
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