10. april 2005

Bloggers want in on UK election campaign The election campaign has now fully started in the United Kingdom, and the Sunday Herald ponders whether British political blogs will have as much an impact on this election as the American bloggers had last year. The answer is, not very likely. One major factor that may prevent blogging having an impact in the UK equivalent to that in the US is the size of the “audience” here. Though not measured yet, it is certain to be far lower than in the US. As several bloggers point out, the movement caught on more quickly in the US because the media is perceived as being biased by both left and right.  Annoyingly, the Herald is one of those online newspapers that doesn't really understand the medium. When discussing a blog or site, what's wrong with actually hyperlinking it? 8:40:54 PM    comment []  trackback []

Sightseeing from home Google adding satellite photos to its Google Maps is a quite astonishing thing (especially when more of the non-US part of the world is added). For example, it allows people to go Google Sightseeing from their computers. I know some details have been censored (like certain buildings in Washington DC) but I still can't help thinking that this is a wonderful tool for terrorists. Then again, so are normal maps. 7:18:48 PM    comment []  trackback []

Hitchhiker's review (short version: it sucks!) The widely anticipated movie Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is "substantially complete," and MJ Simpson has been able to watch it, giving us a short review without spoilers (and longer ones with). And he says it's really, really bad. No, worse than that. Just see: To put it bluntly, they have cut most of the jokes out. I’m not being metaphorical here, they really have, in a very literal sense, removed the jokes from the story. There are scenes where all we’re left with is the set-up dialogue, there are jokes where we get the feed-line but not the punchline. It’s astounding. Occasionally, the filmmakers have actually bothered replacing the jokes but they have replaced them with really, really pisspoor, unfunny jokes; they have replaced them with stupid playground humour and pointless slapstick. Now this really brings me down. I've been a fan of every word Douglas Adams ever wrote, and I really expected this to be a very funny movie. If this review is correct, heads should roll. 6:32:57 PM    comment []  trackback []

India's steps into blue water As India and Pakistan are working towards peace, many observers wonder if India will start to increase the regional and global perspective of its armed forces. India is religiously and culturally very much tied to the idea of holy land (one similarity it arguably shares with Israel), but there are many signs India has large-scale international ambitions that are a match for China's. CS Monitor's Jim Bencivenga has an in-depth article about the ambitions of India's navy. It has caused serious concern that China has created a navy with some blue-water and amphibious capability, being a serious threat to Taiwan and thus world peace. The Chinese are learning not only to look anxiously to the world's supreme naval power, the United States, but also tries to second-guess what ambitions India have beyond national security. First, the Indian Ocean is the country's home waters. The Indian Ocean leads into the world's most important commercial straits (Hormuz and Malacca), choke points that are as vulnerable as they are crucial for world trade. There is a significant list of security concerns in this region, including the ever-present threat of piracy. India's ambitions to take over more of the region's security presence is certainly one way for India to project its ambitions as a major power. Second, big players need to project power far from home. India's army has for example participated in many UN peace-keeping missions. The navy has so far been mostly absent in hot conflicts, leaving the US, Britain and its allies to bring the big naval guns. Naval power is often underrated in large-scale conflicts. A number of pivotal historical battles, from the Battle of Salamis between the Greeks and the Persians in 480 BC to the Battle of Midway in World War II, demonstrate how often shifts in the naval power balance has been instrumental in the fall and rise of superpowers. The article links an important paper by Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett at the US Naval War College, outlining the choices India's navy has for the future, and describing what steps it needs to take to achieve whatever goals it sets. Last year, India purchased the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov from Russia, underscoring that India has plans for its navy to be something more than a defender of coastal waters, indicating that some choices have now been made. 4:40:30 AM    comment []  trackback []

In search of the Moho Scientists have drilled a hole to the bottom of the Earth's crust, and may finally be able to break through to the mantle. While it is generally agreed the Earth has a mantle, nobody has actually been able to investigating it directly. The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) seeks the elusive "Moho," a boundary formally known as the Mohorovicic discontinuity. It marks the division between Earth's brittle outer crust and the hotter, softer mantle. The depth of the Moho varies. This latest effort, which drilled 4,644 feet (1,416 meters) below the ocean seafloor, appears to have been 1,000 feet off to the side of where it needed to be to pierce the Moho, according to one reading of seismic data used to map the crust's varying thickness. The new hole, which took nearly eight weeks to drill, is the third deepest ever made into the floor of the sea, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF). The rock collection brought back to the surface is providing new information about the planet's composition. There may well be some scientific surprises waiting for us as we start to investigate the depths of what we're standing on. 1:48:59 AM    comment []  trackback []

Wounded cameraman arrested in Iraq An Iraqi CBS cameraman was wounded by US soldiers in Mosul. Obviously, this drew the usual protests. Now it turns out the cameraman was arrested afterwards, because his behaviour strongly indicated he had been working quite closely with the terrorists. U.S. military officials said the man's camera held footage of a number of roadside bomb attacks against American troops, and they believe he was tipped off to those attacks. [...] One official said at least four videos in the man's camera show roadside bomb attacks on U.S. troops. All had been shot in a manner that suggested the cameraman had prior knowledge of the attacks and had scouted a shooting location in sight of the target. "The individual in question was carrying press credentials from CBS News. Military officials detained this individual and are conducting an investigation into his previous activities as well as his alleged support of anti-Iraqi insurgency activities," a U.S. military statement said Friday. He's probably going to get a Pulitzer. 1:35:53 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.05.2005; 01:55:13.