| By Sheila Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Oct. 11, 2002
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"My concept of human rights
has grown to include not only the rights to live in peace, but
also to adequate health care, shelter, food, and to economic opportunity.
I hope this award reflects a universal acceptance and even embrace
of this broad-based concept of human rights." |
-- Jimmy Carter
Quote via Judy
Watt
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Media watchdog raps Slate: There's been
a buzz about a story in Slate headlined TiVo,
We Hardly Knew Ye: Sorry fans, but it's destined for the ash heap of history.
Steve
Outing, writing at E-Media
Tidbits, the group blog at poynter.org, a site for journalists, asks,
"Can
We Trust Microsoft-owned Slate on TiVo Story?"
...the fact that it ran in Slate, which is owned by Microsoft —
which is introducing a new XP operating system for home entertainment
centers — makes me want to totally disregard the story. How can
we possibly trust that Slate isn't acting to support its parent company
by dissing a competitor?
Frankly, I doubt that there is any "evil-doing" on the part
of Slate's editors. I don't doubt their professionalism and editorial
independence. BUT, I don't think this story has any place on Slate in
the first place, because of the perception of conflict of interest.
The weblog Gizmodo,
where I learned of the Slate piece, assessed the article this way: "It
made a lot of solid points, but the timing is a little curious, since
it's appearing on a site owned by Microsoft at exactly the moment when
Microsoft is pushing this new version of XP designed to replace TiVo."
What Microsoft hopes will replace TiVo: InfoWorld,
in a story Wednesday headlined Microsoft
eases copy protection in XP, reports,
MICROSOFT IS EASING up on its copy protection technology in the upcoming
release of its Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system, and
will allow users to record TV shows onto CDs and DVDs and play them
back on a variety of devices.
Microsoft's special purpose entertainment operating system, which will
be available later this month initially on PCs from Hewlett-Packard
("HP
debuts PC that works like a TV, too), will feature software
that combines several digital media applications into a single user
interface.
It includes special software that allows users to control applications
using a remote control. With it users can watch DVDs, listen to digital
music and view digital photos and videos. It also features a DVR (digital
video recorder) application, similar to the one made popular by TiVo
Inc., that allows users to watch live television on their PCs, pause
and rewind live programs, and record them on a hard-drive, CD or DVD.
The kicker here for the end user may come at the end of the story:
Additionally, the company will allow broadcasters to block TV programs
from being recorded using an encryption technology from Macrovision Inc.
There are currently only a few content producers that use the Macrovision
copy protection technology, Microsoft said.
Blog without a computer: Also at Poynter,
Ernst
Poulsen on the digital pen and paper:
Journalists or artists who work in areas where computers may be prohibited
or risky to use could in the future use digital pens and a special grid-paper
to transmit everything they write instantly.
The new Anoto Chat-pen and grid-paper allows for transmission to any
e-mail address or database on the Web. Currently, a number of Swedish
companies use digital pens and grid-paper to allow employees to transmit
paper forms directly to databases. Grid-paper contains a unique number
of dots, which allows for programming specific functions into the paper
— and a pen, which through a camera is able to track your exact
handwriting. The pen then lets the user send whatever is written, be
it text or drawing, through a mobile phone. An
in-depth explanation is found at the company website.
Don't
miss this popup: Doc Searls points to yesterday's post on the upcoming
Illegal Art exhibit, and mentions
that he loves the pop-up "contract" -- it's a hoot. If you've
blocked popups, you won't see that, so here's
a direct link.
The
Shifted Librarian is full of good stuff today. So is Craig's
BookNotes.
Headlines:
New
worm spreading through MSN Messenger -- InfoWorld
Microsoft
Warns Of Outlook Express Vulnerability, Issues Patch - InternetWeek.com
Microsoft
Outlook Express Patch Flawed - eWeek
Microsoft
warns of 'critical' flaw in Outlook Express - InfoWorld
Happy Columbus Day. Back Tuesday.
Oct. 10, 2002
Illegal
Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age:
VISUAL ARTS EXHIBIT, New York City: November 13 - December 6, 2002
, CBGB's 313 Gallery (313 Bowery)
Featuring murdered Disney characters, the Colonel Sanders mandala,
a Texaco-laced doily, and more.
FILM & VIDEO FEST, November 14-17, 2002: George W. Bush meets the
Teletubbies, Barbie tries a new job, Pikachu (of Pokemon fame) makes
a friend, and more. Watch digitized versions of the films and videos
Profoundly cynical: From CNET:
"Microsoft: Does it pay to be safe? "
PARIS--Microsoft is considering charging for additional
security options and acknowledges that it didn't move on security until
customers were ready to pay for it....
Asked why it has taken Microsoft 25 years to put secure
computing at the forefront of its efforts, (Microsoft Chief Technical
Officer Craig Mundie) said it's "because customers wouldn't pay
for it until recently."
The context here is corporate, but it's not hard to extrapolate
to the firm's Internet Explorer browser. With Klez and Bugbear filling
our inboxes with junkmail spun off from the address books of infected
I.E. users, Microsoft seems oblivious to the need to close the hole that
permits this.
Klez and Bugbear don't bother Netscape, the very cool open-source
Mozilla (which, in its
more commercial version is Netscape
7) and the even newer, sleek, fast Phoenix,
a Mozilla spinoff still in development. (That one's for early adopters
only, right now.)
AOL
launches 8.0: Subscribers can download the new software
by typing "upgrade" into the AOL keyword box, causing a window
to pop up to walk people through the process.
Blog TV, sort of: P.O.V.'s
Borders is a new Web-only series on PBS Online. The first episode
- Borders: Migration - will run for ten weeks, starting yesterday. Its
aim is interactive non-fiction storytelling: Three teenagers from the
US-Mexico border will document their lives with digital cameras and journals.
Thanks to Tim Barmann
for the news.
N. Ireland coming unglued? Iraq
is overshadowing all other news. It took a note from blogger
Mick Fealty (Letter from Slugger O'Toole) in Northern Ireland saying
he was "blogging through the crisis" to send me scurrying to
find out "What crisis?" Here it is:
Sinn
Fein 'no' to suspending N.Ireland gov
LONDON, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- The head of the political wing
of the Irish Republican Army told the British government Thursday that
it would be a "mistake" to suspend the power-sharing government
in Northern Ireland amid a crisis triggered by allegations of IRA spying.
Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, warned British Prime Minister
Tony Blair in emergency talks at 10 Downing Street that such a move
would result in a "long vacuum which will be filled by those who
want to tear this (peace process) down."
Political sources told United Press International that, barring an
unanticipated positive development, Blair is expected to order a suspension
again of the province's power-sharing executive -- probably Monday or
Tuesday -- to buy time to find a way to resolve the dispute.
The crisis was triggered by allegations that a "mole" working
in Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid's office stole sensitive material
-- including transcripts of telephone conversations between Blair and
U.S. President George W. Bush -- for Sinn Fein, which passed it on to
the IRA.
Fealty's "O'Toole" blogs developments as they happen, and the
links on the right are a fine portal to the rest of the story.
Here's a post from "O'Toole"a few hours ago to get you up to
speed on this one: :
The BBC reports
that the Assembly is indeed to be suspended on Monday. They also provide
a handy Q&A
routine covering the main issues of the past week and the glowering
future. Here's another
one at the Belfast Telegraph.
Lock up the books! How to show Congress what
digital copyright restrictions will do to the the culture that copyright
law was designed to encourage? Doc
Searls blogs Alan
Graham's idea:
Let's send a book to each Representative — glued shut! They can't
open it because we already read it. The iconic representation is simple...and
most people would think that glueing a book shut after reading it would
be absurd, but that is just what we need. The only way to define the
absurd...is with more of the same. Let's send thousands of books, glued
shut...along with a letter that clearly explains our point.
Supreme Court on copyright, Eldred v. Ashcroft,
Lessig v. Olsen, etc.: Donna
Wentworth is gathering the reports
Oct. 9, 2002
|
John Winston Lennon
Oct. 9, 1940 - Dec. 8, 1980
Happy birthday, John. Wish you were still here.
"Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one..."
--John Lennon, 1971
--
Listen (RealAudio)
-- The song plays continuously on
this page.
--
Lyrics
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Oct. 8, 2002 What Bush knew before
his Monday
night speech: Many sites have linked to Monday's New York Times
story about the NYT/CBS news poll on Iraq and the U.S. economy (Public
Says Bush Needs to Pay Heed to Weak Economy -- reg. req.).
Here are the poll's actual
results at CBS.com.
You can also
take the poll yourself online at nyt.com.
Link
to this item | Comment
Does a cell have a "nuculus"?
Does anyone else find it distracting that our Yale-educated president
pronounces "nuclear" as "nucular"? He said it 17 times
last night.
Geoff Nunberg pondered the possibilities in "Going Nucular,"
an NPR Fresh Air commentary last week. Here's
text, here's audio
-- (if you can stand to hear "nucular" a few more times.)
Link
to this item | Comment
Ponderous leap: Arts
and Letters Daily has morphed into Philosophy
& Literature. Here's the explanation.
The new incarnation has a "Hot Button" daily poll at the
bottom left.
Link
to this item | Comment
Modern
Living is the title of a work comprising 91 fantastic little Flash
vignettes, pen-and-ink sketches of a monochrome man and his beard. Click
on each, something different happens. Funny, interesting and compelling.
It's hard not to look at just one more, even if you're yawning over your
keyboard.
Link
to this item | Comment
I
Was a Wi-Fi Freeloader: Steven Levy at MSNBC.com found two open
WiFi nodes while sitting at home on his couch, and tapped right into his
neighbors' signals. After checking with the FBI, and with his moral compass,
he concludes,
I certainly didn’t feel illegal. Because—and this is the
point of all that war-driving and -chalking and node-stumbling—when
you get used to wireless, the experience feels more and more like a
God-given right. One day we may breathe bandwidth like oxygen—and
arguing its illegality will be unthinkable.
It really is like radio.
Link
to this item | Comment
Jaron
Lanier: Cool smart voice. Last week, JD
Lasica interviewed the man who coined the term "virtual reality"
-- (Lanier will be speaking Oct. 19 at the PopTech conference in Camden,
Maine.)
Vintage Lanier on the entertainment industry:
If we're going to go in the direction of intellectual property rights
as the principal legal concern, it simply must be coupled with a wholesale
assault on the corruption that's crucial to business practices in the
entertainment industry. And that isn't happening. ...
This tiny elite makes us all stupider with the inferior quality of
their products. It dumbs everything down.
Link
to this item | Comment
Brazen and clueless: The phone rang last night.
When I answered, a recorded voice said, "All our operators are busy
right now. Thank you for holding." He may have said more, but I was
gone. Telemarketing that expects me to hold? Are they nuts?
Link
to this item | Comment
Oct. 7, 2002 Blogburst
against war in Iraq: Nothing moves a politician more than a mailbag
from constituents.
Cartoonist Barry Deutsch's blog, Open
Letters, is asking bloggers and readers to get their antiwar sentiments
into their representatives' hands (and onto Letters to the Editors pages)
using old-fashioned stamped envelopes:
We have to give Congress reason to believe that resistance does not
spell electoral doom. Just as important, we have to let Americans know
that - despite the way the media presents the issue - there are millions
of Americans opposing this war. -- From Deutsch's original
proposal of the idea on Sept. 26.
Deutsch (aka Ampersand) is posting excerpts from the letters, and links
to the full texts, on the blog.
Here's a sample by New York City blogger (Hindsight
Aforethought) Christine Quinones:
An Open Letter to Rep. Nydia Velasquez and Sens. Charles Schumer
and Hillary Rodham Clinton
... I lost my office in the World Trade Center that day. An acquaintance
of mine lost his life. Nothing would make me happier than to see the
men responsible for orchestrating those attacks brought to justice.
Attacking Iraq is not only irrelevant to this task, but it will make
that task harder by alienating many allies and potential allies whose
cooperation is essential. ...
The idea of a collection of self-published Letters to Congress is appealing.
(Primary sources!) There wasn't enough time for the meme to spread widely
before today's target date, but I hope it's an ongoing effort.
Link
to this item | Comment
The boss loves Eminem:
Hank Kalet managing editor of the South
Brunswick, (N.J.) Post, has a new weblog called Channel
Surfing, and today he reviews Eminem's latest CD, The Eminem Show:
So here I am, suddenly, finding myself listening to Eminem's latest,
"The Eminem Show," marvelling at its raw energy, its naked
anger and asking myself, how could I not have seen this before?
How will his kids rebel?
Link
to this item | Comment
You
shone like the sun: From the Guardian (U.K.):
Syd Barrett was the prodigiously talented founder of Pink Floyd, but
after just two years at the centre of the 60s psychedelic scene, he
suffered a massive breakdown and has lived as a recluse ever since.
In this extract from his candid new book, Tim Willis tracks him down
and pieces together the story of rock's lost icon
The book, titled Madcap, is due out this month.
Related: An interview
with Willis at pink-floyd.org
Link
to this item | Comment
Wired hotels: Geektools.com
offers a list of hotels (dubbed Geektels)
worldwide that offer Internet access. via David
Carlson at poynter.org
Link
to this item | Comment
Headlines:
Escher's
"Ascending and Descending" in LEGO®
Google
may charge for internet search
Sensation: Cities Found on the Moon! "Reasonable activity of
an alien civilization showed up unexpectedly close to us. However, we
were not psychologically ready for it." [We are now??]
We Can
Run, but We Can't Hide: How BayTSP is Enforcing the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act.
The
Real Battle Doc Searls, editor of Linux Journal, writes about the
Digital Hollywood conference
held late last month. Doc is all over file-sharing, copyright, net radio
and more. His weblog
is an index to the many of the key issues that are likely to determine
the shape of the future.
Subterranean Homepage News
by Sheila Lennon
features & interactive producer of projo.com
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