Friday, September 20, 2002

I started some new categories today, and went through my archives assigning some stuff to also be in the relevant new categories ... check out what I have via http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/Categories/ 11:47:18 PM

I find very interesting people in my referers such as [McGee] QUOTE There's been some good discussion recently on the interplay between knowledge sharing via weblogs and comfort with writing in most business organizations. (Phil Wolff, David Gammel, Pete Harbeson, Al Macintyre, Alison Fish, Sébastien Paquet, Ron Lusk) The consensus appears to be that fear of writing is one relevant barrier to tapping knowledge in organizations. Lowering or eliminating those barriers is certainly a worthy effort. I want to explore a deeper issue that this raises. Writing is not simply a mode of expression; it is also a tool for thinking. What's the relationship between facility with writing and the quality of thinking in organizations? Has this discussion of knowledge sharing revealed more important needs in the organization? These questions started rattling around with some other ideas hanging out in my head and the result grew into "Writing comfort and thinking styles," which I've posted as a longer story using Marc Barrot's activeRenderer. If oral thinking is essentially linear and literate thinking is two-dimensional, what might three-dimensional thinking look like? UNQUOTE [McGee] My interest started out, and continues with the personal need to do a better job of communicating, through continuous improvement.  I am a computer geek.  I write software.  At some point my users need a help screen or an error message.  What I deliver had better be crystal clear unambigous, but I recognize I am weak in the graphic digital arts.  A picture is worth 1k words but I have been using multiple 1k words when I need to learn how to do the pictures.  [Josef the Poet] has shown that it is possible to communicate several pictures using very few words.  We need to figure out ways to display computer data so less work for end users.  For example, spread sheets can put output using colors, coded so red means some extreme value, to illuminate that which humans need to look at. I too have found writing to be a tool for thinking.  I put my ideas in words, look at the words, get other ideas from the earlier expressions.  But often those ideas are non-obvious to someone else reading what I wrote, because there is an implied context of both what I wrote, and everything else in my mind, which in combination provide the new ideas. The Science Fiction community has something called Oral History.  Volunteers go around to Science Fiction conventions to interview the old masters, famous authors.  This info is video taped with copies delivered to research libraries around the USA.  This gives a sense of understanding those people that you sometimes cannot get from standard literature. 10:21:43 PM

I recently shared e-mail that I got asking me to sign an Amnesty International Petition to send to the President of Nigeria asking for clemency for Amina Lawal, the Nigerian woman convicted of adultery and having a child outside marriage, and who has been sentenced to death by stoning by the court, the sentence to be carried out after the baby can be rescued from this.  Yahoo's Virus Hoax Busters have some things to say on the subject similar to my views. This Nigerian woman has in fact been sentenced to death for allegedly bearing a child out of wedlock (the father denies responsibility, so the woman is automatically guilty).  This is real.  This is not a hoax.  We agree on that point. Internet petitions do not have much impact in the West, let alone on this Nigerian culture, says the moderator of  the discussion. Well we do not exactly agree here.  I think this effort raises public awareness of the work of Amnesty International, especially when it results in the European Parliament voting to boycott Miss World contest in Nigeria, and the President of Mexico making a special trip to visit the President of Nigeria to appeal on behalf of the woman's case. I passed this appeal on to some people who are into that kind of thing, while I seriously doubt Amnesty International is going to get significant change in nations supporting death sentence for violation of Islamic Law, even though they have collected over a million signatures so far (what does this say about the billions of people who have not signed the petition?).  I think Amnesty International power is when a nation says one thing and does another, so by illuminating duplicity, the exceptions can be stopped.  This is not duplicity.  It is Nigerian law and policy. Here is a directory of links to current Amnesty International themes: Stop Torture The Death Penalty G8 exporting tools for use in Human Rights abuses Police Accountability in Human Rights Human Rights Education Human Rights impact of Economic Activities International Justice Health Professionals Child Warriors before Emotional Maturity Guatamala History Repeats Diamond Trade's dark side. Anyhow my referrers are showing someone doing a Google search on the notion that this is a hoax.  I found a ton of searches for variations on the woman's name, Nigerian woman, hoax, Amnesty International petition, and all the hits were either on my site, sites about this woman's plight, or Google combining different posts that contained individual words of the search.  It is possible that there are a bunch of people doing similar searches.  The sad thing is that this happens to many women around the world, and is so alien to our western culture that many people receiving the e-mail appeal info about the petition, their first reaction is to wonder if this is a hoax.  So I am looking at some of the other posts on the topic that were in the Google searches, and finding some interesting sites. Another Nigerian woman, Safiya Husaini, was also sentenced to death by stoning, but an appeals court let her live.  But it is a continuing problem because Nigeria is deeply divided between Muslims and Christians, who have different moral codes.  The President of Mexico will be meeting with the President of Nigeria, and this injustice is one of the things the Mexican President will be arguing against. QUOTE The man Lawal identified as her baby's father denied the accusation and was acquitted for lack of evidence. UNQUOTE One would think that a gene test could prove or disprove it one way or the other, and the fact that no such test was done substantiates the complaints of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA). Other nations are protesting this at top government levels. Australia Britain The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) labels this as injustice in the name of Islam. The punishment for zina (fornication) by unmarried persons is a certain number of lashings, not stoning, and very stringent conditions are needed to verify the crime.  For example if Amina became pregnant through rape, then she is innocent of any crime. The IHRC has Action alerts on Amina Lawal (Nigeria) and Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (USA).  In the latter case, this man got a life sentence in which they are arguing many inconsistencies in the lack of evidence that the right man was convicted. Women's Rights Watch update # 2 on the continuing story of the Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal. QUOTE The judge has declared that Amina should not be executed until 2004, if she loses her appeal, so that she can look after her 5-month old baby daughter Wassila.  The Nigerian Justice Minister has joined the fight all the way to the Nigerian Supreme Court. Here is a Canadian source that seems legitimate to me.  Exclusive Interview with Amina Lawal published in UK's Mirror. QUOTE On Monday, an Islamic court in Nigeria upheld the sentence of death by stoning on Amina. She should be taken, buried to the neck in the earth and perish beneath a hail of rocks, half-bricks... anything conveniently to hand. Summoned before the tribal elders - who traditionally settle matters before police intervene - Yahay accepted paternity and promised to pay medical expenses for Amina and her baby. But he recanted after his family allegedly convinced him that his acceptance would bring shame on them. UNQUOTE Amnesty International says that death sentence by stoning is prohibited by two UN Treaties that Nigeria has signed: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and the Convention against Torture. The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has appealed to Nigeria on behalf of Amina Lawal.  The International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) is protesting that this Sharia legal code, as implemented in Northern Nigeria, is unfair to women. QUOTE In the three cases of conviction for adultery which attracted public interest, the women were convicted while their male associates were discharged with ease. The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom has listed this appeal on their page of Violence against Women, although the problem here is that of Islamic Law's attitude towards women, whether they behaved in a manner that religion considers immoral, or were a victim of rape. The American Women's Self Defense Association (AWSDA) has a link to this appeal (on upper left corner of their home page). American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) On_Line forums has a link to this appeal. The USA National Organization of Women (NOW) is protesting a couple who were sentenced to death by stoning (both husband-to-be and wife-to-be) for making love before they got married.  This stuff is no hoax, it is normal Nigerian legal system, and Nigeria is not the only nation like this. Global Feminist News Wire has several interesting relevant links Amina Lawal's stoning is on schedule, rules the appeals court, after the central government provided her with a lawyer to help her fight for a lesser sentence, which sounds almost as barbaric.  Several contestants will not be participating in the Miss World contest in Nigeria, as part of the protest. In a related link, the European Parliament has called for all of Europe to boycott the contest, in protest. South Korean Sexual Slavery to benefit US Servicemen in the last decade. Rwanda's Female Minister is the first woman to ever be charged with rape as a crime against humanity.  This is because of her alleged complicity in war crimes. Catholic Church continues to be mired in scandals. Here is a link that indicates that the Amnesty International effort is no Hoax, but some people searching on Google find the site because they looking for the name of the victim, and the word hoax, which are two separate topics on the same site, because lots of people write about both problems like this, and the problem of e-hoaxes. http://crawfurd.dk/africa/index.html#amina [Crawfurd] shares lots of info about Nigeria such as QUOTE Hoax Letters / E-mails from Nigeria Several people has received e-mails with a friendly and very polite business suggestion from someone apparently living in Nigeria (I certainly have received a few of these scams myself). Many of these mails originates from Nigeria, but lately I have also received one which seems to be sent from D. R. Congo. The sender usually claims that he has access to a large sum of money (usually from the government or some private company). The sender asks for help to transfer the money out of the country. This is said to be risk free transaction and you will receive a large sum of money for helping him out. Don't even think about it! Follow this link if you wish to report a scam or read more about this subject: Nigeria - The 419 Coalition Website. UNQUOTE I know about this.  It is an international scam to get access to your bank account numbers for the purpose of draining them.  Honest people should see through the scam, and struggle to figure out which is the correct government agency to report it to (US Secret Service in the USA, because this is a Currency Crime).  Unfortunately some big corporations have dishonest clerks, which have led to the corporations bank accounts being drained. Another very interesting site linked by my reverse searching review, that I want to explore more some time: Crime on the Internet 5:11:37 PM

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE Antihydrogen created at CERN. a Boing Boing reader sez: "The CERN lab in Europe has created REAL antimatter (antihydrogen atoms).The controlled production of antihydrogen observed in ATHENA is a great technological and scientific event. Even more so because ATHENA has produced antihydrogen in unexpectedly abundant quantities. Wow. Who wants a ride on the Enterprise?" Link Discuss UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog] How fast can a vehicle go that is powered by Anti-Matter?  Does Anti-Matter Fall Up? Anti Gravity Research. Here's how fast they can go in game simulations. Is it safe to mix anti matter and regular matter to produce energy of thrust? This sounds to me like the engine that propels itself using actual nuclear explosions (you have to have a pretty strong barrier plate to not get smashed up by this). NASA's plans. Wild Ideas. More Questions. 4:37:27 PM

Brian Dear (brian@platopeople.com) is working on a book about the history of the PLATO® system for computer-based education and training, and makes the following request at his site (http://www.platopeople.com/emoticons.html): QUOTE ~~~ "If you were involved with PLATO in any way, during the 60s, 70s, or 80s -- either as a courseware developer, an educator or faculty member, an engineer or system administrator, a student, a game player, whatever -- I would like to hear from you. This book is the story of the people that were a part of that online community -- the first real online "virtual community", pre-Web, pre-AOL, pre-USENET, pre-BBS, pre-everything. Were you a PLATO person? If yes, please help me make this book the most accurate and detailed account of the PLATO story as can be done. This is your chance to help contribute to the oral history of PLATO." ~~~ He also has a page about PLATO emoticons which is fascinating: "13 September 2002 -- The news is floating around the Web right now about the "discovery" of the first smiley. What readers and reporters are apparently not aware of is that the smiley being discussed is the first ASCII smiley. Like so many things, PLATO was doing smileys years earlier. In fact, smileys on PLATO were already an art form by 1976. PLATO users began doing smiley characters probably as early as 1972 (when PLATO IV came out), but possibly even earlier on PLATO III (still to be determined... old-timer PLATO III users please speak up!). How were these things done? Well, on PLATO, you could press SHIFT-space to move your cursor back one space -- and then if you typed another character, it would appear on top of the existing character. And if you wanted to get real fancy, you could use the MICRO and SUB and SUPER keys on a PLATO keyboard to move up and down one pixel or more -- in effect providing a HUGE array of possible emoticon characters. So if you typed "W" then SHIFT-space then "O" then SHIFT-space then "B", "T", "A", "X", all with SHIFT-spaces in between, all those characters would plot on top of each other, and the result would be the smiley as shown above in the "WOBTAX" example. UNQUOTE Thanks V. of TYR for passing this along to Al. I remember that before computers there were people using typewriter special characters in various shapes to make art that preceded ASCII art, and there were also people who shared decks of punched cards that drew Christmas Art.  No matter what the technology, there is a mentality out there that will figure out how to make it create beautiful stuff, blowing the minds of the ordinary users. 11:10:31 AM

© Copyright 2002 Al Macintyre.