Friday, July 30, 2004

What interests me is the 10, 660 tips from the citizenry. I had rather hoped that tattling went out with the Cultural Revolution. China blocks porn websites Beijing July 26, 2004 Beijing has blocked 988 overseas websites and shut down 67 local ones as part of a nationwide campaign to weed out pornographic content on the internet, Chinese media reported. The websites shut down during the July 6 to 21 special operation included Hong Kong websites. The popular search tool Google was also inaccessible this week. So far, the Chinese capital has arrested 13 people suspected of operating the websites, the Beijing Youth Daily said on Saturday. Police received 10,660 tips from the public, a majority of which were complaints about inappropriate sexual content on the internet. Other complaints involved pornographic mobile phone short messages, the report said. The central Chinese government this month launched a "people's war" against pornography on the internet, giving websites a deadline until September to rid themselves of indecent content or lose their license to publish decent material, such as news. Officials had so far identified 500 websites across China that carried pornographic pictures and film clips, the China Daily reported. Hundreds of websites, including the most influential ones, publish "indecent or even pornographic content" to attract users, the Xinhua news agency had reported. The crackdown on internet porn reflects two top concerns of the Chinese leadership, about the ethical standards of the young and about the subversive potential of the internet. With 80 million registered users in China, the government is finding it increasingly difficult to control the internet, but that has not stopped it from trying. State media reported last month that the government had suspended the registration of new internet cafes, following a three-month sweep in which it closed 16,000 existing ones. AFP 12:53:29 PM

Like a flamefest come to life. . .. Michael Moore vs. Bill O'Reilly No, I'm not kidding. And yes, it is a Drudge link. Watch O'Reilly Godwin halfway through the interview. [MetaFilter] 11:53:26 AM

bookbinding | popup books. Three nice book links from the University of North Texas Libraries: 1. Victorian Bookbinding - Innovation and Extravagance has some gorgeous examples of bookcovers from the Art Nouveau, Victorian, and Arts and Crafts periods. 2. The Great Menagerie is an animated tour of 19th and 20th century pop-up books. 3. Pop-Up and Movable Books - A Tour, showcases pop-up book artists through the centuries, and includes the master of the genre, Lothar Meggendorfer. More about Meggendorfer inside ----> [MetaFilter] 11:50:44 AM

Just don't revoke any Nobels. That was the height of knowledge at that time and that's what they were cited for. (Or is it sited? No, I don't think so.) Yowza. The physicist Shariah Afshar has used a beautifully simple experiment, which no-one seems to have thought of before, to disprove Bohr's principle of complementarity, something which has been pretty much unchallenged for 80 years. He may also have gone some way towards showing that there is no such thing as a photon, and that Einstein's Nobel prize should be revoked. So, big stuff. What do you physicists think? [MetaFilter] 11:49:57 AM

Utopia exists only for short periods. Likewise altruism. Attack of the Hoax Blogs. In today's NYT, my Wired News colleague Daniel Terdiman writes about the growing trend in blogs that purport to be real, but are in fact hoaxes (and yes, he knows they're "weblogs" or "blogs," not "Web Logs," but c'est la editorial policy, mon cher). Link [Boing Boing] 11:47:02 AM

Apple Shows Some Mean Colors. CNN: Apple: RealNetworks hacked iPod. Apple Computer accused RealNetworks Thursday of adopting the tactics of a hacker and breaking into the technology behind its popular music player iPod device. So Apple is happy to let you play your music only in the way it permits, if you're going to use its devices. The company says it'll rewrite its software to thwart Real's customer-friendly hack -- and I use that word in the benevolent sense -- that lets people use what they've bought with just a bit more freedom than Apple wishes to grant. Threats to use copyright law against Real are exactly what you'd expect, unfortunately. Apple wants control over online music, and this is just part of the game. What we customers want is cross-platform compatibility: standards. What the companies want is lock-in. They may win, but they're only locking me out -- because I won't play by those rules. Which means I've bought my last iTunes Music Store song until Apple starts paying more attention to what its customers want. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 11:45:00 AM

Cell Phones Becoming Profitless [Slashdot:] 11:42:29 AM

Fourth Degree. If I write about coverage of the coverage of the bloggers' reporting at the Democratic National Convention, is that meta-meta-meta journalism? [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 11:41:06 AM

Yes, but how many of them are in real dining room cars? Diner Diaries. Roadside Online. A blog about Diners. [MetaFilter] 11:40:24 AM

Wow, somebody types in the Fry's newspaper ads and puts them on the Web.. Wow, somebody types in the Fry's newspaper ads and puts them on the Web. [Hack the Planet] 11:39:26 AM

Do not cross Werner Vogels when it comes to paper reviews.. Note to self: Do not cross Werner Vogels when it comes to paper reviews. [Hack the Planet] 11:38:47 AM

Apple Gets Real Serious About Harmony.. Ernest Miller: Apple Gets Real Serious About Harmony. (Warning: extreme information density.) [Hack the Planet] 11:38:27 AM

Tender Stories From Family Position Kerry in a Soft Light. John Kerry's daughters had the thousands of delegates hungry to retake the White House in tears and giggles with warm stories of dad. By By JODI WILGOREN. [The New York Times > Home Page] 11:35:56 AM

Mobile phone shipments soar. Global shipments of mobiles rose 40% in the first half of the year, fuelled by strong growth in developing markets [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition] 11:34:53 AM

Better German tubemap. Horst sez, "You published a link to an alternative London Underground Map ("what if the Germans had won WWII?") in German on July 29th. Problem is, as any German native speaker might tell you, many of the names of this map are Mock-German rather than real German and don't really make sense. "A while ago I attempted a real translation of the London Underground map into German, with station names being real, literal or etymological translations of the English placenames into German. Most German readers of my map agree that it's funnier than Myrtle's map (the one that you linked to). "Incidentally, the translation of the London map into German was part of a project that started with a translation of the underground map of Vienna, Austria into English, which might be of more entertainment value as most of your readers can actually read it. Link (Thanks, Horst!) [Boing Boing] 11:34:26 AM

Penguin Putnam's racketeering domain-name scam. Katie has owned the domain katie.com since 1996. Penguin Putnam recently released a book about girls who get into trouble with the interweb and called it Katie.com. Now, the clueless dorks at Penguin have decided that they need to strongarm Katie out of her domain so they can do tie-ins with their book (ironically, they scrapped girl.com, the original title, 'cause that's a porn-site, but they figured that a web-developer's site is fair game). Today I also had a very unpleasant phone call from a lawyer working with Katie Tarbox, the author of the book. She tried to convince me that I should donate the domain name to them. Somehow this would resolve my problem. OK so not only do I get walked all over, my life invaded by this book, treated badly by the publisher/author who refuse to acknowledge that they've done the wrong thing, but then I get to hand it over to them on a silver plate and I not only have suffered all this aggravation but ultimately have lost the thing that I care about. Exactly HOW does this resolve anything other than give them the thing they want which they have done everything to hijack without any care and consideration for what is right and just? Secondly, she tells me that they're planning on launching some school curriculum thing to teach kids about online safety - and they're calling it Katie.com. Are they insane? No wonder they want me to hand it over. Link [Boing Boing] 11:33:25 AM

Greens Greasing Political Wheels. While the Democrats pontificate about energy policies, some activists tool around Boston in cars fueled by restaurant grease. Mark Baard reports from Boston. [Wired News] 11:31:21 AM

Liberals Want Their Own Network. Emboldened by Michael Moore's success with Fahrenheit 9/11, a group of progressive reporters and media execs plans a TV network to take on Fox News and CNN. They may have the chops to pull it off, but they'll be at the mercy of the cable companies. By Mark Baard. [Wired News] 11:28:04 AM

Mom brought Google to its knees. This past Monday, July 26, Google was Unavailable to many if not most internet users. The cause was a virus named mydoom, which causes infected PCs to send spam, and in the case of this variant, went to Google and other search engines looking for email addresses to spam. Even the mighty Google couldn't handle the load. Mom called me a week ago. "I want you to take this firewall off of my computer." [kuro5hin.org] 11:27:03 AM

The World Is Numbers. Explorations of computation: the world is numbers, and the divine a mathematician. Maybe. [Flash, Javascript] [MetaFilter] 11:26:15 AM

Amazon will not handle book on Bush-Saudi links. Books: Internet bookshop criticised for refusing to stock a book on links between Bush and rich Saudis. [Guardian Unlimited] 11:25:17 AM

Us against the world. Betty Clarke tells the story of the Libertines. [Guardian Unlimited] 11:22:40 AM

IE patch 'imminent'. Download.Ject fix less than a fortnight away [The Register] 11:21:15 AM

Great birthday present, no? Information (from 1945) wants to be free. Pages of the Past The Toronto Star has digitized each of its issues from 1892-2001. And they're searchable. And they're online. Unfortunately, access starts at about a buck an hour—but 1945 is free! [MetaFilter] 11:20:30 AM

I'm dreaming of a black and white world The Saudi plan for a Islamic Corps to police Iraq is stillborn.  Here's why: Few countries will participate.  Pakistan is the pivotal player.  Egypt has already declined.  The countries that may send troops are dictatorships. The requirement that these troops will be outside of US military command and control is an unacceptable condition. The number of troops that can possibly be sent will be inconsequential.  The US has 140,000 troops in theater.  As a result, the demand that this deployment is part of a US withdrawal is impossible. These troops will be targets (as are Iraqi forces).  Additionally, these troops do not have the capabilities of the US military for force protection. Frankly, there is already an Islamic Corps in Iraq and it is fighting for the other side.  It's little wonder that Saudi Arabia is frantic to build a bulwark against global guerrillas in Iraq.  They have been moving into Saudi Arabia over the last several months... [John Robb's Weblog] 11:19:11 AM

Go to it, EFF EFF's Letter to the Senate on INDUCE [Slashdot:] 11:17:19 AM

Now this is fascinating. Really. Living Without a Pulse [Slashdot:] 11:16:09 AM

Ingenious spare-parts wheelchairs for the world's poorest nations. The Free Wheelchair Mission is a religious NGO that produces wheelchairs out of $41.17 worth of parts, and makes its plans for same available for free online. The project was inspired by the site of a legless Moroccan woman dragging herself across a dirt road. Now the project works to provide low-cost wheels to all comers around the world. Link (via Gizmodo) [Boing Boing] 11:12:29 AM

The battle for email privacy. You've got company [The Register] 11:11:02 AM

Your data online: safe as houses. In an earthquake [The Register] 11:10:33 AM

. . .Rip apart their straw-filled sacks . . .. Help the scarecrows scare the crows in this beautifully done Flash game: A Murder of Scarecrows. [MetaFilter] 11:09:55 AM

Bad guy vs bad guy Real Responds to Apple's Hacking Claims [Slashdot:] 11:08:55 AM

Microsoft looks beyond Windows. Microsoft has outlined the novel technologies that it hopes will help the company grow in the near future. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition] 11:07:39 AM

Sex changes 'are not effective'. Transsexuals' lives may not be improved, a review for tomorrow's Weekend magazine finds. [Guardian Unlimited] 11:05:29 AM

Segways are brilliant, you idiots. Letters Whatever you say... [The Register] 11:05:04 AM

The Segway: glorified scooter or democracy on wheels?. Poll The People must decide [The Register] 11:04:45 AM

Is Cory Doctorow the first person to work with a cow? MSFT buys spam company, sues the competition, silences political activists. My cow-orker Annalee Newitz has posted a great editorial on the latest court battles over spam, pointing out the weird, anticompetitive and anti-speech aspects of the spam fight. Microsoft is developing what it calls Bonded Sender, a program that would supposedly separate "legitimate" Internet marketers and bulk mailers from spammers. Working with a California company called IronPort, Microsoft will create a white list of Internet marketers who have paid a fee and demonstrated that they have no record of spamming. Companies participating in the Bonded Sender program will be allowed to send their email ads to HotMail and MSN users. Given Microsoft's investment in the Bonded Sender program, it seems they may soon be in the business of serving as middlemen between emailer marketers and their webmail users. In other words, it sounds like the software megacorp is about to start competing with Richter. Of course, Microsoft could always call off its suit if Richter claims to have been rehabilitated -- and he pays his Bonded Sender fees! In the spam wars, sometimes it's hard to tell the spammers from the antispammers. The situation gets even more complicated when you consider the fact that Microsoft will do more than pick and choose winners in the junk email business. Bonded Sender will punish most the people who aren't even sending advertisements -- groups like Internet activists MoveOn.org, who send out millions of emails to alert their members to upcoming political events and issues. If these groups don't pay their Bonded Sender fees, HotMail simply won't deliver their email -- regardless of whether users have specifically opted in to receive it. Link [Boing Boing] 11:01:39 AM

Pretty clever How do you weaken the US's grasp on the Middle East? But scaring off their allies, one country at a time. FT. The Pakistani government ordered its ambassador in Kuwait yesterday to begin urgent negotiations with a Kuwaiti company, discouraging it from taking Pakistani workers to Iraq after two hostages were killed by a militant group.  Additionally, sentiment is growing against sending troops to Iraq. [John Robb's Weblog] 10:59:07 AM

Microsoft Challenges Google [Slashdot:] 10:56:31 AM

Squirrels scream ultrasonically. Ground squirrels emit an ultrasonic shriek to warn others that a predator is nearby. In the current issue of the journal Nature, University of Manitoba researchers report that while bats and whales use ultrasound for echolocation and to track pray, "ultrasonic alarm calls have not previously been detected in any animal group, despite their twin advantages of being highly directional and inaudible to key predators." From a New Scientist article about the study: "Ultrasonic alarm calls might be beneficial because many of the birds-of-prey that catch and eat squirrels cannot hear them. Conveniently, ultrasound also has a shorter range than audible sound. 'It may be used to secretly warn others without alerting a more distant predator,' says (researcher David) Wilson. Link (Thanks, Gabe!) [Boing Boing] 10:53:20 AM

LA Times online unclenches from paid-subscriber-only silliness. In recent months, the Los Angeles Times has taken a hell of a lot of heat from bloggers, media critics, and even some of its own writers over a constipated web content management policy that locked up all "Calendar" section listings to paid subscribers only. They've finally reversed that policy. This is groovy, because links just want to be free, man. Link [Boing Boing] 10:52:42 AM

The distinction between handheld and cell phone doesn't work anymore... ...and leads to problems when you're playing with statistics. Handheld market: Rising or falling?. Shipments of handhelds were either hot or cold. It just depends on who was doing the counting. [CNET News.com - Personal Technology] 10:49:29 AM