January 2010
55 posts
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Pentagon plan on 'don't ask, don't tell' ready for... →
In the US, a member of the military may be dismissed for being openly gay or lesbian. The 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” law prohibits gay men and women in the military from revealing their sexual orientation, and prevents the military from asking about it. Since 1994 over 12,000 have been kicked out of the military for making their homosexuality apparent. The official reason...
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Al Jazeera English has finally broken into the... →
Foreign bureaus have been among the hardest hit by cost-cutting measures in print and television media alike. According to the Pew Research Center’s annual State of the News Media report, coverage of international events by American media fell by about 40 percent in 2008. Thus has a bizarre situation arisen: at the most interconnected time in history, accurate and comprehensive news of the...
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London Gigs 2005-2010
2010
* to be enjoyed soon Rage Against the Machine @ Finsbury Park* June 6 KMFDM @ Islington Academy* July 4
Holy F*ck @ Heaven Metric @ Camden Koko Broken Social Scene @ Heaven Doves @ Troxy Black Rebel Motorcycle Club @ Kentish Town Forum Spoon @ Camden Electric Ballroom Freelance Whales @ Soho Borderline
2009
Graham Coxon Power Acoustic Ensemble @ Barbican Hall Blur @ Hyde Park Doves @...
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Unreadable Captcha
Unreadable Captcha
Forcing me to type Small distorted characters To prove I am real
Are my words garbled Or somehow unfit for your Spam proof discussion?
Verification To tell human from machine Comes in many forms
Detection of spam Using Bayesian filters Only gets so far
Retinal scanning But I was born without eyes So you can’t scan me
Must access control Such selective restriction...
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WatchWorld Film Collective Promo [HQ]
There are 1.9 billion camera phones in the world. Each one of them presents its user the opportunity to communicate and interact with people around the world. World Film Collective delivers unique mobile phone based filmmaking workshops to disadvantaged young people around the world, providing them a rare chance to be forerunners of the current digital...
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FarmVille is stupid
In December I read in various places that there are more active players of the Facebook app FarmVille than on all of Twitter. Facebook claims FarmVille has 69 million active players per month, and research shows Twitter has around 18 million users. I heard this news and thought, “What is FarmVille?”
So I tried it. I built my farm. I got some ducks and a wheelbarrow. I became addicted...
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Dissidents Shift Discussion to Web →
Yet another example of how communications technologies are enabling individuals to connect regardless of the physical distance and political barriers which separate them.
A Syrian pro-democracy forum that was shut down by the authorities in 2005 has found a new life in cyberspace and discussion is thriving. The Atassi forum has rallied more than 250 members to its Facebook group to share views...
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“There can be no limits on the amount of money that corporations spend trying to...”
– U.S. Supreme Court
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Canadian bands I never knew about a year ago and...
k-os (k-os on Last.FM)
Metric (Metric on Last.FM)
Broken Social Scene (Broken Social Scene on Last.FM)
What’s a new band for you in the past year or so?
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Forging a Healthy Media Space in Iraq
More reporters, cameramen and media support personnel were killed in Iraq between 2003-06 than were killed over the entire twenty-year conflict in Vietnam. Iraq was described as the deadliest country in the world for journalists year after year.
But today, Iraq no longer holds this foreboding title: media-targeted violence has been on a steady and significant decline since 2008. This is the...
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Nice little podcast about New York City’s...
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Sad: Football Games Have Only 11 Minutes of Action →
I really enjoy both American and Rest-of-the-World football, but this simple fact just brings home the reason why the former is seen as kind of a joke. American football, in spite of its bone-crushing violence and, perhaps, because of its imperative for precisely executed, scripted, team-coordinated behavior, can be pretty boring to watch on TV.
Out of the typical 2 hours and 54 minutes of the...
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Survey Shows Increase in Toronto Cyclists but Also... →
Really interesting survey results of people’s attitudes toward and practice of cycling in Toronto. Excerpts and graphic below; click through for full article.
The municipal government has released the results from an extensive survey that compares the state of cycling in the city 1999 and 2009. … Although overall cycling participation has increased six per cent since 1999, and 72 per...
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A town called Saddam →
One of the strangest stories I’ve heard in a while. Is it true?
Residents of a town in south Jordan plan to go to court to appeal a decision by the government that banned them from renaming their town after former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein… In protest to the government’s decision, residents of the town, called Al-Rumeitha, also agreed to name all new born males during January after...
New and improved RSS feed! →
For you Google readers out there in the webworld.
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Syria makes it into the New York Times top 10... →
Damascus ranks number 7 in the top places to visit in 2010, mainly on the basis of its new boutique hotels. Thank you, Don Duncan, former correspondent for the Global Post Beirut, for your insightful review of a city in which you don’t even reside. Forget the great mosques, markets, museums, and mausoleums: you can travel halfway across the world and stay in a luxury hotel with an...
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Gaza: An Inside Look
(From B’Tselem)
Immediately after Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip ended last year, B’Tselem gave video cameras to 15 young Gazan students and asked them to document everyday life around them. Each volunteer chose his or her personal viewpoint. The results are on air in Israel’s leading online news portal, Ynet, and have been covered by the New York Times.
That images...
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Spanish Lawmaker's Face Used for Bin Laden Image →
Via Sphere:
A Spanish lawmaker says he wouldn’t feel safe in the U.S. after the FBI used his photograph to create a digitally enhanced image of Osama bin Laden.
An FBI spokesman acknowledged that the agency used a photo of Gaspar Llamazares found on the Internet to create the image, Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported. The image reportedly features the Spaniard’s hair and other...
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Is Investigative Journalism Dead?
All the words and images pouring in from Haiti remind us how social media have revolutionized the standards for communicating in times of crisis. In spite of the gut wrenching imagery, it’s a positive thing that anyone with a camera, phone, or computer can publish their thoughts and feelings globally.
Crowd-sourced news and freelance / celebrity writers have reduced the need for traditional...
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Anonymous asked: Why are libraries in London always regulated to a freezing temperature? I'm always super cold in them.
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My own faves of 2009
What English Sounds Like to Foreigners “An Italian singer wrote this song with gibberish to sound like English. If you’ve ever wondered what other people think American sound like, this is it.”
Rage Against the Machine Wins UK’s Christmas No 1 “In this day and age, if you want to say something, then you can. If enough people are with you, you can beat the status...
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“It’s wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news.”
– Sarah Palin on why she’s “thrilled” to be joining Fox News as an on-air contributor. Heh. (via gotcustard)
Ways to Avoid Swine Flu
As the number of reported cases of swine flu continue to decline worldwide, we can reflect upon the hysteria of 2009 and the foolish methods people took to combat its spread.
1. Slaughter all pigs in your country to prevent an outbreak
2. Avoid sick people. Do not visit your doctor. In fact, never leave your home.
3. Build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border
4. Do not eat pork imported from...
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Infographic Pleasure: 6 Ways to Make Coffee
(via ilovecharts) (via yesrefrigerator)
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3 ways to beat the red-eye blues - and learn...
Travelling is great, it’s just the getting there part that’s such a pain. And unlike George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, I do not cherish life on the road. Long haul and red-eye journeys typically leave me tired, cranky, and frustrated with the entire travel experience. Here are three ways I’ve learned to make the process of getting from A to B a little more...
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“What [Obama] should be doing is following the right things Bush did. One of the...”
– Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York City during the 9/11 attacks, said this on national television today. What an idiot. Watch the video.
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I looked up and saw a guy in the street had just fallen, presumably by slipping on the iced over road. Three concerned passers-by rushed over to help the guy up; he looked completely stunned in the face and held his own arm gingerly as if it or his wrist was broken. I continued walking because there were plenty of others to assist, but this was kinda scary.
Then another guy came riding up on his...
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WatchDucks
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