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katlalog
020330 19:16 Environment
BP the good guys? They have reached their goal of cutting emissions ahead of schedule and at no net cost for the company, proving Bush wrong in his belief that such reductions could only be achieved at heavy costs for the economy.
In the United States, these false fears have been fed to the public by the coal industry lobby and by many electric power and oil companies. They back their claims by using the work of economists whose climate policy models assume that only a large energy tax [...] will cut emissions. Not surprisingly, these abstract models project high costs, but they are diametrically opposed to BP's empirical evidence of what works and how much it will cost.
020329 23:05 The Web
The web community is upset about this NYT article claiming that the web is boring. I don't care. I'm happy if the mainstream gets bored with the web. More bandwidth for the rest of us. In the meantime, if you want others to know where to find interesting site, post them at David Powazek's sie.
020329 20:14 Email
Yahoo is messing with us. They reset all marketing references to 'yes' (as in 'yes, send me loads of spam') and stopped POP access one months before the date they announce only recently. For instructions on how to reset your preferences go to Slashdot.
020327 13:35 Censorship
Filtering software misreads and consequently blocks page titled "Pen Is Mightier".
020327 13:04 Politics
Blatant fascism creeps into american culture in form of a new 'warrior eagle' stamp that bears resemblence to Nazi and Roman iconography. [Progressive Review, March 27]
020327 12:41 Accessibility
The writer of this terribly contradictory 'Look I know something about accessibility' article is trying to make the valid point that text-only versions of a website might not be an ideal option for all disabilities, e.g. people with learning disabilities prefer a bit of color and graphics for easy recognition of repetitive navigation items. And let's not forget all those 'tired or stressed' surfers. Graphics break up text and make the page look more interesting.
What I'm having a problem with here is his blanket statement that "Text-only is not accessible". Looks like the author just figured out that there are more disabilities than visual impairement. Well done. This does not mean that text-only versions are not accessible. They are. The whole point is that text-only versions are usually offered as an alternative to a certain part of the audience. If you want the graphics version then don't click on that text-only link. Simple.
020324 17:47 Culture
On one hand, it has made students more accepting of individuals different from themselves, more tolerant of other races, religions and sexual orientations. But this tolerance of other people also seems to have resulted in a reluctance to engage in the sort of impassioned argumentation that many baby boomers remember from their college days.
020324 17:16 Politics
America's attempt to manipulate education in Afghanistan backfires. Dodgy statement of the week:
"If you want a different kind of society, you have to create it."
020324 16:44 Environment / Umwelt
[de] Als erster Staat der Welt hat die Tschechische Republik Lichtverschmutzung strafbar gemacht und hat in ihrem Versuch, die "Schönheit der Nacht" wiederherzustellen, bereits Erfolge zu verzeichnen.
[en] The Czech republic has made light contamination an offense and has already had success in restoring the "beauty of the night". (Try the Google translation of the german article.)
020323 19:50 Intellectual property
I wonder if they come up with these unpronouncable acronyms (CBDTPA, formerly the SSSCA), just so that people can't talk about them. Wired explains:
Legal experts said on Friday that the CBDTPA regulates nearly any program, in source or object code, that runs on a PC or anything else with a microprocessor. [...]
According to the CBDTPA, any software with the ability to reproduce "copyrighted works" may not be sold in the United States after the Federal Communications Commission's regulations take effect. Even programmers who distribute their code for free would be prohibited from releasing newer versions -- unless the application included federally approved technology.
And so the glorious age of computing and of the Internet comes to a sudden end. Back to reading books then, to doing all the things I haven't done for years, painting models, jogging in the park, socializing... hmm.
020321 10:37 Politics
Stop this madness RIGHT NOW! UK 'prepared to use nuclear weapons'.
That does it. Humans are idiots, barbarians, savages, brainless and incompassionate monsters. I don't belong here. I'm not with these people. How can I get off this planet, please?
020321 10:13 Search engines
Google censors? Yes, it's true!
020321 09:56 hardware
Hardware? The virtual keyboard. A clever idea? Sure, but no ergonomic merits. I really wonder why they still make traditional keyboards.
020321 09:38 Intellectual property
Slashdot discussion about employment contracts and intellectual property and how some important work is now being pulled from the public domain. Watch out for arbitrary wording in your contracts:
Where it says:
company owns the rights to all work produced during the term of employment
Just strike it out, and change it to:
company owns the rights to code written during working hours and in direct furtherance of any tasks assigned by the company
020320 10:42 Politics
Kuro5hin discussion about advertising / propaganda / democracy / capitalism.
020313 19:41 Culture
While checking out the list of Words of the Year 2001, I came across this gem of knowledge:
Word of the Past Millennium was she.
Yes, she, the feminine pronoun. Before the year 1000, there was no she in English; just heo, which singular females had to share with plurals of all genders because it meant they as well. In the twelfth century, however, she appeared, and she has been with us ever since. She may derive from the Old English feminine demonstrative pronoun seo or sio, or from Viking invasions.
Here's an unwittingly ironic one from the 1999 list:
Most Likely to Succeed: dot-com
020313 19:04 Politics
According to this Yahoo article (in german) thousands of Pakistanis have applied for citizenship in the Internet country of Ladonia.
[de] Yahoo berichtet, dass tausende von Pakistanern Staatsbürgerschaft für das Internet Land Ladonia beantragt haben.
"Wir bekommen regelmäßig E-Mails mit Fragen, wie man nach Ladonia kommt und wo unsere Botschaft in Pakistan ist",...
020312 14:23 SciFi
A damning and disturbing analysis of the latest Star Trek installment Enterprise, which the author describes as "vehicle for white male suprematism and resentment", which glorifies arrogant colonialism, and resembles Nazi propaganda in its resentment towards other races.
A sign of our times. Just compare the positive utopianism of the green 70s, where we were awaiting help from the aliens with open arms, to the growing militarism expressed in SciFi of the recent decade and a half, à la Independence Day, where we were advised to better shoot first or be the first to die, together with our other hippy friends.
I only disagree with the writer on when this backwards movement in Star Trek started. I believe it started with Sisco's wounded pride in his unfair battle against the Maquis in DS9 and the now out-in-the-open authoritarianism in Voyager. A disservice to the feminist struggle, too: a Thatcherite woman at the helm that surely made many people wonder whether 'women in power' was really such a good idea.
Enterprise has been criticized for being technologically more backwards than we are now. But they can't really be technologically more advanced than the 60s Original Series, which is set in the future, after Enterprise. I can live with that. The social and cultural step back is worrying, however, because it is such a clear expression of our current state of mind.
020312 13:14 SciFi
Star Wars fans worried (screenshot from Daypop, commentary from thisiscrud.com):
020312 12:43 Civil Liberties: Surveillance
CCTV is not working. It does not reduce crime, it just shifts it. But, of course, that won't stop them putting up even more in the most surveilled country in the world, the UK (via Politech):
Police say criminals discouraged by the prospect of an unwanted TV appearance in London or other cities take to commuting to the countryside where prospective victims are more trusting and the pickings are easier. [...]
The British government is convinced that TV surveillance will remain a major anti-crime weapon and recently announced that it is financing the installation of more than 200 closed-circuit monitoring systems, from London to provincial cities and towns.
020312 12:14 Civil liberties: Censorship
Michael Moore, at a book signing event for his new book Stupid White Men, which has been censored for the last six months, gets kicked out by the police after the event overruns:
I walked outside and about 40 people ask me if I would still sign their books in the dark of the parking lot. A girl gets out her pocket flashlight. A guy runs over and turns on his headlights. I remark that it feels like we're in some sort of banana republic or East Berlin, secretly meeting so we can have our little book gathering. "Sign quick, Mike, here come the police!"
020312 11:46 Search Engines / End of Free
As the Internet falls apart, Google remains... for now. Googlepiphany:
Yes, we hold our breath each time we visit Google, lest they make that sad plunge into our noisy world instead of rising above it. And we are continually surprised by the improvements which they are making. [...]
How do they do it, how do they keep going, and going, and going without losing integrity by selling ads or trying to do too much? Google quietly inspires us to consider a world without advertising. Oh, they take advertising alright, yet look at it: it's extremely targeted, intended to be relevant to the searcher. With a thick black line separating advertising and content. No advertiser images. None of this irrelevant barrage.
Update 020312 13:07: More praise for Google from Cory Doctorow: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Panopticon.
Update 020313 12:08: Google permits ads for spamware, rejects firearms-related ads (Politech).
020310 19:18 Culture / Kultur
[de] Faszinierendes Interview mit Klaus Theweleit, Autor von Männerphantasien, 2 Büchern, die einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Faschismusforschung darstellen.
Wenn Leute daran festhalten wollen, dass sie sagen, wenn zwei oder drei Leute am Tisch sitzen und sich unterhalten, ohne sich den Schädel einzuschlagen, das sei etwas "Natürliches", dann können sie das natürlich tun. Obwohl es viele faktische Hinweise gibt, die das Gegenteil unterstreichen: dass es eher unnatürlich ist und ein erarbeitetes Produkt von Zusammenleben ist, sich nicht den Schädel einzuschlagen. Es ist sehr schwer zu beschreiben, weil die Sprache und unsere Denkschemata voll von solchen falschen Oppositionen sind: Natur / Künstlichkeit, tot / lebendig.
020308 22:43 Civil liberties
The 2002 UK Big Brother Awards (via NTK)
Four "Big Brother" awards were presented to the individuals, organizations, and departments which have done most to invade personal privacy. A "lifetime menace" award was also be given.
020308 21:45 Browsers
Netscape 6 is Spyware? Just use Mozilla
020307 21:20 Movies
I just watch Les Visiteurs, a funny and slightly mad french film where a knight from the 11th century gets thrown into modern France. I'm craving non-american story-telling at the moment. The best thing about it, though, was a little message at the end after the credits had scrolled off the screen. It said: A little hello to all credit-lovers.
020307 14:23 End of Free
There really doesn't seem to be any alternative to making people pay for content on the Internet. Bandwidth costs. And people just can't live of air and karma. Damn this economic system! Someone explain to me again why we can't try this one?
CmdrTaco and crew discuss Slashdot's new subscription system.