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katlalog
040916 22:57 Society
Terrible human tragedy. When will we, in our fat and safe countries, understand the desperation that causes people to risk their lives to reach Europe? When will we stop treating them like opportunist and liars and notice that they really are hungry and beaten and terribly desperate? When will we stop treating the third world as our resource and creating economic and political situations that people will try to escape from?
Seven children 26 teenage girls, and five pregnant women were among the dead.
Pregnant women! Pregnant women decided it is better to possibly die trying to reach Europe than stay were they were. This is how bad it is. How can we live on the same planet and not see something wrong with this?
Mogadishu human rights groups estimate that nearly 2,000 Somalis have either drowned in the Red and Mediterranean seas or disappeared into the long desert between Sudan and Libya over the past six years.
040916 22:35 Comix
040916 22:31 Intellectual property
First Monday September 2004: Is copyright necessary?
040913 00:00 Culture
...until recently very few people did have a clue about La Mexicaine de la Perforation, a clandestine cell of "urban explorers" which claims its mission is to "reclaim and transform disused city spaces for the creation of zones of expression for free and independent art". [...]
It was constructed in a series of interconnected caves totalling some 400 square metres beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel tower. Former quarries, they were partly refurbished during the 1900 Universal Exposition when one of the galleries was clad with concrete to represent a future Channel tunnel and a wall was artfully terraced.
040910 01:11 Education
Peer education: Anarchist U (via boingboing)
Anarchist U is a free school. Of course, many schools are free of charge. However--to paraphrase Richard Stallman--to understand the concept of "free school" you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer." Free schools are schools that allow and facilitate students to pursue their goals in ways that work for them. Students are not forced to learn anything. Teachers are seen as resources of knowledge rather than as authoritarian figures. There has been a long tradition of free schools. Two examples are Summerhill and Stelton...
040908 22:51 Society
The Bounty's descendents on the extremely remote Pitcairn Island are in trouble - for several reasons:
In an age of mass tourism the island has no airport and rarely gets visitors - the only face to face contact the 47 residents have with the outside world provided by an occasional passing ship.
[...] "You can't go anywhere. You can't go away for a weekend, it's a 10-day boat journey to New Zealand if there's a ship, which there isn't. The furthest you can go is for a 15 minute walk."
[...] The trial, due to start on 23 September, prompted the governor - the British High Commissioner to New Zealand - to demand islanders turn their weapons in, lest things get out of hand.
040906 00:55 Browsers
In the end the good guys win: Mozilla Usage Doubles in 9 Months.
040901 22:34 Science
I wonder what kind of person bets on the likelihood of the discovery of the Higgs boson. I didn't know these people were into gambling.
quote of the month
People are disappointed with the future they're living in. Since 2001, the refrain has gone up, louder year by year: "This is the future. Where's my flying car? Where's my fucking jet pack?" Pre-millennium, we were living in an unprecedented density of imagined futures, and we assumed it was all waiting for us around the corner. And here we are, around the corner, and none of it is standing here.