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katlalog

061127 13:05 Society

How favelas develop.

Rents are a factor driving people to participate in land invasions. Only 2% of the Brazilian population can afford to own their own apartments or houses [...]

Municipal authorities - to whom development funds only trickle down in minor quantities - struggle to replace latrines and open sewers with municipal services and to install lighting and staircases to navigate the city's steep slopes.

061127 12:44 Entertainment

The BBC reports: Online video 'eroding TV viewing'. You don't say!

Personally, i haven't watched TV in 3 years. I own a TV simply to watch old Star Trek episodes i recorded on video over the years (when i was still plugged into a TV stream). i own a radio too but it's not connected to an antenna or cable outlet. It is, however, hooked up to my computer, from which i listen to BBC World Service all day long.

It's time that media companies changed their form of delivery and the way they charge for services. I'd be more than happy to pay the BBC for their online stream and whatever studio for the TV series i can't get on any TV channel where i live.

I watch and listen to exactly what i want without being regionally restricted and without advertising! I haven't seen adverts in such a long time that i don't understand references to them.

061127 12:18 Intellectual property

The week starts with some excellent news and some just plain daft news concerning intellectual property. The good news is that UK copyright will not be extended from 50 to 95 years. The daft news is that McDonald's is trying to patent sandwich-making, including the simultaneous toasting of a bread component.

061126 21:55 Entertainment

I just started watching Heroes. I like it. I like it. I like it. (That deserves repeating 3 times because i'm quite picky.) I'm just catching up, having ignored it at first because i hate superhero stories. I'm a lover of comics and graphic novels but i tend to stay away from superhero stuff. But this one is good. It has the mystery and suspense of Lost. It is multiculural and multiracial (although i'm still waiting for some American Indians to show up in American TV shows). It depicts some taboos of our societies as the every day life they are. And apart from the invincible cheerleader (it's just a bit gory) i like all the characters. Even the flying looks cool. (More than superheroes i hate flying superheroes.) It overdoes some of the stereotypes a little, like the nerdy, naive Japanese but i'm willing to forgive that. From what i've seen so far (episode 4) he's going to become one cool superhero :)

It reminds me a lot of Rising Stars by J Michael Straczyinski, one superhero comic i have actually read. In fact, i think JMS should get credit for the Nicki/Jessica double identity character.

061126 19:08 Culture

More fun facts about Germans. Der Spiegel put together a collection of stories by foreigners living here or Germans, who have lived in other cultures, explaining weird German behaviour and obsessions: the Germany Survival Bible. Find out about Germans' irrational fear of moving air...

Sometime later at the home of a friend, I was asked if I felt the breeze from an open window. I replied that I did and to my dismay the window was promptly closed. It was at that moment that it finally hit me, what was enjoyable for me, was quite a serious problem for my German friends.

... the German national pastime Whining, Bitching and Moaning...

If you go to Germany you will definitely be subjected to hours and hours of complaints, especially if you dare to disagree. And let the normally on-time trains be just a few minutes late and you'll hear a chorus of smug comments about how terrible the German train system is. If it's on time, they'll complain about the food, the seating, the crowds, the loud children, the air, the conductors -- even the noise in what are very likely the quietest trains in the world.

... or how you will have to change your routine to accommodate German shop opening hours. You wouldn't expect the post office to be closed Monday noon, would you?

061126 18:53 Web development: Accessibility

3 December is International Day of Disabled Persons and this year's theme is "E-accessibility".

061124 14:03 Web development: Accessibility

Accesskey remains the most discussed and most diversely implemented accessibility technique of all. I find it the most annoying, so much so that i've almost entirely given up on using them. Implementation across browsers is inconsistent and there's no agreement on the best choice of shortcuts. Now Firefox has added its own suggestions to a solution, which isn't too bad, because it doesn't interfere with already defined browser shortcuts by using Alt+Shift+Accesskey, but causes a whole range of new problems, e.g. numeric accesskeys won't work.

The solution to this problem isn't to revert back to the old model used by Firefox, as that model was also broken. Firefox would be well-advised to follow Opera Software's lead on this issue, as Opera is, without a shadow of doubt, way ahead of their competitors where access keys are concerned. In Opera, pressing shift+Esc lists all access keys used on the page, and can be activated from that point using the single key alone.

061124 01:09 Society

Fascinating interview with the author of The Lonely Planet Guide to Micronations. This is the really interesting part:

Surely gated suburbs, housing only the filthy rich, are the future of micronationalism. Gated communities have their own security forces, their own infrastructure... it must be only a matter of time before the most powerful and self-contained of them secede. Going by this model, Johannesburg – by all accounts – will be composed of nothing but micronations.

We'll soon live in a Neal Stephenson novel.

061124 00:03 Intellectual property

As much as i dislike MS, this is just bizarre. Claiming intellectual property of a language?

...Mapuche tribal leaders have accused the U.S. company of violating their cultural and collective heritage by translating the software into Mapuzugun without their permission.

I think the problem is not with the term intellectual but with property. This is a world where everything has to be owned by someone. And if you don't lay claim to something someone else will. Ironic that it was a romanticized view of American Indian philosophy that shaped the 70's and early 80's new age hippies' idea of ownership. They must be pretty bummed now.

061122 16:09 Language

The New Oxford American Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2006 is Carbon Neutral.

Being carbon neutral involves calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions, reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset: paying to plant new trees or investing in "green" technologies such as solar and wind power.

Among the runners-up for Word of the Year is an old geek favourite: DRM.

061118 22:48 Women's rights

My joy about Ortega's victory was short-lived: Nicaragua bans abortion, even in cases when a woman's life is judged to be at risk.

The former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was a defender of Nicaragua's limited abortion rights and a critic of the Catholic church when he led a left-wing Nicaraguan government in the 1980s.

He has since been reconciled with the church and has become a strident opponent of abortion.

Public opinion in Nicaragua, which is estimated to be 85% Roman Catholic, appeared to be behind the bill.

Similarly strict laws are in place in Chile and El Salvador.

In many other Latin American countries, abortion is permitted if the woman's life is in danger.

061118 01:03 Intellectual property

Thailand's new ICT Minister can't think outside his capitalist box:

"With open source, there is no intellectual property. Anyone can use it and all your ideas become public domain."

And that's bad?

"If nobody can make money from it, there will be no development and open source software quickly becomes outdated," he said.

He's just plain wrong here.

061117 00:30 Comics

Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan #1 can be downloaded for free. Get it!

Lots more first issues here, such as Hellblazer, Sandman, Y -The Last Man, ...

061106 16:25 Geeks

25% of coders do it to techno. Cool!

061102 21:25 Science

I can just see one of those oops moments coming...

In a controversial study, researchers have resurrected a retrovirus that infected our ancestors millions of years ago and now sits frozen in the human genome. [...] some argue that resuscitating any ancient virus is inherently risky and that the study should have undergone stricter reviews.

061102 09:46 Privacy and human rights

Well, that makes me feels a little bit better about the conservative place i live in now. Germany is at the top and the UK at the bottom of the Privacy International ranking table.

061031 19:31 Hallowe'en

I'm back. 2 years without DSL and 2 months of the most gruelling physical change in location ever are finally over. i'm cruising at a good speed again, which means i can listen to BBC WorldService over the intarwub - now that i live in etherically-challenged petty-bourgeoisia.

It's Hallowe'en, 7:30 pm, and i've had only 2 monsters come trick-or-treating so far, actually one blood-covered human and a juvenile goth who claimed that black makes her a witch. Maybe that dragon guarding my door is doing its job too well.

Sticking with the theme and getting back to blogging, here's the scariest short horror story of the season, by Charles Stross.

Catching up

Entertainment: Raves sure have changed.

Web comix: Catching up on 6 weeks of web comix. Sinfest is definately my favorite.

Civil liberties: US police running scary unannounced drills in school.

Society: The others: the social outgroup.

SF / Internet: Robert Anton Wilson gets help from the internet community.

Censorship / Civil liberties: Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2006.

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