dikini.net - society

Opens social is out

vlado — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:36:36 -0400

http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial is out. But what does that mean?

It is reffered to as a fightback against the facebook api. I read somewhere claims that Facebook API is 98% open, Open Social 100%.

That might be true, depends on your definition of open. It is a step in the right direction. I'm not sure if you can adhere to the api, but bypass google services completely. Need to read it, touch it see it. If the API is actually server/vendor/social network platform agnostic then it is definitely a big step in the right direction, and the numbers are not as above but more like 50-100. Especially with the prospect of weird and wonderful mashups between niche networks.

The privacy and security issues will rise exponentially, but they are solvable and there is a bit more understanding in the general populace.

Atheists and Anger

vlado — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:10:55 -0400

So I want to talk about:

1. Why atheists are angry;

2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;

And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.

So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.

Atheists and Anger

A wonderful passionate angry atheist rant.
+++ girl

Petition for guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results

vlado — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 07:02:36 -0500

"In January 2006 the European Commission published the Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe. The Study resulted from a detailed analysis of the current scholarly journal publication market, together with extensive consultation with all the major stakeholders within the scholarly communication process (researchers, funders, publishers, librarians, research policymakers, etc.).
The Study noted that 'dissemination and access to research results is a pillar in the development of the European Research Area' and it made a number of balanced and reasonable recommendations to improve the visibility and usefulness of European research outputs."

from Petition for guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results

It is a very important request, but not going far enough. Essentially, the petition requests all knowledge, result of publicly funded research to be made openly and freely (they are not explicit about it, but this is what I understand from the context) available and accessible.

Open IT projects petition

vlado — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:34:38 -0500

Software written using public funds should have it's source code
published under a distribution licence that has been declared Free by the
Free Software Foundation, rather than remaining a closed secret.

This would allow for more of the public to benefit from the development of
the software since the code would be available for anyone to use and
improve. Furthermore, compatibility with other Free licences (such as the
GPL) would promote rapid development and reduced costs through the reuse
of existing code.

An open development model would also allow the public to be more informed
of the progress and quality of these projects, which so frequently seem to
end up severely over budget.

Open IT projects petition

It is a simple, common sense principle - public funds should fund public projects, which should remain public for the eternity. In my opinion it is a just cause. A free license or, if the creators/contractors wish so, public domain, a known practice in the USA, is the most logical, socially responsible demand a government can make.

Heiligendamm being fenced out in preparation for the G8 Summit this summer

vlado — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 05:26:05 -0500

Aren't they ever pragmatists them Germans. Apparently, the German authorities are putting a 12km concrete and metal fence around Heiligendamm, the town of this year's G8 summit. Well done - this will keep the peace in the town and at the Kempinski hotel.

I wonder why does "Resistance is futile" echoes in my head in German accent :)

Happy Birthday Guantanamo!

vlado — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:35:03 -0500

On 11 January 11 2002, the first detainees from Afghanistan arrived at the US Naval Base of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Five years on, the baby is live and kicking and enjoys good health. It has been kept on a nutritious diet of injustice and abuse.

Celebrate it's five year on anniversary with all of it's well wishers at the Guantanamo Anniversary Special

Libya sentence nurses and doctor to death by firing squad, again

vlado — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:10:05 -0500

Two days ago a Lybian court sentenced five nurses and a doctor to death, for the horrendous crime that they have apparently intentionally infected some 400+ children with HIV. The really outrageous and and sad side of this story is that the sentenced medics are innocent, at least according to the opinion of independent world renown experts. Their opinions have not been allowed in the court proceedings and discounted as biased, erroneous and alleged that they form a part of a conspiracy against Lybia. That is simply ridiculous. Especially since the medical opinion is that the main cause is probably bad hygiene practices in the hospital in Bengazi. :(

From a conspiracy theorist's point of view it is an inspiration that the blood money demanded by Lybia match the money Lybia was sentenced to pay the families of the Lockerbie bombing's victims.

There's nothing more to comment - there is loads of information on the internet. The article in wikipedia - HIV trial in Lybia provides a fairly brief but thorough account on the matter.

Achub Spillers Records..... Save Spillers Records

vlado — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 07:32:35 -0500

I'm gutted to hear that Spiller's Records is under threat to get shut down. It will be a shame if it happens. It will be a loss. Instead of being shut it should be listed. It's the oldest surviving record shop in the world! It's been continuosly open since 1894, yes, that's right it has been alive in three different centuries. Sign the petition. Now! If you don't want such gems to disappear. I quote the petition below.

Over £30 million of UK aid money spent on funding body for privatisation consultants

vlado — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 08:24:08 -0500

Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) has channelled over £30 million of its aid through an institution designed to pay consultants to push privatisation in poor countries according to a report released today (Sunday 26 November 2006) by the World Development Movement. This compares, for example, to the £3.5 million DFID has pledged to spend over four years to help establish a new programme of support for higher education in Africa.

from www.wdm.org.uk

Censorship and freedom of exression in Egypt

vlado — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 11:32:03 -0500

Making noise.

I'm receiving emails from people I know and people who know me (for some strange reason this is true), who are aware of my posts about Alaa and his imprisonment in Egypt earlier this year.

Well, it seems the authorities there have consistent policies against dissent.

Recently Abdel Karim Sulaiman Amer was arrested and detained [apparently] because of his critical writings on his blog.

Similarly Rami Siyam aka Ayyoub got arrested and detained on November 20.

Let's not forget the imprisonment of Tal’at Sadat, a member of parliament, for “spreading false rumours and insulting the armed forces".

Worst Lobby

vlado — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 04:28:43 -0500

Who will win this acclaimed prize for being the master of spin and manipulation, the fastest painter of greenwash, the influencer of influencers, the black hole of transparency? It’s up to you!

In the lobbying game, it takes two to tango, the lobbyist and the public official being lobbied

from worst lobby

'nuff said

Of Cats and Uncovered Meat

vlado — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 05:40:17 -0500

Yuk. It's so disgusting that I don't want to comment.

If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat

beeb's report, via Hope's

I lied. I'll comment. Quotes like that make me a feminist.

Kudos to the Royal Society

vlado — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 11:53:52 -0400

Today I had the pleasure of reading works by Sir Isaac Newton and Simpson in the Philosophical Transactions (of the Royal Society). Yes, it's true, they have digitised their archive starting from volume 1, 1665/1666. It is an entertaining read. Enjoy.

software patents, or my personal insights

vlado — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 09:10:58 -0400

Up until now I was avoiding putting my thoughts on 'paper', but here we are. My instincts simply say Restricting knowledge distribution and use is wrong. Some might say this makes me a communist devil, anarchist or whatever other epithet is currently cool in their circles. Let's avoid that for the time being. These scribbles are probably not 100% correct. But the ideas are what matters anyway. And will you find a difference from a bird's eye view?

Obviously this is a strong social issue, as in it reflects a growing concern of the society as a whole. The society as the human beings represented by a state, like UK, USA, France, Bulgaria, or groups of states like EU, UN, ... Some long time ago patents were introduced by the British Crown in order to give a temporary monopoly to inventors, so that they can protect and exploit their knowhow, while making the knowledge (their knowhow) public. This was a significant social issue. This way knowledge was immediately becoming exploitable by the society. People could benefit from the abstract knowledge or the principles behind the patentable invention. These principles were not patentable at the time, only some of their defined applications - the invention, machines, products etc... The monopoly lasted for a relatively short period of time. Longer than it would take at the time to reverse engineer an invetion and set up production of a competitive product, but not by too much. This is important, since timescales, im my opinion, are important when trying to rationalise the costs of patents to a society.

one laptop per child and google

vlado — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 03:26:34 -0400

Google and the people running the beast are an interesting company. Apart from their great technology and their "do no harm" (or whatever was the precise wording) policy, they run the Google Summer of Code, which is a fine program, a mixture of idealism and good business sence.

Now on the SOC mailing list Chris DiBona asked if anyone was interested in testing and hopefully tuning their applications to run on the "One Laptop Per Child" prototype. Considering that everyone on that list is realted to open source projects, the said machine is linux powered, it makes perfect sence. Ok, there's a limited number of prototypes to go, but that is encouraging.

Another twist in the Sony rootkit saga - copyright infringement in the rootkit?

vlado — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 07:06:22 -0500

Well, things start to get a comic appeal. Sony infringes the copyright of a LGPL software to create their rootkit, which allegedly is used to protect its property, read music they distribute, but in reality stops you using your iPod, which in turn Apple has made to work only with their own service - iTunes.

Noodles. I won't even go further. It is just ugly. Just rephrase it and you'll get the outline of a Z-rated gangster movie. You've got the hustlers, you've got the hard men, you've got the "my patch".

Tho read the whole shebang just go to dewinter or slashdot. Sit back and enjoy.

Negroponte to unveil the sub-$100 laptop for kids on the The World Summit on the Information Society

vlado — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 09:47:34 -0500

It is spreading over the digital grapevine. Rumors. Gossip. Negroponte is to unveil the sub-$100 laptop for kids on the The World Summit on the Information Society which will be held in Tunis on 16-18 NOVEMBER 2005.

Apparently, there are plans to manufacture 200 000 000 units. Yes kids, that is two hundred million units. 200M.

The man doesn't play the small numbers game. But it makes sense. Hardware must be personal, if you want the kids to play with it. If you want them to own up to it - don't share it, they will find the way to do things, even ones we have never ever would have thought. The fact remains - kids are brighter than we are, simply because they haven't built as much mental barriers boundaries as we have.

Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far

vlado — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 09:15:30 -0500

Last week when I was testing the latest version of RootkitRevealer (RKR) I ran a scan on one of my systems and was shocked to see evidence of a rootkit.
from Mark's Sysinternals Blog

A very radical example of what I was moaning about for quite some time. Somebody, semi-illegally, but for the bigger good, roots your computer, potentially damages your hardware and all that for what? To stop you playing your music, or use your backup. Thanks god that I'm not using windows. Linux is still not mainstream enough for Sony to cosider rooting that. Or most of the others for that matter. Unix rootkits are still a domain of the clearcut baddies.

Call to give homeless broadband

vlado — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 07:58:35 -0500

The homeless should be given broadband internet access, John Prescott's office has said in a new report.
from: Call to give homeless broadband

The story highlights the support for the ideas in the report from Crisis - a charity dedicated to helping homeless people.

What this brings to mind is the fact that the digiatl boom of the nineties, which is going even faster now, creates a new, wider gap between different social groups, regardless if it is in one country or worldwide. One one side we have people exploiting the new frontier, trying to parcel out knowledge, so they have a big stake in the 'IP real estate' goldrush.

Sub-$100 laptop design unveiled

vlado — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 11:48:12 -0400

The laptop will be tough and foldable in different ways, with a hand crank for when there is no power supply.

Professor Negroponte came up with the idea for a cheap computer for all after visiting a Cambodian village.

His non-profit One Laptop Per Child group plans to have up to 15 million machines in production within a year.
[ from BBC ]

A wonderful idea. I hope it will actually end up a success. $100 could be too much in a lot of countries. I'm pretty sure that this amount of money is far too much for an average Bulgarian family, for example - the average monthly salary is somewhere around that mark.

What about third world countries? They score even worse. Governement sponsored programs? But the third world governments have their hands tied by the IMF and the World Bank, so guess how much funding they will have for social programmes like that.