February 27, 2001
# Independent Media

I've been spending a lot of time in the past day and a half getting into Indymedia; reading their mailing list archives, and talking to people on irc.indymedia.org. As a result, I haven't really been visiting any other sites. Thus the dearth of recent links. There is a lot of independent media to read, though. :>

Niel Bornstein's Personal Political Platform puts things in perspective, and otherwise illustrates the really big gap between ideals and reality.

In other politics, there are some serious demonstrations going on in Korea. Wow.

Markerfight!, and an interesting piece about the use of Hitler in ideology. Both by David Grenier.

LOL! Jessamyn sent along some markerfight pics...

Dang. I just realized that CSS support is even worse in Netscape 4.0/windoze than it is on the Mac. Back to the drawing board? Nah. I'll just sit tight and say I'm supporting web standards. Hee hee. So follow that link and upgrade your browser already! Or just turn off Stylesheets, if you haven't already. update: I fiddled with the CSS enough that font size shouldn't be an issue anymore, and as a bonus, people can now post comments. Apparently, the form wasn't working in Netscape. God, I feel like I'm managing some kind of important project. Except I'm not.

posted by dru in blog
by Niel

I had someone email me that he had come across my Personal Political Platform and found some commonalities with what he believed (and some differences, which is fine). But he had gone one step further and written up a Personal Hypocrisy Inventory, detailing the ways in which his behaviour differed from his ideals.

Interesting idea, I thought. I'll do something like that at some point.

by jessamyn

testing the comments by adding this link to the Alternative Press Collection at the Minneapolis Community & Technical College Library.

by Kendall

I've always liked Niel's PPP -- both the idea and most of his actual views. My favorite thing about it is that he doesn't mess around; he goes right to the heart of the matter: the UDHR, which I take to be one of the most important political documents of the 20th century.

I thought about doing a PPP once, following Niel's example, but then I realized that's what Monkeyfist is, more or less. :>

by Kendall

Hmm, I'm not sure where else to say this, and it seems the kind of wankeresque thing webloggers are always saying, so I figure I'll give it a whirl: I just realized, having read Jessamyn's comments lately on Misnomer, that, subliminally, I bet, the DSL provider, Speakeasy.net, I picked for our new house is the one Jessamyn works for. How completely odd. It must have stuck in my head from the times I used to read her blog.

Of course this means that I can't play all my fun (and perverse) technical support games if, or when, I have trouble. But, then again, it may be nice if I can reach her when I call in because I can't post my latest anarchist rant because the DSL is down -- at least she'll give a damn or, failing that, know what I'm whining about.

The person I've talked to so far, in sales, has been helpful, and I realize all the *really* gross DSL stuff is mostly the Bells' and Covad's fault -- like them making me wait 1 *month* until after our new phone line is setup before they'll let me order RADSL, a bit of petty bureaucratic stupidity I circumvented by ordering SDSL, for which they require only a week petty bureaucratic wait -- but I did get a bit pissy with him. Oops.

Suffice it to say that if there is a hell for petit-bourgeois losers like me, it's having to order and reorder DSL for eternity. While listening to on-hold music. While doing tedious Unix sysadmin work via a 28.8 dialup. In vi.

by jessamyn

Make that "worked for"...

the good news: you can make all their lives a living hell as far as I'm concerned [though karmic retribution will bite you on the ass for that eventually] and drop me a note if you need the straight skinny on anything.

the bad news: your support will suck worse than it might have before my departure. ha ha ha. I write teacher's manuals for fifth grade textbooks now, no nasty customers!

# The sky is.. too small

Everyone and their (apparently) grandmother have told me that the text was too small, so now it's really big, to me, anyway. It would seem that I like small text.

I saw Crimes and Misdemeanors (a Woody Allen flick) last night. 'Have to say, I was very impressed. It directly echoes Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in a lot of ways (and probably some other classics of various aspects of the human condition) and puts a very interesting spin on it. Confused the heck out of me, but in a good way. I'd don't think I'll review any more except to say that the movie is well worth seeing.

posted by dru in culture
February 26, 2001
# The incident

Looks like the incident was done by a Danish (?) artist. By the looks of it, he got so much email that he had to admit it was art, not reality to get people to send him less (though the distinction between those two is often over-emphasized, IMO). In any case, it's good to see that interesting art is happening on the net, especially stuff that plays to the urban legend and conspiracy theory genres.

Last week's issue of the Argosy has been up since friday night (see thursday's entry for the gorey details). This week, I wrote about Democracy on the Internet, specifically in Canada. There has been an interesting discussion of democracy going on on the Argosy bitch page.

I added The Daily Chump, an irc driven weblog almost identical to the Daily Churn, to the sidebar. I reckon every IRC channel should have one of these.

I've changed comments to be inline. In other words, if you click on "post a comment" below, your comment will be shown at the bottom of this message. I'm still experimenting with the possibilities that Greymatter affords.

posted by dru in culture
February 25, 2001
# Utopia

A really interesting feature about concensus decision-making from global.indymedia.org.

It's also good to see that the folks at Indymedia are expanding into traditional media with the forthcoming global pdf project. I've been thinking that while the internet is a great medium for collaboration and distribution, it isn't the best way to get information to people. Print is good at that, if only because people prefer to read paper, or because it's more portable by default. A good combination, then, is publishing a Global Indymedia Newspaper in PDF format, and letting anyone who wants to print it locally.

I've had similar thoughts for setting up internet radio stations. A really cool project would be to set up a site for independent radio syndication, a sort of clearinghouse for freely (or small fee-ly) available shows. All the shows, PSAs, and even individual news stories would be available in digital audio format, and put into a database with descriptions, ratings, and license information. Like TUCOWS for radio shows. Stations could then have centralized easy access to the show that they wanted to play regularly. A potential side-effect of this would be the possibility of local radio stations (that is, if they were legal) playing 90% independent content from all over the world, but distributing it locally, and catering to the wants of a local audience - all on a . Meanwhile, locals could produce shows in easily set up (with a bit of grant money or donations) computer labs, play them locally, and the ones relevant to a broader audience could get picked up by other stations.

This is how it already works within organizations like NPR. The main difference, however, is that the distinction between professional content and amateur content is based on (locally perceived) merit, not how much the people who produce it are paid. Also, control over what gets played gets brought back to a local level, at least in certain contexts (micro-radio, for instance). This sounds like a totally utopian plan, but it could very easily be set up, if only micro-radio wasn't killed by congress. Bum deal, that. (being a corporate slave must be so boring).

Even if it doesn't ever happen (with radio, anyway), this little thought-spew is worth something for this simple point: there is a distinction to be made between the internet as a medium of distribution and a medium of delivery. In the case of the former, the net is almost always a very efficient way to do things. With the latter, however, there remain much better media for reaching lots of people, like airwaves and printing presses.

That reminds me, Jessamyn posted a while ago about these cool Anti-FTAA graphics, suitable for framing.. er, printing. :)

posted by dru in politicsoftech
by plebian

it sounds like a lovely idea.

um. first post?

hehe

by John Abbe

Second post, and this is the future i plan to live in.

by maffew

interesting. you might like to check out the radio4all project, which predates indymedia. it's an online archive of radio pieces, interviews and stuff. you can add to it and download from it online.

i think the address is http://www.radio4all.org, ah no it's this:

http://www.radio4all.net/

nice to see it is linked both ways with radio.indymedia.org

anywa, the thing that really made me write this comment is your point about distribution.

i think distribution online is good if you have long distances involved, and small files.

if you have big files (e.g. video), or a big audience, or many people in the audience are close to you, then offline means might be simply cheaper. e.g. burn a few CDs and post them. or use a cable TV channel.

by incest tgp

It You can quickly.

by incest tgp

It You can quickly.

February 24, 2001
# Special P2P issue!

I've been pretty disappointed with how the media has presented P2P (peer-to-peer) so far. That is, with a lot of vagueness. Mind, I haven't read everything, but after watching the video of Clay Shirky's keynote at the O'Reilly P2P conference, I ended up writing a synopsis of how he defined P2P, and a few things that came to mind.


posted by dru in blog
# DeCSS

The Gallery of CSS Descramblers has some pretty creative ways of publishing source code.

Usability experts as rocks stars: The User Experience World Tour".

posted by dru in blog
February 22, 2001
# Brrr.

If you've seen the "all your base.." thing, then this link is worth following.

It is painfully cold outside. Apparently, -50 C with wind chill. Brrr.

In other news, Ola sent me The Chomsky Reader from my Amazon wishlist, and it got here a day before my birthday. Thanks Ola, and good timing :> Hmm, looks like someone bought Vygotsky's complete works, too, but it's not here. (whoops, I've used up my solipsistic rambling quota for the day)

Wow. I just wrote a long entry about how I lost four hours of work because the Argosy fileserver crashed in a wierd way that let me save files, but when I restarted the server, all the changes were lost. I commented on how even when I realized that it had happened, I didn't get a bit frusterated. I didn't really react at all. After I finished writing that, and another entry about the FTAA, I pressed the wrong button, and lost all my comments (good thing that IE5 caches form contents!). I had even gone through the effort of learning the difference between "enunciate" and "annunciate". The irony is sickening. Sickening, I tell you.

Heh. I said "form contents". Nyuck Nyuck.

A few lines in this article about the FTAA are rather disturbing. Namely,

NAFTA does not allow complaints to be brought against corporations

"We already know that its [NAFTA's] protections for labor rights are worthless."

the largest police deployment in Canadian history

2.4 mile long metal fence, similar to those found around prisons, in the streets of the provincial capital

The original police plan to run criminal record checks on all Quebec residents receiving a pass was quickly shelved in the face of widespread public outrage.

That last one gives me a bit of hope :)

Wow. Y'all are using the karma function. You must be telling me that you like the solipsistic rambling. Seriously, the karma function seems a bit vague, at least for my kind of site. Maybe a contextual mini-poll would be more appropriate: "do you agree with dru's uninformed opinions today?" [] yes [] no [] I too am chronically uninformed.

posted by dru in blog
by Kendall Clark

Hmm, I had that book in my shopping cart at Amazon, all ready to send to you for your b-day, Dru, but then I realized it wouldn't make it on time, so I blew it off.

I was motivated less by celebrating your b-day than by the prospect of getting you to read some Chomsky!

So, did you almost get me anything? :>

Kendall

by Dru

So, did you almost get me anything? :>

Well, seeing as your library is so *ahem* substantial, I didn't know what you wouldn't have, and you didn't post a list ;)

by jessamyn

friend of mine made some nice

No On FTAA graphics, suitable for

making some good stickers. At the URL above.

Happy Birthday Dru.

by click here

Buy www.i-directv.net this it is a wonderful addition to anyones home entertainment system.

February 21, 2001
# Rethinking genetics

Dang. I just watched the long version of All your base are belong to us, and was really quite impressed. A lot of work went into that. PeterMe's comments are kinda interesting, too. Taylor has posted what looks like the "original" but who knows how these things work. Ah! The thread over at plastic has a lot of answers, history, and urls.

Flash and (to a lesser extent) animated gif seem to be spawning a new, uber-low-budget way to get memes moving or distribute art. An early example of this was stick figure death theatre, but lately, I've noticed people watching Zombie College in the Argosy office. See also: Elian Wassup, that turkish/swedish thing, and don't miss Push Media, my submission to the SFDT, years ago.

Fascinating piece by Stephen Jay Gould in the NYTimes.

From its late 17th century inception in modern form, science has strongly privileged the reductionist mode of thought that breaks overt complexity into constituent parts and then tries to explain the totality by the properties of these parts and simple interactions fully predictable from the parts.
AFAICS, it's the "what is water?" problem on a more complex scale. If you divide water into its parts, you get oxygen and hydrogen. Understanding those doesn't give you a very good sense of what water is (i.e. oxygen and hydrogen make a flammable combination, but water doesn't). Vygotsky identifies this as a central problem in Psychology: if you seperate thought and language early in the analystic process, then you can never see them as a whole later on; you're stuck with two seperately formulated concepts. Of course, this only illustrates part of the problem, but it's a neat example.

--

Another Salon meta-review of Eminem, with which I can feed my continuing morbid fascination.

The most irritating rock-crit tendency -- the desire to appear risky even though you're 27 and have an M.A. from Brown -- was replayed in almost every review.

Ooh, Opera for Mac.

If the SAT was done away with permanently, it wouldn't be a moment too soon.

"There will be strong pressure on other state college systems to follow California?s lead," said Robert Schaeffer of FairTest, which advocates less emphasis on standardized test.
Bitter? Me?

posted by dru in good_articles
February 20, 2001
# Racist? Nah.

I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was this bad: "A black teenager is 48 times (yes, you read that right, 48) more likely to do time for a drug offense than a white kid."

posted by dru in blog
February 19, 2001
# 48. Racist? Nah.

I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was this bad: "A black teenager is 48 times (yes, you read that right, 48) more likely to do time for a drug offense than a white kid."

posted by dru in us
by mike

also, black kids are also more likely to do drugs than white kids. the judicial system is biased, but also we cant overlook the fact that blacks in america are more troubled because of all the past crap.

by Dru

Mike: not sure if that's relevant to the stat I posted, seeing as it referred to drug offenses, i.e. the 'crime' had already been committed. Besides that, I'm not sure if that's necessarily true; it's certainly a strong stereotype, but white kids do a whole lotta drugs too.

by Ola

But white kids tend to not get caught or have their sentences knocked down to possession or some other misdemeanor, where black kids are smacked with harsher crimes, or the sentence is given to the maximum extent of the law. For example, if a white kid and a black kid are both caught with an oz of pot, the white kid is likely to get possession where the black kid is probably going to get possession with intent to sell or trafficking. Substitute crack for pot and now the white guy is doing 6 months and the black kid is doing 5 years. Prosecutors tend to ask for the most punishment possible, as opposed to white kids where prosecutors ask for very little punishment. These are gross generalizations, but I think statistics indicate this is the case, from the judicial standpoint. At the enforcement level, police just tend to use racial profiling for identifying potential criminals. It's just how they do it. It's stupid, it doesn't really work, but it's how they do it.

# Editorial


I just went back and read an interesting discussion about independent web sites that happened almost a year ago.

Why democracy is in trouble.

A wiki on electronic dialogue. Looks interesting. I hope to have time to read it soon ;>

What a great editorial.


Republicans don't have the armies of university professors, reporters, editorialists, publishing houses and Hollywood entertainers to demonize their opponents. It is difficult for politicians to attack those who havenot been set up for attack. Democrats were able to vote en mass against confirming John Ashcroft as attorney general, because feminist, minority and anti-religious interest groups did the dirty work of turning Ashcroft into an ogre.

Paul Craig Roberts must have done some serious research before writing that piece. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both.

Obvious evidence that Microsoft is copying MacOS X directly, maybe even to the point of copyright violation. The irony here is that if Microsoft would hire some competent people and do their own research, it would be totally feasible to come up with a better interface than the new image conscious Apple has. Unfortunately, they seem to insist on making flawed copies of an OS that is already flawed. Great.

posted by dru in blog
# Editorial

I just went back and read an interesting discussion about independent web sites that happened almost a year ago.

Why democracy is in trouble.

A wiki on electronic dialogue. Looks interesting. I hope to have time to read it soon ;>

What a great editorial.

Republicans don't have the armies of university professors, reporters, editorialists, publishing houses and Hollywood entertainers to demonize their opponents. It is difficult for politicians to attack those who havenot been set up for attack. Democrats were able to vote en mass against confirming John Ashcroft as attorney general, because feminist, minority and anti-religious interest groups did the dirty work of turning Ashcroft into an ogre.
Paul Craig Roberts must have done some serious research before writing that piece. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both.

Obvious evidence that Microsoft is copying MacOS X directly, maybe even to the point of copyright violation. The irony here is that if Microsoft would hire some competent people and do their own research, it would be totally feasible to come up with a better interface than the new image conscious Apple has. Unfortunately, they seem to insist on making flawed copies of an OS that is already flawed. Great.

posted by dru in blog
February 18, 2001
# Napster


An interesting account of one of the more (most?) mainstream productions of the Vagina Monologues.

Slow food.

Holding out any hope that politics is about issues, and not pure spin? Fool yourself no longer.

Dave Grenier's thoughts on Napster pretty much sum it up for me. Good conclusion, too :>

Tipster has a good list of URLs relating to intellectual property discussion, activism, and technologies.

I should note that FairTunes.com offers a way to put artists in touch with the voluntary payments of fans.

posted by dru in blog
# Napster

An interesting account of one of the more (most?) mainstream productions of the Vagina Monologues.

Slow food.

Holding out any hope that politics is about issues, and not pure spin? Fool yourself no longer.

--

Dave Grenier's thoughts on Napster pretty much sum it up for me. Good conclusion, too :>

Tipster has a good list of URLs relating to intellectual property discussion, activism, and technologies.

I should note that FairTunes.com offers a way to put artists in touch with the voluntary payments of fans.

posted by dru in blog
by Kendall

Dru,

Is the slowfood.c thing an anti-gm site or what? I can't tell.

Kendall

by Dru

I think it's just a backlash against "fast food". I found the idea amusing, but didn't really look over the site.

by Dru

This is a test. I'm trying to get the comments to run in descending order.

February 17, 2001
# The real democracy..


I'm thinking of moving misnomer to another server. Namely, to http://www.dru.ca/misnomer/ . I'll be posting the same content to both sites for a while, and eventually I'll discontinue this site, I think. There are a number of reasons for this. Salient among them is the fact that editthispage.com was started as a 60-day demo, and eventually got extended. Thus, I can't really expect it to be free forever. There have been some been some performance issues with editthispage.com off and on for while now, which I'd like to avoid. Other than that, Greymatter has some really cool features, and I'd like to have all my stuff on one domain (dru.ca) if at all possible.

For some reason, I've got a craving for old-school rap these days, so I've been listening to A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and just to keep things international, a bit of Dubmatique and MC Solaar.

Phil Agre's thoughts and analysis of the effects of internet on democracy are well worth reading.

Michael Moore's opinion about the solipsism of the left is also worthwhile.

This page on Proactivist.com has a potentially interesting format for online photojournalism: small audio recordings that add atmosphere to each photo.

posted by dru in good_articles
# The real democracy..

I'm thinking of moving misnomer to another server. Namely, to [here] . I'll be posting the same content to both sites for a while, and eventually I'll discontinue [the other site], I think. There are a number of reasons for this. Salient among them is the fact that editthispage.com was started as a 60-day demo, and eventually got extended. Thus, I can't really expect it to be free forever. There have been some been some performance issues with editthispage.com off and on for while now, which I'd like to avoid. Other than that, Greymatter has some really cool features, and I'd like to have all my stuff on one domain (dru.ca) if at all possible.

For some reason, I've got a craving for old-school rap these days, so I've been listening to A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and just to keep things international, a bit of Dubmatique and MC Solaar.

Phil Agre's thoughts and analysis of the effects of internet on democracy are well worth reading.

Michael Moore's opinion about the solipsism of the left is also worthwhile.

This page on Proactivist.com has a potentially interesting format for online photojournalism: small audio recordings that add atmosphere to each photo.

posted by dru in blog
by Daniel

Nice to see that little option: "Comment". It has given me the chance to say hello and thank for a very informative weblog (at least the info that matters). It has provided me with many interesting links, it also made me apply for an editthispage account and build my own weblog.

Keep doing it!

February 16, 2001
# Tips

The United States and Britain continued the systematic destruction of Iraqi society today.

No, I'm not just posting that every day because I'm some kind of left wing wacko (though that may hold true by some definitions). The US and UK bombed Iraq again today. Notice how only the Pentagon is quoted, along with some selected facts? I hope so, because it's certainly not an aberration.

I saw a locally-produced performance of the Vagina Monologues on Wednesday night, and I have to say I was very impressed. Both by the talent of my peers and by the turnout. The show sold out, and there was a lineup for standing-room ticket. On Valentine's day. I thought that was pretty great.

idea: Web based discussion boards should have a "me too" widget. That is, a way to express agreement with a point made by an author without using a whole message to say "me too". Under each posting, there could be a link: I agree with what is written above. After the first person clicks on it, another link would appear: X readers agree with this post. That link would lead to a page (or pop-up window) listing the people who have expressed agreement. This has already been done with little systems like 'karma', or Amazon's 'was this review valuable to you?' widget. However, this could introduce an interesting element into discussions, especially where decisions are being made. It could also degenerate discussion into popularity contests, but in specific contexts, it could serve as a running indicator of opinion within a group.

NYTimes on Amazon's honor system.

A scary but interesting article about bugs from New Scientist.

Microsoft, Free Software and the neo-McCarthyist connection?

"I'm an American; I believe in the American way," continued Allchin. "I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat." --Jim Allchin, Microsoft Veep.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Threat to national security? Nope. Threat to government productivity? I doubt it. Threat to Microsoft's profits? Quite likely.

And shame on Microsoft, for asking the government to bail it out of a situation in which it suddenly seems unable to compete.
Yup. But really, could we expect anything less than shameless hypocrisy from a power-hungry, corrupt institution? Really though, being power-hungry and corrupt are really ideal qualities in a near-pure capitalist system. Socializing costs and privatizing profits is a great business plan. And what's good for the corporations is.. oh, nevermind.
posted by dru in politicsoftech
# Greymatter

Greymatter is cool. It allows for posting full articles inside an item, but just the description or abstract shows up on the front page. All it's really missing is author pages and categories, which is no big deal at the moment. Here's a random link.

posted by dru in blog
by brutalside

nice

February 15, 2001
# Argh.


This week's Argosy is up.

posted by dru in blog
February 13, 2001
# The Toxic Memo


The World Bank is totally corrupt and utterly insane. Case in point: the Toxic Memo.

You try to brag? You get your rhymes from a grab-bag. [listening to LL Cool J, for some reason]

Rachel Whiteread's sculpture on Trafalgar Square is pretty darned cool.

posted by dru in activism
February 12, 2001
# Internationalism


Dialogues by Aristotle found?. That would be cool. (note: we don't currently have any of Aristotle's dialogues, only his manuscripts... or are they transcripts?). What annoys me about that article is the utterly stereotypical characterization of - especially Sappho. I don't know much, but I know Sappho wrote a lot more than lesbian erotic poems.

--

Want to look like an activist (or carry political literature) and travel to Canada? Sorry, you're not allowed.

Your chances of entry will also be increased if you travel alone, well dressed, possibly by train or bus (such as Greyhound). Destination other than Quebec City should be a priority, such as Montreal or Toronto.

It's a familiar story. Apparently free trade doesn't apply to people carrying literature of political dissent (pun intended).

posted by dru in activism
February 10, 2001
# The whether


I've started working on version three of the Framework for Intercreative Publishing (fip), a project I've been working on (off and on) for about four years now.

Peterme took some notes on Information Architecture.

Taylor ranted about micropayments a bit. Worth reading.

deadline approaches
other things interest me
back to work, you fool

it snows a whole lot
then it rains, freezes again
to walk is to slip

posted by dru in blog
February 09, 2001
# Misnomer is back!

I've set up Greymatter on dru.ca (server space graciously provided by Kendall Clark of Monkeyfist). As soon as I get things set up, I plan to shift misnomer to this server (from editthispage).

posted by dru in blog
by Kendall

Greymatter looks pretty cool, Dru.

by Dru Jay

hmm, I wonder if I can edit comments of others.

by da fuking a$$ hole

aider moi jai besoin des photo de dubmatique svp si vous conneser un site ou on peut trouver des photo de dubmatique emailer moi a: lildevil_foxy13@hotmail.com

marci bye-xxx-

ps,,,jen ai besoin pour mon cour de french caliss

February 08, 2001
# Dang


Peter Merholz is interviewing Scott McCloud in March. I'm jealous. That "cultural implications of interface design" bit sounds interesting too. Too bad I have all of zero chance of going to SXSW this year.

posted by dru in blog
February 07, 2001
# Y En A Marre


I like Jorn's idea of an alternative to streaming video on the web, but when he first mentionned it on alt.hypertext, I had a little different idea of how it might work. Instead of having an article with one picture, and a link to a video clip (a la CNN, Reuters web sites), why not integrate the two, i.e. have higher resolution key frames from a video clip running down the right side of the text narrative. These "key frames" could either be a pseudo-animation (showing motion over 1 second), or they could be photos illustrating salient points in the article.

IIRC, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics covers some different ways of illustrating sequential movement. The visual narrative could be a linear sequence, or a non-linear set of photos.

Also, I figure the photos should be slightly-larger-than-thumbnails, so they would have more clarity than a RealVideo clip (not too hard :>), but a higher-resolution version would always be a click away.

--

More on the Amazon Honor System:

The Amazon Honor System does not charge registration fees, set-up fees, or fixed participation fees. We do, however, charge transaction fees based on the amount of money you receive. The fee schedule is very simple. For each payment you receive, we will charge $0.15 plus 15% of the total transaction amount. The person making a payment is not charged any fees at all.
15% is a lot, but I guess it's low enough to not be totally unreasonable. Makes me worry that thanks to the .com slump, real micropayments are a ways off. And that people trying to send each other small amounts of money will be exploited for a while yet. Amazon is obviously in a position to leverage their installed base in this way.

--

In the past few weeks or so, I've started to realize how uneducated I was about Mozilla. This article provides a few key facts/claims:

Because of this DOM, XML, and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) support, programmers can now use the elements they need from Mozilla to build their own unique applications.

"Now," Collins said, "Mozilla is more cross-platform than Java."

I wonder how many people have criticized Mozilla in public, and know even less than I do. I'd venture that there are quite a few. Seems like the fact that information is so readily available and distributable on the net makes it hard for people to do research before declaring their opinions loudly. That, or there's so much misleading opinion out there that no one ever gets to the basic facts. Not that this is a new problem, just that it's less excusable now.

--



posted by dru in activism
February 06, 2001
# I tore my mind on a jagged sky

I went to a teach-in about the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) summit that's coming up. Some activists from Quebec gave a great presentation. More later, but I thought I'd post my notes verbatim, just because I can, and because it'll take me a while to put this into some kind of publishable form. This is more or less what I wrote on my Palm Pilot (w/ keyboard) at the meeting, with links added hastily thanks to Google.

NAFTA/FTAA

Ethyl: produces MMT, an additive which makes gas more efficient.. but: cancer-causing. Canada says: ban it. Nope. Chapter 11 sez: Ban that Canada posed was "discriminatory". Ethyl *threatens* to take it to tribunal. Canuck govn't backs down, gives Ethyl 20 Million for lost profits.

Methanex: California finds gas additive bad for fresh water, bans. Same thing. Methanex sues, California gives $900 million for lost profits.

Metalclad: wants to build plant for toxic waste. Local officials shut it down, Metalclad sues, gets $25 million for lost profit, builds plant..

Sunbelt Water: fresh water's not a commodity... yet under NAFTA, if water could conceiveably be a commodity in the future (under the FTAA, maybe), then it can sue for lost profits now.

Corpos don't have to reveal tribunals.
Chill effect: fear of getting sued.
Laws aren't being passed, and we don't know that they aren't.

Other stuff: "tourist activism" is unsustainable. "Summit hopping" is inefficient. Activism needs to be local and ongoing.. integrate it into our lives, not just have fun because some well to do activists can afford to. Stay local, yo.

What kind of democracy?

Oscar: targeted for being a part of student strike, political refugee.
Anyone who stands up for rights is harrassed and threatened. Kidnapped by army.

"they ask us things like 'do you advocate the overthrow of the american government', and we have to lie and say no."

colours of resistance - an organization
summit hopping
what moves us
where were the people of colour in Seattle?

--

Travelling the slow road to getting paid for content.

Jakob Nielsen, whose solipsistic jabbering is starting to annoy me, is featuring a new voluntary micropayment system from Amazon.com on his site.

Looks like it hooks into Amazon's server, and if you have an cookie from them, then there's no login process, which is nice, because with small payments, speed of transaction is essential. I just wish the graphic wasn't so big, ugly, and colour scheme-specific.

Here's the sign-up page. The service is US only. That sucks. The FAQ has some interesting details, though.

A really pressing problem with pageview-based automatic payment (which Jakob advocates): With a little javascript, who's to stop a site from popping up 300 windows and extorting a few bucks from any visitor who happens to drop by?

posted by dru in blog
February 05, 2001
# Don't laugh but I thought I was a radical.


I thought I had some interesting links to post, but I changed my mind, and am going back to work on my grant application instead. 1:43am: finished.

Politics and the English Language, a pointed essay by George Orwell:

"This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing."

"The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness."

Whoops, 'got sidetracked reading Jessamyn's WTO protest journal entry. She took a bunch of pictures, too.

I watched The Big Lebowski last night. That is all the segue I can come up with to explain why I'm posting these lyrics. That, and the fact that this song was stuck in my head for a good part of the summer of '99, thanks to friends who were obsessed with the aforementionned movie. Bet ya thought Kenny Rogers only sang country music, eh?

Just Dropped In

(Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in)

I woke up this mornin' with the sundown shinin' in

I found my mind in a brown paper bag within

I tripped on a cloud and fell-a eight miles high

I tore my mind on a jagged sky

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

(Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in)

I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it in

I watched myself crawlin' out as I was a-crawlin' in

I got up so tight I couldn't unwind

I saw so much I broke my mind

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

[psychedelic guitar instrumental break]

(Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in)

Someone painted "April Fool" in big black letters on a "Dead End" sign

I had my foot on the gas as I left the road and blew out my mind

Eight miles outta Memphis and I got no spare

Eight miles straight up downtown somewhere

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

I said I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
Yeah yeah oh-yeah

posted by dru in blog
by jonathan

hi, got bored hanging around, whilst my girlfriend chats [flirts] with strange people [men] online, so i thought i'd surf the web at random. Typed in Kenny Roger's best song [i'm no country fan] by far and came up with you. [Actually Google has you on page 2, but I'm that bored].

Anyhoo, nice site, The Big L rocks like a bastard (that usually comes with a hand signal, where i come from, but i'll spare you). Oh yeah and do you Know what marmite is?

by jonathan

hi, got bored hanging around, whilest my girlfriend chats [flirts] with strange people [men] online, so i thought i'd surf the web at random. Typed in Kenny Roger's best song [i'm no country fan] by far and came up with you. [Actually Google has you on page 2, but I'm that bored].

Anyhoo, nice site, The Big L rocks like a bastard (that usually comes with a hand signal where i come from, but i'll spare you). Oh yeah, do you know what marmite is?

February 03, 2001
# Greed.


Thanks to Napster, I've started listening to Dar Williams. Funny, I've had friends who liked her music a lot for years, but it has never interested me until now.

The History of Unix.

I like books, and my birthday is fast approaching. Thus, I point to my Amazon.com wishlist. The list consists mostly of books that aren't in the library, or that I read often enough to care to own.

posted by dru in blog
February 02, 2001
# Bangor.


MP3.com: Payback for Playback. For some reason, I hadn't heard of this before.

Kendall Clark: The Politics of Schemas.

Against Method, by Paul Feyerabend

Bijan Parsia: Starting Black History Month with a bang.

YT on Monkeyfist: When it comes, it will be quick.

Ralph Nader's account of his presidential campaign is worth a look.

We sent open letters to Bush and Gore, challenging them (in a nice way) to take positions that would enrich the presidential campaign dialogue -- on farm policy, genetic engineering, corporate welfare, the living wage, even simply urging all members of Congress to post their voting records in an easily searchable fashion on their websites, as none currently does. There were no responses from Bush and Gore, and there was never, to my knowledge, one media attempt to elicit such.

posted by dru in politicsoftech