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June 30, 2003

Shucks
: The Times of London writes about writing weblogs and says something nice about this very bit of bytes (though I'm the very former editor of EW):

Jeff Jarvis, the editor of Entertainment Weekly, is quick to pick up on showbiz buzz, but has lately been tracking weblog culture in Iraq and Iran. Unlike most bloggers, he can actually write.

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Evading the censor
: If you're in a totalitarian country and you're having problems reading some sites thanks to the rulers' censors, the German news site Telopolis has advice and links to a few services that promise to let you read sites that have been blocked. Try SafeWeb and Freebird. [via der Schockwellenreiter]

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Instaphotoshop
: Here and here and here:

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Sticks 'n' stones
: Xeni Jardin reports in Wired that First Amendment protections have been extended to bloggers:

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Tuesday that Web loggers, website operators and e-mail list editors can't be held responsible for libel for information they republish, extending crucial First Amendment protections to do-it-yourself online publishers.
Online free speech advocates praised the decision as a victory. The ruling effectively differentiates conventional news media, which can be sued relatively easily for libel, from certain forms of online communication such as moderated e-mail lists. One implication is that DIY publishers like bloggers cannot be sued as easily.
"One-way news publications have editors and fact-checkers, and they're not just selling information -- they're selling reliability," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "But on blogs or e-mail lists, people aren't necessarily selling anything, they're just engaging in speech. That freedom of speech wouldn't exist if you were held liable for every piece of information you cut, paste and forward."

I wish Reynolds weren't on vacation so he could comment on this. [via Anil]

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Bozo driver of the day: NJ MKR 635
: I'm initiating a new feature: The Bozo Driver of the Day. Everytime I see a bozo driver, I've decided I'll give the guy the attention he so urgently desires right here. If you all do that, too, look what we can create: a dynamic, nationwide Bozo data base. It's not unlike my dynamic weblog Consumer Reports: Just say "BrandX sucks" and whenever people search Google for that combination of words, they'll find warnings from fellow consumers. (My most recent: Expedia sucks and Sears sucks). Soon, you can Google your own license plate and see whether you've been busted by the blog cops.
So today's Bozo Driver of the Day is a BMW driver. Of course. BMW drivers are, as a breed, Bozos. They are the true target market for those penis-enlarger spams.
This morning on I-78, this Bozo kept rushing my tail (though I could go no faster, since I was behind traffic). Then, showing all the strategic acumen of a dot.com stock analyst, he would swerve into the right lane in hopes of passing me us that way, though there was more and slower traffic in that lane. Thus, he went nowhere, except swerving back into my lane behind me again and again. He never learns.
So you know who you are, beemer boy with your shaved head and too-cool sunglasses. You are the Bozo Driver of the Day.

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Puce has a day job
: He's writing Iranian T-shirts. This, also, from View From Iran:

“A lot of the music you hear is a copy of music made elsewhere,” F says. “Sometimes it is the words that are copied, sometimes it is the tune.”
“I am not surprised,” I say. “It is true of everything else.” Copies of everything are here. There may be no Crest, but there is Crend with a similar logo. There are bad copies of the Coca Cola logo on bottles of homegrown soda that tastes pretty damn good. The Nike swoosh is a little too fat here. Things are “’maed’ in USA.” Children’s T-shirts have slogans on them like:
“Have a happy how heavy is a duckling.”
and
“Barbie is beauty fine and miss”
We watch movies on CD that are imprinted with: “Property of Miramax for prescreening purposes only.”
The lyrics of Metallica have all been translated into Persian and are published in a book that is very popular with teenagers.
A blue Mickey Mouse graced a wall in the restaurant we ate at last night.

The same post about Iran's counterfeit pop culture makes a point about a popular video there now and then makes this wise observation:

In a way the video presents a life that Iranians could have. People just seem bursting to have fun. Fun is power. Fun is what will ultimately bring down this regime.

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Terrorism
: One must take news flashes from weblogs without names with a grain of salt but this one is intriguing. From the American/Iranian husband-wife weblog View From Iran:

Our sources tell us that quiet investigations into the plane crashes here in Iran on February 19 and in Pakistan on February 20 were likely bombs and the work of Al Qaeda. The belief is that they were a direct response to the fact that the 2 governments had recently arrested several suspected members of Al Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda's MO is often not to take "credit" for its attacks (thus getting "credit" for fear they didn't necessarily instigate) and so this is conceivable.

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Internationalization
: Hoder, the man who started the Iranian weblog revolution, calls on weblog software and news aggregator creators to get up to speed internationalizing their applications so they can handle languages that don't use this alphabet. Amen to that. Look at what's happening in Iran; imagine what can happen throughout the world as weblogs build bridges across borders. Stick that in your RSS pipe and smoke it!

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