Tag: blogs

Run the banks?

, , , , ,

On some other blogs I read (obsessively, lately), I’m starting to see people calling for a run on the banks. Go down and take out $700.00. Or or $70. Or $7,000. Whatever you can afford. That’s what they’re saying, not me. The idea is that even though nobody in the country likes this bailout, congress is going to vote for it. Since they won’t listen to our calls, faxes and letters, send a message that they cannot ignore.

Frankly, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. Sure, it’s like burning down your own house to make a point, but it’s better than just being robbed at gunpoint with no protest at all.

“Online Free Expresson Day” from Reporters Without Borders

, , , ,

Reporters Without Borders has a nifty little consciousnes-raising “virtual demostration” going on today, sort of a SimCity Second-Life kind of deal.

“Today, the first time this day is being marked, we are giving all Internet users the opportunity to demonstrate in places were protests are not normally possible. We hope many will come and protest in virtual versions of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Cuba’s Revolution Square or on the streets of Rangoon, in Burma. At least 62 cyber-dissidents are currently imprisoned worldwide, while more than 2,600 websites, blogs or discussions forums were closed or made inaccessible in 2007.”

Today they’re also releasing a helpful, newly-revised Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents.

Continue reading

Teh intarweb confuses a Colonel

,

Check out this Glenn Greenwald article about ( improper, deeply disturbing) politicalization of the the U.S. military, and in particular about a bizarre email exchange between Greenwald and one Steven A. Boylan, Colonel in the U.S. Army, spokesman for General Amadeus Patreus, the warrior-God, peace be upon him. Evidently either Col. Boylen is a dissembling, hot-tempered unprofessional bullying jackass given to speaking in the lingo of right-wing blogs, OR, the United States Army has an insecure email system inside the Green Zone.

Either case is, shall we say, problematic.

Cred on “The Street”

, , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday Lockheed announced that it had bought Croquet simulations learning company 3D Solve. (3D Solve’s founding CTO is David Smith, who is Chief System Architect for the Croquet Consortium, and CTO of Qwaq. Consortium point-man Julian Lombardi is an advisor.) Being Lockheed, the news was carried by financial folks like CNN and Merrill Lynch, but I’m most excited by the release carried by Gamasutra and Serious Games Source, which is all about Croquet.

This comes on the heels this week of Cisco blogs about Qwaq.

I’m old enough to know that all of this should be taken with a grain of salt. But it certainly ain’t bad news, and it gives a lot of credibility to the Croquet platform. I hope that Croquet folks around the world are able to make good use of this news in setting up their own projects.

This week I had posted links to some cool new Croquet project movies, but I missed this somewhat cold one from 3D Solve.

Wetmachine makeover

, , , ,

Fans of Harold Feld’s “Tales of the Sausage Factory” and/or Howard Stearns’s “Inventing the Future” will be happy to note that those columns are now their own blogs within Wetmachine. TotSF and IfF posts will continue to be integrated on the Wetmachine front page, but if you just want the pure stuff (undiluted by my ramblings, e.g.) you can bookmark the column you want.

The respective urls are Tales and Inventing. You can also get to them from this page by clicking on their links to the right, under the heading “sections.”

We’ve also improved access to the archives. Other improvments, including rss feeds, will be forthcoming.

Thanks to Gary for pulling this together. . .