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Annotated Links of Interest: November 18th 2008
Links of interest for November 17th 2008 through November 18th 2008:
- ‘Meh’: new word for indifference enters English dictionary [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “Meh”, a word which indicates a lack of interest or enthusiasm, has become the latest addition to the Collins English Dictionary. … The dictionary entry for “meh” will say it can be used as an interjection to indicate indifference or boredom, as an adjective to describe something as boring or mediocre, or to show an individual is apathetic or unimpressed. The word was popularised by the US comedy animation series “The Simpsons”, where characters Bart and Lisa use it to express indifference when their father Homer suggests a day trip. (Note to students: yes, it is very exciting that The Simpsons has changed language once again, but NO I do not expect to see Meh in your essays except in very specific, critical circumstances!)
- Disturbing attitude to girls [Courier Mail Education Blog] – An Assault on Our Future is a report on the impact of violence on young people and their relationships released today by White Ribbon. It shows that violence is having a major impact on the long term health and wellbeing of Australia’s children. White Ribbon Chairman Andrew O’Keefe says that the report highlights clear evidence that many boys hold violence supportive attitudes:
• Nearly one in seven (14%) of boys believe that ‘it’s OK to make a girl have sex with you if she was flirting’;
• Close to one in three (31%) boys believe ‘it’s not a big deal to hit a girl’;
• nearly one in three (32%) boys believe ‘most physical violence occurs because a partner provoked it’.
Boys aged between 12-14 show higher support for these sorts of attitudes.
“White Ribbon aims to prevent violence against women. If we are going to succeed we must start by challenging these attitudes while kids are still young …” (White Ribbon Day is Nov 25) - Your Weekly Address from the President-Elect – 14 November 2008 [YouTube] – President-elect Obama talks directly to the people via YouTube, talking about the economic crisis. This feels a lot like I imagine FDR’s Fireside Chats felt in the 1930s and 40s. Despite the medium, though, it’s notable that YouTube’s comments function has been turned off on this video.
Annotated Links of Interest: November 14th 2008
Links of interest for November 13th 2008 through November 14th 2008:
- Too many twitters drown out Rudd website [SMH] – “So many people were signing up to follow [Australian] Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s short text message updates on Twitter last night that his new page on the social networking site crashed. A spokeswoman for Mr Rudd said the Prime Minister had 670 Twitter followers late last night, but he lost most of them when the page crashed due to high demand. Having witnessed the power of the web in the US presidential election campaign, the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader are engaged in a high-tech arms race to win the hearts and minds of switched-on Australians. Mr Rudd effectively used internet profiles on MySpace and Facebook and his slick Kevin07 website during last year’s federal election but, since becoming Prime Minister, he hasn’t had much time for the web.” (Yes, I am following our PM – let’s see if this really will be used as a conversation, not a lecture!)
- Google Earth revives ancient Rome [BBC NEWS | Technology] – “Google has added a new twist to its popular 3D map tool, Google Earth, offering millions of users the chance to visit a virtual ancient Rome. Google has reconstructed the sprawling city – inhabited by more than one million people as long ago as AD320. Users can zoom around the map to visit the Forum of Julius Caesar, stand in the centre of the Colosseum or swoop over the Basilica. Researchers behind the project say it adds to five centuries of knowledge. “This is another step in creating a virtual time machine,” said Bernard Frischer of Virginia University, which worked with Google on the Roman reconstruction.” (I wish they’d had this when I studied Ancient History as an undergraduate!)
- High quality YouTube video hack [Kottke] – A quick hack to embed high-quality versions of YouTube clips rather than the standard crappy quality ones.
Annotated Links of Interest: November 13th 2008
Links of interest for November 11th 2008 through November 13th 2008:
- New York Times: Fake New York Times Declares Iraq War Over! Here’s Who Did It [Gawker] – “The Iraq War is over, according to the fake New York Times! This morning a cadre of volunteers has fanned out across New York City to pass out a remarkably good, faux-copy of the Times dated July 4, 2009. They’ve even set up an entire website with all of the liberal fantasy headlines. Universities to be free! Bike paths to be expanded! Thomas Friedman to resign, praise the Unitarian Jesus! It’s not funny like The Onion, but obviously a lot of work went into this. Now we play “Who did it?”” The Yes Men. Clever parody; very clever indeed … the cover.
- Big fuss brews over LittleBigPlanet [The Age] – “LittleBigPlanet is fast firming as one of the biggest game launches this year because players can create and share their own worlds, but Sony’s heavy-handed moderation has many gamers crying foul. A key selling point of the PlayStation 3 game, which was launched in Australia just days ago and has received an average rating of 95 per cent from reviewers, is that people can share their own levels over the PlayStation Network. Some have spent days crafting their ideal custom worlds, including tributes to classic games and characters such as Final Fantasy, Pac-Man, Batman, Sonic The Hedgehog, God Of War, Super Mario Bros and Indiana Jones. Over the past few days, many have found their levels summarily blocked by Sony and LittleBigPlanet’s developers, Media Molecule, because they allegedly breach someone else’s intellectual property.” (Copyright vs creativity in an entirely corporately-owned toy world with brilliant design tools … what could go wrong? :P)
- Interview @MarsPhoenix – Universe – “For over a year, Veronica McGregor has been Twittering from Mars. Of course, she’s not living among the wind storms and dirt of the red planet herself, but she is the voice of MarsPhoenix, the strangely compelling, first-person, lonely robot Twitter feed that somehow became the official mouthpiece of NASA’s Phoenix mission and has catalyzed an entirely new kind of public involvement in science.”
- Cloverfield: Mapped [Google Maps] – Blow by blow map of the action in Cloverfield. As you might suspect, the action doesn’t quite make sense if you look at it on a New York map!
- China issues first definition of Internet addiction [China Daily] – Chinese doctors define what they call “internet addiction”: “Symptoms of addiction included yearning to get back online, mental or physical distress, irritation and difficulty concentrating or sleeping. The definition, based on a study of more than 1,300 problematic computer users, classifies as addicts those who spend at least six hours online a day and have shown at least one symptom in the past three months.”
Annotated Links of Interest: November 10th 2008
Links of interest for November 10th 2008:
- Filter advocates need to check their facts [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – An important article from Mark Newton that seeks to inject some solid information back into the conversation about proposed measures to filter the internet at large, at ISP level, in Australia. It remains a terrible idea, and the advocates for this notion seem completely ignorant of the technical realities of implementing it (not to mention the social ramifications of living in the censored country).
- The Media Equation – How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power [NYTimes.com] – ““Thomas Jefferson used newspapers to win the presidency, F.D.R. used radio to change the way he governed, J.F.K. was the first president to understand television, and Howard Dean saw the value of the Web for raising money,” said Ranjit Mathoda, a lawyer and money manager who blogs at Mathoda.com. “But Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organize to do the work.” All of the Obama supporters who traded their personal information for a ticket to a rally or an e-mail alert about the vice presidential choice, or opted in on Facebook or MyBarackObama can now be mass e-mailed at a cost of close to zero. And instead of the constant polling that has been a motor of presidential governance, an Obama White House can use the Web to measure voter attitudes.”
- Text for free condoms during Schoolies Week [The Courier-Mail] – “School leavers will be able to send text messages to receive free condoms in an attempt to encourage safe sex practices during Schoolies celebrations. The TXT 4 Free Condomz sexual health campaign has been launched by health care group Marie Stopes International. Mobile phone users will be sent two free condoms in plain packaging when they text their name and address details to 19 SEXTXT. Marie Stopes International general manager Jill Michelson said the party atmosphere meant an increase in risky behaviour. “This initiative overcomes both the embarrassment and the cost issue of buying condoms, and does so using a medium and language that resonates with youth,” Ms Michelson said.” The website: http://www.sextxt.org.au/
Annotated Links of Interest: November 9th 2008
Links of interest for November 7th 2008 through November 9th 2008:
- Huffington: ‘Obama Not Elected Without Internet’ [InternetNews Realtime IT News] – “Obama campaign-related videos garnered 14.5 million hours of viewing on YouTube, according to Democratic political consultant Joe Trippi. He estimates that amount of time would have cost $47 million to buy on TV … “And to buy that time, you’re interrupting people watching football games and soap operas,” said Trippi. On the Web, “this is stuff people wanted to watch.” Just as the power of television, via televised debates, was credited with helping John Kennedy win the presidency over Richard Nixon in 1960, the panelists agreed with moderator John Heilemann that in 2008 the Web had at least as significant a role.”
- PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication – “Welcome to PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication, a biannual open-access online postgraduate publication. Founded by the Media and Communications Program, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, PLATFORM has just been launched in November 2008. This new postgraduate journal, PLATFORM, is refereed by an international board of established and emerging scholars working across diverse paradigms in Media and Communication. It is planned to develop it as an international journal.”
- Gwen and baby Zuma [Gwen Stefani : News] – I really hadn’t imagined Gwen Stefani to be a champion of copyright reform and the Creative Commons, but the termsunder which she released the first picture of herself and her baby are positively forward-thinking: “[(c) Mrs. Me, Inc., 2008.] This photo is licensed under aCreative Commons BY-NC-ND license. In addition to the permissions granted to the public under this license, this photograph may also be used in its original and unaltered form for commercial purposes by publishers in connection with the distribution of news or human interest stories, such as magazines, blogs, and newspapers. All other rights, including without limitation use of this photo in whole or in part or in connection with commercial posters, calendars, and other commercial products and services, are reserved exclusively by the copyright holder.” (The Obama campaign have been posting CC licensed photos since 2007, too!)
- Google Street View turned into artwork [The Age] – “Two American artists have made swooning for Google’s all-seeing eye an art form, creating what they term the first artistic intervention in Google Street View. After witnessing the immense online interest in quirky sightings on Google Maps, Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley approached Google with the idea of creating a series of staged tableaux along a street in Pittsburgh. The scenes, which were shot on May 3 this year and feature Pittsburgh’s Northside residents hamming it up along a nondescript lane called Sampsonia Way, went live on Google Maps this week.” Check out the result: http://www.streetwithaview.com/
Digital Obama
Obama’s victory has people celebrating across the world for so many reasons, but given my preoccupations, it should come as no surprise that part of my joy comes from his decidedly forward-thinking policies toward digital culture. As, for example, Barry Saunders has argued in his ABC story:
The exemplar of a successful political campaign’s use of social media is … Obama’s campaign. Foregoing public funding and the big money of lobbyists, Obama has raised enormous amounts of money from primarily small donors, at last count over $US390 million. Obama claims this will allow him to reduce lobbyist influence in government, though inevitably, the truth is somewhat more complex than that.Obama’s campaign has also make powerful use of social networking tools such as Twitter, MySpace-style social networking sites and even an iPhone application. This commitment to using tools to engage with a primarily younger, tech savvy audience, combined with an commitment to Network Neutrality and a progressive tech policy (Barack Obama on technology and innovation – PDF) has certainly helped his support amongst younger voters. McCain’s admission that he doesn’t know how to use a computer hasn’t helped his regain any of that support.
Indeed, Obama’s use of digital networks wasn’t just an organizational tool, but an avenue to encourage the creativity of his supporters, as Sarah Lai Stirland noted in Wired a few days ago:
Obama’s online success dwarfed his opponent’s, and proved key to his winning the presidency. Volunteers used Obama’s website to organize a thousand phone-banking events in the last week of the race — and 150,000 other campaign-related events over the course of the campaign. Supporters created more than 35,000 groups clumped by affinities like geographical proximity and shared pop-cultural interests. By the end of the campaign, myBarackObama.com chalked up some 1.5 million accounts. And Obama raised a record-breaking $600 million in contributions from more than three million people, many of whom donated through the web. … In many ways, the story of Obama’s campaign was the story of his supporters, whose creativity and enthusiasm manifested through multitudes of websites and YouTube videos online. It even resulted in volunteer contributions like the innovative Obama ’08 iPhone and iTouch application that enabled owners to mobilize their friends and contacts in battleground states through the Apple devices.
On the digital front, Obama’s administration is already looking very promising from an open access perspective, and, as Barry notes above, may actually enshrine Net Neutrality, too! Given the deft hand the Obama team have used in engaging with young voters via digital tools and communities, it’s probably no surprise to hear that Obama’s victory speech has already clocked over 100,000 downloads via Bittorrent networks!
Meanwhile, Republican party insiders seems to be falling over themselves to point out how ‘ignorant’ Sarah Palin really is, but what does that actually say about the presidential candidate that chose her as a running mate? Oh well, it really doesn’t matter any more; I can’t really see predictions of Palin 2012 being much to worry about.
Perhaps of more concern for the hip and ironic youth of today is a piece by Dan Kois in the NY Times’ Culture Vulture asking ‘Can ‘The Daily Show’ Survive the Barack Obama Presidency?‘ What will Jon Stewart and his team satirize in a hopeful, forward-thinking, globally-minded American under Obama? I suspect there’ll still be a few things worth making fun of, but I’m sure Jon Stewart would agree, if it came down to The Daily Show or Obama, Stewart would still be voting Obama! Besides which, plenty of Americans are still doing really stupid things; drowned out by all the celebrations was the fact that in the same electoral process, Californians voted to remove the rights of gay people to marry; I think The Daily Show team might just have some new targets!
The video, though, that really caps the viral video war which has been one of the most engaging elements of the presidential campaigning, the video that shows behind a sexed-up meme can be real joy, is this little capture of Obama girl celebrating becoming President-Elect girl in Times Square …
[Via] [Image: ‘Barack Obama: A mosaic of people‘ by tsevis CC BY NC SA]
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