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US: Don’t Vote.
For any American citizens who read this blog: Don’t Vote.
Apparently your opportunity to register to vote ends very, very soon. [Via]
Annotated Links of Interest: October 2nd 2008
Links of interest for October 1st 2008 through October 2nd 2008:
- Google Search 2001 – To celebrate Google’s 10th birthday they’ve gone back in time and worked with the Internet Archive to let you search the 2001 web … YouTube is a nonsense word, ‘blog’ only returns 76,400 hits and Facebook has just under 1800 results!
- EA Downplays Spore’s DRM Triggered Piracy Record [TorrentFreak] – Despite credible estimates that Spore has been downloaded over a million times via bittorrent networks, EA are playing down these figures and, in a turnabout for a big media producer, are arguing that not every download would have represented a legitimate sale were bittorrent not around (something many downloaders have been arguing about p2p film and even tv for years). Despite EA’s PR spin, it seems likely DRM is one of the big things nudging fans into downloading the Spore (and bypassing the DRM altogether).
- Blizzard wins Warcraft bot payout [BBC NEWS | Technology] – “World of Warcraft creator Blizzard has won $6m (£3.36m) in damages from the makers of a software ‘bot’. The damages award comes after Blizzard won the first round of its legal battle against MDY Industries in July 2008. Blizzard embarked on the case against MDY claiming that the World of Warcraft Glider software produced by the small company infringed its copyright. The Glider software lets Warcraft players automate many of the repetitive steps the game involves. … it helped them automate the many repetitive tasks, such as killing monsters and scavenging loot, required to turn low level characters into more powerful ones.”
Annotated Links of Interest: September 14th 2008
Links of interest for September 12th 2008 through September 14th 2008:
- YouTube bans terrorism training videos [SMH] – “Terrorist training videos will be banned from appearing on YouTube, under revised new guidelines being implemented by the popular video-sharing site. The Google-owned portal will ban footage that advertises terrorism or extremist causes and supporters of the change hope it will blunt al-Qaeda’s strong media online campaign.” [Via] I wonder what definition of ‘terrorism’ YouTube and Google will be using to enforce this rule?!
- Video Game Snapshots [Gamasutra – Persuasive Games] – Ian Bogost review the emerging design-your-own-videogame tools and suggests they might best be considered tools for personal and social communication rather than meaningful game design platforms. This is not so much a criticism as a look at computer games through the eyes (and rhetoric) of Web 2.0: “There is simply no magic box we can put in front of the world which, when a button is pressed, turns what it sees into a video game. … There are lots of things one can do with web-based game making services. One of them is to try to create hit games that generate ad revenue and earn public renown. Another is to create art games meant to characterize the human condition,… But perhaps the most interesting uses of these tools are the informal ones that so closely resemble snapshots in spirit and function.”
- Photoshop for Democracy Revisited: The Sarah Palin File [Confessions of an Aca/Fan] – Henry Jenkins takes a closer look at the various photoshopped versions of Sarah Palin making their way into US political discourse in the lead-up to the election. Some are flattering, some satirical, but all are participatory!
- Large Hadron Rap [YouTube] – Kate McAlpine’s outstanding rap explaining what the hell CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is actually supposed to be doing! Lyrics and downloadable version here.
Presidential Presentation Zen
Those who’ve heard my thoughts on presentations in general (most are bad … including most of mine), you’ll also know I think Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen (the blog and the book) is the most insightful guide to contemporary presentation design currently available. Thus, I was fascinated by Garr’s take on the differences between Barack Obama and John McCain’s national convention speeches and the graphic elements which accompanied them. The short version: Obama presents like a deity, while McCain bombed in visual terms. In terms of teaching presentation, though, Garr did mock-ups of how McCain’s talk would have looked in different styles which really get you thinking. Here’s the difference between an MBA and Steve Jobs presenting so you can see what I mean (and why this would be useful when trying to get others to think through presentation in visual terms):
Annotated Links of Interest: September 5th 2008
Interesting links for September 4th 2008 through September 5th 2008:
- 19% of U.S. Households Watch Online TV [NewTeeVee] – A new report from The Conference Board shows that 19% of US households watch broadcast TV online: “In its study of 10,000 households, TNS and the Conference Board found that of those who watch TV online, 43 percent tune into the news, the most popular category. Thirty-nine percent watch drama shows, 34 percent sitcom/comedy shows, 23 percent reality shows, 16 percent sports, and 15 percent user-generated content.”
- Wikipedia vandals target West Australian politicians [The Australian] – “According to giant online encyclopedia Wikipedia, West Australian polician Matt Birney has a small penis and premier Alan Carpenter is helped by the outlaw bikie gang Gypsy Jokers. … As the State election draws nearer, volunteer editors at the site, which has more than two-and-a-half million articles, are scanning the entries of WA politicians to ensure inaccurate entries are removed as quickly as possible. … Alan Carpenter’s Wikipedia entry was vandalised three times late last month. It said he was sacked from the ABC, had a drug addiction, “destroyed the teaching profession” and insisted “teachers are overpaid and underworked kretins (sic) of our society”. But two minutes after the final act of vandalism, editor Rror removed the offending material.” (That’s pretty quick editing! Who’d’ve thought so many people were watching WA politicians’ wikipedia pages?) [Via Anna @ iGenmasters]
- Google backs down over browser amid privacy concerns [The Age] – “Google has made an embarrassing backdown after it was revealed the company would have rights to any information entered into websites by people using its new internet browser. A day after the Google Chrome browser was released, a controversial clause in its “End User License Agreement” (EULA) has been removed following concerns it breached people’s privacy and copyright.” (I’m delighted that clause is gone, but credit to them, it disappeared pretty quickly after blogosphere unrest! It’s interesting, too, that in The Age Google backed down … for the BBC it’s a “tweak“.)
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