Bush In Israel: Standing With One Side

HuffPo has an interesting angle on President Bush’s visit to Israel this week.  A worthwhile read for anyone interested in the region’s complete history.

Air Force One is traveling back in time Tuesday, banking low near the southern Mediterranean coast and touching down on contested soil where the past is always present. In the Holy Land, the battles over historical narrative — above all, the meaning of the founding of Israel in 1948 — are as hard-fought as the contemporary struggles over West Bank settlers, Palestinian refugees, and negotiations for a two-state solution. For the observer, or self-described “honest broker” in a long and bitter dispute, identifying with only one side’s history carries profound meaning of its own.

Yet when President Bush steps off his plane to help Israel mark its 60th birthday, he will stride firmly into the past of one side. Officials of the Jewish state will sweep the president into their own powerful and compelling narrative: The birth of Israel from the ashes of the Holocaust on May 14, 1948; the invasion of the state, a day later, from Arab armies marching from the north, south, and east; and the loss of fully one percent of the Jewish state’s population, in a fierce defense that evokes Israel’s unofficial motto: Never again.

What the president won’t hear is the Palestinian story. He won’t be told that one side’s “War of Independence” is the other side’s “Nakba,” or Catastrophe. And no one is likely to mention that Israel’s heroic survival was, to the Arabs, a dispossession in which 750,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes.

Source: huffingtonpost.com via mtippett

NowPublic

Tags: Arab | Bush | Israel | Palestine | birthday | conflict | historical narrative | holocaust | Holy battles | INVASION | Israeli-Palestinian | ISRAELIS | Jewish | meaning | MEDITERRANEAN | Nakba | Palestinian | Politics | president | World

Canadian Watchdog Seeks Bell Privacy Probe

Now things are going to get interesting…

“Network management practices employed by Bell Canada have led the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic to ask for an investigation of the telecommunications company. The CIPPIC, a University of Ottawa legal clinic, accuses the firm of using deep packet inspection tools to determine what customers are doing with their Internet connections and then blocking traffic, such as that of BitTorrent. O, Bell Canada, following in the footsteps of Ma Bell (the newer) when it comes to P2P throttling is no way to to play.”

Source: gigaom.com

NowPublic

Tags: CLINIC | internet | Network | policy | privacy | Tech & Biz | Telecommunications

What’s become of the million dollar house?

Being a ‘millionaire’ ain’t what it used to be…

I remember a time not too long ago that a cool million dollars bought you an amazing home. Some may have even uttered the word “mansion”. I realize that “amazing home” is a relative term, but let’s do one last quick jaunt across Canada and see what’s become of the exclusive million dollar house.

We will check out “mansions” in PEI, Montreal Quebec, Toronto Ontario, Saskatoon Saskatchewan and 2 entries from BC: Kelowna and East Vancouver (Van West is impossible).

Source: paul-northvancouverhomes.blogspot.com via mtippett

NowPublic

Tags: Canada | kelowna | Montreal | Ontario | Quebec | Saskatchewan | SASKATOON | Toronto | van | Vancouver | BASEMENT | EXCLUSIVE | fabulous | Mansion | massive | skylight | Tech & Biz | windows

UBC professor grades students on Wikipedia status

A UBC professor is embracing Wikipedia as a platform for academic publication.  More universities should be taking this approach. 

“VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) - Wikipedia, the upstart Internet encyclopedia that most universities forbid students to use, has suddenly become a teaching tool for professors. 

Recently, university teachers have swapped student term papers for assignments to write entries for the free online encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is an “open-source” web site, which means that entries can be started or edited by anyone in the world with an Internet connection.

Writing for Wikipedia “seems like a much larger stage, more of a challenge,” than a term paper, said professor Jon Beasley-Murray, who teaches Latin American literature at the University of British Columbia in this western Canadian city.

“The vast majority of Wikipedia entries aren’t very good,” said Beasley-Murray, but said the site aims to be academically sound.

To reach its goal of academic standards, said Wikipedia’s web site, it set up an assessment scale on its English-language site. The best encyclopedia entries are ranked as “Featured Articles,” and run each day on the home page at www.wikipedia.com.

To be ranked as a “Featured Article,” Wikipedia said an entry must “provide thorough, well-written coverage of their topic, supported by many references to peer-reviewed publications.”

Source: news.yahoo.com via mtippett

NowPublic

Tags: Canada | British Columbia | university | Vancouver | ACADEMIC | article | ASSIGNMENTS | Culture | edited | Internet encyclopedia | Jon Beasley-Murray | LATIN AMERICAN | Literature | open-source | Professor | Site | western Canadian | Wikipedia

Using the web as a playground

PMOG lets you use the internet as a medium for a game of treasure hunting.  An interesting use of the medum and an example of how you can re-claim your browsing experience.

PMOG is the Passively Multiplayer Online Game. To play, you’ll need to Get Firefox and Add Our Extension.

This game allows you to leave traps or gifts on any web page. You can also take missions across the internet, discovering new content while leveling up.

Source: pmog.com

NowPublic

Tags: Culture | multiplayer | online | Pmog

Twitter breaks Chinese earthquake news

The Globe and Mail’s Mathew Ingram wrote about Twitter’s news breaking success today as well.   If you don’t read Mathew’s blog it’s worth checking out for a Canadian perspective on technology.  Here’s what Mathew had to say today:

“Like many others, I woke up this morning to news of a disaster in China: a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the southwest, with thousands of people either dead or injured. Unlike some, I didn’t get the news from the radio or TV — I got it from Twitter, a group-chat/instant messaging client that has been gaining in popularity as a real-time news application. Much like the forest fires in California last fall and other recent news events, Twitter became one of the main sources of on-the-ground reporting — even before CNN started picking up what was happening, and with more personal detail. According to Search Engine Land, Twitter even beat the U.S. Geological Survey, which tracks quake readings.

During such times, Twitter seems like a “crowd-sourced” reporting tool, much like what NowPublic.com of Vancouver has created but with cellphones and 140 character messages as the medium. In any disaster, one of the first things people look for is the eyewitness account, the first-person description, the man on the scene. Whenever something like the earthquake happens, thousands of editors and producers at newspapers, radio programs and TV networks clog the phones trying to reach someone, anyone, who can provide a personal account: they call homes, schools, stores, friends, distant relatives. What was it like? Where were you when it happened? What happened next?

Source: theglobeandmail.com

NowPublic

Tags: breaks | Tech & Biz | twitter

Eye-Fi Brings Online Ubiquity to Almost Every Digital Camera

This is a pretty cool looking new product:

New versions of the Eye-Fi hitting the market today. Now available in the original model (at $100) that allows online and local file uploads, the new versions are desktop upload only ($80) and a new model that will work with paid hotspots as well as do geo-tagging as well (for $129).

The original model looks like any 2gb SD card but has an integrated WiFi chip that lets just about any camera that uses SD cards to automatically upload pictures to your PC over WiFi, upload to online photo sites (or both). There’s an even an option to allow content to flow directly into iTunes on a Mac.

It’s a neat tool that works well, especially for the online connection (a USB cable is going to work much faster to just transfer photos to a PC). Two issues are the fact that WiFi sucks a lot of battery life from your camera and it’s an all or nothing proposition. You can’t select which files to send over.

Source: weblogs.jupiterresearch.com via mtippett

NowPublic

Tags: content | Desktop | digital camera | directly | eye-fi | geo-tagging | hotspots | integrated WiFi | itunes | looks | Online Ubiquity | photo sites | pictures | Tech & Biz | Upload

Twittering the Earthquake

Twitterers the world over are changing the way news travels. Chinese microbloggers issued some of the first reports of the earthquake that hit the country last night. But the accounts tell the story from a perspective that is unlike anything you’ll see on the evening news.

@sixhat all is good around here. i think only people in high buildings felt it in shanghai. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to sixhat

[q url="http://twitter.com/nocas"]“@AlexBowman exactly. that was the only thing i could think of when i was coming out of my building. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to AlexBowman

@Chinkerfly i was on wuning road/dongxin road, near zhenping road metro station. on the 31st floor we felt it a lot. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to Chinkerfly

a lot of people on the parking lot of plaza 66. i guess they felt it too. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific

breathing normal again. feeling an earthquake on the 31st floor was not fun. about 11 hours ago from”

Source: twitter.com

@sixhat all is good around here. i think only people in high buildings felt it in shanghai. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to sixhat @AlexBowman exactly. that was the only thing i could think of when i was coming out of my building. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to AlexBowman @Chinkerfly i was on wuning road/dongxin road, near zhenping road metro station. on the 31st floor we felt it a lot. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to Chinkerfly a lot of people on the parking lot of plaza 66. i guess they felt it too. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific breathing normal again. feeling an earthquake on the 31st floor was not fun. about 11 hours ago from txt

[/q]

@sixhat all is good around here. i think only people in high buildings felt it in shanghai. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to sixhat @AlexBowman exactly. that was the only thing i could think of when i was coming out of my building. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to AlexBowman @Chinkerfly i was on wuning road/dongxin road, near zhenping road metro station. on the 31st floor we felt it a lot. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to Chinkerfly a lot of people on the parking lot of plaza 66. i guess they felt it too. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific breathing normal again. feeling an earthquake on the 31st floor was not fun. about 11 hours ago from txt

Source: twitter.com

NowPublic

Tags: bruno | carlos | david | Figueiredo | Jos | Lopes | PEDRO | Rodrigues | santos | Serra | andre | Culture | Fonseca | JORGE | luis | Nuno | paulo | Ribeirinho | Tiago

What happened to prme time?

The news business is going through dramatic changes as viewers continue to move online (and take advertisers with them).  Here is the latest bit of bad news for those trying to sell prime time news:

With fewer people watching television, ad sales are more uncertain than in years past. This week the networks are going into their upfront presentations to outline their fall 2008 schedules for ad buyers, but as The New York Times this morning notes — six million viewers have disappeared from prime time.

According to Nielsen Media Research, the big four networks — ABC Inc. , CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS), Fox Broadcasting Co. , and NBC Universal — had 9 percent fewer viewers in April and in May than in the year-ago period. The writers’ strike did its damage, but with 25 million digital video recorders in homes and people tuning in to their shows online, appointment-viewing (where viewers rush home to catch a set show at a set time) is becoming a thing of the past.

Source: contentinople.com

NowPublic

Tags: New York | research | broadcasting | Buyers | digital video recorders | networks | news | Nielsen Media | online | schedules | Tech & Biz | television | viewers | watching | writers strike

MLA wants labels on potentially toxic food

This seems so commonsensical that I can’t believe it isn’t the case already. 

Vancouver-Fairview MLA Gregor Robertson plans to introduce a private member’s bill in the legislature today making it mandatory to label genetically engineered food. The Right to Know Act would require producers and suppliers to warn consumers if products contain toxic chemicals or genetically engineered ingredients.

“People have a right to know what is in their food,” said Robertson, an NDP MLA who is also seeking the Vision Vancouver mayoral nomination.

Source: canada.com

NowPublic

Tags: Chemicals | consumers | Environment | label | legislature | Mandatory | MAYORAL | Nomination | Pesticide | potentially | producers | Products | seeking | Suppliers | Toxic | vision | warn