Shot against the afternoon light with a 28mm lens. Click on image for a larger version.
McCain-Palin: everything must go — including all those private cellphone numbers
A Fox reporter went to the everything-must-go sale at McCain-Palin campaign HQ. And, guess what?
We saw laptops ranging between $400 and $600 with logins like “WARROOM08.” We couldn’t log on without a password, but staffers assured us the hard drive would be zapped before it was sold, and the computer would probably work.
The hottest item? Blackberry phones at $20 a piece. There were only 10 left. All of the batteries had died. There were no chargers for sale. But people were snatching them up. So, we bought a couple.
And ended up with a lot more than we bargained for.
When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.
We traced the Blackberry back to a staffer who worked for “Citizens for McCain,” a group of democrats who threw their support behind the Republican nominee. The emails contain an insider’s look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support.
But most of the numbers were private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists.
We called some of the numbers.
“Somebody made a mistake,” one owner told us. “People’s numbers and addresses were supposed to be erased.”
“They should have wiped that stuff out,” another said. But he added, “Given the way the campaign was run, this is not a surprise.”
We called the McCain-Palin campaign, who says, “it was an unfortunate staff error and procedures are being put in place to ensure all information is secure.”
Source: McCain Campaign Sells Info-Loaded Blackberry to FOX 5 Reporter.
Dyson on anonymity
From an interview by Internet Evolution:
Internet Evolution: You’ve had a front-row seat for the commercialization, regulation, and funding of the Internet. What’s been the biggest surprise for you about how the Internet has evolved? And what’s been your biggest disappointment?
Esther Dyson: Well, surprise and disappointment are the same… There are two big things: First, I was a much bigger fan of anonymity then than I am now. I thought it was cool. And it is, but it turns out anonymity really encourages bad behavior. I’m not in favor of the government tracking everybody and so forth, [but] at least persistent pseudonyms and communities and stuff like that makes everything a nicer place.
It’s like a lot of things. I’m pro choice, but I think abortion is an unfortunate thing. I think the same thing about anonymity: Everybody should have the right to it, but it’s not something one wants to encourage. And that’s not weasel words, that’s the reality of it.
[Anonymity] should be allowed. People should be able to make that choice, and there are many reasons to make that choice. If you live in an oppressive regime, you may well want people to be able to remain anonymous or have secret communications. But at the same time, it should not be encouraged, and it should be acknowledged that it’s a response to a bad situation.
Source: Internet Evolution – Dialogue – Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure Holdings.
D3X rant
The ‘Downfall’ meme continues to spread.
Here’s one about the Nikon D3X.
Thanks to Geoff Einon for spotting it.
The Wikipedia – IWF spat
Rory Cellan-Jones has a thoughtful post looking back on the furore over the image of the Scorpions’ album published in Wikipedia.
Google’s Gatekeepers
Sobering piece by Jay Jeffrey Rosen exploring the critical role that Google’s corporate gatekeepers play in deciding what can and cannot be shown to audiences.
“Right now, we’re trusting Google because it’s good, but of course, we run the risk that the day will come when Google goes bad,” [Timothy] Wu told me. In his view, that day might come when Google allowed its automated Web crawlers, or search bots, to be used for law-enforcement and national-security purposes. “Under pressure to fight terrorism or to pacify repressive governments, Google could track everything we’ve searched for, everything we’re writing on gmail, everything we’re writing on Google docs, to figure out who we are and what we do,” he said. “It would make the Internet a much scarier place for free expression.” The question of free speech online isn’t just about what a company like Google lets us read or see; it’s also about what it does with what we write, search and view.
Source: NYTimes.com.
Ed Felten adds this:
Rosen worries that too much power to decide what can be seen is being concentrated in the hands of one company. He acknowledges that Google has behaved reasonably so far, but he worries about what might happen in the future.
I understand his point, but it’s hard to see an alternative that would be better in practice. If Google, as the owner of YouTube, is not going to have this power, then the power will have to be given to somebody else. Any nominations? I don’t have any.
What we’re left with, then, is Google making the decisions. But this doesn’t mean all of us are out in the cold, without influence. As consumers of Google’s services, we have a certain amount of leverage. And this is not just hypothetical — Google’s “don’t be evil” reputation contributes greatly to the value of its brand. The moment people think Google is misbehaving is the moment they’ll consider taking their business elsewhere.
Now that’s what I call a ‘government of all the talents’
The NYT is reporting that Obama will nominate Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his energy secretary. What’s interesting about that? Well, Mr Chu has a Nobel Prize for physics. Rather puts Gordon Brown’s feeble efforts to attract talent to his administration in perspective, doesn’t it. Who was it he appointed — a guy called Digby Jones?
Ignorance scales new heights
Fascinating insight into the mind of the invincibly ignorant. This is an excerpt from an email sent by a Texan school teacher to Ken Starks, an open source evangelist:
"…observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a confrence with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization. Mr. Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows. Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting linux on these machines is holding our kids back.
This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older verison of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them…"
Karen xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx Middle School
Source: Blog of helios: Linux – Stop holding our kids back.
Thanks to Good Morning Silicon Valley for spotting it.
Luxury rehab
The New Yorker last week carried an astonishing article about the market for luxury rehab facilities in California. Here’s the bit that caught my eye:
According to the Treatment Research Institute, nearly half of all residential treatment centers in this country have closed since the early eighties. In the late nineties, luxury rehab centers, catering to self-paying patients, began to proliferate. Today, with a twenty-one-mile coastline and a population of roughly thirteen thousand, Malibu alone has twenty-nine licensed rehab establishments. Many are operated out of palatial estates; most are for-profit, do not take insurance, and expect their fee, sometimes as high as sixty-eight thousand dollars a month, to be paid up front.
Link.
Pulitzer Prizes to Accept More Online Work
NY Times story:
Bowing to the rapid rise of news distributed digitally rather than on paper, the Pulitzer Prizes will begin immediately accepting submissions from online-only publications.
The Pulitzers, administered by Columbia University, are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards for American newspaper reporting and commentary. Beginning with the 2009 prizes, which cover work done in 2008 and which will be presented in April, Internet newspapers and other news organizations that publish online will be considered for all 14 of the journalism awards, from international reporting to criticism. The deadline for submission for 2009 is Feb. 1.
“This is an important step forward, reflecting our continued commitment to American newspapers as well as our willingness to adapt to the remarkable growth of online journalism,” Sig Gissler, the administrator of the prizes, said in a statement. “The new rules enlarge the Pulitzer tent and recognize more fully the role of the Web, while underscoring the enduring value of words and of serious reporting.”
The changes to the rules were approved in a board meeting last month. The online publications must publish at least once a week and be “primarily dedicated to original news reporting and coverage of ongoing stories,” according to the revised eligibility rules. Web sites that exist primarily to aggregate news or post commentary will not be eligible, and decisions about eligibility will be made on a case-by-case basis, the board said. Print magazines, television stations and their Web sites will remain excluded.
The Pulitzers began to accept submissions of print newspapers’ online material in 2006, in two breaking news categories.
Link: NYTimes.com.