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Viaggi Africa on "Reporting Africa, blog by blog"

Viaggi Africa — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:32:28 +0000

Africa is a complex planet.
It's easy to produce dramatic images and it is always difficult to go behind the surface.
You need time to understand the differencies between countries, regions, cities and villages.
Time always mean money.
Media are not very interested in nice stories coming from Africa they prefer "easy dramatic" or "travel beauty".
In Africa I find culture, humanity and a lot of positive enrgy side by side with death, poverty and famine.

emurhfkq on "Free software’s Faustian moment"

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emurhfkq on "Free software’s Faustian moment"

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giovanni_navarria on "The internet's fading promise"

giovanni_navarria — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:18:50 +0000

Becky Hogge has written an interesting account on the status of freedom (or lack of it) in the internet world today. She rightly points out that the growing sophistication of filtering technology and the increasingly abusive use that Governments worldwide are making of it is transforming the internet more in a technology of control, than one of freedom. The promise of the internet as a technology of freedom is quickly fading away. Although I happened to think that Hogge strikes the nail on the head in many points of her article, I have a different take on the argument. The Gilmore’s quotation in my opinion shows us the great difficulty that lies in any attempt to underpin the relation between Internet, politics, and freedom. The corner stone in that statement is the Internet per se: It interprets censorship as damage and it routes around it. I think that is where the mistake lies. The Internet is an instrument and as an instrument can be used in many ways. What makes the difference is the flexibility of the instrument and the use that people can make of it. In today’s world, I would rephrase Gilmore’s statement as follows: “people interpret censorship as damage and (attempt to) route it around it via the Internet.” In politics as in Life are People’s attitude, will, and choices that make the difference. If the instrument is there, that choice, that attitude, that will can change the course of things. However, Hogge remarks that the freedom to route around censorship is often barred to the average internet user, whose narrow technical know-how limits what he or she can do to break through the web of censorship. Indeed, if the action pursued is to break into a Government's firewall and steel important data, that is very likely to be a job for a few experts. But if the action aims at something else, than, may be the door is open for a wider group of people. The strength of the Internet is always linked to the collaborative side of it. Its capacity to be the virtual place where a virtual and dispersed public gathers together and debates who gets what when and how is still the most revolutionary side of the world wide web. The internet is populated with fascinating examples of what I call interesting uses of the Internet to route around censorship in particular political environments, those environments that, with an oxymoron, I refer to Democratic Media Regimes. That is, all those western democracies where media, especially mainstream media are increasingly becoming tools of controls and power for a political elite. One of these examples is an Italian blogger, the comedian Beppe Grillo that, following in the footsteps of the American MoveOn.org and their path-breaking impact on the 2004 Dean-for-America’s campaign, created a blog in 2005: beppegrillo.it, which in a short period of time has become the number one blog in Italy and one of the most trafficked blog in the world. If you want to know more about beppegrillo.it, please follow the link to a recent short article (The Talking Cricket) that I wrote about the blog and that it was published on the CSD Bulletin . The article is a summary of a much longer study on the argument that I have conducted in the last year as part of my academic research. My article (PDF): The Talking Cricket Giovanni Navarria Research Associate Centre for the Study of Democracy University of Westminster 32-38 Wells Street London , W1T 3UW. United Kingdom . Website: www.giovanninavarria.com

douglas-jones on "The internet's fading promise"

douglas-jones — Mon, 28 May 2007 08:19:05 +0000

I really hope you are in error.

The internet was the source allowing me, and many before me, to decide Iraq 2003 was a scam, a dishonest venture for gain regardless of UN or human death. Sure like everything else spin is the name of the game and who more adept than politicians and their acolytes?

Who a more sycophantic writer than media with gold in view?

7-894-239-411-472 on "Reporting Africa, blog by blog"

7-894-239-411-472 — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 22:08:58 +0000

For some serious indepth analysis on African issues try reading Pambazuka News - a Pan African online newsletter on social justice and politics written by Africans for Africans - academics, journalists, activists, writers, bloggers and social movements.

tomhulley on "We are the web"

tomhulley — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 13:17:24 +0000

Significant as examples of anarchist practice, your Nicaraguan deaf children and enslaved people merit attention. On any issue, it serves to listen to the voices of those most affected. I suspect that children know best how to run schools but this has rarely been tested despite some small successes. My concern, however, is that deaf people and exploited people remain marginalised. Hearing people do not use sign language but see deaf people as 'disabled' while they position themselves as 'normal'. Pidgin English is considered 'abnormal' by many English speakers and most authorities.

Will 'bottom-up' initiatives only give people a say within their marginalised and powerless worlds or will they challenge and change vested interest?

jdoucette5522 on "An Irish challenge to the EU's snooping law"

jdoucette5522 — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:56:54 +0000

"It's all so much simpler in America." Sure, if you're a millionaire. What an oversimplified, superficial argument! In the US and Canada 50% of all legal cases go to court without a lawyer on one side or another because of lack of funds. While the EU solution may have serious problems litigation is the solution for the rich only. That is not a solution in a democracy.

Felix on "Free software’s Faustian moment"

Felix — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 15:24:11 +0000

Russel,

I'm not at all sure I agree that the article suggests that FLOSS is non-profit or non-commercial; this seems to be the misconception that MS have snuck into the Novell deal. Of course there are a wide range of FLOSS developers, projects and companies that are commercial and profit motivated; Red Hat, Novell, Trolltech and PGPi/Network Associates all profit from an free/open source codebase. Similarly, there are FLOSS projects that are not for profit; The Apache Foundation sticks out in my mind as a 501(c)3 registered not for profit organisation, for example.

It is overly simplistic to assume that any organisation or individual is either entirely not-for-profit/non-commercial, or that the businesses operating in the field have no altruistic element. The truth is that developers move from non-profit to commercial areas and back regularly, as the motivations and the challenges presented to them change. (I have researched this; the paper is available at http://www.felixcohen.co.uk/drupal/node/29)

tcp_1 on "Free software’s Faustian moment"

tcp_1 — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 14:20:32 +0000

Russel,

If I understand _your_ point, I think you have made a confusing equation between Marginal Cost Pricing = Natural and Average Cost Pricing = Un-natural.

There is no "nature" in prices - prices without property rights do not exist. You first define the right, tehn get the price.

The litterature on marginal cost pricing is long and old. "Optimal" recovery of fixed costs was established by Ramsey in the 1930s as requiring the charing of some super-marginal prices to users who can most bear them. This sort of price discrimination can _only_ be achieved with amrket power.

russell on "Free software’s Faustian moment"

russell — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 04:17:24 +0000

There is an unfortunately common misconception in this article that suggested FLOSS is non-profit or non-commercial. The question isn't about whether money is made, but how that money is made.

The laws of nature treat intangibles like software different than tangibles like hardware. One of the ways is that for intangibles the marginal cost, the cost for "one more unit", to the developer for software is zero. Whether there is one copy of 6 billion copies, the cost to the developer is the same.

This means that there are two broad branches in all parts of the knowledge economy: those parts that fund the fixed cost of development and don't charge a marginal cost, and those who don't charge for the fixed costs and instead try to amortize across many units using an artificial marginal cost.

See the "Jefferson Debate" if you thought there was only one choice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Debate

What Microsoft and others who support information/mental process patents like software patents are trying to do is to abuse man-made laws to eradicate the choices that the laws of nature have afforded us. They are afraid to compete with us as I believe they recognize that our commercial business models are far more efficient and scale far better worldwide. Left in a free market capitalist economy, I believe they recognize we would out-compete them.

There is a split, but it is not between the commercial economy and the non-commercial economy, but between those who believe that human laws should reflect the laws of nature and those who wish to impose their limited views on others. It can also be seen as a traditional economic battle between powerful incumbent special interests and innovators. Hopefully we will choose to side with the innovators and evolve.

Russell McOrmond

http://www.flora.ca/

tcp_1 on "Free software’s Faustian moment"

tcp_1 — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 22:35:13 +0000

Without the absurd patents granted by USPTO on software, there would be little need for the limitation of liability agreements of the sort that Novell and M$ have signed.

There was an attractive if rather crazy off-shoot of Trotskiism known as revolutionary immobilism: do nothing, do not encourage strikes for better conditions, or welfare, or representation, because pressures need to be allowed to mount to get to revolution.

I think there is a less crazy equivalent to revolutionary immobilism when it comes to GNU/Linux and IP - let the corporate sector become _so_ infected that M$ knows that if it tries to sue users for patent infringement, a few of the big users will go to court and invalidate those patents.

M$ already tried the tactic with GNU/Linux and copyright protection in its notorious SCO investment. There, IBM took up the whip and is clearly beating SCO/M$ away. Let M$ just try to sue Boeing, or GE, or Goldman Sachs, and let the jungle of paper tiger patents finally be shown up for what they are.

Corporate America - learn from Trotski's immobilist descendants! Do not switch from RH to SuSe! Do Nothing!