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POPSProtesting Clippers could face Prison or Fines. Well it's too late for me I reckon, so I might as well just keep on keepin' on peacefully protesting. Now more than ever, it seems so necessary. This is another "I dare you" clip. Are they trying to scare, intimidate or threaten people to the point, that they just don't dare comment or clip or pop or blog or speak out anymore? Should I just cave in and "turn myself in" quarterly and bow down to oppression? I think not. I will not be silenced. If I ever stop clipping about all this, you'll know why. See ya in Guantanamo! - The White House's own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence. - Chertoff pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.
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POPSWar on Blogs? Hmm. . . could this have something to do with the user comments on the ill-fated Tom DeLay Blog?
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POPSNO MORE LOL Loi is to be used when something is mildly entertaining, yet not humorous enough to evoke actual laughter. Actual laughter, however, may still be represented by "lol" or it's other manifestations (LMAO, ROFL, etc). NoMoreLOL.com is calling upon conscious chatters, bloggers, texters and instant messengers to help us spread our message. If you suspect someone of False Lolling be sure to direct them to this website and warn them of the penalties of internet purjury. loi :-)
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POPSTurkey censors Wordpress; blogs can't be accessed When I tried to post a new entry to my blog a few minutes ago, I came across this page. It says: "Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance." At first, I thought it was my blog but after trying to access Wordpress.com's main page, I noticed the total Wordpress.com domain was blocked by the authorities. Another ridiculous example of censorship on the Internet content, in Turkey. there are hundred thousands of blogs on Wordpress.com and none can be accessed from Turkey now. This decision of the court is a shame for a country which claims to respect free speech. I protest this unfair blockage on Wordpress and call all the Turkish bloggers to support free speech and to condemn censorship.
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POPSIn Virginia, Palin crowd believes every myth This sounds like The Onion, but it's a New York Times story covering a race-track rally by Sarah Palin. How have we failed, that Americans could be so poorly educated as to be vulnerable to such tripe?
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POPSTrolls and Other Nastiness A very provocative article on freedom on speech vs. downright nastiness, hatred and harassment. Is uncensored speech the most free, or is free speech enhanced by civility?
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POPS The social web - power to the people!!! Oh yes, a truly revolutionary web we are weaving. My hat is off to people in places such as Egypt who brave the potentially dire consequences in order to spread the truth. Their words will hopefully lead to more democratic, free societies in places that have for so long kept their people bottled up.
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POPSNobody's Copyright Let’s see what some wise people, spiritual teachers, say about copyright. U. G. Krishnamurti, the controversial teacher/non-teacher, expressed it this way. My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody (U. G. Krishnamurti, The Mystique of Enlightenment, India. Dinesh Vaghela. Goa. 1982: http://www.well.com/user/jct/mystiq.htm)
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POPSIt's Time for Spime An ultra interesting concept of merging the physical and virtual aspects of our future existence. A Spime is a location-aware, environment-aware, self-logging, self-documenting, uniquely identified object that flings off data about itself and its environment in great quantities. A universe of Spimes is an informational universe, and it is the use of this information that informs the most exciting part of Sterling's argument.
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POPSDetecting Photographic Forgeries Automatically detecting manipulated photographs is becoming more and more necessary in today's newsroom. "The eyes are a partial mirror into the world in which you're photographed," Farid says. If there are two white dots in each eye, there had to have been two separate light sources. So, if a photo shows two dots in one person's eyes and only one dot in another person's eyes, it must have been spliced together from two different originals.
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POPSHatred towards Women Bloggers... When I read this in the BBC, I thought it was just sensational journalism. I followed the link trails and went to web sites in question. Horrifying. Appalling. I remember visiting Ms Sierra's blog years ago when I started out in web design. This woman is a long time blogger advocating creativity and technology in a well written blog. I would read her stuff, zeldmans stuff among others. Why she should be threatened in an extremely frightening manner is beyond me. http://headrush.typepad.com/ While anonymity gives some freedom of expression and freedom of the constraints of identity for surfers and bloggers alike, it by no means should allow people to be able to make this extreme level of threat to another human being regardless of gender. Issues with free speech and terrorism do not necessarily mean Iraq and the war. Irrational hatred takes on so many insidious forms...
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POPSDunkin Donuts Goes Completely Insane There are certain times in history that make us look back and wonder, "how is it possible that civilized people behaved in such craven and irrational ways?" The Salem Witch trials, for instance. The present moment will likely be looked back on as another such time. Case in point: Dunkin Donuts just pulled an ad in which TV cook Rachael Ray wore a scarf that somewhat resembled a traditional Palestinian head dress -- because imbalanced bloggers accused the company of promoting terrorism. I'll skip speculating on the sheer pandering nuttiness of Dunkin's decision, to point out merely what a dumb business decision this was. It's a global company. There are 1.3 billion Muslims out there. The math is simple.