Month: January 2008

There’s 10s of 1000s of posts and articles about copyright misuse, too many generated by synthetic memes manufactured by big media hydra, but here are guidelines from apophenia about how to refer to or use portions of copyrighted material fairly and legally.

• Parody and satire:
  Copyrighted material used in spoofing of popular mass media, celebrities or politicians (Baby Got Book)

• Negative or critical commentary:
  Copyrighted material used to communicate a negative message (Metallica Sucks)
• Positive commentary:
  Copyrighted material used to communicate a positive message (Steve Irwin Fan Tribute)
• Quoting to trigger discussion:
  Copyrighted material used to highlight an issue and prompt public awareness, discourse (Abstinence PSA on Feministing.com)
• Illustration or example:
  Copyrighted material used to support a new idea with pictures and sound (Evolution of Dance)
• Incidental use:
  Copyrighted material captured as part of capturing something else (Prisoners Dance to Thriller)
• Personal reportage/diaries:
  Copyrighted material incorporated into the chronicling of a personal experience (Me on stage with U2… AGAIN!!!)
• Archiving of vulnerable or revealing materials:
  Copyrighted material that might have a short life on mainstream media due to controversy (Stephen Colbert’s Speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner)
• Pastiche or collage:
  Several copyrighted materials incorporated together into a new creation, or in other cases, an imitation of sorts of copyrighted work (Apple Commercial)

Facts about Google at the end of 2007 compiled by Jeff Jarvis:

• Google is the “fastest growing company in the history of the world.” – Times of London, 1/29/06

• Google controls 65.1% of all searches in the U.S. at the end of 2007 and 86% of all searches in the UK, according to measurement company Hitwise.

• Google was searched 4.4 billion times in the U.S. alone in October, 2007 (three times Yahoo), says Nielsen. Average searches per searcher: 40.7.

• Google’s sites had 112 million U.S. visitors in November, 2007, says Nielsen.

• Google’s traffic was up 22.4% in 2007 over 2006, according to Comscore.

• Google earned $15 billion revenue and $6.4 billion profit in 2007, a profit margin of 26.9%. Its revenue was up 57% in the last quarter of 2007 over 2006, says Yahoo Finance. As of late 2007, its stock was up 53% in a year. The company has a market capitalization of $207.6 billion.

• Google controls 79% of the pay-per-click ad market, according to RimmKaufman. It controls 40% of all online advertising, according to web site HipMojo.

• Google employed almost 16,000 people at the end of 2007, a 50% increase over the year before.

• Google became the No. 1 brand in the world in 2007, according to Millward Brown Brandz Top 100.

Boredom appears, said psychoanalyst Otto Fenichel in 1951, “when we must not do what we want to do, or must do what we do not want to do.’

In the 1930s, psychologist Joseph Barmack found that boredom is reduced with amphetamines, ephedrine, caffeine, and money.

Scientific American has an extensive report on boredom.

People who are often bored are at greater risk of developing anxiety, depression, and drug or alcohol addiction; displaying anger, aggressive behavior and lack of interpersonal skills; and performing poorly at work and at school…

Battling boredom means finding focus, living in the moment and having something to live for.

Sedge is not grass. Sedges have edges. The Greek named the genus ‘carex’ meaning ‘cut’. There’s 2,000 species. [pdf]

Like grass, sedge will both seed and clone with underground rhizomes, the longer used to craft baskets.

Clusters of sedge protect mammals and birds, especially in summer when less durable grasses fall.

Perhaps the most important task for today’s dog is to learn about the world while they are puppies.

It’s important near 16 weeks of age to socialize a puppy.

Future behavior problems can easily be prevented at the puppy stage if exposed to sounds, sights, smells, situations and the many, many creatures of society.

Pups are pleasant things.
I showed my pup many many things.
I showed him many things very pleasantly.
My dog knows what he learned as a pup.
He doesn’t seek or expect trouble.
His world remains pleasant.
That’s socialization.

Up the road a dozen chickens criss cross ditch to ditch. Their rooster keeps a pride of nearby feral cats away. Imagine that? My dog and I walk near. He turns to look at me. I put my hand in my pocket, slump my shoulders, to signal to him we will not annoy other creatures; nope, not, not now, just no. But with an impetuous hop-skip, he veers three or four feet in their direction to see them cluck cluck in deference and we walk by. I’m not worried. He will not chase. He will not threaten. He will not damage. There’s not malice.

He has no malice with the seagulls on the boardwalk nor the beach. There’s not malice with the kittens under the stoop. There’s not malice to the two farm dogs charging us. There’s not malice to the rampaging Chihuahua charging us. Not to the Great Dane that surprised us through the fog. There’s not malice to the small mare at the fence nor the three calves next door; not to the mole in the hole on the knoll.

As people approach, in all ages and sizes and colors, in uniforms, with tools or boxes, or swinging their arms, or strolling with their children, or leading their pets, he wiggles and twists into a pretzel on four legs and hopes for their delight. Me too; well, not a wiggling pretzel so much.

I saw a toddler throw her hands in the air when Lucky and I turned onto the grass at the neighborhood park. In awe she fell to her diaper-padded bottom while her eyes froze on my dog like a deer in headlights. He instantly looked away from her gaze, swiftly turned his back to her, plunged flat, and froze to the grass. Not looking at her; not once over minutes, as if an old-style film strip, he undulated his neck and his spine and shuffled his paws under his tummy until, slowly by inches and inches, he was very lightly touching her. She rolled on him in utter glee. A soft day for her whole humanity.

Puppy classes teach puppies how to behave with puppies. A dog learns to be gentle, witty and patient.

Puppy socialization teaches about the worries and wonders of the world. A dog learns attitude.

To join with ours. [via threadless]

US$2,200 per adult placed a household in the top half of the world wealth distribution in the year 2000. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world required US$61,000 in assets, and more than US$500,000 was needed to belong to the richest 1%.

the richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth. The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total.

link

From the UC Atlas of Global Inequality,
here’s the health care system of the USA in one simple graph:
[click pic for larger version]

From BoingBoing:

John Hockenberry, a former Dateline reporter-cum-fellow of the MIT Media Lab, has written a stunning, scathing indictment of network news for the Technology Review: mired in corporate bureaucracy, obsessed with the “emotional center” of stories to the exclusion of truth, gutless and irrelevant…

From John Hockenberry:

The most memorable reporting I’ve encountered on the conflict in Iraq was delivered in the form of confetti exploding out of a cardboard tube. I had just begun working at the MIT Media Lab in March 2006 when Alyssa Wright, a lab student, got me to participate in a project called “Cherry Blossoms.” I strapped on a backpack with a pair of vertical tubes sticking out of the top; they were connected to a detonation device linked to a Global Positioning System receiver. A microprocessor in the backpack contained a program that mapped the coördinates of the city of Baghdad onto those for the city of Cambridge; it also held a database of the locations of all the civilian deaths of 2005. If I went into a part of Cambridge that corresponded to a place in Iraq where civilians had died in a bombing, the detonator was triggered.

When the backpack exploded on a clear, crisp afternoon at the Media Lab, handfuls of confetti shot out of the cardboard tubes into the air, then fell slowly to earth. On each streamer of paper was written the name of an Iraqi civilian casualty. I had reported on the war (although not from Baghdad) since 2003 and was aware of persistent controversy over the numbers of Iraqi civilian dead as reported by the U.S. government and by other sources.

But it wasn’t until the moment of this fake explosion that the scale and horrible suddenness of the slaughter in Baghdad became vivid and tangible to me. Alyssa described her project as an upgrade to traditional journalism. “The upgrade is empathy,” she said, with the severe humility that comes when you suspect you are on to something but are still uncertain you aren’t being ridiculous in some way.

To lure us lovingly to fuller powers.

One day turns into another;
Orb upon orb spin out the years.
We sometimes reflect such poise.
Sometimes not.

It’s just so seldom said,
these stories of the heart.
What better moment than now, another year,
to challenge the coming murmurs of each new day?

Here’s to recognizing
amidst the blinding dark infinity
the sweet triumph
of every step we carve
from this froth of earth.

Here’s to some discovery amongst our paths.
Here’s to worthy dreams to lure us lovingly to fuller powers.

May we be of sharp wit,
with diligence of will,
until every fire succumb as ally
and every flood seek our buoyancy.

May we, as if a star,
use our hope to breathe,
our purpose unmoved,
quick in our calm heart.

May Peace commence our every journey.
May Joy touch deep.