Christmas List (Rev. 002)

From the wonderfully twisted mind of Platicus at Sandwich Flats...

The "Fatal Attraction" Kitchen Set

I wan' it, I wan' it, I wan' it... NOW!

Christmas List (Rev. 001)

Here is something fun to say...

...a silicon photonic wave guide...

I want one...or a few... hundred.

Open & Closed

Joi Ito received this when attempting to access Twitter...


While the United Arab Emirates are well within their rights to block objectionable content it is imperative that we see first hand the result of their actions.

Open the door

Thanks Frank (RIP)

Open Pains of Glass

When I posted "Open little "w" windows - MinWin" I tried to put the best possible spin on a commodity that I grudgingly endorse, Microsoft Windows. As an IT professional I have to embrace Windows even if I find them contemptible. When I learned about MinWin I thought there might be some redeeming value... until I heard this

Monday, December 3

Maximum Wait for MinWin, Windows 7.0

By The VAR Guy

...

Yes, Microsoft needs to address its bloatware problems. It’s time to put Windows on a diet. But MinWin and its desktop operating system personality — Windows 7 — won’t arrive till 2010. Yet CRN is predicting that MinWin could “Soothe Vista Headaches.” Wow. That’s quite a leap of faith.

TWO THOUSAND AND TEN ?!?!?
You have got to be kidding me. Listen to this...

Microsoft Partners: Use Of Downgrade Rights Is Surging

By Kevin McLaughlin, CMP Channel
4:49 PM EST Mon. Dec. 03, 2007

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) claims that adoption of Windows Vista and Office 2007 is chugging along nicely, with more than 88 million Vista licenses and 71 million Office licenses sold in the past year.

But these numbers belie the fact that some organizations just don't see the value in upgrading to Vista and Office 2007, and are perfectly content with XP and Office 2003. Many solution providers are seeing surging interest in downgrade rights, which Microsoft offers to business users of both Vista and Office, and which allow companies to use previous versions of Microsoft software.

Emphasis mine! This is the final tolling of the Microsoft death knell. "Surging interest" in downgrading from Vista to XP means that Microsoft's income stream will shortly dry up to a trickle. Couple that with a 'wait until 2010' forecast for the future and I can only ask if Microsoft can survive its own desolation?

It used to be that Linux was a fringe alternative. Now it is looking like the mainstream choice.

Open Blogging

Amid the raging controversy of whether blogging is dead comes a not so quiet report from Rebecca McKinnon ...

Is Web2.0 a wash for free speech in China?

This is a picture of Zhai Minglei's computer after his hard drive was removed and confiscated on Thursday.

Blogger and publisher of the recently-shut-down grassroots newspaper "Minjian," Zhai posted the photo on Friday along with an account of the questioning he had undergone that afternoon. See John Kennedy's translation of Zhai's Thursday blog post describing how his home was raided. Friday's post is a long account, which hopefully somebody will translate in full. His hard drive was returned to him, with "Minjian"-related material removed.

After reading Rebecca's excellent reporting along with associated articles I am ashamed that I even dabble in the "is blogging dead" spit-fest. How easily I (we) are distracted (again) by bright baubles and glittering trinkets. How quickly we rise to the self importance of who is Scoble-izing whom and what does Calacanis have to say about that...

China: NGO blogger’s house raided, hard drive confiscated

Published by John Kennedy November 29th, 2007
...

In an urgent post [zh] on 1bao this morning, Zhai writes:

At just after 10 this morning, on November 29, 2007, five people from the Shanghai Municipality Cultural Market Administrative Enforcement Squad (three men, two women) suddenly showed up at my home. Three of them produced identification, two did not, and they proceeded to search through every room and every corner of my house. Even the paper in my printer was confiscated, along with my last remaining copies of the forty-one issues of Minjian. At the same time, they demanded to search my home computer. They searched through files on the computer, and even removed the hard drive which they took with them. The reason they gave was my involvement in work on the illegal publication Minjian.

I told them:
1. Minjian is internal material pertaining to the Civil Society Center at Sun Yat-sen University, and not something I have published privately.
2. Minjian is non-profit.
3. Minjian contains nothing pornographic reactionary or related to religious minorities.

I respectfully asked them to work appropriately and in good faith as they carry out their work.
As they left, they told me that on the afternoon of the 30th, tomorrow, I am scheduled to undergo an investigation.

This is most likely connected to the notice I posted online informing readers of Minjian’s closure [zh], and I am prepared for the worst. This is the price to be paid in struggling for freedom of speech and media freedom.

Fortunately, I was able to express myself fully in [zh] the online notice, and it is also my formal statement in this matter: the shutting down of Minjian was illegal, a violation of academic freedom, of freedom of the press, and of media freedom in general.

Zhai signs off in a solemn, but carefully-worded tone; Minjian translates to ‘the civil,’ or ‘that among the people’:

Pass this news on to as many readers as possible, tell them to take proper care of Minjian, to appeal on behalf of Minjian.
[…]
Yours,

Zhai Minglei
November 29, 2007

...and I am prepared for the worst. This is the price to be paid in struggling for freedom of speech and media freedom.
Can we even comprehend "for the "worst"? Incarceration? Being held incommunicado? Imprisoned for the expression of beliefs of freedom?

Oh yeah, blogging sure is dead.