OR318 - Let the first blogger to die in prison be the last.

The March 18 Movement - Let the first blogger to die in prison be the last

The March 18 Movement was born out of a tragedy. On this day in 2009, Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, Iranian blogger and journalist, died in Evin Prison in Tehran. The December before his death, he was sentenced to two and half years in prison for allegedly insulting religious leaders, and engaging in “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Omid Reza was the first blogger to die in prison and his death reveals that getting censored is far from the worst thing that can happen to a blogger.

The irony is that, as more members of both the public and the media praise the ability of bloggers to inform, the more these de facto journalists around the globe become victims in fact. The March 18 Movement aims not only to make sure that Omid Reza is remembered, but also that other persecuted bloggers around the world do not disappear into interrogation rooms and prison cells. The March 18 Movement would like to become a voice for bloggers everywhere who are in risk of being crushed under the heavy machinery of repression.

This day, in memorial to Omid Reza, is dedicated to all bloggers around the world who run real risks simply to tell the truth as they see it. The March 18 Movement seeks to actively expand our sense of self to encompass those of us who are in danger and to extend the protections normally accorded to journalists to all those who spend their time and intellectual capital in sharing information about our world.

Neda

Neda

More moving parts? You gotta be kidding me!!!

Reported in Tom's Hardware that referenced Register Hardware, excerpted below...

British boffins ditch spinning media for ultra-fast storage tech

Not SSD, not HDD. Say hello to 'Hard Rectangular Drive'

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

19th June 2009 11:48 GMT

. . .

The read-write layer comprises a grid of millions of read-write heads created using the same lithography process used to make silicon chips. Each head is controlled by sending a signal along the appropriate row and column of the grid.

Inside HRD

There's not, however, a 1:1 correspondence between head and data bit on the media layer. Instead, the middle part is moved in the horizontal plane by piezo-electrics to allow a head to read a selection of bits, grouped as a sector.

You have got to be freakin' kidding me!!! More moving parts??? DUMB!

Most amazing photos ...

Please, if you don't do anything else today go here and see the rest of these photos...

The Incredible Century Old Color Photography of Prokudin-Gorsky

by R J Evans, Jun 17, 2009

In 1909 a remarkable project was initiated by Russian photographer Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky. His mission was to record - in full and vibrant color - the vast and diverse Russian Empire. Here, with his story, is a selection of his amazing century old full color pictures.

Image Credit

Blu-Death-Ray FAIL

If this picture, borrowed from

,

is any indication then ...
yes,

Blu-Ray is a Failure!

How much is enough?

Steve Ruble At Micro Persuasion touched on a subject near and dear to me...

This trip was unusual. For only the second time I left my laptop at home and traveled with just a smartphone (in my case an iPhone), a Verizon Mifi router and an 8gb Lacie Iamakey USB drive. Nevertheless, I was remarkably able to do just about everything I needed.

Steve gives a real-world example of 'How much is enough?' More importantly this example shows what the constituent elements of 'enough' are. We are finally seeing computing platforms that offer the applications and services that make them truly useful.

At the same time we are beginning to recognize the difference between what we were taught to want and what we really need. This distinction is of major importance. In previous times it was the limits technology (8088, 80286, Desktop PCs, Laptop PCs. et al). With the advent of current processor technology the device is sufficiently powerful to support every application we might want.

Now we are being liberated from the hulking behemoths not by the PC makers but by market forces that have demanded functionality in hand-held devices. With this freedom comes the understanding that an iPhone or Palm Pre will not do everything that a desktop system will. Rather our expectations are coming more inline with our needs instead of our 'wants and desires'.

Thr real freedom that we are enjoying is not the small form factor computational platform but rather a realistic assessment of our true needs.

Getting out of the mainstream...

I am not going to the walled garden to eat 140 char worms!

I am going to cut off my media nose to spite my social face.

I am no longer going to wear my cyber heart on my digital sleeve.

I am going back to posting exclusively on this blog: Pa^2 Patois. This is where all of my views, thoughts, observations, blitherings, insights, blatherings, and blah-blah-blah-yadda-yadda-yadda will emanate from. I won't be tweeting or retweeting or FF commenting or any of those micro posting things.

I have found that I cannot afford the time it takes to swim in the mainstream of social media connectivity. I cannot afford the distraction of everyone else's continuous views, thoughts, observations, blitherings, insights, blatherings, and blah-blah-blah-yadda-yadda-yadda in real time.

Now before everyone's knickers get twisted let me acknowledge the worth of your individual contributions - each insight you offer is beyond measure. My answer is to include your weblog feeds in my blogroll. If, however, you don't choose to commit it to your weblog then it will slip away, just another tiny diamond in the great information sandstorm of life.

Some one recently said that keeping a blog was a lot of work. That person observed the amount of work was most likely the imputus for favoring the micro-blogging venues. Certainly it is easier to formulate a 140 character (or less) message and flitter off to the next important topic. Blogging, done well, requires larger and longer periods of time devoted not only to thought but expression as well. Hard work indeed.

So my commitment is to try and honor your hard work by setting aside large and respectively long periods of time to read what you do commit to your weblog(s).

Now, here is the irony of my circumstance - although my intent is to only post to Pa^2 Patois I believe that my dabbling in the FaceFriendBookTwitterFeed melange is so almost incestuously interconnected that I will still appear to be present and active. Ironical, wouldn't you say...er, tweet, er... uh... Shut up Papa!