31 julho 2003

TECNOSFERA
Online Surveillance Among Spouses Grows: Suspicious husbands and wives who once might have hired a private eye to find out if their spouses were cheating are now using do-it-yourself technology to check on an increasingly popular hideaway for trysts the Internet.
Divorce lawyers and marriage counselors say Internet-abetted infidelity, romance originating in chat rooms and fueled by e-mails, is now one of the leading factors in marital breakdowns.
TECNOSFERA
Cyborg Liberation Front by Erik Baard: Inside the Movement for Posthuman Rights
[I]f, in the future, the technology of human enhancement is forbidden by bio-Luddites through government legislation, or if they terrorize people into having no access to those technologies, that becomes a fundamental civil rights struggle. Then there might come a time for the legitimate use of violence in self-defense
VITAMEDIAS
Newspaper Web Sites Struggle to Attract Younger Readers: Online editors who have managed to attract the elusive younger set make it sound so simple: Give them content they'll want to read and forums online where they can meet and discuss things that matter to them [...]
"The younger audience is not subscribing to the newspapers. This is a major concern for us," said [Mike Noe, Rocky Mountain News paper’s Internet news editor]. "But we also know where they are - they’re on the Internet. We’re just trying to get them to look at our site."
VITAMEDIAS
US journo salaries rise: Salaries for US journalists - particularly reporters - increased substantially from 2002 to 2003.
Results from the 16th annual Newspaper Industry Compensation Survey (NICS) identified the largest ever increase in a single year. Surveying 455 daily newspapers across the US and Canada, the results showed an increase in base pay of 7.1 per cent in 2003 - nearly double the previous annual average.
Wages for entry level reporters also rose, jumping 6.8 per cent from 2002. Reporters' salaries increased more than of any of the 83 job titles questionned for the report.
Online editors' pay increased by around 6 per cent, ranging from $21,424 to $156,104 per year. Most reported a salary in the region of $56,000.
Recent research on salaries among UK journalists was compiled by Ruskin College for the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). The report surveyed around 5,600 union members and estimated a median salary of £26,000.
Results from the 2002 survey, which is carried out bi-annually by the union, found that just under ten per cent of UK journalists earn less than £10,000 per year.
VITAMEDIAS
Be trained by the BBC - for free: The BBC now offers a range of free online training courses for journalists.
Introduced at the end of June 2003, the online courses have been hugely popular. The BBC style guide, compiled by seasoned BBC journalist John Allen, has been the biggest success with more than 8800 downloads so far.
VITAMEDIAS
Ainda Sobre o "depósito" da Internet...: O melhor que a [Biblioteca Nacional (BN)] conseguiu até ao momento foi a apresentação do caso em 2001 aos então ministro da Ciência e Tecnologia e gestor do Programa Operacional da Sociedade da Informação (POSI). O possível de conseguir nessas condições foi um projecto de apoio à iniciativa Biblioteca Nacional Digital, com uma componente importante na área do depósito digital a financiar parcialmente pelo POSI (o desejável teria sido um programa nacional, mais abrangente e consequente, mas "mais vale um pássaro na mão..."). Este projecto arrancou apenas em 2003, depois de ultrapassadas dificuldades formais inesperadas por a BN não dispor de autonomia financeira, numa mostra das dificuldades extra para uma instituição deste género que se proponha enfrentar estes problemas de forma voluntarista, sem o devido enquadramento específico.
[Voltamos todos a falar sobre o assunto em 2005?...]

30 julho 2003

CONTAMINANTES
Can You See Me Now? Will the cellcam make phone sex even better than the real thing?
Teachers call for webcams in class: Cameras linked to the internet should be installed in every classroom so parents can see whether their children are misbehaving in school.
VITAMEDIAS
LE DICOBLOGUE HYPERLIé: 502 termes ou expressions liés de la blogosphère francophone
.DE!
Fifteen ways to leave your lover: Following an Islamic court decision last week that allowed a Malaysian man to serve a divorce on his wife by text message, we review some of the strangest - and cruellest - ways to get shot of that special someone:
4. Daniel Day Lewis
Informed his then-pregnant partner, Isabelle Adjani, by fax that he was leaving her. [...]
13. Matt Damon
The US actor dumped Minnie Driver [...] live to the American nation on the Oprah Winfrey chat show.
ECO-TERROR
Pentagon Prepares a Futures Market on Terror Attacks: Washington, July 28 — The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has a new experiment. It is an online futures trading market, disclosed today by critics, in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups.
Traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The Pentagon called its latest idea a new way of predicting events and part of its search for the "broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks." Two Democratic senators who reported the plan called it morally repugnant and grotesque. The senators said the program fell under the control of Adm. John M. Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser.
Pentagon Abandons Plan for Futures Market on Terror: Washington, July 29 — The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in which anonymous speculators would have bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups in an online futures market.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said today that the program would be dropped.
Senators say Pentagon plan would allow betting on terrorism, assassinations: According to its Web site, the Policy Analysis Market would be a joint program of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, and two private companies: Net Exchange, a market technologies company, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of the publisher of The Economist magazine.
[Algumas partes do site que foi entretanto desactivado: PAM Concept Overview, Becoming a PAM Trader, Organizations Behind PAM]
[act.: No future for Poindexter?: Irony of ironies - traders can now speculate on John Poindexter's chances of keeping his job.
act. II: Is a Futures Market on Terror Outlandish? Maybe not. There is strong evidence that futures exchanges can predict events better than other forms of analysis.
act. III: American Action Market]
ECO-TERROR
A escuta das interrogações: Da numeração atribuída aos alvos das escutas telefónicas, deduz-se que há mais de vinte mil pessoas que são, ou têm sido, objecto dessas diligências. É compreensível o argumento do procurador-geral, no sentido de não dever criar-se um precedente identificando esses alvos. Mas nada obsta a que se saiba quantificadamente a que período de tempo se refere aquele número e a que categorias de crimes. [...]
Se os vinte mil alvos fizerem uma média de apenas cinco conversas por dia, teremos um total de cem mil a escutar, também por dia... [...]
Um país em que há mais de vinte mil pessoas vezes n interlocutores a serem sistematicamente escutadas já é orwelliano. Passam a ser centenas de milhares.
Mesmo descontadas as diferenças de tecnologia em relação à época da outra senhora, não consta que a PIDE jamais tenha ido tão longe.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
RIAA will take 2191.78 years to sue everyone: Reader Michaela Stephens says that if the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is right and that 60 million US folk are file sharing, it's going to take the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) a mighty long time to get round to them all.
She said: "I pulled out my calculator to see just how long it would take the RIAA to sue all 60 million P2P music file traders at a rate of 75 a day. 60,000,000/75 = 800,000 days to subpoena each person or 800,000 days/365 days in a year = 2191.78 years to subpoena each person".
Michaela points out that it's unrealistic to suppose that the RIAA will have any money left in 2191 years, and she even wonders whether the trade association will exist then.
VITAMEDIAS
Will Web users ever pay for content? KeepMedia is a subscription-based outpost for magazines such as Business Week, U.S. News and World Report and Esquire. Though it's an idea that's already been tried and failed, Borders believes KeepMedia is different and will prove to be a superior online brand, because, he says, it offers quality publications and convenience. [...]
- Why do you think Internet surfers will be willing to pay for KeepMedia?
- If each individual magazine looked at how much it spends on building a site for its content and getting traffic, they'd find that the amount they spend is just not justified. But putting 140 publications on the same platform is totally justified. With the current rate of spending, our business model works very well, and if it continues to grow as we expect it to--100 percent annually--that's just going to be great. But we don't need a change in today's spending behavior to be successful.
VITAMEDIAS
Publishing for the Little Folks: A host of court documents in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case are available online from a collaborative publication created by ordinary citizens.
For $2 a pop, all the public documents filed in the case against the Los Angeles Lakers basketball star can be downloaded from the RedPaper, a 3-week-old collaborative website written by "citizen reporters." [...]
Backed by software giant Adobe Systems, the RedPaper is an experimental market for information, allowing anyone to publish and sell their writing, be it recipes for muffins or hard-to-get court documents.
VITAMEDIAS
As coisas que eles sabem: Todos sabemos como se utilizam os jornalistas para desencadear uma intriga ou para espalhar uma mentira. Não ignoramos, também, que estas circunstâncias concretas são propícias ao surgimento de notícias que têm origem em pequenas vinganças ou em protagonismos incontidos. (A cabala II, por António Lobo Xavier)
Os herdeiros de Watergate: sem o profissionalismo dos jornalistas herdeiros de Watergate, o mundo seria seguramente mais injusto. Hoje, numa qualquer democracia, cada vez que um qualquer titular se debate com a tentação de um abuso de poder, avalia certamente os riscos que corre de exposição pública - e isto é suficiente para se entender para que lado pende o prato da balança do exercício da liberdade de expressão.
[act. após o comentário de Pedro V e tentando prosseguir com novos elementos sobre a relação jornalistas e políticos: o artigo do Times não está online, apenas descobri este resumo. Porém, não posso deixar de recomendar a leitura de Can they ever stop the spin?, de que cito: "For a politician, a problem shared is a problem halved. If we are all guilty, then no one is. [...]
David Blunkett wrote in The Times: "If there is to be one lasting challenge for politicians and journalists when events of the last month have played out, it will be to persuade the public that either of us is worth trusting."
Either of us? Hustler Blunkett is performing a three-card trick. He is taking the row between the BBC and the Government, making the BBC stand for "all journalists" and then concluding that all journalists are in the same boat as this Government on the issue of trust. This is torturing the truth."]
VITAMEDIAS
Online News Sites Score More With Flash Than With Substance: Study by journalism student finds award-winning Web sites grab attention with bells and whistles - and not writing. [...]
The Internet has had a sordid history of awards and pseudo-awards given for Web sites. [...] After a while, it seemed like 95 percent of Web sites were in the top 5 percent. There's also been everything from Cool Site of the Day to the vaunted Webbys.
Add that history to the orgy of journalism awards, from local press clubs to the Pulitzers, and you can safely assume that online journalism is a, uh, rewarding field. No doubt.
ZITE
Não gosto de recomendar blogues. Cito-os quando têm interesse, como faço com outros "sites". Quando os indexava e não tinha preferências, excepto as de tempos anteriores, passei por eles todos e raramente fiz ligações para os novos. Como o primeiro número de uma revista não é para citar, é para olhar e acompanhar ou não o futuro, sem querer amigoligações - eulinkopratipratulinkarespramim - porque isso não me comove.
Hoje não resisto. Vale o tempo ler este endereço (não se fiem no nome): Médico Explica Medicina a Intelectuais "para que os jornalistas (e outros intelectuais!) sejam o veículo para os 'media' não fomentarem a iliteracia científica."
E assim se percebe porque alguns blogues interessam mais do que atum gelado ou a companhia da Lúcia Guimarães...

29 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
Morais Sarmento vai liderar central de comunicação do Governo: O ministro da Presidência, Nuno Morais Sarmento, está a preparar uma estrutura de acompanhamento e controlo da acção política e de comunicação do Governo. Esta espécie de central de comunicação e imagem ficará na dependência de Morais Sarmento, na Presidência do Conselho de Ministros. O objectivo, segundo apurou o Diário Económico, é optimizar a forma como é divulgada a informação sobre o Executivo, articulando estratégias de acção política e calendários. «Esse trabalho tem sido feito mais ou menos em cima do joelho e sob a pressão dos acontecimentos, mas é preciso melhorá-lo», disse ao DE uma fonte do Executivo.
Por outro lado, explica uma fonte ligada ao processo, essa estrutura poderia melhorar a articulação entre o Governo e o PSD, que não tem funcionado tão bem como os social-democratas desejariam. «Falta-nos um Jorge Coelho», confessa um alto dirigente do PSD, numa referência ao papel do antigo ministro socialista, que, no início do Governo de António Guterres, não só assegurava a coordenação do Executivo como fazia a ponte com o aparelho do partido.
A preparação desta estrutura de comunicação é uma espécie de trabalho de férias do ministro da Presidência, que deverá preparar o projecto durante o Verão.
[E os jornalistas devem aproveitar o Verão para se actualizarem sobre técnicas de propaganda?]
VITAMEDIAS
Tech Turns Users Into Mobile News Makers: A young college student in Singapore is being berated by the teacher for unacceptable work. In a fit of rage, the teacher tears up the hapless student's paper in front of the whole class.
It's something that normally would have gone unnoticed outside the classroom. But since early July, it has become the talk of Singapore, sparking questions and concerns over the state of student-teacher relations in the country's education system.
But the teacher's sudden infamy wasn't the result of complaints from the shamed student, or your usual news account.
Rather, the fuss came about because a tech-savvy fellow classmate clandestinely captured photos of the questionable chastisement — and instantly published them on the Web using just his cell phone. [...]
Indeed, some say that moblogging can greatly affect how "news" and information — such as the Singaporean student's situation — is gathered and disseminated in the digital age.
"Once it becomes more ubiquitous, it can have great impact in terms of journalism," says Steve Outing, a senior editor with the Poynter Institute, a journalism teaching and research organization in St. Petersburg, Fla. "When you have big events happening, there will be people on the scene reporting and taking photos when there's no one else there." [...]
And some doubt moblogging will ever take off on a massive scale in the United States because they believe most Americans are still information consumers rather than producers.
Denise Garcia, analyst with the Gartner G2 research group in Stamford, Conn., says there are already plenty of easy-to-use software tools that allow anyone to set up a Web site or standard blog. Yet not many are using them.
According to Garcia's research, less than three-tenths of a percent of all U.S. Internet users are also bloggers.
"People can self-publish now on the Web, but there simply is no incentive to do so," says Garcia. "People will still want to go to news sites where [the content] has been put through all the filters."
PHOTO-GRAFIA
Mirages in Finland
VITAMEDIAS
The Ad Subtractors, Making a Difference: Gary Ruskin is writing as fast as he can.
Every day in his home office in Portland, Ore., he types heartfelt pleas and blistering diatribes to politicians, news organizations, corporations and individuals. His mission: To stop advertisers from commandeering every last nook and cranny of American culture.
"Advertisers must understand that some places are sacred and therefore off-limits to peddling wares," he says. "Governments, schools and other civic institutions shouldn't be an auxiliary megaphone for corporate marketing."
The successes of Ruskin's five-year-old group, Commercial Alert, may represent the tip of a broad backlash against corporate incursions into health care, education, culture and government. Some believe such activism, known variously as ad-busting, culture-jamming, anti-corporatism and mental environmentalism, is the beginning of the next major social movement in America.
VITAMEDIAS
BBC 'more trustworthy than government': The BBC is easily beating the government in the battle for Britons' hearts and minds over claims about the Iraq dossier and weapons of mass destruction, according to a poll.
However, the corporation has been hurt by the ongoing row, with most respondents claiming they trusted TV and radio news less than they did a year ago.
[Qual seria o resultado de um inquérito destes em Portugal?...]
VITAMEDIAS
The Internet Is Reshaping Bryant Story: Speculation is coursing through the Internet, sometimes making its way onto sports talk radio, where it hardens into fact as a 10-second news update. Competitive pressure between 24-hour cable TV sports and news outlets results in prolonged conjecture about the credibility of [athlete Kobe] Bryant's accuser. Mainstream newspapers, torn between old standards and new fears of losing readers to broadcasters or cyberspace, are split over how much to tell readers about the accuser's past. Even a hallowed media policy — withholding the names of victims of sexual assault — is under fire in a few quarters.
Coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial of the mid-'90s conferred newfound respectability on gossip tabloids such as the National Enquirer, which — while sometimes paying for interviews — broke stories that TV and daily newspapers felt obligated to follow. The line between tabloid and mainstream journalism has been blurred ever since.
In the Bryant case, the new player is the Internet.
There are about eight times as many North American Internet users — more than 160 million — as there were during the Simpson case.
$10,000 to hunt naked women with paint balls? Not exactly: In the haze of summer, some stories are just too deliciously silly to ignore. That's where "Hunting for Bambi" comes in.
TECNOSFERA
Helping Machines Think Different: While the Pentagon's project to record and catalog a person's life scares privacy advocates, researchers see it as a step in the process of getting computers to think like humans.
VITAMEDIAS
"101 Things Removed from the Human Body" TV show
.DE!
2003 Legal Document of the Year award: The District Court document is an amusing and profane look at the world's favorite four-letter word, from its origins in 1500 to today's frequent use of the term by Eminem, Chris Rock, and Lenny Kravitz. [...] TSG's favorite part of the motion is the chart comparing Google results for the "F" word and other all-American terms like mom, baseball, and apple pie.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Poetry website goes from bad to verse: David Rea of Greenwich, Connecticut, has written a program that allows a poem to evolve, to see if people with diverse tastes in poetry can work together to create attractive verse.
Rea's program starts off with 1000 "poems", each comprising four lines of five randomly chosen words. People visiting the [Darwinian Poetry] website choose between two randomly selected verses from the population. The bad ones are killed off and the fittest - those with the most positive votes - undergo further evolution.
Rat-brained robot does distant art: Meet the latest spaced out modern artist - a picture-drawing robot arm in Australia whose brain sits in a petri dish in the US.
TECNOSFERA
E-mail failure big stressor for IT pros: For many information technology managers, a weeklong failure of the corporate e-mail system under their control would be more traumatic than a divorce, according to a study
CONTAMINANTES
Happiness helps fight off colds: Happy people are three times less likely to get a cold, according to researchers who squirted cold virus up the noses of volunteers.
VITAMEDIAS
A propósito do apregoado fim do programa "O Lugar da História" no futuro Canal 2, Sociedade, do Conhecimento ou qualquer outro nome que inventem entretanto, A Esquina Do Rio revela: "Como tenho a ver com esta mudança quero esclarecer - e isto já foi dito publicamente - que o facto de um programa acabar enquanto tal não significa que o tema que ele encerra seja descontinuado. Bem pelo contrário, o que vai acontecer é que na realidade existirão mais documentários sobre a temática histórica do que até aqui."
Sucederá o mesmo com o fim do "Acontece"?
.DE!

(via Tanto País ou o que nele se diz)
ECO-TERROR
Nas Zonas de sombra do Portugal democrático, temos "O recurso abusivo e generalizado da prisão preventiva, tida como "medida excepcional" na Constituição portuguesa mas transformada em instrumento banal de investigação judicial. A possibilidade de prolongar a prisão preventiva até à acusação por um período inimaginável em qualquer democracia europeia. A interpretação restritiva do princípio constitucional que dá a qualquer pessoa privada de liberdade o direito de saber porquê. A anulação prática da garantia de que qualquer cidadão tem o direito a recorrer para uma segunda instância de qualquer decisão dos tribunais. A violação sistemática do segredo de justiça, transformando-o numa caricatura que perverte gravemente o direito dos arguidos a um julgamento justo, sujeitando-os ao julgamento mediático sem defesa possível. A facilidade e amplitude com que a investigação criminal recorre às escutas telefónicas, numa prática sem controlo e sem limites compreensíveis, que "igualiza" tudo e todos. A existência no âmbito da Polícia Judiciária de um Sistema Integrado de Informação Criminal sem regulamentação. O não cumprimento da determinação legal de separar os presos preventivos, inocentes até prova em contrário, dos presos condenados."

Perante este cenário, uma questão: o que escolhe qualquer português confrontado com uma acusação em tribunal, sabendo o que sabe hoje da sua justiça: uma fuga à Felgueiras ou uma entrega à Pedroso? O Brasil é a escolha óbvia?

Nem sempre: veja-se como Defesa de Miguel Sousa Cintra Recorre com Base em Matéria Não Provada: "Miguel Cintra foi condenado a uma pena de prisão de 18 meses com pena suspensa por três anos. O tribunal condenou ainda o arguido a uma pena de 120 dias de multa, à taxa diária de 295 euros, o que perfaz 35.400 euros, permitindo-lhe assim manter grande parte - 3,3 milhões de euros - das "mais valias" brutas conseguidas com o negócio efectuado em 1996 com recurso a informação privilegiada. Durante três anos Miguel Cintra não poderá ser condenado por qualquer outro crime e a pena de prisão suspensa fica ainda sujeita à entrega de 499 mil euros a quatro instituições com fins humanitários."

Mas porque recorre ele?...

28 julho 2003

CULTURAS IN VITRO
Advice to avoid copyright litigation: As the recording industry tries in unprecedented fashion to enforce copyright laws against individual consumers, legal experts say people can take several steps to try to avoid costly litigation.
For starters, legal experts advise file-sharers to stop sharing any unauthorized files.
ZITE
A. Kitaoka visual illusion
TV industry tunes in to our ADD: While television viewers concern themselves with what to watch, big thinkers in the industry are studying how we watch, and predicting how we will watch in the future. [...]
Audiences are adapting. Watching television is becoming a more active, more immediate experience all the time.
"ADD (attention deficit disorder) is not just a disease, it's a lifestyle," Yudkovitz said on a panel regarding "the future of television." [...] Even the physical packaging of shows has evolved from videocassette to DVD, offering a richer, more interactive, some say hyperactive viewing experience.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Taking liberties: Memoirs as fact, memoirs as fiction: Whether memoirs are real or reality-challenged, there is no denying people are buying them.
"Memoirs and biographies are among the top five biggest trends in publishing," said Bob Wietrak, vice president of merchandising for Barnes & Noble (the others are political science, science, diet and health).
The Me-Moir: Publishing's Vanity Project: I feel that the memoir is the genre of our generations. The Me Decades are stretching out into the Memoir Millennium. The I's have it.
VITAMEDIAS
The Press: Time for a New Era? The BBC and New York Times scandals show that "objectivity" is dead. [ou queimar a floresta a partir de duas árvores?]
The opinion of the press corps tends toward consensus because of an astonishing uniformity of viewpoint. Certain types of people want to become journalists, and they carry certain political and cultural opinions. This self-selection is hardened by peer group pressure. No conspiracy is necessary; journalists quite spontaneously think alike. The problem comes because this group-think is by now divorced from the thoughts and attitudes of readers. To take politics as a test, in 1992, a sample of top Washington reporters and editors voted 89% to 7% for Bill Clinton over George H.W. Bush.
So an editor trying to put out objective reports has to contend with a newsroom dominated by a single viewpoint. Bringing some discipline to this process is no easy task, especially since the editor probably also subscribes to the dominant view. Some editors are better than others in instilling discipline, and some news organizations are better than others in building and sustaining a culture that supports their efforts at objectivity.

25 julho 2003

ECO-TERROR
A UPI removeu uma notícia de dia 23 sobre o relatório relativo ao 11 de Setembro, apresentado ontem, porque "cannot further stand by this story as originally filed and will have a corrected version soon".
E o que dizia a notícia? Segundo o The Power Vacuum: The report of the joint congressional inquiry into the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, to be published Thursday, reveals U.S. intelligence had no evidence that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, or that it had supported al-Qaida, United Press International has learned.
"The report shows there is no link between Iraq and 9-11," said a government official who has seen the report.
Former Democratic Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who was a member of the joint congressional committee that produced the report, confirmed the official's statement.
Asked whether he believed the report will reveal that there was no connection between al-Qaida and Iraq, Cleland replied: "I do ... There's no connection, and that's been confirmed by some of (al-Qaida leader Osama) bin Laden's terrorist followers."
The revelation is likely to embarrass the Bush administration, which made links between Saddam's support for bin Laden - and the attendant possibility that Iraq might supply al-Qaida with weapons of mass destruction - a major plank of its case for war.
"The administration sold the connection (between Iraq and al-Qaida) to scare the pants off the American people and justify the war," said Cleland. "What you've seen here is the manipulation of intelligence for political ends." [...]
Cleland accused the administration of deliberately delaying the report's release to avoid having its case for war undercut.
"The reason this report was delayed for so long -- deliberately opposed at first, then slow-walked after it was created -- is that the administration wanted to get the war in Iraq in and over ... before (it) came out," he said.
"Had this report come out in January like it should have done, we would have known these things before the war in Iraq, which would not have suited the administration." [...]
CONTAMINANTES

Bloggers plan round-the-clock charity drive: This year, 545 participants have enlisted, with US$56,000 pledged so far. At 6 a.m. Pacific time Saturday, they'll embark upon 24 hours of blogging, during which they've agreed to update their sites at least once every half hour. Readers can sponsor participants by offering either a flat cash donation or an hourly pledge, which they'll pay upon successful Blogathon completion to the charity named by the participant.
VITAMEDIAS

The Gutenberg Bible, the first book printed with movable type
VITAMEDIAS
Web debate on photos of Hussein's sons: Photos of Saddam Hussein's dead sons quickly circulated across the Web on Thursday after the U.S. government released them, prompting debate at Web news sites about how and whether to display them. [...]
For example, most mainstream Web sites decided against airing the video of Daniel Pearl's death or images of U.S. soldiers captured during the recent war with Iraq, although surfers could easily find them on other sites.
[Al Tompkins, broadcast/online group leader at the Poynter Institute, a media think tank] said the debate this time around was more about how to show the pictures than whether to show them. There was no real journalistic purpose to showing images of Pearl or the soldiers, Tompkins said. The photos of Hussein's sons, on the other hand, have the potential to lay to rest questions about whether they're dead and change the course of the conflict.
"Why is this news? The reason it's news is because these are two wanted, very connected, very feared leaders in Iraq," Tompkins said.
[act.: 'Facial reconstruction' for Saddam's dead sons: The bodies of the two slain sons of Saddam Hussein, Uday and Qusay, underwent "facial reconstruction" before they were shown to international correspondents on Friday, a US military official said.
"The two bodies have undergone facial reconstruction with mortician's putty to make them resemble as closely as possible the faces of the brothers when they were alive," a US military official told a pool correspondent.
This was standard practice and there was no intention to deceive, he said, speaking to around 15 journalists at Baghdad's international airport where the corpses were being kept.]
TECNOSFERA
Gates: Longhorn is 'a bit scary': Longhorn, the next version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows desktop operating system, will be so different from its predecessors that users may not like it right away, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said Thursday.
VITAMEDIAS
Blogging By The Numbers: Blogcount estimates that there are roughly 2.4 million to 2.9 million active Weblogs as of June 2003.
Of this figure, Blogcount attributes more than 1.6 million active users to the top three centrally hosted services. Smaller hosts, intranet blogs, and standalone tools account for the remainder. [...]
Blogs seem to be read mostly by men (60 percent vs. 40 percent women), in homes where the total income is more than $60,000 per year (61 percent). Dial-up remains the connection of choice (54 percent compared to 46 percent broadband), and the majority (73 percent) of blog readers have been online for more than 5 years.
VITAMEDIAS
A rádio no seu melhor: Rangel propõe noticiários de quatro minutos e um "forum" para mulheres: Outro dos projectos em cima da mesa era a instalação de câmaras de filmar em várias zonas da cidade, sobretudo, junto de locais onde se formam filas de trânsito, de forma a que as imagens dos carros e dos seus ocupantes fossem acessíveis ao animador em estúdio que os poderia descrever em antena. Poderia ainda ser destacado um repórter para fazer entrevistas, no caso até se for a passar alguma figura mediática. Esta solução foi considerada uma invasão da privacidade e alguns jornalistas questionaram a sua legalidade.
[act.: e o porquê do desnecessário investimento em videocâmaras quando o público o pode fazer gratuitamente Conference Panelists See Bright Future for Mobile Publishing: One image briefly dominated the TV news in Japan during the afternoon of Monday, June 23: It was a video of a 12-car pileup that occurred earlier that morning on the Tomei Expressway in Aichi Prefecture. [...]
Japanese TV viewers first saw the crash thanks to another truck driver who used his camera phone to shoot video of the wreckage.]

24 julho 2003

ECO-TERROR
Finalmente, sete meses depois da sua conclusão, o esperado REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 (858 page document in a large 6.5 MB PDF file)
Segundo o Project on Government Secrecy (FAS), "A declassified version of the congressional joint inquiry report on the September 11 terrorist attacks was released this afternoon following an arduous seven-month declassification process. [...]
Of particular interest [...] may be the final Appendix on "Access Limitations Encountered by the Joint Inquiry."
It describes a number of documents or topical areas to which congressional investigators were denied access. These included the President's Daily Brief, reports on foreign liaison relationships, information on intelligence budget requests, and more. On other crucial topics, congressional access was limited or delayed. This Appendix appears at pages 834-858 of the report.
Another item of special interest is a newly released General Accounting Office (GAO) analysis of the October 2001 anthrax attacks. The December 2002 GAO assessment had been restricted as "Limited Official Use Only." It is now published at pages
808-822 of the report."
VITAMEDIAS
Study: Internet tops TV in battle for teens' time: Teens and young adults spend more time on the Net than they do watching TV, a study says today.
Several studies have chronicled the increasing amounts of time spent online by teens and young adults weaned on computers and cellphones. But this time, the Internet seems to have a solid lead.
The study of 13- to 24-year-olds, by Harris Interactive and Teenage Research Unlimited, finds that young people spend an average of 16.7 hours a week online (not including e-mail), compared with 13.6 hours watching TV.
[act.: Web marketing sells like teen spirit: Smart marketers will use the Web if they want to harness some of that teen spirit, according to a new study on media consumption among young people.
act. II: Portugueses preferem notícias na TV e música na rádio: Os portugueses escolhem a televisão para ver notícias e preferem a rádio para ouvir música, revela um estudo da União Europeia, divulgado sexta-feira, que acrescenta ainda que a grande maioria não usa computador.
O Eurobarómetro, cujo trabalho de campo foi produzido entre Março e Abril deste ano, indica que 98,7% dos cidadãos portugueses vêem televisão. [...]
De acordo com o estudo, 25,1% lê o jornais cinco a sete vezes por semana, enquanto 25,5 assume que não tem o hábito de comprar jornais.
[A] maioria dos portugueses (74,7%) não usa computador, enquanto apenas 10,1 reconhece que o utiliza todos os dias.]
VITAMEDIAS
Conference Panelists See Bright Future for Mobile Publishing: Web-enabled cell phones will allow ordinary citizens to shoot and send news photos and video to the local newspaper or TV station - or publish them to their own personal Web sites

23 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
Are Online Search Tools Lulling Journalists Into Laziness? E-mail interviews and Web searches can be helpful when used with discretion, but some experts fret that reporters are letting their guard down, making themselves vulnerable to online hoaxes.
ECO-TERROR
'Blogs' shake the political discourse: But as the mass of online opinion grows, some skeptics question whether every supporter's passing thought deserves a public platform, or whether the musings of an almost anonymous voter are worth reading. Even among the wired, there is a debate over whether blogs are a new form of discourse or simply an endless feedback loop, a self-enclosed circle of political junkies echoing and challenging one another.
VITAMEDIAS
Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover: The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday yesterday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity - at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.
Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife's employment, said the release to the press of her relationship to him and even her maiden name was an attempt to intimidate others like him from talking about Bush administration intelligence failures.
VITAMEDIAS
Media That Matters Film Festival
PHOTO-GRAFIA
collection of x-ray photographs
.DE!
Tony Blair for President of the United States of America: Many Americans understand and support Iraqi Freedom because of the leadership provided by Mr. Blair, and many of us would feel much safer if Mr. Blair occupied the White House.
ECO-TERROR
U.S. Brands on the Run: A new global poll offers the first strong evidence that consumers who have turned on America are now turning on American companies, too. Is it the end of an era? [...]
In an annual survey conducted since 1998, RoperASW has been looking for a connection between the dwindling reputation of America and the worldwide appeal of its top brands, from Disney to Microsoft. It had found no such link until this year, when a survey of 30,000 consumers in 30 major economies found that those who felt an increasing alienation from American culture were also likely to report a growing disinclination to eat at McDonald’s, or to buy Nike shoes. Most startling, 11 of the top 12 American multinationals saw falling or stagnant scores for “brand power,” a measure of how well they are known and liked, while nine of the top 12 European and Asian multinationals saw their scores rise. “It’s an early warning sign,” says RoperASW managing director Tom Miller. “We’re seeing a shift in the balance of brand power.”
VITAMEDIAS
Acções da Impresa subiram 33% desde o início do ano: Desde o início do mês de Julho que a Impresa tem acumulado ganhos, beneficiando de uma notícia sobre o eventual interesse da Portugal Telecom (PT) numa consolidação a nível accionista.
A notícia, que não identificava fontes [nem foi entretanto desmentida], foi avançada pelo semanário Euronotícias, a 4 de Julho
TECNOSFERA
Privacy and Productivity Duke It Out: Many PC users guess that they spend from 5 percent to - if they are brutally honest - even 20 percent of their time online engaged in personal pursuits.
But statistics do not bear out these guestimates. In fact, between 30 and 40 percent of workplace Internet use is unrelated to business, says IDC research.
What is the harm, one may ask? The answer, by some accounts, is stark: U.S. corporations are suffering US$85 billion each year in lost productivity due to inappropriate online activity, says Internet management software vendor Websense.
TECNOSFERA
Portugal takes steps to boost wireless Internet use: Portugal hopes to become one of Europe's most tech-savvy nations by ensuring all university students and professors are equipped with laptops with high-speed wireless Internet access, a senior government official said.
"Our goal is to more than just make up for our lag in this area -- we want to place Portugal at the head of European nations in terms of high-speed Internet use," said Diogo Vasconcelos, the director of UMIC, the government body in charge of promoting the use of new technologies, told reporters.
"We hope through the students to touch the rest of society," he added.
Under the government plan, all of Portugal's 150,000 university students and professors will be eligible to purchase a laptop at a special rate which the government has negotiated with major computer-makers. [...]
There were 5.74 million subscribers of Internet services in Portugal, a nation of just over 10 million, at the end of the first quarter of 2003, according to ANACOM figures.
[E assim o mundo ficou a saber que mais de metade dos portugueses está ligado à Internet, graças a estas "estatísticas" da Anacom nunca desmentidas...]
VITAMEDIAS
José Fragoso é novo director da TSF: Carlos Andrade pediu hoje a demissão de director da TSF, alegando divergências, tendo já sido substituído pelo jornalista José Fragoso, de acordo com um comunicado do conselho de administração da rádio.
VITAMEDIAS
America's Key 'Influentials' Are Web Junkies: America's "Influentials" - a demographic of business networkers, news junkies and community movers and shakers - prefer the Internet to any other media for acquiring their daily information, according to a new study. [...]
The Web is the top media used by Influentials to research new places to visit (86%), what to buy (82%) and is second (78%) only to newspapers (83%) for political news and information. [...]
The online survey, administered to nearly 9,000 random visitors to washingtonpost.com from May 21-31, culled 3,206 respondents who, according to RoperASW, can be classified as Influentials.
TECNOSFERA
Your Permanent Record: Microsoft CTO David Vaskevitch explains why tons and tons of memory will serve us well. [...]
In a fully realized digital memory management system, your camera will come with a self-setting clock, a built-in GPS locator, and perhaps 100 gigs of flash memory. Every picture or video snippet that you shoot will be embedded with date and location information. Your standard OS will include sophisticated face-matching software. Your computer will be your shoe box - one with a storage capacity approaching the largest paper-and-ink archive on earth. And ferreting out every picture of Granny at your daughter's graduation will become a matter of simply setting a few parameters in Photo Find and pressing Return.
We'll have our digital memory managers by the decade's end.
TECNOSFERA
New York hacker case highlights risks of using public computers: Keystroke-logging software allows theft of private data
For more than a year, unbeknownst to people who used Internet terminals at Kinko's stores in New York, Juju Jiang was recording what they typed, paying particular attention to their passwords.
Jiang had secretly installed, in at least 14 Kinko's stores, software that logs individual keystrokes. He captured more than 450 user names and passwords, using them to access and even open bank accounts online.
The case, which led to a guilty plea this month after Jiang was caught, highlights the risks and dangers of using public Internet terminals at cybercafes, libraries, airports and other establishments.
TECNOSFERA
Video-game technology steps closer to reality: Computer software experts in Glasgow have developed a revolutionary new way to feature the world’s top celebrities in best-selling video games.
The new technology will allow games publishers to use realistic-looking characters for the first time. [...]
The special 3D capture method, which uses two digital cameras, takes separate stereo pairs of images of the subject from different angles.
The subject’s exact shape and features can then be captured and computer processed to create a realistic 3D model.
This is coupled with a process called mesh confirmation - which allows an existing video- game character to be morphed to the shape and appearance of a captured individual.
Similar technology has also been used by cosmetic surgeons to help patients see how they will look after an operation.
VITAMEDIAS
Read A Magazine, Wi-Fi Style: What's a business traveler do when he is on the road and realizes he forgot his copy of BusinessWeek, and but he doesn't feel like walking to the newsstand for a new copy? Well, the answer may be just a few steps away - Zinio Systems Inc. has inked a deal to deliver digital magazines to Wayport's Wi-Fi customers.
The partnership calls for Zinio to bring more than 70 titles from 30 publishers to Wayport's network.

22 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
Blogging for Business: Blogging has been popular with teens, geeks, and flamboyant extroverts for years, but today, they're garnering more attention from businesses as a way to connect with customers and prospects.
The word is out: Business blogs are in.
Weblog Resources to help get you started in blogging
VITAMEDIAS
Have Web Site, Will Investigate: It was early April, war had just broken out in southern Iraq, and freelance journalist Christopher Allbritton was trying to get into the country. The borders of Iran and Syria were closed. So Allbritton spent $3,000 for a Kurdish guide to take him over the fortified and mountainous Turkish border into the land of Saddam Hussein. [...]
Allbritton didn't have a juicy contract with The Washington Post or CNN. Rather, his trip was funded by 320 people who donated $14,334 through his Web site, Back-to-Iraq.com. Months before the conflict began, the former Associated Press reporter posted a notice on his site: He wanted to cover the war and asked for readers' financial support for "independent journalism." As the cash rolled in, Allbritton hit the road with his laptop computer, filing via a satellite phone or Internet café. Donors were put on a premium e-mail list, so they received stories early and got extra reports and pictures. They also passed along story ideas and occasionally berated him for overheated metaphors. "Readers were my editors," he says.
Is this the future of journalism?
VITAMEDIAS
'Dallas News' Launches Editorial Board Blog: The newspaper hopes the new blog will provide a stronger connection to readers.
ZITE
psci-com: a bibliographic database covering science communication, public engagement with science and the broader issues of science and society
CONTAMINANTES
Privatizing Pot: Can the [medical] marijuana monopoly be broken?
ECO-TERROR
Suspected Terrorist: Multimillionaire John Gilmore is suing the government to remain anonymous. Is this the last stand for privacy? [...]
John Gilmore is here today because on July 4, 2002, representatives of Southwest Airlines in Oakland and United Airlines in San Francisco refused to let him board a plane to Washington, D.C., when he wouldn't show them an ID. He wished to fly, he says, in order to personally petition his elected representatives for a redress of grievances. Gilmore thinks the airlines' ID policy is based on a secret demand from the federal government. He committed his act of civil disobedience against the security state on July 4 explicitly for the symbolism.
Gilmore can afford to be here because he made a great deal of money in the 1990s as employee No. 5 of Sun Microsystems and as a one-third owner of Cygnus Solutions, a company sold for what Gilmore vaguely remembers was "around $675 million." (The vagueness comes across as oddly charming, not airily plutocratic.) Gilmore is used to quixotic fights against the legal system. A dedicated libertarian, he spends some of his free time and money agitating for medical marijuana rights, though he is a hardcore abolitionist about all drug laws.
While Gilmore remembers 9/11, when 19 villains used airplanes to murder 3,000 innocent people, he maintains that showing ID before getting on a plane is just a way to make the rubes feel safer. Anyone can flash a card with his or her picture (or someone who looks like him) and a name and address.
VITAMEDIAS
Porque é que a Carta do ministro dos Negócios Estrangeiros ao director do Público, onde se apontam "faltas de ética profissional, com V. Exa a publicar trechos de conversas privadas que tínhamos tido antes de eu desempenhar as actuais funções", não teve um desmentido na "Resposta do PÚBLICO"?

21 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
Google hogged by blogs: The self-obsessed nature of many blogs, the incestuous relationships between them, the frenetic rate at which they are updated, and their obsessive use of links, have distorted the snapshots of the web that Google gives us. Blog culture has made links and idle comment into ends in themselves, irrespective of the merit or relevance of the content being linked to or commented upon. It is this failing of blogs, not any failing of [Google's] PageRank, that has meant that the assumptions which made PageRank work so effectively are no longer tenable.
Homage to Blogalonia: The blogger assumes his every spittle is of the greatest import, for why else share the daily meanderings of his mind? In fairness it is a question we should ask Orwell. Does the blogger's rose-buying adventure, even if it is George Orwell doing the buying and beforehand the sniffing, merit our attention? [acesso pago]
Bloggers Select The 20 Greatest Figures In American History
ZITE
DO NOT CLICK HERE (ou o triste poder da tecnologia...)
TECNOSFERA
Broadband faces slow future: The cables at the core of the net can already handle terabits of data every second and look to get even faster.
By contrast the cables that link consumers to the net look set to stumble along at mere megabit speeds for a long time to come.
This could mean download delays for domestic broadband users.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books: Executives at Amazon.com are negotiating with several of the largest book publishers about an ambitious and expensive plan to assemble a searchable online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction
NOTAS sobre a NOTA
Prolongando a conversa do Jornalismo e Comunicação sobre o depósito legal e obrigatório da Internet, algumas notas soltas:

- o depósito legal de sítios Web não tem de ser obrigatório como sucede no papel (caso de sítios lançados para fazer um concurso por uma empresa - ela pode arquivá-lo se o desejar) e deve ser voluntário no caso dos "blogs" por questões de privacidade individual;

- diz o JeC que "haverá formas de distinguir o que é prioritário e o que é acessório, o que se obtem pela via da recolha exaustiva e o que se consegue pela via da amostragem" mas quem define o que é prioritário e acessório, o que é recolhido de forma exaustiva ou não? Só nesse meio-termo cabe um mundo de decisões em que qualquer "guardião" teria dificuldade em se mover e já se está a desvirtuar um depósito legal que se pretende exaustivo;

- a dificuldade em ter um arquivo nacional é de tal forma grande que a fuga para a frente, proposta na tese LE DEPOT LEGAL DES DOCUMENTS DIFFUSES SUR INTERNET é criar um "arquivo de envergadura internacional", dando como exemplo o Archive.org! A tarefa - meritória, pelas explicações dadas - passaria a ser monstruosa mas resolvia vários problemas, como o das hiperligações num texto fundamental não remeterem para páginas eliminadas;

- um arquivo de páginas individuais como os "blogs" está abrangido pela lei dos dados pessoais, significando que o seu autor pode a eles aceder e modificá-los. A lei deve ser alterada neste caso, para impedir essas alterações nos arquivos? E se o indivíduo escreveu algo que rejeita posteriormente, não pode abdicar desse registo digital?

- quando se fala de depósito obrigatório, está-se igualmente a pensar em verbas para um quadro de técnicos que trate essa informação ou espera-se que as gerações futuras peguem no espólio herdado e abracem a tarefa?

- é óbvio que a preservação do presente para as memórias futuras é essencial, tal como o que herdámos nos ajuda a melhor compreender a sociedade em que vivemos. Mas seria bom pensar antes de agir; apelar ao imediatismo é popularucho e pouco científico (o exemplo passado do papel não pode ser usado na sua totalidade); e a obrigatoriedade e possível impedimento de alterar as cópias arquivadas, retira ao autor a possibilidade que ele tem de intervir sobre conteúdos de sua autoria e que a tecnologia permite;

- para perceber algumas dificuldades, recomendações e análises, vejam-se estas Experiences and Conclusions from a Pilot Study: Web Archiving of the District and County Elections 2001, emitidas a partir de um caso concreto; este The Future Of Legal Deposit (e o breve historial sobre o assunto), e a notícia Legal deposit of e-publications takes shape. [act., via JeC: e ainda o programa do Encontro sobre preservação digital]
ECO-TERROR
Is MIT a Security Risk? International students may head for more welcoming countries as U.S. strategies to deter terrorism ramp up at educational institutions such as MIT.
Technological McCarthyism: Having great faith in American openness and democracy, I have always found it hard to understand how McCarthyism took hold. Certainly, during my adulthood, this country’s democratic values have been periodically tested. But still I couldn’t see how anything as extreme and widespread as McCarthyist ultranationalism could reappear. After reading “Biotech’s Big Chill,” I am no longer so certain. The story outlines how, in response to terrorism, the United States government is increasing restrictions on foreign students and limiting the access of both foreign and U.S. citizens to various materials and lines of research—mostly biological. While some of these changes are reasonable, I fear that on the whole we are coming perilously close to something similar to McCarthy’s 1950s.
ZITE
The Worst of the Web
ZITE
The Museum of Bad Art: art too bad to be ignored

18 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
Searching for relevance: Yahoo!'s latest acquisition shows where online marketing is going [...]
The ground being fought over is located on the results pages of internet searches. These, contrary to expectations during the dotcom boom, are now the most exciting place on the internet for many advertisers.
VITAMEDIAS
Descubra aqui as diferenças entre uma coluna de opinião e uma nota interna...
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Tron Reloaded: Two decades of f/x innovation later, Tron fans will soon be back in the middle of the film's futuristic bike race, this time on the computer screen. Tron 2.0, due in August in the form of a PC game, upgrades the bright colors and sharp angles that made Tron a cult favorite - and finally puts you inside the system.
TECNOSFERA
Videocams Record Airline Flights: Southeast Airlines said it plans to install digital video cameras throughout the cabins of its planes to record the faces and activities of its passengers at all times, as a precaution against terrorism and other safety threats.
In addition, the charter airline, based in Largo, Florida, will store the digitized video for up to 10 years. And it may use face recognition software to match faces to names and personal records, the airline said.
TECNOSFERA
Your house may track your movements: Australian researchers are studying methods of tracking people as they move around a building by the sound they make, which could improve the usefulness of pervasive computing.
ZITE
speech accent archive: examines the accented speech of speakers from many different language backgrounds reading the same sample paragraph.
VITAMEDIAS
Los lectores de la prensa online dejan de comprar periódicos: la industria de periódicos debería tomar en consideración este aviso, aunque por el momento los datos no sean demasiado alarmantes para aquellos medios y editores que no mantengan estrategias distintas entre sus ediciones, y que entiendan la presencia online como una mera replica de su edición impresa. [...]
según el estudio, un 25% de quienes no están suscritos a la versión en papel estarían dispuestos "en cierta forma" o "muy probablemente" a iniciar una suscripción al diario impreso en el futuro, lo que indica que la base de visitantes a la versión electrónica supone una herramienta eficaz para captar suscriptores.
TECNOSFERA
3D Display Goes Vertical: Researchers from Seoul National University in Korea have devised a method that widens both the horizontal and vertical viewing angles of three-dimensional integral imaging systems, which use the clustered-lenses arrangement of insect eyes. [...]
The technique could be used in simple applications like three-dimensional advertising displays within two years, and in three-dimensional TV systems in a decade, according to the researchers.

17 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
Administração da RTP recusa acesso a avaliações: A Comissão de Trabalhadores (CT) da RTP vai apresentar uma queixa à Comissão Nacional de Protecção de Dados (CNPD) sobre a recusa da administração em revelar os critérios e dados pessoais utilizados nas avaliações feitas pela Hay Group. Na queixa, a CT considera que são violados diversos artigos da lei de protecção de dados pessoais e, nesse sentido, solicita a actuação da CNPD.
[Se o parecer da CNPD fôr positivo, significa que todos os jornalistas - e trabalhadores em geral - passam a ter acesso às suas avaliações e fichas pessoais guardadas pela entidade patronal?...]
NOTA
contra O "depósito obrigatório" da Internet portuguesa:
- porque nem tudo o que é produzido digitalmente merece ser arquivado;
- porque quando se propuser algum depósito - e obrigatório, segundo este texto - se duvida que todos os blogs sejam ou devam ser englobados;
- porque há discursos e memórias pessoais que não devem ser arquivados por terceiros, até porque pode advir a vontade do seu autor em os modificar ou mesmo eliminar sem deixar rasto;
- porque, embora se possa aceitar o interesse de um depósito, esse registo deve depender exclusivamente da vontade do seu autor;
- porque o facto de se expressar em público não é representativo da memória colectiva e, neste caso, é "apenas uma parte do Portugal contemporâneo, uma parte muito reduzida, com acesso ao computador, socialmente muito definida, em grande parte urbana e juvenil");
- porque os erros cometidos com as edições em papel não devem ser repetidos nos textos electrónicos;
- porque o facto desse arquivo dever ser "imediato" não propicia a discussão e maturação de ideias, como se defende para a política em geral;
- porque a opção em arquivar no formato técnico actual carece de estudo em termos de possível leitura futura;
- porque, tal como o colunista exemplifica, quem tem interesse em arquivar certas temáticas o faz em privado e sem ter uma obrigação pública;
- porque um exemplo como o Contrafactos (e outros blogs) demonstra, não merece ser arquivado como memória nacional mas de um nacional;
- porque como o arquivo do Contrafactos (e de outros blogs) demonstra, está "online" e disponível publicamente e portanto existe sem qualquer depósito legal;

o Contrafactos está contra este depósito legal "obrigatório" e "imediato" e não quer nem deve ser arquivado, exceptuando pelos meios - electrónicos ou outros - escolhidos pelo seu autor.

E assim responde à questão: "Quem guarda os CD-ROM, quem guarda os discos alternativos, quem guarda os fanzines, quem guarda os panfletos políticos e a parafernália dos objectos de campanha, quem guarda os arquivos digitais, quem guarda a Internet portuguesa?"
Os interessados, diz o Contrafactos.
VITAMEDIAS
É impressão minha ou apenas o Público ontem e hoje o Diário de Notícias fizeram referência ao comunicado do Sindicato dos Jornalistas sobre a situação dos jornalistas?
Pesquisei nas versões online da TSF, RTP, TVI, SIC, Correio da Manhã, Diário Económico, Diário Digital e Jornal de Notícias, e nada encontrei. Sintomático dos tempos ou não é notícia?
TECNOSFERA
The Sky's the Limit: Some 11,000 miles above the earth, 28 satellites beam down data that enables the targeting of locations with once-unthinkable precision. It's a lethal tool in war -- and a killer app for business. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is transforming everything from auto insurance to agriculture, from hauling freight to trading stocks. Is your business next? [...]
The implications of knowing where you are with this kind of accuracy - of knowing where anything is, where everything is, with this kind of relentless precision - are only just becoming clear, and they are staggering. Think back to the early days of microprocessors. People imagined all kinds of uses for the new devices, but was anyone talking about putting chips in car transmissions? Or in birthday cards? Or in implantable, automatic cardiac resuscitators? GPS will be like that - a genuinely transformational technology.
ECO-TERROR
Bush misled public, and military, about war in Iraq: That the Bush administration misled the public is quite clear; what has been less clear is that it also misled the military.
VITAMEDIAS
Bored of the board: in an age of desperate media competition, why on earth do we think that a commercial property agent, a social services baroness or a lawyer will succeed in running a radio station?
Do they know anything at all about the media business, let alone radio? What radio training do these poor people get before they start making major decisions? Are they natural commercial radio listeners? Do they understand the competition?
I contend that more than 80% of non-executive directors in new commercial radio stations know squat about the business. They have no idea which questions to ask when recruiting managers, have no idea which measurements and indicators to use when monitoring performance, and have little idea what the competition - radio and the rest - is doing. And as for the important bit, content, well, hold me down!
ECO-TERROR
Piracy linked to terrorism: The head of Interpol called on Wednesday for a global crackdown on software and music piracy, saying the illicit proceeds help finance al-Qaida, Hezbollah and other terrorist networks.
The international police agency's secretary-general, Ronald K Noble, urged governments and law enforcement agencies to treat such crimes as a priority, saying in a statement, "it is becoming the preferred method of funding for a number of terrorist groups".
[Por favor, alguém arranja uma desculpa melhor?!?!?... É como dizer que os movimentos terroristas financiam agências como a Interpol: sem uns não existiam outros?...]
VITAMEDIAS
Is this the future of journalism?
Want to be a real sportswriter? Got a photo? Got a hundred bucks? Okay, you're in. Foxsports.com, which recently canned its entire writing staff, is auctioning off, on Ebay, the chance to be Foxsports.com's NASCAR columnist and actually cover a NASCAR race.
TECNOSFERA
EU preps phase two of war on spam: The European Commission today fleshed out plans to fight spam.
Member States must implement the EU Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications by putting a 'ban on spam' into national legislation before the end of October, 2003.
The US must ban spam: Attempts to combat spam, the scourge of e-mail users the world over, would be hampered if the U.S. fails to introduce an outright ban, said a senior European Commission official
La lacra del spam cuesta ya 10.000 millones de dólares
Could your computer be a criminal? PCs hijacked to send spam, serve porn, steal credit cards

16 julho 2003

TECNOSFERA
Commodore 64 Makes a Comeback: Popular computers, games from the 1980s will be relaunched.
VITAMEDIAS
TV a poor substitute for parenting: The Time-Scout Monitor, according to Tech Tools columnist Walter Mossberg, gives kids a sort of credit card that can be programmed to limit the time they watch. Once their time is up, the TV turns off.
Although the idea of treating television viewing as borrowed time is an intriguing one, apparently that is not the purpose of this device. Rather, according to Mossberg's column in the Saturday Sun-Times, the device is designed to make life easier for us parents. As the parent's manual states: ''It's hard to argue with a box.''
It's much easier, of course, to argue with parents.
But isn't that our job?
VITAMEDIAS
Envoy's letter in Times is revealed as a forgery [ou o problema do esquecimento em verificar a proveniência de cartas dos leitores por "email"...]
A letter to the editor of The Washington Times, purported to be from a senior U.S. diplomat with scathing criticism of the Foreign Service for lack of loyalty to the Bush administration, was exposed yesterday as a forgery.
Wesley Pruden, the editor in chief of The Times, said the newspaper learned "from the highest level at the State Department" that the letter was a hoax and the newspaper fully accepts "as true that the ambassador was not the author of this letter." [...]
"The letter was sent to us, via e-mail, on Sunday from what appeared to be the ambassador's e-mail address at the State Department," Mr. Pruden said. "The standard procedure at The Times is to verify all letters to the editor; this procedure was not followed in this instance.
CONTAMINANTES
3 More Biotech Firms File Suit Against Columbia Over Patent: The suits say Columbia abused the patent system by obtaining a new patent covering the same invention that an expired patent had covered. The suits seek to invalidate the new patent and establish that the companies do not owe any more money to Columbia. [...]
In the late 1970's, Columbia scientists, led by Richard Axel, developed a technique useful for genetically engineering animal cells to make them produce biotech drugs like interferon, which is used to treat multiple sclerosis. The first patent, issued in 1983, was licensed by numerous companies and became one of the most lucrative ever held by a university, earning royalty payments of about $100 million a year in its final years. Columbia used the royalties to support university research.
The patent expired in August 2000. Before it did, Columbia tried to get Congress to extend the patent for 14 to 18 months. But after the biotechnology industry objected, the effort failed. The industry thought that was the end of the matter.
But the university had also applied for additional patents, a technique commonly used by businesses.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
New Tarantino Film to Be Released in 2 Parts: Miramax Films will take the unusual and potentially risky move of releasing "Kill Bill," the much-anticipated Quentin Tarantino martial arts action-adventure film, as two movies, the first to open in the fall. Miramax will in effect be taking a three-hour film with a 200-page script and turning it into a serial.
TECNOSFERA
Technology meets the mob: The craze began in New York in June.
Many of the city's net literati were invited by e-mail to take part in an art event that called itself the Mob Project.
The e-mail asked people to synchronise their watches and wait at 7pm in one of four of Manhattan's bars.
Once there, co-organisers of the mob handed out instructions of where the full mob should meet.
The first mob, which involved 100 people, convened in the ninth floor rug department of Macy's department store and gathered round one particular carpet.
Any member of the mob approached by a sales clerk was told to say they all lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York and wanted a love rug to play on.
VITAMEDIAS
SJ alerta para degradação da situação dos jornalistas II
[querem fazer o favor de ler estas críticas do ponto de vista dos responsáveis das empresas de media e explicar-me qual o interesse deles em modificar a actual situação? Obrigado.]

15 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
SJ alerta para degradação da situação dos jornalistas: análise concreta em várias empresas: A Bola, A Capital, Correio da Manhã, Diário de Notícias, Euronotícias, Expresso, Impala, Jornal de Notícias, Público, Público.pt, Rádio Renascença, RDP, RTP, Sic-Notícias, TSF, TV Guia, TVI, Visão, 24 Horas
ECO-TERROR
But Dreamers Built The World...: ‘Megaproject development is currently a field where little can be trusted’
[Bent Flyvbjerg, Nils Bruzelius and Werner Rothengatter] of Denmark, Sweden and Germany, respectively, have evidently tried to strike a raw nerve by subtitling their book, Megaprojects And Risk — An Autonomy Of Ambition. As development planners and transportation economists (who apparently also dabble in social psychology), the trio have not spared any punches in linking the failure of megaprojects to human greed. [...]
The three European professors provide a fascinating account of how promoters of multibillion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform Parliaments, the public and the media, to get projects approved and built.
They show how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. [...]
The situation is similar in both industrialised and industrialising countries—from Asia to Europe to the Americas. Witness the Channel tunnel in Europe, the Oresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden, the Vasco da Gama bridge in Portugal, Hong Kong’s Check Lap Kok airport in Asia, China’s Quinling tunnel, the Akashi Kaikyo bridge in Japan, Sydney’s harbour tunnel, Malaysia’s North-South Expressway and Thailand’s Second Stage Expressway. [...]
Yet, as the authors point out, when actual versus predicted performances of megaprojects are compared, the picture is often dismal. The authors have documented in this book that cost overruns of 50-100 per cent in real terms are common in megaprojects and more than 100 per cent overruns are not uncommon. Demand forecasts, they say, go wrong by 20-70 per cent. [...]
Megaproject development is currently a field where little can be trusted, not even numbers produced by analysts. The authors provide a peep-show into social psychology. Politicians have a “monument complex”, and also salivate at the prospect of huge kickbacks. Investment bankers love to cut megasize deals and wash their hands off them after collecting sizeable financial closure related “success fees”. Engineers like to build things and contractors just want the contract. If these interested stakeholders are involved in, or indirectly influence, the forecasting process, they may influence outcomes in ways that make it more likely for a project to be built. [...]
Finally, they propose that four basic instruments of accountability be employed in megaproject decision making: transparency, performance specifications, explicit formulation of regulatory regime and the involvement of risk capital. The book offers a wealth of empirical evidence, but there are aspects that the authors do not touch upon. Their book, for instance, is empirically far too Eurocentric. [...]
The authors attempt to grapple with the issue and, as expected, come to the sobering conclusion that all projects should be based on research, logic, risk analysis, etc. But then, the world has been built by dreamers.
Someone, somewhere said, “The reasonable man adapts to the world. The unreasonable man wants to change the world and make it adapt to his ideas. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Do read this book to find out which side of the fence you are on.
CONTAMINANTES
Olhares para Portugal:
Italians called Europe's worst drivers: Italians are the worst drivers in Europe but Norwegians are the most likely to lose their cool, a survey has found. [...]
"Using verbal abuse is the preferred method in France (73 percent), Spain (64 percent), Portugal (65 percent) the Czech Republic (87 percent) and Germany (50 percent)" the report said.
Israel behind EU in ATM withdrawals per capita: Israel has only 208 ATM machines per million residents, compared with 295 in Sweden, 330 in Greece, 344 in Ireland, and 412 in Finland. Spain leads the list with 1,123 machines per million residents, followed by Portugal - 970, Luxembourg - 737, Austria - 727, and Belgium - 669.
Further down the list are Germany with 580 machines per million residents, France 582, Britain 575, Italy 549, and the Netherlands 435.
Israel also trails in the average per capital withdrawal in euro terms only €52, compared with €61 - France, €70 - Finland, €71 - Portugal, €91 - Britain, and €92 - Ireland.
TUC warns over migrant scam: An investigation by the TUC found one Welsh agency interviewing workers in Portugal, offering £1,200 a month for a 40-hour week working in a meat factory.
In reality those who took up the offer earned £3.60 an hour after deductions for transport and other charges.
These were identified as costs associated with his employment in the contract he signed, but it was never explained what these costs were.
VITAMEDIAS
Entrepreneur accuses Caisse of mishandling his cable company [ou os problemas da Cabovisão]
[act.: Csii Secures Interim Liquidity Facility and Obtains Extension of Court Order: Under this agreement, Cabovisao will have immediate access to euro 1.5 million and can access an additional euro 4.5 million at a later date, subject to satisfactory agreements with its trade creditors and the satisfaction of other conditions. This financing will allow Cabovisao to maintain normal service to customers and pay employees under usual conditions over the coming months.]
ECO-TERROR
Blog Rule: In 1994 the first British politician got a website. By 2003 most politicians have one. [...]
In 2003 the first British politician got a blog. By 2010 we think most politicians will have one. [...]
What Are Blogs Like?
Blogs Are Like Flower Gardens
Blogs are like A Good Job Doing
Blogs Are Like A Smile
Blogs Are Like Your Front Door
Blogs Are Like Pubs
Blogs Are Like Cities
Blogs Are Like An Episode Of Lassie
Blogs Are Like Live Jazz
Blogs Are Like Apples
Blogs Are Like Soapboxes
Blogs are like ALL BAR ONE
Blogs Are Like Cocaine
Blogs Are Not Like Normal Websites
Blogs Are Not The Ultimate Solution
ECO-TERROR
Gestores nacionais têm salários acima da média: Os executivos de topo portugueses estão em 16.º lugar no poder de compra, numa lista de 50 países. De acordo com um estudo da Mercer Resource Consulting, os gestores seniores são mais bem pagos em Portugal do que em países como a Itália (29.ª posição), França (18.ª) ou Austrália (25.ª).
Comparando com outras publicações da mesma empresa, verifica-se que nos cargos de nível médio e inferior Portugal apresenta uma classificação bastante mais baixa. Por exemplo, um trabalhador médio português ganha 47% do rendimento auferido pelo seu homólogo nos Estados Unidos. Já quando se comparam os salários dos gestores de topo, os portugueses ganham cerca de 71% dos seus colegas americanos.
Ou seja, existe uma grande disparidade entre os salários mais baixos e os mais altos, o que acaba por distorcer a média do País.
VITAMEDIAS
O Guerra e Pas resolveu antecipar os prometidos textos do Abrupto sobre os media nacionais e analisa criticamente o Independente, a Visão, o Público e o Expresso. Ainda faltam uns quantos...
Para rematar, a blogosfera também não sobrevive: "está cada vez maior e cada vez menos interessante" e "É uma pena que também os blogs gostem tanto de falar bem dos (inofensivos) mortos, mas é sintomático da falta de assunto e da velhacaria que é não suportar não alinhar na corrente. A blogolândia (já) fede. Em breve, estará podre e morta. e nessa altura, quem falará bem da blogolãndia, como um ágora no ciberespaço, uma seara de novas ideias, uma nova esperança para Portugal?"
O Outro, eu responde (bolas, duas citações no mesmo dia - temos de jantar um dia destes... :-) : "Falo deste Guerra e Pas porque, pelo paleio, me parece já meio morto. Mortinho por se ir embora porque agora já vê aqui gente a mais e não suporta a populaça. Preferia, exclusivista, ter à porta o letreiro de "reservado o direito de admissão". Sou obrigado a concluir que não entendeu nada do espírito da coisa."
CULTURAS IN VITRO
O Outro, eu escreve (e peço desculpa por o citar na íntegra mas vi parte da entrevista e esta escapou-se-me): "O actor Simão Rubim acaba de revelar na conversa com Ana Sousa Dias, na RTP2, que a Companhia Teatral do Chiado soube há dias que ganhou em tribunal o processo que moveu contra o Ministério da Cultura, no tempo em que era titular do cargo Manuel Maria Carrilho. A notícia tem um toque acrescido de polémica porque a acusação da Companhia - que pelos vistos foi dada como provada - era de "corrupção" na atribuição de subsídios. Diz Simão Rubim que houve companhias que se limitaram a apresentar como fundamentação para o subsídio que viriam a obter explicações do tipo: "fazemos esta peça porque para o ano comemoramos quarenta anos, queremos muitas lantejoulas e precisamos de 25 mil contos" (cito de cor, naturalmente). A entrevistadora ainda pergunta se "é mesmo assim", se "não está a brincar". Rubim garante que é assim, tal e qual. Parece que é a isto que se deve chamar um escândalo. Só tive pena de não chegar a saber quem é que fundamentou assim um pedido de subsídio. E quem é que, assim, obteve os tais milhares."
P.S.: como já somos dois a ter isto em público, dividimos a meias a acção judicial que se adivinha? Quem se quiser juntar, fale com o outro, eu.

14 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
'AOL Journals' To Bring Blogs To Millions: The "blogosphere" may never be the same after America Online releases free blog-publishing software to its 34 million members this summer.
AOL this month began showing demos of its tools for creating Web logs, or blogs, to veteran bloggers. AOL has dubbed its service "AOL Journals" because its surveys showed that members found the word "blogs" confusing [!!!...], said Rick Robinson, AOL's vice president for community products.
TECNOSFERA
New software allows you to log on by laughing: Computer scientists at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, wanted to make it easier for staff to log onto networked computers. So they came up with SoundHunters, a program that recognises someone's voice or laughter and works out which computer is nearest to them. It could then be used to automatically log them on to the computer.
TECNOSFERA
Popout Prism is an intuitive, elegant tool to reduce the amount of time users spend looking for information in Web pages. By creating visual "popouts" that emphasize critical elements in Web pages, Popout Prism draws users’ attention to the right information
VITAMEDIAS
Log on, fork out: Last week the Guardian announced it would charge for some online services. Eventually all newspaper sites will follow suit
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Superhighway robbery: The record companies have been so badly crippled by internet piracy that they can barely afford to invest money to combat the problem
CONTAMINANTES
Scientists, like criminals, peak at 30: Study hints that men strive to win women and then sit back.
Male scientists are like criminals, a new study concludes. Their productivity peaks at 30 and then goes rapidly downhill.
Psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Political Science examined the lives of 280 eminent scientists, including Pierre Curie and Albert Einstein. He found that 65% had published their best paper by the age of 35. What's more, unmarried scientists peaked later in life than those who had tied the knot. Crime, similarly, is a bachelor's game.
Picking locks and publishing papers are ways of catching the female eye, argues Kanazawa.
TECNOSFERA
Pentagon Alters LifeLog Project: Lifelog is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's effort to gather every conceivable element of a person's life, dump it all into a database, and spin the information into narrative threads that trace relationships, events and experiences.
It's an attempt, some say, to make a kind of surrogate, digitized memory. [...]
Researchers who receive LifeLog grants will be required to test the system on themselves. Cameras will record everything they do during a trip to Washington, D.C., and global-positioning satellite locators will track where they go. Biomedical sensors will monitor their health. All the e-mail they send, all the magazines they read, all the credit card payments they make will be indexed and made searchable.
By capturing experiences, Darpa claims that LifeLog could help develop more realistic computerized training programs and robotic assistants for battlefield commanders.
Defense analysts and civil libertarians, on the other hand, worry that the program is another piece in an ongoing Pentagon effort to keep tabs on American citizens. LifeLog could become the ultimate profiling tool, they fear.

13 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
Weblog Census: 612,444 Weblogs Indexed
Map of all weblogs that include GeoURL data:
ECO-TERROR
Ainda sobre a polémica dos antigos gestores do orgão regulador nacional ICP/Anacom Luís Nazaré e João Confraria aceitarem integrar o Conselho Consultivo da PT, mãos amigas apontaram a leitura do Decreto-Lei n.º 309/2001, de 7 de Dezembro, que estabelece os estatutos do ICP/Anacom.
O Artigo 23.º #4 diz explicitamente que "Após o termo das suas funções, os membros do conselho de administração ficam impedidos, pelo período de dois anos, de desempenhar qualquer função ou prestar qualquer serviço às empresas dos sectores regulados."
O curioso é que o decreto-lei foi aprovado no tempo daqueles dois gestores e obviamente com o seu conhecimento. Nazaré apenas recusou continuar à frente do ICP um mês depois.
Como se não fosse suficiente, a actividade do CC da PT "consiste em abordar conjuntamente com a Gestão áreas com especial relevância para a PT, nomeadamente os assuntos relativos a regulação e concorrência [...]".
Razões mais do que suficientes para terem recusado o cargo.
TECNOSFERA
New Kind of Snooping Arrives at the Office: Corporate executives are becoming increasingly aggressive about spying on their employees, and with good reason: now, in addition to job shirkers and office-supply thieves, they have to worry about being held accountable for the misconduct of their subordinates.
Even one offensive e-mail message circulated around the office by a single employee can pose a liability risk for a company. [...]
Margaret Blair Soyster, an employment lawyer in New York with the law firm Clifford Chance, says that employers should have a written policy advising employees that their e-mail messages are not private but can be read by their supervisors, that the technology they use at work belongs to the company and that the company reserves the right to monitor the computer activities of employees.

12 julho 2003

VITAMEDIAS
Washington Post To Launch Free Tabloid as part of an effort to attract younger readers and stave off potential competition.
CONTAMINANTES
A emergência de... nada:
NaDa™ is a new concept. A thought, really. [...] It is a reassuring piece of software that does nothing, and does it very well. That's a lot!
eBay users bid for nothing: If you've ever wondered what it feels like to own nothing, now's your chance. One eBay user is accepting bids for 'nothing - not even a pound coin'. [a licitação já encerrou]