31 dezembro 2006

CONTAMINANTES

Recycling Calendars: Before you go out and buy a 2007 calendar, check and see if you have an old calendar from any of these years: 1906, 1917, 1923, 1934, 1945, 1951, 1962, 1973, 1979, 1990, or 2001. For any of those years, the days are the same as in 2007.

29 dezembro 2006

CONTAMINANTES


100 things we didn't know last year
10. Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.
(para discordar, ver Panspermia, de Karl Sims, autor da imagem)

50 Things We Know Now (That We Didn't Know This Time Last Year) 2006 Edition

TECNOFERA


Top Ten Orwellian Moments of 2006
1) Fox News airs an infomercial for torture.
2) Federal semantics eliminates the hunger problem.
3) Defending the First Amendment by proposing that we scrap it.
4) Halliburton contracts to build large detention camps in the US.
5) The Inexorable Worldwide Rollout of RFID Chips.
6) Stay What?
7) Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Carrying Cash is a Crime.
8) The Automated Targeting System.
9) NSA Warrantless Surveillance and Crypto-City.
10) You tell me.

Bush Admin: What You Don't Know Can't Hurt Us
: Just how many different ways has the Bush Administration tried to hide once-public information sources from the public record?

Por cá? Só um exemplo recente:
Deputados de quem?
Daqui a uns anos, inclusive, o mundo estará cheio de nostálgicos da liberdade. [...] Sim, estamos em guerra pela nossa liberdade.
A coisa está preta.

vs.

Notas sobre o Cartão Único (ou do Cidadão)

[imagem dos Big Brother Awards]

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Listas das maravilhas são "conservadoras" e "saudosistas": Está ao alcance de todos votar nas sete novas maravilhas do mundo e nas sete maravilhas de Portugal. Freitas do Amaral, comissário da iniciativa para Portugal, disse que as listas de monumentos podem e devem ser discutidas. Peritos em história de arte e arquitectura discutem-nas e questionam os critérios.

Quanto aos americanos: The 7 Wonders of the USA & U.S.A. 7 Wonders (por estado)

TECNOSFERA

Atenção aos "backups"
Gmail Disaster: Reports Of Mass Email Deletions: Most of the users reported using Firefox 2.0 and that Gmail was open in their browser when the deletions occured.
The cause of the problem isn’t clear.

Google Faces Catch-22 With Deleted Gmails: Now, what if Google is able to restore the deleted emails of the Gmail accounts effected? Wouldn’t that prove that Google keeps a secret backup of all deleted data?

VITAMEDIAS

Menaces sur l’information: os jornais gratuitos, a Internet e a propriedade dos media.

28 dezembro 2006

CULTURAS IN VITRO


The Bibliochaise is an armchairlibrary for who likes to be immersed in deep reading.

TECNOSFERA

Microsoft hands out Ferrari’s to bloggers: Microsoft together with AMD gave out some timely Christmas presents (which are officially review PCs) to a bunch of bloggers this year.
Microsoft "Gifts" and Ethics
Blogger ethics? Oh, please. [a ler também os comentários]
Edelman Has New Ethics Scandal Brewing With Microsoft's Blogger Bribe Campaign

VITAMEDIAS

Me, ‘Person of the Year’? No thanks
For some reason I just don’t feel as empowered as you think I feel [...]
We do ourselves a major disservice when we exaggerate the revolutionary power of ourselves as individuals. Narcissism may be good marketing. But it’s not good for humanity.

CONTAMINANTES

Breakthrough of the Year 2006: The Poincaré Conjecture--Proved
The Runners-Up
Breakdown of the Year: Scientific Fraud
Areas to Watch in 2007

TECNOSFERA

Paid Blog Reviews: ReviewMe & PayPerPost
In Summary:
That is a tough one... Let's look back... E-mail is a great thing, but spammers got to it and make it tough to use sometimes. The Web is a great thing, but spammers got to it (spyware, adware) and make it tough to use sometimes. Search engines are a great thing, but spammers got to it... Blogs are a great thing, but comment spammers got to it, making it tough... Paid blogger reviews are a great thing, but they can and will be used by people with bad intentions. As a blogger, I believe you can judge for yourself if a review is for a link or for a review. It is up to you if you are willing to risk a site-wide trust devaluation by Google or other engines. You are the only one who can judge, but don't let Google scare you - do what you know is right.

27 dezembro 2006

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Searching E-phemera: "The average life of a Web page is 100 days," said Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. "If we don't aggressively go and archive these materials that we're depending on, not just for scholarship but for cultural fun and trivial pursuits, they will be gone forever." [...]
The Internet Archive at Archive.org boasts more than a few impressive numbers. Here's a sampling:
60 days: How often the archive collects a broad snapshot of the web.

100 days: How often, on average, web pages are changed or deleted.

10 years: The amount of time the archive has been operating.

300: The amount of requests the Wayback Machine search engine receives per second.

2,300: The number of servers used at the archive's San Francisco location. Each holds about a terabyte, or 1,024 gigabytes, of information.

50,000: The number of 30 gigabyte iPods needed to store the archive's collected information.

90,000
: The number of audio recordings, concerts and lectures on the nonweb archive.

1.5 million
: Total amount of memory, in gigabtyes, on Archive.org's web project.

61 million: The number of unique pages in the archive's Hurricane Katrina collection, all text searchable, from over 1,700 different sites.

85 billion: The number of pages on the current archive. That's a 13-page website for each man, woman and child on Earth.

VITAMEDIAS

2007 Edgie Awards Finalists for the Newspaper Association of America’s Digital Edge Awards!
The winners will be announced at a special reception January 28, 2007 in Las Vegas at NAA’s annual marketing conference.

26 dezembro 2006

.DE!

I Blog, Therefore I Am

VITAMEDIAS

Lá como cá: How can the FCC fine us when they don't publish the rules? Fox is confused because the FCC does not issue clear standards about what is and is not acceptable on TV and radio. The agency believes that doing so would amount to censorship, so they only sanction broadcasters once a show has aired. The obvious problem here is that broadcasters never know in advance if a show will be found indecent; the end result is self-censorship by networks trying to avoid the FCC's wrath.

FCC Moves to Clear Video Route: The Federal Communications Commission has narrowly approved regulations that make it more difficult for local governments to interfere with new cable industry competitors entering the video marketplace.

ECOPOL

O Gabriel admira-se porque "A Autoridade da Concorrência demorou 10 meses (dez!) a tomar uma decisão." Recordo que o Ministério Público demorou 7 meses (sete!) a tomar uma decisão sem esta complexidade...

TECNOSFERA

Founder of Wikipedia plans search engine to rival Google: Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, is set to launch an internet search engine with amazon.com that he hopes will become a rival to Google and Yahoo! [...]
The project has been dubbed Wikiasari — a combination of wiki, the Hawaiian word for quick, and asari, which is Japanese for "rummaging search".

Wikia To Launch Search Engine: Exclusive Screenshot (Update 12/25/06: Jimmy Wales says this isn’t a Wikiasari screen shot. So what is it?)

Search Wikia: A project to create the search engine that changes everything.

WikiSari . com: The next search is coming

.DE!

Dear Abby: Intense love morphs into teen depression

I am a 13-year-old who lives in northern Portugal, and while it's true that the vast majority of teens suffer from depression, mine is different.

Before I went to grade school, I was a happy kid, extroverted and showing a talent for the violin. But when I was 6, I met a girl who I thought was so beautiful that I couldn't look at her.

As much as adults might insist that love in a 6-year-old is impossible, that's the only thing it could have been. And the idea that she didn't love me back gave me many nights of pain and even sent me to the hospital for an emotional breakdown. My parents don't have the time for my emotions. My intense love has turned me into a bitter teen. How can I ease my pain?

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Call for papers for anarchist historiography panel Portugal: From Wednesday, February 27 up to and including Saturday March 1, 2008, the European Social Sciences History Conference will take place in Lisbon, Portugal at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon. We plan to organize a panel on new ways to research anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism and herewith invite researchers to participate.

22 dezembro 2006

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

21 dezembro 2006

VITAMEDIAS

Atenção aos "press releases": PR Newswire Says Innotrac Release Today Was False: The bogus press release came from a third-party distributor called eReleases, whose statements are carried on PR Newswire, said Rachel Meranus, a spokeswoman for PR Newswire. The fake statement said Innotrac had won a ``multiyear, multi-million- dollar'' contract with Siemens AG. Innotrac shares soared before PR Newswire distributed a company release saying the first was unauthorized.

VITAMEDIAS

The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006:
1. India Helps Iran Build the Bomb, While the White House Looks the Other Way
2. China Runs up African Debt
3. Bush?s Post-Katrina Power Grab
4. Russia Fuels Latin American Arms Race
5. United States Funds the Taliban
6. Iran and Israel Hold Secret Talks
7. The Gender Gap Gets Smaller
8. Petro Powers Drop the Dollar
9. What?s Worse Than Bird Flu? The Cure.
10. Hackable Passports

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Making Of de meia dúzia de filmes e pub's

VITAMEDIAS

Poll reveals Americans prefer TV news to YouTube: Most Americans polled also think that new camera and Internet technologies are turning the United States "into a nation of voyeurs and paparazzi."

TECNOSFERA

The Top 20 Weirdest gadgets of 2006

TECNOSFERA

Not sure where you lie in the great wilderness that is the Internet? Wondering how far away your friends (or enemies) are along the TCP/IP pipes? Look no further ? just use the Map of the Internet!

TECNOSFERA

Blog-Tag: Start your own Virtual Cocktail Party in the Blogosphere: To play, simply share five things about yourself that relatively few people know, and then tag five other bloggers to be "it." (The Blog Tag Tree)

TECNOSFERA

As principais pesquisas do ano no 2006 Year-End Google Zeitgeist. A Search for Ourselves: User-Generated Content Dominates Google's 2006 Hot List

19 dezembro 2006

TECNOSFERA

The Shrinking Long Tail - Top 10 Web Domains Increasing in Reach: It does appear that the top 10 web properties are claiming proportionally more page views in 2006 than in 2001.

The impact of the Long Tail can still be felt strongly on the content creation side, on sites like MySpace and YouTube. So in one sense you could argue that The Long Tail has had an impact on the top 10 domains after all - in terms of who is creating the content. But the fact is that those properties are still owned and operated by big media (News Corp and Google in the above two cases). So in that respect, and according to Compete's stats, the top 10 domains have more reach now than 5 years ago.

TECNOFERA


Surveillance Camera Players: 10-Year Report

VITAMEDIAS

A nova 2: vista pelo seu ex-director (com episódios como a RTP contratar à SIC Notícias "um jornal de meia hora").

TECNOSFERA

My Battle with MGM Over Wargames.Com: For the past three months I've been privately engaged in a time-consuming dispute with Nathan J. Hole, a lawyer representing MGM Studios who claims that Wargames.Com, a domain that I've owned since April 16, 1998, is the rightful property of the film company because it produced the 1983 movie WarGames and registered it as a trademark.

CONTAMINANTES

Este caso termina mal: Medics sentenced to death in Libya: A Libyan court today condemned to death six foreign health professionals accused of infecting over 400 children with HIV in 1998. The court refused to take into account a swathe of independent scientific evidence indicating that the outbreak had begun several years before the accused began working there and was caused by poor hygiene at the hospital.

18 dezembro 2006

TECNOSFERA

Balanço da Le Web 3 por Loic Le Meur (e Back from Le Web 3, and I am so glad I was there)

VITAMEDIAS

New bid to bring professionalism to the blogosphere: The Media Bloggers Association is to unveil new membership criteria aimed at bringing professionalism to the "blogosphere" (...) which would include:
* requiring that members take an online course with the US-based Poynter Institute on legal issues related to blogging
* making members must demonstrate they have worked as professional journalists or undergone training.
* making members adhere to the organisation's ethical standards (which includes using their own names unless there are exceptional circumstances) and adopt formal editorial and corrections policies.

TECNOFERA

Passou-se um ano mas nunca se soube o porquê dos 21 votos portugueses (em 24) para a retenção de dados nas telecomunicações. Quem não deve não teme? Só pode ser piada...

VITAMEDIAS

As perguntas não páram: depois de Manuel Pinto, José Manuel Fernandes e Eduardo Cintra Torres, Francisco Rui Cádima (que continua aqui - com um apelo ao voto no que deverá ser o primeiro demissionário ou demitido da ERC - ou aqui).

ECOPOL

Ainda a propósito de entidades fiscalizadoras, a ler este Às portas do céu (com os poderes inscritos no novo regulamento da Câmara de Lisboa): a partir de Janeiro de 2007, os fiscais da Empresa Municipal de Estacionamento de Lisboa (EMEL) passarão a dispor de poderes idênticos aos da PSP e Polícia Municipal [...]
A vereadora do pelouro da Mobilidade da CML, Marina Ferreira [...], autora do documento, e, por sinal, presidente da EMEL, ter-se-á, porventura, esquecido, mas existe um decreto-lei (327/98) que ainda está em vigor.
E que, aprovado que foi pela Assembleia da República (AR), não poderá ser alterado com a simples aprovação
camarária.

VITAMEDIAS

Acabou-se o desrespeito a quem detiver o cartão de identificação da ERC, emitido para "pessoas ou entidades qualificadas devidamente credenciadas para o exercício de funções de fiscalização, em nome da ERC", que a lei equipara a "agentes de autoridade".
As funções de fiscalização das referidas "pessoas ou entidades" são as seguintes:

1 - Os funcionários e agentes da ERC, os respectivos mandatários, bem como as pessoas ou entidades qualificadas devidamente credenciadas que desempenhem funções de fiscalização, quando se encontrem no exercício das suas funções e apresentem título comprovativo dessa qualidade, são equiparados a agentes de autoridade e gozam, nomeadamente, das seguintes prerrogativas:
a) Aceder às instalações, equipamentos e serviços das entidades sujeitas à supervisão e regulação da ERC;
b) Requisitar documentos para análise e requerer informações escritas;
c) Identificar todos os indivíduos que infrinjam a legislação e regulamentação, cuja observância devem respeitar, para posterior abertura de procedimento;
d) Reclamar a colaboração das autoridades competentes quando o julguem necessário ao desempenho das suas funções.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Museums boost economy by £1.5bn a year, says report: Britain's museums are not only vital to the economy, but are also the glue that binds communities together, reflecting society and providing ways of understanding the world in which we live, according to a report published yesterday.
They are also a key British export, "just as much as the car industry or hedge funds", according to Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, author of Museums and Galleries in Britain, which analyses their social and economic impact. [...]
The report was jointly commissioned by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and the National Museum Directors' Conference.

PHOTO-GRAFIA

Salgado, Sebastião Salgado (lamento se vieram até aqui à procura de outras salgalhadas...)

15 dezembro 2006

CONTAMINANTES

10 things we didn't know last week:
9. There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts.

Do ano passado: 100 things we didn't know this time last year:
3. While it's an offence to drop litter on the pavement, it's not an offence to throw it over someone's garden wall.
32. "Restaurant" is the most mis-spelled word in search engines.
33. Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has only been in an English pub once, to buy his wife cigarettes.
50. Only 36% of the world's newspapers are tabloid.
54. Deep Throat is reportedly the most profitable film ever. It was made for $25,000 (£13,700) and has grossed more than $600m.
76. The day when most suicides occurred in the UK between 1993 and 2002 was 1 January, 2000.
100. Musical instrument shops must pay an annual royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they buy, thereby making a "public performance".

TECNOSFERA

Mais um: BlogKits is the world's first true performance marketing network built just for bloggers! That means that we've created a simple, yet effective way for bloggers to generate revenue from their blogs that makes sense.

14 dezembro 2006

TECNOSFERA

O Miniscente publica no sábado, em princípio e após aviso sensato :), uma entrevista com este vosso [colocar o termo adequado].
Um conselho: gastem o tempo nestas Interviews. A sério.

PHOTO-GRAFIA

The Best Photos of the Year 2006 da Time (via).
Olhando para os últimos dois anos (depois, desisti), é só miséria no fotojornalismo da revista...

VITAMEDIAS

A ler estas duas correcções na Sábado e na Visão.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Peter Boyle, Dad On 'Everybody Loves Raymond,' Dies

12 dezembro 2006

ECOPOL

O Sistema de blogs da Assembleia da República ainda está a funcionar. O mais exemplar é o da "Cidadania - As causas do Portugal moderno": Entradas (0) Artigos (0 ) Comentários (0)

VITAMEDIAS

The coming collapse and rebirth of newspaper journalism: The near-total collapse of the American newspaper industry as we know it is inevitable. Anything newspapers could have done to stop it should have been done years ago (Slate recently wrote that newspapers saw this coming in the mid-70s). All the social, demographic and economic trends are lined up against the industry. Over the next decade, there will be agonizing rounds of layoffs, consolidation and bankruptcies. It will be painful to watch, but it will be a necessary process for the industry to reinvent itself.

Trust in the Age of Citizen Journalism: It's about trust in media today, taking into account the growing popularity of blogging and all other types of citizen journalism.

VITAMEDIAS

Eu não quero fiscalizar o regulador mas olhando para as suas competências, descubro que a ER para a C é um dos garantes "do rigor, isenção e transparência na área da comunicação social".

Ora como pode ela avaliar, por exemplo, os provedores dos jornais? Um caso recente: neste "Nem tudo o que se passa passa nos media", José Carlos Abrantes escreve no estatuto de provedor sobre conferências e livros em que foi interveniente. E a ERC não comenta?

A dúvida não é acusatória (o texto até merece ser lido) e longe de mim envolver-me com quem anda a contratar juristas. Mas gostava de perceber...

TECNOSFERA

By Some Measures, Blogging May Be Peaking: I don't mean that it has peaked in influence. Hardly. But if you read the tea leaves behind some key statistics, the intensity of blogging may be plateauing.

TECNOSFERA

Top 10 Scams of 2006

ECOPOL

Incompetências: Segundo o DN, este governo socialista lembrou-se agora de criar uma empresa para fazer aquilo que ao próprio governo compete fazer. Parece ainda que se essa empresa não fizer aquilo que a ela passará a competir fazer (e que será fazer aquilo que ao governo já competia fazer), pode essa empresa entretanto criada criar novas empresas para fazerem aquilo que a ela já competia fazer, e que era competência anterior do governo, e que nem este nem aquela fazem, por qualquer motivo que agora não compete apurar.
Essas ditas empresas, acaso venham efectivamente a desenvolver as competências que lhes são atribuídas por aquela outra a quem o governo delegou as suas próprias competências, podem cobrar-se ao governo por estarem a fazer aquilo que lhe competia fazer e não faz. A primeira também se deve cobrar, ainda que seja apenas para delegar nas outras as competências que lhe foram confiadas.

Tudo isto tresanda a disparate, a negociata e a incompetência pura. E ninguém se indigna?

[desculpas pela citação completa do texto mas eu não diria melhor...]

TECNOSFERA

A culpa não é da tecnologia: A Visit to Le Pen's Headquarters in [Second Life]

ECOPOL

Mohammad Yunus já recebeu o Prémio Nobel da Paz de 2006. Altura para lembrar que o seu sistema de microcrédito também tem críticos: "Easy Money" ("The research is skimpy, but the research we do have shows increasingly that the main hope for microcredit--that it will generate millions of tiny businesses and these businesses will grow and pull their owners over the poverty line--is false," says [Thomas Dichter, who has evaluated microcredit programs in 20 countries, including India (and) wrote the 2003 book Despite Good Intentions: Why Development Assistance to the Third World Has Failed.]. "That is not happening.")

ZITE

Repitam comigo: "a imaginação humana não tem limites". A prova? Idiotproof Website

CULTURAS IN VITRO

À atenção do Remixtures e não só [negrito meu]: As reported yesterday, there was an ad in the FT listing 4,000 musicians who supported retrospective term extension. If you read the list, you?ll see that at least some of these artists are apparently dead (e.g. Lonnie Donegan, died 4th November 2002; Freddie Garrity, died 20th May 2006). I take it the ability of these dead authors to sign a petition asking for their copyright terms to be extended can only mean that even after death, term extension continues to inspire.

ZITE

Corpus do Português permite pesquisar fácil e rapidamente mais de 45 milhões de palavras em mais de 50,000 textos em português dos Trezentos (1300s) aos Novecentos (1900s).
[act.: 'Corpus' da Língua Portuguesa]

11 dezembro 2006

VITAMEDIAS

Ainda sobre a decisão da ERC (Alguém me envia uma ligação para qualquer texto a defender a decisão da ERC? Não descobri nenhum e é falha minha, concerteza):
Textos de Pacheco Pereira, Estrela Serrano, Eduardo Cintra Torres e Francisco Rui Cádima


Correio da Causa: Eduardo Cintra Torres contra a ERC


A ERC. Preocupante: Não me tenho pronunciado sobre a ERC, porque acho que só vale a pena fazê-lo quando se perceber uma linha de pensamento. Infelizmente está a perceber-se e não é das mais agradáveis. A sua recomendação, no pormenor em apreço, é uma jurisprudência perigosa se alguém a levar a sério.

ERC: Os problemas ou conflitos precisam de ser geridos, mas com argumentos e raciocínios frios, sem respostas à flor da pele. É que se um jornal e uma entidade reguladora - ambos sendo das entidades mais respeitáveis no país - se envolvem em querelas, quem equilibra ou chama a atenção para o serenar e discutir seriamente os problemas?

O que se diz ao dizer "regulação"? Vale a pena seguir à letra, página a página, a recente deliberação da ERC. Está na ténue linha de fronteira entre aquelas teses académicas inúteis (acerca da função dos géneros na contaminação fractal das gáveas) e a ostensão do peso almofadado como forma de zelo administrativo. Para além da óbvia vontade incriminatória e ficcional que respira, é sobretudo esse posicionamento barroco e árido que me intriga e que melhor reflecte uma certa intemporalidade portuguesa.

ERC: "Braço armado de uma maioria"


Quem regula a ERC?

O que nasce torto...: Que tal um flashback?

Hoje os jornalistas, amanhã nós

Censura e estupidez: o que ressalta é esse vício moralizador do censor, é o extravazar de competência, a elaboração de juízos de valor sem pressupostos universais e fundados. Ressalta enfim uma grande estupidez e uma clara manipulação dos próprios factos observados, atributos maiores dos censores em qualquer tempo e modo, v.g. análise dos conteúdos dos telejornais em relação aos fogos florestais que revela em absoluto um tratamento muito desigual dos canais públicos face aos privados e que a tal entidade considera isento e normal.

A vergonha: Os referidos textos [da ERC] revelam uma mentalidade persecutória, um espírito tacanho e mesquinho, uma subserviência ao poder e ao politicamente correcto. Esses textos marcam a verdadeira natureza daquele orgão, desnecessário, arrogante, presunçoso e, acima de tudo, profundamente manipulável e obediente. Era difícil fazer pior. Os quatro conselheiros que votaram favoravelmente o texto revelaram a sua verdadeira face - e não é bonita de se ver.

ERC não reconhece como verdadeiras acusações de ingerência na RTP

Publicação no jornal Público da Recomendação 7/2006: Com o presente comunicado, e no que lhe toca, o Conselho Regulador dá por encerrado este "diálogo", tão picaresco como pouco edificante.


Em tempo: a word to the wise: esta peça passou, passou e tornou a passar. não me consta que a entidade reguladora para a comunicação social tenha mandado tirá-la do ar ou sequer enviado uma recomendação. o mesmo vale para o conselho deontológico do sindicato dos jornalistas. o mesmo vale para a comissão da carteira profissional (é de crer que a senhora que fez a reportagem tenha uma, se calhar em dia e tudo).

E pode também ter passado despercebida mas esta nota à imprensa sobre os "Projectos a realizar pela ERC incluídos nas suas competências regulatórias" (alguns dos quais já começaram em Outubro...) antecipa o que vai ser feito pela ERC "nos próximos meses" e inclui o "chamado caso 'Manuel Maria Carrilho'", bem como a "monitorização" de "conteúdos informativos da televisão, da imprensa e da rádio".


[act.: Uma opinião positiva para a decisão da ERC (obrigado, Gabriel): Chamuscados nas labaredas da informação: "a ERC desfere um duro ataque ao crítico Eduardo Cinta Torres", "A RTP ganha claramente este processo", "A ERC também sai bem do processo".
(A propósito das posições do autor sobre a ERC, ler também o texto anterior "Quem mais jura...": O que se exige à ERC é a análise de factos e que faça cumprir a lei e, por isso, saúda-se a decisão de punir a SIC. Mas dispensam-se os moralismos e o papel de grande educador do povo. Alguém lhes encomendou o sermão?)

A ler também: Perguntas (com algumas respostas de, alegadamente, José Manuel Fernandes)]

08 dezembro 2006

VITAMEDIAS

A ler as 144 páginas da deliberação da ERC (não apenas as conclusões, há que ler os pressupostos das mesmas) sobre A independência da RTP perante o poder político à luz do artigo de Eduardo Cintra Torres, "Como se faz censura em Portugal" e das acusações de ingerência do Governo proferidas pelo Deputado Agostinho Branquinho.

VITAMEDIAS

the Future of Newspapers: Amid gloomy Wall Street forecasts about the industry?s gradual demise, TIME asked insiders to forecast the long-term fate of newspapers

TECNOSFERA

Seymour Papert in coma after Hanoi traffic accident

07 dezembro 2006

VITAMEDIAS

Lean Left? Lean Right? News Media May Take Their Cues From Customers: Any politician will tell you that sometimes what we call things is the most political decision of all. Political consultants like Frank Luntz, a Republican, have become legendary for their way of spinning language to partisan advantage: ?death tax? instead of ?estate tax,? ?war on terror? instead of ?war in Iraq.? But most people expect spin from politicians. When they perceive partisan slant in the news itself, they typically interpret it as evidence of underlying bias by reporters or media owners.

But one of the most interesting things coming out of research on the economics of the media industry has been the notion that media slant may simply reflect business rather than politics.

New research by two University of Chicago economists, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, entitled ?What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers? (www.nber.org/papers/w12707.pdf) compiles some compelling and altogether unusual data to answer the question.

Dr. Gentzkow and Dr. Shapiro started in the world of the political. They parsed the words of politicians ? all the words ? from the 2005 Congressional Record. They found the 1,000 most partisan phrases uttered in the year. They measured this by comparing how frequently a phrase was used by one side or the other.

In 2005, phrases like ?death tax,? ?illegal aliens,? ?Terri Schiavo,? and ?nuclear power? came mostly from Republicans. Phrases like ?minimum wage,? ?public broadcasting,? ?middle class? and ?oil companies? came mostly from Democrats. Using those phrases, the two economists made a simple index of partisanship that comported nicely with standard measures like a politician?s score on the Americans for Democratic Action ideological scale.

The study then analyzed 417 newspapers in the United States (accounting for some 70 percent of total newspaper circulation) as if they were politicians. The researchers measured, for example, all the times in articles about Social Security that a newspaper referred to ?personal accounts? (Republican) or to ?private accounts? (Democratic). Their measure of partisan slant came only from the news coverage. They did not include anything from the editorial page.

The index matched most popular perceptions of newspaper partisanship.

VITAMEDIAS

Internet fuels rise in number of jailed journalists: The number of journalists jailed worldwide for their work increased for the second consecutive year, and one in three is now an Internet blogger, online editor, or Web-based reporter, according to an analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

CPJ?s annual worldwide census found 134 journalists imprisoned on December 1, an increase of nine from the 2005 tally. China, Cuba, Eritrea, and Ethiopia were the top four jailers among the 24 nations who imprisoned journalists.

VITAMEDIAS

Estas questões de transparência são apenas mais uma das atoardas sobre o jornalismo que se têm repetido em muitos blogues.
Em síntese, alguns autores (respeitáveis) de blogues acham que os jornalistas têm (devem!) explicar a forma como conseguem as notícias.
A síntese? "Todo o processo que antecede a publicação das notícias funciona como uma caixa negra imperscrutável para a esmagadora maioria dos leitores."
Uma vergonha! Os jornalistas deviam elucidar (previamente, já agora?...) os autores interessados de blogues sobre a prática do seu jornalismo.
Se o não fazem, "ao leitor acaba por ser, por vezes, negada informação importante para que pudesse avaliar as notícias".
Claro, aliás, "em termos gerais, a quem não interessa a transparência? Ou, dito de outra maneira, quem beneficia com a falta de transparência?
O leitor não beneficia seguramente".

Não? Com o aparecimento dos blogues, se há profissão mais vigiada é a dos jornalistas. Os "bloggers" podem dizer o que querem que (quase) ninguém os impede e o provedor do Público (que apenas "levanta um pouco da ponta do véu sobre os bastidores das notícias"...) verifica as queixas dos leitores. Quantos blogues, tanto mais aqueles que não têm comentários, podem dizer o mesmo do seu sistema de publicação? Do seu sistema de propriedade? Dos, sejamos claros, seus sistemas de interesses privados?
Mesmo quando "as opiniões e informações" "apenas vinculam o seu autor"... É claro! Porque "todo o processo que antecede a publicação [dos textos em blogues] funciona como uma caixa negra imperscrutável para a esmagadora maioria dos leitores". Tal e qual como no jornalismo?

TECNOSFERA

Esta história é impressionante: em síntese, um casal com duas filhas pequenas perde-se na neve. Tentam de tudo para se proteger do frio. Ele resolve abandonar o carro para procurar ajuda. Perde-se e não é encontrado, ao contrário da mulher e filhas, descobertas vivas ao fim de alguns dias. Ontem, ele foi encontrado morto.
James Kim era editor na CNET e especialista em questões de áudio digital (uma pesquisa num motor de busca dará variadas ligações para os artigos dos últimos dias).
A história é trágica (e sim, até nos Estados Unidos os jornalistas escrevem sobre a morte de jornalistas, não é só em Portugal) mas o mais impressionante é isto: Phishing Attempt Exploiting Kim Death: This is spam stooping to new lows -- exploiting the death of a well known figure, and exploiting humanity's good will.
[a ver também a quantidade de comentários sobre esta história. Mais uma vez, impressionante.]

06 dezembro 2006

TECNOSFERA

Quem sabe quais são as European Technology Platforms?

TECNOSFERA

Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians: So an avatar consumes 1,752 kWh per year. By comparison, the average human, on a worldwide basis, consumes 2,436 kWh per year. So there you have it: an avatar consumes a bit less energy than a real person, though they're in the same ballpark.

VITAMEDIAS

The Presence of Magazines on the Internet: Our study reviews the websites of the top 50 most circulated magazines in the United States and evaluates them based on the presence or absence of various Web 2.0 features. After finishing the research, it became clear that magazines are not making use of Web 2.0.

Here are some key findings from our research:
* The most common online feature offered by magazines is RSS feeds (48 per cent).
* 40 per cent of the magazines offer at least one reporter blog.
* Video is an offering on 34 per cent of websites.
* Just 14 per cent of websites use podcasts and bookmarking; eight percent allow comments on articles

VITAMEDIAS

Tips on Anonymous Source Use:
* No anonymous sources unless a top editor is convinced there is absolutely no other way to get the main thrust of the story into the newspaper.

* No anonymous sources unless a top editor is convinced every possible effort was made to get the source on the record.

* No anonymous sources unless the story is of major importance to the community or the country. Use should be extraordinary, not routine.

* No re-publication of another organization's anonymously sourced story.

* No anonymously sourced stories unless there are at least two sources who have firsthand knowledge of the issue.

* No anonymous sources who have been protected with a "no comment" quote elsewhere in the story or who have been deceptively identified. It is unfair to readers.

* No anonymous sources if what is being rendered is opinion, including personal attacks, as opposed to specific facts that can be verified elsewhere.

* When an anonymous source is used readers should be informed as clearly as possible what the source's link to the story is, the source's potential motivations, and what axes the source may have to grind.

TECNOSFERA

Attack of the European Blog!: European bloggers are young, early adopters of new technologies, Internet savvy, and trust each other more than the average online consumer, according to a new Forrester report. With nearly 3 percent, or four million, of European Internet users actively writing blogs, it's high time and in marketers' best interest to understand some of these bloggers' unique consumer habits.

VITAMEDIAS

Fontes de informação[a partir de "Fontes sofisticadas de informação. Análise do produto jornalístico da imprensa nacional diária de 1990 a 2005", de Fernando Vasco Ribeiro]: o Correio da Manhã privilegia as fontes do poder, o Diário de Notícias ouve mais as fontes da oposição, o Jornal de Notícias é o que possui mais fontes nas suas peças e o Público dá voz aos políticos. Do total, há 90% de fontes oficiais (governantes e principais dirigentes políticos), o que significa ainda o crescente peso profissional da assessoria de imprensa.

TECNOSFERA

Court Rejects Class Action Against Banks: Wall Street banks, accused of manipulating the prices of initial public offerings of technology companies during the market boom of the late 1990s and cheating small investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, will not have to face a huge securities class-action lawsuit, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. [...]

The lawsuit accused the Wall Street banks of netting huge profits during the technology boom of the late 1990s by artificially inflating the share prices through various means of newly public companies after they went public.

The suit contended that the banks had awarded shares of hot initial offerings to favored clients in return for lucrative investment banking business. It also contended that the banks had made deals with investors so that they would buy shares in the aftermarket to drive up prices artificially and created misleading research to lure investors into buying.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Plagiarism vs. Inspiration: the standard reaction to plagiarism may be heightened these days by a culture that is so overly focused on ownership of ideas and the "story" of our lives. The article talks about the rise of reality television and the idea that the story of your life now has much more potential to become a commercial property -- leading many to worry that others might "steal" it somehow.

Another Reason For Authors To Fear Google Book Search: It Will Reveal Plenty Of Plagiarists

ZITE

This is an aggregation of all 2006 Lists

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Your final 50 (list of the works of art you should see before you die)

ZITE

Wordie lets you make lists of words -- practical lists, words you love, words you hate, whatever. You can then see who else has listed the same words, and talk about it. It's more fun than it sounds.

05 dezembro 2006

VITAMEDIAS

The Demise of the Professional Photojournalist: The pros have a problem. They can?t possibly compete in the media-sphere of the future. We?re entering a world of ubiquitous media creation and access. When the tools of creation and access are so profoundly democratized, and when updated business models connect the best creators with potential customers, many if not most of the pros will fight a losing battle to save their careers. [...]
To the rest of us, as long as we get the trustworthy news we need, the trend is more positive.
Remember, there was once a fairly healthy community of portrait painters. When photography came along, a lot of them had to find other work; or at least their ranks were not refilled when they retired. Professional portrait photographers, similarly, are less in demand today than a generation ago. But portraits have survived ? and thrived.
The photojournalist?s job may be history before long. But photojournalism has never been more important, or more widespread.

ECOPOL

Galician nationalist party want Galicia in a different time zone as Portugal and the United Kingdom.

TECNOSFERA

Best Blogs of 2006 that You (Maybe) Aren't Reading

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Visitor numbers soar at Britain's free museums and galleries: the government released figures which showed an average 83% rise in visits to museums and galleries which formerly charged. That is 30m extra visits, says the government, and something to be celebrated, according to the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell.
"These are inspirational figures," she said. "There is a real appetite for serious culture in this country - when the obstacle of entry fees is swept away, people come in their millions, and keep coming."

04 dezembro 2006

TECNOSFERA


I find the most interesting thing about Second Life is the media attention it generates.

VITAMEDIAS

Mais descontos para a Caixa:
Os privilégios dos jornalistas: Numa lógica soviética integramos todos o pacote dos desprivilegiados. Lógica soviética, certamente: porque também na antiga URSS haveria sempre alguns que conseguiam escapar ao nivelamento por baixo. E infelizmente nós, em Portugal, sabemos quem eles são.
A "Caixa" (III): O argumento funciona assim: "Eh, eh, eh, que bom, agora os jornalistas vão ficar tão mal como nós". O interesse geral ganha? Os "privilégios" serão redistribuidos? Não interessa. O que interessa é nivelar tudo. Por baixo, de preferência, à boa maneira soviética. Abençoado o Governo que tem eleitores destes no bolso.

[act.: Privilégios e igualdade: Acabar com a Caixa de Jornalistas (CJ) é acabar com algo que funciona bem e com agrado dos seus utentes, para o substituir por algo que funciona mal e com desagrado dos seus utentes. Este argumento, por si só, deveria merecer alguma atenção por parte de um governo que diz ter como bandeiras a produtividade e a eficiência da administração pública - para não falar da saúde.]

VITAMEDIAS

Que carga de trabalhos, esta de seleccionar jornalistas nos dias de hoje. Exemplos:
1) Valoriza-se:
- Conhecimentos nas áreas de gestão pós-venda automóvel, gestão de frotas automóveis e gestão financeira;
- Carteira de contactos;
- Experiência em organização de eventos.

2) Produtora de televisão procura jornalista de tv.
Requisitos essenciais: [...]
- Disponibilidade mais do que imediata e total;

3) Empresa de comunicação gráfica, sedeada em Alfragide, procura jornalista para integrar a redacção das suas revistas especializadas. [...]
Requisitos:
- capacidade para escrever correctamente em português;

VITAMEDIAS

Extra: Newspapers Aren't Dead: Some predict their imminent demise, but the dailies remain profitable, popular and powerful. Here's why they'll survive
"Newspaper companies will become information companies. We'll do well because we have the best news resources and the most at stake."

Advertisers creating online buzz, blog to blog: The evolving corporate focus on "blog placement" is part of an intensifying trend, with elite bloggers receiving gifts like show tickets and bottles of Champagne.

ECOPOL



Blair-Hitler ID card ad 'not offensive'

TECNOSFERA

Interessante análise sobre a evolução da espionagem e uso de software social: Open-Source Spying: For the intelligence agencies to benefit from "social software," he said, they need to persuade thousands of employees to begin blogging and creating wikis all at once. And that requires a cultural sea change: persuading analysts, who for years have survived by holding their cards tightly to their chests, to begin openly showing their hands online.

Is it possible to reconcile the needs of secrecy with such a radically open model for sharing? Certainly, there would be merit in a system that lets analysts quickly locate like-minded colleagues around the world to brainstorm new ideas about how the Iraqi insurgency will evolve. But the intelligence agencies also engage in covert operations that ferret out truly incendiary secrets: the locations of Iranian nuclear facilities, say, or the name of a Qaeda leader in Pakistan. Is this the sort of information that is safe to share widely in an online network?

Many in the intelligence agencies suspect not. Indeed, they often refuse to input sensitive intel into their own private, secure databases; they do not trust even their own colleagues, inside their own agencies, to keep their secrets safe. [...]

A spy blogosphere, even carefully secured against intruders, might be fundamentally incompatible with the goal of keeping secrets. And the converse is also true: blogs and wikis are unlikely to thrive in an environment where people are guarded about sharing information. Social software doesn?t work if people aren?t social.

Virtually all proponents of improved spy sharing are aware of this friction, and they have few answers. [...]

The premise of spy-blogging is that a million connected amateurs will always be smarter than a few experts collected in an elite star chamber; that Wikipedia will always move more quickly than the Encyclopaedia Britannica; that the country?s thousand-odd political bloggers will always spot news trends more quickly than slow-moving journalists in the mainstream media.

VITAMEDIAS

A Newspaper Chain Sees Its Future, And It's Online and Hyper-Local: The mojos [mobile journalists] have high-tech tools -- ThinkPads, digital audio recorders, digital still and video cameras -- but no desk, no chair, no nameplate, no land line, no office. They spend their time on the road looking for stories, filing several a day for the newspaper's Web site, and often for the print edition, too. Their guiding principle: A constantly updated stream of intensely local, fresh Web content -- regardless of its traditional news value -- is key to building online and newspaper readership. [...]
The chain's papers are redirecting their newsrooms to focus on the Web first, paper second. Papers are slashing national and foreign coverage and beefing up "hyper-local," street-by-street news. They are creating reader-searchable databases on traffic flows and school class sizes. Web sites are fed with reader-generated content, such as pictures of their kids with Santa. In short, Gannett -- at its 90 papers, including USA Today -- is trying everything it can think of to create Web sites that will attract more readers.

PHOTO-GRAFIA



Lenticulations

02 dezembro 2006

ECOPOL

Pronto tábem: Iraq invasion was good for Portugal says Barroso: Former Portuguese Prime Minister and current President of the European Commission has said he holds no regrets over Portugals support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Duro Barroso, steadfast that his decision was correct to support George W. Bush, admitted that the allied forces military action in Iraq is not going as planned.

TECNOSFERA

The Imminent Demise of the Page View: As the page view platform crumbles, there's going to be a shake out. Everyone is going to scramble to find a metric that helps them compete for ad dollars. Enjoy the show.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

40 best directors: The Hollywood blockbuster may be in crisis, but the art of the cinema is as healthy as ever. Our panel of critics picks out the film-makers who are leading the way

01 dezembro 2006

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Back to the Future timeline [This article is being considered for deletion]
"An empirical examination of Wikipedia's credibility": This short study examines Wikipedia?s credibility by asking 258 research staff with a response rate of 21 percent, to read an article and assess its credibility, the credibility of its author and the credibility of Wikipedia as a whole. Staff were either given an article in their own expert domain or a random article. No difference was found between the two group in terms of their perceived credibility of Wikipedia or of the articles? authors, but a difference was found in the credibility of the articles ? the experts found Wikipedia?s articles to be more credible than the non?experts. This suggests that the accuracy of Wikipedia is high. However, the results should not be seen as support for Wikipedia as a totally reliable resource as, according to the experts, 13 percent of the articles contain mistakes.