Nothing and Some More

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go. Dr. Seuss (via 1Lit)

Progect does not import/export to/from OPML. [but it should go on to TODO list soon :)]

Via K5, Generation Alpha and some comments on it. On slightly the same subject, an Open letter to anti-globalization protesters with a few answers: from Austria and from Nigeria.

Big corporations already act on an international level. So the only way that democracy can control them is if it also works on a bigger scale then small national governments.

Neofascism 2000. Austria - a case study

What is Software Design?

I was wiking on C2 (non ce n'est pas tout, mais c'est pas mal quand même) since a friend asked for a gentle introduction to XP (eXtreme Programming - not the MacOSX clone) and I ended up reading A Laboratory For Teaching Object-Oriented Thinking aka An introduction to CRC cards.

The class name of an object creates a vocabulary for discussing a design. Indeed, many people have remarked that object design has more in common with language design than with procedural program design. We urge learners (and spend considerable time ourselves while designing) to find just the right set of words to describe our objects, a set that is internally consistent and evocative in the context of the larger design environment.
We were surprised at the value of physically moving the cards around. When learners pick up an object they seem to more readily identify with it, and are prepared to deal with the remainder of the design from its perspective. It is the value of this physical interaction that has led us to resist a computerization of the cards.

I find disturbing the fact that neither HyperCard nor More, which are still widely used AND appreciated, are ported to current OS (in any incarnation: Linux, MacOS, Palm, Java or Windows)
Yes, I know they are clones and/or emulators.

Les Chroniques de Cyberie have interesting links on Torture in the USA. Washington Post : A Deliberate Strategy of Disruption, Washington Post : Count of Released Detainees Is Hard To Pin Down, The Times : FBI considers torture as suspects stay silent, Newsweek : Time To Think About Torture, International Herald Tribune : Media Stoke Debate on Torture as U.S. Option

Animated Holograms for teleconferencing and the Teleportec Site (via Swaine's World)

Internet liberation theology

He urges the Internet generation not to forget what made the last 10 years exciting: an open platform that did not discriminate among applications or content, an environment for creativity and innovation, a public commons for an information age. In a word: the Internet. And instead of calling for the removal of regulation to encourage freedom, he recommends that there is a place for some regulation, if we want to preserve liberty
More generally, it might be said of Lessig's worldview that it is so Internet-centric that one forgets a very similar enthusiasm for innovation that characterized the rise of personal computers in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The pioneers in those days, like the heroes of Lessig's Internet history, wrote code freely, swapped software and made cool stuff. They operated BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems), created shareware and freeware and sent e-mail across old-fashioned telephone wires using acoustic couplers and computers with names like Apple II, Kaypro 10 and TRS-80. A law professor who needed a program to add footnotes to his word processor simply wrote it. The old view that production required capital and factories gave way to a new belief that innovation could take place in a garage or on a kitchen table
Mr. Ford may have controlled the auto industry, but he did not control the nation's roads. This is the warning in Lessig's masterly exploration of the history of the Internet and the future of innovation.

On SiT, an interesting debate on how to use free bandwiths to promote a University.