Blogging stuff

 I have been using Ktunnel or similar sites to access Youtube.  A few days ago, we replaced a systems file – I do not how to describe it in proper technical terms- and now I can directly access YouTube! Until the next phase of web censorship, I guess…

 

Turks circumvent YouTube ban – The National Newspaper

Turks circumvent YouTube ban – The National Newspaper

Thomas Seibert, Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: January 16. 2009 9:30AM UAE / January 16. 2009 5:30AM GMT

ISTANBUL // Two months ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, stunned the public by admitting that he has joined hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens in doing something that the country’s courts say is forbidden: watch clips on the internet video portal YouTube.

Commenting on a decision by the main secular opposition party to accept women in strict Islamic clothing into its ranks for the first time, Mr Erdogan told reporters accompanying him on an official visit to India in November they should ‘get on YouTube’.

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The internet is changing our brains

By Jemima Kiss on Technology

More evidence, as if we needed it, that we need to make more of an effort to balance our work and personal lives.

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Technorati’s State of The Blogosphere 2008 Is Out

By Daniel Scocco

Almost one year passed since the last State of the Blogosphere report, but the new one is finally here. Not only that, but apparently this one is bigger and more comprehensive. So big they are breaking it down in 5 parts, one released each day of this week.

The first part of the report is titled “Who Are the Bloggers?”……………..

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Action Alert: 4 Ways You Can Help Free Moroccan Blogger Mohammed Erraji

Written by Amine on September 12, 2008 – 6:13 am –

As you may have been following through the DigiActive Twitter Feed, Moroccan blogger Mohammed Erraji was arrested last Friday, September 5th following the publication on the online news site Hespress.com of an article entitled “The King Encourages His Subject’s Dependency” (English) He was sentenced 72 hours later, in an expedited trial without assitance from a lawyer, to two years in jail and a fine of 5000MAD for “failure to uphold the respect due to the king”.

In a movement of solidarity reminiscent of the one which surrounded the campaign to help free Facebook prisonner Fouad Mourtada earlier this year,  the Moroccan blogosphere was quick to mobilize and condemn the arrest. Various international organizations such as Reporters without Borders, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and IFEX also issued statements calling for his immediate release. On Thursday September 11th, citing procedural misteps, a court in the southern city of Agadir granted him bail and he has been “provisionally released” pending his appeal trial next Tuesday.

Blogger Beware

Faster than you can say “Larry Summers,” James Otteson was gone from Yeshiva University.

The former head of the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program at Yeshiva College, the intuition’s undergraduate college of liberal arts and sciences for men, resigned from his leadership position near the end of the spring semester after administrators at the university uncovered remarks viewed as sexist on his pseudonymous blog, Proportional Belief. One particularly controversial remark — which he revised — refered to “high-functioning women.” Now, following months of rumor concerning the nature of his resignation, Otteson has taken a year-long visiting professorship at Georgetown University, though he maintains a contract for a tenured full professorship with Yeshiva.

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More ‘EU controlling blogging’ outrage – a more careful analysis

By Jon

Back in June there was a lot of debate on numerous blogs about a draft European Parliament Resolution by Estonian Socialist Marianne Mikko. The original draft contained some rather strong paragraphs about placing legal restrictions on blogs but, after all, the initial draft – as I argued at the time – was probably the misguided view of one MEP, and that some MEPs had proposed sensible amendments.

British artist Alan Jaras turns light into awesome works of art. A majority of the works are analogue images of the refraction patterns from a beam of light passing through a transparent object (Jaras uses pieces of textured glass). VIA

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