April 30, 2004
Interview in The Tech with Jack Valenti
17:45 UTC » Creative Commons - Intellectual Property - Music - Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
There's a short interview in MIT's The Tech newpaper with Jack Valenti about DMCA. I'm glad that Jack is still willing to have discussions like this. This is what I meant when I said that I think Jack should be respected. Even if you don't agree with him, he's still willing to try to discuss his position with you.
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Getting asymmetrical on the asymmetrical
via InstapunditThe ScotsmanMystery group wage war on Sadr's militiaIn a deadly expression of feelings that until now were kept quiet, a group representing local residents is said to have killed at least five militiamen in the last four days.
The murders are the first sign of organised Iraqi opposition to Sadr’s presence and come amid simmering discontent at the havoc their lawless presence has wreaked.
The group calls itself the Thulfiqar Army, after a twin-bladed sword said to be used by the Shiite martyr Imam Ali, to whom Najaf’s vast central mosque is dedicated.
Residents say leaflets bearing that name have been circulated in the city in the last week, urging Sadr’s al-Mahdi army to leave immediately or face imminent death. . . .
"It has got some of the Mahdi guys quite worried, I tell you. They are banding together more, when normally you would see them happily walking on the streets alone. I think their commanders have ordered them to do that."
For more on Sadr, see the article on the Christian Science Monitor.
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Reaction of Japan to the Japanese Hostages in Iraq
17:03 UTC » Japanese Culture - Warblogging
Several people have asked me to comment on an article in the NYT about the reaction of to the Japanese people to the three Japanese taken hostage in Iraq. The article describes how everyone including the politicians in Japan are angry at the hostages for causing trouble to the Japanese government and being irresponsible.
There are many conflicting reports about whether they were reckless or not and what their motives were so I won't comment on that. I also don't feel strongly personally on this issue so I'm not going to make a judgmental point either. What I would like to describe is a bit more background on how Japanese think about responsibility and apologies.
I think one of the things that made many Japanese I know upset were the parents of the hostages making public statements about how the government should help get the hostages back without apologizing first about causing trouble for the government. Even if they didn't believe it, it would be proper Japanese etiquette to say this first. It's quite cliche, but it's true that if you get into an automobile accident in Japan, even if you think it's probably the other person's fault, you apologize first. Japanese are warned not to do this in the US because apologizes imply responsibility. In many cases, apologies in Japan are a formality and skipping them is rather rude. I think many people thought these parents were "rude" on a national scale. Another example of a throw-away apology is that when you ask for a waiter in a restaurant, you say, "I'm sorry... or excuse me." We often apologize profusely when in doubt or are requesting any kind of favor.
An important psychological element is that even though we are individuals, we often represent the group. I have something like 16 or so generations before me on my gravestone and I often feel like a mere blip in the history of my family. Taking risk or tainting my family name is not something that I can freely do without feeling the guilt and responsibility to my ancestors.
It's also interesting to note that most Japanese children's cartoons have story lines where they are a team. Often one of the members get in trouble or drop out of the group and the whole show is about how the group tries to help the drop out get back in tune with the group. It's usually the group saving the single "problem" member. On the other hand, many American cartoons are super-heros who are independent and save the world through taking risk and being different. I know I'm generalizing here, but people who watch a lot of Japanese TV will understand what I'm saying I think.
I once talked to one of the directors of the Sumo Wrestling association. She said she always had a great deal of difficulty explaining one of the core principles of Sumo to foreigners. Sumo wrestlers are not supposed to show anguish when they lose or happiness when they win. They are to be emotionless and stoic. "Like a rooster carved out of wood," she said. This is a very central theme to many of Japanese aesthetics. This Japanese stoicism is central to much of the Japanese lack of sympathy to heroics, I think.
Although I understand what the NYT article is saying and I don't necessarily agree with the way the hostages are being treated and picked on right now, I think that lack of initial apologies and the feeling of Japanese to heroics in Japan is behind the reaction. Having said that, I think this attitude is what is hampering Japan's entrepreneurism as well as Japan's ability to participate as a leader in global affairs. It's a fairly deeply rooted cultural theme that won't change very easily though.
As usual, I'm happy to hear dissenting opinions.
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Does Google help governments censor results?
15:58 UTC » Global Politics - Search
Brin was no expert on international diplomacy. So he ordered a half-dozen books about Chinese history, business, and politics on Amazon.com and splurged on overnight shipping. He consulted with Schmidt, Page, and David Drummond, Google's general counsel and head of business development, then put in a call to tech industry doyenne Esther Dyson for advice and contacts. Google has no offices in China, so Brin enlisted go-betweens to get the message to Chinese authorities that Google would be very interested in working out a compromise to restore access. "We didn't want to do anything rash," Brin says. "The situation over there is more complex than I had imagined."Seth Finkelstein describes how Google self-censorship works. Also, Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School have a paper on Localized Google search result exclusions which is quite interesting.Four days later, Chinese authorities restored access to the site. How did that happen? For starters, the Chinese government was deluged with outcries from the nation's 46 million Internet users when access to Google was cut off. "Internet users in China are an apolitical crowd," says Xiao Qiang, executive director of New York-based Human Rights In China. "They tend to be people who are doing well, and they don't usually voice strong views. But this stepped into their digital freedom."
The quick workaround: Chinese authorities tweaked the national firewall, making the new Google China different from the site that was turned off. Today, Chinese who use Google to search on terms like "falun gong" or "human rights in china" receive a standard-looking results page. But when they click on any of the results, either their browsers are redirected to a blank or government-approved page, or their computers are blocked from accessing Google for an hour or two. "They have a new mechanism that can block the results of certain searches," Brin says. Did Google help China find or obtain the filtering technology? "We didn't make changes to our servers" is all he'll say.
I can understand from a business perspective why Google would do this, but whenever I bring this up with people they deny it or can't believe it.
Does anyone else have any more information on this?
PS This has nothing to do with trying to hurt Google or their IPO. I've been trying to figure this out for the last few weeks and have reached a dead end in my research so I'm trying to understand more. How companies like this work with governments and how this information is then disclosed is very important.
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Google S-1
07:43 UTC » Search - Venture Capital
Google's S-1 is online. (Warning. Big file.)
via CNET
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April 29, 2004
US snipers shooting kids in Falluja?
12:35 UTC » Media and Journalism - Warblogging
Story about US snipers shooting kids and pinning down the ambulance and evacuation services in Falluja. Here's a photo of a dead baby on Al Jazeera. Is there any coverage of this in other media?
via Ryuichi Sakamoto
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New LinkedIn feature to prevent SNAM
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April 28, 2004
World Economic Forum weblog
19:59 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - Global Politics - Media and Journalism
The World Economic Forum has a weblog now.
via Loic
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Scambaiting
Scambaiting is the sport of baiting and messing with 419 scammers.
via Thomas
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April 27, 2004
TypePad France
20:39 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - Neoteny
Welcome online TypePad France!
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Partisan blogging
14:45 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - US Policy and Politics
When I have posted particularly anti-Bush or partisan views, many people have complained in the comments or by email. Some of the most intelligent comments on my blog have come from conservatives and some of the most stupid from liberals. In order to keep some of the more intelligent conservatives involved in the dialog, I've tried to generally steer clear taking strong stands on the war in Iraq and on the presidential election.
I thought about it and I've decided that this is stupid. I don't want Bush to be re-elected and I think going into Iraq was wrong. I will try to be thoughtful about how I make my assertions, but I'm going to stop pretending that I'm non-partisan. I hope that Republicans or people who do not agree with me will continue to read this blog and disagree openly with me. I have just decided that it's getting too close to the election and there is too much at risk for me to just sit here and act neutral.
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April 25, 2004
Orkut datamining
21:52 UTC » Privacy - Social Software
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Seth Godin on Differentiation and Segmentation
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April 24, 2004
WSJ mention of my $3500 T-Mobile bill
21:52 UTC » Wireless and Mobile
I'm not sure how I feel about being in the WSJ for my stupidity, but I agreed in order to emphasis my point to more people.
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E-Voting Machines Get Official Thumbs Down
19:51 UTC » Emergent Democracy - Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
Yes! We really need to get rid of e-voting. It's such a bad idea and until now, I thought we were losing the battle. We need to make sure this doesn't end with just Diebold.Mercury NewsE-voting panel wants to dump troubled systemSACRAMENTO - Less than seven months before the presidential election, an advisory panel Thursday unanimously recommended an unprecedented ban of touch-screen election equipment used in four California counties.
The panel also urged Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to seek a criminal or civil investigation into the conduct of Diebold Election Systems, the Ohio-based firm that manufactured the troubled voting system.
via Dan Gillmor
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Business 2.0 article on Creative Commons
Giving It Away (for Fun and Profit) - By Andy Raskin, May 2004 Issue, Business 2.0
Good article about Creative Commons and the business case.
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Lomography
18:55 UTC » Movies - Photo - Wireless and Mobile
I recently discovered lomography. I think it fits very naturally with the spirit of moblogging.
The 10 Golden Rules of Lomography1 - take your camera everywhere you go
2 - use it any time - day and night
3 - lomography is not an interference in your life, but a part of it
4 - try the shot from the hip
5 - approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible
6 - don't think (Wiliam Firebrace)
7 - be fast
8 - you don't have to know beforehand what you capture on film
9 - afterwards either
10 - don't worry about the rules
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Genocide in Sudan
18:07 UTC » Global Politics - Warblogging
There is genocide going on in Sudan. A must read essay about it and how you can help.
via Jim Moore
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Essay about trends
17:41 UTC » Creative Commons - Intellectual Property - Network Technology - Technology Controversy - Wireless and Mobile
Here are some thoughts on where I think things are going in the mobile and content space.
I wrote this essay before reading Free Culture so I'm saying a lot of stuff that Larry says better...
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April 23, 2004
Jibot 0.6
Jibot is the robot who lives in the #joiito channel. He was originally developed by rvr and became a group effort. With everyone hacking on him, he had gotten a bit flakey. termie with the help of a few others totally refactored him and now jibot is really happy. Thank you termie!
Jibot has a wiki page, a blog and a sourceforge page for the code.
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April 22, 2004
Off to Linz
08:15 UTC » Art - Joi's Diary
I'm at Narita airport on my way to Linz to be on the Digital Communities jury of Ars Electronica. I think this is my eighth year as a jury member for Ars Electronica so going to Linz feels like going back to an old home. I look forward to eating my favorite wienerschnitzel soon.
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April 21, 2004
Doonesbury's B.D. injured in Iraq
In case you haven't been keeping up with your Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau has crossed an interesting landmark: B.D. has been injured while on reservist duty in Iraq. And his helmet has come off.Today's Doonsebury
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Sean Parker kicked out of Plaxo
16:57 UTC » Social Software - Venture Capital
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Preparing takenoko
12:14 UTC » Eating and Cooking - Japanese Culture
Takenoko are bamboo shoots. We're in takenoko season right now. You take a special hoe and walk around in a bamboo forest until you step on the tip of the takenoko. The best and most tender takenoko are the ones that are barely visible. As they grow larger, they become tougher. You have to then dig around the takenoko, find where it attaches to the root network and chop it at the right angle to get it to come off easily. Then you shuck them. After shucking, a very important step is the aku nuki. Many vegetables, particularly takenoko have a very bitter taste that comes from impurities (alkaline solution and dissolved elements) which is called aku. Aku nuki (removing the aku) is typically done stewing the takenoko with komenuka (rice husk powder) and Japanese red chili peppers. The best takenoko is tender takenoko picked and immediately stewed, left over night in the water, then prepared with rice, stew or some other typical Japanese dish in the morning. Yum.
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Social Software needs to show the seams
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April 19, 2004
'Lost in Translation' doesn't translate well in Japan
12:58 UTC » Japanese Culture - Movies
It appears that the Japanese agree that 'Lost in Translation' doesn't translate well in Japan - The Christian Science Monitor.
Interest in context of previous comments on post about racial stereotypes in the movie.
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April 18, 2004
Inba Standard Time
11:45 UTC » Japanese Culture - Joi's Diary
I've spent the last few days hanging out at home holding down the fort while Mizuka has been busy with other stuff. I'm still adjusting to the local time zone. It is primarily an agricultural area so everyone goes to bed at 8 pm and wakes up at 5 or 6 am. Yesterday, the a few of the women from the village came by at 7:30 am to tell me it was my turn to help clean the assembly hall. "When?" "Um... Now." "Sorry, I've got to take my friend to the station and take care of a few things." "Oh... Well, you can do it with the next group." "What day?" "It's not decided. They'll come by to pick you up on that day though." "Uhh.. Oh. OK."
Later, I visited the woman and apologized for not being able to help out with the assembly hall clean up. Then I wandered over to the mayor's house to say hi and told him that I'd be seeing the governor the next day. The mayor gave me a bunch of stewed takenoko (bamboo shoots). (Guess what we'll be having for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next few days...) I mumbled to him about how I had hit a rock and broke my tiller.
A few minutes after I was home, a farmer wandered over to my house. "Do you have a hammer? How about a crowbar?" Smack, crank, bang. The tiller was fixed. The farmer stayed for a chat and I grilled him about what I should be doing in the yard. "It always takes city folks two or three years before they figure out how to manage their yard." The climate in Japan causes it to be perfect for bugs and vegetation including weeds and trying to deal with the onslaught of bugs and weeds without chemicals is a challenge. When I told the farmer our organic aspirations, he smiled, shrugged and gave me that, "You won't last" look. He explained that he had worked on the construction of our house and told me some of the history and even pointed out which of the planks of pine came from the village.
This morning at 7:30 am, the mayor called to tell me that he had picked some takenoko this morning and prepared them for me to take to the governor's house and that I should pick them up around noon. "Uh.. OK."
A little jingle plays across the village PA at 11 am to tell everyone it's time for lunch and at 5 pm to tell everyone it's time to call it a day. On the one hand it's quite relaxing working in my yard with my puppies, bugs, birds and the occasional visitor as my only input source of information, on the other hand I realized that taking care of a yard and managing our relationship in the village is a full time job.
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April 16, 2004
Technorati support
11:09 UTC » Blogging about Blogging
You can now track who is linking to particular posts on my blog by clicking the Technorati link next to link next to trackbacks at the bottom of the post. The result is similar to trackbacks, but these links are links that have been discovered by Technorati, whereas trackbacks are links that are sent to me directly by other bloggers. Boing Boing recently started Technorati support and Dave Sifry explains how to add this to your blog. Since I don't get as many links as Boing Boing, clicking the Technorati link will often yield no results. I think we need to figure out a way to easily show how many links from Technorati, just like comments and trackbacks so people will know whether they should click or not. Adriaan's got it running on his blog using the Technorati API, but it's a bit dodgy still so I'm going to wait for a better solution. ;-)
In order to make these results more accurate, it would be great if people made a point to link as much as possible to the permalinks rather than the top level URL when referring to entries in blogs.
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A9
I've been messing around with A9, Amazon's search engine project. It integrates search inside the book, Alexa and the recommendation engine on Amazon so you can find web pages and Amazon will recommend other sites that you might like. Considering how "meta data savvy" Amazon is and how easily they can connect search to their core business, I can see A9 giving Google a pretty good run for their money.
Here's the "joi.ito.com" on Amazon. I'm not sure whether I like the fact that they list my address and phone number. Also, I find the data on Alexa a bit sketchy. The traffic chart for my site is very noisy and doesn't track my actual traffic logs and it says my site is "very slow". (It isn't THAT slow is it?) I hope that Alexa gets better now that it's integrated into Amazon. On more famous sites like Boing Boing, they have ratings and reviews.
Christian Lindholm has some good thoughts on A9 on his blog.
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April 15, 2004
Japanese hostages in Iraq freed
22:30 UTC » Japanese Policy - Warblogging
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ecto for Windows
19:02 UTC » Blogging about Blogging
Alex Hung has joined forces with us to make a Windows version of Adriaan's OS X blogging client ecto based on his original client, TypeWriter. Check out the ecto for Windows page for details on the beta test.
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April 13, 2004
Cosplay community site "Cure"
16:48 UTC » Japanese Culture - Photo - Social Software
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Bluetooth against Bush and intellectual property
14:14 UTC » US Policy and Politics - Wireless and Mobile
You better watch out Robert!Smart MobsBluetooth against Bush and intellectual propertyBluetooth Against Bush, a political organizing tool, received a cease and desist order from the Bluetooth SIG for trademark reasons.
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April 12, 2004
Iraqi man claims Japanese hostages will be executed one by one from later tonight
19:52 UTC » Japanese Policy - Japanese Politics - Warblogging
An Iraqi man claiming to have spoken to the kidnappers says the hostages will be executed one by one from later tonight if the demands are not met.
Via The Command Post
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U.S. Won't Let Company Test All Its Cattle for Mad Cow
14:08 UTC » Health and Medicine - Japanese Policy - US Policy and Politics
I don't know whether I trust the Japanese or the Americans more on this issue. The Japanese say they're testing all of the cows, but frankly, I have my doubts. On the other hand, the Americans won't even LET them test all of the cows so obviously, they're not all being tested. On the other hand, more people are dying in Iraq than from Mad Cow in Japan or the US so we should keep this in perspective...The New York TimesU.S. Won't Let Company Test All Its Cattle for Mad CowThe Department of Agriculture refused yesterday to allow a Kansas beef producer to test all of its cattle for mad cow disease, saying such sweeping tests were not scientifically warranted.
The producer, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to use recently approved rapid tests so it could resume selling its fat-marbled black Angus beef to Japan, which banned American beef after a cow slaughtered in Washington State last December tested positive for mad cow. The company has complained that the ban is costing it $40,000 a day and forced it to lay off 50 employees.
The department's under secretary for marketing and regulation, Bill Hawks, said in a statement yesterday that the rapid tests, which are used in Japan and Europe, were licensed for surveillance of animal health, while Creekstone's use would have "implied a consumer safety aspect that is not scientifically warranted."
via Plastic
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Abe wants to revise Constitution to use SDF in hostage crisis
13:59 UTC » Japanese Policy - Japanese Politics - Warblogging
Obviously the US doesn't have a monopoly on using tragedies and fear to push their political agenda. I personally am not against revising the constitution and I can see how it makes "political sense" to do it now, but it still bugs me. People make such stupid laws when they're emotional.Japan TodayAbe wants to revise Constitution to use SDF in hostage crisisMonday, April 12, 2004 at 06:47 JST
TOKYO — Shinzo Abe, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, called Sunday for amending the Constitution to enable the government to mobilize the Self-Defense Forces in such eventualities as the current hostage crisis in Iraq.
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Hostages Update
11:58 UTC » Japanese Politics - Warblogging
The Command PostHostages Released?Fox TV is reporting that at least eight hostages have been released and the three Japanese hostages are “safe.”
No confirmation on this yet, will follow up.
AljazeeraFate of Japanese hostages uncertainMonday 12 April 2004, 4:44 Makka Time, 1:44 GMT
The lives of three Japanese hostages in Iraq are still in jeopardy, with their captors apparently threatening to start killing them unless Japan withdraws its forces
So the Japanese were not among the released, but I wonder what "safe" means. Does anyone else have any news on this?AljazeeraEight foreign hostages freedSunday 11 April 2004, 21:39 Makka Time, 18:39 GMT
An Iraqi group says it has released eight foreign hostages following the intervention of Muslim scholars on their behalf.
A videotape aired by Aljazeera on Sunday showed eight frightened captives holding their passports and giving their nationalities. The hostages were seen guarded by masked men with arms.
The hostages were three from Pakistan, two Turks, an Indian, a Nepali and one from the Philippines.
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April 11, 2004
Making fun of changing social norms
15:05 UTC » Japanese Culture - Wireless and Mobile
The little Sega logo on the top right makes me think it's a Sega ad making fun of people who used to think games weren't for homes. Maybe they were copying the Pepsi/iTunes commercial and glorifying the criminals.Gen KanaiFunny keitai photo(the caption on the sticker can be loosely) translated as:
"Games should be played only in game arcades."(Which is a riff on the fact that it is rude to talk on the mobile phone on the train here in Japan.)
I wonder if the expected social norm of not talking on the phone in trains in Japan will change. If people learned that shouting into your phone doesn't really help and talked in a normal voice that might help. I don't see how that would be any different than two people talking to each other face to face from a noise pollution perspective. (I can see a bunch of other arguments here about why it's not the same thing as face to face, but I'm not going to go there.)
The fact that you have to have a sign forbidding it must mean that there is a gap between some people's behavior and hoped for behavior by a particular group of people with access to the authorities.
Anyway, I'm all for talking on the phone in trains.
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