Samwise rides again

Interesting Article.

If you are wanting to dig a well in Bangladesh, you will need to know how deep to dig to avoid poisoning the water with arsnic. Information is available via SMS as part of a project called WellTracker.

“Bangladesh once had one of the lowest distributions of telephone access in the world. That was before Grameen Phone, part of the micro-finance juggernaut, Grameen Bank. The Village Phone program provides microloans, mostly to women, who are given handsets, and aims to connect 30,000 villages in rural Bangladesh. With almost 10 million other phone customers, the infrastructure has been laid out to help locate safe water throughout the country.”

If Grameen Bank sounds familiar, it might be because it’s founder was recently presented with the Nobel Peace Prize.

The computer center is empty,
Silent except for the whine of the cooling fans.
I walk the rows of CPUs,
My skin prickling with magnetic flux.
I open a door, cold and hard,
And watch the lights dancing on the panels.
A machine without soul, men call it,
But its soul is the sweat of my comrades,
Within it lie the years of our lives,
Disappointment, friendship, sadness, joy,
The algorithmic exultations,
The long nights filled with thankless toil,
I hear the echoes of sighs and laughter,
And in the darkened offices
The terminals shine like stars.

I’ve mentioned this before, but Amnesty have put out another press release as a Call to Bloggers.

“Amnesty International today issued a ‘Call to Bloggers’, asking them to get online and stand up for freedom of expression on the internet. The organisation says this is a critical time when fundamental rights – particularly freedom of expression and privacy – are under threat from governments that want to control what their citizens say, and what information they can access.”

“Amnesty’s International’s statement also coincides with an urgent appeal on behalf of a blogger in Iran who was detained this month. Kianoosh Sanjari was arrested earlier this month while reporting on clashes between security forces and supporters of Shi’a cleric Ayatollah Boroujerdi. He is being held incommunicado and Amnesty International fears that he may be at risk of torture or ill-treatment.”

“`Freedom of expression online is a right, not a privilege – but it’s a right that needs defending. We’re asking bloggers worldwide to show their solidarity with web users in countries where they can face jail just for criticising the government.`”

“Amnesty International is also highlighting the cases of prisoners of conscience, imprisoned for the expression of their peaceful views online.”

“Chinese journalist Shi Tao used his Yahoo! account to email a US-based website about an internal government directive instructing journalists how to handle media coverage of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for `illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities.`”

“Tunisian lawyer and human rights defender Mohammed Abbou is serving a three and a half year prison sentence largely for publishing articles critical of the Tunisian authorities on the internet.”

“Vietnamese political dissident Truong Quoc Huy was first arrested in October 2005 with two other young people after chatting on a democracy and human rights website. His whereabouts remain unknown and no charges have been publicised.”

Amnesty are asking for Bloggers to add certain banned content to their own sites, amongst other things.

More information can be found at Amnesty’s website, or the dedicated website they have put up, http://irrepressible.info/.

It is also worth mentioning the Hacktivismo Declaration, which is definatly worth a read, in fact the main Hacktivismo site is always worth mentioning.

There was an article in the Observer this year written by Amnesty’s UK Director, for more information.

UPDATE : Brad is on it. Big up.

UPDATE : MicroSoft consider pulling out of China over imprisoned bloggers.

“When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
after all I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
after all I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
after all I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.”

There is some disagreement as to wether this is for today or tomorrow, but apparently the first recorded use of a getaway car happened in Paris on the 26th or 27th October 1901.

Amazing eh ? Nowadays we just accept getaway cars as the norm.

I can admit when I’m wrong, just not so much when I’m drunk.

Videos of first time users experiencing the Wii-mote.

Yeah, I got one on pre-order, if you were planning on seeing me, make sure it’s before the Wii-lease or you might be out-of-luck ;O)

Amazing story from Dilbert creator Scott Adams, about how he managed after 18 months of Spasmodic Dysphonia, to regain his ability to speak.

“I lost my voice about 18 months ago. Permanently. It’s something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia. Essentially a part of the brain that controls speech just shuts down in some people“

“I asked my doctor – a specialist for this condition – how many people have ever gotten better. Answer: zero.”

“The weirdest part of this phenomenon is that speech is processed in different parts of the brain depending on the context. So people with this problem can often sing but they can’t talk.”

“But have I mentioned I’m an optimist?

Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn’t mean I can’t be the first. So every day for months and months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in foreign accents. I tried “singing” some words that were especially hard.

My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That’s consistent with any expert’s best guess of what’s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It’s somewhat mysterious.)”

“I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadn’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.”

“Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Not 100%, but close, like a car starting up on a cold winter night. And so I talked that night. A lot. And all the next day. A few times I felt my voice slipping away, so I repeated the nursery rhyme and tuned it back in. By the following night my voice was almost completely normal.”

“Only good news today. I don’t want to hear anything else.”

OK, I have a small confession to make.

I never did Halloween as a kid.

Never went trick or even treating on October 31st of any year.

Admittedly it’s a bigger deal in the U.S than it is in Blighty, but all the same my Halloween experience in none.

So as I’ll be spending my first U.S-based Halloween next week, I’m a bit stuck on this whole trick or treat thing.

I do know however, from experience, if you’re not home, kids are keen on vandalism, maybe not good upstanding American kids, but I wouldn’t put it passed them. As much as I like children, and I do, I know deep down they are all lil’ bastards.

Long story short, unless anyone can explain the trick or treat thing, I’m sticking to what I know, I’ve put together a selection of music which is available for download for the next week.

UPDATE : The files have been deleted from the server.

“Camilla Batmanghelidjh, of the charity Kid’s Company, said men were usually seen as the `irresponsible` ones who got girls pregnant and `walked off`.

But black women were also to blame as they had a culture of rejecting men and being `cruel` towards them, she said.

`I actually think the mothers are hugely responsible because they have created a culture where they can get rid of the adolescent boy.`

`They can get rid of the male partner, they can survive on their own.`

`Often people think it’s the males who are the culprits, the irresponsible people who actually come along and make these girls pregnant and walk off.`

`And they underestimate the level of rejection and cruelty from the females towards the males.`

`I actually think the males are really vulnerable and it starts in adolescence.`

`The minute the adolescent boy begins to look slightly like a male and behave like a male, often the mother wants that young male banished from the house. A hate relationship often develops.`