Conches

Asia Relief Fund - Salesforce.com Is Matching Donations

Salesforce.com Foundation is matching individual donations up to $5,000 for a total of up to $250,000 for Asia Disaster Relief.

Google Provides User's Identity to Indian Governement

This is a real morass, or best case scenario, a slippery slope.  An individual citizen wrote (just words) what seems to be very inflammatory statements about an Indian gov official.  This qualifies, under the Indian sedition laws, as an imprisonable offense. The person who wrote the statements is responsible to know that his statements were illegal.  This would be the benefit of the doubt version of what happened. 

The next thing that happened was that Google gave up the identity of the writer to the Indian government and that person will potentially spend 5 yrs in jail and throw away a 22yr career in IT. 

Do we care?

clipped from www.webguild.org Google provided Indian police with information that led to the arrest of 22 year IT professional, Rahul Vaid, on Friday (May 16, 2008). Vaid posted derogatory content about Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on a orkut community named — “I hate Sonia Gandhi”. The messages were circulated through an email address – Rahulvaidindia@gmail.com, which is operated by Google's Gmail. Monday, May 19, 2008

RIAA sues MP3Tunes for providing remote storage

The RIAA believes it is illegal to make a copy of your music.  Period

clipped from gizmodo.com cloud computing EMI Says You Can't Backup Your Music Online Cloud computing is supposed to be the next big tech revolution. One of the basic ideas, for the uninitiated, is that all of your apps and files (docs, pictures, music) are stored online in a digital locker, and you can access them from anywhere, no matter what computer you're using, thus heralding the end of the localized desktop, Windows, etc. MP3Tunes provides a digital locker for backing up music files—it's not a covert file-sharing thing, you can't share a locker with someone, so it's really only for personal backup/place-shifting. The record label EMI says it's illegal and is suing them to turn over all the music stored by the site's users. More »

There goes the Network Neighborhood: RIAA and MPAA in bed with ISP's

Special content delivery rates for RIAA and MPAA and lots of content and support for anti-net neutrality legislation. And, this back room deal is struck after all the corporate players didn't bother to show up at the FCC's public hearing at Stanford (http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/04/21/2250207.shtml)

clipped from www.variety.com MPAA, RIAA going steady with ISPs Leaders say relationship will continue By WILLIAM TRIPLETT The content industry's budding cooperative relationship with broadband service providers will continue to develop even after their current principal common interest ceases to exist, top execs said Thursday. As part of an Institute for Policy Innovation panel addressing online piracy, leaders of Hollywood, the recording industry and the wireless industry touted the beginnings of a long-term relationship built on a foundation of making the Internet a thriving market for legal content and a dead end for bootleggers. "We're all in this together," said MPAA chairman-chief exec Dan Glickman. "We're moving toward a world where all our interests align," said RIAA chairman-CEO Mitch Bainwol.

Zimababwe and the election - Obama:Good :: Clinton:Bad

To date, I have been approaching the democratic election like this.  Barrack Obama is the best candidate for the job.  However, Hillary Clinton would be a good president and not just the best of two bad choices. 

I no longer believe this to be true.  Hillary Clinton would be bad for America and, worse still, bad for the world.  We are a nation in decline.  I am not apocalyptic about this assessment.  To begin with, I do not believe that America specifically is necessary.  However, we are massively influential and recently, our behavior is ethically and morally reprehensible.  This has lead to decline in general.  I believe that a competent visionary leader, a truth-teller, not a game player but an leader, could do a tremendous amount of good. 

I believe that Barrack Obama could be that leader. 

Further, I know that John McCain would continue down the path set by the Bush administration and that option, I believe, will put the planet in exponentially increasing decline. 

As for Hillary Clinton, her equivocation, dishonesty and traditional political style would be able to maintain status quo at best.  She represents nothing new to a world that desperately needs something new.

The current situation in Zimbabwe, and the candidates statements, is the best example that I have seen yet of the difference between these candidates.

Who are we, PII?

Will we watch this deteriorate in to all out war?  Will we fuel it or will we work to quell? 

What defines us as civilized? What binds us as human? 

I have no illusions about the mystical powers of capitalism's democracy. Spending does not constitute engagement. "Our" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are choices we made, lives we elected to spend. We are still unclear as to what our lives are buying. "Ask not what your country can do TO you..."

Who are we...?

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

MDC urges intervention in 'war'

Zimbabwe's opposition is suspicious of the motives for the recount

 

African leaders and the UN must act to ensure democracy triumphs in Zimbabwe, says a key opposition figure.

MDC secretary general Tendai Biti said Zimbabwe was now "in a war situation" following disputed polls on 29 March.

He said 10 people had been killed, hundreds injured and thousands displaced in post-election violence.

After a request from the ruling party, electoral officials are conducting a partial recount of the parliamentary vote, won by the MDC.

Votes are being recounted in 23 constituencies, a process election officials say could take more than three days to complete.

Three weeks after polls were held, the presidential result is still unknown.

The opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai - who has fled the country - insists he won the presidential vote outright, and has demanded that the results be released.

In an effort to not write about Network Neutrality

Over the last year or so, I have radically change how I interact with music.  I use, almost exclusively, Internet "radio" (Rhapsody, Slacker, Pandora, Last.fm).  And if I buy music I tend to do it at Itunes or Amazon.  However, that is not really what this post is about. 

Because I use the Internet to find music, and I tend to like "world" music, I have had some great luck finding new music.  The latest band's that I have become addicted to are Calle 13 and M.I.A. 

Calle 13 plays an art school version of reggaeton.  Very intellegent.  Very inventive.  Far more interesting than most of what is coming out of the US.

M.I.A. has become an underground dance music sensation.  The amazing part is that she is from Sri Lanka and was forced to leave with her family because of her father's work with the independence movement.  I don't want to pretend to know anything about her our her experience, but I would like more people to listen and, in particular, to watch.  Her videos (3 embedded below) are remarkable.  I would love to here what you think.

Poverty and Hunger: Who are We?

The front pages are full of evidence of failed policy across the world.  In the San Francisco Chronical, a study confirms that poverty is bad for you.  The NY Time describes a global food shortage.  Our global policy is driven by avarice.  How can we move to globe that serves the people who live on it.

 

clipped from www.sfgate.com

Study spotlights bleak effects of poverty

Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, April 18, 2008

Oakland -- A black child in West Oakland is much more likely to be born prematurely and into poverty than a white child in the Oakland hills. In school, he's less likely to read at grade level and more likely to drop out.

As an adult, he's more prone to diabetes, heart disease, cancer or stroke. And he can expect to die nearly 15 years earlier.

Illustrating the profound societal impact of chronic poverty, a new report released Thursday by the Alameda County Public Health Department documents health disparities by neighborhood, income and race. It highlights a widening social, economic and health gap in the county - as poverty goes up, life expectancy goes down.

"The data are overwhelming," said Dr. Tony Iton, the county's public health director. "It is shocking. It is not unique to West Oakland. You see it in Bayview-Hunters Point, in Richmond, in Cleveland and Detroit."

clipped from www.nytimes.com

Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

In a garbage dump in Port-au-Prince, people recently scavenged for food. More Photos >

By MARC LACEY

Published: April 18, 2008

 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti’s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country’s prime minister packing.

Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.

Why Aggressive Public Criticism of China Should Continue

A shipment of arms was sent from China to Zimbabwe.  There is no context in which this is supportable. The fact that the US is, also, a bad international citizen is not a good enough, or even a elevant reason to withhold criticism.

A huge thank you to the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union for defying the official S. African position not to intervene.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

Mugabe attacks opposition and UK

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has denounced the opposition and former colonial power Britain in his first speech since the disputed elections

South African dock workers are refusing to unload a shipment of arms from China destined for Zimbabwe.

The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union said it did "not agree with the position of the government not to intervene".

Reports say the Chinese cargo ship An Yue Jiang, anchored off Durban, is carrying 3m rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds.

Salesforce.com and Google

Why Salesforce.com and Google Apps will Change the Game for Nonprofits

Nonprofit organizations should not need to deal with the plumbing of technology.  They should be able to move ALL of their resources on to the Internet (into the cloud) and concentrate their technical and creative talents on making the world a better place.  To date, this has been nothing more than a nice idea. However, that all changed yesterday. There are a lot of resources out there about exactly what is available and exactly what it will and will not do.

Read the full post...

Google App Engine

Now everything changes, if Google can tie a bow on this pretty package.

Google Apps
Google App Engine
Google Gears

Goodness.

clipped from googleappengine.blogspot.com Introducing Google App Engine + our new blog At tonight's Campfire One we launched a preview release of Google App Engine -- a developer tool that enables you to run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. The goal is to make it easy to get started with a new web app, and then make it easy to scale when that app reaches the point where it's receiving significant traffic and has millions of users. Google App Engine gives you access to the same building blocks that Google uses for its own applications, making it easier to build an application that runs reliably, even under heavy load and with large amounts of data. The development environment includes the following features: Dynamic webserving, with full support of common web technologies Persistent storage (powered by Bigtable and GFS with queries, sorting, and transactions) Automatic scaling and load balancing Google APIs for authenticating users and sending email Fully featured local development environment