The Zambia Open Business 2.0 will be launching soon. I have just completed an extensive research project into 'open' business-models that don't rely on overbroad copyright/patent/trademark rights or are based on free/open source software and open content under Creative Commons licenses.
The platform will be hosted by ning.com , which is built around openness, free services and free access. Developer licence is pending, but you can register in advance inorder to familiarise yourself with the service.
The publishing software which this site will use has been developed by the Public Knowledge Project which is freely distributing such systems to develop greater public and scholarly access to research. The Public Knowledge Project has offered free, open source software for the management and publishing of journals and conferences. 'Open Journal Systems' and 'Open Conference Systems' are being used in various places around the world to reduce publishing costs, improve management, enhance indexing, and increase access to knowledge on a global scale.
Zambia Open Business 2.0 is a platform for sharing innovative Open Business ideas - entrepreneurial ideas which means that the research on this website is freely available to all users on a global basis. This is an ambitious project dealing with social cultural development, technology I hope you will support the ideas and ideals behind the project by registering your ideas and comments.
"I think what they like most is our integrity and loyalty,' Aragoncillo said".
The manager of NASA's space shuttle program said workers may have accidentally damaged the section of foam that broke from Discovery's fuel tank during its launch. Wayne Hale also said repairs on the shuttle have been delayed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The shuttle will not resume flights until the foam insulation problem is solved, he said.Full Story...
Japanese company Murata Manufacturing created a bicycling robot to show off some of their various sensors. The robot tentatively named Murata Boy (although some articles are calling it Murata Seisaku-kun) is equipped with four types of sensors: two gyro sensors used to detect angular velocity and inclination; an ultrasonic sensor to detect obstacles; and a shock sensor to detect rough surfaces. The robot is connected to a PC via wireless LAN connection for forward, stop, and backward type commands and he can follow pre-programmed paths. It's about 2 foot tall and can reach speeds of 30 inches per second and can even balance while at a complete stop. The pictures show the robot driving down a thin balance beam without falling. Murata Boy is being demonstrated at the CEATEC Japan 2005 show that runs from Oct. 4-8 in Makuhari.
Definitely a political problem but I wonder, George Will, do you think it’s a manageable one for the White House especially if we don’t know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions.
"The reason was simple: It is entirely possible both that your enemies are out to get you and that you did exactly what you are being accused of doing. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive."
"Media Matters exposes Bennett: '[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down"
I'm not surprised at all that Google changed its mind,' said Mark Glaser, a columnist for the Online Journalism Review, an online newsletter by the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications. 'This whole thing was a big mistake on Google's part.'
I was prompted to write this article by the smiling face of a very happy man in Bali (see picture). He was ecstatically greeting the news that he was to be executed by firing squad for the brutal murder of large numbers of innocent holidaymakers whom he had never met. Some people in the court were shocked at his lack of remorse. But far from remorseful, his mood was one of obvious exhilaration. He punched the air, delirious with joy that he was to be "martyred," to use the jargon of his particular sub-culture of Gerin oil substance-abusers. For, make no mistake about it, this beatific smile, looking forward with unalloyed pleasure to the firing squad, is the smile of a junkie. Here we have the archetypal mainliner, doped up with hard, unrefined, unadulterated, high-octane Gerin oil.
First and most lamentably, intellectual property laws are created without any empirical evidence that they are necessary or that they will help rather than hurt. Second, the policymaking process has failed to keep track of the increasing importance of intellectual property rights to everything from freedom of expression and communications policy to economic development or access to educational materials. We still make law as though it were just a deal brokered between industry groups – balancing the interests of content companies with those of broadcasters, for example. The public interest in competition, access, free speech and vigorous technological markets takes a back seat. What matters is making the big boys happy. Finally, communications networks are increasingly built around intellectual property rules, as law regulates technology more and more directly; not always to good effect.
What will the Google tools offer consumers, advertisers and the entertainment folks? And what will be the response of privacy advocates to the advertisement targeting?
"I'd say a good engineer learns from a good thing, not to say they copy it," says one member of community discussion site Digg.
"It'd also be decently safe to say that [Apple boss Steve] Jobs likes his old school design work, think about the iMac G4 for a sec; you've all heard the classic desk lamp reference. I could be really off base here, but look at how [animation firm] Pixar depicts certain common appliances/cars in films, pretty retro."
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be:
And that which is done is that which shall be done:
And there is no new thing under the sun."
"I understand how empowering strappy stilettos, butt jeans, bare bellies, and camisole tops are for the modern woman. It is all about taking back the sex, taking back the gaze, reclaiming the control of what is cute, what is hot, what is sexy, it about taking back control, reclaiming feelings of pride in the body, pride in the shape and tan earned from an active, outdoorsy life. That's all fine and good. Unfortunately, we men never got the memo. I never got the memo."
Each day, today's regular New York Times op-ed columns will be noted, each with a post title indicating the name of the columnist and the Times's title for the column. As they become available-- usually within a few days-- at least one link will be added in the body of each post to a syndicated copy of the column from a news source that doesn't charge for access.
The Times continues to insists that this loophole won't last long...
I take full responsibility for my actions. I also accept that there are various personal issues that I need to address and have started taking the difficult, yet necessary, steps to resolve them.
"I want to apologise to all of the people I have let down because of my behaviour which has reflected badly on my family, friends, co-workers, business associates and others.
"I am trying to be positive, and the support and love I have received are invaluable."
Some researchers are so impressed by the depth and power of strong language that they are using it as a peephole into the architecture of the brain, as a means of probing the tangled, cryptic bonds between the newer, "higher" regions of the brain in charge of intellect, reason and planning, and the older, more "bestial" neural neighborhoods that give birth to our emotions.
Researchers point out that cursing is often an amalgam of raw, spontaneous feeling and targeted, gimlet-eyed cunning. When one person curses at another, they say, the curser rarely spews obscenities and insults at random, but rather will assess the object of his wrath, and adjust the content of the "uncontrollable" outburst accordingly.
Because cursing calls on the thinking and feeling pathways of the brain in roughly equal measure and with handily assessable fervor, scientists say that by studying the neural circuitry behind it they are gaining new insights into how the different domains of the brain communicate - and all for the sake of a well-venomed retort.
Watching Rita (julie Walters) put Frank Bryant's(Michael Caine) emotionally crippled professor consistently on the spot is wonderful and insightful fun. This is probably because most of us, as adults, can whole-heartedly relate to him. He is lost, adrift in his own inadequacies and bathing in the boiling funk of his own cynicism. He is old, tired and defeated. Life has almost crushed him. Watching Walters' Rita resurrect him becomes the most wondrous and life-affirming story the screen may have ever given us.
The suit starts with the blunt description: "Deleese Williams is considered ugly" and says one doctor promised her "a Hollywood smile like Cindy Crawford."
To prepare for the show, the producers sent a crew to Texas in January 2004 to interview Williams and her family.
The suit claims the "Extreme Makeover" crew manipulated Williams' sister, Kellie, into making cruel statements about Williams' looks.
The night before Williams was to begin her makeover, the show's producers told her it would take too long for work on her jaw to heal. They canceled her appearance and sent Williams home where Kellie, distraught over what she had said about her sister, eventually killed herself, according to the suit.
"Sometimes Deleese blames herself for Kellie's death," the suit said.
Addressing the Fordham University School of Law in Manhattan, occasionally forcing back tears, he said that in the intervening years, politicians "of every persuasion" had gotten better at applying pressure on the conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. He called it a "new journalism order."
He said this pressure -- along with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" coverage, the advent of 24-hour cable competition and the chase for ratings and demographics -- has taken its toll on the news business. "All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms," Rather said.
" Women want intimacy with men, men want fantasy sex with porn stars, and the porn stars presumably just want a paycheck. No one's getting much pleasure."
What makes us intelligent--the ability to reason and learn--is staying the same and will never fundamentally change because of technology. On the other hand, technology, from pocket calculators to the Internet, is radically changing the notion of the intelligence necessary to function in the modern world.
On Katrina: The only mistake we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government...
On The Anti-War Movement: Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real anti-war movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an anti-war rally...
On Bush's Low Poll Numbers: We have not been good at explaining the success in Iraq. Polls go up and down and don't mean anything...
On Iraq: There has been a big difference in the region. Iraq will transform the Middle East...
On Judy Miller And Plamegate: Judy Miller is in jail for reasons I don't really understand...
On Joe Wilson: Joe Wilson and I attend the same church but Joe goes to the wacky mass...
Don't argue with a fool, people might not notice the difference
Oh, look. A gender based toilet seat product. How entertaining, I can hear the "LOL's" coming already. This device is placed on the inside of the top toilet seat. When the seat is up and it detects motion, there will be a red light illuminating a bulls-eye in the water, you know, for competitive urinators. When the seat the down there is a green light illuminating the seat so females can gently guide their way to the seat. If all women would just start using the P-Mate we could avoid having to deal with stupid gadgets like this.
As you may or may not be aware, Troy Gregory, a University of Idaho Journalism student has been making the rounds on the internet lately. His misguided 'Mixtape of Love' has become a virtual instant smash with it's painful-at-times declaration of love for his girlfriend of six months Melissa. Now, Eyemarten has remixed Troy's mixtape of love. It is chock full of Will Farrell, Bruce Campbell, DJ Shadow riffs, and of course... the master himself... Troy.
This was bound to happen. Seeing someone in so much pain and finding it hilarious is cruel, I know.
"In fact, one attempt to quash San Francisco's gay marriage law last year was dismissed on the grounds that the plaintiff had used a semicolon instead of a conjunction. A conservative group had asked the court to order the city to "cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to and/or solemnising marriages of same-sex couples; to show cause before the court." As the San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren explained, the word "or" should have been used instead of the semicolon. "I am not trying to be petty here," he told reporters, "but it is a big deal... That semicolon is a big deal."
Perhaps the general loss of old-school learning - memorised historical dates, multiplication tables, the odd stanza or sonnet - has sent a frisson of intellectual status anxiety through the newly middle-aged middle classes. And what could be more unnerving than a slipshod grasp of punctuation?
“We won the desktop. We won the server. We will win the Web. We will move fast, we will get there. We will win the Web.”
The Web is not a prize to be won, and Mr. Ballmer’s attitude is deplorable in the light of what the Web means to the world, to users, to designers and developers and to put it into Microsoft parlance, customers.
The Web belongs to everyone. The Web’s core vision and value is to be platform independent. Microsoft has no right to think it can win a tool that is for the people, of the people, and ultimately - by the people.
No Mr. Ballmer, you will never win the Web for one very good reason: We the people will make sure you never do.
"The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a 'tipping point' beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically."
"The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out."
JUMP TO FULL POST
Fashion store H&M says it has no plans to ditch"regretful"supermodel Kate Moss over allegations of drug abuse. The Daily Mirror released photographs apparently showing model Kate Moss taking cocaine."We strongly disapprove of her actions.
"We think that this is very unfortunate, of course, and we have strict policies for engaging models.
"They should be healthy, wholesome and sound, and we are strongly against drug abuse - we have made this clear to Kate Moss.
"After hearing her explanation and her regret we have decided for the time being to continue the campaign."
In a city known for being big on building big, MGM Mirage is giving the public its first look at the biggest thing ever built here -- or maybe anywhere."This is the most expensive privately funded project in U.S. history," said MGM Mirage CEO Terry Lanni. "You could take Rockefeller Center and throw in SoHo and Times Square, and this is bigger."
"In a way, blogs serve as oral history," Bill Schreiner, vice president of AOL Community, said in a statement. "When it comes to sharing blogs and reading other people's blogs, we like to connect with people, learn about their lives, and find common ground. There's no pressure to write about a particular subject or keep blogs maintained a certain way, and it's not necessarily a popularity contest."
About 31 percent of bloggers said that, in times of high anxiety, instead of seeking any counseling, they either write in their blogs or read blogs of others facing similar issues, the report said.
In years past, major powers struggled to win the hearts and minds of people by maneuvering in what Kipling called "the great game." The new great game is playing out not as geopolitical intrigue, but in a egalitarian dance that transcends borders and is reshaping social reality, says John Battelle in his new book The Search.
And so the Bush Era ended definitively on Sept. 2, the day Bush first toured the Gulf Coast States after Hurricane Katrina. There was no magic moment with a bullhorn. The utter failure of federal relief efforts had by then penetrated the country's consciousness. Yesterday's resignation of FEMA Director Michael Brown put an exclamation point on the failure.
Welcome to life under the Washington Post-New York Times swap. As part of a secret arrangement formed more than 10 years ago, the Post and Times send each other copies of their next day's front pages every night. The formal sharing began as a courtesy between Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. and former Times Executive Editor Joseph Lelyveld in the early 1990s and has continued ever since.
I did some maths to prove that blogging is a legitimate business to be in.
1. Take US$100,000 = GBP £54,688 (at current exchange rate)
2. This is £149.83 earning every single day of the year.
3. Broken down into a ‘normal’ working week (5 days p/w, 48 weeks per year), Darren would either have to earn about £32 an hour, for a 35-hour week, or else work an 18 hour day for about £12.65 an hour.
£12.65 per hour is a low-end professional wage in Britain. Even £32 per hour is not an extortionate wage for the sort of work that is involved in pro-blogging.
So anyone who sneers at pro-blogging as some sort of walk in the park, or get-rich-quick scheme, ought to check out the raw figures, when broken down. Damn hard work for fair remuneration.
Of course, the earnings could yet go far higher, and deservedly so.
The maths may not be great, but you get the idea.
"What were you going to do with the rest of your afternoon, offer jobs to Richard Stallman [founder of the Free Software Foundation] and Linus Torvalds [the 'father' of Linux]? Or were you going to stick to something easier, like talking Pope Benedict into presiding at a Satanist orgy? ... On the day *I* go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone will go superconductive."
