Home >> United States & Canada Media & Internet Hollywood’s War on Whitey
Kyle Bristow - 7/27/2009
That which is viewed as being bad for humanity oftentimes has war declared on it by the powers that be. President Lyndon Johnson announced a “war on poverty,” President Richard Nixon announced a “war on drugs,” President George W. Bush declared a “war on terrorism”—it seems that society is at war with virtually everything: AIDS, cancer, crime, starvation, genocide, global warming, obesity—the list goes on and on. The Economics of Michael Jackson
Prof. Peter Morici - 7/27/2009
The electronic mass media has created two interconnected phenomenon that give us personalities like Michael Jackson. Don't Believe in Truth? Don't Be a Reporter
Prof. Barry Rubin - 7/27/2009
A reporter just wrote me a letter that contains a single sentence which I think reflects on why the Western world is in such trouble today. After understandably discussing such real problems of reporting as short deadlines, complex issues, and the duty of the reporter to report what people say, the letter concludes with this sentence: “And when it comes to the Middle East, one man’s [obscenity deleted] is another man’s truth.” Neoconservatism and Nepotism: John Podhoretz at Commentary
Prof. Nicholas Stix - 4/8/2009
In the history of the Jews in America, January 1, 2009 is a day which will live in infamy. For that was the day on which John Podhoretz took the reins as editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine. NY Times' Cartoon: Political Misunderstanding, not Hatred
Prof. Barry Rubin - 3/27/2009
It is silly to say that the Pat Oliphant Cartoon in the New York Times and many newspapers around the world is antisemitic. But it’s also a bad mistake because the cartoon deserves serious analysis to show just how dangerous and wrong it is, in ways that not only hurt Israel but all Western democracies. It's Worse Than a Crime, It's Blundering Analysis
Prof. Barry Rubin - 3/24/2009
The problem, as we see repeatedly, with much media coverage of issues involving Israel is the way the story is defined. There need not be any sense of bias by a reporter. Merely copying what other journalists do or from a specific ideological framework—not because reporters have preconceptions but because they make far less effort than in the past to balance them—leads to a conception of the story that is skewed. Stewart vs. Cramer
Prof. Peter Morici - 3/18/2009
I can’t attend church these days, never mind be interviewed, without being asked: Why We Hear the Muslim World All Too Well
Prof. Barry Rubin - 2/10/2009
Message to New York Times: Read your own op-ed page. And the Winner of the Academy Award for Most Politically Correct Lead Actor is…
Prof. Nicholas Stix - 1/28/2009
Sean Penn!
When the ceremony is held on February 22, expect Penn to win the Oscar for his biopic vehicle, Milk, about San Francisco homosexual activist-politician, Harvey Milk, who was slain while in office. (The nominees will be announced on Thursday.)
In 1977 Milk, who initially financed his activism through the photography shop he owned, was elected, on his third try, to the Board of Supervisors in the city by the bay. On November 27, 1978, he was assassinated by Dan White, a 32-year-old former policeman and fireman who had been el... Improvilating Wikipedia: Monsters of the Midway
Prof. Nicholas Stix - 1/8/2009
The Wikipedia entry, “Monsters of the Midway,” which has not been touched since November 15, 2008, is supposedly about the Chicago Bears, whose historic nickname, going back to circa 1940, is “the Monsters of the Midway,” although that name has only been used when the team was dominant. In the third paragraph however, the entry gets kidnapped, and taken away to the Wikipedia Zone: None Dare Call It News Coverage
Prof. Barry Rubin - 12/29/2008
I realized something important when reading a relatively marginal feature story from the Associated Press. Media's Pretend Objectivity and the Electorate
Tom McLaughlin - 12/3/2008
It was a bad week. Couldn't start my column on Sunday like I usually do because the hard drive on my laptop crashed while I was away for the weekend. Monday morning I got it outlined on my back-up machine before leaving for school, but after school I had to drive a hundred miles (round trip) to drop my main machine off with the nearest Apple-certified technician. Tuesday after school I picked it up and hurried home to vote before the polls closed. Election results were depressing for conservatives like me. Wednesday morning I was pulled over for speeding on the way to school. Been driving that road the same way for 31 years, but oh well. I was going 55 in a 45. Significance of Michael Jackson's Conversion to Islam
Syed Ali Mujtaba, Ph.D. - 11/26/2008
Pop star Michael Jackson has converted to Islam at a ceremony in Los Angeles recently. Jackson , whose once amazing career has been eclipsed in recent years, is said to have changed his name to Mikaeel, one of the angels of Allah name and taken the 'Shahada' or a declaration to believe in Islam. Pat Buchanan: Guardian of True Freedom and Defender of Western Civilization
Kyle Bristow - 11/3/2008
Yesterday, November 2, is Pat Buchanan’s birthday, and I felt it necessary to write a brief essay to extol the contributions he has made to American conservatism, for very few people have contributed to conservative philosophy to such a degree as has he. Deconstructing Star Wars
Kyle Bristow - 10/28/2008
Ever since the middle of the 20th century, Marxists have infiltrated Hollywood to promote communist propaganda. Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan, who at the time was the head of the Screen Actors Guild, both testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that the threat of communism in America’s film industry was a serious one. Adolphe Mejou, an actor who was a member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals—an anti-communist organization—cooperated with HUAC and went as far on one occasion to proclaim, “I am a witch hunter if witches are communists... Nationalism and Hollywood
Kyle Bristow - 10/12/2008
Hollywood has a tendency to produce films that use postmodernism, cultural relativism, and other tactics invented by the Marxist Frankfurt School to slander the West. However leftist Hollywood may be, one of the movies they produced in 2006, "300", is anything but left-wing. AP Blames Israel For Making Palestinians Want to Destroy It
Prof. Barry Rubin - 9/30/2008
In an article of September 20, Ali Daraghmeh, "Army says troops kill Palestinian with firebomb," there is a long discussion of the current state of the peace process. Let's be clear: virtually nobody in Israel who is not speaking as an official government spokesman believes that there is any chance that there will be a peace soon with the Palestinians. The great majority of them place most or all the blame on the Palestinians. In addition, most people in political life who would say publicly that there is a chance for peace have the opposite view in private conversations. Microsoft's Student and Encarta Premium 2009
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/29/2008
Homework assignments are the bane of most students I know (not to mention their hard-pressed and nescient parents). This is mainly because of the tedious and mind-numbing chores of data mining and composition. Additionally, as knowledge multiplies every 5-10 years, few parents and teachers are able to keep up. Things We're Not Told
Prof. Barry Rubin - 9/18/2008
In the olden days, when night watchmen patrolled the streets of towns, they had a standard chant: "Ten o'clock and all is well!" Sleep soundly; nothing's wrong. The Google Domination
Naseem Javed - 9/9/2008
Frankly speaking, stop the guesswork and open heartedly accept that it’s Google’s turn now, as the next decade clearly belongs to Google, best not to resist and go with the flow. As a company, it’s amazing how it started and what it’s done and where it’s now headed. There have been a lot of such great success stories in the past, from Coca-Cola to General Motors, and from IBM to Microsoft, but this one had its phenomenal speed with extraordinary accuracy and extremely high profitability. When all this is combined it has clearly cut a different path over the rest. The Billion-Dollar Domain Babies
Naseem Javed - 7/16/2008
The latest ICANN plan to allow the global populace to assemble an entire domain name like www.yourname.yourname as their free-choice is a revolutionary and timely decision. This now open doors to cyber-brands like my.ibm, hotel.chicago, it.jobs, play.poker, fly.usa or go.dell and applicants will submit a non-refundable fee of $100-500K USD for each name idea and the businesses are already jumping to get started. The Domain Blast
Naseem Javed - 7/6/2008
Now you can buy any domain with any suffix. If a dotcom is gone, so what? For a cost, you can create your own suffix, any letters and any name. Propaganda, Lies, and Wire Service Articles
Prof. Barry Rubin - 7/2/2008
Today, journalism students, in our course, "Absolutely Introductory Basic Rules of Journalism, we will discuss the absolutely introductory basic rules of journalism. The Death of the Written Word and the Rebirth of Speech
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 5/20/2008
Well into the 16th century, people in a quest for knowledge approached scholars who, in turn, consulted musty, hand-written tomes in search of answers. Gutenberg's press cut out these middlemen. The curious now obtained direct access to the accumulated wisdom of millennia in the form of printed, bound books. Still, gatekeepers (such as publishers and editors) persisted as privileged intermediaries between authors, scientists, and artists and their audiences. Anti-Semitic people in Associated Press
Sunita Paul - 5/11/2008
Following the publication of my recent article titled 'Press Under Attack in Bangladesh', which was published in a number of global newspapers, I received several mails from various individuals and journalists from Bangladesh expressing thanks for putting focus on this extremely important issue, while a journalist named Ms. Parveen Ahmed, who works with Associated Press (AP) in Dhaka (Bangladesh) as well an unidentified individual named Syful Islam sent me two separate mails, almost at the same time expressing their anti-Semitic attitude. The Domain Exchange
Naseem Javed - 4/18/2008
Forget the bricks and mortar for a minute, and just dream of owning a universal domain name identity in cyberspace, along the likes of priceline.com, food.com, creditcards.com or cheapflights.com, as such identities are valued in tens of millions and continue to double in price every year. The entire domain name industry has advanced to a more mature level, which now fully recognizes the super value of having a generic globally recognizable domain identity as a true cyber-real-estate asset. But the name game in this current race must be played under the correct laws, as most of these assets sometimes simply evaporate into thin air. Media: Pledges Not Made, Fairness Not Met
Prof. Barry Rubin - 3/4/2008
Keep repeating to yourself what the media institution's spokespeople tell us: Coverage is fair, coverage is fair, coverage is fair. But as you do so be sure not to look at the actual articles. Strangulation in the Dark: Palestine, Somalia, and the American Mainstream Media
Abukar Arman - 3/3/2008
Whenever the media fails to press and keep the powerful at check the inevitable consequence is prolonged oppression, lethal destruction, and radicalized insurgency. Aside from Baghdad, nowhere is such consequence more evident than in Gaza and Mogadishu. No Country for Old Men
Prof. John Press - 2/12/2008
The movie No Country For Old Men was fantastic. It raised important philosophical issues and refused the easy happy ending. The movie follows people in pursuit of a sociopathic hit man and features a lot of random violence. But the violence is not gratuitous as it is the point of the film; extremely brutal actions are an increasingly common part of our culture. This must alter our sense of this world; we should expect to increasingly see life as more arbitrary, violent and out of our control. One Journalist’s Experience With the Media Elite: Gangsters, Cadavers and Misinformation
Ron Chepesiuk - 2/12/2008
Last December, the U.S.´s Federal Communications (FCC) pushed through new rules that will unleash a torrent of further media consolidation and wipe out independent voices in cities already woefully short on local news and investigative journalism. Six major companies own most of the media outlets in the U.S., and since 1995, the number of companies owning commercial TV stations has declined by 40 percent. This trend is reflected globally, as News Corp, Viacom and the other multinationals continue to gobble up media companies. Not Even Pretending to be Fair: The New York Times On Gaza
Prof. Barry Rubin - 2/7/2008
The New York Times coverage of the Middle East, especially Steven Erlanger (who will soon be leaving) has often been terrible. Naturally, the Times and Mr. Erlanger will dispute this, but they will not do so by examining the specific stories filed and what these articles do--and do not--say. How The News Is Made
Prof. Barry Rubin - 1/4/2008
Ring, ring, goes the telephone. And of course I answer it. The voice on the other end says that he is “Joseph” of Reuters. I get many calls from journalists and wire services but never has someone I don’t know introduced himself by first name only. Since he has an obvious Arabic accent it is quite clear that he thinks I am either so biased as to care what his family name is or so stupid not to guess why he isn’t giving it. So the effect is to achieve the exact opposite of what he wants. It puts me on my guard. Charles Johnson: The Dan Rather of the Blogosphere?
Baron Bodissey - 12/15/2007
Remember this? This is the infamous “Killian Memo”, the blatantly forged document that discredited Dan Rather and CBS News during the height of the 2004 presidential campaign. If this hoax had been deployed prior to the emergence of blogs, it would probably not have been discredited before election day, and might have changed the course of the election. Why Does LGF Lend Credibility to Eurabia Deniers?
Fjordman - 12/10/2007
I notice Charles Johnson and Little Green Footballs are at it again with their biweekly — or is it daily? — bash Fjordman/Gates of Vienna/The Brussels Journal/Fascists/Euroweenies post, which is by now becoming as predictable and exciting as watching paint dry. Global Politician Turns Three Years Old!
David Storobin, Esq. - 11/27/2007
Today, the Global Politician is three years old and this has been our most exciting year to date! We published almost 1,400 new articles and 22 new interviews, while doubling our readership! Podhoretz, like Bush, Is Staying The Course
Ted Belman - 11/27/2007
Ever since being introduced to Commentary Magazine in the sixties I have been an avid reader of Commentary and fan of Norman Podhoretz. On November 10 I attended a lecture given by him. You may recall he was responsible for preparing the intellectual groundwork that enabled Ronald Reagan to win the White House. He led the battle against Oslo Peace Accords. Unfortunately he also supported the disengagement from Gaza. Newspaper Editors' Changed Roles
Angelique van Engelen - 11/26/2007
Jeff Jarvis recently wrote a description of what he thinks the quintessential 21st Century editor is like, by analysing recruitment ads of a few renowned newspapers. The roles which the papers were looking to hire new people for, sound pretty tech savvy. Jarvis cites the Guardian's hiring of a tag editor. The people there will refer to the new recruit as a keyword manager. What he or she will be up to will amount to labelling online content, to ensure that it is consistent with the needs of readers as well as with editorial values. A Brief History of the Book
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 11/19/2007
"The free communication of thought and opinion is one of the most precious rights of man; every citizen may therefore speak, write and print freely."
(French National Assembly, 1789) The Media Comedy Club
Prof. Barry Rubin - 11/19/2007
One of the dubious rewards of spending too much time reading newspapers on the Middle East are the laughs derived from those wonderful little phrases that seem logical but are so profoundly bizarre. Some indicate media bias but they are more often the result of some reporter, newsmaker, or editor who so takes for granted the bizarro, flat-earth version of the Middle East as to be blissfully unaware of the yawning contradiction in what they say. My Farewell to Little Green Footballs
Fjordman - 11/19/2007
I recently announced my intention to take a long break from posting at the website Little Green Footballs due to the ongoing controversy regarding the participants in the counter-Jihad in Europe. Shortly after, Charles Johnson announced that Fjordman was "taking a permanent break. After the misrepresentations he's posted about me and my views, despite being corrected many times, he's not welcome at LGF." Just out of curi... Little Green Footballs and Racism In The United States
Fjordman - 11/13/2007
As many readers know by now, I have been involved in what has unfortunately become a very public brawl — some would probably say witch-hunt — with Charles Johnson of major American blog Little Green Footballs about the supposed “racism” of the Sweden Democrats and the Vlaams Belang. Many of these claims have already been countered, though LGF refuses to link to this. I have announced my intention to take a break from commenting at LGF, where I have been active for several years, since it has become abundantly clear that neither Charles nor many of his readers have any interest whatsoever in having an actual debate, and certainly not about the real threats to freedom in Europe. Newspaper Editors Are Hiring Internet Savvy Professionals
Angelique van Engelen - 11/11/2007
Jeff Jarvis recently wrote a description of what he thinks the quintessential 21st Century editor is like, by telling his audience all about recruitment ads of some renowned newspapers.The roles which the papers were looking to hire new people for, sound pretty tech savvy. Conservative Bloggers Fight for Free Speech
Fjordman - 10/17/2007
It has been documented countless times that journalists in Denmark and many other European and Western countries to a very large degree vote for parties to the left of the center. But a totally different picture emerges when looking at their non-professional colleagues in cyberspace. The Golden Keys of E-Commerce
Naseem Javed - 10/11/2007
It only takes a minute to establish if one is holding that magical key or just toying with a rusty screwdriver. Today, in order to have a commanding presence with universal access on e-commerce, domain names must act like very special golden keys as without it, the entire exercise of Internet-centric commerce becomes almost useless. Super-success in cyber-branding lies in the sophisticated creation, development and ownership of these powerful and magical keys, so that they may open an undiscovered universe of billions of unknown customers around the world. Without this power and access, what's the point of being in the race for leadership and image positioning? Musings on Media Coverage Of The Middle East
Prof. Barry Rubin - 9/16/2007
When is the media or non-governmental organizations fair or unfair in discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict? Critical here is how they present each side's motivations and actions. Below are some examples in both categories to give a sense of what is right, and wrong, with coverage. The Encyclopedia Britannica 2008
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/12/2007
The Encyclopedia Britannica 2008 (established in 1768), both Ultimate and Deluxe, builds on the success of its completely revamped previous editions in 2006 and 2007. The rate of innovation in the last two versions was impressive and welcome. It continues apace in this rendition with Britannica Biographies (Great Minds), Classical Music (500 audio files arranged by composer), and a great Workspace for Project Management (a kind of friendly digital den). Generous 6-12 months of free access to the myriad riches of the Britannica Online complete the package. The Judas Syndrom: American Media and the War on Terror
Major Dennis W. Lid - 9/11/2007
It's happening again, just like it did during the Vietnam Conflict. The collective voice of a disaffected public grows louder with each negative incident that occurs in Iraq. As the fatalities increase and the casualties mount from the daily incidence of improvised explosive devices, ambushes, assassinations, suicide bombings and other terrorist acts, the fainthearted and disillusioned are repulsed by the appalling statistics and disheartened from any desire to stay the course. The Cyber Narcissist
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/11/2007
To the narcissist, the Internet is an alluring and irresistible combination of playground and hunting grounds, the gathering place of numerous potential Sources of Narcissistic Supply, a world where false identities are the norm and mind games the bon ton. And it is beyond the reach of the law, the pale of social norms, the strictures of civilized conduct. Spectrum of Advertisement in Soap Opera
Panchanan Bhoi, Ph.D. - 9/4/2007
Ad expert Steward H. Britt once mentioned, “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark, you know what you are doing but no-body else does”. Though means of advertising include creative and media strategies, but now it is criticised on the grounds of deception, manipulation and bad taste. It manipulates the consumers against their will. Matter of taste in advertising and possible preoccupation with exploiting sex appeal is quite common in its publicity. Taking people much exposure to the electronic channels, the advertisers are now rush to this medium of communicat... Social Networks And Journalists Secrets
Angelique van Engelen - 9/4/2007
Social networks are beginning to open their eyes to the needs of journalists. Publish2.com, which is set to launch later this month, is entirely geared up for reporters. This ‘social media company’ is in beta testing, but its founders promise to deliver on a few key features which the currently available social networks like FaceBook, LinkedIn etc. miss out on. One of those promising features is a news aggregator ‘which puts journalists at the center of news’. Who gets to be a part of it depends on the community that Publish2 starts off with. They say on... The Idea of Reference
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 8/31/2007
The Wikipedia was touted as the greatest reference work in history. A collaborative effort of contributors and editors across time and space, it bloated into hundreds of thousands of articles on subjects both deserving and risible. Anyone with a connection to the Internet and a browser can edit the Wikipedia, regardless of his or her qualifications to do so. Project Gutenberg's Anabasis
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 8/28/2007
In October 2003, Project Gutenberg (PG) - the Web's first and largest online library of free electronic books - released a long-awaited DVD containing close to 10,000 of its titles. Since then, another 14,000 texts were added to its burgeoning archives. The Project spawned numerous other Web sites. Some of them - such as as the late lamented Blackmask - offer free downloads and sell their own DVD with mostly Project Gutenberg eBooks in multiple formats. Others provide free browsers and library applications specific to PG's content. Democracy and the Media Bias
Fjordman - 8/27/2007
In democratic societies the press, the Fourth Estate, should supposedly make sure that the government does its job properly as well as raise issues of public interest. In practice, we now seem to have a situation where the political elites cooperate with the media on making sure that some topics receive insufficient or unbalanced attention while others are simply kept off the agenda altogether. This isn't the case with all issues but with some more than others, especially those related to Multiculturalism, mass immigration and anti-discrimination where there seems to be a near-consensus among ... 'God's Warriors' on CNN: Perfect Example Of Media Bias
Blake Gartner - 8/26/2007
This week, CNN ran a series on God's Warriors - Jewish, Christian and Muslims. I'm sure CNN got many replies to their report: some were in favor, some against, some accused CNN of anti-Muslim bias, some anti-Christian bias and some anti-Jewish/antisemitic bias. I'm even more sure that this will convince CNN and the show's host Christiane Amanpour that getting criticism from all sides proves that they are unbiased. Of course, everyone who voices his opinion to a large number of people will always be the subject of attacks from all sides - unless of course you are an extremist who not only takes sides, but takes sides with someone's the most extremist elements. Where Can Newsroom Editors Turn For International Grassroots Reporting?
Angelique van Engelen - 8/20/2007
This month, significant developments have taken place in citizen journalism. There’s no longer any doubt that audience participation is maturing; citizen reporting is on its way to become part and parcel of the established media. Handsome amounts of cash are being paid for platforms gathering reports by mere mortals who relay first hand experiences of events to the world. Associated Content landed $10 million in financing earlier this month from Canaan Partners. At the same time, NowPublic raked in $10.6 million Rho Ventures. So what are winning strategies for newsroom editors in dealing with the citizen platforms? Where Can Newsroom Editors Turn For International Grassroots Reporting?
Angelique van Engelen - 8/15/2007
This month, significant developments have taken place in citizen journalism. There’s no longer any doubt that audience participation is maturing; citizen reporting is on its way to become part and parcel of the established media. Handsome amounts of cash are being paid for platforms gathering reports by mere mortals who relay first hand experiences of events to the world. Associated Content landed $10 million in financing earlier this month from Canaan Partners. At the same time, NowPublic raked in $10.6 million Rho Ventures. So what are winning strategies for newsroom editors in dealing with the citizen platforms? Regulate the Internet!
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 8/13/2007
With the advent of Web 2.0 and UGC (User-generated Content), the Internet has completed its transformation into an anarchic and lawless ochlocracy (mob-rule). The Internet is a mass medium and like all media it must be regulated. The laws that apply offline must and, in due time, as legislators are exposed to the less savory aspects of the Web, will apply online. The Los Angeles Times And Its Naivete of Bias
Prof. Barry Rubin - 8/2/2007
What is really amazing about something like this Los Angeles Times editorial (see below) is that those writing it don't have the least consciousness of the fact that in Arab and Palestinian media, books, politics, etc., there is not the slightest acknowledgement to anything Israelis and Jews say, feel, or have experienced is acknowledged in any way. In other words, they and others demand that Israel be completely balanced--and criticize anything that appears not to be--while not demanding anything of the other side. I might add that I am not opposed to a passage being put in Israeli textbooks saying that the Arabs consider the creation of Israel a disaster for themselves. Ron Paulism: Moral and Intellectual Confusion
Nicholas M. Guariglia - 8/1/2007
There has been much brouhaha over the quarrel between Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul which occurred during a recent candidates debate. The topic turned to the overriding issue of transnational terrorism, where Mr. Paul went unfettered: “Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there… I’m suggesting that we listen to the people that attacked us and the reason they did it. And they are delighted that we’re over there…” Don't Blink: Interview with Jeff Harrow
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/28/2007
Jeff Harrow is the author and editor of the Web-based multimedia "Harrow Technology Report" journal and Webcast, available at www.TheHarrowGroup.com. He also co-authored the book "The Disappearance of Telecommunications". For more than seventeen years, beginning with "The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing", the Web's first and longest-running weekly multimedia technology journal, he has shared with people across the globe his fascination with technology and his sense of wonder at the innovations and trends of contemporary computing and the growing number of technologies that drive them. Jeff ... Stop Telling Us To Stop Reinventing The Wheel
Michael Hart - 7/26/2007
I'm tired of people complaining about other people reinventing whatever wheel happens to be theirs in the one sense and they want it to be theirs in all the possible senses, including outright ownership. Nobody owns the wheel. It can be, and has been, reinvented over countless years and countless times, and we can benefit a countless number of times in our lifetimes. As a result there are plenty of wheels for numbers of jobs in the thousands or tens of thousands. The Universal Intuitive Interface
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/26/2007
The history of technology is the history of interfaces - their successes and failures. The GUI (the Graphic User Interface) - which replaced cumbersome and unwieldy ttext-based interfaces (DOS) - became an integral part of the astounding success of the PC. Interview: Peter Suber On Copyright Law and Free Online Scholarship
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/24/2007
The battle between owners of content and its users extends to all corners of the publishing world. Following a brief period of enthusing about "synergies", most media companies, content aggregators, content providers - movie and recording studios, publishers, news organizations - came to view the digitization of content as a threat rather than an opportunity. In an effort to protect their intellectual property rights, publishing and recording corporations have fostered the radicalization of copyright law (mainly in the DMCA - the Digital Millennium Copyright Act). They have also retarded the f... Wikipedia - Can Teenagers Write An Encyclopedia?
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/22/2007
The vast majority of Wikipedia contributors and editors are under the age of 25. Many of the administrators (senior editors) are in their teens. This has been established by a survey conducted in 2003 and in various interviews with Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of the enterprise. The Internet and the Library
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/21/2007
"In this digital age, the custodians of published works are at the center of a global copyright controversy that casts them as villains simply for doing their job: letting people borrow books for free."
- (ZDNet quoted by "Publisher's Lunch on July 13, 2001) Microsoft Student 2008
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/20/2007
Homework assignments are the bane of most students I know (not to mention their hard-pressed and nescient parents). This is mainly because of the tedious and mind-numbing chores of data mining and composition. Additionally, as knowledge multiplies every 5-10 years, few parents and teachers are able to keep up. The Fall and Fall of the P-Zine
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/13/2007
The circulation of print magazines has declined precipitously in the last 24 months. This dissolution of subscriber bases has accelerated dramatically as economic recession set in. But a diminishing wealth effect is only partly to blame. The managements of printed periodicals - from dailies to quarterlies - failed miserably to grasp the Internet's potential and potential threat. They were fooled by the lack of convenient and cheap e-reading devices into believing that old habits die hard. They do - but magazine reading is not habit forming. Readers' loyalties are fickle and shift according to... Guide For Media On How To Rationalize Islamist Dictatorships
Prof. Barry Rubin - 7/3/2007
The AP explains things to us as if they were the Hamas public relations department. This is not only bad journalism, not only a shamefully slanted apologia for Hamas, but a real case study of how the Western media is totally taken in by dictatorships (or at least the ones that are anti-American). AP doesnt seem to get the rather obvious point that if there is no sign of Hamas imposing rule of Islamism in Gaza it is because people get the hint. The Territorial Web
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/3/2007
The Net was supposed to dissolve anachronistic national borders and cultural boundaries. It was expected to vitiate distance - both physical and mental. It was hailed as the invention that will unify Mankind and harmonize (though not homogenize) civilizations, east and west. Online eBook Fair Provides 3/4 Million eBooks
Michael Hart - 7/1/2007
Urbana, Illinois and Honolulu, Hawaii: Free access to over 750,000 free online eBooks starts on July 4, for a month long World eBook Fair. Leading providers of electronic books have provided free access to materials on every possible topic. The World eBook Fair is a showcase for the range and importance of eBooks for enjoyment, education, research and literacy. The Affair of the Vanishing Content
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/27/2007
"Digitized information, especially on the Internet, has such rapid turnover these days that total loss is the norm. Civilization is developing severe amnesia as a result; indeed it may have become too amnesiac already to notice the problem properly."
(Stewart Brand, President, The Long Now Foundation )http://www.archive.org/ Maps of Cyberspace
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/19/2007
"Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkablecomplexity. Lines of light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding..."
- (WilliamGibson, "Neuromancer", 1984, page 51) Deja Googled
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/13/2007
The Internet may have started as the fervent brainchild of DARPA, the US defence agency - but it quickly evolved into a network of computers at the service of a community. Academics around the world used it to communicate, compare results, compute, interact and flame each other. The ethos of the community as content-creator, source of information, fount of emotional sustenance, peer group, and social substitute is well embedded in the very fabric of the Net. Millions of members in free, advertising or subscription financed, mega-sites such as Geocities, AOL, Yahoo and Tripod generate more bits... Creating the Online Infidel Library
Wolfgang Bruno - 5/25/2007
Fatima Houda-Pepin, raised a Muslim and active in the struggle against the use of sharia in Canada, warns that the public should make an effort to get to know those in the Muslim community who are lobbying for application of Shari‘a: “One of the strengths of Islamists is that they know you very well. They know our history, they know our culture, they know our justice system.” The reason why so many Westerners reacted with defeatism and despair over the Muhammad cartoons affair is because we are mentally on the defensive. We are reacting more than acting, waiting passively for the next Islamic ... The Newspaper Cemetery
Naseem Javed - 5/16/2007
Despite all denials, newspapers all over the world are simply dying. The gravity of the problem is not that the competing media like TV or Internet are at play it’s rather that the public all over the world prefers moving pictures in the palms of their hands over deciphering or reading between the lines of nicely arranged words spread out on a paper blanket. Hollywoodistan v Real Life: Should We Fear Islam Or Islamophobia?
Fjordman - 5/9/2007
I have heard some people say that Western popular culture will destroy Islam. That is possible, but we need to remember that this is not a one-way street. What if the opposite happens? Sometimes the barbarians also influence the civilized people, and there is a disturbing amount of “understanding” for terrorists in Western movies and media these days. Creeps come crawling out of the woodwork, more or less cheering for the terrorists who are trying to bring society down. There are probably always people who are drawn to blood and mayhem. They would like to destroy the current political order, b... Britannica & Wikipedia
Michael Hart - 5/8/2007
I finally decided to read Britannica's response to the whole Nature thing about Wikipedia, but I must first admit that I overestimated Britannica, yet again, and I would not have read it, particularly in that dreaded .pdf format, if I had known how much "yellow journalism" it would entail. You Can Understand The Internet
Michael Hart - 5/6/2007
Yes, YOU can understand the Internet, and it's not nearly as hard as a lot of people want to pretend it is, just so they can pretend they know more than you do. The first thing you should understand is that every single word your computer tells you was written by a human being. Web 2.0 - Erudition, Not Hoarding: Response to Sam Vaknin
Michael Hart - 4/27/2007
It is the last sentence in Sam Vaknin's article that I reply to in the greatest spirit, no matter how his earlier, important, and well-taken points might be. Sam might well call me one of the hoarders, except that I give away as much as I can. However, I am one of the few who believe a local storage system is preferable to depending on a sometimes flaky network connection. Web 2.0 - Hoarding, not Erudition
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 4/6/2007
Hoarding has replaced erudition everywhere. People hoard e-books, mp3 tracks, and photos. They memorize numerous fact and "facts" but can't tell the difference between them or connect the dots. The synoptic view of knowledge, the interconnectivity of data, the emergence of insight from treasure-troves of information are all lost arts. Global Politician Turns Two Years Old!
David Storobin, Esq. - 11/27/2006
Today, the Global Politician turns two years old! With nearly 2,000 articles published and over 17 million hits, it has been an unmitigated success, far above our original expectations. In just two years, we've managed to get interviews with many world leaders, including Presidents and Prime Ministers, as well as authors, generals, parliamentarians, terrorists, activists, and many others. Below is a short list of some of the many people interviewed by the Global Politician: Google-Wikipedia-MySpace - How Teenagers Hijacked the Internet
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 10/19/2006
A recent (late 2006) study by Heather Hopkins from Hitwise demonstrates the existence of a pernicious feedback loop between Google, Wikipedia, MySpace, and Blogspot. Wikipedia gets 54% of its traffic from Google search results. The majority of Wikipedia visitors then proceed to MySpace or Blogspot, both of which use Google as their search service. Will Online Content Ever be Profitable? - Part V
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 10/6/2006
2. Content Related Fees This was prevalent in the Net until recently. Even potentially commercial software can still be downloaded for free. In many countries television viewers still pay for television broadcasts - but in the USA and many other countries in the West, the basic package of television channels comes free of charge. Will Online Content Ever be Profitable? - Part IV
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 10/4/2006
Institutionalization This phase is the next in the Internet's history, though, it seems, few realize it. It is characterized by enhanced activities of legislation. Legislators, on all levels, discover the medium and lurch at it passionately. Resources which were considered "free", suddenly are transformed to "national treasures not to be dispensed with cheaply, casually and with frivolity". Will Online Content Ever be Profitable? - Part III
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 10/3/2006
The Future History of the Internet as a Medium The internet is simply the latest in a series of networks which revolutionized our lives. A century before the internet, the telegraph, the railways, the radio and the telephone have been similarly heralded as "global" and transforming. Every medium of communications goes through the same evolutionary cycle: Wikipedia vs. Britannica - Interview with Tom Panelas
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/29/2006
Tom Panelas is the Encyclopedia Britannica's Director of Corporate Communications. Will Online Content Ever be Profitable? - Part II
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/28/2006
3. The Money Where is the capital needed to finance content likely to come from? Again, there are two schools: According to the first, sites will be financed through advertising - and so will search engines and other applications accessed by users. Certain ASPs (Application Service Providers which rent out access to application software which resides on their servers) are considering this model. The Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Opens to the Web
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/25/2006
The Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 (established in 1768) is again a completely revamped product. The rate of innovation in the last two editions is impressive and welcome. Its interface is intuitive and uncluttered and it is great fun to use. For instance, it offers a date-based daily selection of relevant information and highly edifying interactive tours of articles and attendant media. The search box is persistent - no need to click on the toolbar's "search" button every time you want to find something in this vast storehouse of knowledge. Moreover, the user can save search results onto handy "Virtual Notecards". The Living Book
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/24/2006
Dan Poynter and Danny Snow - the acknowledged gurus of the e-book revolution - did it again. The fourth edition of their U-Publish.com tome is a "living book". The public release is slated for December 2006-January 2007. But no two volumes will be alike. An appendix in the POD paperback edition will be updated monthly with breaking news from the couple's widely-circulated newsletters and, thus, differ in size and content. The standard trade edition will reference Web locations for monthly updates. Will Online Content Ever be Profitable? - Part I
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/19/2006
THE CURRENT WORRIES 1. Content Suppliers The Ethos of Free Content Content Suppliers is the underprivileged sector of the Internet. They all lose money (even sites which offer basic, standardized goods - books, CDs), with the exception of sites profering sex or tourism. No user seems to be grateful for the effort and resources invested in creating and distributing content. The recent breakdown of traditional roles (between publisher and author, record company and singer, etc.) and the direct access the creative artist is gaining to its paying public may change this attitude of ing... Invasion of the Amazons
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/18/2006
The last few years have witnessed a bloodbath in tech stocks coupled with a frantic re-definition of the web and of every player in it (as far as content is concerned). This effort is three pronged: The Kidnapping of Content
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/14/2006
Latin kidnapped the word "plagion" from ancient Greek and it ended up in English as "plagiarism". It literally means "to kidnap" - most commonly, to misappropriate content and wrongly attribute it to oneself. It is a close kin of piracy. But while the software or content pirate does not bother to hide or alter the identity of the content's creator or the software's author - the plagiarist does. Plagiarism is, therefore, more pernicious than piracy. When Will Google Become Generic?
Naseem Javed - 8/17/2006
Today, there are hundreds of once highly protected famous name brands, which were backed by multi-million dollar promotional budgets, now commonly used in daily lingo as generic names, as it was their huge popularity that made them lose their trademark protection. So why is the use of famous trademarked names as "verbs" in our daily language feared by the attorneys representing that mark? Now this calls for a closer look. Microsoft's MS Student 2007
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/26/2006
The previous versions of Encarta included a host of homework tools. Last year, these have been made into a separate product called Microsoft Student. It has now been gainfully repackaged and very much enhanced. Among the new or revamped features: free online access to MSN Encarta Premium, Step-by-Step Math Solutions calculator, Step-by-Step Math Textbook Solutions, Triangle Solver, Equations Library, tutorials, and foreign language help. MS Student comes replete with the entire Encarta Premium encyclopedia! Microsoft's Encarta Premium 2007
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/23/2006
While Microsoft Encarta Premium 2006 marked Microsoft's commitment to the Web - Microsoft Encarta Premium 2007 marks its commitments to its own technology. The new Encarta relies on Microsoft's powerful, flexible, scalable, and adaptable .Net Framework 2.0. There a price to pay, of course: the time it takes to install the product is much longer and the user is henceforth prompted to constantly download security updates from Microsoft. It is also recommended to turn off your firewall and anti-virus products during installation. Speech from July 10 protest outside the New York Times
Ryan Mauro - 7/11/2006
In the midst of the outrage over the New York Times disregard for national security, Bill Keller has claimed this is a political ploy. This is simply a trick to rally the conservative base, he says. Congratulations everybody, you’re all part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. The Six Sins of the Wikipedia
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/26/2006
It is a question of time before the Wikipedia self-destructs and implodes. It poses such low barriers to entry (anyone can edit any number of its articles) that it is already attracting masses of teenagers as "contributors" and "editors", not to mention the less savory flotsam and jetsam of cyber-life. People who are regularly excluded or at least moderated in every other Internet community are welcomed, no questions asked, by this wannabe self-styled "encyclopedia" The Turtle Syndrome
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/16/2006
The mobile office is a long established reality. Today's laptops are as powerful as most desktops and have as much memory and as many accessories. One can communicate through them, using faxing and electronic mail software. They can be connected to both mobile and fixed phones. A person can carry his whole office, his home, his life with him. This is the "Turtle Syndrome". Ensconced in virtual shells, we move about, conducting our lives, attending to our businesses, absorbing, processing, creating and emitting information in endless streams of data and voice. Thoughts on the Internet's Founding Myths
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/15/2006
Whenever I put forth on the Internet's numerous newsgroups, discussion fora and Websites a controversial view, an iconoclastic opinion, or a much-disputed thesis, the winning argument against my propositions starts with "everyone knows that ...". For a self-styled nonconformist medium, the Internet is the reification of herd mentality. The Case of the Compressed Image
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/13/2006
Forgent Networks from Texas wanted to collect a royalty every time someone compresses an image using the JPEG algorithm. It urged third parties to negotiate with it separate licensing agreements. It bases its claim on a 21 year old patent it acquired in 1997 when VTel, from which Forgent was spun-off, purchased the San-Jose based Compression Labs. Wikipedia and the Credibility of Online Information
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 2/5/2006
The Wikipedia was touted as the greatest reference work in history. A collaborative effort of contributors and editors across time and space, it bloated into hundreds of thousands of articles on subjects both deserving and risible. Anyone with a connection to the Internet and a browser can edit the Wikipedia, regardless of his or her qualifications to do so. The Ubiquitous Project Gutenberg - Interview with Michael Hart, Its Founder
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 12/2/2005
Michael Hart conceived of electronic books (e-books) back in 1971. Most pundits agree that in the history of knowledge and scholarship, e-books are as important as the Gutenberg press, invented five centuries ago. Many would say that they constitute a far larger quantum leap. As opposed to their print equivalents, e-books are public goods: cost close to nothing to produce, replicate, and disseminate. Anyone with access to minimal technology or even the oldest computers can read e-books. Encyclopedia Britannica 2006
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 9/12/2005
The Encyclopedia Britannica 2006 (established in 1768) is a completely revamped product. Its interface is intuitive and uncluttered. It is far more fun to use. For instance, it now offers a date-based daily selection of relevant articles. The search box is persistent - no need to click on the toolbar's "search" button every time you want to find something in this vast storehouse. Review: Microsoft Student 2006
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 8/15/2005
The previous versions of Encarta included a host of homework tools. These have now been made into a separate product called Microsoft Student. Microsoft Embraces the Web - Encarta Premium 2006
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 8/15/2005
Microsoft was long derided by its critics for having failed to fully grasp the Internet revolution. It was late in developing Net technologies such as a proprietary search engine and in coping with security threats propagated through the Web. Old Reference Works Revived
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 8/7/2005
There is no source of reference remotely as authoritative as the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There is no brand as venerable and as veteran as this mammoth labour of knowledge and ideas established in 1768. It numbered the likes of Einstein and Freud among its authors. Dozens of classic articles written by such luminaries are available on the Britannica's Web Site and included in its CD-ROM and DVD editions. Noam Chomsky: Propanganda and Lies
James DeMeo, Ph.D. - 7/30/2005
For awhile, it seemed the European intellectual scene would be completely flooded by the conspiracy materials, without any counter-critique whatsoever, when Der Spiegel waded in 2003 into the quagmire with the article "Panoply of the Absurd" (1) revealing the most obvious distortions and fabrications, and in so doing, considerably drained the swamp. However, Der Spiegel (a liberal-left publication with anti-American sentiments) avoided discussion of two of the larger and probably more radically "serious" but willfully deceptive critics of the USA, Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky, whose influenc... The Medium and the Message
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/14/2005
A debate is raging in e-publishing circles: should content be encrypted and protected (the erstwhile Barnes and Noble or Digital goods model) - or should it be distributed freely and thus serve as a form of viral marketing (Seth Godin's "ideavirus")? Publishers fear that freely distributed and cost-free "cracked" e-books will cannibalize print books to oblivion. Why the Beatles Made More Money than Einstein
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/11/2005
Why did the Beatles generate more income in one year than Albert Einstein did throughout his long career? The reflexive answer is: How many bands like the Beatles were there? But, on second reflection, how many scientists like Einstein were there? Rarity or scarcity cannot, therefore, to explain the enormous disparity in remuneration. The Future of the Book
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/10/2005
One of the first acts of the French National Assembly in 1789 was to issue this declaration: "The free communication of thought and opinion is one of the most precious rights of man; every citizen may therefore speak, write and print freely." UNESCO still defines "book" as "non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages excluding covers". Digital Object Identifiers and the Future of Online Content - Part II
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/6/2005
The DOI Foundation has unveiled the DOI-EB (EB stands for e-books) Initiative in the Book Expo America Show 2001, to, in their words: Digital Object Identifiers and the Future of Online Content - Part I
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 7/6/2005
The Internet is too rich. Even powerful and sophisticated search engines, such as Google, return a lot of trash, dead ends, and Error 404's in response to the most well-defined query, Boolean operators and all. Directories created by human editors - such as Yahoo! or the Open Directory Project - are often overwhelmed by the amount of material out there. Like the legendary blob, the Internet is clearly out of classificatory control. Some web sites - like Suite101 - have introduced the old and tried Dewey subject classification system successfully used in non-virtual libraries for more than a ce... Titanic, or A Moral Deliberation
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/30/2005
The film "Titanic" is riddled with moral dilemmas. In one of the scenes, the owner of Star Line, the shipping company that owned the now-sinking Unsinkable, leaps into a lowered life-boat. The tortured expression on his face demonstrates that even he experiences more than unease at his own conduct: prior to the disaster, he instructed the captain to break the trans-Atlantic speed record. His hubris proves fatal to the vessel. Moreover, only women and children were allowed by the officers in charge into the lifeboats. The Disintermediation of Content
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/29/2005
The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the USA (in June 2005) was hailed as a victory for the music and motion picture industries. Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, such as Grokster, were held responsible for encouraging and making possible the violation of copyright by allowing users to download illicit music tracks and films off other users' computers. Internet Advertising - What Went Wrong?
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/24/2005
Spielberg's blockbuster, "Minority Report", is set in the year 2054. The future - at least according to a team of MIT futurologists, hired by the cinematic genius - is the captive of embarrassingly personalized and disturbingly intrusive, mostly outdoor, interactive advertising. The way Internet advertising has behaved lately, it may well take 50 years to get there. The Media Downloader's Profile - Interview with Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/14/2005
Q. What do you know about people illegally downloading files over the internet? The Economics of Spam
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/12/2005
Tennessee resident K. C. "Khan" Smith owes the internet service provider EarthLink $24 million. According to the CNN, in August 2001 he was slapped with a lawsuit accusing him of violating federal and state Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statutes, the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984, the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 and numerous other state laws. On July 19, 2002 - having failed to appear in court - the judge ruled against him. Mr. Smith is a spammer. The Future of Online Reference - Interview with Patrick Spain, CEO of Alacritude
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/10/2005
These are momentous times in the digital content industry. In the last quarter of 2003, Barnes and Noble withdrew from the e-books business, peddling its electronic publishing house to iUniverse and terminating the sale of digital titles from its barnesandnoble.com Web site. It then proceeded to take private its publicly listed online arm. The Metaphors of the Net
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 6/2/2005
A decade after the invention of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee is promoting the "Semantic Web". The Internet hitherto is a repository of digital content. It has a rudimentary inventory system and very crude data location services. As a sad result, most of the content is invisible and inaccessible. Moreover, the Internet manipulates strings of symbols, not logical or semantic propositions. In other words, the Net compares values but does not know the meaning of the values it thus manipulates. It is unable to interpret strings, to infer new facts, to deduce, induce, derive, or otherwise com... New Realities in Publishing (II): Aggregation and Niche Marketing
Angelique van Engelen - 5/23/2005
Aggregation is the new economy of scale and to pretend you're part of the action, your business plan must include success-guaranteed modern-day jargon describing endlessness, rather than the bulkiness of your venture's marketing campaign. Depth of penetration has become more important than breadth of scale. New Realities in Publishing (I)
Angelique van Engelen - 5/21/2005
Today's publishing environment is getting cut throat and business intelligence is key. A clear view of the prime intersecting points in this industry itself is essential. Free content might well be the largest intersection where editors and webmasters meet. Many people wonder who facilitates all this sugar-and-spice world of free information. How is it possible that whilst you pay good money for your daily newspaper, you can get whatever is written in the paper times 500 for free on the internet? The short answer is one word: distribution. Why Do We Love to Hate Celebrities - Interview With Dr. Sam Vaknin, Ph.D
GP Interviews - 5/6/2005
Q. Fame and TV shows about celebrities usually have a huge audience. This is understandable: people like to see other successful people. But why people like to see celebrities being humiliated? Democracy, Technology and the Media
Angelique van Engelen - 5/3/2005
Recent international wars and the often spectacular ways in which the established media is covering them, have given media researchers ample opportunity to see whether technological developments are giving us the opportunity to have a closer experience of democracy. |
