|||||||| Technology for smart humans ||||||||

  • Comic Copyright Capers

    Great new IP & Fair Use comic by Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain: Bound by Law translates law into plain English and abstract ideas into ‘visual metaphors.’ So the comic’s heroine, Akiko, brandishes a laser gun as she fends off a cyclopean ‘Rights Monster’ – all the while learning… >>>

  • ,

    Anti-Muslim Cartoons: A Burning Issue?

    There’s not much to laugh about in European op-ed sections just now. The decision by newspapers in Denmark, Norway, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and Spain to publish cartoons considered blasphemous by Muslims has the potential to turn into the first skirmishes of a renewed culture war, to morph into the clash of… >>>

  • ,

    Iraq – ‘Party’s Over’

    I didn’t see any Westerners at all until my second day, when I contacted the acting bureau chief for an American paper who was staying in my hotel. As we were discussing the state of reporting in Baghdad and Iraq in general, he told me that I was a little late to the… >>>

  • ,

    A Reporter in Iraq

    We’re supposed to be the voice of the people, the truth-tellers and the ruler of accountability. But the blast walls between journalists in Iraq and the rest of the country grow higher as fear outweighs responsibility. I’m always told that no story is worth your life. – Leila Fadel, Knight Ridder, Baghdad bureau >>>

  • ,

    Journalists Under Fire

    Governments around the world are failing to prevent the murder and assassination of journalists, says the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ): The truth is that even democratic governments turn a blind eye to the crisis of violence against media… In Iraq, where media people hardly dare walk the streets, there are 18 cases… >>>

  • ,

    Solid Air

    “All that is newspaper melts…” – Scott Rosenberg on the end of print newspapers: … the same process that ate their classified income is going to affect [newspaper owners’] other revenue streams. Just as classifieds went from costly to free, the display advertising will begin to dry up, as youth-seeking national advertisers follow… >>>

  • , ,

    Publish and Be Financially Independent

    It sounds like a mission impossible: set up a progressive publication, one which doesn’t shirk from flicking the comfortable and comforting the afflicted, and don’t worry if the money doesn’t immediately roll in. Robert Scheer, former columnist at the LA Times, sacked, he says, because of his opposition to the Iraq War, is… >>>