That award-winning site (look for SARA) is getting more attention, this time from the university newsletter. I particularly like this gem:
Columns: "Orrill designed most of the graphics and colors of SARA as well as three subsections of the site."
Yes, that's right. I designed the colors. Because that's what makes a good interface, after all-- color choice. After all, wasn't that the big breakthrough of the Macintosh? If it wasn't for the switch from green or amber on black to black on white, god knows where we'd all be.
Kevin takes another crack at arguing for a federal shield law. He says in part:
The Washington Monthly: Protecting a source who's a whistleblower is one thing, but the person who outed Valerie Plame was breaking the law, and doing it solely for partisan revenge.
Almost all whistleblowers break the law, if only by handing over government property — and often the laws they break are more serious. If you force reporters to testify against any source who has broken the law, most sources will dry up.
As for the motive of the leaker in the Valerie Plame case, it's hard to hang your hat on that. After all, who gets to decide which leakers are acting from virtuous motives and which ones aren't? One man's patriot is another man's traitor.
If you support free speech, you support it regardless of whether somebody is saying something you like. Likewise with reporter-source privilege, you have to support it regardless of whether you like the motives of the leaker. There's really no other way."
I can see his point, but I still have to disagree. The motive of a whistleblower is often in one way or another to save something besides himself (lives, taxpayer dollars, etc.), often at great risk to himself. They should be protected. The motive in the Plame case is pretty clearly to cause harm, not to serve any greater good. I'm willing to grant reporters (bloggers, whoever) the right to protect their sources by default, but I don't think that it should be an absolute right any more than free speech is an absolute right (think shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, inciting a crowd to violence, etc.).
You might want to follow up with a tonic of reality.
For the record, I spent last night working, catching up on "The Daily Show" and battling Morlocks. Time well spent.
I have to disagree with Kevin on this one:
The Washington Monthly: "You either support the right of reporters to shield their sources or you don't, and your opinion shouldn't vary based on whether (a) you dislike the reporters in question or (b) you'd like the information they're hiding to become public because you think it would be embarrassing to George Bush.
As it happens, I favor the passage of a federal shield law for reporters that would protect their right to conceal their sources. Today, we don't have one (although some states do). If Miller and Cooper are sent to jail, it will have a chilling effect on the ability of reporters to aggressively cover government malfeasance, and in the end I think that's way more important than the details of this particular case. God knows we don't need the press to become even more timid than they already are on this score."
This strikes me as overly simplistic. Just as in a criminal trial it's important to consider intent, you have to do the same when a reporter (or anyone fulfilling that role) wants to protect a source. Here the issue is not so much the reporter's intent, but the intent of the source and the nature of the truth that is being revealed. For example, "Deep Throat" wanted to reveal true government malfeasance. This is a far cry from the current case, where it appears that the source of the information was someone in power, and rather than trying to uncover any kind of malfeasance the goal was nakedly to destroy the career of an intelligence agent, not to mention potentially put her life in danger along with anyone she may have had contact with.
We can actually simplify this somewhat-- consider the relationship in both cases of the source vs. the party whose secrets are being divulged. If the source is someone in a position of weakness, then by all means he should be fully protected. However, if the source is in a position of power relative to the person or institution being exposed, then I think we have another question here entirely. In a case like that the reporter is not serving any kind of noble enterprise. Rather, I would argue that he (or she) is simply being used as a tool to crush someone who for whatever reason is inconvenient to those in power. By protecting the reporter, you're only serving to protect those in power as well.
As for the argument that jailing Miller/Cooper will have a "chilling effect," well God help us if they're held up as shining examples of aggressive coverage of government malfeasance. I would like to think that rather than having a chilling effect, maybe if they spend some time in the slammer then other reporters will think twice when they're asked to be an accessory to a crime.
Rove Resign Yet?: "For the record, my motives aren't to get more troops killed. If those were my motives I'd ship them off to a war on false pretenses without sufficient equipment to keep them safe."
One of the things that was a disappointment about Monday's showing was the audience behavior during some of the weaker films. Going into a local filmmaker's showcase, you have to expect some flicks that wouldn't make it into a more competitive festival, and this past showing was no exception. Of course, being a local filmmaker's showcase, you have to expect that many of the people involved in each film are going to be in attendance. With that in mind, even if something is really bad you should try to stifle your impulse to sneer out of politeness if nothing else. Well, that didn't happen this time around. There were some folks behind us in the theatre who were openly mocking some of the films. What's worse is that these people turned out to be filmmakers themselves. Maybe I'm overreacting, but it strikes me as particularly arrogant to sit and criticize a piece of work when your own work may or may not be any better.
So...a polite suggestion to other filmmakers: when you're in your living room, gripe away. When you're in a theatre with others, keep your MST3K urges to yourself.
"A Civil Discussion" was shown Monday evening as part of "SPROCKETS::FLICKS" sponsored by film::athens. This was the first time I'd been able to see it with an audience, so I was a little nervous about it. I'm pleased to say that the audience responded really well. There was laughter in all the right places, and even some response to bits that I hadn't really given much thought to, like E.B. coming on screen for the opening logo sequence. Very rewarding, I must say. It's also given me something of a confidence boost, and so I'm going to plunge ahead with some more festival submissions.
Now if only I could spend all my time making movies...sigh.
"A Civil Discussion" was shown Monday evening as part of "SPROCKETS::FLICKS" sponsored by film::athens. This was the first time I'd been able to see it with an audience, so I was a little nervous about it. I'm pleased to say that the audience responded really well. There was laughter in all the right places, and even some response to bits that I hadn't really given much thought to, like E.B. coming on screen for the opening logo sequence. Very rewarding, I must say. It's also given me something of a confidence boost, and so I'm going to plunge ahead with some more festival submissions.
Now if only I could spend all my time making movies...sigh.
Raise your hand if this wouldn't surprise you:
The Huffington Post | The Blog: "A Bush-watcher website identified as TBRNews.org is reporting under the byline of 'domestic intelligence reporter' Brian Harring that the Department of Defense is using a cynical tactic to mislead the public regarding the true death toll for American military personnel in Iraq. Harring claims he has an internal pdf. file from the D.O.D. which establishes that nearly 9000 Americans have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but that the official number has been held to 1713 by designating as Iraq deaths only those who perish on Iraqi soil. The remainder, he says, are military personnel who have died en route to Germany or in German hospitals-- casualties of the war, but not listed in the official death toll."
UPDATE: ok, so this may be bunk.
I think this is a more telling sign of where we're at as a country than any of the polls out now. Rather than shooting ducks or terrorists, pop-up ads are now encouraging you to "punch out George W." to get free stuff.
Are people finally waking up? Maybe, but it sounds like Democrats still need to find their testicles.
Unfortunately, the video is missing what led up to this.
AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth: "The House Republicans just shut down the Patriot Act hearings while the Democrats were still talking. It was absolutely amazing. Then they shut the mics off on the Dems. Even more amazing is that the House Republicans have the nerve to do this during a hearing on, what?, the Patriot Act! A hearing about our concerns about shutting down free speech and civil rights and the Constitution. So what do they do, they simply shut down open debate in the US Congress. Horrifying."
Watch the videos for a bonus "Princess Bride" moment.
The last man nearly ruined this place,
He didn’t know what to do with it.
If you think this country’s bad enough now,
Just wait till I get through with it.
I'm less shocked that this design was created than I am that it was actually approved. Somewhere, a graphic artist is laughing until he wets his pants.
I swear, every time I see a new poll, the numbers are described as "the lowest approval rating since X," but this tidbit was new.
Ok, so that last post blew out the formatting. Oh, well. Even award-winning coders goof occasionally.
Normally I'd just link to the web site for this, but this seemed to call for an image from the dead tree version. I had noticed the second article this morning, but Chandra had to point out the one above it. (Geeky note: even the URLs are sequential.)
I don't have any other links for Chandra's project, but I can pass along the link to the demo version of SARA and to the organization giving out the award. Admittedly, SARA doesn't look like much (it was designed to be fast and to run on Netscape 4.x, so no fancy graphical doodads and minimal HTML), but it does the job...
Seems like everyone's talking about the rumors about Apple hooking up with Intel (Dave Winer has as good a collection of articles as anyone). I feel compelled to play along, so here's how it looks to me:
There seems to be some consensus that developers aren't going to be real crazy about a major shift from PPC to x86 (if in fact, that's what's in the works). There's also some concern that users won't want to purchase all new software, and that a shift like this could kill hardware sales until the new architecture is established. I can't speak to the software developer side, since I don't know all the details of what might go into a switch to a new CPU, but the other two pieces I can touch on.
My mother just purchased a new iMac, replacing her old graphite one. As far as I know, she has never made any significant software purchases. The computer comes with pretty much everything she needs to get on the Internet, write letters, etc. The only thing she's installed herself that I know of have been printer drivers and AOL. I don't know how many people fit that same consumer type, but I suspect there are a fair amount who do. For them, the CPU doesn't matter one bit, and software upgrades are not an issue, since they wouldn't be transferring anything from one computer to another beyond personal files.
For someone like myself, who does have significant investment in software, the announcement of a new architecture might cause some concern. However, I'm not sure that I would wait to purchase a new machine. In fact, the change might cause me to make an earlier purchase so that I can stay with the software I have a little longer (I'm currently using an Aluminum PowerBook and a dual G4 PowerMac).
There's also concern about whether such a change would put Apple at risk of losing hardware sales. This strikes me as uninformed speculation. There's no way in hell that Apple's going to do something that will open up competition for hardware with Dell, et al. If Apple's going to make any kind of switch to Intel, it will be to improve the performance of Apple hardware, not suddenly make it possible to run OS X on any generic piece of PC hardware out there.
I suspect, however, that all of this may be too simplistic a view of what Apple's got in mind. Who's to say that they have to necessarily be talking about a straight shift from one CPU to another? Two thoughts: 1) Once upon a time you used to be able to get add-on cards for your mac that would give you an x86 processor. As far as I know, no one is currently selling this type of card anymore. 2) Tiger lets software harness the computing power of your graphics card. So here's an idea-- what if Apple and Intel have cooked up something that incorporates both a PowerPC and Intel CPU into the same computer? This could have two benefits. First, it would let folks run Windows on Mac computers with native performance. Second, in the same way that Tiger lets software harness the GPU, perhaps the next operating system will let OS X harness the power of both the main PPC chip and the extra Intel chip. This might attract more buyers from the Windows world, while not putting Mac sales in jeopardy. Of course, I'm not an engineer so for all I know this is a totally wack idea...
Military Details Koran Incidents at Base in Cuba - New York Times: "A military inquiry has found that guards or interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba kicked, stepped on and splashed urine on the Koran, in some cases intentionally but in others by accident, the Pentagon said on Friday."
"We didn't flush it down the toilet, though! In your face, Flanders!"
Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. And no, they're not talking about The Monster Book of Monsters.