Bytes · Right on Miss America - MS tortoise/Google hare - Wikipedia Story

• I agree with Miss America [could she be any perkier?] — she wants mandatory Internet safety classes for kids.

• The Guardian's website has a new Science section, very useful when mass media (the Beeb, sheesh) and politicians push nonsense like concerns about WiFi.
  
  
• AJAX is a technology underpining many dynamic web 2.0 apps, so it's good to see this accessify post suggesting that the well-used Screen reader JAWS is including language about support for AJAX in it's next version.
  
  
• When web accessibility is not your problem (MP3, 28MB) - Joe Clark [session notes]
  
  
  
• Scott Karp: Online Publishers Need To Stop Selling Space.
  

  Google doesn’t sell any space. It sells user intentions, i.e. what’s on people’s minds. And that’s a scare resource — there’s a finite number of people thinking about buying a digital camera today.
  
  So what else is a scarce resource online? Locality.
  

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NYT: Microsoft Offers a Web-Based Strategy

“We’re not moving toward a world of thin computing,” said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, referring to systems in which simple processing takes place on a PC, but more complex processing is moved to a centralized computer through a network connection. “We’re moving toward a world of software plus services.” Nearly every Microsoft software application will be transformed with the addition of a Web-services component within 3 to 10 years, he said.

SEL take:

Even as Microsoft says it's defending its home turf, the company is of course trying to aggressively compete in the world of search and online advertising, which is Google's core franchise. Recent purchases of aQuantive/Atlas (for $6 billion) and AdECN, as well as high profile deals with Facebook and Digg, show how serious Microsoft is about being a major player in both arenas ... my guess is that "3 to 10 years" is too long for Microsoft to wait to web-enable its critical applications; because by then the free, online options will be much better.

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If you missed it, Clive Anderson's great take on The Wikipedia Story is still on Radio 4's website

The NeoConservative Oliver Kamm responded on his blog and distilled the objectors - to them, Wikipedia represents "an anti-intellectual exercise".

(Gawd knows what's going on with the BBC at the moment. Withdrawn digital services + the complicated sounding iplayer. And have you used their website search lately? Whenever I've used it it consistently fails the same comparison test against Google that DirectGov does)

Search Wikia is Jimmy Wales' latest.

Our Four Organizing Principles (TCQP) - the future of Internet Search must be based on:

• 1. Transparency - Openness in how the systems and algorithms operate, both in the form of open source licenses and open content + APIs.
• 2. Community - Everyone is able to contribute in some way (as individuals or entire organizations), strong social and community focus.
• 3. Quality - Significantly improve the relevancy and accuracy of search results and the searching experience.
• 4. Privacy - Must be protected, do not store or transmit any identifying data.

Active areas of focus:

• Social Lab - sources for URL social reputation, experiments in wiki-style social ranking.
• Distributed Lab - projects focused on distributed computing, crawling, and indexing. Grub!
• Semantic Lab - Natural Language Processing, Text Categorization.
• Standards Lab - formats and protocols to build interoperable search technologies.

'All in the past'

One of the standard responses from many Aussies about the Aboriginal situation is 'all in the past mate' - all those massacres, stolen children and cultural destruction is assigned to history.

Well this is coming out of your taxes. Mate.

$525,000 - the price of one stolen life

An Aboriginal man taken from his family as a baby has been awarded more than [A]$500,000 compensation [£211,000].

Bruce Trevorrow was 13 months old when a neighbour drove him on Christmas Day in 1957 from his Coorong family home, south-east of Adelaide, to the Children's Hospital with stomach pains.

Hospital notes tendered to the South Australian Supreme Court show staff recorded that the child had no parents and was neglected and malnourished.

Two weeks later, he was given under the authority of the Aborigines Protection Board to a woman, who later became his foster parent, without the permission of his parents. He did not see his family again for 10 years.

His mother wrote in July 1958 "I am writing to ask if you would let me know how baby Bruce is."

The board knew it lacked the legal power to resist a request for Bruce to be returned, so it lied, writing back to say her son was "making good progress" but doctors needed him for longer.

Thereafter they prevented his mother from making contact with him or from finding out where he was or by what process he had been removed.

By the age of two he showed signs of psychiatric disturbance including trichotillomania, a compulsive hairpulling disorder, and a speech defect. As a boy he also chewed his clothing, damaged books and stole.

He spent eight years growing up in the belief he was the child of a white family living in Adelaide. His dark colour was explained by references to relatives overseas who were darker skinned.

When he was returned to his Aboriginal family he was told he would be visiting them but was instead sent home.

In his late teens he took an overdose and slashed his wrists. Under questioning he admitted to never having felt close to anyone, including his wife, whom he treated "roughly" and "badly". He told the court he did not have the skills to be a father to his children and had never hugged or cuddled them.

In 1998, Mr Trevorrow sued the South Australian Government for pain and suffering, alleging he had lost his cultural identity, suffered depression, became an alcoholic and had an erratic employment history after being taken as a child from his family.

Mr Trevorrow left court saying he would pay off his house with the money. "I thought that we would never get there," he said. "But the day's come when I've got the peace of mind to start my life."

A spokesman for the South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, said the [Labor] Government would seek legal advice before deciding whether to appeal.

The former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission chairwoman, Lowitja O'Donoghue, said the judgment was "a great victory".

"It is time to understand there was a stolen generation, instead of all these history wars [see the 'black armband view of history']."

This is the first ever such payment.

Two previous stolen generation claims from the Northern Territory were defended by the Australia Government in the High (Supreme) Court and were defeated because they were out of time.

At least 100,000 children were removed from their parents

Nationally we can conclude with confidence that between one in three and one in ten Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970. In certain regions and in certain periods the figure was undoubtedly much greater than one in ten. In that time not one family has escaped the effects of forcible removal (confirmed by representatives of the Queensland and WA Governments in evidence to the Inquiry). Most families have been affected, in one or more generations, by the forcible removal of one or more children
Bringing them Home
Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families

Electoral Commission wants blog regulation?

From Journalism.co.uk:

The Electoral Commission, which oversees the democratic process in the UK, is increasingly uncomfortable about a lack of regulation governing election campaigning online.

At the moment there is a legal requirement to include an imprint on all printed political material, stating whom it promotes and who produced it.

Although encouraged as good practice, there is no similar requirement for blogs and websites, muddying the waters of what constitutes political comment and outright party political promotion.

The Commission has passed its concerns up the line to its newly formed parent, the Ministry of Justice.

"It's definitely becoming more of an issue, and it's something we are constantly reviewing," said a spokesperson.

Nothing on their website? I found this. Electoral Commission 2003:

Doorstep to desktop: online election campaigning reviewed in new report: "the report stresses the value of allowing these new methods of communication to develop and provide a platform for free speech for election campaigners and voters without excessive regulation."

What's changed that they are now 'increasingly uncomfortable'? What are they proposing regarding 'what constitutes political comment and outright party political promotion' on blogs?

• Ireland awards political vloggers, UK talks regulation

Alastair Campbell and Foxy Brown

Handles Stewart much better than Paxman.



Titter ye lots.