Passing Comments

It’s a rare and up close look at the Congo and its people and their struggles today in the aftermath of the numerous wars there. It was broadcast in early April on the equally rare and remarkable American television program, “Bill Moyers Journal.”

Intro to the two part series:

THE JOURNAL takes viewers on the ground in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to follow aid workers and local relief efforts that are bringing hope to a forgotten land. “The aid agencies are almost substituting for a social welfare system that hasn’t operated in these areas for decades,” says Dominic MacSorley, Emergency Director for Concern Worldwide, an international aid organization.

Part I, above (25:30). Part two (18:17) is here.

A full transcript in English of the documentary series accompanies the videos.

The major Internet portal in China, SINA, announced yesterday that its English news site is now online. The recent massive earthquake in the country determined the timing, according to the press release:

It was truly a massive tragedy. We have chosen to launch our English news site now as we would like to provide up-to-minute coverage of the earthquake for overseas people who are concerned about the tragedy and easy access for those who wish to show their love and care or make their contributions.” said Charles Chao, President and CEO of SINA. “Over the longer term, we intend to make this site a window for international communities to have an easy access to China related information and to have better understanding about modern China.

Content on the SINA site is similar in format to that of Western online newspapers, including video and photos. Read the Guardian story here (“Chinese news site launches in English” by Jemima Kiss, May 19, 2008).

I found the link to this article at The Editors Weblog.org.

Yesterday’s Boston Globe had an article reviewing some new scholarly studies and opinion about why women seem to be avoiding en masse certain science and engineering careers (“The freedom to say ‘no” by Elaine McArdle, May 18, 2008).

Anyone who’s curious about this particular situation probably will find this article of interest. I was especially struck by a finding described in this paragraph midway or so in this longish piece:

Women who are mathematically gifted are more likely than men to have strong verbal abilities as well; men who excel in math, by contrast, don’t do nearly as well in verbal skills. As a result, the career choices for math-precocious women are wider than for their male counterparts. They can become scientists, but can succeed just as well as lawyers or teachers. With this range of choice, their data show, highly qualified women may opt out of certain technical or scientific jobs simply because they can.

Read the whole piece here. I found the link to this article at the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) website.

The researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science want a whole bunch of Good Samaritan type game players to log on to a new website they’ve created so as to give a little assist to their computers. I found out about this free fun zone at Nicholas Carr’s Rough Type blog from a post last week (“Von Ahn’s Gwap” May 16, 2008):

The site, called Gwap (an acronym for “games with a purpose”), is the brainchild of computer scientist Luis von Ahn (who also cofathered the Captcha). “We have games that can help improve Internet image and audio searches, enhance artificial intelligence and teach computers to see,” he explains. “But that shouldn’t matter to the players because it turns out these games are super fun.”

I clicked on to the Gwap site with the firm intention of spending five minutes checking out what was what. An hour and a half later, I broke away. Word to the wise, that’s all.

The Rough Type post has the breakdown of the various games here.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) founder Nicholas Negroponte is taking some heat from critics who are accusing him of selling out his principles in making a deal with Microsoft, according to an ars technica article yesterday (“Former security director blasts OLPC, suggests new strategy” by Ryan Paul, May 15, 2008).

The deal, described in an article today in the New York Times, was announced yesterday and provides for Microsoft’s Windows to be offered on all OLPC’s low low cost computers (“Microsoft Joins Effort for Laptops for Children” by Steve Lohr, May 16, 2008). In reference to the agreement with Microsoft, Negroponte said, according to the article, that the government officials of the countries whose poor children OLPC is trying to reach “are much more comfortable with Windows” (as an operating system for the computers).

In another piece in ars technica, also today, Negroponte is also speaking for himself about what his primary motive was in forming the alliance with Microsoft (“OLPC and Microsoft will make Windows available on XO” by Ryan Paul, May 16, 2008):

“From the beginning, the goal of OLPC has been to use technology to transform education by bringing connectivity and constructionist learning to the poorest children throughout the world,” said OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte in a statement. “Today’s announcement, coupled with future plans for a dual boot version of the XO laptop, enhances our ability to deliver on this vision.

So another way (in my opinion) of looking at Negroponte’s decision to go with Microsoft could be that he simply is keeping his eye on the ball — meaning his goal of getting computers into the hands of the millions and millions of poor children across the globe as soon as possible. Whatever it takes.

The inventor of the Internet, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, wants to help its users protect themselves from the lowlifes online who are trying to hide who they really are and what they’re really up to.

To fund this project, he plans to use the money coming to him as one of 16 winners named yesterday of the Knight News Challenge award, according to an article in InformationWeek (“Sir Tim Berners-Lee To Track Origins Of Digital Content” by K.C. Jones, May 14, 2008).

Jones’ intro:

Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has received a grant to create a technology that will give users more information about the origins and sources of digital content.

As Jones notes, this is one of the biggest challenges of the moment in relation to the Internet. Read more here.

Last month, in an article in the Telegraph on the same subject, Berners-Lee discussed various aspects of the problem of “cyber imposters,” and his hope to find a solution (“Technology could be used to protect youngsters from internet predators,” by Tom Peterkin, April 30, 2008).

Zucchero — from Daily Motion:

A justifiable rage:

You don’t have to be cynical to do foreign policy, but it helps. A sigh of relief rose over the west’s chancelleries on Monday as it became clear that the Chinese earthquake was big – big enough to trump Burma’s cyclone.

Read more here (“As Burma dies, our macho invaders sit on their hands” by Simon Jenkins, The Guardian, May 14, 2008).

Kosmopolit is “a blog about politics and culture from a European perspective.” Last week the website posted the trailer for a new TV documentary about the Balkans. (“Return to Europe – A journey of discovery” May 5, 2008).

The documentary takes a look at how the Balkan people are recovering from the recent wars there, and how this European area is becoming a “region of hope.”

Read more about the documentary here.