Violence on the Internet
{ Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg had three awful things in common. [...] And both had their excruciating deaths recorded and then replayed thousands, perhaps millions, of times over the Internet. [...] It’s a site based here in the United States with the sole mission of celebrating stomach-turning violence. Under the motto “Can You Handle Life?” the site displays hundreds of images of dead, dying and mangled human beings. Some of its recent offerings were listed under titles such as “shocking murder images,” “suicide by grenade” and “people who drowned.” }
Here you have a peak at some of the most outrageous deviances of the Internet. In fact, Internet magnifies borderline behaviours. For instance, I found out that people watch a sick version of porn called snuff movies where people rape other people and eventually kill them, all that while filming. I doubt it would have gone mainstream had it not been thanks to a platform such as the Internet…
It’s unfortunate but for now the fact that the Internet is based on a lack of regulation and democratisation help the display of violence.
Raymond was innocent! – Cybercrime and identity theft
The Internet is pretty handy, especially in terms of services: you can shop online, get access to free email accounts, join a community like our online Wiki ‘SAY WE’… But it can also be dangerous as all things in life are if you’re not careful enough.
For instance, every month there is a new case of identity theft and cybercrime. A recent case states that a man named Raymond had been arrested on suspicion of online paedophilia. The cops even found evidence in his computer’s hard-drive (e.g pictures of kids). Actually he wasn’t guilty and eventually he was found free of all charges when the detectives discovered cyberhackers used robots and other tools to infiltrate the computers of people and decypher their personnal datas.
There is also the fact that cyberwars do exist too. A couple of years ago (or maybe last year), some high profile US and English organizations (belonging to the governement) were attacked by trojans. People suspected the Chinese governement because most IP addresses were Chinese… So cybercrime can go pretty far as we’ve seen it.
Here is an article about cyberwars (inFrench).
My very first own VIDEO PRESENTATION – Powered by Kickers
It’s 2.03 am and I’m officially DONE with the video from hell. I want to thank my Kickers, Tetley and my brain. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be waking up with me tomorrow morning when I have to get to Bob’s class…
About the video: it’s really NOT a [ p r o p e r ] CV, the script is non-existent, my editing skills are also almost non-existent and I just tried to give you a peak in my world. 
Be kind, don’t rewind!
Youtube plug
Adrian and I discussing the financial crisis and the effects of the Internet.
My So-Called Life
Last week-end I didn’t do anything great or worth mentionning but I’ll try to write about things that sort of surprised me, sort of annoyed me or that I hate.
Let’s start with my dissertation due for the end of the year. I’ve decided I wanted to make it about Vanity Fair – the magazine – so on Saturday I went to a bookshop near the Pantheon specialized in Communications but they didn’t have anything, even in English so I had to go to WH Smith near Concorde. I had VF’s anniversary edition but I wanted to buy a new one and the clerk told me something strange. He said people asked to have their own issue put aside before it was released. And they didn’t have any spare copies in the bookshop. I mean, can you imagine asking for L’Express to be put aside for you in the newsstand near your house? I don’t. Here’s one famous and beautiful VF cover:
So, that’s it. I forgot: I hate Paul and he hates me back.
Obama: a music video producer
During my internship last year, I had to know what music videos were to be released. So, one day on Videostatic (a bulletin about music videos) I found out at least two music videos created for Barack Obama’s campaign. It is very smart since, for instance, there is one especially made for the Latino population:
It is smart because by 2050, Latinos will represent a third of the US population and in the last elections, like the video said 8 million latino voters didn’t vote.
Add to this example, other viral music videos with Scarlett Johansson and Will.I.Am., and you understand that Obama has a real online communication strategy based on creating contents with stars that appeals to young adults. What annoys me with Obama, though I’m quite fond of him and his idealism and poised attitude, is the fact that he relies too much on hollywood stars. Therefore, if I were to choose between the two candidates, I would choose Obama but I’m not really fooled by the viral strategy which I find sort of irrelevant since there are so many difficult and real issues to be discussed as far as politics, economics and society are concerned.
Open-source softwares or why they rule [or not]
Like most people, I tend to automatically use the commercial softwares “offered” with my computer when I buy one. Most computers, if not every computers, offer Windows Systems so you’re stuck with Windows Pack Office, Internet Explorer, etc. Except that two or three years ago I discovered Mozilla Firefox which is a navigator like Internet Explorer. After that, I never went back to using IE; Mozilla Firefox is ten times faster, there are fewer pop-ups and the design is spunkier in my opinion. So I would tend to say that commercial softwares can be somewhat lazy and rest under their laurels (which they were given and they did not earned). So for the users, it is good to be able to choose between several options, like being able to choose between Sun, Linux or Windows. It’s the same as being able to choose between PCs and Macs.
Nonetheless I read an interesting article that set light on a tricky aspect of an other type of free softwares or applications used on your computer: Cloud Computing. Wikipedia explains the concept very well:
Cloud computing is Internet (‘cloud‘) based development and use of computer technology (‘computing‘). The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet (based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams) and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.[1] It is a style of computing where IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”,[2] allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet (“in the cloud”)[3] without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them.[4] According to the IEEE Computer Society “It is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, etc.”
The article I found about Cloud Computing explained that they can spy on you and use your personnal datas like Facebook or Gmail. So you pretty much have to choose between free content and confidentiality. Internet is great to have options and try new things but it can use you for commercial purposes as well.
Extra spoilery – About TV Shows
A good tv drama is like a a book to me. That’s why I watch so much television (by that I mean almost exclusively fiction, though I do like documentaries and investigation programs). In my opinion, there is no such thing as a flawless tv series and since I couldn’t set up my mind on an all-time favourite tv show when my teacher asked about my favourite tv show, I decided to make a short list of some of the tv shows I find both entertaining and smart.
# 3 – GILMORE GIRLS (dead > formerly The CW/The WB)
Like food, there is such a thing as “comfort tv”. For some, comfort TV means re-watching Friends, – and I’ve never really gotten the whole fanatic enthusiasm around it -, for me it means watching Gilmore Girls. This is what I would call a light dramedy; it’s not as soapy or realistic as some dramedies, but it’s not completely comedy either. Lorelai Gilmore and Rory Gilmore are mother and daughter, but the trick is Lorelai was a teenage mother so they have a quaint relationship where no-one really is the mother. Lorelai has issues with her rich and conservative parents who never quite got over the fact their only daughter got pregnant at 16… Nonetheless, Rory, Lorelai’s daughter proves herself to be a sort of improved Lorelai, both intelligent and even-tempered (the opposite of her mother), and therefore offers Richard and Emily, her grandparents, a second chance at parenting. The most interesting thing about the show is certainly the writing and therefore the dialogues; the Gilmore Girls have a very sharp, fast-paced speech and they mix pop-culture references in the most entertaining ways, a bit like Buffy used to.
# 2 – THE OFFICE (NBC)
The Office US is an adaptation of a British comedy show created by Rick Gervais. It’s written and shot as a documentary and it follows the everyday lives of a paper company’s employees. This is the show that always makes me laugh no matter what; the situations are never too over the top or too dramatized, the actors are not very glamorous so as to make it even more real and all the characters have a specific and most of the time bizarre story and personnality. Jim and Pam is the will-they-won’t-they couple of the office; Michael is the crazy manager who believes he is the greatest manager of all times when he’s not; Dwight is this strange mormon living in his own world where law and order must prevail over everything, and so on… It really says something about our society, mocks it but shows a more endearing side of life in a company.
Watch this spoof performed by Conan O’Brian made for the Emmy Awards’ opening skit:
# 1 – BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (Sci-Fi)
I know it might seem extremely geeky at first sight (and for the record, I hate the word ‘geek’), but BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is an astonishing hybrid show; it’s a mix of sci-fi, political drama, fantastic genre and pure drama when it comes to the characters. Basically, the show is about the survival of the human race after its near genocide. The show is extremely realistic and the storylines are in no way similar to the ones in Stargate for instance. It’s a really unique remake of the original show (which aired during the 70s’) that tries to elevate the sci-fi genre to something like Aldous Huxley would have made, had he been a tv show producer rather than a writer. I’ve discovered it two years ago before the beginning of the show’s third season and eventhough there are flaws and strange mystic storylines that I don’t always like, this is by far what I considere TV at its best (and it has been nominated for Emmy awards on several occasions which shows there is more to it than spaceships and robots).
For a recap of the first three season click here! ATTENTION EXTRA FUNNY & EXTRA SPOILERY: “Wondering What the Frakk is Going on on Battlestar Galactica”.
RSS FEEDS
Before RSS feeds, you usually had to wander around your bookmarks and visit each single of your favourite websites in order to see if there are new things posted, if something has been added, etc. Pretty long and sometimes downright annoying if you can’t find your bookmarks (and can’t remember the URL).
But now, ta-da, you have RSS FEEDS. You see, this little orange button (like in the picture below) you have near the URL on your navigator, if you click on it while visiting your favourite websites, a window will open and ask you if you wish to add it to your Google Pages or to your Netvibes Page. If you don’t have either of these ones, or any other type of RSS generator, go sign up because it’s completely worth it. Basically, when you have a Netvibes account for instance, and after you subscribed to RSS feeds (after you clicked on the orange button of a website dear to your heart and entered the RSS link in your page), you will now have every new updates summed up on one single page. So, eventually, you won’t have to lose time as you used to by visiting every single page, you will have a sort of personnalized front page of your very own press review. Here’s my Netvibes page where I gathered RSS from my favourite blogs, website dealing with music, cinema and television, or even news and such.
An example of pro-social actions online
I’m no Brigitte Bardot but I love baby seals. So, when Bob my English teacher asked us to write something about a pro-social website, I ended up on a pro-animals website: SAVE BABY SEALS!
How does it work? I’ve first found it on my Facebook account while searching the network for baby seals pictures. The ad was inviting me to support this cause (against the slaughter of these furry mamals) by picking pictures and taking quizzes and adding the application so as to raise awareness amongst my friends on Facebook. That’s it! The website explains it all: (for instance for the quizz)
“Every correct answer helps support saving baby seals from the cruel annual harp seal hunt . The following is a picture gallery of some seals that could benefit from Save Baby Seals. Help us save these seals by playing and sharing. [...] For every question you answer correctly, we’ll donate money to help save infant seals, who are often inhumanely clubbed to death for their fur in the world’s largest mammal slaughter.. The more you play, the more baby seals we can help save! Spread the word and make a huge difference!”
Therefore, we can see that by spreading the word, sharing pictures and playing online, you somewhat participate in a social cause.
