Viewing entries tagged with 'news'
Excellent! Excellent!
Yesterday I won the University of Auckland 2009 General Staff Excellence Award for Excellence in Innovation which is conferred every year to one staff member across the entire University. I highly appreciate that the efforts are recognised. The ceremony was held by the vice-chancellor.
Here's the citation:
"Anatol led the technological implementation, customisation, improvement and maintenance of the online learning management system (LMS) Moodle for the Faculty of Education. He managed the transfer of existing online courses from the legacy system and the creation of new courses in the LMS.
He also provides ongoing support and training for staff and students. He created a student management system that is essential to the implementation of the new e-learning environment and developed a CD-ROM generator for readings CDs.
He engages in ongoing research into technology and media that is innovative and useful for teaching and learning and that helps to keep the University up-to-date and competitive in the tertiary sector."
The award also comes with a nice cash prize that will come in quite handy to get some equipment for my Masters studies for a MA Art & Design at AUT University that will commence next year. What a lot of good news at once!
Reinventing Your Inbox
It seems that Google is currently reinventing email. According to the keynote the upcoming Google Wave indeed looks very promising. It has the potential to become an incredible innovation for the world wide web. I think what sums it up is probably the question that the Google developers asked themselves:
"What would email look like if it was invented today?" (email has been around for 40 years)
As I see it Google Wave could potentially replace email as we know and use it today. It is from the ground up designed to be collaborative (much more than e.g. Google Docs or Wikis etc). Think of it more of a 'conversation space' rather than an inbox with the 'traditional' concept to send and receive letters. It can also link into (or be embedded in) any web content.
One of the best decisions around that is that it's not proprietory to Google but will be an open source project with open standards.
You'll get the best idea if you watch the 1h 20mins keynote. Or if you wait a couple of months until it'll be released.
Rise and Fall
This is a 30 minute version of the movie I.O.U.S.A, a film about the rapidly growing national debt of the United States, the long-term ignorance of the problem and it's occurring and looming consequences.
Quite interesting in this regard is Arnold J. Toynbee's A Study of History about the rise and fall of human civilisations. According to a Wikipedia article Toynbee "argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, it comes from the deterioration of the 'Creative Minority,' which eventually ceases to be creative and degenerates into merely a 'Dominant Minority' (who forces the majority to obey without meriting obedience). He argues that creative minorities deteriorate due to a worship of their 'former self,' by which they become prideful, and fail to adequately address the next challenge they face."
Sounds familiar? You make up your own mind.
Best Viewed with Open Eyes
»Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.«
- Herman Göring
It´s very unpleasant for me to quote this Nazi and I don´t intend to place anyone on a level with this ideology. However, it shows once again how simple the basic rules for propaganda are and how it works over and over and over again. For all who want to know the basic propaganda recipe to understand what lies beneath the news we are fed with and for all who aspire a job in the propaganda machinery of which country ever I highly recommend War, Propaganda and the Media.
The following is an exerpt from The Pure Essence Of Stupid and quotes Chris Mathews in his MSNBC talk show, 'Hardball.' in talk with Jed Babbin (former Undersecretary of Defense in the first Bush administration), December 9th 2002 (via Media, Propaganda and Iraq):
Matthews: »Shouldn't he have to show evidence? You're acting like it's a question mark. Isn't it necessary morally and politically and historically for this president to show his own people and the world he has evidence of weapons of mass destruction before going in?«
Babbin: »He has no obligations like that, Chris. This is not a trial. This is not a legal proceeding. This is a matter of national survival and national security.«
Matthews: »Well, how do the American people know that there's weapons of mass destruction in that country if the president can't show them there are?«
Babbin: »Because they trust their president. When he gets up, as he will soon, I believe, and tells them that they do have all the evidence that they need to proceed on Saddam's weapons.«
Matthews: »OK, so it's on his say-so. We're going to war on the president's say-so.«
Babbin: »That's the way it always is.«
I wish you all a nice week.
To be Continued Part 2
I don´t know what to say. Not now. I´m highly concerned.
Rambo IV
»Wir kommen euch holen, und mit uns kommt die Wut der Hölle«.
- Charles Norwood (republican party), 15.9.2001
Come on! Are you politicians or what?
Interesting what people are concerned about right now.
Handle with Care
»die kriegserklärungen wurden von der bevölkerung aller beteiligten länder mit einer begeisterung aufgenommen, für die uns heute jedes verständnis fehlt. auch in deutschland strömten die kriegsfreiwilligen nur so zu den meldestellen. man glaubte der krieg werde in wenigen wochen siegreich beendet sein.«
- that was then, that was world war 1.
(via p3k, like most of the last days links)
»CNN using 1991 footage of celebrating Palistinians«. Is this a baseless rumour? I don´t know, but media are to be handled with care these days.
»fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity«
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