"We are all here in China that represents quite a lot of opportunities, not only on the business side, but also on the social side," Yang said.

"We look at our users' interests, without our users we don't have business."

At the same time, it was essential that Yahoo employees abide by local laws as well, he added.

"I would not put our employees at risk in anyway, shape or form and when it comes to issues such as seeking user information we have a very clear cut set of rules."

"The government of any country has engaged with us through legal documentation or legal procedures, we get a lot of those every day around the world."

On the heels of Yahoo helping China bust journalist Shi Tao, Jerry Yang is in China taking part in the Internet Summit being thrown by Alibaba. Who thinks they would have been welcome there if they didn't hand over the information? I don't.. And I'm not just talking about the summit.

Bill Clinton is also attending.

"In China, I think that so far the political system and restraint on political speech in the Internet has not seemed to have any adverse commercial consequences," Clinton said.

"It will be interesting to see whether that is true of the future.

"In America, the Internet is this wild cauldron of dissenting voices, we have now whole different media over the Internet with all the blog sites in America," he said.

Clinton nails it. Its all about the market. Its the Chinese internal market that must put the pressure on the Chinese government. An internal approach is better than an external one. In China's eyes, any pressure from outside to change their approach to speech would be seen in a light akin to terrorism. The Chinese citizens need to be the ones to fly the Internet into Beijing. To stretch the analogy for all its worth, the pilots cannot be Chinese trained in America for their actions to take hold in the society. It must come from within. They can do it based on our ideology, but lets not be so blatant about it as to put it in the context of a state based attack. Put your faith in freedom and people. In this case, the Chinese people.

The next person standing in front of a tank will be holding a laptop with Wifi.

Yahoo's Yang say hands tied in China Internet censorship case

Behemoth search engine Google signaled an even further climb to the top of the Internet mountain Thursday with its announcement that Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet, is joining the company as its 'chief Internet evangelist.'

This is some kind of milestone.

At this point, Google has more brains in one place than anyone can possibly know what to do with. What are they going to do? I picture a situation where they become so dense they fall in on themselves in some giant think-tank black hole. Unless they can keep all these people busy, they are going to simply be well paid bored people. That might have unintended negative effects. Either that, or Google is on its way to become a monastery like church of technology.

I've heard both good and bad things about their culture. I don't buy fully into either take on it. Its going to be interesting to see what happens. I think they have the integrity to keep trying to follow their "don't be evil" mantra, but can they? Not doing what you are capable of is a form of evil, because you hold the resources back from the rest of the world. Its a page from Microsoft, and hopefully not the one Google is flipping to.

Google says `Cerf`s Up`

On the day *I* go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be
heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but
develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone
will go superconductive.

ESR got an email from a Microsoft recruiter who was told by a Microsoft research team that he be would be a good candidate for employment. The recruiter neglected to do any background research on Eric before sending out the email. Something tells me that the research team didn't like the recruiter much and wanted to see something funny happen. It did.. As expected, Eric's response was nice, but in a way with teeth.

Read Eric's response and have a good laugh.

Armed and Dangerous » Microsoft tries to recruit me

Foamy... Several of my friends have told me that I speak like Foamy... Its 'ok'. They are still my friends. I don't have a problem with Foamy. I'm down with Foamy. I can tell he is closer to my neck of the sprawl than I am right now.. If that rabid squirrel shows his mug down at the shore, we could hang.

Now, to the point... This Foamy cartoon is a definite departure from the normal ranting we expect from our high strung pal. Within Foamy's heavily filtered voice, I very clearly hear something not present in his other rants: True genuine concern. Go Foamy.

After watching this, I actually took the time to seriously sit and ponder the obvious question that follows Foamy's rant. How can I help? Its a hard question to answer. I don't have money to toss at the problem, and I question the effectiveness of that unless I can target it anyway. I can't head down there right now, and if I could I'm not sure what I would be able to accomplish. All the things I can come up with are long term results of things I'm already working on and it amounts to a copout. I'm being challenged by a flash squirrel, damnit. Good job Foamy.

Before this disaster is over, I will find some way to help those affected by it. It didn't take Foamy to push me to that conclusion, it had already happened, but I'm adding him retroactively to my list of premises.

While we are at it, take in Anne Rice's take on the situation, via the New York Times.

Foamy the Squirrel vs. New Orleans Disaster

Wired has an article covering DragonCon.

This was a great year. I'd venture a guess that 80% of the time I had a smile plastered across my face. Everyone involved with running the convention did an amazing job. Everyone there was having a wonderful time. Everything I can think of to say about how things went this year does not do it justice.

Conventions such as these are uniquely beautiful events. A group of people comes together to share in some esoteric common purpose or goal. Time passes. At its end, the group ceases to exist and becomes a historical curiosity. In the case of a strong group, it develops a sort of ideology that lives on in the absence of the group's cohesion, allowing it to effortlessly rise from the dead in its next phase. It takes on a life of its own. A living thing that breathes art in and culture out.

In general, I highly enjoy people watching. I'm one of those folks that likes to be extremely attune to my surroundings. At a convention like DragonCon, I find this trait to reap great rewards. In every direction, there is some type of madness to take in. People in amazing costumes are everywhere. Cute girls are everywhere. Everyone is friendly. Conversations lite up like gas fires and everyone fire walks. Its impossible to be bored, the only risk is fatigue. There is no way to leave without feeling slightly sad.

Elonka Dunin, a game designer at Simutronics, invited fans to demo the company's latest MMORPG, Hero's Journey, in her hotel room. A monster-fighting quest set in a lush, expansive fantasy world of vulnerable villages and devious conspiracies, the game is perfectly targeted for the DragonCon crowd. "This isn't just hack-and-slash," Dunin said as she set up her avatar to cast a spell. "There are creative ways to deal with combat, and a lot of chances to create stories for your characters."

Elonka is clearly our most famous MemeStreams user. Not only is her page among the most often hit here, but she is always popping up in the news. In addition to getting a demo of Hero's Journey, which I found to be extremely impressive, I attended her Kryptos talk. (again) I found it inspiring. (again) Next time she gives it I'll attend (again), and I'll keep doing it until she breaks the damn 4th part of the code. Hear that Elonka?! Quit playing those video games and hack the CIA's cafeteria courtyard! I'm going to keep "encouraging" you... :)

On other panels, such as "Hacking 101," science fiction was set aside in favor of science fact. Learning Perl author Randal Schwartz talked about being arrested at Intel in the mid-1990s for using the software tool Crack to check the security of his company's password files. "I worry that we're going to see other frivolous convictions like mine in the world of peer-to-peer," he said.

The Hacking 101 talk made Wired's review! Nice. I guess we did something right. I didn't think Hacking 101 went as well as it has in the past, but Hacking 201 went great. And for the first time I've ever been involved with it, Hacking 301 actually had content about hacking. As opposed to several of us sitting on a panel talking about how tired we all are. I was in a really crappy mood at the time, as I had not gotten any sleep that night. I hope no one though I was too much of an asshole.. Randal gets the story's quote, which is fine with me. There is a rumor being pushed around that he has been given an invite to The Conspiracy...

JonnyX's Space and Technology track of programming was amazing this year. DragonCon should give him a bigger room next year.

Dragon*Con Review

Decius and I will be speaking at the Hacking 101, 201, and 301 panels this weekend at DragonCon. I look forward to seeing a number of friends and MemeStreams users.

I expect my blogging to be light or non-existant until my return. Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!

Here is to hoping we don't have any significant issues with the gas shortages...

I've been moving and dumping 55 gallon drums all day. It's back breaking work, but it's a good thing I've got a strong back. I haven't fooled with that much diesel since I was on shit-burning detail in the first Gulf War. I used to volunteer for it because it meant I could skip morning formation. Never been much of a garrison soldier. I was always a field soldier.

So here at Outpost Crystal, we're set pretty good. Thanks for the heads up on the 12-15 feet of water that you guys are telling me I can expect in the CBD tomorrow. That's fine, I'm trained for water operations too. I appreciate all the recommendations, but we're not going.

Exmilitary guy who runs a datacenter in a tower in NOLA is still there and his systems are operational! He has a Livejournal and several cam feeds running. In a way I think all this effort and risk to keep some computers running is a bit silly. On the otherhand, this is absolutely the most hard core systems administration that I have ever heard of.

The Interdictor: Admining in Hell

This movie is due to air on TNT in September. See if this sounds familiar: A hurricane hits New Orleans, destroying off shore oil rigs and damaging major pipelines. The ensuing disaster is handled in standard disaster movie fashion. There will be heros, self sacrifice, everyone will go on a journey, there will be at least three plot arcs, and of course a happy ending that will leave you feeling safe and secure about the risk of it actually happening.

... or, you could just watch CNN and get a dose of reality.

Makes you wonder.. Will they air it now? IMDB says that they used a fair amount of real footage, and with clever patchwork, fit in the footage filmed in the Hollywood's good old 10ft tank. Currently New Orleans is a much bigger tank.. Think they will grab some more footage and re-edit? Maybe tag on a new ending where everyone dies and American gas prices start looking like Europe gas prices? Don't count on it.. This is made for TV after all..

Oil Storm

John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said last night that the corps and other agencies were "in a great frenzy" to figure out how to plug the 300-foot gap along the 17th Street Canal.The narrow canal, which is used to drain water pumped out of the eternally soggy city, is not accessible by barge, in part because a newly built low bridge and hurricane barrier sits 700 feet down the canal toward the lake end. "We can't get at it," Mr. Hall said.

Engineering challenges... is putting it lightly. Its going to be a hard week in the Big Easy.

I must admit that the full impact of this storm was not clear to me until I saw the TV last night, even though I expected it to be bad.

For years I have made the joke that I'd like to see New Orleans before its completely destroyed. Today, I'm feeling bad about making that joke. And its not because I still have not spent any time down in New Orleans.

The sheer human tragedy present on everyone TV screens today is heartbreaking. What's worse, is we saw this coming. The failures present here were all preventable at multiple stages. It starts with the fact that its not a good idea to build a city below sea level, and it ends with evacuation plans that were clearly not mature enough to deal with the reality everyone knew was coming.

The big question: What do we rebuild? And what do we abandon?

Geography Complicates Levee Repair - New York Times

The New York Times reporter Judith Miller has now been in jail longer for refusing to testify than any reporter working for a newspaper in America. It is a very long time for her, for her newspaper and for the media. And with each dismal milestone, it becomes more apparent that having her in jail is an embarrassment to a country that is supposed to be revered around the world for its freedoms, especially its First Amendment that provides freedom of the press. Ms. Miller, who went to jail rather than testify in an investigation into the disclosure of an undercover agent's identity, has been in a Virginia jail 55 days as of today.

... or 56 days at the time of this posting.

Integrity comes at a price. Its very upsetting that for this reporter, that price is her freedom.

Its time to start printing up those yellow stickers that say "FREE JUDY".

Free Judy Miller