See Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign
Topic: Cyber-Culture
3:16 am EDT, Aug 17, 2007
Wikipedia Scanner -- the brainchild of CalTech computation and neural-systems graduate student Virgil Griffith -- offers users a searchable database that ties millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on who owns the associated block of internet IP addresses.
Virgil's on Wired. :)
(Update: Slashdotted) Wow Virgil, you made the Drudge report! I like your page to the press. That's great. :) I just wish more people would focus on the Diebold edits!
"LonelyGirl, aka a.k.a. “Bree,” presented herself as a home-schooled California high schooler with strict, religious parents. If only, it was left to the imagination of computer geeks the world over, a sensitive boy could take her away from all of that.
Given that a photo of Satanist Aleister Crowley also occupied her bedroom, some were led to think she was more complicated than she first appeared. Some speculated she may have been promoting a movie in the vein of “Blair Witch Project,” especially after an E-mail from her was traced to Hollywood’s giant dealmaker Creative Artists Agency.
Others, noting the quality of lighting and editing, the careful avoidance of mainstream (copyrighted) music and the fact that her Web site had been registered before the first video went up, figured she was some kind of hoaxer. They even observed that, when she yawned, she had wisdom teeth, unusual for a 16-year-old...
This week, however, the enigma code was broken, and LonelyGirl was revealed to be Jessica Rose, a New Zealand native living in the Los Angeles area, probably in her late teens. " (19 I read elsewhere)
EBAY25.78, -1.24, -4.6%) raised the amount it charges to run an online store. By raising store fees an average of 6%, eBay was hoping many stores would close up shop, thus engineering a return to a mix of lots of auction listings -- its most profitable product -- and a tiny sliver of items listed for sale in stores, which generate much less revenue for the firm. Currently, there is about four times the number of items listed for sale in stores than in auctions on eBay. The imbalance has hit eBay hard. During the second quarter ending July 19, eBay said its profit dropped 14% from a year earlier. Shares of eBay closed down $1.22, or 4.5%, at $25.78. So far, the storefront rate increase appears to be achieving eBay's aim of shedding ties to independent stores.
Ebay sellers continue to be very upset by increased insertion rates and final value fees for ebay stores. This comes after intense store promotion for months on the part of eBay and is the second increase this year.
Incensed after eBay claimed that the new fees would only raise prices by 6%, most of eBay soon worked out that the increases were 23% or more for the huge majority of sellers.
Calls for a boycott this week have been particularly successful in Great Britain. Ebay sellers ask that no one list regular auction style listings or BUY from auction style listings.
The BBC and several major media outlets in England covered the boycott, which has been largely ignored by US media. There's no denying that auction listings are WAY down, and fee hike protest auctions are going up as quickly as they can be pulled from the site. There are also several protest videos spilling over onto other Internet sites, such as myspace and YouTube.
Ebay countered the boycott with a listing sale enticement today - 10 cent listings when sellers move auctions from store to auction format, however, many sellers aren't biting. The timing of the sale was a bit too manipulative for many. For instance, if a seller stopped a store item today to move it to auction, it would be ending ON August 22 - the day that the new hike goes into effect. Furthermore, the fine print on the sale announced that the sellers were to pay full fees up front, only to be given a credit after the next quarter profits for the company came in.
All this comes after eBay announced its intention to buy back 20 million shares of stock. Could eBay be intentionally driving its own stock down? Many sellers think so! Ebay stock is near its current 52 week low.
The is the best thing I've found on the net besides Google
Topic: Cyber-Culture
12:58 am EDT, Sep 29, 2005
I really like this better than Google as far as entertainment value goes. The homepage doesn't look like much, and well, hell, who wants another toolbar? In this case - ME!
This is no hotbar. This toolbar has no adware or spyware, its just pure fun. Click sign up, download the toolbar, and make sure to fill out your profile. It even gives you a Myer's Briggs personality like test that you can enter. (I had the real thing, and this one also said I was an ENTP, so it seems it is right.)
Ok, so what's in it for you? GREAT WEBSITES that you probably never knew existed that are going to be right up your alley. It harnesses the power of social networks and memes to help bring you the best content that you could ever want.
I've turned quite a few people onto it now, and they are all totally loving it.
You can also network with friends, and join groups by similiar interest. You also get your own page, with your interests. For example, I'm skullaria.stumbleupon.com.
Its great for kids too. My son loves to find online games, so I set up his to serve computer graphic content, online games, info on video games, ect - and, as a sneaky mom - I intersperced some science links that I thought he'd like. Its working - he's getting lots of educational games.
You can rate the content you want to see.
The only negatives I can think of are that some people are using x-rated avatars that kids can see and of course, privacy advocates might not like it. Its not terribly nosey, however, mainly you need a screenname and email.
That, and, well, its addictive, but in a good way. Over 203 million stumbles so far. I like to watch the counter. It is growing like wildfire.
Enter in your AIM screen-name (and anyone else's you want) and see how many people link to you, within three degrees.
There's no way to increase your own score by adding people. This score is specifically calculated by counting people who have *your* name, in *their* buddy list, and some sort of formula which weights their link to you, based on their own scores.
My score today is: 45989
For reference, here are a few other people I checked. Some are folks I know, and some are just random names I typed in:
Old news Sex.com back Acacia New news:Acacia threatening to sue the University system of Georgia
Topic: Cyber-Culture
11:15 am EST, Nov 8, 2004
I've not rec'd one yet, but all over the university system of georgia, webmasters are recieving the following : I received a letter last week from Acacia technologies about some patent infringements that might be occuring if we use streaming audio/video. I thought something was mentioned about this at DLA this year, but couldn't remember the details. Has anyone else received any similar letters? If so, have they been handled, and how? I'm just wondering what my next steps might be...David, doesn't your DL director at GPC have background in this area?
