I hadn’t heard of Flash Graffiti before as a term, though I have seen other artists project onto walls and embassies. (I remember in particular there was an artist during the apartheid era who flashed images at night on the South African embassy in London.) It is quite subversive, and though it is harmless as a ghost, still, it makes its mark, as this article, shows: Chinese Army Unhappy Over Ai Weiwei ‘Flash Graffiti’ from ANIMAL:

As if Chinese authorities weren’t angered enough by the rash of pro-Ai Weiwei stencils popping up all over Hong Kong, someone is now projecting the same message on unauthorized locations around the city, including the barracks of the People’s Liberation Army.

(Discovered via Andrew Sullivan.)

…can be found here in Slate Magazine. He sums up Chomsky’s statements scathingly at the end of his article like this:

In short, we do not know who organized the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, or any other related assaults, though it would be a credulous fool who swallowed the (unsupported) word of Osama Bin Laden that his group was the one responsible. An attempt to kidnap or murder an ex-president of the United States (and presumably, by extension, the sitting one) would be as legally justified as the hit on Abbottabad. And America is an incarnation of the Third Reich that doesn’t even conceal its genocidal methods and aspirations. This is the sum total of what has been learned, by the guru of the left, in the last decade.

If you were persuaded by Chomsky and his line of thinking, you should also read this by Hitchens. His argument against  Chomsky and others critical of the attack on the Osama bin Laden is robust and persuasive. A must read.

If you want to create a KML file of your Google Maps, do this:

1. Go to your map
2. Right click on the hyperlink “View in Google Earth”
3. Select “Copy Link Location” from the menu
4. Open a new tab in your browser and paste the link into your address bar
5. Before pressing the ENTER key, change part of the URL from “Output=nl” to “Output=kml” and leave everything else the same and press ENTER
6. Save the file.

At a minimum, this makes a good backup file for your map. But better still, you can edit it in a text editor and import it later. Google Maps is great and very usable, but sometimes only a text editor (or some custom code) can change the file the way you want.

Have fun!

P.S. I learned this from another page, but I lost the link! Thanks to whomever blogged about this before. Great tip!

Over at Techlicious is a good run down on Five Tech Products that Will Be Dead in Five Years.

It seems reasonable, if by “dead” the author means “they will no longer be a mainstream product”. In truth, what happens is that products get displaced or absorbed, rather than die. You could argue, for example, that PDAs like Palm Pilots are “dead”. But really, they were displaced by other products. I know people who still use them, and I’d argue that the iPod Touch I have is simply a PDA+.

For example, I think tablet computers will displace eReaders, but if the price of eReaders dive, there may still be a market/use of them. Kids may get them in schools, for example. Likewise, DVD/CD-ROMs may be going extinct, but separate media, be it 5.25″ soft floppies, 3.5″ hard floppies, etc, will always be with us. I also think that the fragility of such devices might mean that they eventually get displaced by something as well.

It’s a good article, and a good example of where technology is heading. In the long run, all technology becomes extinct, be it 5 years or 50 or more. Predicting it’s demise is fun, but looking at what displaces and absorbs it is much more useful.

Namely, ask questions first and follow the law. Case in point: Mozilla. Recently Homeland Security requested Mozilla to take down the MafiaaFire Add-on. What did they do? (See here.) Rather than automatically comply, they took some extra time and proceeded as follows:

Our approach is to comply with valid court orders, warrants, and legal mandates, but in this case there was no such court order. Thus, to evaluate Homeland Security’s request, we asked them several questions similar to those below to understand the legal justification:

* Have any courts determined that the Mafiaafire add-on is unlawful or illegal in any way? If so, on what basis? (Please provide any relevant rulings)
* Is Mozilla legally obligated to disable the add-on or is this request based on other reasons? If other reasons, can you please specify.
* Can you please provide a copy of the relevant seizure order upon which your request to Mozilla to take down the Mafiaafire add-on is based?

Having received neither a response or a court order, they did nothing.

Was this so hard? Did it require alot of legal resources to do this? It appears not. The question I have is: why don’t more IT companies do this?

I hope you like this: you can expect to hear it all summer, blasting out of every car filled with young people as they drive by going “boom…” 🙂

P.S. I knew Nikki Minaj could rap (and she is superb here) but I hadn’t realized how “pop” she is. Then I went looking at other videos by her and she does pop really well. No wonder her views on YouTube are so high: she’s a cross over giant.

YouTube – Nicki Minaj – Super Bass

You can read it here: Guernica / Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death. One thing that struck me was this:

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.

I am really surprised Chomsky would make such a poor comparison. First off, bin Laden was not the former head of Pakistan, so the comparison is not apt. Secondly, there is a better comparison, and that is with Orlando Letelier. Similar to bin Laden, Letelier was a (Chilean) refugee living in another country (the U.S. in the 1970s). A foreign country (Chile) sent agents who killed him with an explosive planted in a car. The end result of that was that one of the assassins, Michael Townley, was extradicted, and instead of a death sentence or life in prison, he ended up getting placed under the Witness Protection Program. There is suspicion that the C.I.A. withheld evidence (see ASSASSINS AND SLEUTHS – NYTimes.com) in the case. Perhaps that is how Americans would react, which, I suspect, is how Pakistan will react.

So that would be a much better comparison, and it is based on something that actually happened. Also it is one that Chomsky would certainly be aware of. Why he didn’t make it I will leave to you to decide.

Sandra Boynton makes great kids books. Now they have been turned into apps for your iPhone/Touch/iPad! And at a very good price, too. I think this is great: more kids and parents should know about these great works and enjoy them.

What I don’t think is great is how I see this child interacting with the “book”:

What I loved about the books of Sandra Boynton is that they are books: I spent many a time reading them to my kids, and then having my kids read them. In the video, the book is turned into a toy, and the reading aspect seems to be downplayed. This is not to fault the app, and it is certainly not the only way to enjoy the book, Moo Baa La La La! from Loud Crow Interactive Inc. But it would be a terrible shame if parents, instead of reading the books to their child, just handed the iPad to them instead. And it would be worse if the child played with the app rather than practiced their reading skills.

Parents, read to your kids, and make sure your kids read too.

Is now on sale for a great price, here: Amazon.com: The Ultimate Collection – Sade. Only $9.99 for 29 great songs. It is hard, looking at this photo, to think that I have been listening to Sade since the early 1980s. Her music, like her appearance, is timeless.

P.S. What’s remarkable for me is that this is 9.99 here, but 14.99 on Amazon.ca, even though the Canadian dollar is on par or better than the U.S. dollar. And on iTunes, it costs me 17.99! Maddening! (The pricing, not the collection or the artist. :))

David Hicks has taken the results of the Canada’s 41st Election as mapped out by the CBC, and has given it a humourous twist!

Great stuff! You can see his photostream here: Flickr: ALL_CAPS’ Photostream.

Is this print from 20×200:

There’s 600 prints, going for $100 each. And there are others as well. It is certified, numbered and signed by the artist. Check it out.

 Roots of War in Popular Song (forest of no return), by David Byrne

In order to print that page and not the one they were going with, the New York Times literally had to stop the presses. (Something they rarely do.)  FishbowlNY has the details on it.

It is easy to overlook Stephen Brunt’s essay on boxing in this weekend’s Globe and Mail (Requiem for boxing: the decline of the Sweet Science). You’d be missing out on very fine writing if you did. Brunt is one of the top writers at the Globe as it is, and he is never better than when he is writing about boxing. What makes it better still is that he is writing about the decline of something he clearly loves. Even if you are uninterested in boxing, you can appreciate it for the thought and feel and craft he brings to it.

As for me, I remember being very young and watching the three Ali-Frasier fights. I saw most of Ali’s bouts, and lots of other boxing as well, but nothing left as big an impression on me as watching those fights did. When Brunt describes how Frasier literally wanted to kill Ali in the ring, that does not surprise me. The toughness, the ferocity, and the excellence that both men brought to each fight was breathtaking. Arguably some of the greatest sporting events of the 20th century.

Brunt reference a great painting by Bellows of the Dempsey vs Firpo fight. Here it is: