randomwalks/dj

Today is International Women's Day, where the achievements of women are celebrated, which seems particularly appropriate in the cognitive sciences as there is a strong tradition of female participation.

In fact, the majority of cognitive scientists are women and most males will find themselves outnumbered on psychology and neuroscience courses.

This is, perhaps, because there are some strong female role models who have made a huge impact on the understanding of human thought and behaviour.

One of my many female heroes is neuropsychologist Professor Elizabeth Warrington, who published her first paper in 1962, and, although now officially retired, is still heavily involved in research and is publishing regularly.

Warrington was one of the most influential figures in the development of cognitive neuropsychology and helped define the field during its emergence in the 1970s and 1980s.

Many of the standard clinical assessments of cognitive function were created by her, which are now crucial components of clinical assessment after brain injury.

Link to Royal Society Fellowship Citation for Elizabeth Warrington.
Link to PubMed entries for Elizabeth Warrington.

Originally from Mind Hacks, on March 8, 2006 11:51 PM

Christine Ebersole's performance in this irritatingly mixed blessing of a show is one of the most gorgeous ever to grace a musical.

Originally from NYT > Arts, on March 8, 2006 11:50 PM

I love to read and struggle to read Zero Seconde, which is a blog about blogging and research and things that really interest me and that’s written in beautiful French. I can read French, but slowly and with an understanding that is often rather skewed, which can be quite interesting and quite frustrating. (I can fake a conversation quite well!) Anyway, In a long post partly responding to my post about how I’m not blogging with my students this semester, Zero Seconde writes that blogging is the future of academia, yet also that once a new academic has the network blogging gains, and can publish in more traditional ways, things change. I’m going to have to read the post again, with a dictionary, I think, because I think it makes some interesting points. Another response to my not blogging with students post is from Barbara Ganley. All worth thinking about. I’m still kind of relishing not blogging with my students to be quite honest. I did sit down last week and set up our LMS (our university uses dot lrn) with discussion forums for students to participate in and one for assignments to be posted to so they can see each others work and discuss it. Maybe I’ll blog with next semester’s students.

Originally posted by Jill from jill/txt, on March 8, 2006 11:50 PM

2nd Annual Independent Food Festival and Awards: Most Heavenly Pork Bun: Momofuku berkshire pork bun There have been a lot of images of heaven through the ages. Light, fluffy, cloud-filled scenes full of rubenesque women with harps. A stern-looking...

Originally from A Full Belly, on March 8, 2006 11:50 PM

Not only Lauritz Meltzer’s birthday, it’s also womens’ day! The UN Secretary-General notes women are better represented in governments than ever before: “There are now 11 women Heads of State or Government, in countries on every continent. And three countries – Chile, Spain and Sweden – now have gender parity in Government.” Only 240 countries left! (That point was shamelessly stolen from Martin who has many other great womens day links).

Originally posted by Jill from jill/txt, on March 8, 2006 11:50 PM

Pushcart NYC: a weblog devoted to street vendor food in NYC....

Originally from A Full Belly, on March 8, 2006 11:50 PM

You can now use your Macintosh to send and receive messages via your Bluetooth phone with message2net , reports mocoblog. Message2net handles multipart SMS messages, group SMS and also connects to the Address Book application. Integrated phonebook management lets you edit contact information stored on your cell phone’s Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card and transfer that content back and forth via Address Book.

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on March 8, 2006 11:50 PM

Documentation: Cocoa Drawing Guide

Originally from ADC Reference Library Updates, on March 8, 2006 11:49 PM

Introduces the basic concepts, terminology, architectures, and design patterns of the Cocoa frameworks and development environment.

Originally from ADC Reference Library Updates, on March 8, 2006 11:49 PM

Explains how to create scriptable Cocoa applications that use the scripting definition (sdef) format.

Originally from ADC Reference Library Updates, on March 8, 2006 11:49 PM

Slides are up! You can get them as PDF or flash.

Originally posted by alex from Continuing Intermittent Incoherency, on March 8, 2006 11:49 PM

Apple’s documentation team just keeps getting better and better. Not only is the writing clearer and more connected to real-world applications than it has been in the past, the team seems to be getting prolific! Today they dropped a huge update on their site, including a bunch of brand new titles.

The completely new documents:

• Cocoa Fundamentals Guide - This looks like a new “first stop” document for developers just coming to the platform. But perhaps more importantly for the rest of us, it contains a chapter completely dedicated to Design Patterns and how they relate to Cocoa. Sweet hallelujah! Many developers have been waiting a long time for documentation like this to start coming out of Apple.
• Cocoa Drawing Guide - This appears to tackle many of the details about how one goes about exposing the advanced facilities of Quartz through a Cocoa-based application. The Advanced Drawing Techniques appears likely to eliminate a lot of mailing list confoundedness. Hopefully the fact that this document shipped with “Alpha Draft - Confidential” at the bottom doesn’t mean it was a mistaken release.
• View Programming Guide for Cocoa - It just keeps getting better! This one discusses the high-learning-curve tasks associated with creating a custom view in Cocoa, and again includes an “Advanced” section as well as an “Optimization” section for those “wish I could chat with an expert” moments.
• Scroll View Programming Guide for Cocoa - It may seem strange to find this new document in the midst of others with much larger scope, but I can see how this will come as a great relief to people who have beat their heads against their keyboards while trying to get scroll views to behave as expected. In particular, the concepts discussed in synchronized scroll views should help a lot of people out.

And one major update:

• Cocoa Scripting Guide - Apparently the result of a merge and rewrite of two previous scripting documents. As anybody who has added scripting support to an application knows, more documentation is always welcomed.

Exciting times. Thanks for the update, Apple!

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on March 8, 2006 11:49 PM

Whoa! This incredible piece (only a tiny inset shown here - check the link and be sure to scroll to the right...) took over 2 years to complete.

Quote from the artist, Paul Stride-Noble, who is selling it as a print:

Pixeltown is a result of working for 2 and a half years as a full time web designer. The company I was with had little to no work for me to do so instead of focusing on how I could help the company survive and find new clients....I hid behind my monitor and made Pixeltown.

Yes, I was finally made redundant but Pixeltown continues to thrive.

Originally from shey.net reblog, on March 8, 2006 11:49 PM

A slew of follow-up points to Sunday’s “Familiarity Breeds a User Base”:

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on March 8, 2006 11:48 PM

david posted a photo:

West village

Originally from david's Photos, on March 8, 2006 11:48 PM

another interesting news stories treemap data visualization. each rectangle is a single article, of which the size & color indicate the article age & popularity (determined by clicks, subscriptions, or features in weblogs). the map can be filtered or rearrarranged to view articles that meet certain criteria, or that contain specific text. the Hive Group website shows a wide range of similar treemaps that are based on different datasets, such as the iTunes, Wikipedia or Amazon collection. see also newsmap & week in review. [newsisfree.com]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on March 8, 2006 11:46 PM

As mentioned previously, Mike, Erika and I will be attending this year's SXSW interactive festival and we're very excited about eating some Tex-Mex! We're also excited about our panels this year. If you're going to be a fellow attendee, you should come see Erika and others speak on Running Your New Media Business on Sunday, at 3:30.

On Saturday, along with Lane Becker, we will be running Battledecks: Southwest Invitational. It's an MC freestyle battle mashed with a powerpoint presentation, and it will feature some of this industry's biggest talents. If you only see one interactive panel, it should be this one.

Rule #1: No knives. See you in Austin!

Originally from Off the Hoof, on March 8, 2006 11:46 PM

OMFG roxor. Etc. Except, eww, touchwheel for controls? I bet that's REALLY hard. Then again, maybe it'd be like those old giant roller-ball controllers they used to have...

Teeny-weeny!

Originally posted by Alice from Wonderland, on March 8, 2006 11:46 PM

Back on the road, so let me leave you with some of my should-be-working-but-the-Internet-is-just-there type stuff. This will be an expanding thread.

+ Barry Bonds now has to deal with The Shadows, an apparently definitive account of his steroid use by the two San Francisco Chronicle writers who broke the story last year.

+ Dream Hampton on Octavia Butler. How great is this? Both writers seriously undersung and misunderstood in their fields.

+ Why Dook sucks. Just picked up Blythe's book and can't wait to break it open. 3/8 UPDATE: Broke it open and it's just as good as the article. Fantastic book.

+ Me and Brian Coleman have a psuedo-intellectual menage a trois with Carly Carioli of the Boston Phoenix. Warning: hip-hop journalism geek porn.

Originally from zentronix: dubwise & hiphopcentric, on March 8, 2006 11:45 PM

Azeez is careful to explain that he is not selling Native American food. He says that cuisine would involve elk, deer, and buffalo, which would probably not go over well with his customers. He describes his food as simply American, but points out some traditional elements, like corn and beans, which make it unique. When newcomers approach the cart, they usually glance around for a menu, but the only sign is a hand-painted one that reads "From Atlantis with Love," which Azeez did not care to explain. He has grown accustomed to curious faces, though, and always greets the clueless with: "I make sandwiches—like wraps—for $5."

I know someone - who shall remain nameless for the moment - who frequently treks out of Brooklyn solely for one of these sandwiches. Another friend of mine says that cart-owner Moneer Azeez once explained the name "From Atlantis With Love" to him, which makes a lot of sense when you think about lost lands. Check out this review from the Voice (quoted above), plus this new fansite i secretly found. I'm definitely going to try a vegetarian sandwich the next time i'm downtown!

According to the Voice, Moneer Azeez's food cart (New York's only Native American street vendor) can be found on the SE corner of 2nd St and the Bowery from 6pm to 2 or 3am during the week and often later on weekends.

Originally posted by beXn from beXnlog, on March 8, 2006 11:44 PM

"Oh, are you in a band?" "No we make rcyled wood furniture". latimes

Originally from Archinect.com Feed, on March 8, 2006 11:43 PM

kermit as keanu...miss piggy as ...well, u can guess. And beaker with some awesome bullet moves...this is what fair use is about...students getting their chips and referencing culture.

Originally from unmediated, on March 8, 2006 11:42 PM

a community driven discussion for building your own PVR / DVR / HTPC (think Tivo without a recurring $ub$cription). Anything from mini-itx, case modding, which video card, to which software package is most advanced is fair game.

Originally from unmediated, on March 8, 2006 11:42 PM

If we can have video on demand, pizza on demand, why not events on demand. Business 2 Blog reports that EVDB-powered Eventful is launching a new service where consumers can create a groundswell for certain concerts and events from performers.

The idea is to use the Web to aggregate demand for different kinds of events—anything from rock concerts to book readings. So someone in Omaha who really wants U2 to play there could start a campaign on Eventful, and if enough people join and demand that U2 plays there, the tour manager would probably be wise to add an Omaha date to the tour.

This is a good idea particularly for smaller bands. I wonder what is the “monetization strategy.” I had recently met with a company which was working on developing a technology that would allow people watch live concerts using the IM networks for a small fee. Again a nifty idea with a business model. How big these things could be? Who knows… clearly, broadband is working its magic in unusual ways don’t you think?

Originally from unmediated, on March 8, 2006 11:42 PM

FeedYes is a new service that creates RSS feeds for sites that don't have any. Type in the URL of any page on the web, and FeedYes.com generates a valid feed in less than a minute, the company asserts. FeedYes is from the same Netherlands company that created FeedXS, which allows people to create feeds absent a blog or other web site. (Tech Crunch post here.) Business model? The service is free. But developer Jeroen Bertrams tells us that "if the service does attract enough users, we imagine asking a small fee for the service in the future for heavy users, e.g. people who create 50 or more feeds using our service. Most of the service will surely remain free however.'' Seems to us there are other players in the space already, no?...

Originally posted by Michael Bazeley from SiliconBeat, on March 8, 2006 11:42 PM

Gmail is down across the Mercury News right now. Google's site says it is a "server error." Anyone else out there experiencing this? Just add this to the list....

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on March 8, 2006 11:42 PM

Now that the furor over the GDrive leak has died down, Paul Kedrosky has posted a link to the original Google analyst day Powerpoint presentation, complete with the notes about "infinite storage."...

Originally posted by Michael Bazeley from SiliconBeat, on March 8, 2006 11:42 PM

Intel showed off a new design for powerful, energy-efficient processors that it hopes will help it gain back lost market share.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on March 8, 2006 11:42 PM

Google advised investors to disregard an internal financial forecast that was mistakenly posted on its Web site.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on March 8, 2006 11:42 PM

The food chain has become tremendously popular among Americans who like to be entertained and educated by what they eat, as well as nourished by it.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 8, 2006 11:41 PM

New York City's health department is cracking down on a French cooking method that the city says has not been approved.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 8, 2006 11:41 PM

Peak oil predictions for the next decade by Michael Ventura (published in the Austin Chronicle)

Originally posted by kennis.koldewyn from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 8, 2006 11:37 PM

nice community proj

Originally posted by anselm from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 8, 2006 11:37 PM

Originally posted by ezrakilty from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 8, 2006 11:37 PM

Originally posted by ezrakilty from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 8, 2006 11:37 PM

"The highlight is about three minutes in, when State Senator Bill Napoli describes— in explicit sadistic detail— how "bad" a virgin would have to be raped in order for him to "make an exception.""

Originally from jill/txt, on March 8, 2006 12:10 PM

This company is falling apart at the seams. Or maybe Google is just proving to be the playpen it has always tried so hard to be. Lately there's been several bungles where the company has released data when it was not supposed to, and public comments that it has to send out a press releases to correct. But this latest one (free registration) seems to take the cake: Google accidentally released financial details about its business operations on its Web site last Thursday, during an analyst meeting where company executives defended the company's practice of not releasing such information. According to documents filed Tuesday afternoon with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Mountain View-based Internet titan inadvertently posted speaker notes that had been prepared a few months earlier for an internal presentation on product strategy. The notes, which were posted on Google's investor relations Web site, described the company's core Internet advertising business as ``healthy and growing'' and ``on a strong trajectory.'' The notes said the business was ``projected to grow from $6 billion this year to $9.5 billion next year based purely on trends in traffic and monetization growth.'' We reported on the GDrive thing Monday. Finally, more oozes out about Google's calendar. Mike gets the details, even though he says Googlers and other testers of the so-called CL2 project are under strict orders not to divulge anything to outsiders. And this is all happening at a company worth $100 billion -- though even that figure is something the company is playing with us about (scroll down)....

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on March 8, 2006 12:10 PM

Wanting to take a truly long-term view of real estate values, a Dutch professor studied the price of real-estate transactions over four centuries on the Herengracht canal, and discovered that, adjusted for inflation, real property values rose only 0.2 percent per year. "It's true that economic and social conditions were different back then. But major crises do happen, and we can't necessarily predict them. Will bird flu be a major disaster? Will there be more hurricanes? I don't know. Nobody knows." Piet Eichholtz, a professor of real-estate finance at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. (thanks, jjg!)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on March 8, 2006 12:10 PM

Affordable by Design. Some examples of sustainable and affordable single-family homes. (via)

Originally from Social Design Notes, on March 8, 2006 12:10 PM

Report from Etech on Jeff Han's demo of a "multi-touch user interface". Be sure to watch the videos linked to at the end...it's the interface from Minority Report in action.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 8, 2006 12:10 PM

Mobilicio.us is a "mashup" that combines the del.icio.us online bookmarking service with Google Mobile. This allows you to browse through "mobilized" versions of your del.icio.us bookmarks from your phone browser or other limited-display browsers." via m-Trends who tested entering his del.icio.us login information and could easily acces his bookmarks.

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on March 8, 2006 12:09 PM

Ten memorable Saturday Night Live musical moments.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 8, 2006 12:09 PM

The Guardian on spam poetry. I featured the work of noted spam poet Gary Milano (webm@yahoo.com) a couple of years ago. See also Outside the Inbox, a compilation of songs inspired by spam subject lines.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 8, 2006 12:09 PM

Daniel Dennett’s been at it again, this time in a juicy online Prospect debate with Richard Swinburne (pictured right), Emeritus Nolloth professor of the Philosophy of the Christian religion at the University of Oxford. In the debate Swinburne suggests science can’t begin to study religion without first acknowledging that God exists. Dennett argues that religions might well be a nice way of explaining what’s happened so far, but they’re not useful for furthering our understanding of the natural world because they don’t make any meaningful, testable predictions. But according to Swinburne that’s not what science is all about. Hmm…

A few excerpts:

Swinburne: “So why are the most general laws of the multiverse as they are? Why do all particles behave in exactly the same way as each other, so as together ultimately to produce human life? This enormous coincidence in particle behaviour requires explaining. I've got a good theory which explains it [God]; you haven't”.

Dennett: “From my perspective, your imaginative attempt at an inference to the best explanation is telling for the one thing it lacks: a single striking prediction. That's why it can't be taken seriously as a contender against a purely secular and materialist theory of cosmic and biological and cultural evolution”.

Swinburne: “I don't think that it is in any way important that science should make predictions”.

Link to earlier post about science explaining religion.
Link to earlier post about Prospect debate on whether science can explain mental illness.
Link to event at At-Bristol Imax next Weds, where Dennett, Swinburne and others will be debating science and religion.
Make a real day of it and check out their Your Amazing Brain exhibition while you're there.

Originally from Mind Hacks, on March 8, 2006 12:08 PM

According to new research, we spend whole year of our lives looking for lost keys and other belongings, such as mobile phones. Life Style Extra reports. "An average 20 minutes a day is wasted searching for items such as TV remotes and missing mobiles -- the same as five days a year or a whole year over a a lifetime of 72 years. Car keys and door keys are the most misplaced items, with 45 per cent of people saying losing keys was the number one reason for running late. Next is mobile phones with one in three saying they lost their phone more often than anything else. The TV remote control was rated the most annoying thing to lose. iPod music players were the thing people said they would least like to lose. And the above leads to a new gizmo unveiled today at the Ideal Home Show in the UK, the Loc8tor, designed to keep track of up to 24 items at once. The device locates special tags, the size of ten pen pieces, which can be attached to keys, phones and other vital objects." The makers say it will track down lost objects or alert the owner if he leaves one behind somewhere."

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on March 8, 2006 12:08 PM

Reuters has a story about China shutting down two bloggers who are critical of the government. Looks like this is happening now because the national parliament is meeting.

Originally from BusinessWeek Online - Blogspotting, on March 8, 2006 12:08 PM

Ever since I heard that Greg Anthony was a Young Republican during his UNLV days, I have wondered about the political leanings of NBA figures.

I just ran across a website called NewsMeat whose mission is to report political donations. They have a sports Hall of Fame, which includes plenty of NBA figures.

Tons of fun to be had looking through these numbers. For instance, as part of the William Wesley investigation, we have heard several times that Bill and Hillary Clinton were enthusiastic about the Chicago Bulls in their heyday. Looks like the Bulls were enthusiastic about Democrats, too. That team's owner, coach, and star have all given noteworthy amounts to Democrats.

And don't talk politics at the Buss family Thanksgiving. Papa gives mainly to the GOP, but daughter Jeanie and her beau Phil Jackson prefer Democrats.

Of course, most of these donations are not big enough to make these figures real political players. But check out the commish! David Stern is a biggie for Democrats. Newsmeat reports that 98% of that eye-popping figure went straight to the Democrats, 0% went to Republicans, and 2% went to special interests.

And Magic Owner/Amway Tycoon Richard DeVos has reportedly given close to $3 million, most of which is for special interests, and none of which is for Democrats. $2 million of it reportedly went straight to the conservative Progress for America Voter Fund in September 2004. That group has paid for Kerry attack ads, and more recently ads promoting the war in Iraq. (One of them, which recently aired in Minnesota, seems to shamelessly connect Iraq to 9/11.)

Without further adieu, the list (or read the whole thing):

Exclusively Democratic Giving
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar $1,000
Charles Barkley $2,000
Jeanie Buss $5,000
Phil Jackson $5,455
Michael Jordan $18,000
Alonzo Mourning $25,000
Gregg Popovich $2,000
Pat Riley $4,754
David Stern $781,780
Isiah Thomas $5,000

Majority Democratic Giving
George Karl $7,000
Jerry Reinsdorf $346,278
Julius 'Dr. J' Erving $2,300

Playing the Middle
Mark Cuban $7,000

Majority Republican Giving
Jerry Buss $23,550

Exclusively Republican Giving
Richard DeVos $2,866,88 (76% to special interests--24% to Republicans)
Clyde Drexler $2,000
Karl Malone $10,000

UPDATE: Thanks for the heads up: Says here Vlade Divac gave $10,000 to the DNC in 2000. If anyone finds more, e-mail me and I'll add them.

Originally from True Hoop, on March 8, 2006 12:07 PM

Fantastic visualization of IRC participation at etech.

Originally from unmediated, on March 8, 2006 12:07 PM

The other big API news to start the week comes from MapQuest with their announcement of the MapQuest OpenAPI. They’re an established player in online mapping but a latecomer to the open API party. It looks like they’re going try and play off their strengths which include high-quality maps and good routing. Here’s the first new MapQuest mashup: mapzierge.

The API itself is a JavaScript-based API that provides:

• Routing - Integrate MapQuest’s ultra-accurate driving directions to show your users exactly how to get there.
• Mapping - Plot multiple locations on a single map. Choose one of our map styles to create a truly integrated look-and-feel with your website.
• Active Point Markers - Add up to 100 active point markers to a single map. You can also add events, like a pop-up box with key information displayed when users click on or roll over the marker.

The limits? Free of charge for non-commercial use within the stated transaction levels of 50,000 combined maps and geocodes and 5,000 routes per day.

MapQuest’s Anthony Pegg is presenting a session on this tomorrow by at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego.

And lastly, to go along with the launch of these APIs, they’ve announced a Developers Challenge:

The winning entry will push the mashup genre beyond merely plotting locations on a map, demonstrate some real usefulness to a broader, non commercial community and leverage the full set of tools available in OpenAPI with an emphasis on routing.

March 31st. This has now been added to the ProgrammableWeb /contests page.

Originally from unmediated, on March 8, 2006 12:07 PM

Originally from hustler of culture, on March 8, 2006 11:46 AM

Zebra
Originally uploaded by Lady Macabea.

Boy do I love this picture Adriana took on 5th Avenue in Portland this past Sunday.

We were driving around when Adriana exclaimed "WOW!" and started snapping away.

Originally from hello, typepad, on March 8, 2006 01:31 AM

My New Blog: YouMeiTI 有媒体
Originally uploaded by triciawang.

Q: Tricia what have you been doing lately?
A: I've been obssesively working on my new blog: YouMeiTI 有媒体. That's probably why I am 2 weeks behind on e-mails.

Q: What does YouMeiTI stand for?
A: 青年 Youth ｜ 媒体 Media ｜ 科技 Technology ｜ 信息 Information

Q: What is YouMeiTI about?
A: Exploring the nexus of Chinese Youth culture, Media, Technology and Information within a global context.

Q: What else have you been up to lately?
A: I live in NYC and my life is Netnewswire and Ecto - funny huh? But I am not depressed at all - I am totally happy! If I were doing this in Sacramento - then I would be depressed.

Q: Tricia are you really excited ahout this blog?
A: Oh yes - I've been planning it for the last year, and kenyatta helped me a few weeks ago to set it all up! this is the kind of stuff i really really love and want to study.

Q: How is your NetNewswire addiction?
A: It's a bit better now - but my accupressurist says that my mousing hand is all fucked up. It's from browsing Newnewswire! I have my thumb on my mouse pad as I scroll down through each post -

Originally from Hi Tricia!, on March 8, 2006 12:57 AM

-- i got 'em."

4th person i met in beacon. no, we didn't meet. but he's currently standing on the street below our apartment.

Originally from serenalarogers, on March 8, 2006 12:56 AM

Sina just posted a story about China's Ministries of Information Industry draft report on how they will restructure foreign usage of codec standards - specifically for MPEG-4 and H.264. The report specifically warns Chinese IPTV companies that the new fees for using MPEG-4 and H.264 will be very expensive with future problems. Therefore, they are encouraging the use of Chinese made IPTV standard--AVS.

I am not a codex expert at all. I am a user-simplicity advocate, meaning I hate how there are so many different codexes for different players, operating systems and etc. In my dream world everyone would agree to one standard and build applications on top of that.

So I did a little of poking around, because I didn't completely understand why China would warn operators about the expensiveness of using MPEG-4 and H.264. In my selfish world it certainly would make my life easier if China would just stick with the most dominant system.

So I found another blogger, Billsdue, on my source roll who framed it in terms of China being "anti-market" and " trying to push a lot of homegrown standards these days." "Pushy" insinuates that China is being a big selfish pain in the ass by not using US codecs - which is exactly what I thought when I first learned about this. So in my confusion I asked for insight from media expert, Kenyatta Cheese, who runs Unmediated. And he responded with:

Tricia,
Traditionally, America, Japan, Korea, and Europe have set the rules as far as codecs and standards go. Standards like MPEG4 and CDMA are standards developed in the US, so anyone who makes a product that uses these standards (DVD players, cell phones and such) has to pay royalties to American companies. From their perspective, it's like they're being taxed from overseas. And we all know what that feels like. ;)

esn't want to be beholden to US patent holders, so they developed their own codecs (AVS) and standards (TD-SCDMA) for use in Chinese devices. They believe that they have big enough of a market that manufacturers will want to develop devices that are compatible in China, allowing them to set the rules for their own country and not the US. By placing an actual "tax" on manufacturers that make devices using the American codecs, they discourage use of the American MPEG4 and encourage the use of the Chinese AVS standard in domestic devices.

Any argument that calls this "anti-free market" rings false to me. Royalty payments to a foreign company is imperial taxation in 20th century dress. Meanwhile, we address any Western attempt to rid itself on dependence on foreign resources -- say, oil -- as a proud "self determination."
-kc.

p>

Thanks kenyatta for that explanation. I guess I should reformulate my dream world: one standard API, creative commons, royalty free, open source -used by every living being in the universe.
Until then, I will agree to whatever new standards China deploys and I will download whatever new media player application that will support it - so where is the next AVS player?

Originally from YouMeiTI 有媒体, on March 8, 2006 12:56 AM

Originally posted by sudama from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 8, 2006 12:55 AM

Originally posted by djacobs from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 8, 2006 12:55 AM

a real-time view of the conversations happening in the #etech IRC channel at O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference. a software bot observes events in the channel, publishes them as a web-service via XML & JSON, & makes them available to an aesthetic data visualization applet.
the system pulls the most recent 500 “events” (messages, action, people joining or leaving the channel) into the client, which displays all users in a circle, with a graphic indication of their participation by each name. users who have spoken within a half-minute of one another are linked by threads, showing approximate conversational subgroups at any given time. a stream of events is displayed across the top of the screen, with a slider that allows users to check out the state of the conversation at any moment over the previous 3 hours. see also gnom & schemaball.
[stamen.com]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on March 8, 2006 12:55 AM