2000-01-28

An Australian domain name registry plans to start registering domain names in Chinesse and other languagues besides English. Got a website targeted to the People’s Republic? These guys may be your answer. Coverage: Fairfax IT.

Egypt is not known as a ground-breaker in art. Recently a gallery in Cairo posted a show of photos of working people in a nearby alley. According to the artist the point of the show is about working people as heroes. But, the shows are controversial because of the political statements people are reading into the work. Art is as much in the eye –and mind– of the beholder as in the mind of the artist.

Speaking of controversial art, PBS will be airing a 90 minute piece on controversial books, film and art next Wednesday.

It used to be that vanity in Rock and Roll was thinking the song was about you. . Well, it seems that it now requires trademarking your name. Mick Jagger is trying to join a list of mature rockers like Billy Joel who’ve trademarked their names. So, if some other Mrs. Jagger named her kid Mick, will the big Mick sue the little Mick for trademark infringement? Will we get sued for printing his name? The possibilities boggle the mind.

In 2001: A Space Oddysey and the sequels (one movie, several books), there is life on one of Jupiter’s moons. Well, in one of those weird moments where fiction anticipates reality, Scientists believe that there may be life on the Jovian moon Europa. The moon that’s central to 2001 and 2010? Europa. Although an early draft of the 2001 script is available that refers to Saturn instead…

It should go without saying that all news coverage should be taken with a grain of salt. Even from a source you trust. Even us There are obvious examples. The Wall Street Journal is particularly clueless when it comes to technology and recently called the operating system Linux, a programming language. Most of the media use the term hacker –which properly is a programmer who develops elegant solutions such as Linux– to refer to crackers: those who attack computer systems and websites. Another example is the Davos Forum. If you follow Scripting News or the San Jose Mercury, you may have gotten the impression that Davos is a wonderful, great thing drawing together the elite to guide us into the future. The annaul gathering is described by the Wall Street Journal as “the hot spot of the digerati” and “a powerful player in global economic affairs” boasting such regulars as Bill Gates and President Clinton. The attendess are described by parascope.com as “A thousand representatives of the world’s largest corporations. Two hundred and fifty key political honchos. Two hundred and fifty top academics.” In short, a tremendous amoutn of power in one location. According to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (“Transparency Eludes Founder of Davos Forum, A14), the Forum is part of a convoluted web of for-profit and not-for-profit ventures that center around Klaus Schwab. The article paints a pretty clear picture of assett shuffling that leaves many of the employees unclear who’s into what. The shenanagans have resulted in more than one-third of Davos’ employees quiting over the last year. That the Wall Street Journal has choosen to raise questions about Davos is telling. MSNBC will often pick up Journal stories later, so you may be able to catch the full text there. Parascrope.com has some interesting information about the event available.

Many outlets are reporting that faint signals –possible from the Mars Polar Lander– have been picked up

Science Daily is reporting that Princeton scientists have created a simple RNA computer that solved a simple chess challenge called the Knight problem. It goes without saying that real applications are a long way off.