kratib's blog

I often feel like a cultural black hole. Engulfing and consuming large quantities of culture, music, movies, books, and yet never producing any of it myself. Does it just get wasted inside? Well, I talk about it :-)

The Internet is promoting a new kind of culture that is more inclusive. To me, YouTube is the most glaring example: everyday people producing audio/video material, mostly out of their own time and effort, that addresses any topic that concerns them. Sometimes using it for commercial self-promotion, and that's part of the point too.

Before me, on public TV, is unfolding live the fire of the Egyptian Parliament's building.

The Nile News channel is filming the building on fire. Here's what I learn:

10:30pm (Egypt time, GMT+3)

• the fire started at 5:45pm.
• it is now 10:30pm and the fire is still going strong inside the building.
• the explanation for the rapid spread is that the strong wind and the wooden structure did it.

What does this mean: {{{

     (#$forAll ?PERSON1
     (#$implies
        (#$isa ?PERSON1 #$Person)
        (#$thereExists ?PERSON2
           (#$and
             (#$isa ?PERSON2 #$Person)
             (#$loves ?PERSON1 ?PERSON2)))

Found at an OpenCyc tutorial.

Long ago, men and beasts lived together in complete harmony with nature. The cycle of life flowed freely, taking lives and renewing them endlessly without intervention or observation from any creature.

;-)

Dear American,

We need your help. Us, your neighbours around the world, have always admired your industriousness, ingenuity, and spirit of enterprise. We absorb your music, your movies, your language, fashion, books, your science and technology, and enjoy all of them while thanking you for it in sympathy. In return, we like to offer you what we're proud of in our own culture. We dream of your beautiful country, so vast and varied, where dreams can be realized. Because we also have dreams we want to realize, very similar to yours. Indeed, many of us have settled in your country to realize their dreams and their true potential. So you see, we look up to you in many ways.

It just hit me that all the countries that congratulate themselves on upholding freedom of speech and even try to shove it down other people's throats have a blatant breach of that principle right under their very eyes: the secrecy practices of corporations. When an employee is hired or fired, he signs a non-disclosure agreement concerning the activities of the company he joined. If he breaks that agreement, he is liable to legal pursuit, from the same legal system which holds freedom of speech as a sacred principle.

I wish to unveil before an unsuspecting population a plan to reconcile P2P technology with the interests of content producers: music labels, production firms, software firms, book publishers, etc. I do so at the risk of being laughed out of my own blog.

I've read so many endless threads of political discussions on forums and blogs that I'm nauseated. Here's an open letter to netizens who take sides.