Category Archives: Internet

Second Life: It's not just for sex, anymore

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Nothing to see, here. Photo: Akasuki Redstar/Flickr CC

At least that’s the Linden Lab line.

Linden CEO, Mark Kingdon, says you shouldn”t trust your lying eyes, when it appears that the highest number of users are hanging around the naughtiest places

He blames the grid’s layout:

When asked to explain why the adult areas appeared to be much busier than the rest of the map, Kingdon said it was down to the unusual geography of the Second Life map. “Second Life is a fascinating construct. There are mainland areas like [the adult continent] Zindra, where there’s large contiguous land masses and that isn’t actually the majority of land in Second Life.

via PC Pro

Taxpayers shell-out millions for "free" muni Wi-Fi

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No divide. (Photo: D Sharon Pruitt/Flickr CC)

Still think I’m wrong about the many pitfalls of  municipal, or muni, Wi-Fi, the semi-public scheme that puts city bosses in charge of internet access?

Over the past few years, I’ve noted the corruption, the waste, and the threats to personal privacy and security posed by muni Wi-Fi. And I caught some flak on this blog, and over at Universal Hub, as a result.

Now, from Philly, where the muni Wi-Fi debacle got its wretched start, comes a report that the city is squeezing taxpayers to cover its failed attempt to compete as an ISP:

The city of Philadelphia said Wednesday it intends to purchase, for $2 million, the wireless network constructed by EarthLink Inc. to turn the entire city into a Wifi hotspot. The city said it intends to exercise an option in an agreement signed in August to buy the network from Network Acquisition Co. LLC, which took the network over from Atlanta-based EarthLink (NASDAQ:ELNK) in June 2008.

Philly’s former CIO, meanwhile, has taken-up work with the firm that sold the Philly mayor’s office on muni Wi-Fi in the first place. (Ditto for the deputy CIO in San Francisco.)

Meanwhile, back in the Bean, a similar effort is starting to look like a service badly in need of a market.

That’s because urban dwellers –rich and poor, young and old — are already using their 3G mobile phones and netbooks to grab data from the net. And cable companies are bundling-in internet access with their TV services,  for peanuts.

via Reason Magazine: Philadelphia Experiment With Municipal Wi-Fi Not Working Out So Well

The Heretic's "10 New England Esotericists to Watch in 2010"

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New England is home to some of the biggest brains in the businesses of esoterica and mad science.

But you knew that already.

Here then, is my list of the busiest folks we know in the worlds of offbeat science publishing, UFOlogy, cryptozoology and the occult — even comics. Ghost-hunting? That is sooo last decade. But keep these peeps on your radar in 2010. They make for an eclectic mix, alright, but I think the list somehow works:

Marc Abrahams announcing "The Penguin Prize" at the annual Ig Nobel Prizes ceremony, at Harvard U. (Photo: Courtesy of the Ig Nobel Prizes.)

1. Marc Abrahams. Few can match the wit, charm and energy of this singular Cambridge, Mass. personality. Abrahams is the publisher of the uproarious Annals of Improbable Research, and organizer of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes awards ceremony, which honors  “research that makes people laugh and then think.” He also writes a weekly column about wacky science (think bras that double as gas masks, and astrology charts for bacteria), for the UK Guardian.

Tim Binnall. (Photo: Courtesy of BoA)

2. Tim Binnall. Did you know that one of the planet’s fastest-growing podcasters to the “Coast-to-Coast AM” crowd is based right here, in the Hub? The young genius behind the whole thing, Tim Binnall, is relaunching his website, Binnall of America, with another season of podcast interviews with big-name UFOlogists and conspiracy researchers, from Texas to Sweden.

Binnall also organizes a successful paranormal confab in the Hub.

3. Loren Coleman. This legend in the world of cryptozoology (2010 marks his 50th year in the business) will be surprising us again with new insights, and new guests and events at his Portland, Maine-based International Museum of Cryptozoology.

A regular contributor to Coast to Coast AM, Boing Boing, and The Anomalist, Coleman is also the keeper of the world’s most popular cryptozoology blog, Cryptomundo.

Loren Coleman and friend. Photo: Loren Coleman (via Thomas Roche/Flickr CC

Coleman this year will be speaking at Bigfoot and “big cats” conferences — both at home and across the pond, in Glasgow, Scotland. This spring, he will also be lending his expertise to the ongoing search for the Loch Ness Monster.

In addition to his ongoing consulting work for History’s “MonsterQuest,” and Animal Planet’s “Lost Tapes,” Coleman will also be working on (we kid you not) five new books.

4. Stanton Friedman. I met Stanton Friedman at a UFO conference in Washington, D.C. a few years ago, and I’ve been trying to keep up his research ever since. But I only learned (after listening to Mr. Binnall’s interviews with this UFO luminary) that Friedman resides in the Northeast. Friedman jokes in his BoA interviews that he is one of the few surviving members of UFOlogy’s “old guard.” But I expect he’ll have a lot more to say at his conferences appearances this year.

5. Greg Kaminsky. If you like your occult podcasts served-up hot, and packaged with vintage Black Sabbath tracks, Beverly, Mass.-based Greg Kaminsky is your guy. Kaminsky is the host of the fantastic website and podcast, “Occult of Personality,” which — like BOA — is poised for big changes (including a subscriber section, with extended interviews) and breakout success in 2010. Kaminsky has landed interviews with leading occult scholars on both sides of the Atlantic since making his quiet start, just a couple of years ago. To taste some of that OoP magic I am talking about, check out this fascinating interview with Penguin’s occult books editor, Mitch Horowitz.

John Rozum and son, at the International Museum of Cryptozoology, in Portland, Maine. (Photo: Loren Coleman)

6. John Rozum. Scooby-Doo. The X-Files comics. The supernaturally-talented writer may be in the business of inventing things that go bump in the night, be he is also said to be living quietly on Cape Cod. One of Rozum’s latest creations, The Hangman, is fighting human trafficking in DC Comics’ just-released The Web #4.

7. Joe Moore. Commended to this list by OoP’s Kaminsky, Moore is a New Hampshire-based podcaster, a breathwork facilitator, and onetime Evolver spore group leader. (Click the links if you are as mystified by these terms as I was.) Not sure if magic is for you? Try the “Mr. Spock” ritual that Moore discusses in his latest podcast with chaos magic expert Andrieh Vitimus. (Skip to the 17-minute mark, if you can’t wait.) Next: Moore and Kaminsky in 2010 are collaborating on a documentary film.

8. Joseph Citro is sick of ghosts. Yeah, that’s right. Ghost-busting, the bane of Binnall and other esotericists — driven half-mad by hacks seeking quick paranormal fame — is tired. Citro made his break from the past last fall, with one of his latest titles, The Vermont Monster Guide, a roundup of the land, air and sea creatures haunting the North.

9. The guys behind NE FOR (the New England UFO Research Organization). When Tim Binnall hints at the political infighting within the New England UFO community, he might be referring in part to the guys who last year formed this New England MUFON splinter group. But more UFO researchers might mean more eyes on the sky, and more thorough documentation of sightings

10. Mr. Crowley. Just be sure you pronounce the first syllable of his name correctly, like the bird, while in Salem, Mass. (Not the way Ozzy Osbourne does in his classic song about the Beast.)

And yeah, I know the guy’s dead. But when the Heretic placed its call for nominees last weekend, a bunch of folks, from Salem and beyond, tapped their peers in magical orders that derive their inspiration from Crowley. Crowley-inspired authors and booksellers, too, all got a good talking-up.

So, stay tuned on this one, because I’m going to need a week-or-two to share with the rest of you, what our magician friends have been sharing with me.

Take that, truthers

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The Age, with help from a “professional skeptic,” tries to knock-down Sasquatch, UFOs, ghosts, global warming and 9/11 conspiracies — all in one shot. (Click the image, above, to see the article and vid.)

“(The internet) has been the driving force behind a lot of social movements and conspiracy theories,” says the founder of the Skeptic Magazine.

For conspiracy and esoteric researchers, not to mention real cryptozoologists like Loren Coleman (he’s the best in the business), this can be maddening.

By linking charlatans such as Tom Biscardi to those questioning the U.S. government’s stories about 9/11 or global warming, Shermer discredits honest research.

Private dick digs Second Life

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Reuters reports (below) that a private detective, Steve Rambam, claims to have tracked down his client’s childhood abuser in Second Life.

Rambam found “the accused” catting around in the guise of a dominatrix.

Rambam often says that “privacy is dead.”

Rambam, a/k/a Steve Rombom, has a colorful history, too.

He also has at least one peculiar enemy, who says he is revealing Rambam’s own secrets.

Reuters/Second Life » Avatars beware: Private investigators scouring Second Life
Rambam’s client told him this story: Twenty years ago as a child, he had been molested by one of his grade school teachers, a trauma he never fully recovered from. “The client believes/d that pedophiles don’t ‘retire’ — I absolutely agree — and he wanted to prevent the target from molesting anyone else,” Rambam said in an email. “We were retained to investigate, gather evidence, and if evidence was found then convince the target to retire from teaching.”

So Rambam started looking into his target — now an assistant principal — and discovered the man was a Second Life user. Pallorium investigators logged into Second Life and tracked down the man’s avatar, only to discover his Second Life identity was a leather-clad dominatrix.

Live long and prosper? We might do neither

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Biotech body snatchers. A genetically “inferior” underclass. Increased terrorist attacks. Futurists will “make it so.“

(Marketing buzzword alert: “Futuring,” a verb, is the act of exploring of the future, according to those who do it. Photo: Futurist Thornton A. May flashes the three-finger “Sustainability Symbol.” More about this strange hand signal shortly. Credit: Dragonpreneur, under a Creative Commons license.)

from Mark:

A new book by a futurist and adviser to three U.S. presidents portrays a horrific near future scenario filled with body snatchers, a booming “neuromarket” for false memory implants, and a self-aware internet that rebels against humanity.

The author of “The Extreme Future,” James Canton, Ph.D. (below), was a student of Alvin Toffler, according to Publisher’s Weekly. He will be speaking at the U.S. Army War College this fall, at a conference aimed not at predicting, but shaping, the future.

“The goal of futuring (exploring the future) is not to predict the future but to improve it,” reads a quote from futurist Edward Cornish, on the U.S. Army War College’s website.

For more about how futurists plan our futures, see these blurbs and broadcasts by Alan Watt.

Bloggers from the military and intel communities are talking about the book. Here is an excerpt from one dot-mil blog:

(Dr.) Canton…includes “Top Ten” lists detailing everything from Energy Trends to Robo-Futures.

In THE EXTREME FUTURE, Dr. James Canton predicts that:

• The high cost of oil will force the West to invent new alternatives to oil and lead to depressed OPEC economies, leading to more terrorism against the West

• Radical life extension will create a two-class global society of those who live over 150 years and of those who cannot afford to

• The Internet will develop an awareness of itself and its own personality and rebel against human controls

• Human cloning will become the ultimate in identity theft

• A nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India is more likely then not

• Copy-cat products from Asia—from drugs to auto parts—will perform better then the original branded products they’re based on

• Radical life extension will reshape entire markets and society

• The new global Innovation Economy will deliver widespread prosperity and wealth

Colorful, cute, creative and useless

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Protesters on the Web and in the streets might believe they are making changes, but they’d be wrong.

(Hello, worthless: For all of their viral videos, chain emails, outlandish performances and guerrilla visual marketing campaigns, the new generation of dissenters have little to brag about. Photo: 2004 Democratic National Convention protesters, by Mark Baard)

from Mark:

The Denver Post, citing their “funky fusion of protest, performance and pompoms,” suggests that protesters are changing their tactics for the YouTube generation. (See excerpt and link, below.) But when young protesters hit the Democratic Convention this summer, they will be corralled into the same caged protest zone I saw at the 2004 in Boston.

And the devastating impacts to Americans of the so-called War on Terror, failing banks and foreclosures, and the emerging police state have never been worse.

Indeed, the mass protests that elsewhere and at other times have forced governments to reverse their unpopular decisions, are completely absent from the American scene. Instead, food riots

That is because, as secret societies historian Alan Watt often notes in his radio programs and audio blurbs, governments and corporations generate apathy as often as they use terror to control the masses.

New generation plans dissent – The Denver Post
A nude-in with bare bodies arranged to spell “PEACE,” traffic- stopping bike blockades, music with a message. Civil disobedience, direct confrontation, radical cheerleading.

That funky fusion of protest, performance and pompoms.

The new generation of activists, and the daisy-in-the-rifle protesters who birthed them, is busy with creative ferment, organizing public dissent for the Democratic National Convention here in August. They are motivated by the desire to create social change with people power, not political power, frustrated by a mounting list of problems, from the housing crisis to soaring prices for gas and food.

Google hating on Obama haters

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Obama appears to have the kabillion-dollar internet company hypnotized, too.

From Mark:

Google denies that it is spiking Blogger users for their anti-Obama rants. And at least one credulous blogger (below) seems to be taking the company at its word.

But given Google’s iffy track record looking after its users’ interests, I say it is too soon to suggest Hilary diehards should feel embarrassed.

Bloggasm » All aboard the Hyperbole Express
Their explanation is certainly interesting, and if true it means that Obama supporters had absolutely nothing to do with the Blogspot lockdowns.

I bet a few anti-Obama folks who thought they had discovered Hitler 2.0. might be feeling a little silly right now. Of course Miguel told me that Google wasn’t really elaborating much on this issue, and their claims sound a little suspicious, but wouldn’t it be ironic if they were telling the truth and the blogs were flagged simply because of the mass emailing?

Social networkers: Don't be suckers

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The more you play, the more they pry

Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

A warning to all you social networking, or “Web 2.0″, junkies out there: This kid (Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg) and his coding pals are not your friends. Photo: “Scott Beale / Laughing Squid,” at laughingsquid.com. – mb

Practically all of the stupid games, quizzes, widgets and apps used by Facebook social networkers scoop-up more personal data than they need, and keep that data longer than they should, without notifying users.

A University of Virginia study found recently that 90 percent of the most popular apps (UVa looked at 150 of them) rip-off Facebookers’ personal data.

Here’s a link and excerpt to some recent coverage of the case study’s release:

Privacy Lives » Blog Archive » Social Networking Sites’ Applications Gather Users’ Personal Data
“Facebook fanatics who have covered their profiles on the popular social networking site with silly games and quirky trivia quizzes may be unknowingly giving a host of strangers an intimate peek at their lives,” reports the Washington Post. A couple of weeks ago, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (“CIPPIC”) filed a complaint (pdf) against Facebook alleging 22 violations of Canadian law (which I blogged about here). The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has launched an investigation. The BBC discusses security vulnerabilities in these applications here. CNet News and others have reported on the problems surrounding this kind of data-gathering from social networking sites and third-party application creators.