miss_pacman's "Pirating on the Internet 100" for beginners

Hi everyone. Being a novice user of the internet I was quite intirigued and curious about piracy after having learned in class and tutorials that it's such a significant culture and increasingly a very serious issue. I was scared at first but got enough courage to do my own research on it. Initially I took off from the links provided by fellow friends on the blog who generously shared what they know. My first impression was wow is it that easy? My big break came when I took the cautious liberty of chatting to an unknown individual through yahoo messenger who decided to be my guide into this very dangerous world. That was three weeks ago. I have learned so much and now I'm willing to share what I've found out from miss_pacman with all of you. So here is "Pirating on The Internet 100" for beginners such as myself. (I know many of you are already experts so do correct me if I'm mistaken/misguided here)

Disclaimer: By continuing to read you acknowledge the fact you are fully responsible for using/misusing the information provided.

Part#1: The basics according to miss_pacman

One should not be pirating anyways in the first place. It's illegal in virtually the entire planet with dire consequences (heavy fines/imprisonment). By pirating you are supporting organized crimelords, the mafia, the chinese triad, the yakuza, even terrorists!! You are costing billions of dollars in profit for the software/movie/music industry. Just look at how ruined and devastated metallica was because of it. If you still insist though be warned that by pirating stuff from the internet you are endangering the life of your computer and precious data. Pirated games, software, movies, music come from hackers who may have tampered with it i.e they put in viruses, trojans, spyware that in rare cases could literally blow up your computer! If you copy music/movies/software yourself it's still bad. Research has shown that copies other than the original have 97.2138% times less lifespan no matter what media you use. This is simply because with the original copies, special media exclusively made for the industry is being used instead. If all this info doesn't deter your desire to pirate then as a first step secure your computer with a combination of firewall, antivirus, antispyware/anti-trojan programs. If you're a total noob and don't know what they are then pls get yourself informed as it's just too crucial to ignore. Also crucial is to be well informed on how to set them up properly. miss_pacman's personal recommendations: Bonealarm Pro + NOD99 + Rootbeer Spy Sweeper (Windows PC). Miss_pacman strictly stressed that Until your security is settled then don't even bother to move on to the next phase. Apparently there's a good site perfect for noobs that can help with obtaining the security programs apart from their main websites. According to miss_pacman it's fairly safe long as what you're downloading doesn't already contain hidden viruses/spyware/etc. Just search for adrhipdersa on google. Stay tuned for Part#2.

Just Add Snakes to a Plane…

Snakes On A Plane is an intriguing illumination of contemporary response to spectacle based films.

Unusually, the film makes no attempt to hide its shallow plot (profoundly encapsulated in its title) and one dimensional characters, instead promoting the superficiality of its narrative and emphasis on pure spectacle. Take one of its taglines for example: “At 30,000 feet, snakes aren't the deadliest thing on this plane.” (IMDB, 2006)

While most reviewers are likely to take the conventional anti ‘cinema of attractions’ approach and trash the film, a huge response has already been generated online not only hailing but contributing to Snakes overtly superficial nature prior to release. For instance, the line "I've had it with these motherfuckn' snakes on this motherfuckn' plane" uttered by the protagonist, played by Samuel L. Jackson, was created by fans using blogs and YouTube style parodies.

Fortunately, this may indicate we are moving away from the elitist perspective encouraged by reviewers towards the accepting the idea that sophisticated meaning is not limited to traditional characteristics of cinema, such as multi-layered narrative and characters, but can also be found in spectacle. Indicatively Josh Friedman, whose blog sparked the internet phenomenon surrounding the film (Lambert, 2006), writes Snakes “captured the idea of being forced to face situations we dread. No one trapped mid-flight with a bunch of slithering killers can walk away.”

As special effects advance, increasingly we flock to the cinema largely to experience the visceral pleasure derived from the spectacle. Thus because narrative will more frequently begin to serve special effects, such films warrant serious academic attention. In particular, questions of interest might ask how/what meanings are created and how this relates to the appeal of spectacle based films.

Thoughts on Snakes On A Plane? Is such a film capable of generating meaning worth studying? Or should we just forget about bringing any considered scrutiny and enjoy the escapism?


Shan

Proposed U.S legislation to restrict MySpace access

In relation to the lecture where MySpace use and implications of the site were discussed, I read an interesting article (link to it provided below) discussing the new bill in the U.S thats been proposed that will require all schools and libraries that receive federal funds to restrict access to digital tools and online comminities such as MySpace.

One point raised in the article was that teens and adults have different ideas about privacy. Teens are much more willing to share private info and are naive about the dangers that this can lead to. Young users are unlikely to use the option to put a restriction on who sees their profile.

The article also mentions that MySpace allows teens to participate in identity and development and cultural integration as they can contact a vast number of peers. On this site, young people feel they can be themselves and also make sure they are up to date on everything going on in their network.

The aricle talks about this social networking preparing young people for the same kind of networking that takes place in the professional sphere, such as learning to extend their contacts.

In addressing a question of whether new media have change the nature of play, the article says how many parents think that the internet has given them a loss of control in terms of what their kids are doing behind their back, but really because their kids activities are digitized, they come into public view, giving parents more control.

I thought this article had some interesting points about the issues surrounding the use of such sites as MySpace by young people, that it such sites can be a postive tool for teens, and that while there are safety issues, parents and teachers have more control than they think.

Strongbad's email and art works

Many of you FTVMS203 students might be familiar with www.homestarrunner.com. It is a cartoon website but mostly viewed by teengers and adults. Its most popular character would be Strongbad. You can write email to him and if you are lucky or your email is just weired out, he will answer it and make it into an animation and publish it on the homestarrunner.com, so that fans can see how he makes fun of your email. Well, yes, that's what Strongbad does, making fun of people! I mean, otherwise he wouldn't be called StrongBAD, right?

Anyway, after taking this course, I think homestarrunner.com is a great example of showing some of the topics we have covered so far. First of all, Strongbad email makes the website different from any ordinary cartoon website. It involves interaction and creates a virtual community. Obviously, Strongbad himself is a made up character but someone in real life, on the other side of the computer, is responding to your email. It is almost like blogging. Strongbad (or should I say the creator of Strongbad) sometimes includes short webcam films in his emails. For example, if you go to strongbad email at www.homestarrunner.com, you'll find an email entitled "Death Metal" which has a short webcam film in it. This is related to the topic that we discussed this week about films in the digital age. Different from those 15 sec films at the nokia website, Strongbad email combines digital film and virtuality together rather than a film website for pure entertainment.

There is also an animation series called "Teen Girl Squad" created by Strongbad. An animation series with a group of random teen girls in stick figures. In recent years, 3D animations have dominated the industry. From Monster Inc. to Hoodwinked. We hardly see any 2D animations now. I mean I was wowed by how real the ocean looked in Finding Nemo, but what happend to imgination? Everybody knows what water looks like, but what we want to see is what quirky things animation can do about the water, not how much it can get the water to look like real water. Todate, 3D animations are trying too hard to achieve the 'hypereality' and forgetting about the original element about animation. Compare to those big budget 3D animations, Strongbad's "Teen Girl Squad" might seem roughly sketched (I mean, he did it on refil paper...), but it is different. When was the last time you see stick figure animations in the theatre or on TV. In the digital age, it is all about being quirky, which is why digital films are so popular. The 'Grass root' culture is taking over.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy Strongbad's email and his "Teen Girl Squad".

-Karen

bonzo

The uses for YouTube:

My lecturer for a popular music paper I'm doing this semester just discovered YouTube the other day and very excitedly repeated "You Tube, You Tube" to us. He had been trying to find old clips for the content of his lectures, namely for The Kinks, The Who and the Bonzo Dog Band.
Without YouTube he would not have been able to prepare his lecture.
Just for a bit of fun, here is a band that while they are not well known, collaborated a lot with Monty Python and influenced other musicians through their eclectic use of styles.

I apologise if these links don't work - I am doing this from home with my super-duper effeciently fast and useful dial-up and the vidoes... only.... load.... about one tenth of a second every minute so I couldn't check whether they work. The songs are 'Canyons of My Mind' and 'Mr Apollo'. See Mr Apollo in particular if you're a Bowie fan.

By the way, in case these clips make you feel your age, David Copperfield has discovered the fountain of youth.
Yep.

As the future catches you- How genomics....

.... And other forces are changing your,life,work,health and wealth...

I was reading up a book called, "As The Future Catches You" by Juan Enriquez. It is a very thought provoking read with a different sort of twist upon the face of technology & how it can be seen to be applied today and tomorrow.

It tells of an aspect of technology being driven by genetics, the dominant language and economy driver. Those whom remain illiterate in this language won't understand the force making the single biggest difference in their lives.

Many companies
Just don't
get it.

They continue to invest primarily in stuff they can see and youch even though two-thirds of the global economy is already a knowledge economy.
They do not invest in, or attract, smart people who are science-literate.
They don't get particularly concerned as many of their brightest leave.

Lack of technology literacy..
Is one of the reasons the gap between the richest and poorest countries in the world are growing so quicky...
Why there is supposedly a 390:1 gap.
That is a L A R G E gap.

Think about it this way:
One way to get where you want to be is to find a good map,
and a smart guide.
The great cartographers of today aren't mapping continents, rivers, mountains or cities.
They are mapping the genetic code of all living things.
These maps are changing the way we look at all life...
Because they provide blueprints crucial to almost every business.

These maps change what we can make and how we make it......

Willingly, or unwillingly the ability to read the human gene code (genome) ..
Makes us al explorers.
We have to be aware of waterfalls.
Some will have a sense of how to navigate...
Others will drift along placidly..
Till the water gets rough and murky..
And the bottom suddenly disappears.

Those who approach waterfalls in canoes.. with no map.
Are unlikely to survive if the waterfall is really high.
This happens to families, regions and whole countries..
Particularly when they fail to make the next generation smarter..
or decide to exhaust themselves by desperately paddling against change...
They too become irrelevant and disappear

Lastly,
Juan tells of how your future , that of your children, and that of your country
depend on..
Understanding a global economy driven by technology.

Understanding code, particularly genetic code, is today's most
powerful technology


So how is this impacting upon society today? The internet and the like are not simply fad's and so we must take technology and see how it IS impacting and learn to use it so we can make it act in a certain way. Is this possible?
Genetics as the way of the future?

Thoughts?

~Sarah

Ipodding into isolation

When do you Ipod?

We all know the origins. People used the Walkman to create their own ‘private world’ when commuting from work. No longer did humans have to acknowledge other humans. Whilst wearing those headphones, you are essentially giving everyone else the finger. Metaphorically.

Next time you’re at uni, walking down the road or on a bus: take a look how many people have headphones on. I saw an acquaintance from another class walking past short loan today. I went to give him the eye-brow raise that means “hey” but he just kept on walking without the slightest notice. It raises questions of how people use Ipods and other entertainment media. For other reasons other than entertainment I'm sure.

If you didn’t know any better you’d think mobile phones and Ipods were the same product. According to the Ipod website, the latest model has “music, audiobooks, podcasts, photos, video, contacts, calendars, games, clocks and locks”. Not the same as mobiles exactly, but they are heading in that direction.

Name the next word in the list: Walkmans, telephones, mobile phones, Ipod, ----?
Pod-phone perhaps? Any ideas, send them to Apple.

My point: technology is getting narrow-minded. ‘Technology’ and ‘functionality’ seem to go hand in hand nowadays. What that means for future entertainment media I’m not sure. Will the overall product quality be diluted because manufacturers try and add bits and pieces on the end? Is it the case presently? I liken it to a sports team. Do you pick specialists or players who can do a range of roles adequately?

Record companies are losing their right to music- not us.

You raise some good points Ben but on the whole I disagree with your argument.
From your blog I gather you associate decent music with major record companies.
Just because record companies are losing out at the moment doesn’t mean good music will stop being made. The way I see it is the music industry is currently at a cross roads. They are unsure of what road leads to the greatest amount of money so the have thrown their toys and are in the middle of a tantrum. Through propaganda they are trying to scare us into thinking music is going to suffer. They are trying to scare us into thinking that with out them we the consumers are going to lose out! Are we losing out? NO! As soon as somebody comes along with that unique idea that enables artists to harness the power of the net and down loads, they will become the new music industry! (Hopefully the net will be able to cut out the middle man and it’s the artists and not the record companies that reap the benefits.) The record companies of the present, the dinosaurs they are, will be replaced by something far better for the consumers and bands. Because if you think about it, that’s who really matter!

The Right To Music?

Everywhere one looks these days you see a proliferation of music playing devices. iPod etc in the small portable line and now cell phones with 2GB+ hard drives to store all your favourite hits on. I wish I knew what I would do with 10,000 songs on my cell phone, personally not much would probably be my answer.

As the record companies go loco over file sharing and cd copying and all of our radio stations are loosing listeners, our culture seems to be more and more based on music, well, portable music that is.

I don't know where the trade off will end, free music from the net vs. record companies. I can only imagine in 10 years record companies output of music will be far smaller in terms of big international acts and quality recordings, which doesn't matter to the millions of consumers as they will just reduce the quality to 128kbs and think nothing of it. While it may sound good, sound quality of MP3 is reduced and sadly, being a music lover, I can hear it...

So where will it all get us? CD's get more expensive because all the middle men can't make thier bucks, local bands shrivel and die because they only released 1000 of their cd but everyone just downloaded it, meaning they sold 4 to their mums, and the quality of music gets steadily worse and worse as record companies go for easy bucks and flag nurturing good talent.

I find it sad that people won't buy cd's and dvd's any more and then expect that they have a right to music on the bus, in the car, in the bath, etc. Why do you need to portability of 10,000 songs and 100 movies, when are you EVER going to get through that? What happened to buying a record and appreciating it for weeks and weeks until you could save up for another one? While it is said 'bands make their money from touring', bands only tour where their record sells well, why bother anywhere else.

My case is the new Jack White band The Raconteurs and their first album "Broken Boy Soldiers". I really liked this when I heard a low quality downloaded version so I bought the vinyl, it's 100 times better and the case+poster for 30 mins of music is an awesome bargain. But then what gets posted on the website, NEW TOUR DATES which sees them not even bothering to come as far as east Australia. I know so many people who really like them, so why not? Then I learn with great dismay that one of the most downloaded albums of the moment, you guessed it...

The digital revolution will certainly give us great advances, but it may be choking the one thing its advances are for. Who needs an iPod when there's nothing good to listen to... RIP decent music.

unintended consequences

Hey Schackers! (scholar hackers)

I saw this tonight and became very excited: Encyclopodia, the entirety of Wikipedia on your iPod

Finally my dreams of being a hipster fashioned literal know-it-all have come true!

Has anyone tried it out? It requires installing iPod Linux on your little baby. I'd love to hear someone's firsthand experiences with that too.

Also, for me tonight I discovered KanjiPod an shortened iPod based kanji dictionary! Works great for reading Mainichi Newspaper.

How are you "misusing" your technology? Hacking your PSP or XBox? Randomly texting strangers? Using your lighter as a bottle opener?

Even the President is in on Blogging

This just in, I can't believe my eyes.  When i read on bbc that the Iranian President is launching a web log or blog i couldn't believe it.  I wonder when it'll be before the US president will launch his own website or Helen Clark for that matter.  The Iranian president wishes hsers to send in messages and comments.  His first post is said to be an autobiography which tells of his childhood and iran's islamic revolution.  Maybe he is trying to rally support for his views in anticipation of a war with america.  We all know the Bush is looking for a fight with them already.

The link to the article and his blog are below if you're that way inclined

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4790005.stm
http://www.ahmadinejad.ir

just went to the site and it's said that the server is busy, it must be a hit the world over. :-p

if any of you are wondering why i react and post so many things from the bbc it's becuase my mac has an RSS feed screen saver that shows the latest news and I just pick out the cool and relevalent bits to post.

Shift to more Prosumer Orientated Consumption

Microsoft have just announced that they will be releasing a programing package which allows the public to program games for the Xbox 360 and post it online similar to the concept of youtube and it's prosumer orientated video content.  It seems to me as though this type of production process is more or less a way of providing the consumer with the ability to make their own games in a system which is currently very restricted in terms of who produces and influences games as a whole.  It also states in the article that it is costing upto £20 million to produce a single game, this could also be read as Microsoft's way of saying we don't want to build games anymore we'll just charge you for the tools to make the game and you can produce it yourself.  This would tie back into their business model of windows were they provided the software to you on a yearly subscription basis.  For those interested it will cost you US$99 for the software just to produce your own games.  In my view this is similar to renting an Xbox then having to pay to play a game you produced yourself.  In my view this could be viewed as the next evolution in game designing or programing. A prosumer-programing age of gaming.  Those of you who are going to Tech Ed this friday, I will be asking this exact question to Microsoft Executives in New Zealand.  I will post their response to this, until then are there any other views on the subject?

Link to Article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4789809.stm

Korean social-networking site hopes to nab U.S. fans

It's arguably one of the oldest and more successful social-networking sites in the world, and it's now coming to the U.S.

Cyworld, a site based in South Korea, kicked off a beta in the U.S. on July 27 and later this month will formally begin a nationwide tour to encourage Americans, particularly those in the age 18 to 29 demographic, to create personalized Web pages, or "mini-homes," on the site. Read the article at CNET...

Virtual Currencies

In the first few lectures the topic of electronic media products crossing over into sphere of the 'real world' was returned to a number of times. Michael Miller discussed these ideas on this blog in his post "Timely update." Michael discussed the issue in regard to Sims creator Will Wrights new game called Spore. Although this pushes some inter-media boundaries of computer games, the creatures are still contained within the world of electronic media, that is essentially made out of 1 and 0's. A long way from reaching the virtual/real crossover described by the children in Turkle's article.

I think a far more pertinent example of this virtual/real cross over is that of virtual economies. World of Warcraft was motioned in class as an example of how in game values can be transferred into 'real' currencies. While I've never really played this game it got me interested in how these virtual economies operate. I remember kids at school selling their Diablo 2 characters for actual money but due to the increase in the complexity and perceived value of these games this trading has increased to a point where virtual items can now be bought on mainstream auction sites such as Trademe.
Anyone after a PERFECT hammer ?!!?!?
More specialised sites for trading in game items and currency for real world money have also been established.

Mark Wallace discusses some of these ideas in a recent issue of Escapist Magazine:

"While no government authority stands behind them to insure their value, a seal of approval isn't needed for a currency to become "real." A World of Warcraft gold piece is worth as much as you can get for it on the market - about $0.10 at the moment. The U.S. dollar derives its value in exactly the same way."

Since the removal of the gold standard are these in game currencies really so different from the currencies of nations?

The development of real world value for in game values has created an interesting cross over between the real world and the worlds of MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) like Eve Online which stress the decreasing separation of the two spheres. Examples include in game ‘guilds’ (Groups of players) going undercover in other guilds in order to steal items and currency worth thousands of real world dollars!

Are these new developments really so amazing? Or are they merely technological developments that will become mundane in time?
One… slightly vague example I thought of was that of books… A book is merely a collection of organised symbols trading on the perceived value of their meaning within a certain discursive sphere.

Is such a strange new world after all?

Check out Terra Nova for more discussion on MMORPGs and social aspects of online gaming communities.

:/

What we find in 'Google.com.cn'

"据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示。"

When I use Chinese Google to search, sometimes I can see this sentence at the bottom of each searching web pages. The sentence means, “according to the local law and policy, part of the searching results do not show on the pages.” But, if I search the same thing in www.google.co.nz, the results are different and there is no this kind of sentence display on the searching page. It can be noticed that the censorship of China controls over the Internet, or even not only the Internet. And I think, it is hard to define whether the censorship is good or not.

When we search something the Chinese Communist party tries to “hide”, then they are not showing on the searching list.
For instant:
http://www.astahost.com/info.php/tianamen-square-google-china-vs-google-canada_t11667.html “Censorship creates suspicion”, and if the Google as an American company only follows the US laws and polices, what will happen? In fact, “it is not technically just China that does this. google has been asked and obliged many countries that certain words have altered search responses.”

like sand through an hour glass

Well, I've manage to use up my full 10 gigs for the month with still two weeks to go so I'm thinking of changing from Xtra (more like... uhm... Stink-tra!). To be honest it's been a long time coming, the service from both Telecom and Xtra has been sub-par.

Anyone got any advice on which company to swap to? Telstraclear seems to suit my needs, if a little more expensive, but I definitely like the ability to buy more bandwidth if I've used up my 10 gigs.

So, dear reader, got some advice?

Please! I just discovered the show with zefrank (a rantastic, sardonic, vblog. maybe a good rocketboom replacement, Luke?) a few days ago and I'm dying to go through the archive a bit more. Extra little warning, sometimes a little bit vulgar. Maybe NSFW.

Is the internet responsible for emo??

Well, probably not... exclusively at least. But when I see the multitudinous emo kids hanging about sky city metro on weekends, I cant help but think that this seems a bigger trend in teen culture than others of recent times. So why this? It appears possible that the internet fosters emoism through its format. How? Firstly, looking at webcam images from various sites, there are many sombre youths pictured (this has been the case for a while - before emo) closely resembling the fringed, black-haired, dark-eyed kids of today (among whom net usage is surely higher than any previous generation) . Secondly, the upsurge in kids using msn, my space, and any other such site where one communicates facelessly (and often intimately) has, i propose, allowed this generation to share their feelings, articulate their growing-up angst, and air their discontent with the system at never-before seen levels. Even boys! Relationships move faster, and kids are willing to express things to their peers (emo things) that they may not be in person. And then they can share their (emo) musical tastes in lists of 'things they're into' on their profiles, lists which come to define how they are viewed by their peers, and themselves.
If only the little bastards would just conform, they'd be happy.
Sam

How much do you owe to the RIAA? I owe nearly a Billion

The RIAA sucks. Period. After reading the Lawrence Lessig article I wondered how could RIAA justify some of their actions, especially with their whole "download music and we'll eat your children" mentality. It is disturbing to know that in America a seven year old girl could be fined more for downloading one CD than a docter who has amputated the wrong leg. Lessig's metaphor of the piracy issue being like a chimera is a good one. The piracy issue is alot more complicated than simply targeting the music downloaders and sueing them for everything they've got. I download music but i also buy CD's. I have films on my computer but i also watch the newest movies at imax. Its hard to say where the fine line is between "legitmate" and "illegitimate" consumption. Both extremes of this issue have majorly negative impacts. On one side of the spectrum is the RIAA considers 20% of the American population are criminals who should be sued $2 million for every CD they download, while on the other side of the spectrum are countries such as China. I remember when i went back to Beijing 2 years ago and tried to find a legitimate CD of my favourite chinese artist "Jay Chou" because there were special features on the disk that illegitimate copies didn't have. Unfortunately for me it took me nearly a day of searching to find one. It is hard to pick out the real copies from the fakes because the fakes look so real. Unfortunately it's because of extreme piracy that saw the regression of Hong Kong Cinema in late 1990's and early 2000 when awful, awful films such as "my wife is 18" and "black mask 2" were made (however Hong kong cinema seems to be back on track with amazing films like "Kung fu hustle" and "infernal affairs". None of the extreme reactions to piracy will work out well for consumers, muscians and producers. I agree with Lessig that we should pick a stance somewhere in between.

If you download our music we'll cut off your leg!

I was greatly disturbed by some of the statistics that came out of the Lawrence Lessig reading. I have often been involved in debates over the legality of downloading files over the Internet and for the most part balanced myself between the two, being able to see both sides of the argument. Although, since reading about examples of possible law suits for $98 billion and fines of up to $750 million for Internet based “pirating” compared with a measly $250,000 lawsuit against a doctor who cuts of the wrong leg in an operation.

I am not to sure who comes up with the fines, but I can just imagine them sitting in their office discussing fines…

Article 1: Little girl downloads two songs of the Internet… $300,000 in fines!

Article 2: Doctor cuts off the wrong leg in an operation… $250,000 in fines!

Until they can develop some sort of common sense then perhaps I wont feel so bad the next time I think about downloading something.

Communist Google

As discussed in lecture, Google has made the big leap into communist China under strict orders from government officials to censor the types of webpages their search machine would access.

What got my attention was not that Google was forced to censor itself for the Chinese people but the criticism that they were receiving. When Communism and Democracy/Capitalism intersect, there are going to be obvious differences because these ideologies are opposites. So wouldn't it make sense that Google should censor what it can show to the Chinese people? Just because our methods of governing are different doesn't mean we can't interact, but it is important that we do not impose our culture on another when we are the foreigners. Besides, the mere fact that a western force has made it into China is something in itself.

At least that is what i thought, until i read up on it a bit. But it starts to get a little grey in areas regarding issues of human rights, especially regarding the Falun Gong followers that the government is trying to extinguish in a similar way the Nazis tried to extinguish the Jewish people. Now, because of Googles censorship, whenever a person inside search the words "Falun Gong," very little or nothing will be shown. Google folk have access to all this information and more, but because of a business deal, are willing to conceal it from the Chinese people.

It is disturbing to think that cyber-space has substituted for people's culture and ethics. It seems that people view the internet as its own seperate culture (which it is arguably to an extent) instead of an extension of it. Google is acting like a non-thinking, non-feeling technological monster devoutly following its capitalist creed. We need to remember that technology is a product of our culture, not the source of it.

Thoughts? Feelings?