More?
At this moment, new stories are being post in Blogging in the Wind (TypePad Edition).
| 0 comments | 2004-04-26 15:20 |
TypeKey: Passport for blogs?
SixApart, the creators of MovableType and TypePad, are announcing a new authentication architecture and service for blog comments. It is called TypeKey:
It is not distributed, but central service. Morbus doesn't like this. It remembers me the doomed Microsoft's Passport and its competitor Liberty Alliance, which haven't been widely deployed.
SixApart also announced the third round of tests of MovableType 3.0 and the opening of SixApart Japan.
«TypeKey is an online authentication system that lets you log in to Six Apart's TypeKey service with a single login name and password, granting you permission to comment on thousands of weblogs across the web».
It is not distributed, but central service. Morbus doesn't like this. It remembers me the doomed Microsoft's Passport and its competitor Liberty Alliance, which haven't been widely deployed.
SixApart also announced the third round of tests of MovableType 3.0 and the opening of SixApart Japan.
| 1 comments | 2004-03-20 01:21 |
Poland was 'misled' over Iraq WMD
BBC News reports that:
Of course, he will not shoot his feet admiting there was no casus belli. But one step at a time.
Meanwhile, in US, some supposed A-list analists keeps thinking that conventional war is the answer to terrorism. Michael R. Gordon writes in the New York Times an article titled The New Strategy for Terror:
With illegal and unethical wars like Iraq? Keep dreaming. And learn a bit from others about how to fight terrorism, please.
PD: Uncovered - The Whole Truth About the Iraq War (Boing boing).
«Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski says his country was misled about the alleged threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. However he also defended the decision to go to war in Iraq and said he had no plans to withdraw Polish soldiers. [...] "Of course I feel a certain discomfort that we were misled about weapons of mass destruction," Mr Kwasniewski told journalists on Thursday. He refused to point the finger of blame at either the US or the UK, and insisted the decision to go to war had been the right one».
Of course, he will not shoot his feet admiting there was no casus belli. But one step at a time.
Meanwhile, in US, some supposed A-list analists keeps thinking that conventional war is the answer to terrorism. Michael R. Gordon writes in the New York Times an article titled The New Strategy for Terror:
«The point is that the Madrid attack will make Europe more sympathetic to the American post-9/11 view that terrorism is an urgent danger».
With illegal and unethical wars like Iraq? Keep dreaming. And learn a bit from others about how to fight terrorism, please.
PD: Uncovered - The Whole Truth About the Iraq War (Boing boing).
| 3 comments | 2004-03-18 19:22 |
Did terrorists win in Spain?
Cowards?
The future president of Spain announced that Spanish troops will retire from Irak if they aren't under the command of United Nations. And now, I read on some blogs that terrorists has win in Spain. That's an oversimplification of a somewhat complex proccess that began a year ago and ended this Saturday. Also, we have been suffering terrorism in the 25 years of our young democracy, so we have some a bit experience in this field.
Are we cowards? On Friday we went to the streets by millions (12, a quarter of Spain's total population) to cry against terrorism. One meme that parties spread was that 11-M was an attack to the democracy, so they invited people to vote. On Sunday, around the 80% of Spaniards voted.
Wars, lies and videotapes
Official polls showed that 90% of the people were against our goverment support to Bush's war. Last year, demostrations around the country took 4 million against the war. After the war, no weapons of mass destruction. Many people begin to loose confidence in the goverment. Let's see the tipping point of four years of right-windy goverment.
So, once more, our goverment lied and tried to manipulate, and this time not just us, but the entire world. By the way, much could be said about traditional media and journalism ethics in the light of this.
War on terrorism
If it really happens that 11-M was done by Al Qaida, only one thing can be said about Bush, Blair and Aznar's global war on terrorism: it is a complete failure. We must demand light on 9/11 motivations and stop doing stupid and bloody wars against innocent people.
The future president of Spain announced that Spanish troops will retire from Irak if they aren't under the command of United Nations. And now, I read on some blogs that terrorists has win in Spain. That's an oversimplification of a somewhat complex proccess that began a year ago and ended this Saturday. Also, we have been suffering terrorism in the 25 years of our young democracy, so we have some a bit experience in this field.
Are we cowards? On Friday we went to the streets by millions (12, a quarter of Spain's total population) to cry against terrorism. One meme that parties spread was that 11-M was an attack to the democracy, so they invited people to vote. On Sunday, around the 80% of Spaniards voted.
Wars, lies and videotapes
Official polls showed that 90% of the people were against our goverment support to Bush's war. Last year, demostrations around the country took 4 million against the war. After the war, no weapons of mass destruction. Many people begin to loose confidence in the goverment. Let's see the tipping point of four years of right-windy goverment.
- From Thursday to Saturday morning, our goverment told that ETA was the prime suspect.
- Saturday, a media group announced that they knew that the main investigation was leading to an islamic group and was not ETA: the secret service, CNI, was 99% sure. CNI's director publicy denied it.
- On Saturday afternoon, mobs were organized by cell phone text messages in front of ruling party headquarters in Barcelona, Madrid, A Coruña, Tenerife and other cities. People wanted to know who were the terrorists, whether ETA or Al Qaida.
- Saturday evening, one minister announced that five people were arrested, three from Marrocco and two from India.
- Then, Popular's candidate did a press conference accusing opposition of organizing the demostrations which are illegal when political on the day before elections.
- Later, in another press conference, Socialists denounced that our goverment was hidding data and they knew it from the first moment, but didn't say nothing to show respect to our State.
- The mobs continued around the country.
- By surprise, national TV showed a film about an ETA attack.
- The Central Election Board had an urgent meet to discuss the anomalous Day of Thinking, where no political messages can be published in a national media. Many of us thought they could stop elections.
- After midnight, in another press conference, the minister announced they just received a video in Telemadrid where an arab-speaking person claimed the blasts for Al Qaida.
- After three hours, the Election Board ruled illegal the mobs.
So, once more, our goverment lied and tried to manipulate, and this time not just us, but the entire world. By the way, much could be said about traditional media and journalism ethics in the light of this.
War on terrorism
If it really happens that 11-M was done by Al Qaida, only one thing can be said about Bush, Blair and Aznar's global war on terrorism: it is a complete failure. We must demand light on 9/11 motivations and stop doing stupid and bloody wars against innocent people.
| 12 comments | 2004-03-16 06:21 |
Socialist opposition win in Spain
Graphic: elmundo.es
Socialists has won the elections with 1.2 million votes more than the ruling Popular Party. The counting could be follow in real time in the page of the Ministry of Interior, where the last numbers can be seen.
The participation was high, 77% in 2004 compared to 69% in 2000. Left-windy Socialists have 164 congresists (125 in 2000) and Populars have 148 (183 in 2000). The right-windy ruling party, Populars, lost 600,000 votes compared to 2000, but still with high support (9,6 million votes). Socialists gained 3 million of votes, and will need the help of minor parties to form goverment, but will not be difficult.
This happens three days after the bloody attacks in Madrid. Why the ruling party lost? It his a complex issue. Some analysis in Spain points that it was their totalitarism behaviour with independentists in Vasque Country and Catalonia, the support of US in the Irak war case and other issues. But Populars only lost few votes. All the parties called for a big participation in elections to answer the attack to the democracy. And they did it. Traditional voters that didn't want to support Socialist Party because internal problems in 2000 and young people that is left-windy, could count the 3 million votes of difference between 2004 and 2000 elections. So maybe, terrorist attacks didn't change the vote of people, but in the end, it changed the goverment.
Links
- Poll triumph for Spain Socialists (CNN)
- Vote Is Overshadowed by Attack and Ongoing Investigation (NY Times)
| 0 comments | 2004-03-14 14:21 |
11-M: Cell phones, Al Qaida and Day of Thinking
Yesterday, in Spain it was the Day of Thinking, the one before the national elections, set for today (Sunday, March 14th).
Victims
Investigation
Flashmobs
Political remarks
International support
As a Spaniard, I want to thank all the international support. Thanks.
Victims
- Alcalá de Henares celebrated a public and populated religious service. It is one of the most affected towns in number of deaths (around 30).
- A police shot a man in Pamplona, after a heavy discussion about the terrorist attack.
Investigation
- In the morning, the minister Ángel Acebes continued blaming ETA as the prime supspect, but no new evidence was given.
- Some radio stations claimed that Spanish Intelligence Service was 90% sure on this later hypotesis. The Director of the Service denied it.
- After flash mobs begun to form, in the evening, the Minister informed that police arrested 5 people in the afternoon: three for Marocco and two from India.
- The arrests were linked to the cell phone and the manipulated SIM card encountered last Thursday in a bomb bagback.
- Later in the midnight, the minister informed that Telemadrid received a call from an arab person, informing the existence of a videotape in a public trash basket. The videotape shows a man talking in arab and claiming the attacks for Al Qaida. It is not confirmed.
Flashmobs
- During the day, text messages flowed all around the country between cell phones to concentrate people in front of the ruling party (Partido Popular, PP) headquarters. The messages contained messages asking for answers.
- The mobs concentrated thousands of people.
- PP candidate accused opposition (Partido Socialista, PSOE) for organizing the flash mobs.
- PSOE denied it and answered they knew ETA was being ruled out while PP still was blaming ETA, but didn't say nothing. It accused PP of hiding information.
- The Minister of Presidency later accused PSOE of manipulating people in the Day of Thinking.
- Election Board ruled illegal the flash mobs.
Political remarks
- If it was ETA vasque terrorist group, voters will favour PP, because PSOE is ruling in Catalonia along an independentist party, whose leader recently had a secret meeting with ETA in France. Later, ETA announced they won't attack in Catalonia, but denied it was because of the meeting.
- If it was an islamic terrorist group, voters will favour PSOE, because the goverment supported Bush in Irak war, against the feelings of 90% of the population. PSOE's candidate promised the retrait of spanish troops in Irak if the country is not under UN ruling.
International support
As a Spaniard, I want to thank all the international support. Thanks.
| 1 comments | 2004-03-13 22:21 |
11-M(assacre)
His cell phone kept ringing. But he didn't answered.
Victims
- Toll raised to 200 deaths. 1460 wounded. 200 still in hospitals.
- 30 haven't yet be identified.
- 11 nations has victims between the dead, most of them from Latinoamerica, Africa and Eastern Europe.
- Ministry of Interior has a site with information about the victims and their health state.
Solidarity
- All irregular inmigrants, victims of the terrorist attack, will receive Spanish nationality.
- To help the victims, the Goverment have allocated 140 million euros.
- 18 thousand people donated blood in Spain, four times a normal day.
- Hundreds of policemen, firemen, psychologists and many other people having been helping without rest since thursday.
Demonstrations
- 11.4 million of spaniards (1/4 Spain's population) went to the simultaneous demonstrations all around the country to condemn the attack.
- For the first time in democracy, the Real Family headed a demonstration (Madrid).
- Portuguese, French, Italian Prime Ministers, the president of European Commision, and other British and German ministers attended the Madrid demonstration.
- Images of the demonstrations.
- Thousands of people also demostrated in Brussels, Helskinski, Paris, Berlin, Copenhague, London, Lisboa, Washington, New York, Honduras, Pekin.
6 W's
- ETA denies authority. Their political arm also denies authority and condemns the massacre.
- Goverment still blames ETA terrorist group as the main suspect, but doesn't dischard the islamic evidence.
- Madrid blasts: Who is to blame?, BBC.
- One person saw strange beheaving people in the van later encountred near Alcalá de Henares station, where it is supposed that the trains were filled with bombs oculted in bags. In the van, among other things, an audiotape with Koran messages was found.
- One bombing bag didn't explode and was discovered later in the police station. Bomb experts studied it.
- The bombs were activated by timers in cell phones, connected with copper threads to the bombs.
Links
- Ari28. First hand post about Atocha station blast.
- Masacre en Madrid by Juantomás García (president of Hispalinux). Short post. He was also in Atocha.
- Snowchild and AdM+Partners moblogged the demonstrations (more blogging sites).
| 0 comments | 2004-03-12 23:21 |
200 dead in terrorist attack in Madrid
This morning, 10 simultaneous bombs exploded in four different trains in Madrid, Spain, in the same line that comes from Guadalajara to Atocha station in Madrid. The death toll counts more than 190 deaths and 1400 wounded. 3 more bombs encountered in vagons were exploded by police experts.
Sequence
Important remarks
Links
(Updated info in 11-M(assacre) and 11-M: Cell phones, Al Qaida and Day of Thinking).
Sequence
- Between 7:00 and 7:15 AM, the terrorists filled four trains with the bomb-bags, probably in Alcalá de Henares, where I lived last year (I know very well the route). The station is small. It takes around 40 minutes from Alcalá to Atocha station.
- At 7:39, the first three bombs exploded in different vagons of the train at the Atocha station. 49 deaths.
- Just one kilometer behind, at 7:42 AM, three other explosions in another train also nearing to Atocha. 59 deaths.
- At 7:42 AM, in El Pozo station (two behind Atocha), two bombs explode just before the train leaves to Entrevías. The train vagons has two stores. 67 deaths.
- At 7:42 AM, in Santa Eugenia station (two behind El Pozo), one bomb explodes in the fifth vagon of a moving train. 15 deaths.
Important remarks
- Atocha is the central train station of Madrid. Is very big and populated in the morning. Probably, the terrorists wanted to explode two of the trains when they were inside the station, but the second one was two minutes late.
- Two people were seen in Alcalá de Henares station entering and exiting of, at least, four trains.
- We celebrate goverment elections this sunday.
- Goverment officials thought this was an attack of ETA, a terrorist group that wants the independence of Vasque Country. Vasque Country is one of the most autonomy regions in Europe.
- A van with an audio tape and seven bomb activators was found in Alcalá de Henares. The audio tape has islamic content.
- 'Al-Qaida letter' claims Spain bombings, Al Jazeera.
- 90% of Spanish people didn't support our goverment in the Irak war case.
Links
- Images of the tragedy.
- Flash animation of the sequence of the terrorist attack.
- 11 de marzo: List of spanish blogs which talk about the tragedy.
- Bitácoras: Atentado en Madrid (11-marzo-2004): Another spanish list.
- Google.es News compilation.
- Google.com News compilation.
- CNN.com - Spain rail blasts: 173 dead - Mar 11, 2004 Blogdex's list of blog posts.
- BBC NEWS | Europe | Scores die in Madrid bomb carnage Blogdex's list of blog posts.
- Washington Post | Ten bombs exploding in three different train sets Blogdex's list of blog posts.
(Updated info in 11-M(assacre) and 11-M: Cell phones, Al Qaida and Day of Thinking).
| 11 comments | 2004-03-11 15:21 |
More moblogging with your Nokia
The Guardian blog, Online Blog reports that Nokia is playing with blogs and cell phones. Exclusive: Nokia gets blogs
«I just had a fascinating meeting with Christian Lindholm, the Nokia usability guru who is now director of multimedia applications for the company. He was giving me a sneak preview of the Lifeblog Multimedia Diary, a blogging application developed by Nokia that's going to be unveiled next week at the Cebit show in Germany».
| 0 comments | 2004-03-11 09:21 |
Moblogging with your Nokia
Vía Joi Ito: Moblogging from the Nokia 6600 with Atom API :
«Pertti Korhonen, Nokia?s new CTO introduced PhotoBlog for Series 60 in his keynote at ETech in San Diego. This application proof-of-concept is supporting the Atom API enabling users to post to leading blog platforms. The application was developed by Futurice, who is developing a Photblog platform»,
| 0 comments | 2004-02-12 02:39 |
Aznar in 30 seconds
If you followed the international affairs before the invasion against Irak begun last year, Spaniard Goverment was in pair with English one to publicy support White House. Following the big impact that Bush in 30 seconds had last weeks, a group of people from the spanish culture world have launched Aznar in 30 seconds. It is a similar contest: you can send your video or even your ideas if you have not media skills. They lack funding, so they only promise to invite the winner to a good dinner.
José María Aznar is our right-windy prime minister.
José María Aznar is our right-windy prime minister.
| 0 comments | 2004-02-05 02:40 |
Blogger's suspended mode
Excuse me if I don't read you. My iBook is broken and my aggregator with it.
| 2 comments | 2004-02-02 21:40 |
Many, too many: Social networking overflow
Via Blogdex, I've read a good rant about social networking, or at least, against the over population of this tools, because how many of these can you manage? How Many Social Nets Are Too Many?:
The list misses the biggest social network applications: ICQ/AIM and MSN Messenger.
Jeremy Zawodney have a thoughtful post about what could be behind Google's interest in Orkut: Why Google needs Orkut:
«By my count, there are more than 100 social networking services that I have been observing 'cruising past my virtual radar gun' in the past few months».
The list misses the biggest social network applications: ICQ/AIM and MSN Messenger.
Jeremy Zawodney have a thoughtful post about what could be behind Google's interest in Orkut: Why Google needs Orkut:
«Then, one day down the road, they quietly decide to "better integrate" Orkut with Google and start redirecting all Orkut requests to orkut.google.com. Bingo! Suddenly they're able to set a *.google.com cookie that contains a bit of identifying data (such as your Orkut id) and that would greatly enhance their ability to mine useful and profitable data from the combination of your profile and daily searches».
| 0 comments | 2004-02-01 02:40 |
Ads in RSS
John Robb points to a new site that promotes advertisement in feeds, RSS Ads:
Of course, this was only matter of time. Major feed sources, like newspapers and portals, will begin to send embeded advertisement items as another way to get revenues. And this new way of revenue will attract other sites to put their content in feeds.
«RSSAds provides an economic model that allows content publishers to offer full feeds of their content via RSS».
Of course, this was only matter of time. Major feed sources, like newspapers and portals, will begin to send embeded advertisement items as another way to get revenues. And this new way of revenue will attract other sites to put their content in feeds.
| 0 comments | 2004-01-27 06:30 |
RSS and Atom news
Jeremy Zawodny announces the launch, in beta mode, of Yahoo!'s RSS agreggator. It has a weblog.com-like ping API.
In his weblog I also read about the quiet launch of Orkut, Google's social network solution, following the tail of Friendster. At this point it is not clear to me whether it is directly owned by Google or by this employee which gives his name to the site.
Also, Google have announced that his free blogs are going to support Atom feeds.
In his weblog I also read about the quiet launch of Orkut, Google's social network solution, following the tail of Friendster. At this point it is not clear to me whether it is directly owned by Google or by this employee which gives his name to the site.
Also, Google have announced that his free blogs are going to support Atom feeds.
| 0 comments | 2004-01-23 11:40 |
Blogalia gives its first scientific research paper
Blogcount talks about the scientific research that my colleagues Fernand0 and JJ have done using data from Blogalia (my blog server sofware and active community). Blog posting intervals. Mapping blog communities:
R+D from Spain! That's really incredible ;) Last year we presented a paper based in our Blogometro link collector.
«JJ with Fernando Tricas, Beatriz Prieto, and Fatima Rateb, demonstrated a new method for automatically mapping blogger communities. The abstract of their paper: Mapping Blogalia. Why should you care? It's more than Tufte style data visualization. It's creating tools for understanding what connects us, how ideas bind us, and a continuation of tools that help us extract meaning from our blogging behavior. I'm eager for the maturation of these models into widely accessible tools.»
R+D from Spain! That's really incredible ;) Last year we presented a paper based in our Blogometro link collector.
| 0 comments | 2004-01-19 15:40 |
Wired on Spanish Blogosphere
Last week, Wired published an article about the emergence of blogs in Spain. Blogs Coming of Age in Spain. It has quotes from some of Spanish bloggers, some of them well known and others not so much. The article has received a lot of critics. In my opinion, Xeni Jardin did a good thing putting some light is this part of the world, although it could be done a little better. You can read a good critic on BloJJ.
| 0 comments | 2004-01-19 13:40 |
Spanish journalists get blogging
Last week I attended the 5th Congress about Digital Journalism in Huesca. Invited by Fernando García, its director, I was in the panel about weblogs and journalism. The moderator and the fourth panelists presented our opinions on the matter, and then the debate was open. Nacho Escolar (Tele5) was the moderator and Pepe Cervera (El Mundo), Patricia Fernández de Liz (El País) and Juan Carlos Escudier (El Confidencial).
Surprisingly, I didn't see much blood. They are interested in blogs, they are using it right now as source of information and want to use them to overcome the media control by political and economical powers. A good quote: «The age of mass media is ending».
On the whole congress, my impression is that it was too focused on traditional journalism on Internet rather than new and innovative ways of delivering information. It lacked some of the top digital journalists, specially, en.red.ando's Luis Ángel Fernández Hermana (our Spanish Dan Gillmor).
In the personal side, one of the things that surprised me is that some of then knew me well by my works in Blogalia (a blog community and sofware) and Barrapunto (a Slashdot-like site). And it became that I'm still not a cyborg: I don't own a wireless card for my iBook, I can't connect it to Internet with my 3650... hey, I don't even get the telephone wire to get the modem work in the hotel!
Surprisingly, I didn't see much blood. They are interested in blogs, they are using it right now as source of information and want to use them to overcome the media control by political and economical powers. A good quote: «The age of mass media is ending».
On the whole congress, my impression is that it was too focused on traditional journalism on Internet rather than new and innovative ways of delivering information. It lacked some of the top digital journalists, specially, en.red.ando's Luis Ángel Fernández Hermana (our Spanish Dan Gillmor).
In the personal side, one of the things that surprised me is that some of then knew me well by my works in Blogalia (a blog community and sofware) and Barrapunto (a Slashdot-like site). And it became that I'm still not a cyborg: I don't own a wireless card for my iBook, I can't connect it to Internet with my 3650... hey, I don't even get the telephone wire to get the modem work in the hotel!
| 0 comments | 2004-01-19 13:40 |
Wikipedia: Non-profit gross
John Robb makes an interesting suggestion about the Wikipedia.
This reminds me a talk with a friend about the dark national gross that non-profits projects like Linux and Wikipedia (at least in the past) delivers to many countries. Could that amount be calculated?
PD: Many 2 Many talks about that and other things in Blogging the Market.
«A true resource. Very cool to watch it go from 0 to light speed in 2 short years. Suggestion for Google: dump the dmoz open directory project (which is branded by Google as the Google Web Directory) and replace it with Wikipedia».
This reminds me a talk with a friend about the dark national gross that non-profits projects like Linux and Wikipedia (at least in the past) delivers to many countries. Could that amount be calculated?
PD: Many 2 Many talks about that and other things in Blogging the Market.
| 0 comments | 2004-01-19 13:40 |
Smart mobs
Another gift from my Amazon wish list. This time, is no other than Howard Rheinhold's Smart mobs, which a lot of people had recommended me over the last months. The book describes itself:
«From Tokyo to Helsinki, Manhattan to Manila, Howard Rheingold takes us on a journey around the world for a preview of the next techno-cultural shift-a shift he predicts will be as dramatic as the widespread adoption of the PC in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s. The coming wave, says Rheingold, is the result of super-efficient mobile communications-cellular phones, personal digital assistants, and wireless-paging and Internet-access devices that will allow us to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime»
I will review it as soon as I read it... or maybe, while reading it ;)
| 0 comments | 2004-01-10 20:40 |
