iMakeContentNews, analysis and stuff from a screen in London(Untitled)- December 16, 2002 iMakeContent is on holiday until the first week of January 2003.http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/16.html#a827 (Untitled)- December 13, 2002 Capitalism for beginners: Educational tech toys are high on parents' to buy lists this Christmas, according to Wired's Leander Kahney. Testing this season's top toys, her two year old particularly liked the Pretend and Learn Shopping Cart: 'Well-made and sturdy, the supermarket trolley comes with a variety of plastic food items -- bananas, packets of cereal -- that can be scanned with a handheld scanner attached to the cart. Pass an item in front of the scanner, and the cart speaks its name.http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/13.html#a826 (Untitled)- December 12, 2002 Zoology of dreams: 'Floating islands are invariably Krakens.' Sound advice in this full-text version of Jorge Luis Borges' The Book of Imaginary Beings.http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/12.html#a825 (Untitled)- December 11, 2002 A splice of mice: Mickey isn't the only mouse trying to wriggle out of the clutches of the masters of code. Animation World Network. Canada last week refused to grant a patent for a genetically modified mouse. Unlike the US, EU and Japan, Canada denies that Harvard's scientists invented anything when they manipulated mouse genes. Its Supreme Court says the university doesn't deserve a patent - at least not until the politicians have had a chance to think the ethics of biotech over. National.http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/11.html#a823 (Untitled)- December 10, 2002 Flash with sound Tune in: America is having some technical difficulties. . .http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/10.html#a822 (Untitled)- December 9, 2002 Ho ho hum: According to a survey published last week, nearly 40% of German children have no idea why Christmas is celebrated. Reasons given by the children, aged between six and 12, included: 'because it's winter', 'so that the shops can sell more stuff' and 'because that's when Santa Claus died'. Some 25%, and over a third of those aged between 10 and 12, found it 'utterly tedious that months before Christmas it looks like it's Christmas already.' n-tv.de; via The Aardvark Speaks.http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/09.html#a821 (Untitled)- December 6, 2002 No joke: Lawyers acting on behalf of Dow Chemicals have shut down the Dow Toxic spoof site set up to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the Bhopal gas accident.Verio, the site's ISP, received a note from Dow's lawyers citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Verio pulled the plug late Wednesday evening. The Yes Men, the politico pranksters behind the site, say they wish Dow would put as much energy into cleaning up the mess in Bhopal as it's spent on closing down their site.'It's...http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/06.html#a820 (Untitled)- December 5, 2002 Soft touch: The gap between business rhetoric and reality is causing problems at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The 'left-leaning' think tank's latest report, based on a survey of 500 UK company directors, finds that while there's plenty of business chatter about the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR), most companies fail to implement effective social or environmental policies. This hasn't gone down too well at the Institute of Directors (IoD) which...http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/05.html#a819 (Untitled)- December 4, 2002 Moving pictures: Without copyright term extensions, old films wouldn't get distributed, argues the entertainment industry. 'Indiscriminate exploitation' by public domain copyists would reduce the flow of cash to Big Media and hence the motivation Big Media needs to 'publish' films. CS Monitor. Intellectual property lawyers Lawrence Lessig and Jason Schultz say that's so much baloney. Digging around the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Schultz finds that out of the 37,000 or so movies released...http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/04.html#a818 (Untitled)- December 3, 2002 Remembering Bhopal: Corporate responsibility means never having to do much more than hire a PR company and say: sorry, we won't do that again; we've changed, we really have; we care. Unfair Hajra Bi remembers waking up just after midnight on 3 December 1984. A strange smell was making it difficult to breath. She ran outside with her family: 'People were running blindly. Many were falling down. By then my eyes had become so swollen that I could hardly open them. I had my dupatta covering my.http://www.scribble.clara.net/2002/12/03.html#a817 |