Idola Blogs

A graph that shows the relationship between time the average person in a given country spends eating and that country’s obesity rate (as measured by the percentage of the national population with a body mass index higher than 30).

Obesity and the Fastness of Food – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com.

OneWebDay is an Earth Day for the internet. The idea behind OneWebDay is to focus attention on a key internet value this year, online participation in democracy, focus attention on local internet concerns connectivity, censorship, individual skills, and create a global constituency that cares about protecting and defending the internet.  So, think of OneWebDay as an environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem. It’s a platform for people to educate and activate others about issues that are important for the Internet’s future.

Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist, said:

“OneWebDay reminds us that the net really is a democratizing medium, that everyone gets a chance to participate. If you want, you can stick your neck out and speak truth to power.” Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, added: ““OneWebDay is about ‘one web’ . . . Let’s celebrate, and let’s constantly work to make more, better, cleaner, stronger, deeper interoperability across the planet.”

How can you help the Web on OneWebDay?

1. If you’re a Web user, use a standards-compliant Web browser like Firefox or Opera. They’re free, faster, and more protective of your privacy. And because they conform to Web development standards, they make things easier for people who make Web sites. If you’re a Web developer, test your sites with the w3c’s Markup Validation Service.
2. Edit a Wikipedia article. Teach people what you know, and in so doing, help create free universal knowledge.
3. Learn about an Internet policy issue from the Center for Democracy and Technology, and teach five other people about it. There are real legal threats that could drastically change the way the Internet works. We should all be aware of them.
4. Take steps to ensure that your computer can’t be treated like a zombie. Computer viruses can steal your personal information. They can also cause major network outages on the Web, slowing things down and making sites inaccessible. Vint Cerf estimates that more than 150 million PCs have already been zombified, and are now awaiting their next order. To learn more about the threat of zombie computers, read this article.

Find more here.

Bill Gates once derided open source advocates with the worst epithet a capitalist can muster. These folks, he said, were a “new modern-day sort of communists,” a malevolent force bent on destroying the monopolistic incentive that helps support the American dream. Gates was wrong: Open source zealots are more likely to be libertarians than commie pinkos. Yet there is some truth to his allegation. The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.

Communal aspects of digital culture run deep and wide. Wikipedia is just one remarkable example of an emerging collectivism—and not just Wikipedia but wikiness at large. Ward Cunningham, who invented the first collaborative Web page in 1994, tracks nearly 150 wiki engines today, each powering myriad sites. Wetpaint, launched just three years ago, hosts more than 1 million communal efforts. Widespread adoption of the share-friendly Creative Commons alternative copyright license and the rise of ubiquitous file-sharing are two more steps in this shift. Mushrooming collaborative sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, the Hype Machine, and Twine have added weight to this great upheaval. Nearly every day another startup proudly heralds a new way to harness community action. These developments suggest a steady move toward a sort of socialism uniquely tuned for a networked world.

Were not talking about your grandfathers socialism. In fact, there is a long list of past movements this new socialism is not. It is not class warfare. It is not anti-American; indeed, digital socialism may be the newest American innovation. While old-school socialism was an arm of the state, digital socialism is socialism without the state. This new brand of socialism currently operates in the realm of culture and economics, rather than government—for now.

via The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online .