We’ve had a lot of discussion about SOPA and PIPA recently, the bills that want to cripple the internet, but there are still plenty of people who aren’t clear on the issues. And although the bills have been shelved for now, similar threats (e.g., ACTA) loom and it’s wise to stay informed of the issues at stake. This infographic lays SOPA’s and PIPA’s legal and technical technical details out pretty clearly. More »
Single-issue parties have long been a feature of the Australian political landscape, so it was perhaps inevitable that a group would be created to address one of the more obviously stupid features of the current landscape: the ban on R18+-rated games in this country. On our sibling site Kotaku, there’s a fascinating interview with the founders of the Gamers 4 Croydon party, which plans to run in next year’s South Australian state election. More »
He might not be too keen on Facebook, but our Prime Minister clearly didn’t want opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull to steal an advantage from being the most visible Australian politician on Twitter. Kevin Rudd has launched his own Twitter account, though so far there’s been no posts of substance. I’m sure he’d appreciate a direct message or two!
Kevin Rudd PM [via ZDNet]In the spirit of the infamous Fake Steve Jobs, Fake Stephen Conroy has arrived on Twitter, making a mockery of our Minister for Communications. As Dan Warne reports at APC, the faux feed is actually the work of Electronic Frontiers Australia, as part of their campaign against the government’s clean feed proposal. If you’re opposed to that proposal, it’s a great addition to your Twitter friends.
Say G’day to Fake Steve Conroy [APC]Google’s official blog rounds up yesterday’s top searches, with interesting oddities (cassoulet forever?). Our sibling site Gizmodo explains how CNN’s hologram interviews work. And CNET offers a humorous/insightful look at last night’s fervor through ten election night tweets worth remembering.
Earlier this month, we explained how to get rid of Twitter’s US Election 2008 bar. Twitter made some interim tweaks to the bar, but has now recoded it so that once minimised, it stays minimised — a useful result if you’re looking to save screen real estate and don’t want to mess with AdBlocker. If you do want to kill it altogether, reader Mike Campbell points out that you need to change the original AdBlocker code to read as follows: twitter.com#div(class=elections-promotion) More »
Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Spinspotter, a free toolbar plug-in for Firefox 3, gives anyone who sees opinions masquerading as objective reporting a kind of little red pen to note the spin with. After installing the toolbar, signing up and logging in, you’ll see red-highlighted lines and sections of stories that other readers saw a bias or other problem with. Luckily, when visiting lightning-rod sites like the New York Times or Fox News, you can turn the marker-viewing off. You can also mark your own passages and describe what you see on Spinspotter’s site. It’d be nice to be able to mark spin with a bookmarklet instead of having a toolbar constantly present—and it looks like that could be hacked up—but it’s an otherwise neat exercise in wiki-style peer review—keeping in mind, of course, that anything group-edited can produce unexpected results. Spinspotter is a free download, works wherever Firefox 3 does.
Spinspotter [via New York Times]
The US presidential election is attracting a lot of attention for the role that technology is playing in the campaign, but the most interesting approach I’ve encountered recently comes from a lot closer to home: New Zealand. As Google’s official blog points out, Helen Clark and John Keys (the two contenders for the PM’s job in the forthcoming New Zealand election) will take questions submitted on video via YouTube and answer them as part of the televised debate on October 14. That certainly beats selling yourself via Facebook then banning your staff from using it. More »
Google Labs launches an addictive little webapp called In Quotes, which searches and compares things politicians have said in the news by keyword. So you can see what Obama and McCain have said recently about Iraq, health care, or energy. Hit the “Spin” button to get another quote (with a link to the source news story), or hit the politician drop-down to get quotes from the vice presidential candidates and others, from Hillary Clinton to Ron Paul.
In Quotes [Google Labs via Google Blogoscoped]
