Category Archives: Internet

OneMillionGiraffes project reaches, nay, exceeds, its goal of collecting one million giraffe images.

At least, they say they have. I didn’t count them all.

The Internet gives us lots of free stuff. But someone has to pay the bills. Now SiteProbe, a service that checks if your web site is up or if there's some trouble that needs looking into, has announced its days (in my case, years) of free-as-in-beer are soon to be history. From the email:

Recently we reviewed the viability of our service and as a result made a few tough decisions. The biggest of these decisions was a change in our basic business model. Due to increased economic pressures, SiteProbe will no longer be a free service. Some of you may have already noticed changes on the home page of our website that spells out a 90 day free trial, with a price after that for the basic service. A somewhat simpler pricing structure can now be seen on our “Upgrades” page.

As a current user, your free account has been converted to a free trial account that expires on December 31, 2010. The URLs of expired accounts are not monitored, but their log data may still be viewed.

Trial accounts may be upgraded to paid accounts at any time.

If you already have upgraded your account, its expiration date will not change. Be aware that if you have upgrades, but have not upgraded your “trial” URL, that URL will cease to be monitored but your upgrades will continue.

I can't blame them for wanting to make ends meet. And once or twice it's been very useful. But I'm not sure if I want to pay $18/year for checks at 15 minute intervals either to this blog, or to Jotwell. Well, maybe for Jotwell….

Berkman's latest — Sexting: Youth Practices and Legal Implications,

This document addresses legal and practical issues related to the practice colloquially known as sexting. It was created by Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, based at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, for the Berkman Center’s Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative. The Initiative is exploring policy issues that fall within three substantive clusters emerging from youth’s information and communications technology practices: Risky Behaviors and Online Safety; Privacy, Publicity and Reputation;and Youth Created Content and Information Quality. The Initiative is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and is co‐directed by danah boyd, Urs Gasser, and John Palfrey. This document was created for the Risky Behaviors and Online Safety cluster, which is focused on four core issues: (1) sexual solicitation and problematic sexual encounters; (2) internet‐related bullying and harassment; (3) access to problematic content, including pornography and self‐harm content; and (4) youth‐generated problematic content, including sexting. The Initiative’s goal is to bring the best research on youth and media into the policy‐making debate and to propose practical interventions based upon that research.

This document is intended to provide background for the discussion of interventions related to sexting. It begins with a definition of sexting, and continues with overviews of research and media stories related to sexting. It then discusses the statutory and constitutional framework for child pornography and obscenity. It concludes with a description of current and pending legislation meant to address sexting.

(via Bartow)

Haven't read it yet, but I'm betting it's sensible.

If you hurry, you can see a fun “spherical fullerene” substituting for Google's second “o” at today's Google Japan.

You can actually twirl the molecule when you place your cursor over Google's second “o”.

This will only be on today (Japan time) — the day when Fullerene, C60. was discovered.

Who knew there was an IETF LogoWear Store? But it's still a bit vestigial. And it seems to lack this classic.

So far, I like the Jotwear store better.