Archive for June, 2006

30
Jun

Ideas

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: Ideas

Comment from a previous post:

Sorry, did I miss your suggestions for this problem?
-Larry McLean

Initially, Larry’s comment was dismissed – after all, a cynic rarely thinks he can change the make a difference in the course of world events. After further deliberation, however, I decided it was a nearly immoral waste of intellectual capital to bemoan the state of the planet without at least offering the occasional hint of a solution. So Larry, you’ve changed the course of events at Cynics Unlimited. There is now a new category called “Ideas”, where solutions of varying detail levels will be proposed. Debate on the merits and folly of my ideas are of course highly recommended – a good debate is always welcome.

The first post in the category will be posted during the morning of July 3.

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30
Jun

MapStats – Track Your Visitors Visually

By Cynapse 2 Comments
Categories: The Art of Blogging

Admit it – as a blogger, one of your favourite activities is pouring over your webstats. It’s fun to see who is visiting your site, how many times they visit, who sent them and where they reside. If you lack a good web stats tool or prefer a highly visual overview of your recent traffic, MapStats may be the answer. Combining traditional webstat summaries with Google Maps, BlogFlux MapStats allows you to see exactly where in the world your web traffic is coming from – unique visits are marked on a scalable world map with an orange marker and details about the visitor (time, browser, page visited, operating system, etc).

MapStats.jpg

The free version of MapStats shows visitors for the current day along with graphs and statistical summaries for visitors over daily/weekly/monthly/yearly periods . The commercial version of the service allows the selection of custom date ranges. To use the free version, sign up at BlogFlux (which has a number of useful blog-related tools) and place the specified Javascript on your site.

While MapStats does not offer the detailed statistical dissections available in Mint or Slimstat, it does provide a very good overview of potential target markets and allows you to be just a little creepy in your research. As a free service, MapStats is highly recommended.

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25
Jun

The New York Times: Illegal or Just Unhelpful?

By Cynapse 3 Comments
Categories: Politics and World Politics

The New York Times seems to have really stepped in political poo this time. Having apparently learned nothing from the controversy caused by Robert Novack’s outing of Valerie Plame or its own previous controversies, the liberal New York daily has published two front-page articles based on classified military material:

U.S. General in Iraq Outlines Troop Cuts
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON, June 24 — The top American commander in Iraq has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the United States military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September, American officials say.
According to a classified briefing at the Pentagon this week by the commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the number of American combat brigades in Iraq is projected to decrease to 5 or 6 from the current level of 14 by December 2007.
…
General Casey’s briefing has remained a closely held secret, and it was described by American officials who agreed to discuss the details only on condition of anonymity. Word of the plan comes after a week in which the American troop presence in Iraq was stridently debated in Congress, with Democratic initiatives to force troop withdrawals defeated in the Senate.

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, June 22 — Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.
The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.
…
Nearly 20 current and former government officials and industry executives discussed aspects of the Swift operation with The New York Times on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. Some of those officials expressed reservations about the program, saying that what they viewed as an urgent, temporary measure had become permanent nearly five years later without specific Congressional approval or formal authorization.

For publishing classified American war plans and espionage activities, the New York Times risks being charged under section 798 of the US Criminal Code:

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information – … (3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; … Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

While prosecuting the NYT seems to be a matter of black letter law, there are also grey areas of media coverage that have been under attack by allied government and pro-war pundits:

  • Early in the war, the US government banned photographs or videos of coffins arriving from Iraq
  • The government of Canada briefly placed a ban on media attendance at funerals for dead Canadian soldiers arriving home from Afghanistan
  • Journalist Robert Fisk endured severe criticism for publishing pictures of dead Iraqi civilians, resulting from early American strikes on the Iraqi capital

None of the aforementioned incidents involve divulging classified information, but are still seen as detrimental to the war effort. Should the government be allowed to restrict freedom of the press on purely ideological grounds? What separates George Bush’s restriction on war coffin photography (re: politically unfavorable media coverage) from China’s attempted censorship of politically unfavorable web searches? The treatment of the media during this war has been a slippery slope from the start, and the prosecution of the NYT will certainly not mitigate fears of “media control”.

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23
Jun

Ann Coulter: Undisputed Media Master

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: American Politics and Politics

Ann Coulter’s recently-released book Godless shot to the top of Amazon.com’s best seller list for Non-Fiction. Loved by many and hated by many more, Coulter’s black & white approach to morality and relentless skewering of the liberal establishment has made her an icon in the political commentary sphere. Many charge that Coulter’s work is short on content and that the slender blonde primarily sells her image as the â “hot chick who hates everything you do”. It is very possible that Ann herself would not disagree, as she has proven masterful in manipulating the media and controversy for her financial gain.

anncoulter.jpg

Do keep in mind, however, that Ann Coulter is capable of good, biting analysis. One standout example is her column “Kwanzaa: A Holiday From the FBI“, where she dissects the nefarious origin of the pan-African holiday and its founder Maulana Karenga:

In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the ’60s the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Karenga’s United Slaves was perfect – Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the ’60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution. Those were the precepts of Karenga’s United Slaves. United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented “African” names. In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the ’70s, Karenga was quick to criticize rumors that black radicals were government-supported. When Nigerian newspapers claimed that some American black radicals were CIA operatives, Karenga publicly denounced the idea, saying, “Africans must stop generalizing about the loyalties and motives of Afro-Americans, including the widespread suspicion of black Americans being CIA agents.”

Coulter’s assassination of Karenga was thorough and informative. However, Ann’s haphazard and nonsensical outbursts tended to raise more eyebrows. In 2001, Coulter’s regular column was dropped from National Review Online after suggesting (possibly in jest) that America should invade and Christianize the Middle East:

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.

When asked to reconsider her work, Coulter proceeded to publicly bad-mouth NRO and its staff. In response NRO editor Jonah Goldberg issued an explanation for Coulter’s termination along with a frank character assessment that would be soon echoed by many other conservative and liberal pundits:

We did not “fire” Ann for what she wrote, even though it was poorly written and sloppy. We ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship, and loyalty. What’s Ann’s take on all this? Well, she told the Washington Post yesterday that she loves it, because she’s gotten lots of great publicity. That pretty much sums Ann up.

After parting with NRO, Ann Coulter became even more extreme and more visible, penning the hyperbole-laden books Treason, Slander, How to Talk to a Liberal, and most recently Godless. While the accuracy of her work was relentlessly dissected by political commentators of all stripes, her cult following of “ordinary citizens” – fed up with liberalism, multiculturalism, multilateralism and other cultural threats to their 1950′s era social ideals- continued to grow. The more infamous Coulter became, the more she became a symbol of intellectual populist rebellion against a government thought to be running out of control via taxation and social policy.

However much observers thumb their noses at Ann Coulter’s ad hominem attacks and crass commercialism, an army of copycats hope to achieve the same media success. Countless “right-wing”bloggers launch endless attacks on “liberal policy”, with the fortunate ones attracting small followings of angry citizens who openly dream of acting on their hatreds. Other bloggers take the Al Franken route by employing Ann Coulter-esque tactics against Ann Coulter-esque commentators. They too attract small followings of angry liberals who want to beat back the “fundamentalist” hordes. Most of these individuals distance themselves from Coulter’s controversial statements but at the same time monitor her movements.

Why? Because they want to be where she is – effortlessly outselling more substantive writers and making a fine living doing what most people do for free. This is what makes Ann Coulter a master of the media.

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22
Jun

CBC’s Un-National-istic Programming

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: Media

After months of being knocked around by Olympics coverage and hockey games, CBC’s flagship news program, The National, will be pushed out of its familiar 10:00pm slot once again. However the iconic broadcast will not be replaced by special programming or even Canadian content. Instead, CBC –a publicly owned Canadian network- has chosen to simulcast The One: Making a Music Star. The upcoming reality TV series is produced by ABC – a privately owned American network.

For years Canadians have complained about the CBC’s “dry” content and artsy/leftist slant. If anything, the CBC is guilty of being too experimental with its homegrown productions and attempting to be high-brow with its programming. Some of the documentaries on The Passionate Eye easily equal the quality programming on specialty channels like A&E or The History Channel, but frankly will never hold as wide of an appeal as high JPM (jolts-per-minute) television. Reactionary politics and vicarious rags-to-riches contests put more bums in seats than Canada: A People’s History.

Still there are people who complain that their tax dollars should not be used to fund weird TV productions that cannot be understood or appreciated by the “average” person. Perhaps this true; however Canadians are about to discover just how badly their tax money can be wasted. What’s worse than paying for original and inaccessible material? Paying for unoriginal and otherwise-accessible material, of course!

  • ABC News is available in one or multiple incarnations on Rogers, Bell, DirecTV, Cogeco and practically every other cable or satellite service in Canada. Far from being a specialty network, ABC is available as part of the basic package. Hence, most viewers already have access to The One – without necessary additional cost to the taxpayer
  • Privately-owned Canadian networks CTV and Global have virtually cornered the market on simulcast American TV Shows, from Law & Order to American Idol. Once again, this is accomplished without additional tax dollars
  • Speaking of American Idol, Making a Music Star is far from breaking new conceptual ground. The show follows the lives of several pop-star wannabes as they receive vocal coaching and other assistance from celebrity mentors. Every week the contestants will have to perform before a live studio audience, who will democratically send one home. The last contestant standing will receive a recording contract from a major company and the 15 minutes of fame that goes along with the post-TV inflated sales of their first album.

To its credit, CBC appears to have a plan for its first foray into reality TV (not to be confused with documentaries, which are actually real … but that’s another discussion). A Canadian spin-off of the show is being considered and will in turn be used to lure viewers into watching The National. News anchor Peter Mansbridge is cautiously optimistic about the plan. ACTRA and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting are decidedly less so. Hopefully this “investment” pays off for CBC.

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19
Jun

Scapegoating and Hate Crimes

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: Politics and The Art of Blogging

Kate at Small Dead Animals brought attention to an article on a proposal by Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress allowing ISP’s to immediately shut down pornographic and hate websites.

Most service providers are unable to remove objectionable content from their servers unless it has been found illegal through a lengthy court process, Farber said in his speech.

Farber proposed that major Canadian Internet providers devise a protocol based on existing laws that would allow them to remove hateful or pornographic material at their own discretion.

“It doesn’t take a lot to discern what is pornographic and what is hate,” Farber said. “As long as the context is there … they have some expertise to make those decisions.”

Kate is correct about one thing – it is rather surprising that bloggers haven’t latched onto this story to raise a huge fuss about a policy that could be legally devastating to their freedom. Visit nearly any particularly popular political blog and you will find a slight variation of the tried-and-true scapegoat formula:

  1. Write about some hardship or fear being faced by the target audience in hopes that they become a client audience.
  2. Suggest how much better life would be if {insert philosophy here} were implemented. The morality behind the philosophy is narrowly defined and in absolute terms of right and wrong.
  3. Find distinctly different groups (demographic / philosophical / class / occupational) that either benefit from the current system or have registered a moral objection to a complete implementation of the favoured philosophy. Portray target groups as being inherently evil and singularly dedicated to suppressing virtuous people like the client audience.
  4. Completely ignore any philosophical variations within the target groups, keeping them as monolithic as possible – hence easier to dismiss en masse. Political victory is measured almost exclusively in terms of destroying “the other side”, regardless of long term consequences or outstanding issues within the client audience

Politicians, preachers and journalists (MSM or blogger) have been thriving on oversimplification and scapegoating for thousands of years, and that model is unlikely to change in the near future. So what makes hate crimes legislation so threatening? Most hate crimes legislation indirectly makes two assertions:

  1. The scapegoating of some groups constitutes a criminal offense, while scapegoating other groups does not.
  2. The line between criticism and hate (as marked by terms like “libel” and “defamation”) are ultimately decided by the self-appointed activists who make a career of fighting discrimination … as they define it

Removing the legal burden of proof (i.e. the “legislation”) will make the censorship of hate and pornography even more arbitrary. Bloggers, who thrive on scapegoating and rabble-rousing, must contemplate – who can be targeted and to what extent? For example, the recent standoff between natives and police prompted a flurry of angry blogs against all those involved. The blog entries harshly critical of police generally would not qualify as hate because police are not a racial or religious minority – however some criticisms of the native protesters, which quickly became critiques of native people in general, might qualify as hate speech.

I say “might” because a hate crime prosecution generally proceeds via civilian complaint. ISP’s are profit-driven and may similarly wait for bad publicity before physically terminating down a customer’s website –without the burden of proving criminal guilt. Under such malleable conditions, native activists could decide to press hate crimes charges against a prominent blogger for the anti-native rhetoric in the reader comment section of an article – even if the article itself may have just targeted a specific group of protesters rather than an entire racial group.

Thus, bloggers could be charged not only for their own statements, but for statements by readers. Short of turning off the comments section entirely, most bloggers have only marginal control over the content posted by readers and also risk criticism by deleting controversial comments. Activists with strong political agendas may choose to target only those sites they oppose on philosophical grounds. Similarly, demographic groups with weak political representation could still be skewered without recourse.

Society as a whole will not be served by arbitrary definition and application of hate laws. Rather than fighting an un-winnable war against the proliferation of unpopular opinions, groups like the Canadian Jewish Congress would be far better served to counter the negative information found in hate sites with positive information. Most bigoted commentaries are disprovable (otherwise it wouldn’t be bigotry) so why not concentrate on disproving them in the same public arenas? Bernie Farber’s proposal will only benefit political activists who can use the “hate crime” label to suppress opposing opinions – bigoted and otherwise.

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15
Jun

Act Now – It’s Too Good to be True!

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: Technology

Apart from online gaming and pornography, the best way to make money on the internet seems to be selling tools and guides that empower people to make money on the internet. By “empower” I mean “get one’s hopes up” because very few of these guides and tools have proven to bring prosperity to their clients. Yet, who wouldn’t want a passive income that nearly equals their active income?

Technically these sites don’t qualify as “scams” since the massive profits they promise (e.g. $500 of revenue per day via Google Adsense – a damned long-shot, judging by my experience with the service so far) are theoretically possible. However the extreme hyperbole used on these websites and the fact that successful use of these techniques has never been reported anywhere in the mainstream are good indications that they really are too good to be true (I call them TGTBT sites).

Nonetheless, the way these miracle solutions generally use the same web template and sales techniques to lure in unsuspecting buyers has always been amusing. There are several telltale markers that identify the current set of get-rich-quick schemes. To illustrate, I’m using a far-too-good-to-be-true solution called PokerBot Pro, which promises to generate fantastic revenue by automating online poker games – no poker knowledge required.

Simplistic Layout:

Simplistic Layout

TGTBT sites almost always use a very narrow center column with low graphics and virtually no plug-ins (admin note – considering a change of WordPress template). This design style keeps the user focused on the sales pitch and ensures maximum compatibility with all browsers/platforms.

Money Lure:

PB002.jpg

TGTBT sites initially appeal the viewer’s greed. The first few lines have nothing to do with the actual product and instead tap into the user’s desire to make lots of money while doing either something (s)he is already doing for fun on the net (playing poker, writing, etc) or doing nothing at all. Sometimes the site will show a screen shot suggesting that the author of the solution is making considerable money using the TGTBT solution. Other times the site will merely state that such profits are possible.

The Miracle Solution:

Miracle Solution

Ta-Daaa! The answer to all your problems. Say goodbye to endless months of practicing on Poker Stars.net: This product will do all the thinking for you, beating poker stars and novices alike with stunning consistency. All you have to do is watch!

Differentiation from Previous Miracle Solutions:

Differentiation

Even web surfers become hip to miracle solutions that over-promise and under-deliver. Hence the new miracle solutions have to be differentiated from the snake oil solutions of the past.

Testimonials:

Testimonials

If these guys did it, so can you! Several testimonials from people with the same aspirations and reservations as you are only too happy to share news of their success. Quite often full names won’t be printed, nor will any information that would allow web surfers to contact those giving the testimonials.

Exclusive Distribution:

Exclusive Distribution

The TGTBT website is typically the only source through which the product can be legally obtained. Brilliant as the product may be, it never crosses the author’s mind to seek wider distribution channels like download.com or Amazon which have extremely large markets for legitimate products. A growing number of TGTBT sites offer affiliate programs (either internally or through services like ClickBank) but even sales through affiliates lead back to the core website.

Act Now … Or Else!

Act Now Or Else

Effective TGTBT sites keep the sense of urgency high. This is accomplished either by offering time-based incentives or through warnings that the product and its exclusive benefits may never be available again.

No Free Trial
The only “freebies” on offer are the bonus items sent out once the core product has been purchased. No meaningful demonstrations of the product are available before the sale has been made.

In fairness, one can’t instantly assume PokerBot Pro is like the products just described. For all we know, this software may allow know-nothings to completely ace Paradise Poker and make enough money to safely quit their day jobs. Perhaps the author has unwisely chosen to market a truly revolutionary product using guerilla techniques long associated with improbable business strategies and outright scams. Just to be safe I’m going to obtain this product and run it for a few (free) games. You’ll know it’s working when I start posting here several times daily – being officially and willfully unemployed by such time. Keep you posted.

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