This is disturbing, even though much of it is not really unexpected; it's USA Today's take on Web use by terrorist organizations.
If you wander through urban downtowns and see odd-looking graffiti, it may no longer be gang tagging; it may, in fact, be the geeky equivalent of hobos marking houses offering free or cheap food during the Depression. Here's a brief description of the WiFi phenomenon known as "warchalking." What interested me was the apparent adoption of this "marginally legal" idea by Utah's CIO. Another fascinating idea about which I was clueless: the insertion of pop culture characters into PC game software. Barney in a Nazi game? How weird is that?
I remember hearing about the Canadian government's attempts to preserve local culture a few years back; I thought then they were at risk of becoming (gasp) French-like! Amazon's new Canadian site has just been deemed acceptable, no doubt reluctantly.
Here's a different culture entirely, with a short background. I have no idea where/how I found Corante, but I find it interesting. It bills itself as an independent news service; it basically does what I do, except that it has a staff of people to do it. It scans many different news sources, finds articles which fit into several über-categories, and puts up a blurb with a link to the original source. Since two of the categories (Biotech and Venture Cap) are ones I look at daily for clients, I find it useful. I also find it amusing that easily half the time the articles they cite are ones I've already seen in my reading. However, it also has categories I don't ordinarily look at, which is broadening. Anyway, it has its uses.
Posted by Linkmeister at July 11, 2002 03:49 PM