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In this issue: E-LIST is back:)
Web site recommendations: IT/politics/humor

Sorry for the long silence, this latest dissertation chapter took a while
to finish.

Feedback tells me some of you don't like the really long E-LISTs so I may
start cutting back.. after this issue that is, since so much has
accumulated. I always welcome your thoughts, by the way, so keep 'em
coming.

And now onto the current finds. Lots of IT related links. If you don't
care for those keep scrolling, there are some very good ":-)" links at the
end.

New data archive related to issues of cultural policy and the arts -
amazing resource very nicely put together, very user-friendly, lots of
interesting data (includes some IT related survey data as well)
http://www.cpanda.org/

Third Annual Graduate Webshop - great for grad students who have Internet
related interests
http://www.webuse.umd.edu/webshop03.htm

Q & A with expert tech tinkerer Ed Felten
"If average voters view censorship of technologists in the same way they
view other forms of censorship, we'll be in much better shape."
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/17/1222220&mode=thread&tid=1\
53&tid=123

Internet diffusion levels off in US
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=88

Being Googled: Web search tool is not without critics
http://www.iht.com/articles/90737.html

Google: Is all the news fit to post?
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-996100.html

Experts: Microsoft security gets an 'F'
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/02/01/microsoft.security.reut/

Text messaging used by government to allay SARS fears in Hong Kong
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,928906,00.html?=rss

Tracking blog coverage - graph of changes in blog coverage in mainstream
print media
http://www.esztersblog.com/archives/00000275.html

New virus to watch out for - plays off of current events, yuck
http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/000917.shtml#000917

Ruling Backs Anti-Spam Activist
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51418-2003Apr7.html

Judge: File-swapping Tools Are Legal
http://rss.com.com/2100-1027-998363.html?type=pt&part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news

Multi-region DVD players do exist
http://www.canadacomputes.com/story.asp?id=9937&sb=122

Streaming audio files from the 13th Annual Conference on Computers,
Freedom & Privacy
http://www.cfp2003.org/cfp2003/program.html

Call for Report Proposals: gender and Internet use (two-page proposal due
on Apr 30th)
http://www.wmn.ca/uncsw/call_e.htm

Gender equity project post-doc
http://www.rfcuny.org/hr/pvn/cgi-bin/show_job.asp?pvn=RRS-119

"Well-behaved women rarely make history"
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/04/09/anita_borg/index_np.html

Summer internship opportunities at MASS MoCA - a very cool
contemporary art museum in Massachusetts
http://www.massmoca.org/jobs/

"THE UNITED STATES may be at war -- both with al Qaeda and in Iraq -- but
the military still knows a domestic threat when it sees one: gay linguists
in training."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34475-2003Apr15.html

Equal Access to Israel's Western Wall Denied
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1297/context/outrage

Critics Call On Education Secretary to Repudiate Published Statement or
Resign
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59692-2003Apr8.html

At a Model UN conference, Israeli and Palestinian teens succeed where
their leaders have failed
http://tinyurl.com/8w79

The Museum of Unworkable Devices - very cool!
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/unwork.htm

Some non-traditional portrait busts with extreme expressions on their
faces from the 18th century
http://insel.heim.at/hawaii/310945/Charakterkopfe.html

New Fox Reality Show To Determine Ruler of Iraq :-)
http://www.theonion.com/onion3915/new_fox_reality_show.html

Looting as an American value :-)
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/looting.html

Patriotic items for fanatical flagwavers :-)
http://www.totalobscurity.com/mind/flagstore/

Today's quote:
"War is about dead people, not gorgeous-looking soldiers." -- Susan Sontag

Recently on Eszter's Blog (just some of the posts from the past month, I
never said I'd suspend blogging!:):
How much is a childhood memory worth?
Expert on technology and policy
Mixing holidays
Looting and apple pie
Movie: Bend It Like Beckham
Gender Equity Project post-doc
How 'bout some serious studies of gender?
The environmental effects of war
More praise for Nobel Prize book
YES: Hungarians vote to join EU
Destroying artifacts, new and old
TAPPED usability
Blogs added
Religion and schools
Rational consistency about religion and the Loch Ness monster
Something different
RIAA vs Princeton student(s)
Letting go
Classifying computer and Internet terms
The new science of networks: pastries and other goodies
Forgetting to remember
Vote for music and more
America's French's
See them here: http://www.esztersblog.com

From E-BLOG: Destroying artifacts, new and old [4/12/03]
See http://www.esztersblog.com/archives/00000286.html for underlying
links or to comment

As I was looking at pictures of everything being destroyed in Iraq, I
wondered whether it made sense to topple all signs of Saddam Hussein.
Would there not be some historical value to keeping at least some of the
statues in tact just so we have some record of how things used to be?

I am glad that the transition in Hungary in 1989 was reasonably peaceful.
Among other things, this meant that statues of Lenin and Marx were not
necessarily bulldozed and trampled on. Rather, they were taken to a remote
location just outside of the city where they now stand in a statue park.
The park has a nice Web site with pictures of the statues (e.g. Marx and
Engels). Some of the statues could easily represent different time periods
but because of their communist association I guess those in charge felt
they had to be moved out. And isn't it ironic that as statues of Marx were
being destroyed or moved to museum parks in the ex-Soviet bloc, I was
sitting at an American school reading his work - as were many of my peers
- for various classes required by our majors?

Perhaps some would argue that we don't want any reminders of certain
people. But if labelled and discussed appropriately in, say, a museum or
educational park setting wouldn't it be better to remember the past? I
realize "appropriate" is very blurry and potentially arbitrary, but isn't
it also somewhat arbitrary for the current regime to decide what parts of
the past are to be erased completely?

Now comes to us this depressing story about how the National Museum of
Iraq has been stripped of all its contents. (Perhaps some things are
locked up elsewhere but that's unclear and regardless, a lot has been
lost.) [via Matt Yglesias] At this level we're not just talking about
erasing recent history but much more than that. I realize the reasons for
this destruction are different, but overall these acts all contribute to
knowing less about the past. Since that is likely an important component
of making informed decisions about the future, losing so much historical
data is incredibly unfortunate.