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In this issue:
Web site recommendations: IT/current affairs/fun

Less IT related material and more fun links in this issue, but also some
outrageous current affairs.

I posted about this over a year ago, but many have subscribed since and
others may have missed it as well. When you are planning trips, do not
miss the opportunity to get some great hotel rates. I explain the details
on this page: http://www.eszter.com/hotels.html

A post-doc is available immediately on a project looking at children's
development and technology use at Northwestern's School of Communication
with Prof Justine Cassell (currently MIT Media Lab), more info here:
http://www.esztersblog.com/archives/00000354.html

New Google Toolbar in testing phase (as earlier one, only for Win OS & IE)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43955-2003Jun28.html?nav=hptoc_tn
&
its causing some controversy
http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/2228651
&
you can get it from here (I haven't tried it yet, I can't comment)
http://toolbar.google.com/index-beta.php

Yahoo Spam Filter Thwarts FTC
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59427,00.html

American Library Association Denounces Supreme Court Ruling on Children's
Internet Protection Act
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=News&template=/ContentManagement/Content\
Display.cfm&ContentID=36357

Recently I posted an entry about how multi-region DVD players do exist
http://www.canadacomputes.com/story.asp?id=9937&sb=122
A friend of mine replied to note that you don't have to pay extra $$ to
get such a machine. These sites offer more info. (If you're about to buy
a DVD player, you may want to check these out before you decide on a
brand.)
http://www.dvdregionhacks.com/
http://www.regionfreedvd.net/faq.html

A free simple little poll builder for Web sites (does have limitations)
http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/polls/

"Presumably by accident, somebody left a live prototype of President
Bush's 2004 campaign site on the Web for a few hours"
http://slate.msn.com/id/2084803/

"An Oxford University professor has provoked outrage by rejecting an
application from an Israeli PhD student purely because of his
nationality."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/29/noxf29.xml&sShee\
t=/portal/2003/06/29/ixportal.html
or click here if that address is too long: http://tinyurl.com/fjbr
&
See original letter from Oxford prof here:
http://allisonkaplansommer.blogmosis.com/history/012787.html#012787

Suddenly, America Has a Brash Neighbor Up North
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0627/p02s01-woam.html

Teen Sues Over 'Lesbian Barbie' Shirt Ban
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=6&u=/nm/20030620/\
od_nm/life_barbie_dc

US Court Overturns Gay Sex Ban
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3022026.stm

A matrilinear state in India - and changing times
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3015838.stm

A Nation of Victims - how Bush uses "emotional language--especially
negatively charged emotional language--as a political tool"
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030630&s=brooks

Resumes for a New Millennium
http://www.seattlewritergrrls.org/archive/2003i1_resume.html

Free trip to Israel - deadline: July 5th!
http://www.israel4free.com
Eligibitility requirements: http://www.israel4free.com/eligibility.asp

Play twenty questions - great artificial intelligence program
http://y.20q.net:8095/btest

Irregular verbs in English grouped by type (helpful for those not fully
fluent in English.. and for some who think they are:)
http://www.eslfocus.com/grammarfolder/irregverbgroups.html

You can always tell a two-way mirror by...
http://www.cnet.com/techtrends/0-7311128-8-7319952-1.html

This is pretty cool.. create sketches online and pass them on with full
animation
http://www.imaginationatwork.com/Imagine?_nolivecache

Photo scavenger hunt, starts this week!
http://www.sh1ft.org/26things/

Can you guess which photo is fake (computer-generated) and which is real?
http://www.fakeorfoto.com/quiz.html

Today's quote:
"We're all born naked, the rest is drag." - RuPaul

Recently on Eszter's Blog:
Oxford prof rejects student based on nationality
Photo fun
Blog (and general Web) ban likely worsens
Music recommendations
Post-doc available immediately
Blogathon 2003
More on name changes
Neat ad
How do you feel about English grammar?
See them here: http://www.esztersblog.com

From E-BLOG: Blog (and general Web) ban likely worsens [6/28/03]
See http://www.esztersblog.com/archives/00000356.html for underlying
links or to comment

Mamamusings and then Invisible Adjunct both comment on the problems with
filtering software. It started out with mamamusings noticing that her blog
was not accessible from an Internet kiosk. The message she got: "Access to
this site has been restricted at the request of this organization". I've
commented on both posts but thought would add some additional notes here
as well.

I posted a related entry back in December when Ed noticed that he couldn't
get to my blog from a location due to "possibly inappropriate content".

One of the biggest problems with these filtering programs is that they
have a very large number of false positives. That is, they potentially
filter an immense amount of content that has nothing to do with
"inappropriate" material. For example, any resume that lists latin honors
would have a good chance of being banned. I won't spell it out here
because I don't want to get E-BLOG banned any more than it is already but
think summa.. magna... Also, as others have noted, geographical locations
- of which there are several both in the UK and the US and easily
elsewhere - that have "seks" (you know what the ks stands for) in them
would get banned as well. Then there are sites dealing with cancer of
particular organs, these are some of the more well known examples, not to
mention sites that address gay and lesbian issues (huh, I wonder if by
merely writing out those two words this blog is getting black-listed).

Perhaps the biggest concern is that we don't know what is being banned
because companies that make filtering software claim that it's proprietary
information and they won't share it. So unlike public libraries, which
would have to make public decisions about not wanting to carry certain
books based on particular types of content, here no one really knows what
is being filtered and why exactly.

Josh Marshall - before his Talking Points Memo fame - wrote a nice related
piece on "Will Free Speech Get Tangled In The Net?" back in 1998 in the
American Prospect in which he explores related concerns in some detail.

Of course, makers of filtering software are not the only ones putting
thought into what content underlies sites with certain words. Search
engines have been doing it for years as well. Do a search in Google on
"seks" (with the appropriate letter) and you'll get sites about "safe
seks". Moreover, note that the popular HBO series with the s word in the
title has no problem staying high up among the results. In fact, it comes
up as #3. I guess it is theoretically possible that these really are the
most popular (as in linked to) seks related sites out there, but one
wonders.

The discussion on Invisible Adjunct's blog about the topic focuses mainly
on adults' ability to request librarians to turn off filtering programs on
library terminals while they are using them. Some in the comments section
have already noted the problems with this approach (e.g. that some
filtering happens at the server level, which is not necessarily that easy
to turn off and would likely influence other machines at the library). I
wanted to bring up an additional point (and I do over there in the
comments.)

This entire discussion about adults having the ability to ask that a
filter be turned off *assumes* that adults know what filtering software is
in the first place and would know what it means to ask that it be turned
off. These assumptions seem problematic. I say this based on research I
have done on people's Web use abilities. When I asked people if they knew
what filtering software is, 45% (of 100 randomly sampled Internet users in
my area) said they had little or no understanding of the term. (I know
it's a small sample, it was a complex project that didn't allow for more
respondents.) People who access the Web in libraries are likely to know
even less about the Web because they don't have the freedom to explore it
in detail like those who use it at home (or use it freely at work).
Moreover, given the limited amount of time people get to spend at library
terminals, it's highly unlikely that they'll spend their allocated 15-30
minutes asking for modifications to the settings.

So yes, there are numerous issues with requiring libraries to use
filtering software (assuming they want to hold on to federal funding) and
there are concerns regarding their use in private settings as well.