The 3L Mantra to live by!

If only the dead could talk, they would tell us what really happened… and sometimes they do. Rodrigo Rosenberg, a lawyer in Guatemala was murdered on May 10th 2009 by an unknown gunman. However, he continues to talk through YouTube, channeling his blame towards President Alvara Colom and others for his death. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxZptUp9a44&feature=fvst This digital expose of claimed corruption and conspiracy is becoming a common phenomenon. In India, the Tehelka news magazine revealed tapes implicating Gujarat minister Narendra Modi and other politicians for the mass killings of Muslims in the infamous Gujarat riots in 2002 through their taped confessionals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z114wnwXtQ On a less grisly note, who could forget the Mexican Zapatista movement, an armed revolutionary group in Chiapas, Mexico that brought their movement into the international limelight through the strategic use of the Internet. Their desire for indigenous control of their local

We’re all labeled apparently; income level, sex, age, single, married, children and more. To sum up, we are seen to add up to nothing but a cookie that travels with a click of a mouse. WE are our own worst enemy. Naïve about our journeys online, we have supposedly become a gold mine for the government, advertising companies, and more who want so desperately to get to know us better. We are, literally, worth knowing. Our web choices, our little escapades into online dating and shopping are being tracked and profiled. This seems like our fate. The world is spilling with our data. There are no coincidences anymore. You don’t just happen to see online that there is a sale at Macy in San Francisco or that SRK, the Bollywood king just came out with a new movie. It’s all part of the design of public life online. But before we really get caught up with this Big Brother Orwellian notion, let’s take a moment to think of ourselves in all our complexity. I love Beatles, old Hindi songs, Aamir Khan

Citations are the lifeblood of academia: who you cite, what you cite, when you cite…it’s the site of all contention, creation, and collaboration. But in this new media age, what happens when you’re examining a web site and its activity only to discover that having referenced it, it may no longer exist. Ah…your word stands alone as witness to a cyber event that perhaps is long gone or migrated to some other nook on cyberspace. Also, it’s painful to reference a webpage without getting into the messiness of copyright…who owns that space? Is it the user, the platform owner, an organization that perhaps the user belongs to or all of the above? It’s the hell of online copyright. And things can get even more complicated. For instance, I need to reference an image online that a user was looking at. That happens to be the photograph of a painting of Mona Lisa. So apparently, even though the original may be out of copyright, the photograph is not. The delightful chase begins…starting with the p

Cybercafe in Almora, Central Himalayas

Just when we got over our nostalgia for the radio days, it seems to be back with a vengeance. Digital NPR is having its hay day…from iphones to the web; they’re scaling and scaling fast. All Things Considered…24/7 online and offline it seems. Check these stats out: http://www.truemeasure.com/onlineStatistics.php

Facebook warns you that you can choose your Username only once…you’re pretty much stuck with “iWearNeonUnderwearToBed” as a sign in..best of luck on getting that job! As employers, colleagues and friends that you haven’t yet gotten around to de-friend check you out and scrutinize your moves and shakes online, are you forced to live with your mistakes? Really? I see that with the Kodak mafia threatening to make my online photos “disappear” if I don’t order some prints from them..their threats have become part of my monthly routine and yet my photos continue to live a long and supposedly healthy life on their turf. I get it. There’s no free lunch…until someone else comes along to offer you free food? Do threats really work in this online business? If you threaten, you’ve got to see it through otherwise you lose credibility. If this is the new cat and mouse game between online users and producers, what is the prize?