I don’t know how many of you have Facebook, but I do. Here in the US it turned out to be a big thing and at the end of the day it is a nice procrastination tool.

Some time ago Facebook added a gift feature allowing people giving their friends little icons as presents. If you give someone a present, it would show in their profile and they will know whom it came from. So far so good. Now, after a promotion period they started charging $1 per icon and the question is “why?” Why would anyone pay $1 for a 1K image of a toilet paper roll? Apparently people pay for the keep on selling.

But the story doesn’t end here. Now they have a promotion similar to the one you see in the illustration. Indeed, there are limited editions of the icons now! Only 1 million of disco ball gif files are out there! Oops… 1 million and one if you count the one i posted here. And i still keep asking myself “why”… Why would i give someone an artificial disco ball? Why would anyone like to get one? Why would anyone would actually pay for it? And what does the “limited edition” feature add to the value of the icon?

The last one is absolutely beyond my comprehension. What’s the idea of selling an illusion of a limited edition of gif files? I think there is something fundamental i am missing here.

Apparently my previous post made it to “Washington Post”.  They have a feed that probably tracks mentions of their articles in blogosphere and it got it.  Frankly, it is even a bit embarrassing that from all the posts that one is getting linked.

Wikiality exists!  Apparently Stephen Cobert was right and Wikipedia does construct reality!

Take a look at this quote from today’s Washington Post:

“Authorities said Thursday they are trying to determine who altered the entry on the collaborative reference site [Wikipedia] 14 hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their son.”

Click here for the complete article.

:)

NY Times published an article today about the criticism of Catholic church on Giuliani’s stand towards abortion. His” sin” is that while personally opposing abortion, he does not believe in forcing his personal view on the entire nation.

During the New Hampshire debate he said: “My view on abortion is that it’s wrong, but that ultimately government should not be enforcing that decision on a woman. I consult my religion, I consult my reading of the Constitution, I consult my views of what I think are important in a pluralistic society, and the reality that we have to respect the fact that there are people that are equally as religious, equally as moral that make a different decision about this. And should government put them in jail?”

This stand caused great “frustration” in the circles of Catholic religious leaders. Although, following the rules that prohibit churches from endorsing or denouncing political candidates, they are reluctant to explicitly endorse any particular candidate, they are pretty clear in implicitly criticizing Giuliani. What are the arguments to prove him wrong? Well, there are plenty!!! He “was seen leaving Mass at a church in Washington before the Eucharist”. He “had married a third time without receiving a church annulment for his second marriage”. More important of course is Vatican’s statement that “politicians who voted for abortion rights should “exclude themselves from communion”.”

Sorry for the sarcastic tone of this post. As much as it scares me, the seemingly tightening relations between religion and politics are fascinating. It appears as a convoluted system of interdependent ideologies and interests. On the one hand, the democratic principles endorse religious tolerance and free choice at the same time. On the other hand, the religious conservatism simultaneously denies the same freedom of choice and in many (or shall i say most) cases tolerance towards the “other”. On the top of it of course are the political structures that enjoy and take advantage of religion as a mobilization mechanism (pursuing voters for example), and at the same time allow the religious apparatus taking advantage of the system by utilizing its mechanism for promotion of particular ideology (see for example the attempts of internet regulation in Israel).

What do you think?

In case you missed that, this Tuesday is the “National Day of Silence” organized by SaveNetRadio “to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase”.  The argument of the online radio broadcasters is that the increased fee will lead many of them to actually shutting down the stations.  I think this is part of an interesting larger argument about regulation of the media in general and internet in particular.  I wonder how does that feed the debate on internet governance at large?  Apparently it is not just regulating the pipes, but a seemingly external to the internet regulation of content, which in fact deeply affects the online culture.