Take a look at the excellent presentation below, which has just won the World Best Presentation Contest. Some of the fascinating examples of the shifts happening around us: it is predicted that by 2049 a $1000 computer will have more computational capabilities than the entire human race (and more than one human by 2013), the New York Times contains more information in one week that the average person living in the 18th century would have encountered in a lifetime, and 1 in 8 marriages last year in the US was between people who met online. Much more in the presentation below.

Here’s the creator’s blog, where he lists some of the sources of the information presented.

(via FT Passport)

Here’s an excellent documentary that aired on the Cutting Edge program on SBS on Tuesday night. It has already been shown on British television in December 2006 and was made by Journeyman Pictures.

(be patient, it may take a few seconds to load when you press Play)

The Journeyman website has a transcript of the program.

About the documentary:

Videos of smiling suicide bombers and insurgent attacks have become as important a weapon as explosives in Al Qaeda’s global jihad against the West. The jihadis have seized on the power of the internet and their message cannot be silenced. But who actually watches these videos and what effect are they having on young people in the Muslim world? And – for that matter – on their enemies in West?

Abu Muawiya smiles and blows a kiss to the camera. He’s about to ram his car, packed with explosives, into an Iraqi checkpoint. Hours later, a slick and sophisticated video of his death is available to download. This is the jihadi propaganda machine, designed to inspire its supporters and terrify its enemies. The video is emotional, powerful and – thanks to the internet – you can get it anywhere in the world.

“We use the programme ‘Windows Movie Maker’ to make the films”, explains one jihadi producer. The whole process is taken very seriously. Only when the video has been checked and approved by the group’s chain of command will it be taken to an innocuous internet café to be uploaded. “The CIA can search for ages. Even if they find the café where it was uploaded, they can never find the person”, explains journalist Faris bin Hizam.

Al Qaeda have always recognised the importance of propaganda. When planning September 11th, they filmed the wills of the hijackers against an easily replaceable background. This enabled them to edit in shots of the World Trade Centre in flames later. For them, 9/11 was as much about creating iconic images as killing their enemies. But it was the war in Iraq and spread of broadband internet that turned the trickle of propaganda into a torrent.
[..]

Jihadist activity on the internet is giving rise to more and more worrying developments. The following reports are from the Jamestown Foundation:

Technojihad:

AL-FAJR MEDIA CENTER RELEASES HIGH TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

The al-Fajr Media Center, a jihadi news agency connected to the Islamic Army in Iraq, launched a new journal series on how to use high technology for jihad. The first issue of the publication, called Al-Mujahid al-Tiqani (The Technical Mujahid), has five chapters, for a total of 64 pages, dealing with securing and hiding data on computers, Global Positioning System (GPS), how to make videos and PGP software. In the foreword, the editors state that the magazine was launched partly because of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir’s call for scientists to provide support for the jihad in Iraq (Terrorism Focus, October 10). In addition, they urge all supporters to create and submit articles about technology use in future issues of the journal. The document can now be found on various jihadi websites, such as http://ekhlaas.info, http://hesba.com, http://alfirdaws.org and http://al-boraq.com.

Chemi-jihad:

Jihadi Forum Outlines Use of Poisons for Terrorist Attacks

Jihadi attempts to procure lethal and destructive weapons are endless. It is especially disturbing when they attempt to experiment with and acquire chemical and biological weapons. One recent post on a jihadi website outlined a user’s attempts at mixing chemical components to create deadly substances for terrorist purposes. The post, titled “The War of Poisons,” was authored by a user with the pseudonym “Wajeh al-Qamar,” who explained how to use different poisons against Americans in order to push them out of the Arabian Peninsula (http://alsayf.com, July 30).

Al-Qamar instructs fellow jihadis to mix cyanide with any type of body lotion that enlarges skin pores. According to al-Qamar’s theory, the skin will then absorb the cyanide in three to five seconds. Al-Qamar claims that experiments have already been completed on rabbits, which he explains have a similar blood pressure to humans. In the experiments, the cyanide-lotion mix quickly killed the rabbits. As part of this plot, al-Qamar suggests that jihadis smear the door handles of cars owned by Americans with small quantities of the cyanide-lotion mixture, or spray it in the air-conditioning vents of their cars or houses.

In addition to the cyanide-lotion mix, al-Qamar suggests that jihadis use malathion and propoxur to poison Americans—insecticides that are available from farming markets and can be easily purchased. According to al-Qamar, the insecticides, after being mixed with a third poisonous substance, would have a dangerous effect on the target, although it will not necessarily result in death. Al-Qamar then says, “I vowed to invent stronger poisons than cyanide,” and moved to explain how to pollute groceries of an American shopper with sodium peroxide and sodium oxide by injecting the fluids into their food products. Al-Qamar discusses other deadly substances that can be extracted from plants and explains how to transform them into either fluid or aerosol form. Al-Qamar acts as if he is an expert on chemicals since he uses medical terms to label the degree of health hazards that each substance might cause.

Regardless of the likelihood or effectiveness of the above terrorism strategies, they display the danger posed by jihadi use of the internet. If a jihadi with experience in chemical weapons was able to establish contact with a willing recruit in Europe, the United States or elsewhere, he would be able to transmit the necessary knowledge needed for a chemical attack. Moreover, direct contact between a handler and a recruit is not even necessary since the jihadi forums contain hundreds of documents outlining various methods to kill large numbers of people. The recruit does not have to be a member of al-Qaeda, but only a sympathizer willing to pursue the organization’s ideology.

Chatroom jihad:

Why do jihadis spend so much time and effort on their media operations? The requisites of jihad and field operations are correlated to the jihadi media objectives in the sense that jihadis need money and manpower to sustain terrorist operations. Therefore, the jihadis chat with sympathizers of the jihad on Islamist forums, show them video clips of successful operations against the “occupiers” and provide religious lectures on the virtues of either participating in jihad or donating money to the mujahideen. Many discussions result in willing recruits posting their e-mail addresses and imploring actual jihadi operators to contact them and guide them toward the path of jihad. The following quote, for example, is from a user with the alias of Abu al-Qassim al-Yemeni who wrote from Yemen. His statement on the forum illustrates the eagerness of many to participate in jihad: “I am a young man from Yemen thirsty for jihad. May Allah place you in the land of jihad and resistance and I hope to be along your side. I also look forward for your letters in my e-mail box.” Some websites have more than 14 pages of such requests. The aspiring mujahideen are from many countries, Arab and non-Arab. In some cases, the requests to take part in jihad are straightforward, where the forum user asks to go to a specific country for jihad (http://www.watein.com, September 10). The most popular destinations for jihad appear to be Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

I’ve had the Tao of Gregarius link on the front page for a couple of weeks now, but have made no formal intro, so here goes.

Tao of Gregarius is an web-based RSS feed reader/aggregator, similar to the Google Reader or Bloglines. Except of course I’ve already added all the feeds to it, so if you are not using a reader already and are perhaps scared off by the process of adding feeds or have been wondering what this RSS stuff is all about, you may find this one useful.

In short, the benefits of using a feed reader is that you can get through a whole lot of news, blogs posts, and/or opinion pieces in a fraction of the time, because they will all be aggregated in one place for you. Just scan through all the headlines and open any that interest you. No more going to a dozen different sites every day.

Tao of Gregarious currently has close to a hundred feeds from around the world. The selection is of course tailored to my interests, in line with the themes of this site, but most of the feeds are very general. The news and opinion feeds are taken from dozens of news sites around the world. This includes every online Australian site that currently supports RSS as well as the opinion page content from about 20 sites (most but not all are in the US or Europe). This currently includes The Australian, Crikey, the NY Times, Jerusalem Post, The Guardian, LA Times and The Globe and Mail. And of course many others. World news is taken from sites like the BBC, Reuters, CNN, Spiegel and SMH.
There are also about a dozen blogs listed, including Little Green Footballs, Jihad Watch, The Brussels Journal, Tim Blair. and Michelle Malkin.

I am adding more feeds all the time and am open to requests.

The feeds can be sorted in several ways – by feed folder, by feed category or by tags. A feed can only be in one folder, but it can be listed under several categories. So for example you may only be interested in reading the blogs, so you can read the feeds in the ‘blogs’ folder. Or you may want to read all the feeds in the ‘Australia’ category – this would list the Australian news, opinion and blogs together. I am not using the tags sorting as yet.

Currently personal accounts are not available, although that is a definite possibility for the future (when the Gregarius developers add that feature, which they say they are going to). This means that only I can mark items as being already ‘read’, and the status is shared by all. I recommend setting the reader to viewing both ‘read’ and ‘unread’ items, as obviously whether I’ve read something or not is of no consequence to you. I also recommend using the reader with Firefox (I’ve been surprised to see how many people are still viewing this site in IE). That way you can open the reader in one tab and as you scan through the headlines just right click and open any items that you want to read in full on the source site in a new tab. Some sites include the full articles or posts in their feeds, others only the first few lines or paragraphs, so you still need to open them in a new tab/window. I regularly clear items out that are older than 3 days old, but you can always expect to see the last 3 days worth of items in the reader.

The difference between Gregarius and say Google Reader, btw, is similar to the difference between a blog on Blogger and a blog like Tao of Defiance that uses the Wordpress platform. With Blogger you get what you’re given and thats kind of it. With Wordpress you can add whatever plugins and themes you want and edit the code yourself, so it is far customisable. Likewise Gregarius, so hopefully the platform will continue to expand as people write more plugins etc.

The reader auto updates all its feeds every 45 minutes, so you can keep it open and check back throughout the day to see what new items have popped up on any of the news sites or blogs.

Tao of Gregarius

http://www.taoofdefiance.com/newsreader

On the subject of digital photos, I’ve just recently been wondering how long data stored away on a CD will actually last. Photos, music, movies, data, whatever. People tend to assume that their backup CDs and DVDs are going to last for many years, or decades. I was surprised to find out that a normal burnt CD, will only last for about 2 years! That’s according to this article in the SMH.

The SMH article is refering to comments made by Herr Kurt Gerecke, “IBM expert on data storage” in PC World. Here’s what he said:

“Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD,” Gerecke says. “There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more.”

And

“Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life span of around two years,” Gerecke says. “Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years.”

Gerecke also recommends: using hard-drives with 7200 revolutions per minute, because “if the hard drive uses an inexpensive disk bearing, that bearing will wear out faster than a more expensive one”

Read the rest of this entry »