henrikharsbo.dk

Blogday Is Here...

So here are five links to blogs for you to explore. Some of them I know most of them I don't:

Sophisticated Naughtiness - blog written by Katy a university student from Vancouver.

Annelogue - Danish blog about being a girl in the world. Annelogue is a system developer with passion for tech culture and writing.

Adventures of Mr. Behi - Iranian blogger who blogs to show the outside world that there are progressive people in the country who are indeed opposed to the government.

Megnut - blog by Meg Hourihan the co-founder of Blogger the company that took blogging to the next level.

Slave To Target - Blog by two women who write about their addiction to the American store Target. I cannot quite tell whether this is not some sort of marketing stunt by the store chain.

These are my contributions. Enjoy.

Technorati: Blogday |Weblogs

Corporate Blogging Doesn't Work

Corporate blogging! Now isn't that a contradiction in terms? I see blogging as an expression of a personal belief or interest. Corporations aren't persons and they basically have no other interests than making a buck. So wont a corporate blog almost always end up pretending to be personal when it is in reality strongly steered by professional marketeers with one goal - profit.

If a corporate blog was to work it would firstly have to be written by a real person not a marketing department and it would secondly have to be able to say both good and bad things about the company. This is where most corporations draw the line. Imagine a sausage manufacturing employee admitting online that a specific sausage made by her company is poor quality! Never gonna happen in a company sanctioned blog.

In many ways I can't help comparing the commercial embrace of blogs to the way corporations embraced the Internet back in the days before the bubble burst. Everybody wants it and nobody really wants to spend time analyzing whether or not it's the right tool for their business.

Technorati: Media |Advertising |Weblogs

Grave Robbers Hit The Frontpage

The guys at Wikinews are probably not going to love me for pointing this out! But today the alternative news site once again shows us that it is truly alternative by giving yet another strange story top priority.

I am of course talking about the story: UK guinea pig farm to close after owner's family grave robbed. A strange tale which begins like this:
»A forty-year-old British guinea pig farm is to close after a six-year campaign of intimidation by animal rights extremists culminated in the remains of the family's dead mother being dug up and stolen...«

A tragic story for the family involved, no doubt - - but does it really belong on the front page of the news site among headlines like: Israel completes Gaza strip, West Bank pull-outs and Draft constitution pushed into Iraqi Parliament.

I've argued for a stronger system of prioritizing news at the Wiki site before, so I wont do it again ;-)

Technorati: Media |Journalism |Wikinews

Psychologists Against Violent Games

American Psychological Association (APA) has issued a resolution that denounces violence in video games. The resolution comes after an analysis of 20 years of game research which the organization says shows that the effects of violent games can be both immediate and long-lasting.

»Showing violent acts without consequences teach youth that violence is an effective means of resolving conflict,« says psychologist Elizabeth Carll to Washington Post.

In Denmark computer game researcher at Syddansk University, Bo Kampmann, says that computer games in his opinion are not more violent than other media forms and thus not to blame for societal violence.
»Ultimately it is up to parents to check what their kids are doing game wise just like parents normally would meter the television and reading habits of their offspring,« says the scientist to the newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

Moreover Bo Kampmann doesn't think children have a problem differentiating between games and reality. Call me crazy but hasn't he got a point there? Scientific research or not - - if children were to become more violent from playing violent games why haven't we already put out a ban on all toy guns and other military related toys.

I do not myself play violent games. I simply don't like them. But I also don't like it when an otherwise relevant discussion is hijacked by psychologists with arguments that sound like an echo from the fifties warning kids to stay away from rock and roll.

Technorati: Games|Psychology

America Not More Violent Because of Games

I'm still mildly shocked over the removal of Grand Theft Auto from American store shelves after the x-rating of the game due to hidden sex scenes.

It's hard to comprehend that a game like that is okay as long as it's just massively violent but should be x-rated and banned the minute it depicts an act of lovemaking.

Moreover the actual banning of video games suggest that the games in some way or other influence the gamer's behavior in the real world. The notion is well known and goes like this: If you play a violent game you are more prone to beat up and shoot people and if you play a sexy game you are more prone to engage in sexual activity with folks you meet...

Yeahh right!!

In the latest edition The Economist tackles this issue in a very balanced manner. I especially read this part with interest:

»[...] as Steven Johnson, a cultural critic, points out in a recent book, “Everything Bad Is Good for You”, gaming is now so widespread that if it did make people more violent, it ought to be obvious. Instead, he notes, in America violent crime actually fell sharply in the 1990s, just as the use of video and computer games was taking off. Of course, it's possible that crime would have fallen by even more over the period had America not taken up video games; still, video gaming has clearly not turned America into a more violent place than it was.«

Honestly, I think there are several infinitely more important issues to tackle for American lawmakers than the x-rating of video games.

Thanks to Anders for The Economist input :-)

Technorati: Games|Crime

Robber Revealed By Chip

It didn't help much that a robber managed to flee with the money after having robbed a branch of the Danish bank Danske Bank in Odense. 

The robber went to his apartment to tally the greenback sure that he was safe but was surprised to find a small transmitter chip among the bank notes. Moments after the police broke through the apartment door. The transmitter had given away the robber's exact location.

It is uncertain how widespread the use of transmitters are among Danish banks, writes Computerworld Online. The banks wont tell.

So robbers beware ;-)

Technorati: Technology |Crime

SMS From Crashing Plane A Lie

A Greek man has been arrested for lying about receiving a phone text mesage (a sms) from relatives aboard the Cypriot plane that crashed in Greece Sunday killing 121 people.

The man went on national television saying he had received a message from relatives on the plane minutes before it crashed. The message was to have been: "We're cold. The pilot has turned blue. We are going to die. Goodbye."

Today the man was arrested and officially charged by police in Thessaloniki.

The faulty information has been a major lead in the investigation so far. How sad that someone would try to gain their 15 minutes of fame off such a tragedy.

Even more sad that mainstream media around the world is readily supplying airtime for such a hoax. A story like that is just to good to spend a day fact checking or what?

via www.dr.dk (Danish news site)

Technorati: Media |Journalism

Frozen Wiki

A wiki that you cannot edit! It seems like a paradox in terms, but the ever so successful Wikipedia is now to slam the door to some of its content.

»There may soon be so-called stable content. In this case, we'd freeze the pages whose quality is undisputed,« founder Jimbo Wales recently told German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung

The freezing of pages is intended to stop the many edit wars that haunt several of the articles in the 641 000+ article encyclopedia. Moreover locking content will prevent trolls from harming content. Recently trolls substituted a Wikipedia picture of pope Benedikt XVI with a picture of Darth Vader.

I think the idea of locking content is great. In fact I think this is the only way to go for both Wikipedia, Wikinews and sites alike if they are to stay successful. Only problem is how to determine when a page is stable enough for freezing. As I see it, the right way to do this is to ask for an expert opinion. Bring in the scholars to judge whether something is ready for the freezer or not. It has to be open minded scholars however who are willing to look at articles from alternative perspectives.

Optimally I would like to see Wikipedia establishing an editorial board consisting of both scholars and laypersons. It would then be up to this board to judge whether something is stable or not.

The wrong way to go about locking pages would be relying solely on a democratic vote among users.

Technorati: Media |Journalism

Sex or Violence

Several American stores have removed the game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" from the shelves after it was revealed that the game contains hidden scenes where the pixel characters engage in sexual activity.

Grand Theft Auto is known as a massively violent game and until now you would have to be 17 years or older if you reside in the states and wanted to own the game. However the revealing of the hidden sexual activity has resulted in a new restrictive labeling: Adults Only.

So apparently it's okay for teenagers to play a game where random violence is on the menu and blood and gore fills the screen every other minute. The second a character shows his/her private parts or makes out with another character though that's when we have a problem. The lesson to the youngsters: Violence is okay. Sex is bad.

Is it me or is something very wrong here? 

Via Danish newspaper Politiken

More on the story on SiliconValley.com

Technorati: Media |Games