Monday, August 17, 2009

Earlier this month, over 150 delegates from cultural institutions, government and the online community gathered at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra over one and a half days for the first GLAM-WIKI conference. The conference brought together representatives from the GLAM sector, comprising galleries, libraries, archives and museums, politicians, and members of the Wikimedia community (who edit the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and its sister sites), to enter into a dialogue regarding ways the three areas can work collaboratively to preserve and promote cultural collections online.

Highlights from the conference included keynote speeches by Wikimedia Foundation Chief Program Officer Jennifer Riggs and Senator Kate Lundy, as well as a panel discussion on the political pressures involved in improving and disseminating GLAM organisations’ online collections featuring Senator Lundy as well as Senator Scott Ludlam, ACT Legislative Assembly shadow minister Alistair Coe, Government 2.0 Taskforce member Seb Chan, Adjunct Director to the Digital Library of the National Library of New Zealand Paul Reynolds and Kylie Johnson, the New Media Advisor for the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. Sessions focused on ways the Wikimedia and GLAM communities could better work together to further their missions of preserving, curating and sharing cultural knowledge, with streams examining the topics of legal and technical barriers, and the impact on business and education.

Two case studies were presented at the conference, the first being the Powerhouse Museum’s experimental release of some of their photographic collection to Flickr Commons, and the second the collaboration between the German Wikimedia chapter and German Federal Archives to release their collection to Wikimedia Commons. While these and other projects were examined as successful forays into open content, the recent legal action between the United Kingdom’s National Portrait Gallery and a Wikimedian was raised in most sessions as an example of such efforts having negative consequences.

Delegates at the conference engaged in heated discussion both on- and offline, with the #GLAM-WIKI tag on Twitter generating over 500 tweets during the course of the first day. Overall, feedback from participants was strongly positive over both the event and its plans for the future.

Liam Wyatt, the Vice President of the Australian Wikimedia Chapter and organiser of the event, was impressed by the turnout. According to Wyatt, “at 170 registrations it is one of the largest Wikimedia events ever, after [international Wikimedia conference] Wikimania, and to be able to offer that for no attendance fee is testament to the support we received from our partners – most especially the WMF … There are many proposals and discussions that are now starting up as a result of the event and, rightly, these may take quite some time to bear fruit. However, what I think we have achieved immediately is to take the heat out of the debate between the cultural sector and the Wikimedia community.”

Jennifer Riggs was similarly impressed by the dialogue that came as a result of the conference. “It’s gone terrifically, really. People have had the opportunity to be really frank about the concerns that they have.”

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Canadian PM Stephen Harper has shuffled his cabinet today.

The major change with this shuffle is Rona Ambrose, Minister of Environment, being replaced by Treasury Board President John Baird. When a reporter asked her earlier if she would be replaced she replied, “Yes — very excited.” Ambrose is the new intergovernmental affairs minister.

Vic Toews, the justice minister, is now President of the Treasury Board. Rob Nicholson, who was house leader, is now justice minister. Peter Van Loan, who was intergovernmental affairs minister, is now house leader. Monte Solberg, the immigration minister, replaces Diane Finley as Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. Diane Finley, loses the Human Resources portfolio and gets the Citizenship and Immigration ministry.

Six MPs were appointed “Secretary of State” roles, they are junior cabinet ministers. Secretary of States do not make part of the cabinet. These new Secretary of States are :

• Helena Guergis, MP for Simcoe—Grey, Secretary of State (Foreign Affairs and International Trade) (Sport);
• Jay Hill, MP for Prince George—Peace River, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip.
• Jason Kenney, MP for Calgary Southeast, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity);
• Christian Paradis MP for Mégantic—L’Érable, Secretary of State (Agriculture) and
• Gerry Ritz, MP for Battlefords—Lloydminster, Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism);

Marjory LeBreton who was the Leader of the Government in the Senate now also has the role of Secretary of State (Seniors).

The new cabinet still will consist of 27 ministers, 32 if you include the Secretaries.

A complete list of the new Ministers and Secretary of States is found at the Official office of the prime minister website.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

One hundred and twenty detainees at an immigration removal centre in Oxford, UK, are on hunger strike. The protest started when some detainees refused breakfast on Wednesday 14th June 2006. A letter from the hunger strikers explaining why they are seeking to draw attention to their plight in this way has been reproduced in full below.

Those detained at the centre are mostly men who have sought asylum in the UK and whose asylum applications have been rejected. These people are then held without knowing how long they will be detained for – some end up being held for many years while awaiting deportation.

The removal centre, known as Campsfield, or Campsfield House is approximately 5 miles north of Oxford and has been in operation since 1993. It was managed on behalf of the UK Government by Global Solutions Limited, until may 2006 when it was taken on by GEO UK, the centre has a capacity of 198. Only males are detained at Campsfield.

According to the campaign group Barbed Wire Britain Over 2,600 individuals, mostly asylum seekers, are detained indefinitely in the UK without trial and with no automatic right to bail.

There have been reports in the UK press of the state taking people to detention centres without notice, in the early hours of the morning using excessively heavy handed tactics, taking children out of schools and separating families.

Many UK people and politicians express their disgust at the way detainees are treated, yet it continues. Perhaps this action by the detainees themselves will further highlight their plight and result in more UK electors writing to their MPs and demanding improvements to the way in which rejected asylum seekers are treated.

“We are detainees at Campsfield removal centre in Oxford. Most of us have been here for a long while now. There are people who have been detained for up to two years and down to three months. We are cramped in here like animals. We are treated like animals and moved around different detention centres like animals. The immigration service have taken husbands from their families and taken people who ran away from persecution in their various countries, and dumped everyone in here.

Once you are put in here the immigration service forget you. There are detainees who have applied to go back to their own countries that are still being held here for months without any news about their cases, just so that the private security companies get more money.

Detainees are asked to seek asylum and then refused. The immigration service also ask detainees to apply for bail. When you get a bail hearing date all of a sudden they serve you with removal papers that are not valid. There are many of these situations. In most cases the immigration service don’t take you to your court hearings. And then they tell the judges you refused to turn up, just so the hearing goes ahead in your absence. Many detainees have been served with removal papers and travel documents but nothing happens on the removal day.

Campsfield has become a slave house. We detainees are treated like slaves, to do odd jobs for officers. Detainees are handcuffed to see doctors or dentists in hospitals or clinic appointments. We have some racist security officers who make racist comments to detainees and go out of their way to make you feel like committing suicide. Detainees have to be at the point of death before they get to see the doctors.

The food is not worth eating. Even dogs would refuse to eat what we eat. But we don’t have a choice; every single day we eat the same food (the food we eat is rice, chicken, sandwiches, and left-over eggs)”.

• “120 Immigration Detainees on Hunger Strike at Campsfield IRC” — Oxford Indymedia, June 14, 2006
• UK Home Office webpage on Campsfield
• Close Campsfield Campaign
• “Dawn raid furore family deported” — BBC, September 29, 2005
• Barbed Wire Britain
• “Asylum seekers on hunger strike” — BBC, July 14, 2005
• “Construction/Building Press Releases” — PR Newswire, Oct 01, 2005

Sunday, November 18, 2007

In the quarter-final of 2007 Baseball World Cup, because actual strengths of those finalists were merely close, the pitching became a key role to decide a team who entered or eliminated the semi-final.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

The United States Army has confirmed that thirteen people have been killed after a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood army base in Texas. An additional thirty are reported wounded, and the gunman is in stable condition after being shot by military police. Two other soldiers are in detention.

The incident took place at a deployment readiness center. According to local congressman John Carter, shooting broke out shortly before a graduation ceremony.

The gunman has been identified as an army officer, Major Malik Nadal Hasan. He is a mental health professional, presumably either a psychologist or psychiatrist, according to an unnamed defense official. Two other suspects were in custody, the base commander, Lieutenant-General Bob Cone, said.”Our investigation is ongoing, but preliminary reports indicate that there was a single shooter,” Cone said at a news conference. “The shooter is not dead, but in custody in stable condition.”

Initial reports said that the gunman had been shot to death by military police; however, General Cone now says that the man is in custody and is in the hospital with injuries, but is in stable condition. FOX40 News in Sacramento managed to record a military spokesperson commenting on why the media wasn’t informed about the status of the gunman until four hours after the initial announcement was made that he had been fatally shot. That military spokesman replied, “the doctors didn’t know who they were working on.”

When asked at the conference whether Hasan’s attack might have been a terrorist act, General Cone replied that “I couldn’t rule that out, but I’m telling you that right now the evidence does not suggest that.”

It is not currently clear if those killed and wounded are civilian or military. The gunman is reported to have been in uniform and using handguns. Eyewitnesses claim at least one man was armed with a high-power sniper rifle. The chief of media at the base, Christopher Hogue, said to reporters that “the only one we know who was shooting was killed and he had two handguns.”

There may have been other people involved in the shooting, however. “We […] have apprehended two additional soldiers that are suspects. There were eyewitness accounts that there may have been more than one shooter,” General Cone said.

The Killeen Independent School District said that all schools in the area were placed on lockdown. The base was closed down following the incident as well. “Effective immediately Fort Hood is closed,” a statement on the Fort Hood website read. “This is not a Drill. It is an Emergency Situation.” The website appears to have gone down shortly after the announcement.

A serviceman at the base described his experiences to the BBC. “I heard the emergency announcement over the speakers outside and saw people rushing to get indoors. In our office we’re okay but we’re hearing about the deaths. […] We are still on lockdown. I am hearing that at least nine people may be dead.”

Greg Schannep, a retired colonel, was heading to the 2 P.M. graduation ceremony when he heard gunshots and saw an injured soldier run past him. “Initially, I thought it was a training exercise,” he recounted, as quoted by the New York Daily News. “A soldier came running past me and said ‘sir, there is someone shooting.’ As he ran past me I saw blood on his back. I don’t think he even knew he had been shot.”

“It’s chaotic,” said the director of a local coffee shop near the base, as quoted by the Associated Press. “They’re just saying that they’re under attack they don’t know what’s going on. […] The phones are jammed. Everybody is calling family members and friends. Soldiers are running around with M-16s.”

The authorities are still gathering information about the shooting, according to Homeland Security spokeswoman Sara Kuban. “DoD [Department of Defense], DHS [Department of Homeland Security], FBI and other members of the intelligence community are assessing and gathering facts about the shooting. Because this is early in this event, we cannot at this time confirm motives behind these shootings,” she said.

The Scott & White Memorial Hospital in the town of Temple received ten of the injured victims from the attack. Its website has posted an appeal for blood donations. “Due to the recent events on Fort Hood, we are in URGENT need of ALL blood types,” it said. The hospital received 200 blood donations since 2:45 P.M. local time.

The hospital was soon closed to visitors after the wounded people were received. “[We are] no longer open to visitors as we focus our attention upon the victims and their families,” a statement on the website said. The associate system chief medical officer said that they did not have specific information on their conditions. “We get patients like this, but not usually all at once,” said director Glen Couchman.

Another health facility, the Metroplex Adventist Hospital, received seven other victims. The hospital stated that one of them was soon pronounced dead, and two others, including an EMS paramedic, are in surgery.

Fort Hood is situated in the town of Killeen. It is the largest military base in the world, houses around 40,000 US troops, and is about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Austin. It has been compared to a small town, with its own schools, convenience stores, and even two museums.

This is not the first time Killen has witnessed a shooting spree. The town was the site of the worst shooting spree in American history until the Virginia Tech massacre, when on October 16, 1991, George Jo Hennard drove his truck through the front window of Luby’s Cafeteria and proceeded to shoot and kill 23 people and wound another 20, before commiting suicide in what is know as the Luby’s massacre. It should be noted Major Hasan is an alumnus of Virginia Tech.

Hasan’s motives for the shooting spree were not immediately clear, however, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison told the FOX news agency that “I do know that he has been known to have told people that he was upset about going [to Iraq].”

A cousin of the gunman, Nader Hasan, told FOX that his cousin had been ordered to deploy to Iraq, but was unwilling to do so. “We’ve known over the last five years that was probably his worst nightmare,” he said.

According to Nader, Nidal is a US-born Muslim who had joined the military after finishing high school, and was a graduate of Virginia Tech, where he received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry. He was also a member of the ROTC, and used to be a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

“He was a psychiatrist at Walter Reed dealing with the people coming back and […] trying to help them with their trauma,” Nader said.

Retired colonel Terry Lee told FOX that “[Hasan] said maybe Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor. At first we thought he meant help the armed forces, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Other times he would make comments we shouldn’t be in the war in the first place.”

Security officials said that some Internet postings made half a year ago, discussing suicide bombings and other forms of violence, appeared to have been posted by Hasan, but this has not been officially confirmed.

Some army bases around the US increased security measures following the attacks. “The bottom line for us is that we are increasing security at our gates because the threat hasn’t yet been defined, and we’re reminding our Marines to be vigilant in their areas of responsibility,” said the public affairs officer for the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona, Captain Rob Dolan.

However, a spokesman for the Department of Defense said that the attack appeared to be an isolated incident. “This is an isolated and tragic case and we’re obviously in the process of obtaining more information as the events unfold,” said Lieutenant Colonel Eric Butterbaugh.

“We don’t have reason to believe that this is anything other than an isolated incident,” an army spokesman from Fort Lewis in the state of Washington, Joe Piek, commented. “We don’t normally discuss security operations at the post anyways, but I am sure this is something that our security law enforcement will be reviewing. As we are watching and listening, there is a lot we don’t know.”

President Barack Obama described the incident as “a horrific outburst of violence” in a press conference in Washington D.C., going on to say, “It is difficult enough when we lose these brave men and women abroad, but it is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on US soil. […] We will make sure that we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident. We are going to stay on this.”

Texas Senator Hutchison released a statement regarding the incident. “I am shocked and saddened by today’s outburst of violence at Fort Hood that has cost seven of our brave service members their lives and has gravely injured others. My heart goes out to their loved ones,” she said.

“Our dedicated military personnel have sacrificed so much in service to our country, and it sickens me that the men and women of Fort Hood have been subjected to this senseless, random violence. I know all Americans share this concern for the soldiers and their families who are affected by this tragedy,” the statement continued.

Robert Gates, the Defense Secretary, expressed his sympathy to those affected by the attack. “I can pledge that the Department of Defense will do everything in its power to help the Fort Hood community get through these difficult times,” he said in a statement.

Vice President Joe Biden also offered his condolences. “We are all praying for those who were wounded and hoping for their full and speedy recovery. Our thoughts and prayers are also with the entire Fort Hood community as they deal with this senseless tragedy,” he remarked.

“I was saddened to learn of the tragic incident at Fort Hood. Laura and I are keeping the victims and their families in our thoughts and prayers during this difficult time,” wrote former president George W. Bush in a statement from his office in Dallas.

The state’s governor, Rick Perry, ordered all flags in Texas to be flown at half-staff until Sunday. “[I am] keeping those affected by today’s incidents in our thoughts and prayers,” he said.

The junior senator from Texas, John Cornyn, also issued a statement. “My heart goes out to the victims of the tragedy that occurred today at Fort Hood, as well as their families. Fort Hood is one of our nation’s finest and largest military installations, and a place that has long been a source of pride for Texans, and for all Americans who value the selfless service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform,” the statement read.

“It is imperative that we take the time to gather all the facts, as it would be irresponsible to be the source of rumors or inaccurate information regarding such a horrific event. Once we have ascertained all the facts, working with our military leaders and law enforcement officials on the ground, we can determine what exactly happened at Fort Hood today and how to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Wikipedia, one of the top ten websites on the internet, will soon be receiving a face lift. The first part of the change is a new skin called Vector. This skin, currently used on Wikinews, will be enabled for Wikipedia on April 5th and provide a more updated look and feel. The second part will change the toolbar when editing, and is intended to ease common tasks. Both changes are important to encourage new people to edit and update content. The improvements have been tested by more than 500,000 beta-testers.

The wiki code will also be altered; editors will be able to change tables data and other elements with what is intended as an easier form, in addition to editing an article while watching it.

On the other hand, the staff of Wikimedia requested more editors to add and update articles in their wikis. Wikipedia is a website maintained by users in unprecedented numbers. Maintenance and updating processes are dependent on just one percent of their users. Based on some statements, fewer than a thousand users do the maintenance and updating work.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Data from recent detailed analyses of samples collected on NASA Apollo moon missions, released Sunday, show that Lunar water may originate from comets that collided with the moon early in its geologic history.

A team of astrophysicists led by James Greenwood of Wesleyan University in Connecticut analyzed samples collected on the Apollo 11, 12, 14, and 17 missions and found that the chemical properties of traces of lunar water in these samples differ from water typical of Earth.

“The values of deuterium/hydrogen (D/H) that we measure in apatite in the Apollo rock samples”, Greenwood told Space.com, “is clearly distinguishable from water from the Earth, mitigating against this being some sort of contamination on Earth.” Greenwood and his team of researchers studied in particular the variations of hydrogen in the mineral apatite.

The newfound data show that the chemical properties of water in the apatite samples resemble data from the comets Hale-Bopp, Halley, and Hyakutake, suggesting that the water present on the moon could have originated from these comets or others.

According to Greenwood, the results of this study could also provide evidence as to the origin of water on Earth.

Monday, July 4, 2005

According to a recent report by the United States Census Bureau, the pecking order of the most populous U.S. cities has changed. The report, issued June 30, shows in 2004 San Jose, with an estimated population of 904,522 is the nation’s 10th-largest city, overtaking Detroit with its smaller population of 900,198.

The U.S. Census traditionally releases population figures for the year previous to the date the figures are made public.

According to a report in the San Jose Mercury News, Mayor Ron Gonzales is saying the new ranking may help people across the U.S. be more interested in San Jose and think of it as a world-class city. “It puts us in a very distinguished class,” he told the paper.

But for many, northern California’s largest city, the self-proclaimed “Capital of Silicon Valley” remains an enigma. In a country not noted for its geographical knowledge prowess, many Americans have no idea where San Jose actually is. Culturally, the city may be best known as the title location of a Dionne Warwick hit song with the ironic title, Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Many locals claim the city suffers from a self esteem problem stretching back to 1852 when San Jose lost the honor of being the California state capital to Sacramento. Additionally, for most of its existence, San Jose has been overshadowed by its smaller and more glamorous neighbor to the north, San Francisco.

“San Francisco has been in the limelight since 1849, and it was the capital of everything west of the Mississippi — it was a huge presence in the psyche of the world, and we can never replace that,” David Vossbrink, San Jose city spokesman, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

It doesn’t stop with San Francisco; San Jose is routinely outshined by other Bay Area cities such as Oakland, California, which is one-third its size. Additionally, the city’s own Silicon Valley suburbs, including Palo Alto and Cupertino, regularly steal the national spotlight from San Jose.

As far as the workkforce is concerned, San Jose continues to reel from the dot-com meltdown of the early 2000s. With an unemployment rate of 5.5 percent, it has a higher jobless rate than the national average of 5.1 percent. For a couple of years after the 2000 tech crash, San Jose lost population as thousands of unemployed fled to look for work elsewhere.

But the city is on the mend and does have some legitimate bragging rights aside from sheer size. Despite the unemployment, San Jose is America’s wealthiest big city with an average household annual income of $70,000. It consistently ranks as “The Safest Big City in America,” according to FBI crime statistics as having the lowest violent crime rate for any U.S. city with a population over 500,000. The local public university, San Jose State is the largest within the California State University system.

Economically, an increasing number of large companies also are opting to call San Jose home, including Cisco Systems, Knight Ridder, eBay and Adobe Systems.

For many media outlets covering San Jose’s ascendence into the ranks of the United States’ Top 10 cities, the real story has been the decline of Detroit and its symbol as a Midwestern industrial giant.

For decades, Detroit, the self-styled “Motor City,” rested its fortunes with the American automobile industry. Each of the Big Three automobile manufacturers, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, maintained headquarters there.

But with the shift of the U.S. economy away from heavy industry to services and technology, cities like Detroit suffered, while cities like San Jose prospered.

Detroit’s decline in population is not a new phenomenon. In the 1950s, the city had a population of about 1.8 million, ranking as the fourth-largest U.S. city. But its fortunes started changing in the 1970s with the OPEC oil embargo and the rise of Japan as an automobile-producing powerhouse. As the city’s fortunes waned, many residents fled Detroit for the suburbs or opted to leave Michigan altogether.

“It’s part of a pattern for the heavily industrialized cities, but I think Detroit is a specific case. There’s been an ongoing dynamic here of people, middle-class people in Detroit, fleeing the city looking for better schools, better lifestyles, better services. So it has been a particularly hard fall,” Dana Johnson, chief economist at Comerica Bank in Detroit said in an interview with the New York Times.

Detroit has also been taking its knocks in recent statistics. Unlike San Jose’s reputation for being a safe place to live, Detroit tops the list of most violent U.S. big cities. In the past year, Time magazine named Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick among the worst mayors in the U.S.

Along with the exodus of people and 7.8 percent unemployment rate, Detroit harbors a sight unseen in San Jose, blocks of vacant housing. For years these vacant buildings have been the targets of arsonists on the so-called Devil’s Night, where blocks of homes have been set ablaze in Detroit.

Additionally, unlike San Jose, which is in the process of moving 1,800 employees into a new $388 million city hall and faces shortage of police officers, shrinking Detroit faces a $300 million budget deficit and the prospect of laying off 700 police and fire-fighting personnel in the next few months.