Daily Bits

WikiLeaks

Color Me – Julian

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Julian Assange of WikiLeaks fame has graced the front pages of newspapers (the traditional kind), news web sites, blogs, and practically every other kind of web site you can find. Whether you admire him or you detest him, you cannot deny that he does attract attention. How can he not?

Here’s another web site that places Julian Assange in focus – in a different way. The Julian Assange Coloring Book may not be on your list of gifts for your children, but it might give you something to do if you do not feel like working. More so, if you are particularly interested in expressing your creative side, you will find the site a nice distraction.

The concept is the same as that of any other coloring book’s concept: you get pages with sketches that need to be filled with colored. The difference is that you get eight pages – all of them virtual – of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks-related images. You also have a color palette from which you can pick colors. As long as you have a computer, you will be able to color your heart out. Now all you need is a teeny weeny spark of artistic sense in you.

Here’s a sample image that needs some work.
Assange Plain

This one is a work in progress.
Assange Colored

As you can probably see, I did not spend much time with coloring books when I was a kid. This web site is not bound to change anything for me.

Wikipedia a la Cubana

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EcuRed

Here’s another wiki that has made the news in the recent days. While WikiLeaks has definitely garnered a large following around the world, there are other wiki sites that are worth talking about as well. Just the other night, my friends and I were talking about Cuba – the way of life there, tourism, etc. I didn’t think I would be writing about a Wikipedia-style web site focusing on this Caribbean island.

The web site is called EcuRed, and can be accessed at http://www.ecured.cu/.

It is basically an online encyclopedia which aims to “spread knowledge from a decolonizing, objective, and truthful point of view.” Unsurprisingly, the site received a massive amount of traffic, and due to this, it went down earlier this week. It’s been up since then, though, and visitors can read the articles – all 19,752 of them.

The whole site is in Spanish and is dependent on a government-run network. There are about 600 computer centers involved in the project as well as more than 1000 content developers. I do not speak or read Spanish, but thanks to Google Chrome’s translation feature, I was able to browse the web site.

If you are Cuban or have a love for this Caribbean isle, here are things you ought to know before joining the wiki fray:

  • Écuras is optimized for best viewing in the browser Mozilla Firefox , you can download by clicking here . We also put at your disposal a spell checker that integrates with Firefox to verify your spelling, install it by clicking here .
  • If you have connectivity problems downloading the offline editor .
  • It is imperative that before you begin, read What is Écuras .
  • Learn to appoint either an article with the title Conventions .
  • You can ask questions and provide knowledge on the corner of the FAQ .
  • There are models of articles that offer guidance on the structure of a particular item.
  • Look at this list of recommended templates .

That list was translated automatically so there might be some grammatical inconsistencies, but you get the picture.  What’s important, I think, is that it is a huge step towards Cuba’s opening up to the world.  Something to be excited about, don’t you think?

It Only Takes Lady Gaga to Get Past U.S. Military Security

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lady gaga
Everyone has heard about WikiLeaks by now. Truth be told, I have been avoiding writing about it as everyone and their mom has been jabbering non-stop about the site anyway. However, I simply cannot pass up on this piece of information: how you can get past the “strict” security measures that the U.S. military has in place.

Believe it or not, you simply have to get Lady Gaga on your side. It is that simple. In a report released by The Guardian early this week, it is said that the main culprit behind the information leak is soldier Bradley Manning, 22 years of age. The soldier is said to have taken the information out of secure premises by bringing in a CD-RW labeled Lady Gaga. Once inside, he would delete its contents and copy classified information. Walking out of the the complex with some of the government’s secrets was a simple matter.

Of course, just because it was that easy to steal the information did not mean that Manning would never have been caught. As a matter of fact, he has been in solitary confinement for the most part of this year, where he is awaiting court martial.

This does not change the facts – that more than 200,000 dispatches are now in the hands of the general public, so to speak. And, while I don’t feel like talking about what I think about the whole WikiLeaks issue, I think that Lady Gaga should be given kudos for assisting one of the biggest information heists ever. I wonder if a Michael Jackson CD would have worked as well?

via The Guardian

Snowden: The Year’s Most Influential Tech Figure

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Snowden: The Year’s Most Influential Tech Figure (via slashdot)

Lots of CEOs, entrepreneurs, and developers made headlines in 2013—but in hindsight, Edward Snowden will likely stand as this year’s most influential figure in technology. In June, Snowden began feeding top-secret documents detailing the National…

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