World Press Photo Award - Outstanding Images

Great shots (esp the resisting settler ). Reminds me of a similar great image from Nepal.

Reverse Foreign Aid

Cheap credit, Intellectual Property and Copyright tithes, and tax holidays for large corporations - the unwitting gifts of third world to the first. (From NYTMag).

The Host

A huge hit in Korea, the Host is getting a limited release in the US, and we watched it last night. While it seemed to be a straightforward horror movie on the surface, somehow I thought there was a lot of messages floating around in the background. Such as

• The unhealthy US influence on Korea


• How family ties transcend individual imperfections


• The gullibility of the Korean government


• The helplessness of individuals in a fascist environment


• Some more servings of evil US influence and propaganda

At some points, the movie is comedic - and some parts in the middle drag on, and the scares are minimal. It was a big success in Korea, so I get the feeling there is a lot of cultural context I missed out on. A good break from the standard American thrillers nevertheless.

Incentive to Piracy (image from flickr)

Funny

The Immigrant Experience

Just watched Mira Nair's The Namesake. This piece is quite different from her previous work - Salaam Bombay and Monsoon Wedding. The Namesake follows an indian immigrant family as they adapt to America. The story is simple (as most lives are), but still touching nonetheless. A little slow in the beginning, the movie becomes coherent towards the end - and so does Kal Penn's performance. Not a seismic event by any means, but still worth watching.

Mixtapes, Creative Commons, and Derivative Arts

In an age where we expect congressmen to parrot industry lines about how draconian copyright laws are necessary and good for society, we now hear a sane voice in washington - amazing. Another article that touches on the mixtape mess and how it is indicative of the problem with IP laws.

Oxley Repentant

Senator Oxley admits that the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation was passed in a hurry, and looking back he would do things differently. And given that laws are easier to pass than repeal, this one's going to continue to hurt US businesses for a while. I know of at least one company that is spending a lot, and jumping through a lot of needless hoops because of Sox: mine.

Advertising Ecosystem

Lengthy treatise from Safa at Piper Jaffray (450 pages!) about the internet advertising industry. As most investment banking papers, its more breadth than depth and has the usual dosage of pontification. Nevertheless, a pretty good intro to someone who is looking for an overview. And it has all kinds of stats and metrics that are pretty useful.

DRM and Economics

Mike at Techdirt tries to use economic thinking to explain why DRM is bad for the economy. The argument is a little hard to follow, but what is abundantly clear is that DRM tries (although not successfully) to take a non-scarce resource and makes it scarce. And as I see it, any business built around that concept is bound to fail.