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INTERNET : - Celui là ca faisait longtemps qu'on le sentait venir, Tiiker sélectionne les news en fonction des news que lisent vos contacts et vos amis : Tiinker is the Anti-Digg
- Indie Gaming, génial : Interview: Indie MMO Lila Dreams' Designer
- Et si le Amazon Kindle c'était du vent ? Ben en fait on dirait bien que c'est du vent. Sauf que le concept reste super et que ca finira bien par marcher d'ici quelques temps. Surtout si amazon continue à investir ce qu'il faut pour le soutenir pendant que la courbe d'adoption démarre : Publisher Sees 'No Evidence' That Amazon Kindle is More Profitable Than Sony Reader
- Et logiquement... : Why You Should Read Ebooks [Ebooks]
- Dominique Cardon et ses amis continuent d'analyser les mécanismes participatifs, à lire si vous voulez vraiment comprendre wikipedia autrement qu'à travers des généralités vaseuses : 10 propriétés de la force des coopérations faible
- Et voilà, mininova fait du streaming... et pendant ce temps l'industrie musicale elle fait quoi ? Elle essaie de filtrer Internet, rions encore tous ensemble mes amis ^_^ : Mininova Launches Music Torrent Streaming
- Google.org, l'empire du Bien
COOL DESIGN - Une chaise en lévitation magnétique, juste super cool, je veux la même pour mon bureau : British Hovering Chair Floats on Magnets
- Joli film d'animation : James Jean Prada advertisement
- Tatsuya Ishida est un génie : "Dear God" - Fri, 08 Feb 2008
POLITIQUE - Indispensable daily kos qui reprend la théorie des 9 nations d'amérique pur expliquer les clivages dans les votes : Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds
- Petite mise au point de James Love sur qui a voté pour et contre la guerre en Iraq : James Love: Who voted to authorize force in Iraq October 2002?
- Petit trick de Bush sur le médiateur du Freedom of Information Act aux USA, Guarding Piracy, etc. : February 8, 2008 (On The Media: Friday, 08 February 2008)
 In preparation for Read an Ebook Week (March 2-8), Epublishers Weekly has written a list of reasons why you should put down that paperback and focus on reading electronic media instead. One of their reasons include the obvious "we're already sitting in front of the computer screen, so why not?" Additionally, ebooks are environmentally friendly, they can be shipped immediately, they are often cheaper than their paper-based counterparts, and they're an evolutionary technology that may be expanded upon in the future with additional features, such as embedded calculators and interactive tests. One of the most important aspects to ebooks is that their very nature allows for online discourse and commentary. This ensures that accuracy is achieved. The only downside? You probably won't want to take one to the bathroom with you.
  
The popular BitTorrent site Mininova just released a set of new features, including music torrent streaming. The new music streaming feature uses a Java applet developed by BitLet, which is easy to use and compatible with all Java-enabled browsers.  With the new music streaming feature users can listen to individual music tracks, streamed from .torrent files. It is integrated in the featured torrents section, which lists all the distributors that take part in Mininova’s content distribution platform. An example of a streamable torrent is this track.
If you want to stream music torrents that are not listed in the featured section, you’ll need to use the Bitlet website. The service currently supports mp3, ogg and vorbis files. 
BitTorrent streaming is not restricted to music files, and indeed, Erik, one of the founders of Mininova told TorrentFreak that they are currently looking into the possibility of video streaming via BitTorrent as well. He said that Mininova will start a private BETA test of the BitTorrent video streaming integration in a few weeks. Together with the music streaming capability, Mininova published some other new features including comment tracking, which gives users an overview of all the comments they recently made. Another new feature that might come in handy is the manual refresh of the seeder and leecher statistics that logged in users now have. Finally, every self respecting BitTorrent sites now has its own toolbar. Isohunt and The Pirate Bay launched one a few weeks ago, so Mininova couldn’t stay behind. Personally I’m not a huge fan of these toobars, but some people seem to like it. The good news is, the toolbars are malware free, and generate some extra revenue via the integrated search box. It’s good to see that Mininova and other BitTorrent sites continue to add new features, and improve the service to their users. This is an article from: TorrentFreak Mininova Launches Music Torrent Streaming 
Ex-hippie, ex-médecin du Grateful Dead, ex-épidémiologiste, ex-homme d'affaires, Larry Brilliant est aujourd'hui à la tête de Google.org, la future plus grande fondation philanthropique du monde.
Show Summary: First Amendment: fact or fiction; hackers mark their turf; and an e-mail blunder ends up on the front page of the New York Times.
 Whereas the social news service from Digg relies on members to select and rank
content, a new startup from Sydney, Australia, tiinker, does just the opposite: it treats
each member as an individual and learns what he or she likes.
The service, an
intelligent news aggregator, uses A.I.-like technology to determine your
interests and then adapts to show you the news stories you will find most
interesting. And since web
3.0 may be all about personalization, tiinker just might be the next big
thing.
One of the first things you'll notice about tiinker is that you don't have to
create an account to try it out. Tiinker will remember you for a while using a
browser cookie. You can click "try it now" from the home page to start rating
stories up or down without ever having to log in. If you like the service,
though, you'll want to create an account to save those rankings.
The interface itself is slick, fast, and easy to use. By default, tiinker
aggregates content from thousands of news sources and blogs and sorts them into
the categories of arts & entertainment, business, health & lifestyle,
opinion, politics, science, sports, technology, and world. The stories are
selected for you completely automatically, no humans involved. This is the key
difference between tiinker and the other social news aggregators out there. With
tiinker, story selection is all about you and what you are into - you can't even
cross-reference your selections with others like you or your friends. This is a
personalized news service, not a social network. 
The news stories are chosen for you based on a complex mix of analysis of
what they're about, how much you're interested in similar topics, how long ago
they were published, where in the world they come from, and other factors.
Tiinker will also sometimes present what they call "lucky dip" stories which
are chosen to broaden the range of news you see, by exploring new topics outside
of your common interests.
Ranking stories is as easy as clicking on the "thumbs up" or "thumbs down"
and will help train tiinker to learn your preferences. You'll see stories
becoming relevant to you after you've rated only a few articles, but it may take
a few more visits for tiinker to really know what you like. The algorithm is
continually learning as you use it and will get better at choosing interesting
stories over time.
When you "thumbs down" an item, the service eliminates those kinds of stories
from your profile right away. You also won't see stories appear from categories
you don't browse. However, if you make a mistake and accidentally rank a story
incorrectly, a useful feature allows you to click the thumbs icon again to undo
your selection.
Another unique option is the ability for service to email you stories if
desired. Upon signup, you can select to have tiinker email you stories daily,
weekly, or never. You can also change this option in your settings at any time.
There's an RSS feed available for your stories, and if you are
interested in what the masses are reading, you can check out the "Popular" page,
which has a feed as well. If you want to narrow it down further, each category
page has a personalized feed and a popular feed, too. 
If you start running out of things to read, you can click the "only unseen
stories" link to see all the stories that have never been displayed for you. You
might surprise yourself and find something of interest here.
To mark stories and save them for later by, you click the book icon
underneath the item, which will save it to your "Scrapbook," a section of the
site that holds saved stories. Of course, there's a feed for this as well.
Tiinker looks like a great service to help you sort through the massive
amount of news published daily and gives you a more personal alternative
to sites like Digg.  However, advanced RSS users will probably still want to use
their feed readers in order to maintain control over their news sources, perhaps
only using tiinker feeds to supplement their current RSS list. Still,
the service is a big step forward in the capabilities of machine learning and
for that alone, it's worth a look.
According to traditional wisdom there are two distinct settings for MMO games: a fantasy realm blatantly lifted from Tolkien or a post-catastrophe future.
Creatrix Games, the creators of indie MMO Lila Dreams, has no use for traditional wisdom and has created a game that seems designed specifically to flout every convention the industry has so far created.
I recently interviewed the title's lead designer Jason McIntosh, and came away with some important insights on MMO game development, indie games in general, and a couple pieces of exclusive art. According to the Lila Dreams site the game is being created by three people. Can you tell us who these people are, what they're responsible for in LD and what their prior experience in game design is?
Yeah, who are these people?! Oh, you mean us?
I'm Jason, Lila's lead designer and producer. I made some commercial shareware and casual games. I've been a full-time indie developer for a couple of years now. So I keep doing it.
Greg is Lila's visual designer and production artist. He went all the way to London to get one of those fancy art degree things (though he's back here in the States now), and we've worked together for many years. His work speaks for itself, in my opinion, so he doesn't need any more credentials than that.
Neo is Lila's lead programmer and resident rock climber. He's got 16 years of experience programming professionally, some of it in games (he's done lots of contract work for various entities, like Garage Games) and some in business (lots of web-based, e-business stuff). Plus he has two really cute kids!
That 3-man-design-team figure seems astounding to both myself and many of our readers who are used to MMO developers with teams as large as some Hollywood films. How do you guys expect to be able to put together and maintain a game with so few people?
For one thing, scale. Lila Dreams is an itty-bitty game compared to even the smallest big budget MMO. It's a limitation we understood from the start. We've designed accordingly.
That said, it's not small to us! So we have an incremental launch plan. We're probably going to start with about 30% of the features and content, and then (assuming players like it enough to pay us), we'll continue to build and improve the game over time.
But, that's one nice thing about web games. You can launch and then keep building. Everyone gets automatic updates because the game is browser-based, and one day you log on and--poof!--new stuff to play with and new places to explore! It's the same operational philosophy as lots of “web 2.0†sites that start with a small but polished set of features and gradually grow.
And let's not forget that we have the muscle of Kongregate on our side! They're helping in so many critical ways, from marketing to running servers to creative input.
Obviously the game is still in the early development stages, but could you give us a synopsis of LD's plot/setting/characters/anything? We're dying of curiosity.
There are several overlapping layers to the “storyâ€
aspects. But there's not going to be a big plot to follow with
thousands of epic quests. That's not feasible for us (we don't have
enough level 1 rats around). We have to do things differently.
The “Big Threat†is a darkness which literally surrounds the world,
constantly encroaching inward and eating away the landscape. But there
is also going to be an array of strange creatures from Lila's thoughts
and nightmares with which to contend and befriend. Different areas will
provide different challenges.
The game world itself is a blend of primitive, modern, and even some
science fictional elements. It's still rapidly evolving, so I can't
really say much more except watch the blog for updates and new concept
art.
The most striking thing about LD is obviously its unique setting. While solid information is low, the concept art has caused people to speculate on LD's influences as everything from Alice in Wonderland to Psychonauts to obscure web comics. If only to end all the speculation, what are your true influences in creating the game?
Psychonauts is a pretty obvious game for us to look at for study, but it wasn't something that I based the game idea on at all. I didn't think, “Psychonauts, the MMO!†The games are fundamentally very different.
Some inspirations include: the art of Dice Tsutsumi, games like Animal Crossing, books like Soul Rider, movies like Spirited Away, and having kids of my own and wondering what the world is like from their perspective.
Also just the freedom that having a setting like this would afford was really appealing. I mean, it's all imaginary, so we can dispense with realism and logic any time we want to!
The game's site says players take the role of "memekins." What is a "memekin?"
A memekin is a mental entity that lives in Lila's psyche. They are a warrior caste that protects Lila from the corrosive forces of apathy. Each memekin is aligned with one of eight emotions, and if Lila's mood matches the memekin's alignment good things happen for the memekin. So, even elite warriors can be selfish when they want Lila's mood to favor them. Then we get these tug-of-war conflicts between the emotional factions that want to influence Lila's mood.
But memekins can do more than just go into battle, and we'll be building some of those non-combat activities after launch. It's a concession we have to make in order to stay on budget. There are a lot of things I'd love to implement which are not about combat, and gardening is one big feature in that vein. I want to have as much depth in the non-combat gameplay as possible, because I personally want to be able to do more in this game than kill things.
So ... let me get this straight: instead of crafting items, you grow them? Like ... plants? Please explain.
Well, I'd love to spill those beans all over the place and roll around in them, but then that wouldn't leave any for later.
I can say that the reason I designed it that way is because I was bored with crafting in every other game I've played. After I saw how much fun my wife had crafting things in Morrowind, I knew crafting should be a big feature. But I want it to be deeper in terms of mechanics, and I want to participate in the crafting process, not just operate a vending machine. Plus, it's both weird and logical to grow items in a setting like this one.
Aside from saying the combat is going to be 2D with RPG elements, little is known about the system. You guys do have combat in LD in some form, but can you clarify exactly how it works?
To be honest, we don't even know, precisely. (Whew--more beans spared from premature spillage and rollery!)
Since there is no level grind, your character's power is mostly in the items you have, so customization of items and resource management is a huge aspect of combat and the game in general. Gardening is very integral with combat in that way.
Once we get to the point where we have figured out some of the strategies and potential that arise from this massive amount of options, I can talk more about it.
Is there a concern that creating a game with such a distinct, original premise and setting that you'll inadvertently alienate large groups of gamers who are simply comfortable with what is already available?
I knew from the start that I wanted to design a game that zigs when other games are zagging, because I am not satisfied with the experiences on offer. I think there are gamers out there that will agree. The game will find its own audience.
The game is being developed by Creatrix and is being published by Kongregate as a free-to-play title, correct? How will that situation
work and did you ever consider shopping the game to larger publishers
such as Nexon or Sony Online Entertainment?
Lila Dreams will be a free-to-play game, yes. We'll be
using micro-transaction sales as the primary way to fund development
after launch.
I had been wanting to get into web games for a while before Kongregate
announced the Premium Games program (where they hand out advance
funding in exchange for a cut of the profits later). We were between
projects, and I was already generating ideas for our next game. So, the
timing was perfect. The deal Kongregate is offering is unprecedented,
and I couldn't be happier with it.
I would never have approached any big company about the game. For one,
it's a crazy game! I don't expect they would be willing to take the
risk. For another, we would have lost the rights to the game (because
that's what most publishers do to developers). We also would have
gotten a rotten back-end royalty rate.
For yet another thing, we would not have the “family†operation feel
that we get working with Kongregate. They're a really great bunch, and
they talk to us like people instead of property.
Any idea when the game will see release or beta?
There might be some news around Halloween. But that's what I see from my third eye, so it might be inaccurate.
We keep hearing from Amazon that the Kindle is sold out and it's doing great, yet we've yet to receive any concrete numbers to confirm the company's excitement.
In a quick interview with the Silicon Alley Insider, Arthur Klebanoff, the CEO of e-book publisher RosettaBooks, declared that he has so far seen no evidence that the Bezo-Box has generated any more revenue for his company than Sony's e-Reader. And if you know anything about Sony's Reader, is that it hasn't been considered a runaway success by anyone.
Still, Klebanoff and other insiders have noted that for these types of new products, it takes more than a year to really understand their value in the marketplace, since the delivery system, the hardware, and the idea of the technology's availability is all new to many consumers. We think that the fairly intense media blitz during the Kindle's launch actually helped both e-reading devices, and that it probably increased the possibility that we will see much better (and hopefully not DRM-ed) devices in the near future, from both Sony, Amazon, and other competitors.Â
Check out our previous post on the Kindle vs. the Reader right here.
If you're going to build a floating chair, why not make it look as high tech as possible? That's what Brit company Hoverit has done with its magnetic, levitating chair. Is it a mistake that this picture looks like something out of Tron? No: Hoverit continue to develop and design and engineer their entire range using state-of-the-art CAD software. The Hoverit has big-assed magnets in both the base and the upper section of the acrylic chair to keep it floating. If you have credit cards in your wallet, we suggest leaving them on a side table. Product page [Hoverit via The Register]
Dominique Cardon, Maxime Crepel, Bertil Hatt, Nicolas Pissard, Christophe Prieur du laboratoire Sense d’Orange Labs ont synthétisé les 10 principes de fonctionnement des plateformes relationnelles. Ces caractéristiques génériques, que l’on retrouve dans la plupart des plateformes à succès du web 2.0, ne mettent pas en valeur un esprit communautaire, comme on le croit souvent, mais exploitent “la force des coopérations faibles†, c’est-à -dire favorisent une dynamique de bien commun à partir de logiques d’intérêt personnel. Un schéma pour comprendre les modes de coopérations et le web d’aujourd’hui.
Les nouveaux usages des plateformes relationnelles du web 2.0 (blogs, Flickr, Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) font apparaître des modes de collaboration inédits entre utilisateurs. En écho au célèbre article de Mark Granovetter sur la force des liens faibles (.pdf), on propose de qualifier ce modèle de coopérations faibles [1]. A la différence des coopérations “fortes†qui se fondent sur une communauté préexistante de valeurs et d’intentions, les coopérations faibles se caractérisent par la formation “opportuniste†de liens et de collectifs qui ne présupposent pas, préalablement, d’intentionnalité collective ou d’appartenance “communautaire†.
En invitant à rendre publiques informations et productions personnelles et en développant des fonctionnalités de communication et de mise en partage, ces plateformes proposent une articulation originale entre individualisme et solidarité. Elles favorisent une dynamique de bien commun à partir de logiques d’intérêt personnel. C’est ce mécanisme qu’il nous semble nécessaire d’interroger. A partir des travaux de sociologie des réseaux sociaux et des études des grands graphes d’interactions, nous proposons une caractérisation succincte de 10 principes de fonctionnement essentiels sur lesquels repose la réussite des plateformes relationnelles du web 2.0.
 1. L’individualisme démonstratif. A l’origine de leur engagement sur une plateforme relationnelle, les personnes sont d’abord motivées par une raison personnelle : parler d’elles, montrer leurs photos, leurs goûts ou leurs connaissances. Le web 2.0 prend appui sur le développement croissant d’un individualisme démonstratif qui prescrit à chacun de se singulariser des autres en affichant ses petites différences. Aussi paradoxal soit-il, c’est donc l’exacerbation de l’individualisme dans un contexte qui valorise la reconnaissance symbolique des singularités de chacun qui est au principe de la coopération numérique.
 2. La visibilité comme opportunité de coopération. En rendant publiques des productions individuelles autrefois réservées au cercle des proches, les participants aux sites du web 2.0 offrent un ensemble de prises qui rend possible une mise en relation, un échange ou une coopération avec d’autres. La coopération est donc une conséquence émergente de l’engagement individuel des personnes. Elle est souvent opportuniste, peu intentionnelle, fragile et temporaire. Les participants découvrent chemin faisant de nouvelles raisons de faire des choses ensemble. Mais la condition essentielle pour que ces coopérations potentielles se réalisent est que les individus choisissent préalablement de rendre publiques des productions, des informations, des données, explicites ou implicites, qui les concernent.
 3. Les “amis†ne sont pas forcément des amis. Parmi les différents signes identitaires qu’affichent les participants sur les sites du web 2.0, la liste de leurs relations (contacts, amis, etc.) constitue l’un des principaux vecteurs du développement viral des usages. Cependant, le carnet de contacts affiché sur ces sites est extrêmement divers, multiple et proliférant. Tous les “amis†ne sont pas des amis et il importe pour comprendre les différents usages de ces plateformes d’être attentif à la diversité des formes de capital relationnel qu’accumulent les individus. Par exemple, sur Skyblogs ou Facebook, les participants affichent de petits réseaux de contacts qui sont principalement constitués de personnes connues dans la vie réelle, alors que sur MySpace ou Flickr, les participants exhibent parfois des listes extrêmement longues de contacts qui, la plupart du temps, ne sont que des “connaissances numériques†.
 4. Les communautés ne sont que des réseaux solidifiés. Il est souvent abusif de parler de “communautés†dans l’univers du web 2.0. De fait, la toile des réseaux de contacts et d’échanges qui lient les personnes les unes aux autres se densifie parfois autour de pratiques, de goûts ou d’activités partagés. Lorsque se forme un “paquet†de nœuds fortement liés entre eux, les participants s’identifient, s’organisent et se structurent en un groupe qui peut prendre une forme communautaire. Mais il existe une très grande variété de formes collectives sur les plateformes du web 2.0 qui ont des architectures, des modes de gouvernance et des trajectoires très différentes. En deçà de la forme “forte†de la communauté, ce sont souvent des “coopérations faibles†organisées en collectif provisoire, imparfait et labile qui, par leur souplesse, leur multiplicité et leur sens du mouvement, sont à l’origine des usages les plus innovants du web 2.0.
 5. La circulation horizontale. La recherche d’informations et la navigation sur les plateformes du web 2.0 se font rarement sous la forme d’un moteur catégoriel. Elles sont surtout horizontales, les personnes cheminant à travers leur réseau étendu d’amis et, par extension, via les contenus et les traces mis en partage par ce cercle social élargi. Avec le développement des folksonomies, qui sont à la fois des systèmes de catégorisation et d’exploration pris en charge par les utilisateurs eux-mêmes, les plateformes du web 2.0 se présentent comme un monde relativement plat, offrant des modes de navigation transversaux variés et des outils collectifs d’évaluation. L’univers peu hiérarchisé de ces plateformes favorise le principe de sérendipité, amenant les utilisateurs à faire des découvertes inattendues.
 6. La distribution d’engagements hétérogènes. Alors que les “communautés fortes†de la vie réelle supportent mal la diversité des pratiques et la distribution inégale des engagements, les collectifs du web 2.0 se caractérisent par une très grande hétérogénéité des formes de participation. Les usages y sont d’abord extraordinairement diversifiés, multiples, contradictoires et foisonnants. L’intensité de l’engagement dans les plateformes se répartit ensuite systématiquement selon une loi de puissance (parfois appelé 1/10/100) qui voit une minorité de participants être très actifs, une portion non négligeable participer régulièrement et une grande masse de personnes avoir des usages extrêmement réduits ou quasi nuls. Les collectifs en ligne ont comme caractéristique d’être très tolérants à l’égard des personnes inactives ou peu engagées.
 7. Les “petits†sont nécessaires aux “grands†. La distribution hétérogène des engagements est aussi un principe de l’économie particulière de ces plateformes dans lesquelles les “petits†sont nécessaires aux “grands†. Les petits engagements, comme la correction de fautes d’orthographe sur Wikipédia, sont indispensables au travail collectif de mise en relation, de catégorisation et de production de savoir des plus actifs. De même, le dépôt de quelques photos de vacances sur Flickr, lorsque celles-ci seront taguées et identifiées dans des groupes par d’autres, permettra d’enrichir le bien collectif constitué par l’ensemble de la plateforme.
 8. La qualité par le nombre. Dans un univers d’abondance, de redondance, de multiplicité et d’ouverture, la qualité des contributions est une conséquence du nombre de participants. Sur Wikipedia, les articles les plus “sûrs†sont généralement ceux qui ont été rédigés par le plus grand nombre. Les univers massivement relationnels ont pour caractéristique de ne pas sélectionner a priori les contributeurs et les contributions, mais de les qualifier a posteriori en fonction de la réputation et de la fréquentation des contenus. En conséquence, la qualité est le résultat de la capacité d’une contribution ou d’un contributeur à attirer vers lui un nombre toujours plus important d’utilisateurs, de lecteurs ou de commentateurs.
 9. Les hiérarchies produites par le comportement des autres. Le monde des plateformes relationnelles n’est pas organisé par des hiérarchies préétablies fondées sur le statut social des personnes, leur qualification, leur prestige ou leur diplôme. Il s’agit d’un monde profondément méritocratique qui récompense ceux des participants qui sont parvenus à intéresser les autres. C’est donc par leurs activités, par la mise en œuvre de leur compétence, par la visibilité qu’ils ont su donner à leurs actions que se dessinent des hiérarchies entre utilisateurs. Les collectifs du web 2.0 ne sont cependant pas des démocraties plates, auto-organisées et rigoureusement égalitaires. Elles font même apparaître des hiérarchies très fortes, des comportements stratégiques et des appariements sélectifs, mais ces hiérarchies, souvent changeantes et mobiles, sont le produit collectif du comportement individuel des autres.
 10. Toujours rebondir ! Enfin, s’il est une règle de comportement essentielle dans l’univers des plateformes relationnelles, c’est bien celle d’être toujours actif, en mouvement, prêt à s’investir dans un nouveau projet. La variabilité des engagements, dans le temps comme dans leur objet, est une caractéristique récurrente des usages. Les participants multiplient leurs identités, participent à plusieurs communautés et rebondissent incessamment d’une plateforme à l’autre. L’instabilité n’est sans doute pas seulement une conséquence de la jeunesse et de la nouveauté de ce type de services, mais une propriété plus fondamentale de l’attrait pour ces engagements relationnels.
*
Ces 10 propriétés commandent une forme particulière d’organisation des systèmes relationnels que nous appelons la force des coopérations faibles. Cette formule, qui n’est pas sans défaut, permet cependant d’insister sur le fait que la réussite du web 2.0 ne tient pas tellement à un “esprit communautaire†, mais plutôt au fait que, dans les sociétés individualistes, les personnes produisent entre elles des liens et des relations en exprimant ce par quoi elles cherchent à se singulariser et à s’affirmer comme sujets.
Dominique Cardon, Maxime Crepel, Bertil Hatt, Nicolas Pissard, Christophe Prieur
________________
1. Aguiton (Christophe), Cardon (Dominique), “The Strength of Weak Cooperation : An attempt to Understand the Meaning of Web2.0†, Communications & Strategies, n°65, 1st quarter 2007, p. 51-65.
Trembled Blossoms is a short animated Prada ad based on some mind-blowing designs from James Jean. Some of the stuff is rendered beautifully while other stuff misses the mark and lands somewhere in the uncanny valley (like the figure above).
Interesting to see Jean’s work in motion though.
(via Cartoon Brew )
Tonight some policy wonkery from TortDeform:  The Civil Justice Defense Blog Election ’08: A Pro-Civil Justice Presidential Platform Far too many victims of harms like employment discrimination, medical malpractice, predatory lending, and breach of contract find that they have inadvertently waived their Constitutional right to a jury trial when they signed a contract containing a binding mandatory arbitration "agreement." Virtually every adult American has signed such a provision, now commonly nestled in the fine print of employment, consumer, and other contracts. Binding mandatory arbitration clauses send disputing parties to a private arbitrator rather than a public court. Unfortunately, however, arbitration’s burdensome costs, lack of procedural protections and the documented anti-consumer bias of some arbitration companies make it particularly harmful to individuals and beneficial to companies. The Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA") is a federal law originally designed to allow equally powerful companies to agree to arbitrate, but increasingly used to enforce arbitration between corporations and people, denying individuals their Constitutional right to access the civil justice system. Our next President must support the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007, which will amend the FAA by prohibiting pre-dispute arbitration agreements in all contracts involving employees, consumers or franchisees, and "in disputes arising under any statute intended to protect civil rights or to regulate contracts or transactions between parties of unequal bargaining power." Concepts of justice and fundamental fairness demand that American citizens be free from binding mandatory arbitration contracts in their consumer, employment, and service agreements. That’s just a taste to whet your appetite. Follow the link. In 1981, Joel Gareau wrote a book, The Nine Nations of North America, which divided the country into nine regions with distinctive cultural, economic and sociological characteristics that paid no attention to state and international boundaries. You can argue about his assumptions, and many have, but just for a little demographic interlude, tonight's poll asks where you live in those nine regions. Here's a map: 
Which U.S. Senators voted for the resolution that authorized the use of force in Iraq? 29 Democratic US Senators, and all but one (R-RI, Chafee) Republican. The full roll call on H.J.Res. 114, 107th Congress, A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq, is here. The vote count was YEAs 77, NAYs 23.
Below is a list of the Democrat Senators who vote YEA. I wish everyone voted NAY, but note that, in additional to Hillary, a number of very good people voted YEA at the time. Obama did not vote on the resolution, because he was a member of the Illinois State Senate, rather than the U.S. Senate, at the time. Congressman Jim McGovern, a leading critic of the Iraq war, recently discussed Obama's 2004 comments on the Iraq war in this Huffington Post blog, which includes this 2004 Obama quote "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know." I think that was an honest answer.
Here are the Democratic Senators who voted YEA on October 2002.
Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Breaux (D-LA), Yea
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Carnahan (D-MO), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Cleland (D-GA), Yea
Clinton (D-NY), Yea
Daschle (D-SD), Yea
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Edwards (D-NC), Yea
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Hollings (D-SC), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Lieberman (D-CT), Yea
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Miller (D-GA), Yea
Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Yea
Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Schumer (D-NY), Yea
Torricelli (D-NJ), Yea
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