atxhomeguide.com

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Freelance journalist writing for Wikinews, Gabriel Pollard, with help from Brian Anderton, has interviewed New Zealand-based blogger, David Farrar on blogging, web 2.0, and the Internet in general.

David Farrar is most known for his “fairly popular” blog, Kiwiblog, where he posts on various topics, including politics and technology. He is the vice-president of the Internet Society of New Zealand, and has been involved in helping to split Telecom New Zealand up and in anti-spam legislation.

David Farrar first started using the “best invention ever,” Internet, in February 1996 after having owned a BBC Micro microcomputer since 1982. On the Internet he debated various issues using Usenet newsgroups. Kiwiblog now serves for this purpose. He then got his own personal Internet account with ihug in August of that year.

Farrar also has political ties, which can be seen in some of his blog posts. For eight years, Farrar worked for various Prime Ministers (PM) and Opposition leaders for the National Party, working with the likes of former PM Jim Bolger and former PM Jenny Shipley in the Media Services Unit of Ministerial Services.

Until Farrar landed himself a job in parliament, he had been using mainly Apple computers, “[I] finally converted to Microsoft in 1997 after being the only person in Parliament to have a Mac!”

Farrar was involved with introducing public e-mail for ministers, and the first Prime Minister website.

In 2004, after leaving politics, Farrar set up his polling and research company.

Kiwiblog, sparked by now defunct blog NZ Pundit by Gordon King, currently receives over 300,000 visitors a month. He suspects that Russell Brown, and the Spareroom blogs get well over 100,000 visitors. “There’s then probably a dozen or so other bloggers who get into the tens of thousands.”

“Gordon [King] would post wonderful polemics challenging the conventional thinking and reporting, and after a few months of reading him I realized that I also had views and could try sharing them with the world. So in July 2003 I made my first post, and enjoyed it ever since.”

Farrar admits to not having a deliberate strategy for promoting himself and his blog, he just found that doing more posts in a day and posting what he was interested in got the visitors that were interested in the same things. “Oh and most important of all is to have a sense of humour and enjoy doing it.”

If Farrar wasn’t blogging, he says he would be “Earning money! I spend far too long blogging when I should be working on more business. However it is doing well enough that I can divide my time up between my business, InternetNZ and blogging and not starve.”

Farrar has a few tips for those politicians who have started a blog, or are looking at starting one up, “Very few are successful because [they] treat it as a one way communication tool where they just post press releases or travel diaries. Rodney Hide is the best example of doing it the right way. John Key is video blogging and responding to comments through future videos, which is a different way to interact.” But still warns that most readers of blog prefer “honest opinion” instead of reading what the politicians want them to read.

Farrar is a huge supporter of Wikipedia and says that he uses it multiples times a day. He says that he was “very proud” when the Wikipedia community regarded him as notable enough to have his own entry.

“I wish I had more time to edit Wikipedia. There’s lots more NZ content to get onto there.”

Sites like YouTube, which Farrar uses daily, show that they can leave big brand names like Google Video for dead if they show strong innovation, Farrar says.

Farrar says the success to websites such as Wikipedia and YouTube is because of multiple user generated content, “…rather than tightly controlled content from one source.” The focus on the community at large is also a major factor of their success.

When asked where he sees the Internet in decades from now, his simple response was, “I wish I knew.” But he does predict every house in New Zealand will be connected to the Internet via fibre optics.

One scenario Farrar drew was, “…being able to see a map of your local area on your phone, and not just get told where the nearest toilets or bookstore is, but also if any of your friends are nearby.”

David Farrar would just like to say thanks for the opportunity of being interviewed on Wikinews.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

A tornado, spawned from a large storm, has hit the United States city of Atlanta, Georgia, causing extensive damage throughout the city.

The National Weather Service confirmed Saturday morning that it was a tornado that struck the city. After reviewing the aftermath of the storm, they classified it as an EF2 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita scale. Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin says she is beginning to apply for federal disaster aid.

There have been no confirmed deaths, but the mayor’s spokeswoman says there may be dead victims trapped within the ruins of a collapsed loft complex. The Fulton Cotton Mill Lofts are located in the historic Cabbagetown neighborhood, where at least 20 homes were destroyed. “It looks like a bomb went off, it looks like World War III,” said Mahsud Olufani, who has an art studio in the neighbourhood. “It’s a disaster area.”

At least 27 people suffered injuries, mostly cuts and bruises. One person is reported to be in critical condition. Grady Memorial Hospital, where many of the injured were taken, had suffered some window damage but was still operating. Around 50 people have been taken to a local Red Cross shelter for displaced residents.

The tornado struck during the semifinal game of the SEC Basktetball Tournament between Mississippi State and Alabama. Play was stopped with around 2 minutes to go in overtime when heavy wind could be heard outside with rippling of the roof. Damage was done to the roof as debris fell to the floor. No injuries were reported in the Dome. “I thought it was a tornado or a terrorist attack,” said Mississippi State guard Ben Hansbrough.

The storm arrived with little forewarning. A tornado warning was issued for the downtown area a few minutes before the storm hit. “Ironically, the guy behind me got a phone call saying there was a tornado warning,” said Lisa Lynn, who was attending the game at the Georgia Dome. “And in two seconds, we heard the noise and things started to shake. It was creepy.”

The CNN Center in downtown Atlanta was severely damaged, especially in the atrium, where the ravaged ceiling allowed water to pour in. Police closed several streets near the CNN Center because of the debris, which included power lines, billboards, and even office chairs.

The Omni Hotel, which is attached to the CNN Center, also sustained damage, with many of its windows shattered. Visitors at the hotel were evacuated to the exhibition hall at street level. “It was crazy. There was a lot of windows breaking and stuff falling,” said Terrence Evans, a valet at the hotel.

At Centennial Olympic Park, located near CNN and the Omni Hotel, two Olympic torch sculptures had fallen over, and a performance pavilion was destroyed. A high-rise dorm at Georgia State University was damaged by the tornado, as evidenced by a large hole in the building’s 14th floor. University students were evacuated on buses.

According to Georgia Power, more than 13,000 of their customers are currently without electricity. Crews are working to fix downed power lines, but they said it would be difficult with all the debris.

Another large storm, currently in Mississippi, is heading towards Atlanta, and is forecast to arrive around 3 p.m. National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Leary said Friday’s storm could be “nothing to compare with what’s coming in tomorrow”.

All downtown events scheduled to occur Saturday have been cancelled. This includes the city’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade. The remaining SEC tournament games are to be played at Georgia Tech‘s Alexander Memorial Coliseum, located in the undamaged midtown.

Monday, December 28, 2009

The release of the movie Avatar, written and directed by James Cameron, has generated increased interest in the field of constructed language, also known as conlang. Cameron asked American linguistics professor Paul Frommer to develop a language spoken by the extraterrestrial people in the film known as the Na’vi.

Author J. R. R. Tolkien developed Elvish languages for his literary series The Lord of the Rings. The Elvish language was featured in scenes of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson.

The Klingon language (tlhIngan Hol) was developed by linguist Marc Okrand, initially for use in the 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Okrand drew inspiration from Klingon lines spoken by actor James Doohan in the film Star Trek: The Motion Picture; Doohan portrayed character Montgomery Scott in the Star Trek series. A dictionary for Klingon developed by Okrand, The Klingon Dictionary sold over 300,000 copies.

Klingon became quite popular and has developed a usage among Star Trek fans. The Klingon Terran Research Ensemble in the Netherlands created an opera in Klingon. The play Hamlet by William Shakespeare was translated into Klingon. A German Trekkie who goes by the moniker Klenginem posted videos to YouTube where he raps songs he translated into Klingon by musician Eminem. Klenginem has been cited recently in pieces on constructed language in The New York Times, ABC News Nightline, and National Public Radio. “You know your alien language has taken off when a German guy translates rap songs into it,” said National Public Radio of Klenginem.

Linguistics professor Frommer received his PhD degree from the University of Southern California (USC), and subsequently shifted his focus into the business arena. He returned to USC to teach at the Marshall School of Business. Cameron tasked Frommer with creating an entire language for the Na’vi people.

In an interview with Geoff Boucher of the Los Angeles Times, Frommer voiced hope that the language would continue to be used separate from the movie, as Klingon has. “I’m still working and I hope that the language will have a life of its own,” said Frommer. The Na’vi language created by Frommer contains over 1,000 words, as well as a structural system and rules format for usage. Frommer told Vanity Fair that the language was fairly developed, commenting, “It’s got a perfectly consistent sound system, and grammar, orthography, syntax”.

Frommer explained the direction given to him before creating the language, “Cameron wanted something melodious and musical, something that would sound strange and alien but smooth and appealing.” The Avatar writer-director provided Frommer with approximately three dozen words of the Na’vi language he used in his scriptment for the film. “That was the starting point. Probably the most exotic thing I added were ejectives, which are these sorts of popping sounds that are found in different languages from around the world. It’s found in Native American languages and in parts of Africa and in Central Asia, the Caucasus,” explained Frommer. Cameron and Frommer worked together for four years developing the language.

The linguistics professor relied on inspiration provided by Cameron, and avoided drawing upon influences from Elvish, Klingon, and the international auxiliary language Esperanto. Sample words in the Na’vi language include “Uniltìrantokx” (oo-neel-tih-RAHN-tokx), meaning “Avatar”, and “tireaioang” (tee-REH-ah-ee-o-ahng), which means “spirit animal”. Maclean’s reported that fans of Avatar were anxious for more instructive material from professor Frommer about the language in order to learn how to speak it with others that appreciated the film. “The response has been quite remarkable and totally unexpected. I never thought there’d be this level of interest. But I really don’t think of Na’vi as a competitor to Klingon. If it does develop a following, that would be quite wonderful,” said Frommer of the response to the language from Avatar fans.

The Na’vi language is itself a minor plot point in the film Avatar. The character Jake Sully portrayed by Sam Worthington endeavors to learn the language while living on Pandora. A botanist portrayed by actress Sigourney Weaver instructs a scientist played by actor Joel David Moore on how to become conversational in the language.

Zoe Saldaña, the actress behind warrior princess Neytiri in Avatar, picked up the Na’vi language faster than her fellow cast members. “Zoe owned the language and everyone had to match her, even her accent,” said Cameron. Saldaña remarked that the most difficult part about acting in the film was speaking in English with the accent of the Na’vi people. Cameron touted the rich nature of the Na’vi language in publicity for his film. “We wanted to ‘out-Klingon’ Klingon. The best sci-fi movies immerse the audience in that world until it doesn’t seem alien to them,” said Cameron to USA Today.

Friday, July 7, 2006

A 36-year-old man, who is yet to be named, is undergoing surgery after an attacker lodged a knife through one cheek and out the other. The handle broke off, leaving the 15-cm (about 6 inches) blade inside him. The man was rushed to hospital today, July 7, at about 2 a.m. NZST. The attack occurred last night after a domestic row in Albany on Auckland‘s North Shore.

New Zealand Police report that the knife just missed his optic nerve and his condition is stable and not life threatening.

John Chaplin, head and neck surgeon said, “the man could be treated relatively simply. The major blood vessels of the head were further back in the neck and the knife could be relatively easily removed in an operating theatre where bleeding could be controlled.”

The police have issued an arrest warrant for Vance Paraki Tuheke, 31-year-old, in relation to the attack.

The victim may suffer from some facial numbness.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Elizabeth May has been elected leader of the Green Party of Canada today, winning the position with 2,145 votes or 65.34 per cent of ballot cast. She beat her nearest rival, environmental consultant and Green deputy leader David Chernushenko by a margin of almost 2 to 1. Jim Fannon, the third candidate, finished far back with only 29 votes. The new leader will replace Jim Harris, who stepped down after holding the position since 2003.

In her acceptance speech, May called on the federal government to give notice that Canada will withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement in order to force the United States to renegotiate the treaty.

May, a long-time environmental activist and former executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada takes over the party which received 4.5 per cent of the popular vote in the last federal election, enough to secure over $1 million a year in federal funding but not enough to elect any of its candidates to the Canadian House of Commons. Chernushenko won the highest vote percentage of any Green candidate in the January election winning 10% of the vote in Ottawa Centre.

“We draw pretty much equally from across the entire political spectrum,” Jim Harris told CBC News. “If you were a Progressive Conservative, as I was, where do you go? The Green party supports Kyoto. We were opposed to the war in Iraq and yet at the same time we’re fiscally responsible. This is something that’s attractive to people.”

“What we need to do is clearly build a method and a platform so that they are not voting for ‘none of the above’ but so that they are voting for ‘all my dreams,’ ” said May after her victory.

The race has brought new people to the party with membership rising from 5,517 to 8,694 in recent months.

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Kenneth L. Lay, the Enron ex-chief executive and ex-chair, died early Wednesday morning at his vacation home at the age of 64 after a massive coronary attack, according to a family spokesperson.

Lay was found guilty of six counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the Enron scandal on May 25, 2006 and convicted on four counts of bank fraud in a separate non-jury trial. He was awaiting a sentencing on October 23 and faced the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison.

In 2001, Enron went bankrupt with debts of $31.8bn (£18bn), and 4,000 people were left jobless.

As a result of Lay’s death prior to exhausting his appeals, his conviction is abated, and Lay is legally considered never to have been indicted or convicted of criminal charges.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Early yesterday afternoon local time, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit Afghanistan, Pakistan and North India, with its epicenter in the Hindu Kush mountain range which stretches from Afghanistan to North Pakistan, causing damage to life and buildings. A Wikinews correspondent felt the shock waves in Behror, Rajasthan at 2:50 PM IST (0920 UTC).

Hundreds of people died in this disaster. The death toll is highest in Pakistan. Pakistani officials yesterday afternoon declared over 145 people were found dead. United States Geological Survey reported the earthquake occurred at 212km depth due to reverse faulting. Twelve students died in the rush due to trembles, in an Afghani girls’ school in Takhar, near Badakhshan. Two elderly women in Kashmir died due to heart attack. Some people in Pakistan died by crushing by roof collapse.

Indian states Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi National Capital Region were affected. Srinagar experienced a power cutoff after the earthquake.

During yesterday afternoon, Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi communicated with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, volunteering help. He also tweeted “Heard about strong earthquake in Afghanistan-Pakistan region whose tremors have been felt in parts of India. I pray for everyone’s safety.”

Yesterday evening, Pervez Rashid, Pakistani Information Minister, declared Pakistan would not ask for help for resources and rescue work and thanked India for offering help. “We have enough resources to handle the situation. Our top priority is to help those affected because of the earthquake”.

As of earlier today, officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan came up with statistics of 237 deaths in Pakistan and a total rising to 311.

Almost a decade ago, this region suffered an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A suicide car bomb attack in northwestern Pakistan has killed at least 30 people, including some children.

Investigators say the bomb exploded Tuesday on a busy street near a market in the city of Charsadda, 40 kilometers north of Peshawar. The blast wounded dozens of people and destroyed several buildings.

“The death toll has gone up to 32 and more than 100 people have been wounded in this suicide attack,” said Bashir Bilour, the Senior Minister of North West Frontier Province.

Hazrat Ali, a shopkeeper, was a witness to the event. He recounted his experiences to the Agence France-Presse news agency. “I was buying something before closing my shop. A car was parked on the other side of the road and all of a sudden there was a huge blast. There was smoke and darkness everywhere. I passed out.” Ali sustained shrapnel injuries to his forehead and torso.

This was the third bombing in the area in three days. On Monday, a suicide bomber in a rickshaw blew himself up at a checkpoint in Peshawar, killing three people. A suicide bomber killed thirteen people in a crowded market outside the city on Sunday.