Monthly Archives: March 2014

Council wants action on freedom campers

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City officials have been too "soft" on freedom campers but any tough new measures to address the issue are at least another year away.

The Christchurch City Council strategy and planning committee yesterday criticised officials for not taking a hard enough line against freedom campers and demanded they get tougher next summer.

How that harder line worked would determine whether a bylaw would be introduced.

Cr Raf Manji said officials had been too "soft" and they seemed to be "dithering" on what to do about the problem. Queenstown-Lakes District Council had introduced a hard-line approach to freedom camping which seemed to be working, yet Christchurch officials had done little.

"We have to get our act together . . . it's just ridiculous," Manji said.

Freedom camping has infuriated many this summer, especially in Akaroa, where there had been many reports of visitors dumping their waste and blocking access to public areas.

Council staff had recommended the committee continue to deal with the issue on a case-by-case basis because a bylaw was not a priority when the council had to deal with other pressing earthquake recovery matters.

The committee said not enough was being done to tackle the issue and questioned whether staff were using all the legal tools at their disposal.

The committee agreed there were tools the council could use to deter freedom camping without the need for a bylaw immediately.

- Fairfax NZ News

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Council wants action on freedom campers

US First Lady Stresses Freedom of Speech in China

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U.S. first lady Michelle Obama told students in China, which has some of the world's tightest restrictions on the Internet, that freedom of speech and unfettered access to information make countries stronger and should be universal rights.

Mrs. Obama was speaking Saturday at Peking University in Beijing during a weeklong trip aimed at promoting educational exchanges between the U.S. and China. The trip also took on political overtones when she was granted a previously unscheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday.

Mrs. Obama said the free flow of information is crucial "because that's how we discover truth, that's how we learn what's really happening in our communities and our country and our world."

"And that's how we decide which values and ideas we think are best by questioning and debating them vigorously, by listening to all sides of every argument and by judging for ourselves," she said.

China blocks many foreign news sites and social media services such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Its army of censors routinely filters out information deemed offensive by the government and silences dissenting voices.

Though not likely to be well-received by the government, Mrs. Obama's remarks may not draw any strong protest because her speech and a subsequent moderated discussion among 50 students sitting in two identical conference rooms in Beijing and Palo Alto, Calif., but connected via modern technology focused mainly on the value of educational exchanges.

Fulbright scholar Eleanor Goodman from Harvard University's Fairbanks Center for East Asian Research said the first lady probably "felt a need to make that statement."

"It was firm but not overbearing," Goodman said.

Sunny Ni, a Chinese student studying environmentalism at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, said that she has no problem accessing information for her studies, and that China is improving with free flow of information.

"It's a step-by-step process," Ni said.

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US First Lady Stresses Freedom of Speech in China

As Snowden roams free in robot form, our cyborg future has arrived

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I take it back I take it all back.

The Beam teleconference robot is not the douchiest product of all time, as I so cynically claimed after seeing it in action during the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show. In fact, its amazing so amazing that its use by NSA whistleblower and eloquent fugitive badass Edward Snowden at this weeks TED Talks made me realize an idea that is both astonishing and, somehow, already a normal part of 21st century life: Thanks to technology, we are not longer merely humans at all. We are cyborgs. The line has been crossed.

Using Beams keyboard-powered interface, Snowden wheeled around the stage, giving himself a better look at the audience.

Beam, if you havent yet encountered it, is a remote presence system made by Suitable Technologies, and first launched in 2012. The $16,000 contraption has an iPad-like screen for a face, multiple Internet-connected cameras, and has wheels that allow users to pilot around a room (or, in Snowdens case, a conference center).

The company touts many uses for Beam eliminating the need for business executives to travel to international offices, allowing doctors to better treat quarantined patients, remote learning for university students all of which I dismissed as secondary to Beams eerie presence after experiencing it on the show floor of CES. In retrospect, I realize that I was simply being an unimaginative jerk.

The next time I came across a Beam was this week, while streaming TED Talks to my TV with Google Chromecast. (Highly recommended, FYI.) Thanks to the Beam, Snowden appeared on stage in Vancouver for a 35-minute interview with TED head Chris Anderson. Using Beams keyboard-powered interface, he wheeled around the stage, giving himself a better look at the audience. He shifted his digital gaze to have a quick chat with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, father of the Web, who had a brief on-stage cameo. He wore, below his screen, a big name tag that read Edward Snowden, citizen.

Seeing as this is a TED, home of next-generation ideas and thinking, it is easy to take this futuristic scene for granted. But lets just pause for a moment to reflect on what took place: From a secret remote location in Russia, Snowden, one of the most sought-after fugitives from the U.S. government, gave an interview, chatted with the inventor of the Web, tooled around on a stage some 5,000 miles away, then mingled with the TED crowd, and even had his picture taken with Googles Larry Page.

That is goddamn incredible.

Without the Beam, most of that would have been impossible. Yes, he could have still done the interview part, like he did at SXSW. But he certainly couldnt have taken selfies with TED-goers. And, I imagine, it wouldnt have felt like he was really there. Even from my remote location (on my couch), Beam-Snowden seemed like a person, like a living being occupying space around other living beings. He wasnt just a face on a screen.

This idea that we are already cyborgs an interdependent mix of man and machine is not new. But it is part of our reality. Just snatch a smartphone away from a 16-year-old, and youll see that neither function well without the other. Nor is it novel that technology allows us to do things that were previously impossible thats the point. But Beam-Snowden is something different; he (it, whatever) existed in a place outside his body. He did, in fact, go to Canada.

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As Snowden roams free in robot form, our cyborg future has arrived

Natural hot springs at Therma Beach on Kos Island – Beaches and attractions in Kos – Video

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Natural hot springs at Therma Beach on Kos Island - Beaches and attractions in Kos
We are at the natural hot springs found at Therma Beach on the Greek island of Kos in Greece. Its July at the height of summer and many tourists and locals h...

By: Traveller

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Natural hot springs at Therma Beach on Kos Island - Beaches and attractions in Kos - Video

Avett Brothers "If It’s the Beaches" Johnny Mercer Theatre, Savannah, GA. 03.20.14 – Video

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Avett Brothers "If It #39;s the Beaches" Johnny Mercer Theatre, Savannah, GA. 03.20.14
Another gem! 4th Song in a 5 Song Encore Set List: Amazing Grace Will you Return Go to Sleep Distraction 74 Pretty Girl From Annapolis Another is Waiting Sal...

By: DCRANGERFAN

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Avett Brothers "If It's the Beaches" Johnny Mercer Theatre, Savannah, GA. 03.20.14 - Video