weapons of massdistraction

I haven’t mentioned WikiLeaks here before, but let me say I’ve been following them with great interest for quite a while. Here’s a fantastic TED Talk/interview with founder Julian Assange.

The controversial website WikiLeaks collects and posts highly classified documents and video. Founder Julian Assange, who’s reportedly being sought for questioning by US authorities, talks to TED’s Chris Anderson about how the site operates, what it has accomplished — and what drives him. The interview includes graphic footage of a recent US airstrike in Baghdad.

So now efforts are being made to close the box after Pandora got out. And charges of sexual assault are being made (fabricated? suspiciously timed?) against Assange. Sounds like a conspiracy to shutdown the biggest, baddest whistleblower around. Run, Julian, run!

Today’s five better things:

• Recently someone posted a comment to a flickr photo of mine, of an ET figurine. The comment was about the NASA press release. Looks like the cat’s out of the bag about NASA finding new life forms. Sadly these overhyped “astrobiology discovery” may not be all that after all.
• Scrabble is my all-time favorite game. I’m not sure how I feel about this enhancement (but the videos are awfully compelling):
  Mattel has launched Scrabble Délire in France, an enhanced version of the word game with new rules allowing for delirium. The game allows for writing words backwards, using proper names and writing a word anywhere in the grid. The new game is being promoted with a short film, “Scrabble Délire”, in which an empty apartment block becomes the source of much entertainment for a gathering crowd below. A brass band, a man in gold lycra, gorilla, pink princesses, Gulliver, a dragon, a clown, policemen, and Solo.
• The Yoshitomo Nara retrospective “Nobody’s Fool” is currently on display at New York City’s Asia Society. I would love to see it! If you’re in NYC during its run, go there. Do it for me.
• I wasn’t able to make it to the Superchunk show last night but my friend Adam did, and got some nice shots of them, as well as Times New Viking.
• This morning at Clockwork I was able to fondle a co-worker’s new Amazon Kindle. Ultra lightweight! And I bore witness to the consumption of The Black Blood of the Earth. One co-worker claimed his teeth were buzzing. Ahh, yes, the practical application of the coffee sciences. For good or evil? I’ll skip it. It’d probably give me a heart attack.

I’d nearly forgotten about this event tonight but I do plan to attend this month’s edition of the Girls In Tech gathering. Conveniently being held at my workplace! It seems especially appropriate now, as my role is transitioning from a general Jill of All Trades/Support Specialist into a Jr. Systems Administrator position. Which makes me geekily giddy. I’ve got the bash cookbook on my desk right now, the Think Unix book is on its way and I’ve just bookmarked The Linux System Administrator’s Guide.