Monthly Archives: September 2006

Google balancing out?

googleGoogle is not perfect, but sometimes they do things that make them look they are trying to be wonderful to all people. Their motto is “don’t be evil.” Even though they are self-censoring in China, unlike Wikipedia (something that all ThingsAreGood readers already know), Google has released banned books.

Now you can read books that have been censored somewhere, as long as they are free of private censorship and are in the public domain.

“To Kill a Mockingbird. Of Mice and Men. The Great Gatsby. 1984. It’s hard to imagine a world without these extraordinary literary classics, but every year there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from libraries and schools”

(Via /.)

Wikipedia says no to censoring

wikipedia logoWikipedia, that great resource for all sorts of information, is refusing to censor itself to gain an audience in China. The site was censored by China in October of last year because it has bad things to say about the country according to the Chinese leadership.

The founder of Wikipedia has “challenged other internet companies, including Google, to justify their claim that they could do more good than harm by co-operating with Beijing.”

“We’re really unclear why we would be [banned],’ Wales told The Observer. ‘We have internal rules about neutrality and deleting personal attacks and things like this. We’re far from being a haven for dissidents or a protest site. So our view is that the block is in error and should be removed, but we shall see.'”

More Distributed Goodness

As I sit typing this post, I’m listening to the Tragically Hip, downloading a 24 lecture series on Science to my iPod and I just listened to an inspiring speech by William McDonough (I highly recommend him as THE resource for environmental design). So I cant help but think of all the positive changes computers have brought around.

To add one more to the list check out climateprediction.net. Its a distributed software that uses idle computing capacity to predict the climate in the 21st centuary.

Help Darfur

blue hat dudeDarfur is a region in trouble. For years there have been killings and other tragedies. Obviously this is not good news at all – in fact it’s the opposite of good news. Today’s good news about Darfur comes from people wanting to help the region through action. Show your support online by wearing a blue hat!

The Global Day for Darfurwas originally conceived by a group of NGOs who were concerned about the international communityÂ’s slow response to the crisis in Darfur. ItÂ’s truly global: the day will see peaceful demonstrations, rallies, marches, exhibitions and concerts in cities around
the world including Abuja, Addis Ababa, Berlin, Cairo, Hong Kong, Khartoum,
Kigali, London, Melbourne, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Toronto, Paris and
Vancouver.