Month: April 2005

Gambian Journalist Murdered in Apparent Hit

Gambian journalist Deyda Hydara was murdered in December 2004 in what Reporters Without Borders claimed was a well-organized operation that bears a resemblance to the murders of other journalists in that country.

Hydara, who edited Gambia’s Point newspaper and worked for Agence-France Presse and with Reporters Without Borders, was an outspoken opponent of new laws designed to curtail freedom of expression in Gambia. The laws allow journalists to be jailed for up to six months for writing ‘libelous’ articles. In order to publish in Gambia at all, newspapers have to prove to the satisfaction of the government that they have the finances to pay new fines the government has also instituted for ‘libelous’ articles.

Leonard Vincent, who heads up Reporters Without Borders’ African unit, told The BBC, that witnesses to Hydara’s killing were afraid to talk to police and that an independent commission was needed to look into his murder.

In addition, according to the African Independent newspaper, both the business offices and homes of prominent newspaper editor and journalists have been the targets of a series of arsons over the past few years. So far, no one has been arrested in connection with any of the arsons.

It is, of course, difficult for countries to overcome poverty and corruption when government’s and their allies can slap odious restrictions on newspapers and kill reporters with impunity.

Source:

‘Hitmen killed Gambia journalist’. The BBC, January 6, 2005.

AFP and Reporters Without Borders correspondent gunned down in Banjul. Press Release, Reporters Without Borders, December 17, 2004.

Veteraln Jouranlist Shot Dead in The Gambia. African Independent, December 17, 2004.

China’s Population Surpasses 1.3 Billion

In January, China’s population officially passed the 1.3 billion mark according to that country.

Oddly enough, China state-run news media used the birth of the 1.3 billion child to trumpet the success of the one-child policy. But, all things considered, the one-child policy has been an abject failure. It did little to slow China’s population growth — most of the decline in China’s birth rate occurred before the one-child policy was instituted, and the birth rate actually briefly increased after the one-child policy was introduced. Certainly other nations in Europe and Asia have demonstrated that very low birth rates can be achieved without such Draconian measures.

Even China’s state-run media makes very modest claims for the one-child policy, claiming that without the one child policy reaching the 1.3 billion mark would have occurred in 2001 rather than 2005. A typically inefficient policy for the Communist state.

The major effect of the one-child policy has, however, been the highly skewed sex ratio. Currently about 120 boys are born in China for every 100 girls — an astoundingly high imbalance that will likely cause severe social shocks and problems. The one-child policy helped exacerbate this imbalance by giving urban residents an incentive to abort female fetuses.

China could have achieved much more rapid economic growth and lower population growth if the dictatorial Communist Party had simply tried a little more freedom instead of micromanaging the lives of its subjects.

China’s population is not expected to continue to grow much longer. Although demographics mean that it will continue to grow even with very low birth rates, China’s population is expected to top off at 1.46 billion sometime in the 2030s.

Source:

China’s population passes 1.3bn. The BBC, January 6, 2005.

Policy Comes of Age as Population Hits 1.3 Billion. Press Release, Family Planning Commission of China, January 6, 2005.

China’s population reaches 1.3 billion. Associated Press, January 6, 2005.

Transparency International: 1 in 10 Families Worldwide Pays Bribes

To mark UN Anti-Corruption Day in December, Transparency International released the results of its 2004 Global Corruption Barometer highlighting ongoing corruption, especially in the developing world. The survey found that worldwide, 1 in 10 people said they or a member of their household had paid a bribe in the previous year.

The survey polled more than 50,000 people in 64 countries people between June and September 2004.

The rate of bribery was, not surprisingly, much higher in developing countries. For example, in Cameroon more than 50 percent of respondents said they or a member of their household had paid a bribe.

In Nigeria, Kenya, Lithuania and Moldova, 1 in 3 respondents said they or a household member had paid a bribe.

There was some good news, such as surprisingly low levels of bribe paying in South Africa, as well as a surprising level of corruption in Greece where 11 percent of those polled admitted they or a household member had paid a bribe.

Transparency International board member Akere Muna, who heads up the organization’s Cameroon branch, said in a press release,

It is time to use international co-operation to enforce a policy of zero tolerance of political corruption, and to put an end to practices whereby politicians put themselves above the law — stealing from ordinary citizens and hiding behind parliamentary immunity.

Political parties and politicians they nominate for election are entrusted with great power and great hopes by the people who vote for them. Political leaders must not abuse that trust by serving corrupt or selfish interests once they are in power.

According to the BBC, the World Bank estimates that as more than $1 trillion is paid out annually worldwide in bribes.

Source:

One in 10 families ‘pays bribes’. The BBC, December 9, 2004.

Political parties are most corrupt institution worldwide according to TI Global Corruption Barometer 2004. Press Release, Transparency International, December 9, 2004.

JustFuckingGoogleIt.com

Related to my earlier post about search engines, generally, and Google, specifically, there is of course the wonderfully titled Just Fucking Google It, complete with Bart Simpson offering advice.

Which would be made easier, of course, if people have the tools and skills to intelligently search Google. But many of them do not, and the optimal way to search Google is nonobvious.

Book Review: Web Search Garage and Google Hacks, 2nd Ed.

The other day someone handed me a problem to solve. A solution to this particular problem had several very smart people tied up in knots for months with the consensus being to scrap everything and start over. I was able to solve this particular problem after about 45 minutes, not thanks to any innate advantage I had but rather because I knew how to mine Google to find the information that turned out to be the key to the problem.

Occasionally some article or speech appears in which a librarian or some other academic-type slams Google and other search engines as little more than toys that don’t produce results worth a damn. I don’t understand that approach at all. The problem is not Google or Yahoo! or whatever — the problem is that most people don’t have the slightest notion about how to perform anything but the most rudimentary queries of electronic databases. Rather than slamming the limitations of search engines like Google, librarians and others should be helping users understand how to query Google and similar search engines to get past those limitations and drill down to the information they’re looking for.

Fortunately, there are a slew of books out there to help the casual searcher get more out of searching. My favorites — the two I actually keep at my desk — are Tara Calishain’s Web Search Garage and Tara Calishain’s and Rael Dornfest’s Google Hacks, 2nd edition.

Calishain, of course, is the person behind Research Buzz and between her site and the two books, I have the same sort of reverence and awe for her that most people would probably reserve for celebrities and rock stars.

Web Search Garage is the place to start if you’re a relative newbie to search. The first few chapters are very basic, guiding the reader through the differences between a directory-style engine like Yahoo! and a full-text search engine such as Google. Gradually the chapters get a bit more sophisticated as far as discussing concepts and techniques to get the most out of search engines, but its never overly technical.

Calishain does an excellent job of explaining in plain language how to construct and then narrow or expand search terms as the user tries to find specific information. This is probably the #1 problem I see when watching other people search Google — they know what they’re looking for, but they don’t have a good idea as to how to translate that into search terms that are likely to produce meaningful results, nor do they tend to be able to sample those results and come up with new search terms. Calishain outlines a great system and set of concepts that will guide the novice searcher through exactly that process.

And along the way, she has some tips for people like me who may perform several few hundred searches every day and already have a pretty good handle on finding most everything in Google. I always hate that cliche that a book is appropriate both for novices and experts, but in this case its really true.

Google Hacks, on the other hand, is aimed squarely at geeks and search addicts. It has a number of tips for searching Google, of course, but concentrates a lot more on using the Google API and services like Gmail. This is the sort of book you want to read once you’ve mastered Web Search Garage.

The two together are like that class in high school on search that students should be receiving but almost certainly never will. Publicly available full text search engines like this are barely a decade old, and you can already find the answer to pretty much anything you might want to know other than narrow scholarly issues if you just know how to ask the right way. Web Search Garage and Google Hacks will help you get to the point of asking the right question much faster and more efficiently.

Seagate Pocket Hard Drive, Take 2

Last year, I was skeptical of the Seagate Pocket Hard Drive, calling it “a product in search of a market.” Several months later, and I found myself part of that market as I recently purchased one of these.

Looking back, my complaint was that Seagate was looking to sell a 5gb drive for $200. I picked up the 2.5gb version for just a bit over $100.

I was carrying an 80gb Firelite back and forth between work and home, but quickly filled that up. Moreover, it was a pain having to carry the Firelite and USB cable if I wanted to work from a machine other than my main machines.

So I switched to a VPN solution to access my home computer from any computer I’m at, and opted for the Seagate Pocket Drive to hold a few applications and files that I’m working with at the moment. Works great in every machine I’ve tried.

Overall a nice, ultra-portable little hard drive.