Mile
Zero

After a week of Free, this round's on the house.

• In Praise of [Some] DDoSs? asks whether a denial-of-service attack is morally equivalent to blackmail--or to a sit-in. It's a fascinating question: do lawmakers write anti-cybercrime laws with mythical uberhackers in mind, without recognizing that they may fall under the same range of intent as meatspace offenses? And what does that mean for digital activism?
• While cruising through Saurik's Android Market webclient the other day, I found CRIME MAP, a mobile mashup between Google Maps and live crime data (sadly, only for Osaka, Japan at this time). So it's like EveryBlock, but map-oriented. And I started to think about the potential for this kind of thing--match it up with a Locale plugin, for example, to warn you if you're about to walk into a high-crime area. Or if it were adapted to non-crime tasks, and people were allowed to submit activities/tagging to it (instant flash protest?). A big deal has been made out of the camera-aware augmented reality applications beginning to trickle out, but I wonder if this limited-but-ubiquitous form would be more effective--a sixth sense, instead of a direct visual overlay.
• Appfrica has details on Mozilla's Week of Service, which matches IT volunteers with needy nonprofits. If you need the help, there's a link to the Idealist page for registration. I was disappointed that the volunteers are not necessarily just Mozilla staff, because I thought it would be hilarious if JQuery creator John Resig showed up to rebuild Belle's nonprofit web page. But it's still a good idea.
• Adam West is a strange, strange man.
• A Gabonese presidential candidate is attempting to use social media to mobilize his followers, although it's unclear how many people he's going to reach, given that only 10% of the country has access.
• I've had no time, at all, for playing games this week. When I have, it's been adventure-centric: Monkey Island 2 on the smartphone, and Zombie Cow's smart indie comedies, Ben There, Dan That! and Time, Gentlemen, Please! I highly recommend both of the latter, especially if you love the old Lucasarts titles. The first is free, but there's an option to donate extra when buying the second one. Go ahead, push the total up to $10. You won't regret it.
• Tonight is my first breakdancing class. No, you can't see video.
• Josh finds the common thread between America, Apocalypse, and Anime.