The word weblog celebrated its 10th anniversary on the 17th.

There’s now The Organization for Transformative Works, ‘a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms.’

Of particular interest to me because of the whole ‘agency’ angle of the diss: A program that can mimic online flirtation and then extract personal information from its unsuspecting conversation partners is making the rounds in Russian chat forums, according to security software firm PC Tools.

The artificial intelligence of CyberLover's automated chats is good enough that victims have a tough time distinguishing the "bot" from a real potential suitor, PC Tools said. The software can work quickly too, establishing up to 10 relationships in 30 minutes, PC Tools said. It compiles a report on every person it meets complete with name, contact information, and photos.

Fake Steve Jobs is maintaining one of the best repositories of of anti-OLPC writing around. He recently linked to a WaPo review of the product, which scratches the surface of the colonialist aspects of the whole project:

All in all, I'm conflicted. It's an absolutely amazing accomplishment -- this is a tough, high-tech computer that works, and won't break, and it sells for $200. On the other hand, I'm a little unnerved by the pukka sahib mentality you have to take to fully endorse it -- you know, it's a maddening machine, a devil to use, I'd never expect MY kid to be satisfied with it, but it's fine for the po' kids in loincloths?

The Last Supper in 16 billion pixels.

The Internet was closed so I thought I'd come outside today.