The controversial EU directive, the Data Retention Directive (in Norwegian, Datalagringsdirektivet), has gotten its Norwegian website. Check it out and inform yourself, this might become part of Norwegian law. This site is started by a privat person, Simon Eriksen Valvik
Update: Here are some more sites that are dedicated to the Directive (Norwegian and international):
Everyone is talking about a female American president, but seems to have forgotten that EU has never had a female top leader. Why not? Because the male leaders are chosen undemocraticly by other men, says Margot Wallström, Vice President in the European Commission in a very frank interview in Times. Nikolas Sarkozy was quick to mention former British prime minister Tony Blair as a potential candidate for the top job, other frequently mentioned are Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister, and Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Secretary, as well as Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg. The lack of female candidates and the undemocratic aspect of the selection is also mentioned in this article today.
I haven’t heard one female name mentioned, which is quite amazing. I think it is telling when even Wallström, who is almost at the top of the EU system, has not even heard whispers of the name discussion:
“Where does this debate really take place? I am still puzzled,” said Ms Wallström, who joined the European Commission in a senior role in 1999. “It is extremely strange. All I know is that it is always men, and very rarely do you hear about female candidates. Men choose men. That is the disadvantage of this situation.”
Time to come up with some female candidates for the top EU job, as well as making the election process democratic!
Three Norwegian companies has been included in the CNBC’s magazine European Business yearly list of “The Top 100 Low Carbon Pioneers”. They are Norsk Hydro (aluminium production), Rec Group (solar energy) and Statoil (oil). Statoil and Hydro have merged their oil and energy business, and they are called StatoilHydro.
I think the list is a good idea, and I wished a Norwegian publication could follow up and produce a list of the Top 20 Low Carbon Pioneers in Norway. I’m sure there would be several surprises and more exciting start up projects. I was surprised to find Statoil and Hydro on this list, since they are also among the biggest polluters in Norway.
Here are a few other interesting companies from the list: Iberdrola (nr.1, renewable energy), Abel and Cole (organic food store), Biogasol (second generation bioethanol).
Agence France Presse (AFP) has banned journalist from using Facebook and Wikipedia as sources. Here is what the agency’s London bureau chief told a Lord’s Committee Wednesday:
“Pierre Lesourd said that internal rules that governed the entire organisation prevented journalists from relying on many new ‘virtual’ sources for news. ‘We have internal rules that are regularly updated [on this matter]. Wikipedia for example, we have a written rule inside the company that forbids any journalist using Wikipedia,’ he said.”
He further clarifies and modifies himself by saying “reporters working for the international agency could not pick up information from these sites for news without referring to other, more reliable sources for factual clarification.”
This is interesting. I agree that you should doublecheck info from these kind of sources, especially Facebook, which is full of fake profiles. We also know that everyone can edit Wikipedia, so critical reading is obligatory. But that is something different from a total ban, which is beyond my understanding.
AFP are apparently not the only sceptics. Some professors at University of Brighton want to ban their students to use Google and Wikipedia. The professor, Tara Brabazon, says: “I want students to sit down and read. It’s not the same when you read it online. I want them to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels. Both are fine but I want them to have both, not one or the other, not a cheap solution.”
It is fascinated how your digital footsteps during a day brings your from one strange topic to another. The social bookmarking site del.icio.us is one kind a digital stream of consciousness, but since I don’t bookmark everything I read, here are some of the things I found on my way today.
This is just hilarious - Bill Gates on the last day of work. I never thought Gates could be funny (but he can of course pay people to make him look funny).
In France, Nicolas “Lapin Dracell” Sarkozy has suggested to start taxing Internet providers in order to finance public broadcasting. His suggestion is quite strange, to be honest. He wants to ban commercials on public television and organizes the French public channels similar to BBC. The lost revenues will be replaced by a new tax on Internet providers and mobile phone companies. “This could be seen as drawing on new technology to fund old technology,” said Taylor Reynolds, economist at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Financial Times. I’m not sure if this is such a good idea.
Now, something completely different. I saw an online commercial for a Norwegian company, Stormberg, that has started to offer refund on their clothes. They produce outdoor wear, and for every piece you hand in, you get an amount which you can choose to keep yourself or donate to a charity. The used closed are sent to Eastern Europe. That is a good idea!
YouTube is of course not only for the singing nerds in the bedroom or French tecktonic dansers. Now, the professors have also entered our time’s MTV, and they have fans from all over the world.
I must admit that I didn’t pay enough attention to my physic teacher at high school, but now I can follow lectures from Berkeley on YouTube in “Physics for Future Presidents” eller “Search Engine” med Google’s Sergey Brin! Someone has speculated if this is the end of the universities, since everyone can follow the lecture from the cosy couch at home. But transcripts are of course helpful when you are searching for your dream job.
At the end of this video, 71 year old professor Walter H. G. Lewin demonstrate pendulums. He has just dropped the ball to demonstrate how potential energy turns into kinetic energy. The ball stops just short of his face and he yells: “Physics works and I’m still alive!” New York Times has more background on the cool professor and his amazed fans from all over the world (also Iraq).
Are Norwegian professors ready for the tubes, or are they already out there?
Update: A friend of mine from school, Jefferey Young, has made this excellent video about a professor, Michael L. Wesch, who is video blogging as part of his teaching. His video about Web. 2.0 is watched more than 4 million times on YouTube. Thanks Mary for telling me about this.
When it comes to clothing, women are willing to go a far stretch. And apparently, fans of the Swedish brand Odd Molly are more desperate than others. Just so sad to see that the Odd Molly-folks are not following up the chat going on online about their own brand.
Before I continue with Odd Molly, let me explain the trail of thoughts that let me to the Swedish brand. My reading started with the article about Norwegians selling off their Christmas gifts online two days after Christmas, and I got curios to see what they wanted to get rid of. Among the thousands of articles on sale at Finn.no, I found a beautiful Odd Molly dress. And then I started to search for Odd Molly clothes in London, since I’m going there next week. And this is where I ended up, on a Swedish style blog. I was totally amazed by the comment section of this piece. The blog entry itself is about a stylish Odd Molly jacket the blogger Karin Eriksson wished she owned. The first comment is written 18 September 2005 and the last is entered on 2 January 2008. 65 different comments are posted, mostly about where people can find Odd Molly in different countries.
The Odd Molly company has a comment in the trail as well, but it only says that customers should send an e-mail or call at their office if they want to know where to find the local store. Hey, what kind of customer service is that? And what a lousy web strategy! They should at least make it easy for their customers to find their local store at their web site, and more importantly, keep some more eyeballs online to follow the Molly conversations going on. (disclaimer - I don’t own any Odd Molly pieces, yet
