Boing Boing blocked -- Or what's wrong with Nudity ...

A few minutes ago I read a few articles about the blocking of Boing Boing on various blogs. A software called SmartFilter puts Boing Boing into the same category as most porn sites. Now, people in some countries and employees of government agencies and companies can't view the Boing Boing content anymore. Interstingly though, very few posts (less than 0.5% according to Boing Boing) could vaguely be identified as nudity. I don't get this whole thing, what is so wrong about nudity? Does anyone remember Ashcroft getting all bent out of shape because he was supposed to give a speech in front of a half naked greek statue and wanted it covered? What is so wrong about seeing a bare ass or a set of female breasts on TV? Why is parental guidance necessary if there is a naked person to be seen? Don't we all watch naked people in the mirror? Aren't we all born naked (except for Ashcroft maybe)?
Granted I grew up in Europe and nudity is fairly common on public television so seeing the fuss here with all the warnings just seems ridiculous to me. Especially in light of all other problems that there are. Let's look at it this way, I am all for finding those sick bastards who are into or producing child pornography. But the governments can't just go and say, now you can't show naked people anymore. And who does it hurt? Who ever came up with the notion that it is wrong to show two people doing it? Granted, there is probably more tasteless stuff out there than one will ever want to know (I worked on a project for a while where we looked at the performance and effectiveness of a porn detector) and the afternoon kids timeslot is not the best forum for this. Whether some people see it that way or not, porn is some form of expressing certain things, for some it's erotica, others may find it disgusting. But it should be everyone's choice whether they want to watch this or not. And if someone sees something illegal they should report it. But in all fairness, I don't think anyone has ever died of watching a little nudity or even porn, and (in most cases) there is nothing violent about this. Yet, America is outraged if Janet Jackson's nipple is seen for two microseconds. Noone, however, cares about the fact that during any hour fo primetime TV, a kid can see numerous bloody corpses, guns, beatings, etc. For some reason that isn't worse than naked people. Priorities are very skewed, showing how to kill people, reporting live from a war, all that is fine. But seeing Janet Jackson's nipple traumatizes the nation ... I simply don't get it.

Yahoo YUI goes open source

Yahoo announced today that they are releasing the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library and the new Yahoo! User Interface Library. For anyone trying to do dynamic web stuff (Ajax, DHTML) this is worth a look. Makes developing cross browser apps very easy.

Bob Costas Sucks ...

So here we are, the Olymic winter games in Turin are underway and we have to watch Bob Costas again. Who really cares for that short moron? While TV coverage of live events seems to be slightly better this year that in previous year, the overall theme of almost showing more background info that the actual live events is still there and it still sucks. And Bob Costas doesn't add anything of value. If you saw his interview of the kid with the red hair (Shawn White) that won the men's half pipe event, you would agree. Even the kid (they call him tomato because of his red hair) was making fun of Bob Costas for being an idiot. Anyway, back to how the NBC network covers things. I have always loved to watch the Olympics because it is that one time in 4 years during which you get to see sports you usually don't see and you get to see athletes you don't see too often. And the upsets and drama are always very compelling. And every winner deserves to be shown, that includes the medal ceremonies. By the way, it wouldn't hurt some people to listen to some other national anthems. The Olympics is about sports and athletes, and not just figure skating (what is the U.S.'s deal with figure skating?). Show the fucking events and not hours and hours of background about an athlete and the hardships he/she had to overcome. All people go through hard times, athletes are people too, so some of them will naturally encounter difficulties along the way. But during the Olympics I care about the competition not that some athlete had to overcome numerous deaths in his family or that her hamster died. Show the fucking events, all of them. It's ok to focus some more on the events in which the Americans are favored but all events should be shown. And regardless of what NBS choses to show afterall, they need to get rid of Bob Costas. If you don't know who Bob Costas is or why he sucks, just follow this link: Bob Costas Sucks

Bill Maher

Sonja (my wife) and I managed to go out on Saturday and night (Thanks to Anke for babysitting) and saw Bill Maher at the Flint Center in Cupertino. I always enjoyed watching him on TV but he is really good in person. Cynical, very liberal and critical. Yeah some of his stuff is over the top but I like it. People who really like the current president of the United States and his administration should stay clear of a Bill Maher show. Although, on second thought, may be they should go to see the many ways in which they are wrong. Ooops, I think I got political here ... eh, whatever, one ion a while that's ok. But the fact theat I really like Bill Maher is probably sign enough what I think of the current presidency... Let's leave it at that. ;-)