Qantas Boeing 747-400 emergency landing in Manilla

Gaping hole in Qantas jet forces emergency landingA large hole in the fuselage of a jet forced a Qantas flight to make a rapid descent and emergency landing, the airline said. "There was an almighty crack," said one passenger on the Hong Kong-Melbourne flight that landed in Manila, Philippines, instead. Another passenger said there was "a big bang." "I knew there was a hole somewhere, but I didn't know what was going on."

Why Web 2.0 is not Web 1.0

If you are still confused between those buzz words like web 1.0 and web 2.0, here is a great paper that explains very well the difference between the two concepts.

Maybe I should send the link to Quebec Chief Electoral Officer who wants to regulate the use of the web 2.0 during the next provincial elections.

Here is the paper abstract:

"Web 2.0 is a buzzword introduced in 2003–04 which is commonly used to encompass various novel phenomena on the World Wide Web. Although largely a marketing term, some of the key attributes associated with Web 2.0 include the growth of social networks, bi–directional communication, various 'glue' technologies, and significant diversity in content types. We are not aware of a technical comparison between Web 1.0 and 2.0. While most of Web 2.0 runs on the same substrate as 1.0, there are some key differences. We capture those differences and their implications for technical work in this paper. Our goal is to identify the primary differences leading to the properties of interest in 2.0 to be characterized. We identify novel challenges due to the different structures of Web 2.0 sites, richer methods of user interaction, new technologies, and fundamentally different philosophy. Although a significant amount of past work can be reapplied, some critical thinking is needed for the networking community to analyze the challenges of this new and rapidly evolving environment."

Quebec's Chief Electoral Officer Back to the Future Plans

Cyberspace will be the great challenge of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) during the next election campaign. Failing to control everything that is circulating on the Internet, the CEO will try at least to enforce the law.

Thus, The Canadian Press learned Tuesday that to avoid political activists and citizens to use the Internet for electoral purposes, the CEO has set up a working group which will submit a report in September and recommendations on the measures to take.

In this spirit, it would seem logical that the CEO recommends parliamentarians to amend the law to enable him to intervene during the next election campaign, when an incident will be reported.

For example, the very definition of what is considered an "election expense" may well have to be revised, since the diffusion of messages on the Internet can be done without charge. Also, to circumvent this difficulty, one of the scenarios is, curiously, to broaden the definition of "election expense" to include a message which actually brings no expense.

Whether they are politicized songs on You Tube, posts on blogs, messages on chain letters or videos, the entire universe of cyberspace is considered in terms of the unfair advantage it might provide to one or the other political party.

Tube.TV: a video top ten ranking from 45 sites.

I have a new Twitter follower, Tube.TV. So, I visited the associated link and discovered a top ten video ranking from 45 different important video sites. For instance, it could be helpful when looking for a story or a subject for your blog.

Liveblogging 101.

You have a blog. But, you want to go a step further and liveblog events. In Mashable, an interesting post on how to prepare to liveblog any event. The link is here.

Waterboarding: is it torture or a new extreme sport?

I don't know if FARC's hostages like Ingrid Betancourt are treated as well as Uncle Sam and Brother W. Bush's war against terrorism prisoners. A U.S. presidential authorization allows military "interviewers" to use a technic called "waterboarding" to get answers otherwise hard to get. But, is it torture? The President and his falcon friends seem to think that it is closer to an extreme sport than torture.

Christopher Hitchens is a prolific Anglo American reporter and author . In support of the Iraq war, "Hitch" is a famous for his atheism who has no sympathy for terrorists who claim allegiance to Islam.

Vanity Fair magazine editor-in-chief Graydon Carter asked the reporter to be part of a waterboarding session, a simulated drowning designed to break prisoners, to make them talk. And says Hitchens, this is no simulation because you are literally drown. To say that this is not torture is a lie, adds he.

Disturbing, powerful, fascinating. An essential text to read, if you have questions about torture and its moral implications, on its practical consequences in the fight against terrorism and on its questionable effectiveness . The video of Hitchens "interrogation", led by pros, is here.

One more post about Ingrid Betancourt.

This is not very original. Another post about Ingrid Betancourt. But, since last night, this is the big news (and a very good one) around the web. After six years in the hands of the FARC, you must respect the survival instincts of this lady. Don't know if I could do it. I only hope that the other hostages who are still prisoners won't be forgotten. Ingrid Betancourt was the most famous among all FARC's hostages. It is time to put an end on all this kidnapping people nonsense.

And I will only say this once: thanks to President Uribe and the militaries who participated in this rescue.

Here are some videos I encountered on Youtube:

El periodista peruano, Jaime Bayly, en su estilo desprejuiciado, cuenta la liberación de Ingrid Betancourt. Espíritus sensibles, abstenerse.

Posterous: web's simplest blog platform.

You still know people who don't have a blog or don't understand how to set one up. But, they still want to express themselves through the web and are looking for a solution. Introduce them to Posterous. According to Techcrunch's Michael Arrington, it is the easiest blog platform online for now.

How do you create a blog on Posterous - email something to post@posterous.com. You're done. The subject line of the email is the post title, the text area is the content. You can also email photos, videos and sounds files, which will be displayed in a custom Flash player on the site.

According to Arrington, it is even an easier platform then Tumblr to blog from. Account creation by a single message to a generic email is a great way to help this spread via mobile devices (you have to create an account on Tumblr's website first, then you can start emailing to a unique email id). Posterous also has comments on posts, something Tumblr is just starting to roll out to some users.

Another great thing about Posterous - you can choose to have comments emailed to you, and you can reply to the comment by simply responding back to the email. If you choose to register your account at Posterous (which means creating a password), you can also follow other Posterous bloggers.

What are you waiting for?