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MonthNovember 2009

The death of robots.txt?

November 9, 2009 /

Last night I linked to an interview with Rupert Murdoch in which he says that News Corp will probably de-index their sites from Google.

I figured it was all bluster. Search engine traffic is more valuable that Murdoch suggests, and there are probably plenty of people in high places at News Corp who know it.

But Cory Doctorow suggests:

So here’s what I think it going on. Murdoch has no intention of shutting down search-engine traffic to his sites, but he’s still having lurid fantasies inspired by the momentary insanity that caused Google to pay him for the exclusive right to index MySpace (thus momentarily rendering MySpace a visionary business-move instead of a ten-minutes-behind-the-curve cash-dump).

So what he’s hoping is that a second-tier search engine like Bing or Ask (or, better yet, some search tool you’ve never heard of that just got $50MM in venture capital) will give him half a year’s operating budget in exchange for a competitive advantage over Google.

Jason Calacanis has suggested this approach as a means to “kill Google.”

But it may actually be neither the death of Google, nor the death of News Corp if they are so foolish as to carry out this plan. It could be the death of the robots exclusion standard. I would guess News Corp would use robots.txt to de-index their sites. But it’s a “purely advisory” protocol that Google is under no obligation to honor. They could continue indexing News Corps if they so choose. So could every other search engine, big or small. And I’d guess they would if big content providers started going exclusive with search engines.

If News Corps puts all its contend behind a pay wall, this point is moot – Google and other search engines won’t be able to index it, and robots.txt will be fine. But it’s something to think about.

(Hat tips to Jay Rosen for the TimesSelect link and Chris Arkenberg for the Jason Calacanis video)

Announcing: EsoZone Protocol – host an EsoZone in your city!

November 9, 2009 /

We have now released the “EsoZone Protocol” – the standards for hosting an EsoZone in your own city.

Free. Sponsorships, voluntary donations, and tips are allowed, but tickets, fees, and mandatory donations are not. Selling merchandise, refreshments, etc. is ok.

Open. We understand some Esozones will have limited space, but attendence should not be limited to a certain group people or be “invite only.” Example: If an Esozone: UT Austin were being planned, it could NOT be limited to only UT students. Pre-Registration limits, first come first served entry, etc. are allowed. This does not mean that people can’t be ejected if they cause disruptions.

Unconference. Some pre-scheduled material may be incorporated, but Esozones will follow unconference principals and allow participants to set the agenda. Anyone can post a session.

Read the full document

Alan Moore collaborating with the Gorillaz, and more

November 9, 2009 /

Mustard interviews Alan Moore about his new magazine Dodgem Logic and he reveals that he is doing the libretto for their next opera and they will hopefully be contributing a few pages to the magazine:

Then the issue after that we’ve hopefully got Gorillaz onboard. They came down to Northampton last week because we’re planning for me to do the libretto on their next opera project. Being an opportunist, I of course asked them if they’d be prepared to contribute some pages to Dodgem Logic. Rather than just doing an interview with them, I thought it would be interesting to hand over a few pages for them to curate.

Mustard: Alan Moore talks Dodgem Logic

(via 24 Bit via Joe Matheny)

Update: Moore now says this has been overblown.

Real Life DHARMA Initiative # 9: The First Earth Battalion

November 9, 2009 /

first earth battalion manual

Danger Room has an article posted fact checking the claims made in the new The Men Who Stare at Goats movie. They write about The First Earth Battalion, which is yet another Real Life Dharma Initiative:

Hippie Army? True. Lt. Col. Jim Channon dove deep into the New Age movement, and came back to the military with a most alternative view of warfare — one in which troops would carry flowers and symbolic animals into battle. In the movie, Channon is played by Jeff Bridges. His First Earth Battalion is renamed the “New Earth Army.” But the ideas are the same. Much of the artwork from the New Earth manual is lifted straight from the Channon original.

Channon has been taking advantage of the publicity for his cause; this week he has a column in the Guardian newspaper, suggesting (among other things) that armies should be used for reforestation and navies to control over-fishing.

The military’s interest in Eastern and alternative practices is once again on the rise. “Warrior mind training“, apparently based on ancient Samurai techniques, is being taught at Camp Lejeune as a possible treatment for PTSD. Elsewhere the Army has a $4 million initiative exploring other approaches including Reiki, transcendental meditation and “bioenergy.” The Air Force is looking into acupuncture for battlefield pain relief.

Danger Room: Psychic Spies, Acid Guinea Pigs, New Age Soldiers: the True Men Who Stare at Goats

As pointed out at Danger Room, you can download the original First Earth Battalion Manual from Jim Channon’s web site

Murdoch: We’ll probably remove our sites from Google’s index

November 9, 2009 /

Rupert Murdoch has suggested that News Corporation is likely to make its content unfindable to users on Google when it launches its paid content starategy .

When Murdoch and other senior News Corp lieutenants have criticised aggregators such as Google for taking a free ride on its content, commentators have questioned why the company doesn’t simply make its content invisible to search engines.

Using the robots.txt protocol on a site indicates to automated web spiders such as Google’s not to index that particular page or to serve up lionks to it in users’ search results.

Murodch claimed that readers who randomly reach a page via search have little value to advertisers. Asked by Sky News political editor David Speers why News hasn’t therefore made its sites invisible to Google, Murdoch replied: “I think we will.”

Mumbrella: Murdoch: We’ll probably remove our sites from Google’s index

(via Jay Rosen)

I’d be quite happy to see News Corps shoot themselves in the foot, but I have the feeling people who actually know what they are talking about will stop this from happening.

Wall Street bonuses to rise 40%

November 7, 2009 /

There has been plenty of evidence that firms like Goldman Sachs (GS) have had such huge profits that their bonus payouts may be at all-time highs.

The federal government has systematically begun to control bank pay packages. The Treasury “pay czar” is effectively controlling compensation at companies which still owe TARP money. The Fed is pressuring other large financial firms to tie pay to risk.

None of those efforts seems to be working well, because bankers are ignoring the signals from Washington.

A new compensation survey described in The Wall Street Journal predicts that Wall Street incentive pay will rise 40% this year. For those in the fixed-income part of the industry, the increase could be closer to 60%.

MSN Money: Wall Street bonuses to rise 40%

(via Braincrowbar)

Google unveils protocol for an interplanetary internet

November 6, 2009 /

Vint Cerf, Google’s internet evangelist, has unveiled a new protocol intended to power an interplanetary internet.

The Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol emerged from work first started in 1998 in partnership with Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The initial goal was to modify the ubiquitous Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to facilitate robust communications between celestial bodies and satellites. […]

The core issue is that TCP assumes a continuous (and fairly reliable) connection. DTN makes no such assumptions, requiring each node to buffer all of its packets until a stable connection can be established. Whereas TCP will repeatedly attempt to send packets until they are successfully acknowledged, DTN will automatically find a destination node with a reliable connection, and then send its payload just once. Given the latency of space communications and the minimal power restrictions placed upon satellites, DTNs approach seems prudent.

However most people don’t have a need for regular satellite communication (well, our columnist Warren Ellis has that death ray of his), but Cerf sees his robust protocol having more down-to-Earth applications. Mobile networks, for example, must regularly cope with long periods of delay or loss – a train tunnel rudely interrupting a YouTube stream, for example. Perhaps looking to gain an edge on its competitors, Google has already integrated DTN into Android’s networking stack.

Wired UK: Google unveils protocol for an interplanetary internet

(via Wade)

Birther Site Is Already Lying About Ft. Hood Shooter and Obama

November 6, 2009 /

Jerome Corsi, of Swift Boat infamy, has written a piece connecting Nidal Malik Hasan to Obama on WorldNetDaily (“the leading source of disinformation that the president wasn’t born an American.”)

Corsi points to a Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University paper titled “Thinking Anew – Security Priorities for the Next Administration: Proceedings Report of the HSPI Presidential Transition Task Force” which lists Hasan as “Task Force Event Participant.”

What does that mean? It means Hasan, as Spencer Ackerman writes: “Hasan attended a meeting of a private organization that gave the transition some unsolicited advice.”

Washinton Independent: Birther Site Is Already Lying About Ft. Hood Shooter and Obama

(via Jeremy Scahill)

Free Evolver teleseminars for Mutate readers

November 6, 2009 /

Update: we’ve got our responders. Thanks everyone!

Evolver has a special offer for Mutate readers:

Throughout human history, people have looked to the natural world for patterns to provide insight into their lives, and what might await them in the future. This is the origin of oracles and divination: the systematic approach to the deeper patterns of cosmos, mind, and nature. Over two weeks in November, you can join four of the world’s most sought-after divinatory teachers in a series of intimate conversations exploring the ways that these ancient traditions can transform your life. The Evolver Intensives tele-seminar series “Divination: How to Read the Future Now” is a unique opportunity to engage in discussions with four leaders at the vanguard of an archaic revival: celebrated spiritualist and Tarot expert Rachel Pollack; archetypal astrologer VerDarLuz; initiated diviner and I Ching scholar Stephen Karcher; and John Michael Greer, geomancer and Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America. Hosted by acclaimed author Erik Davis, take part in a life-changing journey through the deeper flows of reality.

More info


It costs $50, but the first 2 people to e-mail me at redacted will get it for free. Offer is over, we’ve got our 2 people.

(I don’t have any relationship with Evolver, they’re making this offer so I thought I’d share it)

Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’

November 5, 2009 /

Just when you thought shit couldn’t get any worse:

The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country.

Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.

“I’m talking of people being raped with broken bottles,” he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. “I’m talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I’m talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on.”

The Raw Story: Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’

(via Cryptogon)

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