A work in progress on my online resume

Here you can take a look at my first online resume on vizualize.me

False celebrity death reports

There are many examples of premature obituaries, many celebrities were announced dead despite they were still alive. The Internet and the social networks emphasize the phenomenon because informations can circulate very quickly, without any verification of sources.
For example, one week ago, there was rumours that the famous singer and guitarist Carlos Santana was deceased. There were even fake Carlos Santana death pictures.The rumour began on Twitter when users said that Santana look like Muammar Gaddafi and pictures of Gaddafi were published with the mention "RIP Carlos Santana". Many fans thought that Santana was really dead and started to panic a bit.
One more time, it shows that  the Internet and its users create false death rumours, but false celebrity death reports existed before the development of the Internet.

But, with this kind of performance, Santana will always live in my heart!

The relation between democracy and human rights

What is the relation between democracy and human rights? First, we must define these two notions. In theory, democracy is a political system where citizens are sovereign. For Abraham Lincoln, “democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people”. Human rights are something else, a concept, almost an ideology that says that human beings have universal rights.

There is a tendency to associate democracy and human rights but we can notice that there are many counterexamples. For instance, a tyrannical political regime like the Terror (during the French Revolution) pretended to respect the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”. And almost all the democratic countries, even France or the United States, don’t always respect human rights. This is why the European Commission for Human Rights sometimes condemns France.

Some people criticize the human rights ideology. They wonder whether human rights should really be the same for everybody, without any distinction of country, place or culture. Are human rights an imperialist ideology? For some people, human rights are the perfect illustration of the occidental civilization and of its cultural imperialism. For universalists, they are a big progress for mankind and must be defended in any situation, everywhere and at any time.

Cloud computing

To show how the Internet can allow mobility, I would like to talk about virtual offices and cloud computing. A virtual office is a computer program, which centralizes (stocks) our computer data on a distant server. The user can access is personal data from everywhere. He just needs a computer, a smartphone or a numeric tablet and a good Internet access. The virtual offices also offer the possibility to work online on some programs. It often reproduces classical computer offices and it has the same functionality.

Apple is about to appropriate this idea of the cloud computing with its iCloud. With iCloud, you can synchronize your iPhone, your Macbook, you iPad or your iPod and have access to the same content (music, photos and applications) for free. It automatically actualizes your mails, your address book and your calendars.

It appears that cloud computing could be the future of the Internet and shows that the Internet allows more and more mobility.

A real blogroll

Well, I think that this is a great example of Internet mobility and how we can share knowledges toward the same goal !

If you don't understand what's going on, start here !

Working in a network environment ?

For me, one of the major advantages of working in a network environment is the possibility to work together on a same text/document without being in the same place. It’s extremely practical for group work and it allows to gain time. No more never-ending meetings! No need to find a common schedule!

For instance, Google Docs allows us to share some content and offers the possibility to correct or to complete someone’s text. It creates synergy, all the members can contribute to the work and the result can only be better. We just need an Internet connexion to share content.

On the other hand, personal contact can be very important for creativity. Creating something in common is not just about sharing information but also about physical presence. The sound of a voice, eye-contact and so on are part of the communication which can be necessary to develop ideas. 

Treme: take a little trip to New Orleans

Treme is an American series co-created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer. David Simon is the author and the creator of the critically-acclaimed series The Wire. Treme is broadcasted by HBO since April 2010. For now, there are only two seasons but HBO has renewed it for a third season.

The series takes place in New Orleans, especially in the neighbourhood called Trémé, three months after the hurricane Katrina. It shows the everyday struggle of several New Orleans inhabitants, who are trying to rebuild their homes and to find again their ancient lives.

Two of the main characters, Antoine Batiste and Albert « Big Chief » Lambreaux, are both musicians. Antoine Batiste (played by Wendell Pierce, a New Orleans native, who also played Detective Bunk Moreland in The Wire) is a trombone player, who is always looking to find his next gig. Albert Lambreaux is a Mardi Gras Indian Chief and he’s trying to reunite his tribe despite the destruction of the bar where they were practicing.

Mardi Gras Indians are “African-American carnival revelers in New Orleans, who dress up for Mardi Gras in suits influenced by Native American ceremonial apparel”.

It’s interesting to notice that many local and non-professional actors and real musicians play in Treme. In The Wire, there were many local actors too. It shows that David Simon wants to be as realistic as possible.

For people, who love great music and The Wire, Treme is really an incredible series but I think is also very interesting for people, who want to discover New Orleans and the everyday life of the inhabitants after a major disaster like Katrina.

A common position for the BRIC countries

In April 2011, the BRIC countries took a geopolitical common position for the first time in their history. They criticized the European and American military intervention in Libya. And declared that the situation needed to be resolved diplomatically. 

The main goal of this position was to show that they can be united as major political actors.

But the war in Libya is now behind us. The western countries consider this war like a success because their troops forced Colonel Kadhafi to quit the power and the strategy if the BRIC didn’t work. Somehow,  at the moment, they seem not capable to have enough influence on the international scene. Moreover,  the BRIC countries, especially Russia and China, sometimes seem to give priority to their own interests instead of working hand in hand with the others. They try to reinforce their diplomatic unity, but it seems that the way is still very long.

The 2008 Barack Obama campaign: how Obama became a leader on the Internet and a leader thanks to the Internet.

During his campaign, Barack Obama was omnipresent on the Internet and the social networks. On the social networks,  he was supported by 5 million people (3,2 million people on facebook), without counting his own social network on his website.

His Internet campaign team took care of his profile on 15 online communities like Facebook, Myspace, BlackPlanet... According to the statistics, people who supported him on Facebook also voted for him.

Some interesting facts about his campaign site, mybarackobama.com: 200 000 events were promoted, 400 000 posts were written on the blog space and 35 000 volunteers were recruited thanks to this website.

His strong presence on the Internet was one of the key factors of his brilliant campaign and one of the reasons of his victory.

Are we all addicted to the Internet and the social networks?

Every morning, when I wake up, one of the first things I do is starting my laptop. Then, before eating something or cleaning my room, I check my e-mails,  I read some press articles on lemonde.fr or I watch a video on youtube.

But as we all know, I'm not the only person to do this. But are we Internet addicts? Can we live without facebook or the billions of web pages?

The computer is not any more an addiction per se: during my holidays, I check my mails with my mobile phone. I think that, as I am a student in a communication school, it's hard for me to be disconnected, and the Internet offers me so many possibilities: I can have access to free information, free music and movies, and so on. The Internet takes such a big place in our lives that it's hard to live without it. But I know I'm not an addict because I'm sure that I could live without the Internet and the social networks... for at least two hours!

A link between the Internet addiction and nervous breakdowns

According to a study published in 2010 in the american magazine "Pediatric and Adolescent Medecine", and supervised by Lawrence Lam (from the Sydney Medecine School) and Zi Weng-Peng (from the chinese Ministry of Education), teenagers who are addicted to the Internet are more likely to get a nervous breakdown then others.
More than 1 000 chinese teenagers (from the area of Guangzhou) have been asked about their use of the Internet. A huge majority are considered as normal Internet users. Only 6,2 percent have been identified as Internet addicts and the psychological evaluation shows that these teenagers could more easily have a nervous breakdown then others teenagers.

The BRIC countries are trying to help Europe

About two weeks ago, the BRIC countries ( Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) met in Washington to think about how they can help Europe to get out the debt crisis. The main goals for the BRIC countries is to
show that they are now major actors of the world economic system. It's really interesting to see how a country like Brazil, which received an urgent help of 30 billions from the IMF in 2002, is now a helping hand for Europe.
Brazil suggest two things :
- the BRIC countries should buy debt titles from european countries like Italy, Spain or Portugal
- the BRIC countries should more financially contribute to the IMF

But there are still disagreements between the BRIC countries. For example, China and India don't want to increase their contribution to the IMF because they consider that they are under-represented in this institution. The main difficulty for the BRIC countries is to share same views and to find a common position.

To go further : just click

Digital divide

Digital divide by Arno Denzler

Some facts about the gap between rich and poor

Some facts about the gap between rich and poor by Arno Denzler

Digital divide

http://soundcloud.com/arno-denzler/digital-divide

Soundcloud seems to have a problem for uploading my record. So, here is the written version of my audio post :

The digital divide

In 2011, Asia is the continent, which counts most Internet users in the world.

It’s interesting to study the world Internet penetration rates, because this type of statistic shows the digital divide between the North and the South. The statistics published on the web site World Stats are very revealing. The average of the Internet penetration in the world is 30,2 percent. It means that almost one third of the humanity has access to the Internet.

Only two continents are under this average, Asia (without the Middle East) with an average of 23,8 percent and Africa with an average of 11,4 percent. North America leads the classification with a penetration rate of 78,3 percent.

These statistics show that digital divide is another example of inequalities between rich and poor countries. It seems that the situation doesn’t evolve very much. But some people think that the digital divide isn’t a priority, and that more important problems like the economic gap or hunger need to be resolved first.

In my opinion all these inequalities are linked.

Is HADOPI a success ?

Two years after the creation of HADOPI (in french : Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et de la Protection des droits sur Internet), which was set up to fight illegal downloading on the internet, how can we interpret the results and the efficiency of this organisation ?
Between january 2010 and june 2011, 500 000 warnings and 20 000 recommandations to recidivists have been sent. For Marie-Françoise Marais, the president of HADOPI, HADOPI "works" and is "a reality", it also promotes the development of legal downloading.
But, according to some studies, more then one billion files are illegally downloaded each year in France. This impressive statistic shows that the number of warnings is very weak. Moreover, the statistics doesn't show how many internet access are really cut off because of illegal downloading. We can wonder about the efficiency of such an organisation because it seems really hard to fight against digital technology and an uncontrolable media like internet.
Maybe it's time to find other solutions, like to lay down a tax on internet subscriptions...

Copyleft ?

At first sight, we might think that the notion of "copyleft" is just the opposite of the notion of copyright (and a play on the word copyright). But "copyleft" more describes the possibility to use, study, distribute, copy or alter someone's work with the permission from the creation's author. The only restriction is that modified versions of a document can be modify as well. "Copyleft" is a different form of licensing and the main goal of this type of license is to offer free available content.

To go further, here is a text from Richard Stallman, who developped one of the first copyleft license called "GNU General Public License": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html

The "reversed" C is the copyleft symbol.

Jean Ziegler talks about hunger refugees

I just read an article entitled "Réfugiés de la faim" by Jean Ziegler, published on www.monde-diplomatique.fr. Jean Ziegler is a swiss sociologist. From 2000 to 2008, he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
In this article, Ziegler denounces a dramatic situation, the situation of men, women and children, who risk their lifes to flee from poverty and hunger. Each year about 2 million people try to reach Europe illegally to get a better life. And each year several accidents happen.
After this assessment, Ziegler talks about the reaction of the European Union to this situation. I learnt that the European Union created a military organisation called "Frontex" to protect the european borders from illegal immigration. "Frontex" uses planes, armed boats and radars. Above all, "Frontex" organises refugee camps in countries like Morocco or Lybia, so that these refugees can't go to Europe.
Michel Rocard once said "la France ne peut pas accueillir toute la misère du monde" but it seems that the European Union doesn't want to welcome anyone.

To go further : http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2008/03/ZIEGLER/15658