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Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

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Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#61

Post by randomtask »

ars wrote: post #54
randomtask wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The language Egyptians speak is Arabic. Voice recognition software for that language does exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAKHR_Software_Company#Speech_R...

All Arabic is not the same, it's not always even interunderstandable so it's important to distinguish which dialect you are referring to. But I did not not know about them, and I did search. Perhaps Google doesn't either.

I understand that. Just from reading your comment I didn't know whether you were referring to the dead language, a nonexistent one, or the dialect...I'll go sit with the rest of the pedants ;)

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#62

Post by itistoday »

itistoday wrote: post #46
InfinityX0 wrote: post #41

This Egyptian situation puts new perspective on Malcolm Gladwell's popular article, "The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted". I'm not sure how it applies (if at all) - but it's interesting that the revolution comes from the fact that people really can't tweet (or use the internet, more importantly). Would love to hear 2nd thoughts from people here RE: that article. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_f…

I think the events in Tunisia and Egypt show just how wrong that perspective is. Twitter and social media in general are in their infancy and yet already are having such a massive impact on social change around the world. The ability to communicate thoughts, events, instantaneously, as they happen, and from the people actively involved in those events around the world, is unprecedented in human history. The revolutio…

Btw, I should add an anecdotal example of what's possible.

Near the start of the uprising, parts of the protest pamphlet were leaked online (http://j.mp/hZf7uY) before the protest was set to take place. The pamphlet explicitly requested secrecy so that the details of the protest would not get into the hands of the government.

I was lying in bed in San Francisco, watching as news of this broke out on my iPhone twitter stream. Many people, myself included, were able to convince the author of the piece to delete his tweet with the link to the post, and while the post itself wasn't taken down, I wasn't able to find it from the publication's front page, and the post itself was edited to include a link to a video submitted by a twitter user of a man being shot and killed by the Egyptian police.

And that's just a small incident I happened to stumble across. I think that illustrates how profoundly the world has changed, where individuals, anywhere on the planet, can influence people and events in ways that can have significant consequences. All that, through a few tweets.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#63

Post by andylei »

p90x wrote: post #50
guelo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a guess, you supported Paypal, Visa, Amazon, etc. in the WikiLeaks case. Amiright?

Paypal, Visa, Amazon took political positions in the WikiLeaks case. But you didn't like it because it went against your politics. Amiright?

how could they have not taken political positions? they could either bow to us federal pressure or not. by bowing to pressure, they acted politically, but if they had resisted, it would have been equally political.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#64

Post by hugh3 »

jbri wrote: post #57
qq66 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the revolution is successful but the current government is replaced with something far worse? Would you want to be part of a company that encouraged that?

Yes, let's support brutal dictatorships on the off-chance that a revolution might result in an even more brutal dictatorship.

The sarcasm is unbefitting of the seriousness of the occasion. What if it's not an "off-chance" but a 90% probability. Or even a 50% probability?

The situation the way I see it is this: currently the bad guys are in power. The opposition forces are the not-so-bad guys (liberal democracy types) and the much worse guys (radical Islamists).

The Muslim Brotherhood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood) are, after all, not just radical Islamists -- they're pretty much the dudes who invented radical Islam. Their obtaining power would... well, it would be bad, especially for non-Muslims in Egypt. And probably anywhere else.

My opinion on whom to support? Well, I'm just thankful that it's none of my fricking business and I can't do anything to change the situation anyway, so I don't really have to make a decision. But I am uncomfortable with the level of optimism I'm seeing from some western folks who assume the good guys will necessarily triumph (or worse, that the Muslim Brotherhood aren't really bad guys after all because they say they're not in favour of violence and they only want to form a unity government with the liberal forces whom they're totally not going to kick out at the earliest opportunity).

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#66

Post by loire280 »

itistoday wrote: post #46
InfinityX0 wrote: post #41

This Egyptian situation puts new perspective on Malcolm Gladwell's popular article, "The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted". I'm not sure how it applies (if at all) - but it's interesting that the revolution comes from the fact that people really can't tweet (or use the internet, more importantly). Would love to hear 2nd thoughts from people here RE: that article. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_f…

I think the events in Tunisia and Egypt show just how wrong that perspective is. Twitter and social media in general are in their infancy and yet already are having such a massive impact on social change around the world. The ability to communicate thoughts, events, instantaneously, as they happen, and from the people actively involved in those events around the world, is unprecedented in human history. The revolutio…

I think the revolutionary effect you are seeing can be better attributed to the fact that these populations have access to the Internet, especially through mobile phone. These people aren't leveraging the unique features of social media (the web of interpersonal relationships) so much as they are leveraging the ability to quickly get text, pictures, and video out of the country and onto servers hosted in countries sympathetic to the protestors. It just happens that Twitter and Facebook are currently the fastest ways to get something published and seen.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#67

Post by hugh3 »

p90x wrote: post #60
hugh3 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singh certainly is. Abdelkarim Mardini appears to be an Arabic name and may very well be Egyptian. Wait, yes, he's Egyptian: http://www.google.com/profiles/ak.mardini?hl=en

Ok... Can you connect the dots for me? I still don't see what I should be taking away from that. I'm sure that there is a whole spectrum of political opinion in Egypt, as there is in the USA, of which Mardini represents a single point.

Well, you were the one complaining about Americans (enthusiastically and in a carefree manner) taking sides in foreign disputes. It was pointed out that at least one of the key folks involved in this particular event is (at least by birth) an Egyptian.

While I agree with your broader point, if this particular contribution comes from an Egyptian rather than an American it does seem to have some relevance for your original comment, which I took to pertain to this particular piece of software rather than to just be a general comment.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#68

Post by p90x »

andylei wrote: post #63
p90x wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal, Visa, Amazon took political positions in the WikiLeaks case. But you didn't like it because it went against your politics. Amiright?

how could they have not taken political positions? they could either bow to us federal pressure or not. by bowing to pressure, they acted politically, but if they had resisted, it would have been equally political.

They could simply follow the law and fulfill their contracts, could they not?

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#69

Post by ebaysucks »

p90x wrote: post #68
andylei wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how could they have not taken political positions? they could either bow to us federal pressure or not. by bowing to pressure, they acted politically, but if they had resisted, it would have been equally political.

They could simply follow the law and fulfill their contracts, could they not?

There is no law, there's just politics.

Rules only exist for those who don't make them.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#70

Post by jbooth »

p90x wrote: post #59
moultano wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

We don't know what is going on in Egypt other than sound bites from CNN. It's our flavor of the month. We don't have anything invested in the country, and don't have to deal with the consequences of any of our actions there. Considering all that, is it ethical for us to get involved? Ultimately, this system is an interesting use of technology and makes for good infotainment. I have doubts to the extent which social n…

We don't have anything invested in the country?

You really didn't look closely at the tanks and guns on TV.

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