Advertising Advertising as referred to in most economic books is part of the marketing mix. Therefore advertising usually is closely associated with the aim of selling products and services. Still, developments like "branding" show a tendency towards the marketing of not only products and services, but of ideas and values. While advertising activities are also pursued by political parties, politicians and governmental as well as non-governmental organizations, most of the money flowing into the advertising industry comes from corporations. Although these clients come from such diverse fields, their intentions hardly differ. Attempting to influence the public, their main goal is to sell: Products, services, ideas, values and (political) ideology. |
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biotechnology introduction One of the most critical trends in the western culture what might be called the "fusion of flesh and machine". Increasingly, technological artifacts such as computers, rather than being used as tools by people, are functioning as parts of the human organism. On the other hand, human functionalities such as intelligence, emotion, adaptability or reproductivity are integrated into technological artifacts: the days when computers where only able to count apples and pears and their intelligence was not even matching an insect's are rapidly becoming history. Today, the boundaries between organisms and technology are losing their significance. As new technologies are no longer mere instruments, or "extensions" of the organism, they acquire the capability of modifying the human organism - body and mind - from within according to certain pre-established principles. The history of the evolution of the human species is hastily being re-written as artificial beings begin to mock the categories of evolution and seem to work their way towards historical subjectivity. The German philosopher Günther Anders has extensively reflected on the changes of the human condition provoked by the development of modern technology speaks of an "antiquatedness of history" at a time when technology itself becomes a historical subject and men are becoming co-historical. However, the softening of the biological definition of the human race is a theme which has accompanied western thinking ever since its origins. Beings half man-half animal crowd the tales of classical mythology and transcend the boundary between the human from below, while divine creatures, temporarily occupying humanoid bodies, relativise humanness form "above". What exactly "being human" meant and who "human beings" could be "defined" is a question with a long history. "Der Mensch ist das nicht festgestellte Thier" as Nietzsche commented. Just as the boundaries between human and non-human are being crossed by technological development, so also the boundaries between the classical episteme are becoming permeable. Psychology is occupying itself with the emotions of machines, while physics and cybernetics is applied to the human mind and body. The "nicht festgestellte "character of humanness has meant that imagination has become just as relevant a factor in understanding humanness as science. Science fiction as a literary genre is no longer merely a depository of phantasies about a technisised world our of control. As the human monopoly on history seems to dissolve, the baroque narratives of science fiction have also become a resource for understanding history. However, it is evident that the potentials of the new technologies gives rise not only to wild hopes and dreams and to bizarre stories; they also harbour some real ambiguities of a political and ethical nature. Not only does the merging of previously distinct realities - the human and the non-human worlds - unhinge theories and institutions based upon a clear distinction and separation of the two, it also is placing political practice on a different footing. Will artificial life have rights? Will artificial entities have political power? How will social relationships change? |
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The Cassini Case In 1997 NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn and its moons led to heated controversies, because it was fueled by plutonium, a substance that could cause serious environmental and health problems if it were released into the atmosphere. Still no major U.S. news outlet in broadcasting or print reported in depth on the risks of the Cassini mission. Westinghouse-owned media like CBS and NBC (also partly owned by General Electric) for example had only reported that children were invited to sign a plaque inside Cassini. Not surprisingly Westinghouse and General Electric are two of the largest corporations with defense contracts and nuclear interests. |
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c2o (Community Communications Online) c2o, founded in 1997, provides consultancy, training and web hosting services to community-based organizations in the Australasian region. c2o's focus lies on addressing the issues and needs that have arisen from the transition from connectivity to information management. Strategies and Policies Content and Delivery: c2o focuses on the development and maintenance of content delivery services that assist in the publication and dissemination of information, particularly that of community interest including environment, social development, human rights and social justice. Publishing Support: c2o designs online publishing systems that provide a means for user maintenance and tools that enhance an organizations existing information systems. c2o seeks seamless integration and user empowerment. Asia-Pacific Networking: c2o supports networking initiatives throughout Australia and the Asia Pacific region. It promotes and encourages public and equitable access to networking technologies. |
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The Private against the Public? "The multiple human needs and desires that demand privacy among two or more people in the midst of social life must inevitably lead to cryptology wherever men thrive and wherever they write." David Kahn, The Codebreakers In the age of the vitreous man, whose data are not only collected by different institutions but kept under disclosure, out of reach, uncontrollable and unmanageable for the individual, privacy obtains new importance, receives a much higher value again. The irony behind is that those who long for cryptography in order to preserve more privacy actually have to trust the same people who first created the methods to "produce" something like that vitreous man; of course not the same individual but persons of the same area of science. It is the reign of experts. So far about self-determination. for a rather aesthetic view on privacy and cryptography see: |
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some essential definitions some essential definitions in the field of cryptography are: - - - "Few false ideas have more firmly gripped the minds of so many intelligent men than the one that, if they just tried, they could invent a cipher that no one could break." (David Kahn) The variants of encryption systems are endless. For deciphering there exists always the same game of trial and error (first guessing the encryption method, then the code). A help to do so is pruning. Once, after a more or less long or short period a code/cipher breaks. Monoalphabetic ciphers can be broken easily and of course are no longer used today but for games. for further information on codes and ciphers etc. see: |
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The European Convention on Human Rights and its Five Protocols As can be read in the Convention's preamble, the member states of the Council of Europe, the European Convention on Human Rights is intended as a follow-up of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948 and as an official act of "securing the universal and effective recognition and observance of the Rights therein declared." Because it is stated "that the aim of the Council of Europe is the achievement of greater unity between its Members and that one of the methods by which the aim is to be pursued is the maintenance and further realization of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms", the European Convention on Human Rights can be read as the political sibling to the biblical Ten Commandments on which effective and legitimate European democratic government are based. The European Convention on Human Rights is intended to represent the essence of the common heritage of European political traditions and ideals. Signed in Rome on November 4, 1950, the Convention is supplemented by five protocols dated from March 20, 1952 (Paris), May 6, 1963, September 16, 1963, and January 20, 1966 (Strasbourg). http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html |
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The World Wide Web History Project The ongoing World Wide Web History Project was established to record and publish the history of the World Wide Web and its roots in hypermedia and networking. As primary research methods are used archival research and the analysis of interviews and talks with pioneers of the http://www.webhistory.org/home.html |
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DES The U.S. Data Encryption Standard (= DES) is the most widely used encryption algorithm, especially used for protection of financial transactions. It was developed by IBM in 1971. It is a symmetric-key cryptosystem. The DES algorithm uses a 56-bit encryption key, meaning that there are 72,057,594,037,927,936 possible keys. for more information see: |
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Gaius Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) was a Roman Statesman who came to power through a military career and by buying of votes. His army won the civil war, run over Spain, Sicily and Egypt, where he made Cleopatra a Queen. For reaching even more power he increased the number of senators. But he also organized social measures to improve the people's food-situation. In February 44 BC he did not accept the kingship offered by Marc Anthony, which made him even more popular. One month later he was murdered during a senate sitting. |
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ciphers the word "cipher" comes from the Hebrew word "saphar", meaning "to number". Ciphers are mere substitutions. Each letter of the alphabet gets substituted; maybe by one letter or two or more. an example: PLAINTEXT a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z CIPHERTEXT D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C |
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Java Applets Java applets are small programs that can be sent along with a Web page to a user. Java applets can perform interactive animations, immediate calculations, or other simple tasks without having to send a user request back to the server. They are written in Java, a platform-independent computer language, which was invented by Source: Whatis.com |
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Internet Software Consortium The Internet Software Consortium (ISC) is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to the production of high-quality reference implementations of Internet standards that meet production standards. Its goal is to ensure that those reference implementations are properly supported and made freely available to the Internet community. http://www.isc.org |
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