2008年2月21日

在山的那边,海的那边,有一群蓝精灵



 
 

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via 瞳孔中央 by 瞳孔中央 on 2/19/08

  我有一朋友，是个典型的都市时髦女郎，她永远用睫毛跟人打招呼，一年到头从来不穿裤子，只穿超短裙，麻杆腿裹着色彩纷呈的丝袜，连彩虹看了也要自惭形秽。某一次讨论小时候的动画片，她说："我最喜欢《蓝精灵》，印象深刻的是这么一集：格格巫施了魔法，把蓝妹妹变成了个骚娘儿们，她整天在村子里抖骚,全村的蓝精灵都爱上了她，一天她翩然走过，笨笨正好在修剪花草，情迷之中就把灌木修成了蓝妹妹形。"一个人要成什么样儿，18岁时就奠定了，其他岁月都是为它添枝加叶。这位都市时髦女郎要成什么样儿，8岁的时候就奠定了。 

蓝妹妹是蓝精灵村最独领风骚的人物，蓝爸爸都略逊一筹。村里统共有101只蓝精灵，样貌相仿，以性格特征命名，比如农农爱种地，诗诗会写诗，困困老打瞌睡，但只有那两位卓而不群。蓝爸爸542岁，统领全村，戴红帽子穿红短裤；蓝妹妹金发披肩，穿白裙踩高跟鞋，更醒目的是，她是唯一的女性，她不以性格特征命名，女性，就是她最大的特征。这样的设置让后世浮想联翩：怎么没有蓝妈妈？蓝精灵们打哪儿来？只有蓝妹妹一个女性，村里和谐吗？2002年那个探讨宇宙生死的悬乎电影《死亡幻觉》就讨论了一小下，结论是：蓝精灵为无性繁殖。漫画作者皮约也曾被认为有歧视女性之嫌，不过这个比利时人英语不大灵光，1980年代在接受美国NBC电视台采访时总是答非所问，记者反复逼问他为什么蓝妹妹那么孤独那么柔弱那么愚蠢，皮约火了："难道你非要让我再给她画个健身教练吗？" 

其实我早忘了蓝妹妹是怎么来的，好象从一开始她就在那儿，故做媚态。在Youtube找来她初登场那集，视频说明上写："蓝妹妹是格格巫创造出来以腐蚀蓝精灵村的糖衣炮弹"。格格巫用蝰蛇的舌粉和鳄鱼的三滴眼泪在锅里把她给熬了出来，嘴里喊着："你要把蓝精灵村搞垮！"一开始她黑头发，眼神邪恶，穿朴素白裙和平底鞋，躺在森林里被健健发现。健健是村里典型的工人阶级猛男代表，胳膊上有个箭穿红心文身，力大无穷，见着躺在地上哭哭涕涕的蓝妹妹后，就发生了当年不觉得现在听来非常淫荡的一段对话："你是谁？""我是蓝妹妹。""没听说过。""那你一定会喜欢你看到的……"健健就不吱声了，之后把蓝妹妹扛在肩膀上带回了村。她使了两个坏招儿来腐蚀蓝精灵村，全部落败，被逮起来审判时，蓝妹妹使出女性绝招——坐地大哭，并迅速供出了格格巫。她一哭全村心都碎了，蓝爸爸干脆说："我用魔法把你变成真正的蓝精灵吧！"一番捣鼓，蓝妹妹焕然一新，成了我们后来见到的金发碧眼样儿，并且，连小手腕都不会耍了，更加爱哭好嚼舌头没大脑。认真复习这段时，我感到很迷惑，这一插曲怎么就在记忆里成了空白？在我当年小小的脑袋瓜里，蓝妹妹固然很傻很天真，却也团结友善，更没有地位卑下被歧视的印象。可再看却认同了这种暗示，她由"坏"变"好"的标志仅仅是由相貌平平变为金发美女，这简直是对女性的误解嘛！男蓝精灵们性格各异，她却类型化；男蓝精灵们是主流，她边缘化；男蓝精灵们决定了村子的价值观，她却只能取悦并融入其中…… 

第一幅《蓝精灵》漫画1958年就被比利时人皮约创作出来，直到1981年被美国人买走，才算开始风靡全球，我们小时候看的都是美国版，据说至少在1986年的暑假就在北京电视台播出了。《蓝精灵》的美国东家Hanna-Barbera动画公司也掌管着《猫和老鼠》，但当年蓝皮肤人的风头无人能敌：从1981年在NBC播出，差不多400集，到1990年一直占据着周六早晨的收视头牌，得过两个艾美奖。彼时女性运动风起云涌，《蓝精灵》的女性观自然另类，但考虑到创作时的年代，算是次要矛盾，《蓝精灵》还要被剥下"商业工具"和"意识形态炸弹"两层皮。 

里根执政的美国，对动画片有个政策：先有玩具后有动漫形象的都是商业促销片，不许播。《蓝精灵》从1960年代开始当过雷诺汽车的代言人，后来很长一段时间作为英国石油（BP）的广告主角，美国人仅仅把他们当成一群玩具，NBC将其拒之门外。对付这一政策有个招数叫"脆饼策略"（来源于另一动画形象草莓脆饼女孩），无他，就是使劲宣扬动漫形象历史悠久与商业关系不大，《蓝精灵》是成功击破壁垒的第一个，即便得益于岁月，《蓝精灵》成功面世还是有个段子：当年NBC的总裁跟小女儿在街上溜达，女孩为了要一个蓝精灵玩具躺地上打滚，这位总裁为了哄孩子，不但买了一玩具，还把动画片给播了。 

《蓝精灵》与同时代动画片的最大区别是，它并非关于几个布景几个人物的小场景短剧，它构造了一个社会。这个社会，推行共产主义。从1980年代到50周年纪念的今天，关于《蓝精灵》是共产主义宣传员的理论就没消停过。证据包括：蓝爸爸代表卡尔·马克思，他长着马克思大胡子，身着意识形态红；村里没有私有土地，不通行货币，共同劳动，共享食物；有工、农、兵、知识分子蓝精灵，却是没有国王和牧师蓝精灵；反派格格巫代表着从头到脚都流着血和肮脏的东西的资本主义，长一鹰钩鼻子，还是个犹太人……另一些证据就很无厘头：蓝精灵的英语SMURF是"Soviet Men Under Red Father"的缩写；全村人都认识，互称其名时却非得加上Smurf,比如Papa Smurf, Chief Smurf,其语言习惯跟"列宁同志"相仿。更加坎普的是，还有人以信仰不容玷污的劲头予以反驳：《蓝精灵》宣扬的是善良美好的普世价值观，共产主义从来不歧视犹太人，马克思就是个犹太人…… 

复习《蓝精灵》时，我又找到了好多小时侯的动画片，却全变了味道。《花仙子》曾经是有全世界最多漂亮衣服的美女，可再看，比起纽约时装周图集差远了；丁丁也不再仅仅是个毛头冒险家，他是个记者，连他的雪瑞纳犬都比《南方周末》更有力量；至于《蓝精灵》，多么幼稚阴险，想到那个蹲在电视机前哭喊着"我要看动画片，我要看动画片"的小赖孩，真想将手伸过时光隧道抽自己一巴掌。我为自己有了成人视角感到得意，我与以前的自己产生了代沟。有人说动画片不可儿戏，因为它泽背后世。50岁的《蓝精灵》只在几个欧洲国家博取了纪念的掌声，除了那些喧嚣的诠释，我再也没在电视上看过重播。90后关心这些隐喻吗？他们知道"蓝精灵"吗？我也不清楚，我都没怎么跟他们说过话。但关于他们，我想讲另外一个冷笑话：有一天我突发奇想问一个95年生人，你知道"小虎队"吗？他迅速回答："知道！"之后的话就不那么叫人欣慰，他说："就是那个干脆面。"他把小虎队和小涣熊搞混了。


 
 

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发布于： 09:38

2008年2月19日

UK Wants To Kick File Sharers Off The Net



 
 

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via Mashable! by Stan Schroeder on 2/12/08

eye of sauronOh my, it's that stupid idea all over again. A new UK law in the making proposes that people who are caught (which probably assumes all users' online activity is constantly monitored - a worrying proposition all by itself) illegally sharing files via P2P (bear in mind that the word "illegal" here can be stretched to cover a number of gray cases, as always) would be kicked off the internet after three offenses.

First time, you get a warning e-mail; second offense, and you're "suspended;" third offense, and you're banned. ISPs who do not enforce this regime would be prosecuted, and the "suspects" and their personal details would end up in court. Why do I suddenly have the word "1984″ somewhere in the back of my mind?

Instead of reiterating just how dumb this proposition is (we've talked about it before, when French government did it; my favorite blog for these types of subjects, TechDirt, also has a nice scoop on this,) let me say that should this law start being enforced in any country, I will devote a series of articles to using anonymizers, proxies, and various encryption techniques which will make anyone who tries to monitor your internet activity's life a living hell. 'Nuff said.

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发布于： 20:26

OpenID: Google, Yahoo, IBM and More Put Some Money Where Their Mouths Are



 
 

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via ReadWriteWeb by Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2/7/08

The OpenID Foundation is announcing this morning that Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign and Yahoo! have taken seats as the organization's first corporate board members.

OpenID is a protocol for authenticating your identity through a single chosen provider instead of creating unique accounts at every website you use.

The Foundation, which was formed 18 months ago, says it "will not dictate the technical direction of OpenID; instead it will help enable and protect whatever is created by the community." That often means legal paperwork (to keep a single company from patenting important open standards, for example), and that means money is needed. Cash will also help with some much needed marketing and communications efforts.

Fortunately, the newest board members are buying the beer for meetings into the indefinite future; while a seat in the majority "community member" section of the board is free - corporations wanting to make up a minority part of the board have to make a financial donation to the foundation for the position.

For users, OpenID means much easier account creation, better personalization, privacy and security when trying out new web sites. It makes for a greatly improved user experience. For websites and other companies, OpenID means more and happier users and potentially greater access to information about those users.

There's a whole lot of momentum right now for OpenID. In January Yahoo! increased the number of OpenID enabled user accounts by orders of magnitude, the long-awaited OpenID 2.0 spec was just recently finalized and the entire Data Portability paradigm is moving into the public consciousness quickly.

All of that said, big vendors have a lot of short term interest in controlling identity silos. It won't be easy to get their long term interests in openness to prevail. Fortunately, they are participating but are in the minority on the OpenID Foundation board.

We wrote about the Foundation chair Scott Kveton's new day job, at a particularly interesting OpenID vendor called Vidoop, earlier this week. There are many, many places you can get an OpenID and there are significant differences in advanced feature sets. To get a good look at the range of options and details beyond mere simple one-way authentication check out the vendor comparison at SpreadOpenID.org. If issues like these are of interest, check out the ReadWriteWeb Toolkit for tracking top technology themes of 2008, including Data Portability and OpenID.


 
 

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发布于： 12:24

GPhone Prototype Expected at Mobile World Congress



 
 

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via ReadWriteWeb by Richard MacManus on 2/10/08

It's a big week coming up in the Mobile Web world. The annual Mobile World Congress is being held in Barcelona, 11-14 February. The early buzz is around Google's much (and oft) rumored GPhone. According to the Times Online, Google "is expected to produce a prototype mobile handset" at the show. Even if Google itself doesn't unveil a phone, there will be plenty of Android prototypes on display (Google's open source Mobile Operating System).

CNN is reporting that "as many as one dozen handset makers and chip companies are expected next week to unveil mobile phone prototypes designed to operate with Google Inc.'s (GOOG) new Android software platform".

We'll just have to wait and see if Google itself comes out with a phone, although our network blog last100 speculated recently about a potential partnership with Dell. Check out a classic last100 post from last August if you're interested in some visual concepts on what a Gphone may look like!

It's not just Google which is causing buzz though. At a new Tangler-powered forum for the Nokia Nseries Mobile World Congress Virtual Event, there is plenty of speculation on touch UI devices. Will we see some amazing new devices from Nokia this week?

Nokia has been very busy of late. last100 last week covered the launches of Nokia's N-Gage gaming service and the “Share on Ovi” media sharing site. As last100's Dan Langendorf noted: "With handset prices falling, Nokia is expanding into mobile Internet services and is the first cell phone maker to move strongly into the content space — before Samsung, Motorola, LG, Apple, Google, RIM, and others."

In related news, Sony Ericsson has just announced a partnership with Microsoft. Gigaom reports that Sony Ericsson will start selling Windows Mobile phones sometime later this year.

Finally, the Mobile Web action is not limited to bigcos. Our favorite Mobile Web blogger Rudy de Waele has a great run-down of side events to the Mobile World Congress, including the Mobile Monday Peer Awards Barcelona, which has 25 nominees. Check out our earlier coverage of those promising Mobile Web startups.

But to come full circle: Gphone or no Gphone? That is the question... Let us know in the comments what you think is coming this busy week in the Mobile Web.


 
 

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发布于： 10:57

"Everything you should know about me as an entrepreneur you could learn from...



 
 

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via How to Change the World by GuyKawasaki on 2/3/08

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An email pitch from an entrepreneur named Sherry Couch of BizNiche brought a big smile to my face. First of all, how could I skip an email with a subject line like this one: “Everything you should know about me as an entrepreneur you could learn from my OB/GYN”? Sherry went on to write:

  1. I am very good at conceiving an idea.

  2. I can commit to something mind, body, and soul for at least nine months.

  3. I have the ability to over come adversity, such as eating healthily while puking all day.

  4. I can adapt quickly to changing and expanding situations.

  5. I stay focused and motivated even with a lack of oxygen to my brain.

  6. I am creative: Did you know with satin pajamas and satin sheets you can roll over in bed even with an extra sixty pounds.

  7. I am patient—ever known anyone ten months pregnant?

  8. I am cool under pressure: I gave birth to a ten-pound baby without a C-section or a properly functioning epidural and did not curse out my husband.

  9. I am resilient: I went back to work at my company four weeks after giving birth.

  10. I create meaning in the world! Even with all the trials and tribulations of becoming a parent I have chosen to do it twice so far because each new life gives hope and meaning to our world. Just like each new business.

Children are the ultimate startup. And when they leave for college, it’s their IPO. And when they get married, it’s an M & A deal. And like most startups, these milestones usually take longer and cost more than you predicted. Parental success rates, however, are much better than even the best (seed-stage) venture capitalist’s.


 
 

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发布于： 10:34

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