...She lies in the Tehran street with her headscarf half-off, blood pooling around her jeans and white sneakers.

"Don't be afraid, Neda dear, don't be afraid," a white-haired man says desperately in Persian. Another man presses on her chest, trying to keep her alive.

Scarlet blood gushes from her nose and mouth and courses across her pale face. Men and women scream in horror as they realize she is dead or dying. - AP, 6/22/09

The murder of 27 year old Neda Agha-Soltan at a protest in Tehran likely by Basij militia or Revolutionary Guards has become a tragic yet equally powerful symbol for Iran's struggle for freedom and given her a martyr's status in Iran.In less than 48 hours, the 40 second video was all over YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter with over a million impressions (An aside: Social media has finally justified its otherwise navel-gazing existince). Old media followed soon after, spreading the video world-wide and into the mainstream consciousness. Nearly a week after the video was recorded it is still one of the most-searched terms on the web, and today alone over 14,264 blog posts and news articles have been written about her.

YouTube: Iranian woman killed June 20, 2009 by Ali Khamanei [WARNING: The preceding link contains the real and graphic death of a human being.]

But it didn't take long for comparisons of Tiananmen's Tank Man to start rolling in. I am not sure how accurate these comparisons are given many differences between the two examples, but as powerful symbols of the struggle for freedom they are close. One such difference is that images of the Tank Man have near-universal familiarity and meaning to the rest of the world; In China, however, the powerful imagery of the Tank Man, is largely baffling to the younger affluent and educated generation many of whom had parents at the protests. On the other hand, the images of Neda's death have become a rallying cry for protesters in Iran, and despite complete media control, seems to be having an impact on the greater Iranian population to the detriment of the Islamic Republic's authority.

Furthermore, while the unprecedented protests in Tiananmen Square failed to liberalize the government of China, as the protesters had hoped, they did lead to economic reform. These economic reforms were still a far cry from the freedoms and accountability originally sought and that are still far out of reach. Meanwhile, Iran by some accounts is still fluid situation - although the edge still certainly remains on the side of the Islamic Republic. But the facade is nonetheless cracked and Ayatollah Khomeneican no longer take his power for granted in light of a younger generation that overwhelmingly seeks reform.

I really want to hear what some of you are thinking about all of this.

What do you think of the comparison of Neda to the Tank Man from Tiananmen Square?Is this a fair comparison? What do you think will be the ramifications of the poignant, public display of Neda's sacrifice? Is she the Tank Man of the Internet-generation?

Originally published at Blueblooder.com.

My very good friend brigid just became elite on yelp.com! I totally introduced her to the website, so I am sharing in the joy of her ascension. Incidentally, is anyone here on Yelp? If your not you should consider joining this great site!

Do you or anyone else you know have experience with Drupal? There's a project I am taking over at work that was made by a very special individual.

My sister woke me up to triumphantly tell me she made it onto overheardinnewyork.com. It really does sound like her too. Later in the evening her advances were rejected by the other half of the exchange.

Now, back to sleep after a very exhausting, stressful, but highly productive nine hour work day. I have to look halfway normal during a ceremony to unveil our new laboratory donated by Pfizer. Lots of fancy people will be in attendance including the Mayor Mumbles Menino and the new BPS superintendent.

Oh, yeah: Go Sox. Now, bed.

I have some things I'd like to write about, but that will have to wait until next week when I have more time.

But in the meantime is anyone here on Steam? Care to share your SteamID so I can friend you?

TrustPlus
A local Waltham-based company looking to make "the Internet the Safest Place on Earth" by building a universal reputation system which displays your feedback on an ever-increasing number of websites and services. If you use Freecycle, Craigslist, eBay, or any place where you are trusting people you have never met before with money, goods, or your own being this service should be of particular interest to you. It is a new service so it hasn't taken off yet. But in my opinion this service fills a really important gap left open, and if it becomes successful could make the Internet a much safer place to do business, get rid of crap, and to make friends.

Sign up for a free account and add (petergray) me to your trust circle!

Boston Community Change
If you reside in the Boston area, and dislike chains or just want to support your community, consider signing up for your free Boston Community Change Card the goal of which is to:

The Boston Community Change Card program is designed to help communities reverse the negative impact of losing dollars to retailers that are not locally owned. The program provides consumers with the incentives they need to shift their purchasing habits to support the cultural, economic and environmental health of their communities by shopping locally. When you shop at participating neighborhood businesses, you facilitate a shift of dollars to the common good through cash rewards for consumers, beneficiaries and the local community.

It's a free and easy way to do some good. Sign up here.

Moving day is tomorrow! Oh, and sorry for the lack of updates and the extraordinarily impersonal nature of this entry.

Which one do you think I chose?

From Amazon.com:

On Monday, September 3, 2007, Steve Fossett, the first person to fly a plane around the world without refueling and the first person to fly around the world in a balloon went missing in Nevada. An airplane he was flying failed to return. No one has any idea where he is.
Through the generous efforts of individuals at several organizations, detailed satellite imagery has been made available for his last known whereabouts.
HITs have been created to ask volunteers to help review these images and flag potential areas of interest which will be instrumental in the search and rescue efforts.

If you are interested in helping, please click here to participate in the search effort.

This is a race against time and any help you can provide will make a huge difference. Friends and family of Steve Fossett would like to thank you for helping them with this cause.

If you have a few minutes why not click through a few images? You'll need Google Earth, a good eye, and a few minutes to process some images.

The last week has gone by in a blur. Even working only "six" hours a day has left me with little time or energy for much else. If I have seemed distant or inaccessible it's just me still getting used to working and still dealing with some of the ongoing issues of home. Between the two of them I don't have much time or energy for anything else. Hopefully this will change very soon.

brigid referred me to a potential apartment prospect with one of her friends out in Central Square. We visited the same day and it was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. I would be right on the Red Line (the only part of the T I trust) and give me a really easy commute to work via the #1 bus. I am pretty excited by the concept of a graceful exit from things at home so I can focus a bit more on my own life. Also, the desire to want to get out into the world and be independent seems to be growing as issues at home seem to just be simmering until the next explosion.

The Job
I've already written about how work is going really well. In addition to my normal duties I've become the head of Alumni development and become the liaison to the Red Sox (Fenway Park is literally accross the street) and to their philanthropic arm the Red Sox Foundation. I've talked and met with a few people from both organizations which has significantly increased my love of the Red Sox. I now understand a lot more about just how much and how long they have been engaged with pretty amazing levels of philanthropy. It's also given me a context for understanding why many corporations and even other professional sports teams do very little or in the case of the Yankees do no philanthropic/charitable work. I'm also beginning to see and understand the differences between actual meaningful charitable and philanthropic work and what the flouted PR exercises that makes the bulk. Just another reason to appreciate and support organizations who actually make meaningful contributions.

( More on my Job )

If people are interested I could write about the school itself and its methods. But I worry that discussions of pedagogy and school-design might not interest most people on my LJ.

Anyone want to do something this weekend?

Yesterday I posted my second-ever eBay auction. So far things have been rather quiet, despite Apple iSights seemingly being in high demand. So for you avid eBayers what should I do to get some people actually bidding on my auction? I poked around LiveJournal to see if there were any Mac communities that were open to advertising auctions or sales but couldn't find any in English.

Thoughts? Help? Advice?

Here's the auction for reference: Apple iSight Webcam/Videocam - In Box & Like New! [eBay Auction].

Last night I was pretty amused when LiveJournal went down, imagining thousands of angsty teens shrieking a curse to the sky. But then I felt like actually updating my journals with insightful and interesting entries, but LJ being down forced me to look elsewhere for amusement. So these posts may be lost forever in the ether, or maybe today I'll feel like updating about my thoughts from yesterday.

Alas, last night's festivities made me skip my daily dose of Craigslist's Missed Connections too. Who knew so much of my life revolved around that silly San Francisco place. Remember kids, Co-location is your friend!

But, I've got a fanclub on Facebook.

Don't worry I waste my life so you don't have to.

A few days ago, major drama hit in the virtual life sim Second Life and reverberated within the world wide web. Representations of genitalia were involved and even the DMCA was invoked. Curious?

The events are now even hitting the mainstream press. The video of the two events were uploaded to Google Video and YouTube.

Confused by the video, here's the background. The asian avatar featured in the video is none other than 'Anshe Chung' the avatar of Ailin Graef, the largest land-owner in Second Life and self-proclaimed 'first virtual world millionaire'.

In December during an interview with CNET about her virtual success (Sorry, couldn't resist) she was "attacked" by a clearly organized group of players calling themselves Room 101. The attackers first invoked a large number of flying animated genitalia and soon after bombarded Anshe and the other onlookers with a photoshopped picture of Ailin Graef holding a large penis. The interview was disrupted sufficiently that it was ended early and Anshe Chung warped back to her virtual headquarters.

But her 'assailants' weren't done yet, they had people waiting and continued to attack her in her headquarters until she logged out of the game and the server subsequently crashed from their macros.

It wasn't long until the video hit the net and became an instant success, and on Friday Ailin Graef has threatened using the DMCA anyone hosting the videos and media outlets for showing pictures of the attacks as violating the intellectual property of Anshe Chung Studios.

Amazing stuff.

In the nearly thirteen years I've been on the world wide web, I've gotten excited about websites, even really excited. But never love, I have never loved a website. But as of today, I can safely say, I have finally fallen in love with a website: EasyBib.com

I long to caress its whispy electronic binary tendrils. EasyBib.com you are a GODDESS! Err...even if you have kinda lame domain name you have tamed the insanity that is MLA and APA formating, especially with obscure source types that I seem to keep needing that no online style guide includes.

Oh, you beautiful, naughty thing.

Today was a much better day. I thank you all for your concern, yesterday was a horrible beginning to my work here. After being exhausted from the trials of yesterday I slogged into today with low expectations. The weather was gorgeous ever so slightly too warm but with nice blue skies with rolling puffy white clouds. Unfortunately, I spent most of the day indoors in various training sessions where we went over common sense stuff.

Both my boss and the dean of the 'Student Life Office' came to apologize to me over the cock-up. It turns out those coaches were just being jerks (surprise!), and their hockey kids had noticed a number of unlocked doors on the hall and instead of filling up the doubles like they were supposed to many took double-singles leading to a crunch that Cushing hadn't prepared for and because the coaches weren't doing their job supervising they assumed that they had just run out of space rather than checking to see that each bed was being used.

During the Student Life Office presentation she referenced my woe several times in discussing crises and what you should do. I liked the dean of the Student Life immediately. She's pretty darn awesome. I think I stand out to her since I put up with the crap and kept my cool, something I'll keep in mind if I need an ally sometime this summer.

Although, once again what I'm actually teaching is completely up in the air again. They keep changing what electives I'm teaching although tomorrow I find out with some level of finality. I have four blocks I could possibly be teaching: Web Design, Graphic Design, Digital Video, Intro to Computers, etc.

So far the highlight has been the food. Good gosh, the food is fantastic (for cafeteria food) and there's a heck of a lot of variety even with only two of the six food stations opened. This place so puts Hampshire to shame, everyone tells me to wait until the semester begins to see how good it gets. Edible fruit, good salad bar, and enjoyable entrees. They have someone who makes you sandwiches at a station, which I don't like since I like making my own. Bah, still I have a happy tummy. Just tonight I had garlic lemon butter salmon and it was pretty good.

So far my hopes for the internet have been pretty poor. I found out it is possible to get a faculty internet 'account' wherein my internet doesn't have scheduled shut-downs and where the security is supposedly eased a little. Eased may not mean much considering this place is literally running on only a handful of ports allowing users to only use the WWW, AOL Instant Messenger (Not AOL itself), or MSN Messenger. Everything else is banned, everything.

On top of that, many legitimate sites have been banned, it's next to impossible for me to collect Links of Insanity as many of my feeder sites as well as my own ability to discover the insanity of the internet has been blocked. Luckily I have a back-log of links to share with you and hopefully things will get better so I can provide you with more delicious links.

I found a air conditioner in one of the storage rooms (unlocked and for that matter without a door at all) and left a note saying I borrowed it and gave contact information as well as an offer for delivery and installation for when it's rightful owner shows up. Is that too sketchy? Oh well, I'm feeling entitled today.

• How is this for horrific? Beatings involving dead puppies...What a world we're in. [SFW]
  
• I know you all want to play: Name that Beard! [SFW, Volume]
  
• Kitty versus Front Row. So cute! [SFW, Volume]
  
• Project Euh a brilliant time-waster. Whee. [SFW, Volume]
  
• Part II of useful English lessons from creepy Japanese women doing aerobics.
  
• Old news is still good news. I feel sorta sorry for her, but that was a really dumb thing she did. [SFW]
  
• Sandles with a built-in bottle opener. How...useful? [SFW]
  
• I think this site just about stands for itself. Just one comment: 'Sanctity' of traditional marriage? Uh-huh. [SFW]
  
• Now you can finally protect your children from terrorists! [SFW]
  
• The ultimate project for people with too much time on their hands. [SFW]
  
• ASCII-O-Matic. Very cool, turn any image into nice generated ASCII.[SFW]
  

For those who might be out-of-the-loop. Last week ThePirateBay.org, the Internet's largest public Bit Torrent site and tracker had their servers raided by plain clothes Swedish officers who shut down the site. You can actually view the disappointingly low-key raid on YouTube, at least until the police officers cover up the hosting facilities' security cameras. The site reappeared the very next day, and the day after was operational again with new servers co-located in different countries. The new graphic on the page shows the pirate ship destroying the Hollywood hills sign with cannon balls.

In the aftermath of the assault, the mainstream press had some impressive coverage (all things considered) giving a lot of publicity to both the site and Bit Torrent. Meanwhile the internet has been consumed with the whole thing, specifically the legality of the attack according to Swedish Law and figuring out who ordered the thing to happen in the first place. After a great deal of research, a page has been compiled detailing the list - yes, a list - of the civil rights violations and lack of due process that the police used.

I'm just glad to see that we're fighting back, and winning on some level. After years and years of having the interests and rights of consumers horrifically eroded in the name of "Intellectual Property" (Corporate Greed). Until the companies learn to listen to the very customers they demonize they will never be able to eliminate the effect piracy has. They've created a world where piracy is easier and more flexible than the legal alternatives. They are just reaping what they've failed to sow. But, I bet The Pirate Bay is pretty happy with all the free publicity and even found itself a wealth of new members.

I can't account for much of the last two weeks and that disturbs me.

It also disturbs me that two girls just walked onto my Hall (Substance Free), and asked me (The Intern) about whether I could or knew someone who could get them alcohol. Brilliant.

Oxygen started an interesting way of raising money for the hurricane victims. Something akin to 'infectious donations' check it out here and register yourself. You should enter the Hampshire Zip 01002 code to spread the Western Mass love.

Moment of Zen
WTF?