From how-tos to Grumpy Cat
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Twenty years ago this week, a researcher at CERN, the European physics institute, posted a web page that would be considered horrifyingly boring by today’s standards.
On white background in black Times New Roman text, the page lists links like “Help,” “Software products” and “Technical.”
Most viewers would have needed help, because that page, posted on April 30, 1993, was the very first site on the World Wide Web.
On Monday, CERN announced it was launching a project to restore that first URL and to retain and protect the early files and web servers that went into creating the World Wide Web. The project’s blog said the team has been blown away by the level of interest from the public.
British physicist Tim Berners-Lee, created the WWW system in 1989 to satisfy demand among international researchers for file-sharing capabilities. But the WWW prevailed because it was free and simple to use. Kate Allen
NIGERIA JOINS DEADLY LIST
Nigeria is a new addition to the list of the most dangerous countries for journalists, joining such mainstays as Pakistan, Somalia and Mexico.
Five journalists in Nigeria have been murdered since 2009. None of the cases has been solved.
“Investigations into these killings are usually carried out with sloppiness, and no real culprits are caught,” said Ayode Longe, a senior officer with the Media Rights Agenda, a press freedom group in Nigeria. “That has emboldened others to assault journalists, believing nothing would be done to them.”
The global index is released each year by the Committee to Protect Journalists and calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population.
The index also found soaring impunity rates in Somalia, Pakistan and Brazil. The CPJ said conditions for journalists are improving in Nepal and Russia, “although both nations remain dangerous for the press.”
Iraq is said to be the most dangerous country in which to be a journalist. Over the past 10 years, there have been 93 unsolved killings of journalists in the country of 33 million. Rick Westhead
BACK IN THE U.S.S.R
Call it nostalgia, neo-nationalism or just plain politics. Russia is going back to the future again, with a revival of Soviet medals.
Back in the day — Stalin’s — 15 minutes of fame meant being decorated for invaluable services to the motherland. Medals were taken seriously then, but with increasing skepticism over the years. When communism collapsed, some medal-holders headed for market stalls to eke out a few dollars from souvenir-hunting western tourists.
But President Vladimir Putin decided to change those casual attitudes. Now Soviet-era medals have been restored and updated.
One of the most prominent Soviet honours for women was a medal for “Hero Mother,” awarded (quite rightly) to those who had at least 10 children. In the new Russia the bar has been lowered to a mere four, and the medal renamed the “Order of Parental Glory.”
More recently, Putin has dusted off the “Hero of Labour” awards that inspired factory workers and collective farmers in decades past.
Some doubters suggest that Putin’s enthusiasm for historic honours has more to do with politics than patriotism. As protests continue, and grumbling over corruption, alleged election fraud and inequality lowers his poll ratings, he has turned his steely gaze to new — or old — horizons for political support.
The medals will take him only so far. According to the latest census material, Russia’s sprawling regions, once the focus of communist economic plans, are depopulating as lack of modernization, development, employment and environmental protection take their toll. It seems there’s no way back to the U.S.S.R. Olivia Ward
STAR WARS IN NAVAJO
Scientists and researchers have been puzzling over how to save languages on the verge of extinction. Now someone has come up with a unique idea, at least to save one language: to dub a classic Hollywood movie in it.
The largest Native American tribe in the United States is looking to dub Star Wars in Navajo to help preserve the native language.
A Reuters report says that fluent Navajo speakers have been invited for a casting call in Window Rock in northern Arizona to dub the roles of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia and others.
Manuelito Wheeler, director of the Navajo Nation Museum, told Reuters that he first came up with the idea 13 years ago as a way to preserve the consonant-rich Navajo language, believed to be spoken by about 170,000 people, according to government figures. “We thought this would be a pro- vocative and effective way to help try to preserve the language and at the same time preserve the culture,” Wheeler told Reuters. “What better movie to do this than Star Wars?” Wheeler said he believes the popular science fiction movie will res- onate with the Navajo people with its universal theme of good versus evil.
UNESCO considers a language endangered when parents no longer teach it to their children. It lists 577 languages as critically endangered. Raveena Aulakh