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[ by Charles Cameron — AQ, iPad, importance of graphics, importance of tech savvy ]
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I found this online on May 26 2011, and posted it to a private conference I belong to. Today I discovered that the original link it came from [ stashbox.org/1120308/sahab.gif ] is down, perhaps permanently. I’m posting it here because I think it strikingly documents the sophistication of some as-Sahab graphics — and sophisticated graphics, like finely-tuned anasheed, are powerful motivational tools.

Admittedly, this graphic is almost a year old. If you’ve already seen it, don’t mind me — just blink and move on.

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Edited to add:

I see Florian Flade had a heavily watermarked version of the same graphic up at Jih@d under the title Al-Qaida’s Apple Fetish, with some interesting commentary. Florian identifies the iPad as an iPad 2.

[ by Charles Cameron — politics and esthetics of revolutionary graffiti ]
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At first, I was looking to see whether Anonymous made an appearance in the graffiti of the Egyptian popular uprising, and yes indeed:

What I found in my searching around included some pretty striking graphics — and a well-wrought English pun-slogan, too!

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In fact I stumbled onto a number of interesting visuals — many of them in Gigi Ibrahim‘s photostream of Egyptian street art

One image that struck me featured “Tantawi’s underpants” — a popular motif, apparently, and one that seemed to me to make an interesting response / riposte to the iconic “blue bra girl” so shamelessly exposed by the Egyptian police:

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So you can find a modern, maybe even a post-modern Egypt, up on the walls however fleetingly. But there’s also a sense of Egypt ancient and sophisticated — and this, too, I though worthy of your attention:

These two murals are grieving / protesting those who died in the “Port Said massacre” which followed a football game between rival Egyptian teams.

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There’s much more to be seen — from “Facebook” and “the revolution will not be tweeted” to “no more guns” and images of a young man throwing a molotov cocktail… to graphics of cross and crescent intertwined.

The point being that this kind of “unofficial” art, like the anasheed of jihad, can give us a glimpse into the substrate of feeling that constitutes the morale of a given movement — which can at times be raw and stark, and at times strikingly beautiful, too.

Here’s a legal question:

Do I own any of the airspace above my property?  If so, how high up? If not can somebody float camera-laden drones up to first and second story windows without breaking trespassing laws? How about following a person walking on their private property or in public by hovering uncomfortably  nearby their personal space? Flying over privacy fences or at an angle to peer over them?

Well, this story raised all these questions:

Animal rights group says drone shot down 

A remote-controlled aircraft owned by an animal rights group was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation Sunday.

Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.

“It didn’t work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal,” Hindi said in a news release. “Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the shooting stopped and the cars lined up to leave.”

He said the animal rights group decided to send the drone up anyway.

“Seconds after it hit the air, numerous shots rang out,” Hindi said in the release. “As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter.”

He claimed the shooters were “in tree cover” and “fled the scene on small motorized vehicles.”

Read the rest here.

Generally, laws permit you to film (but not always audiotape) people in public but not always where an expectation of privacy exists and certainly not via criminal trespass. If I own thirty acres, and your drone flies up to my house you have negated the value of owning so much property as to keep the public at a reasonable distance.

I can see how people might not find that acceptable and might start using strategies to discourage that. If I “accidentally” crash my drone into yours (Oops! Sorry) a court might perceive that as a risk entailed in such hobbies. I beam your craft with my DIY energy weapon and you are out $300 and can’t legally come on my property to retrieve it.

Or maybe, if I know who you are, I buy a drone and send it out after you. Or, if I have a screw or two loose or are from the shady side of the street, worse.

This could get seriously out of hand.