teaching

New technologies & the urge to control

commonplace book, history, politics, tech in changing society, technology / /

From David L. Hudson, Jr.’s “Update on the Internet and the First Amendment“:

For example, as First Amendment scholar Rodney
Smolla explains, when Gutenberg developed the printing press
circa 1450, the Archbishop of Mainz created a censorship body,
and the Venice Inquisition issued a list of banned books.

The expansion of printing led English officials to pass
restrictive licensing laws that allowed the crown to impose
prior restraints on publication. When movies were first introduced
in the early 20th century, the United States government
argued for tight censorship controls because it was believed that
movies would easily influence children.

New technologies & the urge to control Read More »

kanso and shizen and presentations

business, commonplace book, teaching, technology / /

From Garr Reynolds’ “Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic“:

A key tenet of the Zen aesthetic is kanso or simplicity. In the kanso concept beauty, grace, and visual elegance are achieved by elimination and omission. Says artist, designer and architect, Dr. Koichi Kawana, “Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means.” …

The aesthetic concept of naturalness or shizen “prohibits the use of elaborate designs and over refinement” according to Kawana. Restraint, then, is a beautiful thing. … Restraint is hard. Complication and elaboration are easy…and are common. …

The Zen aesthetic values include (but are not limited to):

  • Simplicity
  • Subtlety
  • Elegance
  • Suggestive rather than the descriptive or obvious
  • Naturalness (i.e., nothing artificial or forced)
  • Empty space (or negative space)
  • Stillness, Tranquility
  • Eliminating the non-essential

kanso and shizen and presentations Read More »

More validation of the Long Tail

business, tech in changing society / /

Don’t know what the Long Tail is? Check out the seminal Wired article, or read the blog.

From The New York Times‘ “The Net Is a Boon for Indie Labels“:

CD and digital album sales so far this year are down 8 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen SoundScan data. And while sales of digital tracks through services like iTunes have risen 150 percent, to well over 320 million songs this year, that rise is not enough to offset the plunge in album sales. Overall sales are down less than 5 percent if the digital singles are bundled into units of 10 and counted as albums, according to estimates by Billboard magazine.

Still, despite the slide, dozens of independent labels are faring well with steady-selling releases by, among others, the Miami rapper Pitbull and the indie bands Hawthorne Heights, Bright Eyes, Interpol and the Arcade Fire. Independent labels account for more than 18 percent of album sales this year – their biggest share of the market in at least five years, according to Nielsen SoundScan data. (If several big independent companies whose music is marketed by the major music labels distribution units are included, the figure exceeds 27 percent.) …

In a world of broadband connections, 60-gigabyte MP3 players and custom playlists, consumers have perhaps more power than ever to indulge their curiosities beyond the music that is presented through the industry’s established outlets, primarily radio stations and MTV.

“Fans are dictating,” said John Janick, co-founder of Fueled by Ramen, the independent label in Tampa, Fla., whose roster includes underground acts like Panic! At the Disco and Cute Is What We Aim For. “It’s not as easy to shove something down people’s throats anymore and make them buy it. It’s not even that they are smarter; they just have everything at their fingertips. They can go find something that’s cool and different. They go tell people about it and it just starts spreading.”

There are several signs that as more consumers develop the habit of exploring music online they are drawn to other musical choices besides hitmakers at the top of the Billboard chart – a trend that suggests more of the independent labels’ repertory will find an audience.

On the Rhapsody subscription music service, for example, the 100 most popular artists account for only about 24 percent of the music that consumers chose to play from its catalog last month, said Tim Quirk, Rhapsody’s executive editor. In the brick-and-mortar world, he estimates, the 100 most popular acts might account for more than 48 percent of a mass retailer’s sales.

“It’s no longer about a big behemoth beaming something at a mass audience,” Mr. Quirk said. “It’s about a mass of niche audiences picking and selecting what they want at any given time.”

More validation of the Long Tail Read More »

Still accessible after 1000 years

commonplace book, history, tech in changing society, technology / /

From BBC News:

In fact, it turns out that images stored electronically just 15 years ago are already becoming difficult to access. The Domesday Project, a multimedia archive of British life in 1986 designed as a digital counterpart to the original Domesday Book compiled by monks in 1086, was stored on laser discs.

The equipment needed to view the images on these discs is already very rare, yet the Domesday book, written on paper, is still accessible more than 1,000 years after it was produced.

Still accessible after 1000 years Read More »

DRM ratchets up, but never quite works

business, security, tech in changing society, technology / /

From Edward Felten’s "DRM and the Regulatory Ratchet":

Regular readers know that one of my running themes is the harm caused when policy makers don’t engage with technical realities. One of the most striking examples of this has to do with DRM (or copy-restriction) technologies. Independent technical experts agree almost universally that DRM is utterly unable to prevent the leakage of copyrighted material onto file sharing networks. And yet many policy-makers act as if DRM is the solution to the file-sharing problem.

The result is a kind of regulatory ratchet effect. When DRM seems not to be working, perhaps it can be rescued by imposing a few regulations on technology (think: DMCA). When somehow, despite the new regulations, DRM still isn’t working, perhaps what is needed is a few more regulations to backstop it further (think: broadcast flag). When even these expanded regulations prove insufficient, the answer is yet another layer of regulations (think: consensus watermark). The level of regulation ratchets up higher and higher – but DRM still doesn’t work.

The advocates of regulation argue at each point that just one more level of regulation will solve the problem. In a rational world, the fact that they were wrong last time would be reason to doubt them this time. But if you simply take on faith that DRM can prevent infringement, the failure of each step becomes, perversely, evidence that the next step is needed. And so the ratchet clicks along, restricting technical progress more and more, while copyright infringement goes on unabated.

DRM ratchets up, but never quite works Read More »

Test of Flock’s blog editor

teaching, technology / /

I’m trying out a new web browser – Flock – which is basically Firefox with social software tools baked in, such as blogging, Flickr, del.icio.us, & so on. Basically, all the stuff I use anyway. So far, Flock looks pretty interesting, although I’m not yet sure at all that I would use it for my daily browsing. That said, I now tend to have both Firefox & Opera open at all times on my machine, so I may just add Flock as an option as well.

Test of Flock’s blog editor Read More »

Will a technology become revolutionary?

commonplace book, science, tech in changing society / /

From "The Challenges Facing Nanotechnology", on Ockham’s Razor:

Let us now examine nanotechnology, and assess the hurdles it must overcome before it becomes a society-transforming revolution. In our view there are four major issues:

Feasibility: can we do what we claim we can do, or is it as fantastic as the Nanobot?

Secondly, economic value: does it change the economy in any way? Does it open new sources of wealth?

Third, safety: is it safe, or does it create new dangers we don’t yet know how to handle?

And finally, necessity: do we really need to do it? And have we a choice about it?

These are the major questions all new sciences should face, and nanotechnology is no different.

Will a technology become revolutionary? Read More »

The Little Rascals and copyright absurdity

politics, tech in changing society / /

From Lawrence Lessig’s blog:

Here’s a reductio ad absurdum of folding in the face of copyright overclaiming: “While interviewing students for a documentary about inner-city schools, a filmmaker accidentally captures a television playing in the background, in which you can just make out three seconds of an episode of ‘The Little Rascals.’ He can’t include the interview in his film unless he gets permission from the copyright holder to use the three seconds of TV footage. After dozens of phone calls to The Hal Roach Studios, he is passed along to a company lawyer who tells him that he can include the fleeting glimpse of Alfalfa in his nonprofit film, but only if he’s willing to pay $25,000. He can’t, and so he cuts the entire scene.” Jeffrey Rosen, “Mouse Trap: Disney’s Copyright Conquest,” New Republic, Oct. 28, 2002, p. 12

The Little Rascals and copyright absurdity Read More »

Clay Shirky’s Thinking About Networks syllabus

social software, tech in changing society, technology / /

From Clay Shirky’s “Thinking About Networks” syllabus:

Communications networks are invisible in the traditional sense; their inner workings are hidden inside devices, behind walls and underground, or pass silently through the air. We will examine a variety of electronic networks — telegraph, telephones, internet — and design philosophies — client-server, lattice, peer-to-peer — and explore the ways different networks alter the experiences that are and are not possible within them.

Social networks are invisible in a different way; because we are immersed in myriad social networks — friends, family, work school — and because humans are so natively good at understanding and working in such networks, we don’t see them. We will examine some of the structural elements of social networks, such as strong and weak ties, clustering, and small worlds networks, to understand some of the ways that the shape of social networks affects us.

… Technological choices embodied in electronic networks profoundly affect their social dimensions: Why can we CC people on email but not on phone calls? How does the one-way network of television differ from the two-way network of the internet? What effect does bittorrent’s architectural decentralization have on its users? Social choices also affect the design of technology; resistance to spamming or attempts to hide from the RIAA have led to several deep technological changes in the design of weblogs and file-sharing networks respectively, changes that alter the social relations among the users. …

… what is special about a network, as different from a mere collection of nodes? …

Humans both shape and are shaped by networks. We live in them every day, and they become so completely woven into the fabric of our lives that the technology becomes invisible, and our primary experience of them becomes social. “Who said what to whom when” is more important than whether the messages traveled by email or carrier pigeon.

Yet the structure of networks does affect the culture that uses them. The kinds of conversations people have via snail mail differ significantly from the conversations they have in email; talking on the phone is very different than “talking” via IM; group conversations that take place in communities like Metafilter are very different from those that take place on irc and different again from mailing lists, in large part because the technology shapes the culture.

To a first approximation, networks can be defined by describing 3 aspects: nodes, connections, and contents. The Web and email, for example, use the same nodes (users computers), but have very different ways of connecting (real time versus delayed delivery) and very different sorts of contents (request and reply — “pull” — for a specific URL versus sending for later delivery — “push” — of text messages), which make using the Web so different from using email. …

PAPER #1 ASSIGNED: “Two Networks” Students pick two networks (Telephone vs telegraph, FedEx vs Bike messenger, etc) and contrast their structure and use. …

What is “information space”? How can you visualize an N-dimensional network in 2D space? 3D space? What visual tools and techniques are there for representing networks? How does the material used to represent a network affect the representation? When representing something as abstract as a network, what information about a network is it vital to represent? What information is it vital to ignore? …

… the 20th century was characterized by broadcast media of an unprecedented scale, but most of the new networking tools invented in the last 30 years have not adhered to the broadcast model. …

What is a social network? What social networks do you live in? How do social networks use technological networks? How do social networks affect technological network design? What are the social effects of privacy, secrecy, anonymity, security, reputation in a mediated setting?

Some takeaway thoughts & questions I have for my students in my Social Software class:

How are networks structured?

What are the named AND unnamed structures (assumed? cultural? instinctual?) you see in various networks?

How does software further those structures? Expose them? Subvert them?

Given the structure of software/system/service X, what social experiences are possible? What are unintended, but possible? What are desired, but impossible?

Look at Dr. Samuel Johnson’s famous definition of “network”: “Any thing reticulated, or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.”

Clay Shirky’s Thinking About Networks syllabus Read More »

Tools vs. tasks

social software, technology / /

From Adam Fields’s blog post, "Unthrilled with the Office 12 UI":

Over many years of designing custom content management interfaces for lots of people to use, it became crystal clear that there’s a huge difference between a “tool” and a “task”. A tool is a function that lets the user do something, but a task is a function that lets the user accomplish something.

In my experience, most successful content management interfaces are primarily task-based. When the user sits down in front of the computer, the goal is to get something done, not just use some tools. Tasks are for most people (beginners and power users alike), but tools are for power users. If you know what you want to do, but it doesn’t fit nicely into the framework of getting something done, you need a tool. Tasks should be the default.

Tools vs. tasks Read More »

6 distinct food consumers

commonplace book, science, tech in changing society, technology / /

From "Lies, Deep Fries and Statistics", at Ockham’s Razor:

So why is that, if so many people state that they are concerned about GM foods?

An indication of why has been provided by Environics International, a Canadian company which has done some cluster graphs on consumer attitudes to food and whose research translates well into Australia. The general finding of its research shows that attitudes towards GM foods are more driven by general attitudes towards food than attitudes towards gene technology.

They have defined six distinct consumer segments:

The first, Food Elites, who prefer to eat organics and the best foods and will pay for them ( about 1 in 10 amongst the population ).

Then, the Naturalists, who prefer to buy from markets rather than supermarkets ( about 1 in 8 ).

Fearful Shoppers, who have concerns about most foods, predominantly elder consumers ( about 1 in 5 ).

Nutrition Seekers, who treat food as fuel for the body ( about 1 in 5 ).

Date Code Diligent, who read labels, but generally only look at the use-by date and fat content, predominantly younger women ( about 1 in 8 ).

And The Unconcerned, who don’t really care too much about what they eat, predominantly younger men ( about 1 in 8 ).

Those top three, the food elites, the naturalists and the fearful shoppers, are concerned about many food issues and also concerned about GM foods. The bottom three, the nutrition seekers, the date code diligent and the unconcerned have specific concerns only, or aren’t too concerned about foods at all and are not concerned about GM foods.

6 distinct food consumers Read More »

The printed book results in more handwritten mss

commonplace book, history, tech in changing society, technology / /

From “William Caxton“, at The Science Show:

More than 500 years later a copy of Caxton’s first edition of Chaucer became the most expensive book ever sold, knocked down at auction in the 1990s for 4.6 million pounds. But in the 15th Century, the obvious appeal of the newly printed books lay in their value for money. Books became so commonplace indeed, that some snobs employed scribes to copy Caxton’s printed editions back into manuscript, while both church and government became alarmed at the access to new ideas that the printing press offered to a widening public. [Emphasis added]

The printed book results in more handwritten mss Read More »

Cringely on patents, trademarks, & copyright

commonplace book, tech in changing society, technology / /

From Robert X. Cringely’s “Patently Absurd: Patent Reform Legislation in Congress Amounts to Little More Than a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card for Microsoft“:

There are several forms of intellectual property protected by U.S. law. Among these are patents, trademarks, and copyrights. The goal of all three forms of protection is to encourage hard work through the granting of some economic exclusivity, and thereby helping the nation by growing the economy and through the good works made possible by new inventions. Trademarks reduce ambiguity in marketing and promotion. Copyrights protect artistic and intellectual expression. And patents protect ideas. Of these three categories of intellectual property, the ones recently subject to reform efforts are copyrights and patents, and each of these seems to be headed in a different direction, though for generally the same reason.

Copyright law is being tightened at the behest of big publishers and especially big record and movie companies. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for example, makes it a crime to defeat copy protection of CDs and DVDs, thus helping to preserve the property rights of these companies. At the end of some artistic productivity chain, it is supposed to protect the rest of us, too, most notably by encouraging the record and movie companies to make more records and movies, which we will in turn be discouraged from copying illegally.

Patent reform works the other way. Where we are tightening copyrights to help big companies, we are loosening patents, also to help big companies. Certainly it isn’t to help you or me.

Cringely on patents, trademarks, & copyright Read More »

Articles read on 25 November 2003

commonplace book, security, social software, tech help / /

Crypto-Gram Newsletter of 15 November 2003

"I don’t believe that airplane hijacking is a thing of the past, but when the next plane gets taken over it will be because a group of hijackers figured out a clever new weapon that we haven’t thought of, and not because they snuck some small pointy objects through security."

The Big Here and Long Now, by Brian Eno

"The Long Now is the recognition that the precise moment you’re in grows out of the past and is a seed for the future. The longer your sense of Now, the more past and future it includes. It’s ironic that, at a time when humankind is at a peak of its technical powers, able to create huge global changes that will echo down the centuries, most of our social systems seem geared to increasingly short nows."

The End of the Modern Era, by Vaclav Havel

"The end of Communism is, first and foremost, a message to the human race. It is a message we have not yet fully deciphered and comprehended. In its deepest sense, the end of Communism has brought a major era in human history to an end. It has brought an end not just to the 19th and 20th centuries, but to the modern age as a whole."

OpenOffice.org : Using it with Style

"We will examine how the styles work within OpenOffice.org and how they can be used to make your job easier when it comes to word processing."

KDE, Mac Os X, Windows: What can we learn (copy or improve) from them?
http://www.gnome.org/~fherrera/bof-conclusions.pdf (PDF)

Howard Rheingold: Smart Mobs

"Smart mobs use mobile media and computer networks to organize collective actions, from swarms of techo-savvy youth in urban Asia and Scandinavia to citizen revolts on the streets of Seattle, Manila, and Caracas. Wireless community networks, webloggers, buyers and sellers on eBay are early indicators of smart mobs that will emerge in the coming decade. Communication and computing technologies capable of amplifying human cooperation already appear to be both beneficial and destructive, used by some to support democracy and by others to coordinate terrorist attacks."

Problems with the Book of Mormon

"Written by a former believer in the book of Mormon, this article reveals serious objective weaknesses in any truth claims concerning the Book of Mormon."

Articles read on 25 November 2003 Read More »

My first book – Don’t Click on the Blue E! – is out!

business, personal, security, tech in changing society, technology / /

For all those surfers who have slowly grown disenchanted with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser, Don’t Click on the Blue E! from O’Reilly is here to help. It offers non-technical users a convenient roadmap for switching to a better web browser – Firefox.

The only book that covers the switch to Firefox, Don’t Click on the Blue E! is a must for anyone who wants to browse faster, more securely, and more efficiently. It takes readers through the process step-by-step, so it’s easy to understand. Schools, non-profits, businesses, and individuals can all benefit from this how-to guide.

Firefox includes most of the features that browser users are familiar with, along with several new features other browsers don’t have, such as a bookmarks toolbar and window tabs that allow users to quickly switch among several web sites. There is also the likelihood of better security with Firefox.

All indications say that Firefox is more than just a passing fad. With USA Today and Forbes Magazine hailing it as superior to Internet Explorer, Firefox is clearly the web browser of the future. In fact, as it stands today, already 22% of the market currently employs Firefox for their browsing purposes.

Don’t Click on the Blue E! has been written exclusively for this growing audience. With its straightforward approach, it helps people harness this emerging technology so they can enjoy a superior – and safer – browsing experience.

Read two sample excerpts: Counteracting Web Annoyances (651 kb PDF) & Safety and Security (252 kb PDF).

Translated into Japanese!

Buy Don’t Click on the Blue E! from Amazon!

My first book – Don’t Click on the Blue E! – is out! Read More »

Mozilla fixes a bug … fast

tech in changing society, technology / /

One of the arguments anti-open sourcers often try to advance is that open source has just as many security holes as closed source software. On top of that one, the anti-OSS folks then go on to say that once open source software is as widely used as their closed source equivalents, they’ll suffer just as many attacks. Now, I’ve argued before that this is a wrong-headed attitude, at least as far as email viruses are concerned, and I think the fact that Apache is the most-widely used Web server in the world, yet sees only a fraction of the constant stream of security disasters that IIS does, pretty much belies the argument.

Now a blogger named sacarny has created a timeline detailing a vulnerability that was found in Mozilla and the time it took to fix it. It starts on July 7, at 13:46 GMT, and ends on July 8, at 21:57 GMT – in other words, it took a little over 24 hours for the Mozilla developers to fix a serious hole. And best of all, the whole process was open and documented. Sure, open source has bugs – all software does – but it tends to get fixed. Fast.

Mozilla fixes a bug … fast Read More »