Via Ditzler I found these cool positions: Theres the Google Policy Fellowship 2010 now that’s a serious learning experience or what about the Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Programme. So many great things and so little time!
While these are cool positions – the best job must be this one. Imagine putting namer of clouds on the cv?
What is culture, how is it transmitted (and the issue of copyright) from a stone-age archeologists point of view! That was the focus of Mikael Nordins talk Cultural Transmission from an Archaeological Perspective. So why should we care about cultural transmission? According to Nordin its what makes us human. This becomes fascinating particularly since his perspective is the stone age. Bifacial mapping technique to make stone ages involves the same parts of the brain as with speaking. This supports the idea speech and cultural (stone tools) have an entangled evolution. This is fascinating stuff. The control of know-how and knowledge of the power elite has always been protected against piracy. But Nordin argues in the end the majority will win.
Sunday morning begins at nine with the keynote Free Software and Feminism given by Christina Haralanova. Despite the party last night, the earliness of the hour and the difficulties in getting to the venue on a Sunday there is a good audience which shows the dedication and interest of this public to their cause. Haralanova asks why are there still so few women into technology. One answer is that they are discouraged and opposed. Boys have first contact at 12, girls 14.5 their first own computer boys at 15 girls at 19.
The social aspects of technology prove to be the key. The introduction to technology as toy for the boys provides them with a reason to interact with technology and share & discuss them with their friends. But since women begin later they do not have the confidence and the space to share and discuss. Naturally this then develops and is reinforced within the groups of tecchies and non-tecchies alike. Women are often subjected to jokes/insults and their contributions to projects are subjected to a more scrutiny.
As in many other aspects of life the contribution of men and women are not valued equally. This means that men are the coders while women are the documenters, teachers, promotors, gui-designers etc. We may have computers and Free Software but we still have not left the caves and hunting mammoths with rocks and sticks! The role of women is marginalized and made invisible – a role which re-inforces the negative position. By this we all lose.
Despite being late I made it to the first talk which was by Erik Zachte speaking about Future of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation. He was eloquent and offered both an interesting animated graphical (a la Hans Rosling) example of the growth of different language groups within Wikipedia. He also offered a critical analysis of what this growth could mean and what will happen in the future.
The next talk was Young Pirate: Young people and hacktivism by Amelia Andersdotter, Krister Svanlund, Jimmy Callin, Kalle Vedin but unfortunately they were hadicapped by the problem that Amelia Andersdotter (Swedens latest MEP) was late and Jimmy Callin was unable to come due to illness. Despite the handicaps the talk gained momentum and the discussion got started and became an interesting talk about the problems with a disseminated organisation. Part of the problems could be technical the Göteborg group is more hacker oriented and use irc and the rest use the proprietary skype. Or organizational “Uppsala is more hierarchical while Göteborg is more chaotic”
Next up it’s Karin Kosina (vka kyrah) Hackerspaces FTW! She begins by apologizing that she maybe doesn’t need to but she will define the term hacker as opposed to crackers. “Hackers are people who do awesome things with technology” and Hackerspaces “I don’t mean spaces in an abstract theoretical space but actual physical space”. Kyrah has a great energy and belief that people can create – if they are given they opportunity the will go from consumers to producers. The opportunity? Basically its the need to go beyond chats and mailing lists. Physical space is creative! And fundamental spaces are key, she describes the importance of their kitchen (the place for food hacking):
Making food together and eating together is a fundamental way for people to come together as a community
Despite being close to the planning and organisation I had not paid attention to ensure that Creative Commons presented at this years FSCONS. Then today we had the unfortunate news that one of our presenters on Sunday was too ill to attend. So the opportunity presented itself and I will be presenting The good, the bad & the ugly: Copyright & Open content licenses
Taking its starting point in the principles, growth and development of open Creative Commons licenses this talk takes a closer look at what licenses can and cannot do in a world were copyright is attempting to lock-in culture into a eternal artificial monopoly.
An interesting info-graphic via Futuramb about what we remember… Reading seems pointless and lecturing is a waste of time? Not sure if I agree but it is an interesting basis for discussion.
Sources: infoneernet:matthendrick:How to Learn (Almost) Anything
The greatest local event of the year is upon us. If you did not already know its time for the annual Free Software and Free Culture conference. The event is organised by two tireless friends of mine Jonas Öberg & Henrik Sandklef and this years FSCONS is an excellent example of why they really are the dynamic duo. The software and culture tracks appear in a nice mix (see schedule) and offer a wide range of intellectually challenging seminars and talks by pirates, politicians, aktivists, hackers, coders, geek girls, creators and the occasional academic.
My “must see” list is long but the highlights include: Edmund Harriss on Street Maths, Mikael Nordin on Cultural Transmission from an Archaeological Perspective, Christina Haralanova, on Free Software and Feminism & Christopher Kullenberg on Citizen’s Agenda: Net Neutrality, Surveillance and how to Re-build Politics
There will also be an event by the Julia Group (Tools for Determining Net Neutrality – An Activist Perspectve) the Nordic Free Software Award and lets not forget the social event of the year!
What can I say? its going to be a good weekend, so get over here and join in! There is always room for more Free Software/Free Culture nerds…
So this is just a big forward of the fascinating new book Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out via Apophenia:
I am delighted to announce that “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media” is now in the wild and available! This book was written as a collaborative effort by members of the Digital Youth Project, a three-year research effort funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California. The project was spearheaded by Mimi Ito and my late advisor Peter Lyman. I had the honor of being one of the members of this group and led one of the chapters in this book (the one on “Friendship”). If you’re trying to understand the diversity of youth practices involving new media, this is a book for you!
Conventional wisdom about young people’s use of digital technology often equates generational identity with technology identity: today’s teens seem constantly plugged in to video games, social networks sites, and text messaging. Yet there is little actual research that investigates the intricate dynamics of youth’s social and recreational use of digital media. “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out” fills this gap, reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings—at home, in after school programs, and in online spaces. By focusing on media practices in the everyday contexts of family and peer interaction, the book views the relationship of youth and new media not simply in terms of technology trends but situated within the broader structural conditions of childhood and the negotiations with adults that frame the experience of youth in the United States.Integrating twenty-three different case studies—which include Harry Potter podcasting, video-game playing, music-sharing, and online romantic breakups—in a unique collaborative authorship style, “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out” is distinctive for its combination of in-depth description of specific group dynamics with conceptual analysis.
You can also download a PDF of the book, thanks to MIT Press. All proceeds from purchases of the book go to the Peter Lyman Graduate Fellowship in New Media at the University of California-Berkeley.
This project was one of many funded by the MacArthur Foundation to explore digital media and learning. New projects in this area are being aggregated through the Digital Media and Learning Hub. If you are interested in this area of work, you should also consider attending the first annual Digital Media and Learning Conference in February in San Diego.
An interesting thing happened at a conference I was attending last week. The were three speakers giving talks to all the attendants (c:a 300 people). First up was the minister of communication (unexciting but well formulated explaining new broadband policy), the was James Boyle discussing Cultural Agoraphobia (an excellent presentation on the public domain). Finally was a CEO who was supposed to be talking about mobility but spent the entire time promoting his own company and explaining why they were great.
In most such situations the crowd fidgets but endures. But not with a crowd that has access to twitter. The first tweets were bored comments about ill concealed marketing but this was soon followed by harsher comments. The tweets were ReTeeted and commented upon. There was an amazing difference between the online/offline reaction to the speech. Like an iceberg, the real action was under the surface.
Obviously he should not have been invited as a speaker. Nor should he have accepted to speak. And at least he should have respected those sitting listening to him enough not to turn his time into a blatant advertisement.
One of the questions tweeted at the time was why there wasn’t a screen where the speakers could see the reactions of the crowd. But is this a good idea? What are the social conventions of twittering in lectures? In non-tech situations we may allow our minds to wonder, occupy ourselves, maybe talk to our neighbors. Or in a gesture of our dissatisfaction walk out of the lecture hall.
Angry tweets to the world seem acceptable – But would nasty comments flowing along on a computer screen in front of the speaker be considered ill mannered?
Twitter has already been the subject of discussion in academic circles. In October (2009) Laura Bonetta Should You Be Tweeting?
In May of this year, Daniel MacArthur, a researcher at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge…reported live from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) meeting Biology of Genomes.
A participant from the online news site Genomeweb protested that MacArthur was twittering and blogging about the meeting. The basis of there protest was that while media had to obtain permission to be able to report from the meeting but MacArthur was attending the meeting as a participant and therefore was not required to obtain permission. As a result of this complaint the CSHL notified a change of its rules:
“any participant intending to blog, twitter or otherwise communicate or disseminate results or discussion presented at the meeting to anonymous third parties must obtain permission from the relevant presenting author before communicating any results or discussion to third party groups, message boards, blogs or other online resources (other than your own lab or departments).”
But this seems to be an extreme way to go…
An absolutely brilliant cartoon from BrownSharpie. Wonderful, it made my day!