Wow! I mean WOW! What a cool idea. Most of you know that wikipedia exists in several language versions. But did you know that there is a Latin version? So cool. check it out! My Latin is almost non-existent so I don’t think that I will be getting involved personally đ
Academia
Trashing the OLPC
The Economist trashes the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) in a recent column. The tone is negative from the start with the title One Clunky Laptop Per Child the reader quickly gets the idea. The main argument is however strange. The criticism is not about the idea but is focused squarely on the technology that has been produced. The Economist goes so far as to call the idea brilliant.
The problem with this approach is that with its focus on the technology the field is left open to the idea that the project would have worked if the computer had been better. This approach ignores the problem that simply chucking technology at people will automatically solve problems.
Laptops are not really what is needed to help children in developing nations. What they need is schools, tables, chairs, paper, books, teachers, pencils and the infrastructure to attend a school. Laptops, even cheap ones, are a luxury.
The OLPC has been criticized before read more on Wikipedia.
Steal This Film II
Copyright never was what it used to be and the struggle to define the purpose and limits over the protection of intellectual property (or indeed the idea of intellectual property) continues daily.
One example of the ongoing debate is an op-ed in the Swedish paper Expressen a group of Swedish politicians called for the legalization of file sharing. One of the politicians was a police officer. But this is more an example of the exception than the rule.
The real attempt to draw the lines that may limit copyright occur every day and are defined in the way in which we all collectively use our technology. The act of file sharing by an individual is, in of itself, an unimportant act. Taken collectively file sharing is a massive active form of resistance and a re-interpretation of the the general consciousness of justice, right, wrong & morality.
Another important position is taken by those who actively comment and interpret the acts of all those involved in the re-definition of copyright. An important contribution to this is the film Steal this Film II. It features scholars such as Yochai Benkler, Felix Stalder, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Howard Rheingold and portrays file sharing and the copyright debate as a historical development in the urge to regulate the spread of information.
Over at the Industrial IT Group blog Jonny has written a very good analysis of the importance of the film. Watch the movie, read the analysis and get involved in the most interesting re-defition of law in our time.Â
Coping with the Crap and thinking the thoughts
After spending the best part of a morning doing admin, in particular going through my inbox only to discover what I have missed, I realize (not for the first time) that I need to be more systematic about my work. In particular I need to divide my day in a more efficient manner.
For me the three main productivity and time thieves are:
Interruptions and short meetings – this is because I try to work before and after but interruptions and short meetings make me lose my chain of thought and send me off on a different tangent. A well placed interruption can create a chain of events that cause a whole day to be lost.
Travel time – Since I spend several hours a week on trains (mainly) I need to reconsider the way in which travel can be seen. This time must be used more efficiently. Computer work is possible but not desirable. Reading may be the optimal use of train travel.
Administration – By this I mean the whole process of ensuring that my research and teaching works. It is everything from maintaining email correspondence to filling out the reports. The actual time spent with administration concerns and annoyances is almost as high as the time spent actually carrying out the administrative tasks.
The plan: A proposal of a new work order for myself.
First of all I need to create a meetings and administration day. On this day the main point of going to work will be not to write or to research. It will be to efficiently resolve my administration tasks. This will also free up my mind from thinking about administration.
Second of all I need to create the opposite of an administration day and this is my Creativity day. The whole point of this day will be to think. Not to write but to think. A whole day to work out solutions to problems, lay plans and develop ideas. This day should not be spent writing. Of course I will make notes but maybe I will do this longhand with a paper and pen. This day should be as unplugged as possible. Little or no computer use.
Third I will create two research and writing days. This will include writing out the ideas from the creativity day, carrying out research, writing articles, chapters and books. Writing research proposals belongs to the administration day and should not be done here. These days should be relatively unplugged – keeping Internet use to a minimum.
Fourth and last will be the teaching day. During this day I will lecture and guide, have student meetings and seminars. Since I have a low teaching burden at present this should be more than enough and the time not spent in teaching should be used in preparing for teaching and teaching administration.
Naturally an idea like this cannot work without making sure that there are exceptions. Every now and then I am sure that the plan will implode but the idea is to strive for improvement.
When will you blog? The exception to the rule
However while the focus of these days is as mentioned I do believe that there is a need to apply oneself to work on a regular basis. Therefore in each day I will include one hour of academic writing (except on the two research and writing days since this is already included). One hour of other writing (mostly emails & this blog).
This is the basic plan and I am sure that it will require some fine tuning but I hope to be quite strict about its application. It’s not a new idea that the freedom embedded in academia requires a great deal of self discipline but what is new for me is the attempt to implement a strict organized regime instead of trying to solve things on a priority basis.
The Story of Stuff
Don’t you just love it when you find cool stuff online? When you find something that someone has worked on to create and perfect so that others can enjoy? I do.
The film The Story of Stuff attempts to educate consumers about the costs of all or stuff. Or as the question of the film is poed in the begining of the movie – how can it be that a radio can cost as little as 4.99?
The online blurb explains:
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
I am particularly fond of the quote: “You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely”.
So go to the site watch the movie, download the movie (its CC licensed) listen and learn. How can our stuff cost next to nothing…
3000 Open Access Journals
A press release from DOAJ in Lund:
Lund, Sweden â As of today the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ, http://www.doaj.org) contains 3000 open access journals, i.e. quality controlled scientific and scholarly electronic journals that are freely available on the web.
We are very pleased to see that the usage of DOAJ is constantly increasing on all parameters. Every month visitors from more than 160 countries are using the service, hundreds of libraries all over the world have included the DOAJ titles in their catalogues and other services, and commercial aggregators are as well benefiting of the service.
The goal of the Directory of Open Access Journals is still to increase the visibility and accessibility of open access scholarly journals, and thereby promote their increased usage and impact. The directory aims to comprehensively cover all open access scholarly journals that use an appropriate quality control system. Journals in all languages and subject areas are welcome. To maintain the quality of the service we also have to remove titles from DOAJ if they no longer live up to the selection criteria. 96 titles have been removed so far during 2007.
Arrogant, Daring & Right
Found a new voice of wisdom (to call it vox populi would probably be wrong) today. Alf Rehn writes an excellent rant about the research article in the context of the UK RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) system:
Now, what I find absolutely horrendous and directly unethical is that all this denigrates the scholarly book, the research monograph. The way I was raised into academia, this was what you meant by research, and now a bunch of foreign bureaucrats with language problems are saying that this does not count? Well, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Writing a journal article, to me, is mainly an exercise in typing. There are rote formulas to get a journal article done (well known such, looking at the shite that gets published), and it frankly bores me a lot of the time. A book, however, is another matter. A book takes time to craft, and the sheer length thereof forces one to work in an altogether different manner. I was taught by my Doktorvater the following: If you havenât written a serious monograph, you shouldnât be made a PhD. If you havenât written two, youâre not a serious scholar. ââAnd never let one who hasnât written three serious books become a professor! It cheapens the title.â And damn good advice it was too.
It’s provocative, it’s daring, maybe it could be a bit reactionary, it’s definitely bold, ballsy and forward. It also happens to be correct. Go Alf!
(via Imaginary Magnitude)
Doris Lessing on the power of books
Last night Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Read her Nobel lecture online, it was delivered on Friday 7 December at the Swedish Academy by Nicholas Pearson, Doris Lessing’s publisher in the UK. In her speech she points to the importance of books and reading for the creation of literature and she also takes a swipe at the banality of the Internet compared with the depth of literature. But the part I enjoyed the best came towards the end…
The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise … but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us â for good and for ill. It is our stories, the storyteller, that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, what we are at our best, when we are our most creative.
Things undone
For those of you who, like myself, live in a state of denial it’s time to face reality. It is soon the end of 2007! No way! We all want more time! I have not finished all of the 1001 things I planned to do before the year ends.
Some of the stuff which is hanging on a thread right now:
- Interviews (Urgh! I am failing bigtime here)
- One more article (almost done)
- Admin (always more admin)
- Complete journal proposal (on time)
- Finish book review (must finish reading book first)
Actually this list was supposed to be a way of organising my thoughts but the more things I write the more things I discover and the more stressed I get. Suffice to say that I’m late
photo: J. McPherson
FSCONS and Skolelinux
The FSCONS conference was really good. I managed to speak to many interesting people and my presentation turned into a very good interactive discussion with the audience. The only thing that is wrong is that I am unable to attend the second day which is today. The reason for this is that my grandmother is 90. This is a birthday that cannot be missed so I am on the train to Stockholm.
As part of the FSCONS the Free Software Foundation Europe created and handed out the first Free Software Scandinavian Award. Since I was on the award committee I know first hand how interesting reviewing and discussing Free Software projects and initiatives can be. Here is the press release about the award which went to the excellent Norwegian project Skolelinux:
Free Software Foundation Europe is proud to announce that the Norwegian project Skolelinux is the winner of the first Free Software Scandinavian Award handed out at during the Free Software Conference Scandinavia 2007 in Göteborg friday 2007-12-07.
Skolelinux has under a long period of time worked hard to promote the use of Free Software as well as the use of free and open standards and file formats. By using low cost or spare hardware, schools and other public institutions can find a free and cheap IT solution made to meet their needs.
Skolelinux captures a big part of the free software spirit; sharing and reusing. By focusing on schools, Skolelinux makes sure students, tomorrow’s computer users, and decision makers, can grow up in a spirit of sharing, reusing and learning from family, friends and neighbours.
The goals of Skolelinux are to:
* Provide a complete software solution using free software tailored for the needs and use-cases in educational scenarios.
* Pre-configured for easy installation (standalone, as well as network-wide roll out).
* Easy to use, maintain, and administer.
* Supporting your native language.
* Classify and package all free software related to education.
* Write documentation to describe how to use the various software (in an educational context).
* International availability, currently being translated into more than 50 languages.
Skolelinux has combined important, and dedicated work contributions with technical knowledge and political skills.
The adoption of Skolelinux in so many countries around the globe shows that the use of Free Software and open standards has really been spreading in a very positiv way.
The next milestone is that we are now seeing the merge of different school systems based on Free Software. The largest example is the merge between Skolelinux and the very successful Spanish GNU/LinEx project which has at the moment more than 250.000 users and 80.000 work stations in use in schools in Extremadura. The one laptop for every two pupils project.
Both Skolelinux and the GNU/LinEx buildts on Debian GNU/Linux and can enjoy the many synergy effects.
By focusing on schools the Skolelinux project shows by example how Free Software can be used. The jury finds this strategy important for the continued use of free and open standards.
Short about Skolelinux:
GNU/Linux in Schools
Skolelinux is free, stable, future secured, sustainable, and is upgraded frequently
– no license problems
– easy and time saving administration
– security updates are made quickly available
– simple system updating
– good administration of the software packets
– older PC ‘s can be used as thin clients
– no dependence on commercial interests/vendor lock inAbout the leadership:
———————
The Skolelinux project has “doer democracy” which means that the active persons decide! The merit lies in your contributions not in your title.The free, open source code in the project is very valuable because the source code is available making it is easy to change and
customize. This is illustrated by the many languages that are being supported. In a digitalized world it is important for the survival of the cultures that even small national languages are being actively supported.The collaboration platform:
—————————
The Skolelinux version 3.0r1 is now available. There has been a valuable collaboration between the following countries: Germany, Spain , France, Greece and Norway. Lately also with a Canadian School project.For some years now there have been regular meetings between different free software school systems and projects. The reason being to share cool applications and avoid double work. A win-win situation for all.
Congratulations again to Skolelinux. We wish you continued growths and success.
The Scandinavian Free Software Award
————————————The Scandinavian Free Software Award has been designed for Nordic citizens, projects or organizations that make an outstanding contribution to the Free Software movement. Free Software projects, efforts, achievements of all kinds – including work done by Nordic citizens which has had a large effect in other parts of the world are eligible to be nominated. It is the aim of FSCONS 2007 that this award becomes an annual event.
Jury 2007:
The jury is compiled by Nordic citizens only. This year the members are:
– Anne Ăstergaard (Gnome Foundation, Denmark)
– Henrik Sandklef (FSFE, Sweden)
– Jonas Ăberg (FSFE, Sweden)
– Marcus RejĂ„s (FSFE, Sweden)
– Mathias Klang (FSFE, Sweden)
– Petter Reinholdtsen (NUUG, Norway)
Here is the complete list of nominated projects.