Henrik Sandklef & I have written a debate article which has been published in the third largest Swedish daily paper. Naturally its in Swedish but the general idea is that the present Minister of Justice Tomas Bodström is unconcerned with human rights issues and is implementing more and more integrity violating schemes (DNA databases, CCTV, hidden surveillance and data retention). A link to the article will be posted when its online. Its online now.
Academia
169 pages
Its done. The first full length version of my thesis is written. Its late, dark and snowing outside – it couldnt be better. Tommorrow (Saturday) my supervisor will begin reading.
Open door research
A quote of a quote. This quote is from a lecture Richard Hamming gave at Bellcore in 1986 entitled “You and Your Research“, via pasta & vinegar
I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you donâ??t know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, â??The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.’â?? I donâ??t know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing – not much, but enough that they miss fame.
Blackboards
The blackboard is slowly slipping away but it wasnt all that long ago when there were passionate debates about the black vs the white board. Today the blackboard is loosing fast. The last bastions of blackboards can be found in the more technical universities (are engineers more conservative?), while the business schools have almost abandoned chalk forever (are they shallow & without history?)
Einsteins Board
An exhibition “Bye Bye Blackboard…from Einstein and Others” at the Museum of the History of Science at the University of Oxford has an exhibition of blackboards. The pride and joy being one preserved from a lecture given by Einstein in 1931.
Blackboards were wiped after use: they were meant for immediate communication, not for record. Even as they were being used, their messages were continuously revised, erased and renewed. But when Einstein came to Oxford in 1931, he was already an international celebrity. After one of his lectures a blackboard was preserved and has become a kind of relic. It is the most famous object in this Museum.
First Monday Conference
The online journal First Monday has reached the grand old age of 10 – and is holding a conference to celebrate the fact. Who said that us academics arent a fun bunch?
First Monday Conference FM10 Openness: Code, science and content
15-17 May 2006, at The University of Illinois at Chicago
Celebrate ten years of First Monday!
More information http://numenor.lib.uic.edu/fmconference/
IP & The Film Industry
The 27th G̦teborg Film Festival (27 January Р6 February) in collaboration with the School of Business, Economics and Law at G̦teborg University presents a seminar on Intellectual Property Film Industry in the Digital Age
Time: 28 January 10.00-15.30
Place: Volvosalen, School of Business, Economics and Law.
10.00 How downloading movies from the Internet affects the film industry.
Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Associate Professor in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School.
11.00 Does information really want to be free?
Anne Hiaring, Adjunct Professor of Intellectual Property at Golden Gate University, San Francisco.
Lunch
13.00 Commentaries:
Aske Dam, media advisor
Charlotte Lilliestierna Ehrén, lawyer
Jonas Birgersson, IT-pioneer
14.00-15-30 Panel discussion.
Update There seminar is open to all and at no cost.
Open Access
This book-chapter preprint takes an in-depth look at the open access movement with special attention to the perceived meaning of the term “open access” within it, the use of Creative Commons Licenses, and real-world access distinctions between different types of open access materials. After a brief consideration of some major general benefits of open access, it examines OA’s benefits for libraries and discusses a number of ways that libraries can potentially support the movement, with a consideration of funding issues. (The preprint does not reflect any editorial changes that may be made.)
It will appear in: Jacobs, Mark, ed. Electronic Resources Librarians: The Human Element of the Digital Information Age. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2006.
Warhol Foundation on Copyright
Lessig has written (in Wired) about the Warhol foundation’s application of copyright law. Joel Wachs, the president of the foundation says:
“We’re Lessig when it comes to artists and scholars” and “Disney when it comes to commercial use.”
Basically they allow artists to build upon Warhol’s work and academics to use his work for a nominal fee. But are tough on commercial use. This is in keeping with Warhol’s idea of art. Borrow from your surroundings and use it.
More and more I find this the right way to go. Commenting on our surroundings should be permissable – the only real prohibition should be plagiarism. Only copying without adding does not provide anything new.
Partly this position may come from the fact that I teach and many students dont realise what plagiarism is. I have even had students get angry with me when I uncovered their cheats. In the worst case a student attempted to pass off my work as his.
The word plagiarism comes from latin and refers to the activity of stealing anothers slaves. The roman poet Martialis wrote:
The book which you are reading aloud is mine, Fidentinus; but, while you read it so badly, it begins to be yours.
– Epigrams (bk. I, ep. 38)
Oh, and before any of my students come across this and ask: NO bad plagiarism does not make your work original even if you can cite Martialis!
Happy Phd Writer?
In his work Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus writes about the meaning of life and basically the question why we do not commit suicide. The first sentance says it all: “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”
Camus takes the myth of Sisyphus as a metaphor for life. Sisyphus was a smart man who managed to trick the god of the underworld to let him go back for a brief errend. Once Sisyphus gets home he refuses to return to Hades – eventually he is forced back. As a punishment he is forced to role a huge stone up a hill only to have it role down again and Sisyphus must start again from the begining.
This is usally seen as the pointless and depressing work. However Camus finishes his book with the words:
“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The strugg le itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Right now I am spending long days in front of the computer attempting to reach the big deadline (see counter to the right) and hand in my Phd thesis. Its tiring and not very uplifting. At times very pointless. At this stage I am prepared to disagree with Camus. Sisyphus is not happy. He has no time for hapiness and no chance of free time to look forward to.
You know you're a Phd student when…
* you can identify universities by their internet domains.
* you have difficulty reading anything that doesn’t have footnotes.
* you understand jokes about Foucault.
* the concept of free time scares you.
* you’ve ever brought books with you on vacation and actually studied.
* Saturday nights spent studying no longer seem weird.
* you can read course books and cook at the same time.
* you find yourself citing sources in conversation.
* your office is better decorated than your apartment.
* you are startled to meet people who neither need nor want to read.
* you have ever brought a scholarly article to a bar.
* you rate coffee shops by the availability of outlets for your laptop.
* you look forward to summers because you’re more productive without the distraction of classes.
* professors don’t really care when you turn in work anymore.
* you find the bibliographies of books more interesting than the actual text.
* you have given up trying to keep your books organized and are now just trying to keep them all in the same general area.
* you have accepted guilt as an inherent feature of relaxation.
* you often wonder how long you can live on pasta without getting scurvy.
* you have more photocopy cards than credit cards.
* you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle.
Basically you are underqualified, overburdened and eternally in the dark…
for comfort there is Piled Higher & Deeper.