How shall I break this to you all gently? Probably best to be quick and not beat around the bush. A bit like pulling off a band-aid in one swift movement. I have a life outside this blog! Yes, besides being a blogger I am also active on Flickr 🙂
Anyway a recent picture I took was of a Latin inscription at the base of a lamppost in Lund – unfortunately I cannot figure out what it means. So if anyone knows any Latin please help out.
Click on the picture to get a bigger image.
Earlier today (yes I started very early today) I wrote in response to a comment that I grew up in the early Internet days were a large part of the reality was the sharing of content and helping of newbies. These beginnings have influenced me greatly and I still believe in the idea that technology should be used to increase free communication and information.
Not all people maintain their beliefs. The ex-Internet idealist Jaron Lanier writes in a New York Times op-ed that he wants to be paid for his content. In his earlier life Lanier even wrote manifesto’s like “Piracy Is Your Friend” and now he has come to the realization that his prior positions were not based in reality. He writes:
But I was wrong. We were all wrong.
The problem is not that there is anything wrong with free content but rather that Lenier want’s to be paid for his free content. He is still waiting for the big payoff.
How long must creative people wait for the Web’s new wealth to find a path to their doors? A decade is a long enough time that idealism and hope are no longer enough. If there’s one practice technologists ought to embrace, it is the evaluation of empirical results.
Obviously I do not know enough about Lanier but I suspect that its all his unpaid free content that have created his position and standing that enable him to write in the New York Times – this is not a soapbox for just anyone. Lanier you have been rewarded – it’s just that you want a larger reward. Fair enough.
But lets not overstate the case. A self-acclaimed Internet idealist recants and wants to be rewarded. The beauty of the collective technological soapbox is that it will constantly provide new writers, thinkers, creators and debators with the platform they (and we) need to be able to communicate. You want to be paid? Fine, then go offline and work with that model. The rest of us are being rewarded for the work we do online – otherwise we will stop.
The end of an idealist is not the end of idealism.
Imagine walking into an office only to find a pile of ten iPhones! A university colleague is importing and selling iPhones… Mmm, I am developing a desire…
Pile of Desire
Creative Commons released an Add-in for OpenOffice.org which allows users to select and embed a Creative Commons license in documents. Based on work completed as part of the Google Summer of Code by Cassio Melo, the add-in supports Writer (word processing documents), Calc (spreadsheets) and Impress (presentations).
The Add-in is available without charge, and is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Download information and links to source code.
The Free Software Foundation have created a Quick Guide to GPLv3 and this is something of a “must read”… no seriously it is…
Lessig presented a very interesting talk entitled Three stories and an argument at TED recently. It’s well worth watching for both it’s content and delivery. The basic argument is familiar. Since digital technology and tools are becoming cheaper and easier to use the cost of producing and remixing copyrighted material is becoming very cheap. Add to this the cheap availability of an efficient communications platform (the Internet with its applications) large groups of people are moving from cultural consumers to becoming consumer/producers.
Professional creators in the past (musicians, authors, filmmakers etc) have always taken culture and remixed it. Taken different ideas and re-packaged them in order to create something new. Most of our ideas have not emerged in great leaps but in many small (inevitable?) steps. Today the technology is making this process more democratic in that the amateur is invading the realm of the professional – and, as Lessig puts it, this does not mean that the material produced is amateurish. It refers to amateur in the true sense of the word it is done out of love rather than money.
The major barrier to all this is copyright law. The problem with this is that the ability to take parts of our culture and remix them is an accepted form of communication among large groups of people and the institutional response has been criminalization. Copyright law has produced the presumption that remixing is illegal in particular in the digital realm. Since every use of culture in the digital realm entails a copy therefore every use should require permission.
This is an inefficient system that goes against the way in which people act. We are developing a system where people are aware that they are acting in violation to the law but they do not feel that this is wrong. Lessig warns about the growth of copyright extremism on both sides: One side builds new technologies to protect copies while the opponent cry out for the abolition of copyright.
Much of my time is spent advising university lecturers on the ways in which they can and cannot use new technologies in the classroom. The university of today is required to connect and compete with a generation of people who are connected and digitally sophisticated. In our attempts to connect and educate we provide students with laptops, wireless connectivity and digital material.
In all this copyright is creating a barrier to effective use of ICT in education. Lecturers and students attempting to benefit from online material are being driven to acting against the law. Copyright law limits the use of web2.0 technologies such as Blogs, YouTube and Flickr in the lecture halls, but the need to connect and educate is driving dedicated lecturers to circumvent, avoid, bend and break the law. This is not a good situation.
The problem is that the law has become inadequate for our needs. In order to ensure copyright control the legislator has forgotten to allow people to remix and to allow educators to use copyrighted material to a greater extent. This is not an argument for making mass copies of the latest Hollywood film – “pure” copyright “piracy” is, and should be, illegal.
But there is a need to allow access to culture beyond the passive consumer role. It also makes good business and democratic sense since it takes the edge away from the extremist positions, which threaten to push the discussions into chaos – as extremism, does. It is an argument to allow non commercial uses of copyrighted material without the fear of reprisals which exists today.
Today began with the really early train (6 am) to Stockholm since I had to be in there at 9 am to make a presentation at the Internet days an event organized by the Swedish IIS. My track was an e-government track but my presentation was on e-democracy and the way in which the citizen is forgotten in the rush to implement technology with the goal of making bureaucracy more efficient. My main gripe is the use of the word democracy when in actuality the goal is efficient bureaucracy.
The presentation went well and woke several questions among the listeners but it is doubtful whether an audience focused on bureaucracy really wanted to hear about democracy – but on the other hand it democracy is never wrong.
After the presentation I had an interesting (but brief) discussion with Rolf Berndtson from Dataföreningen (always interesting and insightful) and at lunch I met DĂ©sirĂ©e Liljevall and Eliza Roszkowska Ă–berg two politicians with a special interest in IT. Other people there were Johan Schiff who was there as a representative for the newly launched Swedish Wikimedia Foundation. Naturally the gang from FSFE (Jonas Ă–berg, Henrik Sandklef & Irina Dzhambazova) were there, and I also said a quick “Hi” to Helena Andersson from the IT law department at Stockholm University, saw Nicklas Lundblad (Nicklas I cannot find your blog anymore – where are you?) but missed the opportunity to talk to him (shame), so the whole thing was a very friendly and familiar affair.
Then it was a brisk walk to the train to Lund where I shall be until Thursday morning when it’s off to Stockholm give a lecture and then back to Göteborg for the weekend. Ah, my train-setting lifestyle…
Most annoying. Here is a list of events I have been invited to attend. I want to attend but I will miss them all. Basically this is the worst case of bad planning I have ever experienced. But if you happen to be in the right place (as opposed to me) then I would recommend that you attend.
November 8th Makt och motstånd i den digitala tidsåldern, (Swedish text by Christopher Kullenberg can be downloaded here), Room 325, Annedalsseminariet. A text seminar at the Resistance Studies Network, Annedalsseminariet, Göteborg. This seminar will focus on the question concerning the conditions for resistance in the digital era of information technologies and surveillance. The seminar will discuss the shift from disciplinary societies to societies of control, and explore the relationships between power and resistance. I will be in Stockholm.
On 17 November: Who Makes and Owns Your Work? A multipart event in Stockholm addressing sharing, distribution and intellectual propert, Årsta Folkets Hus in Stockholm. I will be in Göteborg.
On the 5th December there will be a Surveillance seminar in Göteborg (room C430, Humanisten) but I will be in Norway.
Many of the The Beatles song lyrics are surreal or at least they seem so to the uninitiated. Attempting to decipher them seems to require a mix of pop culture, exotica and a broadminded approach to drug culture. One example is the great song Come Together from the album Abbey Road (1969). The tag-line Come together right now over me is really well known and appreciated but the rest is almost impenetrable.
He roller-coaster he got early warning
He got muddy water he one mojo filter
He say “One and one and one is three”
Got to be good-looking ’cause he’s so hard to see
Come together right now over me
Besides all possible, and impossible, interpretations one of the main themes in the song is the West African magic in particular the references to things like juju & mojo.
The mojo is a recurrent theme in music, in particular, blues music (Wikipedia has a list of references) its a magic charm carried under the clothes. Looking on the mojo as an outsider there is often a lack of understanding for the role it plays. Indeed often those relying on the mojo are seen as being superstitious.
Even in cultures where this occurs the talisman or amulet is commonplace. It is very difficult to precisely define what the talismans may, or may not, be as they can be different things to different peoples at different times. The main idea is that the talisman is there to protect the bearer. Again, to the non-believer this is simply superstition. However, many of those who argue this are prepared to wear a cross or other religious artifact every day.
In the secular society there is a tendency to look upon even religious symbols as being part of a superstitious infrastructure – they are more than unnecessary they actually limit the believing bearer from developing into an independent figure.
Whether you believe this or not is unimportant but I do find it interesting to see the way in which people behave when they are deprived of the technology. I don’t mean only the fact that they cannot use the technology I mean the way in which they behave when they have (inadvertently) misplaced or forgotten their technological artifacts.
If we ignore the functionality. How different is the insecurity and nervousness of a person deprived of his mojo to the feelings of a man deprived of his mobile phone? Does this mean that mass market technology has taken the place served by the good luck charms of our ancestors? Does a Nokia ward of evil spirits? Is male sexuality somehow connected to the contents of ones laptop?
Creative Commons is going to celebrate its fifth birthday in December and it’s adoption and spread is nothing short of amazing.
The green/grey countries have adopted CC, the yellow or on the verge of adopting and the red have not begun to work on the licenses. Seen as a bottom-up movement the spread of Creative Commons shows its amazing success.
In the five years since our launch, we have grown up fast. In 2004, we incubated an international movement supporting the ideals of the Internet and cultural freedom (iCommons). This year we spun that organization out as an independent UK-based charity. In 2005, we launched a project to support a commons within science (Science Commons). This year Science Commons launched the Neurocommons, an e-research project built exclusively on open scientific literature and databases, and the Materials Transfer Project, an extension of the ideas of the commons to physical tools such as gene plasmids and cell lines. And just two months ago, we announced a significant grant that has enabled us to launch a project focused on learning and education (ccLearn). There is now a staff of over 30 in four offices around the world, supporting thousands of volunteers in more than 70 local jurisdiction projects around the world, who, in turn, support the millions of objects that have been marked with the freedoms that CC licenses enable.
