desirable things

National Vanity Projects

My hotel room overlooks the building site of the new Icelandic Opera – well actually its called the Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre but everyone refers to it as the new opera. Its an impressive building that is due to be opened in 82 days. What I find fascinating is the scale of the project. The concert hall will seat 1800 people which seems large considering the population of a Iceland is about 320,000 (Wikipedia). But is this excessive? The population of the capital city is around 120,000 (and over 200,000 in the Greater Reykjavík Area) (Wikipedia).

The new opera house

While digitalization and the Internet have killed (or wounded) some traditional national vanity projects: national encyclopedias and dictionaries have been hit very hard. Buildings remain ever popular methods of attempting to raise the national image (Oslo recently completed a gorgeous new opera house) and this new opera will be a fascinating building.

Posted on by mklang

Please don't update my stuff

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it are words everyone should live by. But I would also like to add the condition if it works then don’t update it! There are many obvious reasons for updating technology and unfortunately many of them have absolutely nothing to do with the introduction of a better technology.

Over 40 years ago my father surprised my mother with a new sowing machine. My mother still uses the machine regularly. Naturally as a sowing machine manufacturer this is probably not a good deal. It would have been much better if my family had been forced to purchase a replacement twenty or thirty years ago. The Swedish consumer board stated ten years ago that the natural life expectancy of a mobile phone is two years. But phone manufacturers need to create desire for new versions to make sure that we are constantly giving them more money.

But what really bugs me is when manufacturers add technology to stuff that doesn’t need it. Touch screens on cookers and sensors in public bathrooms are among my main annoyances here.

Right now one of my most successful gadgets is my kindle. Now I would like them to update the ability to share books even beyond what Amazon has started to do. But my greatest fear is that some tecchie will feel the need to improve on the device to reach a greater market. The kindle is perfect because it mimics the book:

Why the paper book is a great technology:It doesn’t come with its own method of distracting you from itself via Benteka

Adding color screens, better keyboards and most dangerously touchscreens is going to happen – for all the wrong reasons. For a reader the lack of connectivity, the sucky keyboard & the fact that the reader is basically good at only one thing are all major strengths with the device.

Posted on by mklang

Social Media gets boring

The Sysomos blog has a post claiming that 2011 is the year that Social Media gets boring. At the heart of the argument is the fact that eventually the flashy, shiny new image of the thing will wear off and people will want a new toy.

By that, I mean the novelty will start to wear off as social media becomes a more engrained part of how we communicate, market and sell. Rather than being shiny, new and fascinating, social media will just be.

Social Media is still growing but I agree that its novelty has peaked. It didnt kill all the blogs or destroy old media. To those who find the tool useful it will survive to those who don’t it will eventually be abandoned along with so many other projects intended to change the world.

Despite this peaking of social media many government offices and municipalities are rushing in to the great communications hope. In social media they see a way of invigorating citizen communication but there is a problem – what does my municipality have to tweet that I want to read?

Recently I got an email informing me that the municipality of Uppsala is following me on twitter. It isn’t my first municipality or government but I can’t help but feeling a bit paranoid – the whole municipality is following me? Talk about pressure – what can I say that the municipality would like to hear? On the lighter side of social media and governments I am waiting to receive an email that the secret police are now following me on twitter. It’s not paranoia – it’s technology.

There are many interesting projects dealing with the uses of social media in local government and the tools can play an important role but they require work. Opening up a channel of communication requires an organization around the tool – to read and reply to messages, to handle questions that come up and at the same time ensure that the established norms of integrity and professionalism are maintained even in this new toy. Unfortunately many organizations see social media as a free toy that will require little effort but provide great publicity. These hopeful people need to be reminded that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The coming boredom of social media is a good thing. It will enable us to see beyond the hype and get on with the work of organization.

Posted on by mklang

Moral Courage & censorship

Its easy to lose your faith in institutions and so its nice to read that Cambridge University refused to censor a masters thesis. This is my favorite part of the letter (via BoingBoing):

Second, you seem to think that we might censor a student’s thesis, which is lawful and already in the public domain, simply because a powerful interest finds it inconvenient. This shows a deep misconception of what universities are and how we work. Cambridge is the University of Erasmus, of Newton, and of Darwin; censoring writings that offend the powerful is offensive to our deepest values. Thus even though the decision to put the thesis online was Omar’s, we have no choice but to back him. That would hold even if we did not agree with the material! Accordingly I have authorised the thesis to be issued as a Computer Laboratory Technical Report. This will make it easier for people to find and to cite, and will ensure that its presence on our web site is permanent….

Read more about the whole back story A Merry Christmas to all Bankers and the full Letter to bankers (PDF)

Nice to see an act of moral courage coming from the university. I know that they are supposed to be like this but its nice to see that they sometimes act this way too.

Posted on by mklang

A worthy cause

A worthy cause is worth spreading!

To promote music published under a Creative Commons license and the artists that stand behind the music Musikpiraten (Musicpirates) e.V. in 2010 organized the Free! Music! Contest for the second time. While mainly German bands and musicians competed last year, it is a truly international competition this year: 130 artists from more than 30 countries entered their pieces! Since [date] a sampler put together by a jury is available for download. [1] The finale of the Contest will be a party on October 2nd at the Kreativfabrik in Wiesbaden with five live bands. [2]

“This enormous increase in participants was only possible because of the support of many bloggers, online magazines, free radios and internet radios who all covered the contest.” says Christian Hufgard, president of Musikpiraten e.V. “Special mention has to be given to Cory Doctorow who acted as patron of the Contest” he added. [3]

The Musikpiraten’s server now yields two CDs packed to the brim with 36 legally shareable Creative Commongs songs. For those who like it particularly free there is version in OGG-format to download while a “classic” MP3 version is available, too. Both versions can be loaded via via BitTorrent, eDonkey2000 or directly through the browser. All download possibilities can be found on the website with the Contest’s results. [1]

The scope of musical styles of “Freeloaded” – that’s the sampler’s name – is as wide as that of it’s predecessor. German punk by “Das frivole Burgfräulein” – “Bonn’s best beach punk band of the world” – rock from Berlin by Shearer, synthpop by the upcoming Zoe. Leela (also from Berlin) are joined in harmony with the folk of the well known singer songwriter David Rovics (USA) and the metal from Spain (Cautiva). Also there is alternative metal by Umbra Summi Nobis (Venezuela), chiptunes from Norway (Binärpilot), Austrian acoustic rock (Amitiy in Fame), Argentinian 80s-style pop (The Kyoto Connection) and a lot more.

These two CDs display the wide variety that Crative Commons music has in the maintstream and also contains genres that hardly ever get any airplay on the radio.

There is a public voting that is open until September 30. [4] 10 t-shirts sponsored by 3DSupply are given away to the bands present on the CD. Three more prizes (sponsored by GetDigital) a music pillow, an equalizer-t-shirt and a working bongo drum t-shirt were given away using the random number generating function of OpenOffice.org. They go out to Reboot from Spain, the Sanchez Band (also Spain) and Tetania from Belarus.

October 2nd will be the climax and the end of the Contest: Das frivole Burgfräulein (Bonn), Shearer (Berlin), lax-o-mat (Chemnitz), oliversebastian.cc (Butzbach) and the Fuzzy Tunes (Darmstadt) will rock Kreativfabrik [5] in Wiesbaden with live music. Admission will be 5 and the doors open at 8pm. If at least 27 people register with kopfüber [6] there will even be a bus from Leipzig/Dresden to Wiesbaden.

At this date the sampler will be available as CD. With a pressing of 1,000 copies it will be hand numbered and sold for 2,50? (plus shipping and handling). Reservations can be made through the Musikpiraten’s website. [7]

Organizer
=========
The recognized non-profit organization Musikpiraten e.V. has the purpose of promoting free culture with a focus on music as means of artistic expression. Musikpiraten e.V. accomplishes this through the organization and sponsoring of events and competitions, supporting artists and running the internet portal http://musik.klarmachen-zum-aendern.de as a central meeting point for artists and art consumers.

===

[1] http://musik.klarmachen-zum-aendern.de/nachrichten/free_music_contest_2010_-_der_sampler-533
[2] http://musik.klarmachen-zum-aendern.de/nachrichten/free_music_party_2010-520
[3]http://musik.klarmachen-zum-aendern.de/nachrichten/cory_doctorow_schirmherr_des_free_music_contests-488
[4]http://musik.klarmachen-zum-aendern.de/content/welcher_act_vom_sampler_039freeloaded039_soll_den_t-shirt-preis_von_3dsupply_bekommen-530
[5] http://www.kreativfabrik-wiesbaden.de/programm/2010/10/43
[6] http://kopfueber.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/denn-wiesbaden-ist-ibiza/
[7] http://musik.klarmachen-zum-aendern.de/content/fmc-sampler-bestellung

Posted on by mklang

Open is nothing new

At times I feel that I am forever discussing openness. Mainly – but not exclusively – Creative Commons, Free Software & Open Source. Often I am arguing the basics of the idea with people unfamiliar with the concept and I need to overcome a great deal of skepticism. The skeptics argue that now way can it be a good idea to give away material and they are rarely convinced with the growth of modern examples. They lean back as if to say: just you wait, it will go terribly wrong.

This is why it is nice to present the skeptics with established, old examples. And recently I came across an excellent new old example.

Can you name an eighteenth century furniture designer? Most of us cannot, but all the same many of us are familiar with the name of Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779) and not because of the dancers. Thomas Chippendale was the first furniture designer to become famous – before Chippendale furniture was known by styles, monarchs or famous buyers, but not the designers.

So what did he do?

After working as a journeyman cabinet maker in London he became the first cabinet-maker to publish a book of his designs. The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director is still available in print today. The amazing thing about the publication was that it created open source furniture and allowed other furniture makers to make copies of his designs. Of course he may have lost a few commissions but going open source ensured that his fame lasted long after his death. Which is more than can be said of his contemporaries.

Sharing is caring – sharing is good business.

Posted on by mklang

My Creative Commons book collection

Like squirrels collecting nuts it is easy to try to fill a hard drive with “useful stuff” – just to have it available at some later date. The stuff of interest right now are various books I like/need/reread/ that are licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Often when I come across a CC licensed book of interest I tend save the file on my hard drive and write about it on the blog.

When I recently recommended Deazley, R., Kretschmer, M. & Bently, L. (2010) Privilege and Property: Essays on the History of Copyright, in this entry I got a comment that I could support their bandwidth by hosting the book. An easy request to fulfill. I also began thinking about files that occasionally disappear from the web and I decided to resolve part of this issue as well.

So instead of only saving the Creative Commons licensed books I like on my hard drive I created a page on my other blog for the books. If you have a book you would like to recommend please leave a suggestion in the comments section.

Posted on by mklang