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Social Networks Thesis

Ericka Menchen Trevino has put her final (almost) Masters Thesis online. It is entitled  Social Bookmarks: Personal Organization and Collective Discovery on the Web

From the summary:

My findings suggest that people understand their own posts to del.icio.us as a memory aid as well as a sign of what they value. The posts of others, when aggregated, signified the interests of del.icio.us users as a group, and social trends on the web. It is possible to analyze this content much further, and while only a few do this infrequently, it is still an important development. The posts of other users often derived significance from prior knowledge of the individual. In the less common case of a browsing an individual account without any outside-del.icio.us information about that person, the posts were taken at face value, which depends on the browserâ??s prior experiences and purpose.

After a quick pre-reading it seem very good. I am looking forward to reading it more carefully later.

Posted on by mklang

Swords and Apples

A long time ago I read the biography of the Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. This story led me to curiously find and read Musashiâ??s own strategy book, called â??Book of Five Ringsâ?? (Go Rin No Sho). Musashi developed the skill of fighting with a sword in each hand. He also had a list of seemingly simple recommendations for the reader. Among the recommendations that Musashi had which stuck into my mind was the advice:

Know your favorite tools and techniques for key tasks without getting overly attached to any one

This advice is on the surface extremely simple. We can all intuitively understand the importance of not getting stuck in a rut, learning new things, challenging our established beliefs and principles. BUT this is not an easy thing to do. We are (or at least I tend to be) simple solution people. We identify a problem from memory and apply the same solutions from the past – even if these did not work so well then.

This philosophically sound advice is important. But on a simpler level â?? I miss my mac. After having handed it in for repairs I have been using a loaner. Itâ??s a great machine. Itâ??s an IBM â?? I shouldnâ??t be complaining. But I miss my mac. I realize that it is not the actual software solutions that I miss. What I miss is the familiarity of the tool I am accustomed to.

Posted on by mklang

Memory Slot Repair

Now that the thesis has been handed in and passed I have to return to real life again. One of the tasks I have been putting off is the fact that my laptop has to go in for repairs. The problem is that one of the memory slots is not working so this means that I have only half the amount of RAM that I should have. This slows down my computer considerably. The good news is that this problem is well known and Apple has a special repairs program which fixes this for free.

The PowerBook G4 Memory Slot Repair Extension Program is a worldwide program covering repair or replacement of the memory slot in PowerBook G4 models manufactured between January 2005 and April 2005 that are experiencing specific component failures.

Still this means that I am without my laptop for anything between a few days to a couple of weeks? I just don’t know.

So I am backing stuff up and attempting to maintain the important stuff available so that business can keep on as usual. I am not a happy camper…

Posted on by mklang

Demonstrate against DRM before 40

Lists are popular. One such list is the things one is supposed to do before turning 40 (for example this book). I don’t know what the book includes but I don’t think it contains what I have recently done… I have applied for, and received, a permit to carry out a public demonstration.

On 3 October between 08.30-10.15 we will be standing outside Chalmers University. Between 11.30-13.15 we will be standing near the statue called Kopparmärra (the copper mare).
We will be wearing yellow overalls and masks while handing out leaflets against DRM. Join us for the Day Against DRM.

Posted on by mklang

Read Book Change World

Do you have a guilty conscious about books you should have read? I do. Most of the time I can ignore this little voice but every so often the voice shouts too loud to be ignored.

One book which I thought I should read when it came out in 2000 was Monbiotâ??s â??The Age of Consent: A manifesto for a new world orderâ?? but somehow I always had other stuff to do.

Then I began reading Monbiotâ??s writing online. He posts some (all?) of his newspaper articles online a short while after they have appeared in the newspapers. His â??Children of the Machineâ?? (2006) is an insightful understanding of how RFID technology will slowly come to be accepted and to control us.

Anyway I bought his Age of Consent and I was not disappointed. Here is a man who writes about the complicated hypocrisies of world economics in a manner that is understandable, entertaining and at the same time provoking.

His final goal is to provoke the reader into action. But he is aware that he must move the reader from ignorance, to understanding, to agreement before he gets anyone to act.

Some short quotes:

We must accept that democracy will always be something of a mess. Attempting to tidy it up too much could mean subordinating diversity to universalism and the individual consciousness to the general will to such an extent that we may establish the preconditions not for freedom but for captivity. We must leave gaps between the building blocks, in case we accidentally build a wall. (Monbiot, Age of Consent, p 115)

Throughout this manifesto, I have sought to suggest ways in which we can use the strengths of our opponents to our advantage, and it seems to me that the roaming hunger of corporations is another asset we can turn to our account. (Monbiot, Age of Consent, p)

â?¦the curtailment of the world-eating mathematically impossible system we call capitalism, and its replacement with a benign and viable means of economic exchangeâ?¦ (Monbiot, Age of Consent, p 238)

I end this with the same words with which he ends his book:

Well? What are you waiting for?

Posted on by mklang

Unhappy Powerbook

Something scary is happening with my computer at the moment. For no apparent reason my Powerbook (G4) has become extremely slow. Some startups just do not start but seem to get stuck. The successful starts take longer than Windows (remember NT?)… Its very frustrating and in particular when I am far away from efficient backup possibilities.

Posted on by mklang

What is wrong with DRM?

What is wrong with DRM?

Most people tend to steer clear of three letter acronyms that they donâ??t immediately understand. DRM (Digital Rights Management) began as a vision of using technology to ensure that owners of intellectual property could maintain control over their property.  In other words it would be impossible to do that which was illegal. So far so good. Making it impossible to do that which is illegal is good. Frustrating illegal behaviour is right.

The problem is that DRM can also prevent behaviour that is not illegal.

A current example is the media player â??Zuneâ?? from Microsoft.

To maintain control over the music stored in the media player Zune is designed to limit music sharing. If music is shared between friends it can only be played three times or stored for three days.

The problem occurs when the music shared is either (1) not copyrighted, (2) in the public domain, or (3) shared with permission.

Supposing you create a song. Really. Or maybe a you create a snappy little limerick. You send it wirelessly to a friend. After three days. Or your friend plays it three times â?? it is gone. This is because Zune wraps all music which is sent in this way in DRM nomatter the rights you have as a creator or listener.

Therefore Microsoft Zune limits the legitimate rights of the user in an effort to comply with or control intellectual property. This is bad.

But wait â?? it is worse!

In the book 1984, Orwell introduces a method of control through the language called Newspeak. The idea was that by limiting the meaning of words we the party in power would eventually limit the way in which the citizens think. In the book the example given was that the term free would loose all connections with freedom and only be used with the idea to be rid of something. The example in the book is that a dog will be free of lice. But the concept of freedom as liberty will be lost.

This is the most damaging part of DRM systems. By controlling what is physically possible they create amongst the users an illusion of what can be done. A technical limitation to our use becomes a law of nature. Copying becomes bad not because it is illegal but because it is impossible.

Therefore by controlling the physical reality the manufacturers of DRM are slowly changing the way in which we see what is possible and impossible. In extension this will also limit our ability to envision what could be possible.

Posted on by mklang

Free Software & Microsoft Sales Reps

Due to a colleague calling in sick I jumped in and gave a short presentation on Free Software & Open Standards to IT technicians at my university. Following my presentation two salesmen from Microsoft presented the corporate visions of the future and a short demo of the coming Vista and Office software.

The first salesman after hearing my presentation insisted on talking about how “Free Software” microsoft was. Since they were involved in several projects intended to define open standards this made, according to him, Microsoft – Free Software.

Should someone tell Balmer?

I bit my tongue when he spoke about all this and about trusted computing. It was all too much. He was so positive that the inconsistencies were only embarrasing.
He also was lyrical about schools without books and the fact that many university students are not able to use basic excel – something he felt the university should teach them. So I shut up while he praised the dumming down of universities.

I will get him during the break… Or maybe not… it’s just too embarassing to listen to.

Posted on by mklang

Whats Cooking? Norms Based Property Regimes

Somehow, somewhere along the line our society has decided that certain types of intellectual endeavour were worth protecting and encouraging. Not all types. Just some. Through brilliant social positioning and political lobbying these intellectual endeavours have achieved the status of property. (For more on this read No Trespassing â?? Eva Hemmungs Wirtén).

Stop! Think! Property. Property is usually considered amongst the human rights. The focus on property right occasionally risked upsetting the balance of rights and encroaching on other rights. This led Martin Luther King to write:

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

Despite the fact that intellectual property protection as we understand it today is not as old as many believe, we have managed to raise it to an eternal value. This is to say we believe that this is the way that it always has been. Implicit with this idea comes the follow-up thought that changing this is not worth the effort.

The interesting thing is that there are many types of knowledge that is not protected by intellectual property. Some of these are not valuable but others are extremely valuable.

A personâ??s honour is something that may be painstakingly built up over a lifetime within the community group. Whether this person is a diamond trader or part of a criminal organisation this is a valuable commodity, which is unprotected. Defamation law attempts to cover certain parts â?? but this protection has nowhere near the far-reaching effects of intellectual property.

A farmerâ??s knowledge over the terrain and weather, a craftsmanâ??s knowledge of tools and materials and a teachers experience are all valuable commodities in the daily life of these people.

My current favourite example comes from an article by Emmanuelle Fauchart and Eric von Hippel (his books are available online free) about the value of the knowledge of French chefs. Especially in their struggle to gain and maintain Michelin stars.

A star in the Michelin Guide is a valuable commodity. It makes and breaks restaurants and the career of chefs. It has also been the source of some scandals (wikipedia).

The question the article poses is why when the commodity is so valuable donâ??t chefs copy each other? Rather than innovate and surpass their competitors why not emulate? There is no law, no intellectual property in food dishes. Despite the fact that they are highly creative. The answer, according to Fauchart and von Hippel lies in â??norms basedâ?? intellectual property systems.

What we see is regulation by advanced group norms that allow the group to:

â?¦specify the nature and extent of rights that a group member can assert to intellectual property. They also include procedures for the claiming of intellectual property rights, and community-accepted types of sanctions for violators.

This is a thought-provoking article. We need more work in this vein to be able to show that the present intellectual property regime is far from being the only game in town.

Posted on by mklang

Broadcast & Podcast Rights

This is straight from Cory Doctrow at Boing Boing – not even going to edit it. Copyright is under fire from almost every angle imagineable. This is about the aweful Broadcast Treaty.

The Broadcast Treaty is an attempt to force the world’s governments to give a new right to broadcasters, a right to control the use of works they don’t own. The Broadcast Right will allow broadcasters to stop you from copying or re-using the programs they transmit, even if those programs are in the public domain, Creative Commons licensed or composed of uncopyrightable facts.

Fair use doesn’t apply to the broadcast right. It will have its own rules for fair use, separate from copyright. You’ll have to pay your lawyer twice, once to make sure you’ve got a fair copyright use, and again to make sure you’ve got a fair broadcast right use. And you might get sued twice — once for violating copyright and again for broadcast right violations.

Worse yet, they want this to apply to the Internet. A few US corporations — Microsoft, Yahoo — have hijacked the US position on the Broadcast Treaty and now the US is using every trick in the book to get the world’s governments (who roundly reject the idea) to create a “webcasting right” at the same time as the broadcast right.

This is deadly to podcasters. The webcasting right will break podcasters’ ability to quote and re-use each others’ work (even CC-licensed works), and other video found on the net. It will allow podcast-hosting companies like Yahoo to tell people how they can use your podcasts, even if you want to permit retransmissions. And it will hurt organizations that are tying to find novel ways to use podcasts, like

The webcasting stuff has been “narrowed” to try to make it apply only to “professional” webcasts and not podcasts, but this is a short-sighted view of the future of podcasting. The term podcasting was only coined 20-some months ago. The idea that we can predict what a podcast will look like tomorrow is ridiculous — it’s like designing a copyright for printed books ten seconds before the photocopier comes along and changes everything.

Luckily, the webcasting stuff is on the ropes. Mark Cuban, who founded Yahoo’s Broadcast.com, has signed onto an open letter from 20 technology organizations that reject the webcasting right. Last week, dozens of companies, libraries and public interest groups signed an open letter rejecting the treaty altogether.

Now it’s the podcasters’ turn. EFF has created an open letter on behalf of podcasters everywhere, rejecting the webcasting right. WIPO is supposed to be making treaties that protect creators. We podcasters are the Internet’s native creators. WIPO has no business trying to break the Internet so that it is better-suited to the business-models of yesterday’s broadcasters.

If you are a podcaster — or better yet, a podcasting organization — sign onto this letter now! It will be presented Monday morning to the WIPO committee that’s creating the Broadcast Treaty in Geneva. This is your best-ever chance to be heard. Link

Posted on by mklang