book

The Covers

So which cover do you prefer? To vote just add a comment.

Background: When I came close to the end of writing my PhD thesis I began to think about the cover design for the book. Realising I needed help I blogged this on 12/4. In addition I mailed a few people. The information appeared (amongst other places) on Boing Boing, Lessig, Foreword, Patrik’s sprawl, Perfekta Tomrummet, Free the Mind and Cyberlaw.

Here are the results

Entry 1

Entry 2

Entry 3

Entry 4

Entry 5

Entry 6

Entry 7

Entry 8

Entry 9

Entry 10

Entry 11

Entry 12

Entry 13

Entry 14

Entry 15

Entry 16

Posted on by mklang

The Way We Eat

Question Technology always recommends the great books. He has increased my library with some interesting choices. Now he pointed out that Peter Singer & James Mason have a new book out: The Way We Eat – Why our food choices matter. Prepare to be saddened, angered and hopefully goaded into action.

Excerpt via Animal Liberation Front:

Most Americans know little about how their eggs are produced. They don’t know that American egg-producers typically keep their hens in bare wire cages, often crammed eight or nine hens to a cage so small that they never have room to stretch even one wing, let along both. The space allocated per hen, in fact, is even less than broiler chickens get, ranging from 48 to 72 square inches. Even the higher of these figures is less than the size of a standard American sheet of typing paper. In such crowded conditions, stressed hens tend to peck each other — and the sharp beak of a hen can be a lethal weapon when used relentlessly against weaker birds unable to escape. To prevent this, producers routinely sear off the ends of the hens’ sensitive beaks with a hot blade — without an anesthetic.

Posted on by mklang

Bah, lazy hypocrites!

Its soon time for me to lecture on plagiarism again. I give this lecture every year to groups of students who are about to write their thesis. The idea is both to help them understand the boundaries between quote, citation, paraphrase & plagiarism and to get them to start thinking about the nature of property in relation to intellectual goods.

Giving this lecture today is aided by the current discussion on copyright and file sharing. In my IT & ethics course I regularly attempt to discuss the problem of file sharing and ask my students what they believe is the moral position of the person who illegally downloads music or films. Usually among my students 80-90% of those who download music do not consider there actions to be morally wrong and nor do they consider themselves to be stealing. The most often used legitimisation of their actions:
1. that they are not depriving anyone of use.
2. the entertainment industry is rich enough.
3. they would not buy that which they download and therefore there is no loss to the industry.

Considering these points it is interesting to attempt to raise awareness about plagiarism. In one way it is pretty easy: if you get caught you will be punished and it is humiliating. But this is not a good starting point since the stress is on not getting caught as opposed to building awareness.

Attempting to discuss student plagiarism is made more difficult recently when two professors have been accused (correctly) of plagiarising others work in their books. One is a professor at the University College of BorÃ¥s who has been sloppy when quoting others his/her own defence other are harsher and call it plagiarism (DN 29/4 â?? 2006)

The second is a professor at the University of Göteborg who has stolen other peopleâ??s works and included them in his work. The excuses for this theft was that the book was written under a very short deadline and the works from which he borrowed material are included in the bibliography.

We would never accept these excuses from our own students then why would these professors even think that the excuses would work for them?

Posted on by mklang

Rainy Sundays

Its almost a cliché. Its a rainy Sunday afternoon! The good news is that a large second hand bookstore nearby (Röde Orm in Haga) was having a major sale 10 kr per book. Most of the good stuff was gone but I came away with Lars-Ingvar Sörenson licenciate thesis from 1997 entitled Naturrätt, egendomsrätt och praxis (Natural rights, Property rights
and praxis). I am looking forward to reading it.

It begins with a quote from Sitting Bull’s speech 1875 where he speaks about his enemy and says, amongs other things:

They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse. They compel her to produce out of season, and when sterile she is made to take medicine in order to produce again. All this is sacrilege. This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. We cannot dwell side by side. (online version included here)

What can be better on a rainy sunday?
Posted on by mklang

Law & Internet Cultures

I reviewed Kathy Bowrey’s Law & Internet Cultures, Cambridge University Press for Web Journal of Current Legal Issues. Bowrey’s book is a very good piece of research and writing. Here is the punchline of my review:

This is not a book for someone looking for a quick answer or a legal ruling. It is not a howto book. It is a book for large groups of academics, activists, businessmen, lobbyists politicians and technologists who want to understand more about how the Internet as a sociotechnical system works. It is a book for anyone who wants to think and discuss the role of the Internet in society today.

Once again we see an example of how Australian legal authors are rising to the challenge to define Internet culture and legislation. The view from the antipodes is not particularly different or odd so as to be outside the interest of Internet scholars but rather refreshing, like familiar stories told with a different flavour. Even those who have heard them before will take something new with them from reading this book. ([2006] 2 Web JCLI).

In other words. Buy it or borrow it – its a great read. For more on Bowrey’s research take a look at her web site: Chickenfish.cc/copy.

Posted on by mklang

Hi-Tech Trash

Are you old enough to remember asking why you would want or need a mobile phone? How many have you had so far? How many phones will the average person have in a lifetime? And what will the cumulative effect be?

The picture above of discarded mobile phones in a landfill, Orlando, Florida, USA, 2004. (photo by Chris Jordan via I Txt, Therefore I am) click here for a larger image.

This is scary stuff and requires more examination so I am sure that I will get back to this subject soon. In the meantime check out some of these reading tips.

Check out:

Giles Slade “Made to Break – Technology and Obsolescence in America” Harvard UP.

Elizabeth Grossman “High Tech Trash – Digital Devices, Hidden Toxins, and Human Health” Island Press (forthcoming)

Elizabeth Grossman “Where computers go to die — and kill“, Salon.com
Elizabeth Grossman “How to recycle your computer“, Salon.com

(Litterature tips via Question Technology)

Posted on by mklang

On minor annoyances

Train travel is great! I like sitting and working on trains. Its like an office with a view. Today the Swedish trains have wifi (not very good but still wifi) which means that even online work can be done (unless it demands heavy bandwidth). The main problem is battery time. I try to book seats next to the power outlets (sad â?? isnâ??t it?) but on this trip I could not. Usually this can be fixed on the train.

Across the aisle from me a policeman (the gold braid suggests an officer) had a seat with the power outlet so I asked politely if he was going to use the outlet or if he could consider changing seats. He gruffly stated that he needed the outlet, drank his complementary coffee and fell asleep.

I worked fast and now I feel that I wanted to blog this on the last dregs of my battery life while the policeman snores gently to the rocking of the train.

Nobody likes to exchange seats, but most often do. Am I more annoyed by this man because of his occupation? Was his gruff response due to a need to command the situation? Did he ever intend to use the outlet?

Technology based life is driven by lots of small annoyances – the search for power being among the foremost. But our appliances demand more care and attention from us. Their control over our behaviour can be seen in the way in which we are reminded by the appliances to do their bidding. Washing machines, tumble dryers and microwaves annoyingly remind us to empty them â?? they will not be silent until we react. Most mobile devices remind us of their battery status, cars remind us when doors are open or seatbelts are unused.

The tyranny of these devices is for our comfort and security â?? but at the cost of our annoyance. They police use by their presence and remind us of their needs. The same can be said of the sleeping policeman across the aisle. He rests in full knowledge that his occupation is vital to society â?? something he takes advantage of â?? this is symbolised by non-use of the power outlet. He is like the tumble dryer I filled before leaving home that will beep noisily, annoyingly, in futility until I return.

Posted on by mklang

Text editing blues

Like bad tasting medicine editing is an aweful process which is only done because of its obvious benefits. Its terrifying the amount of errors that can be spotted at this late stage. Today I even found an incomplete sentence… it simply tapered off like someone losing a chain of thought.

This is the begining up until the research question. Not sure about it though…

This work begins with the thesis that there is a strong relationship between the regulation of technology and the Internet based participatory democracy. In other words, the attempts to regulate technology have an impact upon the citizenâ??s participation in democracy. This work will show what this relationship is and its effect on democratic participation.
Taking its starting points from the recent theoretical developments in regulation, disruptive technology and role of ICT in participatory democracy, this work is the application of three theoretical discussions. These theoretical discussions are used in the empirical exploration of six areas: virus writing and dissemination, civil disobedience in online environments, privacy and the role of spyware, the re-interpretation of property in online environments, software as infrastructure and finally state censorship of online information. The purpose of these studies is to explore the effects of these socio-technical innovations upon the core democratic values of Participation, Communication, Integrity, Property, Access and Autonomy. The overall research question for this thesis is therefore:
What are the effects of technology regulation on the Internet-based participatory democracy?

To connect to an earlier ongoing discussion about the text: The book is now 257 pages long and 99 479 words long. Do you think that word can handle going over 100 000 words or will it simply melt…

Posted on by mklang

PhD, competition & publicity

This blog lives a quite, laid back existence. But when I wrote a post asking for help to design the cover of my Phd thesis things exploded (original post here). Since I wanted to spread the information and since I thought it might be a fun idea I asked for the information to be posted on BoingBoing â?? it was posted there. It has also been posted on some of my favourite blogs: Lessig Blog, Karl Jonsson, Det perfekta tomrummet, Foreward & Patrik’s Sprawl.

The effect of this publicity? Take a look at my stats. I dont think that this picture needs any comments!

In addition to this I had no idea that I was going to annoy designers so much by asking what I asked. Take a look at the comments to my post and you will see that the one thing you do not ask a designer for is help. Definitely touched a raw nerve there.

Anyway I have received some contributions already and I will present them all on the 10 May so that they can all be seen and maybe arrange some sort of voting procedure.

Posted on by mklang

Life after Phd

A newly started blog called Deep Thought, (there is a name that demands living up to!) has written a list of things to do after the Phd. The list applies equally well to those of us not doing a phd in Anthropology.

1. Reaquaint yourself with your family, but be especially careful of partners/spouses/parents/friends/children who have aged five years since you last noticed them.
2. Get drunk (it doesnâ??t matter if you have a headache tomorrow)
3. Clean the fridge
4. Clean the house
5. Have sex (not necessarily in this order!)
6. Read something NOT published by Routledge, Sage, Berg, etc.
7. Change your email signature to include â??Drâ??
8. Switch the computer off before 5pm every day
9. Lie in every Sunday
10. Give birthday/christmas presents WITHOUT lecturing people about â??gift exchangeâ??
11. Move textbooks into spare bedroom
12. Accidentally leave your latest published article on the coffee table for when your mother-in-law visits

From Deep Thought.

Posted on by mklang