Images

Bush Mashup

Another excellent mashup! Images of George Bush singing U2’s song Sunday Bloody Sunday.

The work is prestented on ThePartyParty. Think about the text of the song in relation to Iraq.

i can’t believe the news today
can’t close my eyes and make it go away
how long how long must we sing this song
how long too long for too long

broken bottles under children’s feet
bodies strewn across the dead end streets
but i won’t heed the battle call
it puts my back up puts my back up against the wall

and the battle’s just begun
this many lost and tell me who has won
the trench is dug within our hearts
mothers children brothers sisters torn apart
(words & music: U2)

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on by mklang

Death Vans

In a move that is eerily echoes the mobile Nazi gas chambers China has begun to use specially designed busses as mobile centres of execution where they administer death by lethal injection. It is no secret that China has capital punishment, but the amount of capital punishments undertaken remains undeclared by the Chinese government.

Death Van

Product Specifications (via USA Today):
Cost: $37,500 to $75,000, depending on vehicle’s size
Length: 20 to 26 feet
Top speed: 65 to 80 mph

The van is divided into three sections:

Execution chamber: in the back, with blacked-out windows; seats beside the stretcher for a court doctor and guards; sterilizer for injection equipment; wash basin
Observation area: in the middle, with a glass window separating it from execution area; can accommodate six people; official-in-charge oversees the execution through monitors connected to the prisoner and gives instruction via walkie-talkie.
Driver area


Banality of Evil
In an earlier post I wrote about the banality of evil â?? here is another excellent example. How does it feel to design such a vehicle? Does the designer add this to his/her CV? What about the company that sells them? What does the sales rep think when he/she wakes up in the morning? Is it a good thing that they are selling well?

This is an excellent example of the responsibility of the designer which I hope to make use of in my teaching. The main point is to problematize around designer responsibility and the issue of whether it is right (ethically & morally) that the designer does his/her best to solve the needs and meet the requirements of the customer.

Death in China
Amnesty International writes that capital punishment can be used â??â?¦for as many as 68 crimes, including non-violent crimes such as tax fraud, embezzlement and drug offences. 1,770 executions were reportedly carried out in China during 2005.â??

USA Today report that the majority of these executions are by firing squad but death by lethal injection is growing. China has introduced mobile execution vehicles where lethal injections are administered as a

â??â?¦civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely.â??

It has been speculated that one reason for the transfer to lethal injection is that the method keeps the organs in better condition for removal and sale. For a longer report on the Chinese death penalty read this Amnesty report (March 2004)

(via Space and Culture)

Posted on by mklang

Open Video Project

Creative Commons and the Fedora Project have launched an open video contest on the topic of Openness and Freedom. The first prize is a Fedora-branded Sony Camcorder. The first 150 submissions will receive a pair of handsome Fedora Flip-Flops – prefect for the summer!

Open Video Contest

The video submission should be in ogg format, less than 10MB in size, less than 30 seconds in duration and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License (in the jurisdiction of your choice). The competition period is between 00:00 UTC June 20, 2006 and 00:00 UTC July 20, 2006. Winners will be notified by September 1, 2006. So I think this means that the Flip-Flops will have to wait until next summer…

More info.

Posted on by mklang

Island Summer

Its time for the annual summer move – We have rented a small cottage on the local island of Asperö (population 450 people) where we shall be for the next four weeks. The island is small (only about 1 square kilometre) but still manages to have a varied nature â?? including a nature trail through a leafy area, lots of swimming places and a small sweet-water lake.

Asperö (the scale is 500m)

The best thing about the island is that there are no cars only mopeds built for transport rather than speed.


the moped

this type of moped is called â??Flakmoppeâ?? in Swedish which literally translated means loading platform moped â?? sounds much better in Swedish. As you can imagine the pace is much more relaxed on the island. So I am looking forward to a long relaxing summer on the islandâ?¦ even if I do have some short trips (Barcelona & Amsterdam) and some writing (Military Violence, Free Software) planned the main idea is to have a relaxing holiday-time.

Posted on by mklang

Guantanamo – banality of evil

When Hannah Arendt wrote about the banality of evil she was criticised for her thesis that people who carry out unspeakable crimes are not be crazy fanatics, but ordinary individuals who simply accept the arguments of their state and voluntarily participate in the evil â?? they are indeed good bureaucrats, simply following orders. Arendtâ??s example was a key administrator in the Nazi death camp system (Adolf Eichmann).

It seems to me that this is the only way in which to understand the statement of Rear Admiral Harris that the Guantanamo suicides on 10th June: “This was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us.” (The Time, June 11). He is the good bureaucrat – dutiful, unquestioning and supportive. Absolutely terrifying.
The three detainees committed suicide by using nooses made of sheets and clothes. One of the men was first detained when he was a juvenile. They had been in prison up to four years, but never charged a crime. This means that they have no way of knowing if and when they will ever be released.
Before June 10th there had been 41 suicide attempts at the camp. About the detainees at Guantanamo Amnesty International writes:

None of the detainees have been granted prisoner of war status or brought before a â??competent tribunalâ?? to determine his status…The US government refuses to clarify their legal status, despite calls from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to do so. Instead, the US government labels them â??enemy combatantsâ?? or â??terroristsâ??, flouting their right to be presumed innocent and illegally presuming justification for the denial of many of their most basic human rights.

Next week (23 June) the documentary Road to Guantanamo will be in the movies the website contains both the trailer and information about the infamous prison. Amnesty International has a broschure to accompany the film: The Road to Guantanamo Action Guide.

The banality of evil is in part the ability of the state to accept compromises such as Guantanamo – yet maintain they care about human rights. In addition to the general public opinion’s ability to forget that the evil is taking place…

Posted on by mklang

Sad iPod

My iPod has just made a face at me. Now it only does this

While I remember many years ago when my cat peed on/in my powerbook 100, I spent lots of time carefully drying it out. At the first successful startup the icon (usually a smiling mac) now looked like this.

I was naturally so thankful that my computer worked. Even if it never did smell the same again especially when the harddisk became warm…

Now that I am stuck here with a non-functioning iPod the “cute” unhappy ipod icon seems more like rubbing salt into the situation… So mac doesn’t use the “blue screen of death” but how is this better? The equipment does not work – but look at the cute icon? Bah!

Online helps involves resetting in different ways – I have tried them all. The final method which remains untried is to put my ipod in the freezer for a few hours and then reset.

oh, the joy of tech!

Posted on by mklang

Unrelated things: GPL conference & Filesharing

Some unrelated things which I put together in one post because I have been away from my blog until today (without any serious side effects).

Yesterday I was in Stockholm at the Swedish Parliament to discuss filesharing. No â?? not in the chamber! It was an enjoyable, open and interesting discussion â?? thanks for inviting me.

I also found out yesterday that the date for my thesis defence has been finalised. Once again travel plans of others had forced changes but now the date is set (for the last time! I hope.) So I will defend on October 2nd.

In addition to this I have been invited to join a panel at The 3rd International GPLv3 Conference: CCCB, Barcelona, Spain, June 22nd & 23rd. This is going to be very interesting.

I seem to have accidently forgotten (Freud who?)
to return my visitors badge…

Posted on by mklang

Suicidal War

Admiral Harris of the infamous Guantanamo prison commented the three suicides:

They are smart, they are creative, they are committed,” Admiral Harris said. “They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.

Three prisoners took their own lives. This may be a comment upon the way in which they are being treated. The jailer on the other hand views their actions as part of a planned attack against his country.

I dont know what to say when I read/hear such madness. But I can quote the genius Blackadder:

He’s mad! He’s mad. He’s madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of this year’s Mr Madman competition.

Posted on by mklang

Freelancers & Copyright

My last post was an attempt to blog via mail but it was less than successful since all that was posted was the header. I obviously have a lot to learn in this area. The post was supposed to include this text:
Today I am attending the Nordic Seminar for Freelance Journalists. This year it is being held in Kungälv at a conference center with a great view of Bohus Fästning (Bohus Fortress). The whole event is between Friday and Sunday but I am here to talk about Creative Commons licensing for the intellectual property slot on Friday afternoon.

Bohus Fortress

The IP block begins with a discussion on recent caselaw which is followed by a presentation called the archaeology of copyright. After a short coffee break I will present Creative Commons licenses and the session closes with a presentation of the Nordic and European Union rules of Copyright. This sounds like an interesting way to spend the afternoon even if it seems like summer has finally arrived.

It will be interesting to hear first hand from the point of view of freelance journalists their views on copyright and hopefully we will even discuss the influence such technology as blogs.

I was concerned that the freelance journalists would not take well to CC but I could not have been more wrong. Their major concern is that their work can be (and often is) “stolen”, in addition to the need to be better at negotiating for payments for the online use of their work by their print media customers.

They often spoke of their concern for their reputation and themselves as trademarks – in particular their concern that online publication in forms that they could not predict may seriously damage their future work.

We had a very good discussion and the response was positive.

Posted on by mklang

Writing Disruptive Technology

Finally done. I handed in my edited thesis to my supervisor today. The work spans 268 pages split up into 1769 paragraphs, 9953 lines. Which became 101 956 words. It includes 7 tables and 2 figures, not including the cartoon in the acknowledgements.

Since I have already survived two seminars on the work with revisions after each now my supervisor will read the work again and I will be able to make minor changes after his comments.

From the brilliant Jorge Cham – PhdComics

Then its summer – not a lot happens then. With any luck I will avoid reading my thesis. Just let it be until the begining of August. Then the work is off to the printers and upon its return a copy of the work is nailed to the university notice board along with information about the public defence which will be in September (one of the days: 25th, 26th or 27th still undecided…). If I pass & survive my defence then I am well and truely finished with this project.

The title of my thesis is “Disruptive Technology” and it has the subtitle “Effects of Technology Regulation on Democracy” if you want to read the latest version download it here.

Posted on by mklang