Reading

tis done

Today, after spending the whole weekend re-reading and correcting, I approved my thesis manuscript for publication. This means:

1. The printer is pressing the big button

2. There is no turning back – on 2 October I defend

3. No more changes can be made to the thesis

The sensation is one of relief and anxiety. What if I have made a huge error in the middle? Have I said too much? Too little? Have I missed a weak spot in my arguments etc etc. Soon (very soon) the answer to these questions will become clear.

The whole final text and images of the cover can be found here.

Posted on by mklang

comfortably numb

The song Comfortably Numb is one of my favourits from Pink Floyd’s album The Wall. The lyrics reflect a “coversation” between Pink (who has passed out in his hotel room) and the doctor who is attempting to treat him (or drug him) so that he can perform. The first verse here is the doctor followed by Pink’s reply:

Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?
…

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I cant explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

Why post this today? Well I have been sitting re-reading and correcting my manuscript and the phrase comfortably numb is actually quite representative of how I feel.

Posted on by mklang

Non-musical iPod

Admitting that I use my iPod a lot is not really surprising. Many people walk around with different versions of players connected to their ears. Even though I use my iPod every day I rarely listen to music on it. Almost everything I listen to is lectures and the occasional audio book. Sad, isnâ??t it?

Right now I am re-listening to the Garret Faganâ??s course of 48 lectures on the History of Ancient Rome, produced by the Teaching Company – this is a very good lecture series.

The problem with listening to non-fiction audio is that there is not enough free stuff! Thatâ??s why its nice to find sites like LibriVox were volunteers record themselves reading books and the results are posted into the public domain.

A word of caution â?? the rules and traditions for the public domain vary so LibriVox has the following disclaimer:

LibriVox recordings are Public Domain in the USA. If you are not in the USA, please verify the copyright status of these works in your own country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright laws.

LibriVox also has some nice links to other sources of spoken word online. So between the commercial sites, free sites and podcasts I will never have to listen to music on my iPodâ?¦

(via New York Times)

Posted on by mklang

Beautiful Thesis

Today I picked up the proof version â?? including the cover â?? of my thesis. It looks great. I took pictures but forgot to bring the camera cable home with me. So I will have to put pictures online later. But there is another problem. The systems administrators have threatened to do important updates to all the servers. Everything will be down during the weekend. This means I will not have access to the blog until Monday morning!

So despite the fact that I have no pictures to prove it you will have to accept that I have a beautiful thesis. Also without my blog for the weekend I shall be spending the whole time proof-reading (well almost all the time).

As always the link to the latest draft is here – if you can reach it between the systems work.

Posted on by mklang

Glowing Review

I came across a glowing review on Amazon for Human Rights in the Digital Age (edited by Andrew Murray and myself). Getting a glowing review is a very nice feeling! So good that I naturally feel the need to reprint it here!

I read this book following Conor Gearty’s advice in his 2005 Hamlyn Lecture Series “Can Human Rights Survive?” that this book “should be required reading for all those interested in the future good health of our subject”. Although it drew on a wide variety of contributors, some better than others, overall I found the book filled a void in the current literature and for this reason alone it would be a must read. That aside though I found the contributions to be thought provoking and useful. Some of the better chapters come from Mathias Klang who discusses Cyber-activism and online civil disobedience, Douglas Vick who puts US and European views of free expression to the test and Andrew Murray who challenges the orthodox views that government should look after itself – at least when it comes to controlling the information flow about itself.

This is an excellent collection of essays and I simply echo Conor Gearty’s words – buy it if you are interested in the future good health of the discourse on human rights.

Posted on by mklang

Voodoo Technology

Since I am not a tecchie the actual innermost workings of software remains a mystery in the same way as good magic or voodoo is a mystery. So upgrading my wordpress blog is anxious experience every time.

So now I have moved to version 2.0.4 and the voodoo seems to have worked. The angry gods of software were appeased by the fear in my eyes, the fresh java in my cup and my slow reading of the howto fileâ?¦

There is a brilliant Calvin and Hobbes strip were Calvin asks his father how the lightbulb works and his father answers â??Magicâ??. Most people take their appliances for granted but would not consider them magic. I find this strange since we blindly trust (no other option really) our appliances and truly think we understand how technology works when we are able to make it function.

There is a world of difference between being able to turn on the light and being able to understand how it worksâ?¦and lets not get started with the ability to record something on a video recorderâ?¦

Posted on by mklang

Serendipity

Serendipity is making fortunate discoveries by accident. It is also one of those words that both sounds good and denotes a good thing.

While looking for the bibliographic data on Lawrence Rosenâ??s book â??Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Lawâ?? (itâ??s the best on FOSS licensing and it’s also online here), I came across another Lawrence Rosen and his new book â??Law as Cultureâ??. The title was enough â?? I bought it.

Now that I have the book I read the front flap of the dust jacket:

Law is integral to culture, and culture to law. Often considered a distinctive domain with strange rules and stranger language, law is actually a part of a cultureâ??s way of expressing its sense of the order of things.

Rosen is a legal anthropologist and he presents a nice intro to the area of law and culture. All this is good stuff and I am looking forward to reading the rest. How did this book end up in my library and on my â??must readâ?? list? A case of mixed identity, two authors with the same name, an interest in software licensingâ?¦

Serendipity isnâ??t it great?

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iCommons Governance

Tom Chance has written a thought provoking article about the governance and finances of iCommons summit in Rio

The second iCommons summit…proved many things about the free culture movement. The most exciting development is that we’re growing rapidly, both in terms of the numbers of activists and advocates who identify themselves with the movement…But the summit also highlighted some issues that iCommons needs to address if it is to maintain its vitality and legitimacy.

From this humble begining Tom explains what the iCommons needs to do to develop into a the organisation it hopes to become. Well worth reading.

The position held by CC is to a large part due to the reputation of the organisation. The belief the users have in what the CC is and what its goal’s are. The question (reflected in Tom’s article) is whether the organisation has a clear ideological goal with which the organisation can grow and develop?

Posted on by mklang

What are you reading this summer?

Summer is the time of relaxing but its also a time of stress – its the time when all those things that you have put of until summer must be fulfilled. One of these todo lists is the summer reading list. Here is what the summer has carried with it in terms of interesting literature:

Dave Taylor’s “Learning Unix” – yupp, as I have already written…it’s time to learn unix. I have been meaning to read Hannah Arendt so now her books “Totalitarianism” and “On Revolution” are part of the holiday. The technology section includes Adam Greenfield’s new book “Everyware“, Lasica’s “Darknet“, Langdon Winner’s “The Whale and the Reactor” (which I have meaning to reread) and Joseph Gies “Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel“. In addition to this I have a copy of the PhD dissertation “Being-with Information Technology” by Anna Croon Fors.

So what is everyone else reading?

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