Imagine walking into an office only to find a pile of ten iPhones! A university colleague is importing and selling iPhones… Mmm, I am developing a desire…
Pile of Desire
rights
Old English
Scientific Impact and Scientific Books
Maybe it’s the approach of the first winter snows or maybe it’s just the most recent PhD cartoon (probably a combination of factors). But I began to think about my scientific impact.
Jorge Cham PhD Comics
It’s been a year since I defended my thesis so I guess a little thought on the topic may not be entirely out of place. Since 1999 I have written over 40 academic texts (journal and conference articles, book chapters, reports and more). Besides my PhD I have also acted as editor to a book, taught an endless amount of classes and given countless guest lectures.
Despite all this “scientific” or “academic” production my impact on the scientific community is negligible. Ok so I realize that my field is not high profile. But I have the sneaking suspicion that the impact of my work is not what it should be or could be.
If we choose to set aside arguments that my impact is low because I am unreadable – since they provide no help – then there may be another reason.
The focus of scientific/academic work has become the journal article. We are not measured in research but in publication. The problem with this system is that it creates a desire (intentional or unintentional) to manipulate the system. What we have seen over the last thirty years is the explosion of the number of journals and the publication hungry academic is always in the market for yet another place to deliver an article to.
The purpose of the journal was to provide an avenue where scientific work could be published quickly and in a focused manner. Well while some journals have longer time-to-print than books this is no longer an advantage. And the dance between authors, editors and reviewers has become so stylized that it resembles a kabuki theater (complex, ornate & beautiful but incomprehensible).
So where am I going with this? Not very far. The process of academic work entails journal publication – we are locked into this system. But to achieve true recognition and impact, in my field, I think your either need to be a cartoonist – or to write books.
Notes from prison library books
Jumbledpile has a Flickr set of things found in library books at the prison library. The pictures and notes are very moving. They are well worth a visit, a bit of voyeurism into an unknown world…
my favorite
(via Boing Boing)
Another idiotic regulatory attempt
The latest idiotic proposed legislation comes from Italy. The proposal is that all blogs and websites need to be registered (and taxed).
Beppe Grillo writes
Ricardo Franco Levi, Prodi’s right hand man , undersecretary to the President of the Council, has written the text to put a stopper in the mouth of the Internet. The draft law was approved by the Council of Ministers on 12 October. No Minister dissociated themselves from it. On gagging information, very quietly, these are all in agreement.
The Levi-Prodi law lays out that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money.
Oh my God, Lets start with the easy stuff.
First, How will they intend to police this law. The law can apply to all Italian sites. What is an Italian site? Is it:
- a site with an Italian domain
- a site on a server in Italy
- a site in Italian
Second, what happens when the site is based in several locations with data pulled from several sources? Do they get a tax reduction?
Third, what is a website? Can you define it legally? Is there a difference between the site, server and domain? What about:
- A facebook profile
- A blog on blogger
- An advert on ebay
- A wikipedia page
- A flickr profile
These may be unique individual websites – but they can also be seen as part of a larger domain.
Fourth, what about free speech rights? Basically an unregistered website would be in violation of the law but would/should the reaction be to close down the site? What happens if a newspaper does not register can they be closed down?
Fifth, administration. How much money and resource can be used to police a law such as this? Can the revenue it brings in even begin to cover the investigative resources required? No of course not. Imaging attempting to chase every Italian blog. How do you know when they are Italian?
Proposals to regulate the Internet come at regular intervals. Often they are barely thought through and will collapse before they even reach the enactment stage. Some laws on Internet regulation have been enacted but are then thankfully forgotten by those who should enforce them.
In the end proposals such as these show that regulators seem to lack even a basic understanding of the technology which most of us use. They also lack a fundamental modern historical approach to regulation. It is really a case of being condemned to repeat the past since we cannot remember it. All the earlier crappy failed attempts to regulate the Internet have failed but since the people proposing regulation have no memory of this we are doomed to see the same mistakes repeated again and again.
At best this provides a form of light relief and humor.
(via BoingBoing)
CC 5 years old
Creative Commons is going to celebrate its fifth birthday in December and it’s adoption and spread is nothing short of amazing.
The green/grey countries have adopted CC, the yellow or on the verge of adopting and the red have not begun to work on the licenses. Seen as a bottom-up movement the spread of Creative Commons shows its amazing success.
In the five years since our launch, we have grown up fast. In 2004, we incubated an international movement supporting the ideals of the Internet and cultural freedom (iCommons). This year we spun that organization out as an independent UK-based charity. In 2005, we launched a project to support a commons within science (Science Commons). This year Science Commons launched the Neurocommons, an e-research project built exclusively on open scientific literature and databases, and the Materials Transfer Project, an extension of the ideas of the commons to physical tools such as gene plasmids and cell lines. And just two months ago, we announced a significant grant that has enabled us to launch a project focused on learning and education (ccLearn). There is now a staff of over 30 in four offices around the world, supporting thousands of volunteers in more than 70 local jurisdiction projects around the world, who, in turn, support the millions of objects that have been marked with the freedoms that CC licenses enable.
Tellytubbyland
Most human differences can be overcome, but there is one unbridgeable divide. The world is split between people who play golf and people who don’t. Each faction regards the other as an alien lifeform. One is astonished that any human fails to see that life without golf is not worth living. The other watches grown men in two-tone shoes dragging a bag of sticks round Tellytubbyland, and shakes its collective head with incredulity.
One of the best writers in the fields of injustice is George Monbiot. He dares to ask the questions most of us prefer to avoid. He then takes the answers to their logical conclusion. These traits have earned him praise and criticism. For my part he is one of the most important journalist/writers of our time. In a recent column he picks an easy target environmentalism and golf and explains simply and logically the negative effects of the sport.
One study suggests that an 18-hole course requires, on average, 22 tonnes of chemical treatments (mostly pesticides) every year: seven times the rate per hectare for industrial farming(22). Another shows higher rates of some cancers, such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (which has been associated with certain pesticides(23)), among golf course superintendents(24). Courses consume staggering amounts of water(25). Many of them are built on diverse and important habitats, such as rainforests or wetlands. In some countries people have been violently evicted to make way for them.The problem is particularly acute in South East and East Asia, where golf is big business, and land rights and the environment are often ignored by governments. There are hundreds of accounts of battles between peasant farmers or indigenous people and golf course developers. In one case in the Philippines in 2000, two farmers resisting a course planned for their lands were mutilated and dismembered then shot dead(26).
Read the whole article Playing it Rough (originally published in the Guardian 16th October 2007) at Monbiot.com
Internet Censorship China
Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders (a Chinese Internet expert working in IT industry) has produced a study on the Chinese official system of online censorship, surveillance and propaganda. For obvious reasons the author of the report prefers to remain anonymous. The RSF press release promises:
This report shows how the CCP and the government have deployed colossal human and financial resources to obstruct online free expression. Chinese news websites and blogs have been brought under the editorial control of the propaganda apparatus at both the national and local levels.
… [The report] explains how this control system functions and identifies its leading actors such the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau…, the Bureau of Information and Public Opinion… and the Internet Bureau…
Internet censorship is a vital topic any work in this area is very welcome. Two PhD thesis’ of interest in this area are Stuart Hamilton’s To what extent can libraries ensure free, equal and unhampered access to Internet-accessible information resources from a global perspective? and Johan Lagerkvist The Internet in China: Unlocking and containing the public sphere.
…and one EULA to rule them all…
Sorry for the geeky title but when I came across this over on Boing Boing it struck me that licensing is going way, way beyond contract theory in an attempt to control the rights over the users. From Boing Boing:
The Software may contain third party software which requires notices and/or additional terms and conditions. Such required third party software notices and/or additional terms and conditions are made a part of and incorporated by reference into this EULA. By accepting this EULA, you are also accepting the additional terms and conditions, if any, set forth therein.
Most EULAs (end user license agreements) tend to make sure that the user has little or no rights at all. EULA’s can also conveniently be changed without notifying the user of the changes. This means that the software user should consider herself lucky if her equipment works at all.
The example above goes beyond that. By agreeing to the EULA you also agree to any terms or conditions of third party software the original company may choose to install. This makes it impossible for the user to even attempt to control her rights against the software manufacturers.
For more on EULA’s see, for example, this article I wrote on Spyware.
On my desk & wall
Following a recent low-key trend here comes a totally frivolous posting about what is on my desk and the wall in front of me. On my desk at work I have the usual telephone, screen, mouse & keyboard. Penholder, Far Side calender, bottle of water, coffee mug with skull & crossbones, camera lens cover, envelope with posters, cd collection, my rings, train ticket, mobile phone & hands-free… Actually this is my desk in a rather tidy condition.
On the wall in front of me is a bookcase with the stuff that doesn’t need to be instantly available such as a nostalgia Mac Classic and Mac Newton, a globe which lights up and my poster of Tintin et les Picaros.
There is also a collection of PhD’s presented at our department some other strange books “The Memoirs of Field Marshal Kesselring” and a history of Karate, a small pile of useless papers and an empty lunchbox…
So, whats on your desk and wall?