Polaroid is back, baby!

Polaroid is back! This via Futuramb. Wonderful that certain technologies refuse to die.

The Impossible Project, Made Possible: Polaroid Instant Film Is  Back on Sale | Dan’s FC Blog | Fast Company A story about when enthusiasts striving for feel and authenticity are  recreating what a company recently decided it would drop. Polaroid film  is back!

The Impossible Project, Made Possible: Polaroid Instant Film Is Back on Sale | Dan’s FC Blog | Fast Company

A story about when enthusiasts striving for feel and authenticity are recreating what a company recently decided it would drop. Polaroid film is back! Via Fastcompany:

The Impossible project’s film is actually more expensive than the original Polaroid film available on eBay and Craigslist, but the point is that those stores of original Polaroid film will eventually be used–and the Impossible project is here to stay, at least until people stop caring about Polaroid (probably never).

The film will be available starting this Thursday, March 25, through the company’s site.

The private public divide

In the early days of email government employees were told that they needed separate addresses for public and private messages. But that quickly became silly because there often exists no distinction between private and public – they can easily co-exist in the same person. But the problem has not gone away. In the SMS Privacy Case last year the Court of Appeals ruled that Employees’ text messages are private, even when transmitted on devices their companies pay for. But the case is now heading to the Supreme Court.

The background was a police officer had been sending personal private and occasionally sexually explicit text messages. In the court of appeals:

Judge Kim McLean said he “had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the text messages,” which were sent over a department-issued Arch Wireless pager. However, Judge McLean added that the “extent to which the Fourth Amendment provides protection for the contents of electronic communications in the Internet age is an open question.”The city, however, supported its stance against Officer Quon. In a filing, the city’s attorneys said: “To warrant Fourth Amendment protection, a government employee’s expectation of privacy must be one that society is prepared to consider reasonable under the operational realities of the workplace.” They maintain the city should not have to pay for the officer’s messages, which was used for “personal and highly private communications.”

The same problem appeared in Florida where a ruling from the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee of the Florida Supreme Court decided that it was ethically wrong for judges to add lawyers who may appear before them as “friends” on social networks. Apparently old friends may still exist and eating lunch with the judge is not controversial. Strange logic.

FSCONS 2009 part 2 Free Software and Feminism

Sunday morning begins at nine with the keynote Free Software and Feminism given by Christina Haralanova. Despite the party last night, the earliness of the hour and the difficulties in getting to the venue on a Sunday there is a good audience which shows the dedication and interest of this public to their cause. Haralanova asks why are there still so few women into technology. One answer is that they are discouraged and opposed. Boys have first contact at 12, girls 14.5 their first own computer boys at 15 girls at 19.

The social aspects of technology prove to be the key. The introduction to technology as toy for the boys provides them with a reason to interact with technology and share & discuss them with their friends. But since women begin later they do not have the confidence and the space to share and discuss. Naturally this then develops and is reinforced within the groups of tecchies and non-tecchies alike. Women are often subjected to jokes/insults and their contributions to projects are subjected to a more scrutiny.

As in many other aspects of life the contribution of men and women are not valued equally. This means that men are the coders while women are the documenters, teachers, promotors, gui-designers etc. We may have computers and Free Software but we still have not left the caves and hunting mammoths with rocks and sticks! The role of women is marginalized and made invisible – a role which re-inforces the negative position. By this we all lose.

Us Now documentary

Us Now is a documentary film that explores the ways in which web2.0 technologies are changing the way in which we interact and thus changing the fundamental roots of society. It’s “A film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet”.

In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?
New technologies and a closely related culture of collaboration present radical new models of social organisation.

From what I have seen so far this is an insightful and interesting film which presents the viewer with many questions about our society. It is filled with interesting people and examples revealing interesting new social organizational forms and asking questions about the way which will could and should be governed in the future. There is an underlying demand for true participation in the ways we are governed.

The film is also released under the Creative Commons BY-SA license.

Here is a blurb from Vodo.net

Can we all govern? Us Now looks at how ‘user’ participation could transform the way that countries are governed. It tells the stories of the online networks whose radical self-organising structures threaten to change the fabric of government forever. Us Now follows the fate of Ebbsfleet United, a football club owned and run by its fans; Zopa, a bank in which everyone is the manager; and Couch Surfing, a vast online network whose members share their homes with strangers.

Check out the trailer:

Disruption in Uppsala, Memory in Barcelona

Despite needing sleep the presentation in disruptive technology presentation in Uppsala went well. The discussion focused on integrity and social networks and presented some of the early early results of the emerging research project. Now its onwards to Barcelona for the 6th Communia Workshop Memory Institutions and the Public Domain… This is going to be really good.

Grumpy old men

TechnoLlama has written an excellent rant against Helprin’s Digital Barbarians here is a short excerpt:

Several things bother me about what I have read about Digital Barbarianism. Obviously, the title is a non-too-subtle slight against digital culture, those of us engaged in online environments are the barbarians at the gates, and real creators and civilised people who must stand up against the onslaught of the unwashed masses, upstarts, amateurs and misguided young kids. I have read several excerpts, and Helprin comes across as a grumpy old man who is not actually defending copyright, but attacking youth.

It’s well written and argumented so read it!

The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control

An interesting sounding book The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control by Ted Striphas is out now both in print and in a online Creative Commons version or as the author puts it:

…not only as a copyrighted, bound physical volume, but also as a Creative Commons-licensed electronic book.  You can download the e-edition by following the “download” link of the navigation bar, above, or by clicking here.  The file is a “zipped” .pdf of the complete contents of Late Age, minus one image, for which I was (ironically) unable to secure electronic publishing rights.

I don’t want to split hairs but the digital version is also covered by copyright – but I get what he means. This sounds like a really interesting book and I am looking forward to reading it. For those of you who want more than the title here is the blurb:

Ted Striphas argues that, although the production and propagation of books have undoubtedly entered a new phase, printed works are still very much a part of our everyday lives. With examples from trade journals, news media, films, advertisements, and a host of other commercial and scholarly materials, Striphas tells a story of modern publishing that proves, even in a rapidly digitizing world, books are anything but dead.

From the rise of retail superstores to Oprah’s phenomenal reach, Striphas tracks the methods through which the book industry has adapted (or has failed to adapt) to rapid changes in twentieth-century print culture. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com have established new routes of traffic in and around books, and pop sensations like Harry Potter and the Oprah Book Club have inspired the kind of brand loyalty that could only make advertisers swoon. At the same time, advances in digital technology have presented the book industry with extraordinary threats and unique opportunities.