writing

Disruptive Technology

Is it a sign of senility or hubris that I occasionally post pieces of my thesis work in this blog? No idea. But here is a piece on disruptive technology.

While in many cases a disruptive technology can be seen as a technology that replaces the incumbent technology one must not forget that this replacement also displaces the social organisation around the displaced technology. Therefore printing presses replaced the scriptoria and also change the role of the scribe. Railways replaced canals and also changed the way in which the social organisation around the canals functioned. Therefore railroads did not only make an impact on the barge pilot but also on the bargeman, lock keeper, canal owners, canal-side innkeepers, barge builders, waterway engineers and the horse trade (most barges were horse drawn). This process is not only one of historical interest. Examples of disruptive technologies are all around us. It is, in fact, a continual process. Digital cameras are replacing photographic film, flash drives replace floppy disks, DVD players replace VHS players. Each change brings has social and economic effects to a larger of smaller degree.

Actually I wanted to use something else but after looking around I could not find a good work on the social history of writing and writing implements. Not languages but a social history of putting text on paper. This feels like a book I would like to read. Instead I found Henry Petroski’s book The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance which was not as good as I hoped it would be. I thought it would be a social history but it turned out to be more of a vague technical history which makes brief stops at erratic points in the development of the pencil. But to be fair I have only read a third of the book – so I still might change my mind.

Posted on by mklang

Blogging revisited

In a previous entry I reported reasons why a blogger (especially academic) should blog. Naturally these views are not unanimous. Here is an anonymous submission to the Chronicle of Higher Education signed by the pseudonym Ivan Tribble. Remember the Tribbles from original star trek fame? Small furry, soft, gentle animals whose cute appearance and soothing purring endears them to every sentient race which encounters themâ??with one notable exception: Klingons.

Anyway Ivan Tribble writes about blogs:

â??The pertinent question for bloggers is simply, Why? What is the purpose of broadcasting one’s unfiltered thoughts to the whole wired world? It’s not hard to imagine legitimate, constructive applications for such a forum. But it’s also not hard to find examples of the worst kinds of uses.

A blog easily becomes a therapeutic outlet, a place to vent petty gripes and frustrations stemming from congested traffic, rude sales clerks, or unpleasant national news. It becomes an open diary or confessional booth, where inward thoughts are publicly aired.

Worst of all, for professional academics, it’s a publishing medium with no vetting process, no review board, and no editor. The author is the sole judge of what constitutes publishable material, and the medium allows for instantaneous distribution. After wrapping up a juicy rant at 3 a.m., it only takes a few clicks to put it into global circulation.â??

The more positive approach to blogging mentioned above (Alex Soojung-Kim Pangâ??s If you’ve got a day job…) focused on four reasons to blog: Practice of the skill of writing, gain readers fame & credibility, participate in a discourse and finally market yourself. All these four are important to the academic (and to the blogger).

Tribbleâ??s argument against the blog concern the situation where you are a job applicant and the stuff which you have written online can be used against you. Both when the committee looked at the applicants online appearance â??…it turned out to be every bit as eye-opening as a train wreck.â?? Another aspect which causes blogging concern is the very existence of the blog… â??Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum.â??

tribble
Captain Kirk with Tribbles

So basically the blog is like the Tribble – cute, furry and soothing to all (except the Klingons) but remember the problem with Tribbles? The crew of the Starship Enterprise spent so much time cuddling with, and being cuddled by, the Tribbles that they no longer functioned as a crew. In a sense the blog can become like Tribbles. Surrounded by both our own and others we exist in a quasi world of our own creation which is not a bad thing unless we replace the â??realâ?? world with the blogged one.

Posted on by mklang

Does Creative Commons free your content? – CNET reviews

An excellent article on Creative Commons was published on CNET, here is a quote to give you an idea…

“Here’s the concept of a Creative Commons license, as I understand it. Every creative work receives copyright protection automatically the moment you fix the work by putting pen to paper, hitting save, or pressing record. This protection reserves all rights to the work’s creator. Nobody can use that work without express written permission except where there is legally determined fair use. (We’ll get to what constitutes fair use in a minute.)

Creative Commons provides a somewhat standardized set of licenses that a creator of copyrighted works can use to give extra rights to people. This is similar to the GPL, used for software. (What was hard for me to wrap my head around in writing this column is that Creative Commons is actually more about protecting the audience you’re hoping will use your work than it is about protecting you. You still hold on to whatever rights you reserve, but you’re abandoning some of those rights on purpose.)

Copyright law protects any creative work you create whether you want it to or not. Nobody can legally use your work beyond fair use without a license. Creative Commons serves as a license that people who want their work to be shared can issue. Don’t want your work to be shared? No problem. Don’t use a Creative Commons license. ”

Does Creative Commons free your content? – CNET reviews

Posted on by mklang

Cultural Creation

I am begining to feel that that the process of writing is becoming a mechanical act – this may be good or bad but its definately not so much fun… or is it…

Today I am supposed to be finishing a piece on Online Censorship but ended writing a Swedish piece on creativity and law. Here is an excerpt:

    Med teknologins roll har människor i allt större utsträckning förvandlats från kulturkonsumenter till kulturproducenter. Vår samtids kulturdebatt har förändrats. Diskussioner om finkulturens vara eller inte vara har till viss del runnit ut i sanden. Tack vare teknologin har skapandets verktyg hamnat i nästan alla hem. Teknologin används flitigt till skapandet av musik, bilder, texter och konst. Genom att surfa ut över den svenskspråkiga delen av Internet ser man snabbt vilken otrolig produktion har tagit fart. Ibland känns det som om varje dator innehåller kulturuttryck i form halvskrivna romaner, avhandlingar, musik och konst i alla dess former. Möjligheten till kommunikation gör att traditionella publikationskanaler inte är nödvändiga. Dikter måste inte skickas till förläggare, vernissagen kan ske i virtuella rum och även den mest sparsmakade av musikintressen finns representerad i gemenskaper skapade av en fusion mellan människor och maskiner.

Meanwhile the sun is shining on what seems to be the last great day of the year. But I think I had better finish my piece on censorship…

Posted on by mklang