YouTube was launched in February 2005. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google stock.
The anthropology class at Kansas State University has created a video about the history of YouTube and speculates briefly on its future.
For a full script of this video, along with references and notes, see here.
Many of the The Beatles song lyrics are surreal or at least they seem so to the uninitiated. Attempting to decipher them seems to require a mix of pop culture, exotica and a broadminded approach to drug culture. One example is the great song Come Together from the album Abbey Road (1969). The tag-line Come together right now over me is really well known and appreciated but the rest is almost impenetrable.
He roller-coaster he got early warning
He got muddy water he one mojo filter
He say “One and one and one is three”
Got to be good-looking ’cause he’s so hard to see
Come together right now over me
Besides all possible, and impossible, interpretations one of the main themes in the song is the West African magic in particular the references to things like juju & mojo.
The mojo is a recurrent theme in music, in particular, blues music (Wikipedia has a list of references) its a magic charm carried under the clothes. Looking on the mojo as an outsider there is often a lack of understanding for the role it plays. Indeed often those relying on the mojo are seen as being superstitious.
Even in cultures where this occurs the talisman or amulet is commonplace. It is very difficult to precisely define what the talismans may, or may not, be as they can be different things to different peoples at different times. The main idea is that the talisman is there to protect the bearer. Again, to the non-believer this is simply superstition. However, many of those who argue this are prepared to wear a cross or other religious artifact every day.
In the secular society there is a tendency to look upon even religious symbols as being part of a superstitious infrastructure – they are more than unnecessary they actually limit the believing bearer from developing into an independent figure.
Whether you believe this or not is unimportant but I do find it interesting to see the way in which people behave when they are deprived of the technology. I don’t mean only the fact that they cannot use the technology I mean the way in which they behave when they have (inadvertently) misplaced or forgotten their technological artifacts.
If we ignore the functionality. How different is the insecurity and nervousness of a person deprived of his mojo to the feelings of a man deprived of his mobile phone? Does this mean that mass market technology has taken the place served by the good luck charms of our ancestors? Does a Nokia ward of evil spirits? Is male sexuality somehow connected to the contents of ones laptop?
Remember Michael Wesch? He created the excellent video The Machine is Us/ing Us about web2.0. Its message: The Machine is us was very nicely argued. Prof Wesch is back again with another video, A Vision of Students Today, about the student life today. Mainly (but not only) about the relationship between teaching and technology.
The students surveyed themselves and this resulted in the following statements – but don’t stop here – the film is very much worth watching both for its message and presentation. Here are some of the statements which arise from the survey:
- I complete 49% of readings assigned to me
- I will read 8 books this year, 2300 web pages & 1281 facebook profiles
- I facebook through most of my classes
The film contains two important quotes – the first my McLuhan (1967)
Today’s child is bewildered when he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns subjects and schedules.
and the second from 1841 when Josiah F. Bumstead said about the inventor of the blackboard:
The inventor of the system deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learning science, if not the greatest benefactors of mankind.
Don’t make the mistake of interpreting Wesch as a luddite. It is very important to be able to criticize technology. The amazing thing is that we are allowed to criticize cars without being accused of luddism but if you are critical towards IT you stand accused of wanting to return to the stone age.
Wesch is making an important point that teaching should be more relevant and less dependent upon technology. Simply adding technology, or supplying it to students, does not improve teaching, learning or education.
Prof Wesch Digital Ethnography Blog
Oh, and while you are there check out their Information R/evolution video.
A Russian photograph depicting two kissing policemen by a Russian art collective has been excluded (banned?) from an exhibition of contemporary Russian art due to be exhibited in Paris next week. Alexander Sokolov, Russia’s culture minister has banned the photo entitled Kissing Policemen (An Epoch of Clemency).
Apparently Mr Sokolov sees the photo as a political provocation and has banned it together with 16 other works. (via Guardian Online)
Well no one will try to argue that Russia is a tolerant society or that the position of minister of culture is there to promote the arts.
The photo is a variation on, or homage to, the British artist Banksy’s Kissing policemen.
Kissing Policemen by Banksy (photo by David Singleton)
It’s the last day and my bags are half-packed. Yesterday I managed to spend a couple of hours in Istanbul and to take in some of the more obvious sites, experience the feel of the city and to generally be a tourist. Naturally there was no time for any longer exploration it was more a case of following the advice on this t-shirt I saw in the beginning of the week.
The tour included notable sites like the Galata Tower, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar. All of which are incredible and leave a desire for further exploration. But I guess I should not complain as I was not even sure that I would finf the time to see any of the sights.
The amazing Blue Mosque
Naturally there was a lot of people and culture watching and I even managed to find street art in Istanbul – it is very familiar and only goes to show that globalisation even entails a certain level of cultural uniformity – even in relation to counter cultures. I will put more Istabul street art on my Flickr site.
A recent advert posted all around Göteborg features artwork by Banksy. I have written about Banksy earlier in this blog (here, here, here and here). I cannot pass signs like this without thinking about the copyright questions this raises.
The first point that needs to be made is the fact that despite the fact that Graffiti may be illegal the artist has copyright in his work. This means that even though the artist may be arrested his (or her, naturally) work may not be copied and reproduced without the permission of the artist.
Now Banksy is not the artist most concerned about copyright – in his book “Wall and Piece” there is a quote in the beginning “Copyright is for losers”. But what I would like to know is whether or not the the people who printed the poster even bothered to think about the question of copyright.
My guess is that the group probably feels some kind of affinity with countercultures and therefore assumes that they either do not need permission, or if they did need permission they would surely get it. The creators of the poster may actually have asked for and received permission but somehow I doubt it since Banksy tends to be rather withdrawn.
A clue in this direction can be found on his website, where a small popup appears with the text:
“Banksy has not organised or been involved in any of the recent exhibitions of his work”
Is the regulation of violence in video/computer games censorship? Or is it a question of protecting the innocent? Naturally paternalism in all forms includes a “pappa knows best” attitude however there are cases of censorship/control/paternalism which we can accept and other forms which we tend to react against.
The forms of Internet censorship (more here) displayed by states such as China and Saudi Arabia are usually criticized as forms of censorship unacceptable in democratic societies while they themselves argue the need to protect their cultures and citizens against the corrupting influences online. It is, it may seem, a question of perspectives.
Then what of the regulation of violent computer games? Are computer games supposed to be seen as forms of speech to be protected? Or are we on a dangerous slippery slope when we start excluding forms of speech? The New York Times has an article showing that the US courts tend to find laws against computer game unconstitutional.
Considering the US approach to Free Expression this is not surprising. The European approach – in particular the French, German and Scandinavian models could not be as clear cut in this question. This only means that the US is against censorship and feels the cost of this decision is worth it, while many other jurisdictions feel that the damage caused by this extreme acceptance of free expression may cause discomfort and hardship to individuals and groups beyond the eventual benefits of the speech.
The ever eloquent Judge Posner is quoted in the article:
“Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low,” he wrote. “It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware. To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.”
The problem is that there is often great value (moral rather than economic) in quixotic pursuits and the practice of subjecting people to hardships in order to prepare them for eventual future hardships is really only useful in military training and never a satisfactory way of raising children.
Here is a conference tip for those of you who may be in Uppsala on the 21 September. It’s a free one-day conference on creativity and copyright called Using Fairly. Among the speakers (and organizers) is Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, the author of the excellent book No Trespassing.
This is definitely an event worth attending…
The Wellcome Trust has released its image collection under a collection named 2000 years of human culture. Launched 20 June, Wellcome Images is the world’s leading source of images on the history of medicine, modern biomedical science and clinical medicine. All content has been made available under a Creative Commons Licence, which allows users to copy, distribute and display the image, provided the source is fully attributed and it is used for non-commercial purposes. (read press release)
Mosquito, Anopheles stephensi in flight by Hugh Sturrock (2005)
(via Boing Boing)
With so many discussions on Free Culture, Open Access and the problems connected with making academic publishing available outside academia it is surprising how few good places there are to find thesis’ online.
This is why I was happy when Peter Murray-Rust pointed me towards the Harvard College Thesis Repository (a project of Harvard College Free Culture).
Here Harvard students make their senior theses accessible to the world, for the advancement of scholarship and the widening of open access to academic research.
Too many academics still permit publishers to restrict access to their work, needlessly limitingâ??cutting in half, or worseâ??readership, research impact, and research productivity. For more background, check out our op-ed article in The Harvard Crimson.
If you’ve written a thesis in Harvard College, you’re invited to take a step toward open access right here, by uploading your thesis for the world to read. (If you’re heading for an academic career, this can even be a purely selfish moveâ??a first taste of the greater readership and greater impact that comes with open access.)
If you’re interested in what the students at (ahem) the finest university in the world have to say at the culmination of their undergraduate careers, look around.
The FAQ explains much of the process. It is also good to see that they are applying Creative Commons Attribution License
Q. What permissions do I have to grant to free my thesis?
A. To make sure your thesis is always available for scholars to build on, we ask that you give everyone permission to do the things you’d want to be able to do with a scholarly work you liked: download the work, read it, keep copies, share it with other people, and adapt it into fresh works. The specific legal permission we ask for is the Creative Commons Attribution License, the same one required by the world’s leading biology journal PLoS Biology and the other journals of the Public Library of Science.
My only (small) complaint is that I wish the repository was clearer in showing the license terms for their content. I only found it in the faq. Normally I would not bother reading the faq. To increase the usability of the site the terms should be on the download page and preferably on the essay file.
Despite this I think this is an excellent initiative and I would hope that the fact that Harvard has taken a step such as this would work as an incentive for other universities to follow suite.