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Hi-Tech Trash

Are you old enough to remember asking why you would want or need a mobile phone? How many have you had so far? How many phones will the average person have in a lifetime? And what will the cumulative effect be?

The picture above of discarded mobile phones in a landfill, Orlando, Florida, USA, 2004. (photo by Chris Jordan via I Txt, Therefore I am) click here for a larger image.

This is scary stuff and requires more examination so I am sure that I will get back to this subject soon. In the meantime check out some of these reading tips.

Check out:

Giles Slade “Made to Break – Technology and Obsolescence in America” Harvard UP.

Elizabeth Grossman “High Tech Trash – Digital Devices, Hidden Toxins, and Human Health” Island Press (forthcoming)

Elizabeth Grossman “Where computers go to die — and kill“, Salon.com
Elizabeth Grossman “How to recycle your computer“, Salon.com

(Litterature tips via Question Technology)

Posted on by mklang

Chernobyl twenty years later

Its today twenty years since the accident at Chernobyl (Uranium Information Centre briefing paper #22 & IAEA Chernobyl FAQ) an example of how our reliance on technology can go wrong. The accident was brought about by the mixture of over-confidence in technology, fear of criticising the own organisation and the desire to increase production by conducting dangerous of questionable value.

According to the IAEA Chernobyl FAQ the disaster was the equivalent of 400 Hiroshima size bombs but they also add

However, the atomic bomb testing conducted by several countries around the world during the 1960s and 1970s contributed 100 to 1,000 times more radioactive material to the environment than Chernobyl.

Comforting news.

Caesium-137 fallout. Source: J.Smith and N.A. Beresford, “Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences” (Praxis, Chichester, 2005) (via wikipedia).

While Chernobyl is the icon of technological disasters it is important not to forget many â??smallerâ?? disasters that have occurred (and will continue to do so). There is a need to be vigilant of technology rather than to believe the infallibility of technical experts. The failure of Chernobyl did not occur because of a lack of experts but rather through the hubris of the experts in place and the lack of infrastructure available for â??lesserâ?? experts (or laymen if there had been any) to point out the dangers of the actions leading up to the steam explosion that destroyed the reactor core (Chernobyl sequence of events).

Since the disaster a 30km zone around the reactor has been evacuated. A side effect of this has been a resurgence of wildlife in the area (BBC story)

In a macabre form of tourism a motorcyclist has travelled within this zone and put a photojournal online this is part of a growing tourism into the dead zone to visit the abandoned towns.

Posted on by mklang

Word, limit & date

Thesis update

When the document hit 100 000 the word counter at the bottom of Word just disappeared! Microsoft huh! But 100k that must be cause for a celebration? I will take a walk in the sunshine and return tomorrow – would be a longer break if it wasnt for those damn deadlines.
The good news is that the date is now firmly set. I defend on Friday, 15 September!

Posted on by mklang

Nationality of torture

In an article on the British post WWII torture camps the Guardian writes

A few were starved or beaten to death, while British soldiers are alleged to have tortured some victims with thumb screws and shin screws recovered from a gestapo prison.

This is followed by a quote from Nick Harvey (Liberal Democrats defence spokesman)

It’s too late for anyone to be held personally responsible, or held politically to account, but it’s not too late for the MoD to acknowledge what has happened.

What???

Would this sentiment be equally applicable to the guards in Nazi concentration camps? So its OK now for these remaining guards to step forward and not expect to be punished for what they did?

What Mr Harvey needs to learn is that torture can never be legitimised by nationality!

Posted on by mklang

Banksy’s latest is a comment on the deregulation of state industries. In this graphic case it is an image of the change from the old to the modern British Telecom (BT). This is portrayed by a bleeding old style phone box in Soho (London)

A BT spokesman said: “This is a stunning visual comment on BT’s transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider.” (BBC)

What the BT spokesman failed to mention is the reduction of universal service when follows in the wake of any deregulation. The transformation of a public service company into a modern industry player is not always something to be proud of. The mutilatd phone box has unfortunately already been removed.

Larger image on Banksy’s site.

Posted on by mklang

War and Peace

In an article entitled You and the Atom Bomb, George Orwell wrote about the relationship between military technology and democratic development. National self-determination is, according to Orwell’s technologically deterministic argument, a product of the ability to develop efficient arms.

The great age of democracy and of national self-determination was the age of the musket and the rifle…Even the most backward nation could always get hold of rifles from one source or another, so that Boers, Bulgars, Abyssinians, Moroccansâ??even Tibetansâ??could put up a fight for their independence, sometimes with success. But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised country as against the backward one. There are fewer and fewer foci of power. Already, in 1939, there were only five states capable of waging war on the grand scale, and now there are only threeâ??ultimately, perhaps, only two. This trend has been obvious for years, and was pointed out by a few observers even before 1914. The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weaponâ??or, to put it more broadly, of a method of fightingâ??not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant. (full article here)

The concept of war and peace has changed since Orwell published this article in Tribune (19 October 1945). Those old enough to have experienced the world wars (either as participants or spectators) claim that we have had peace. This is strange to as I cannot remember a single period in my life when we were not at war with some nation (echoes of Orwell’s 1984?)

This peace is therefore an illusion, a consensual hallucination, if the interpretation of reality claims that we are at war then we are at war. If the claim is that we are at peace then we are at peace. Naturally this does not effect the fact that people are being killed, or that military forces are attacking each other. It just does not mean that we are not living in peacetime.

The atom bomb nicknamed Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki exploded at 11:02 A.M on August 9.
It left an estimated 70,000 dead by the end of 1945.

While living in this myth of peace the threat of all out war remains a threat but in reality war remains based in the use of the rifle or rifle-like weaponry. Since there is no real war in (or with) Afganistan, Iraq, India/Pakistan (Kashmir) or Indonesia (For lists of ongoing conflicts look here and here) but only ‘conflicts’ the struggle remains focused around the rifle.

This is not, as Orwell thought, the technical ability to mass-produce this relatively simple technology but rather the ability to obtain cash or credits to be able to buy small arms (estimated black market trade in small arms range from US$2-10 billion a year). In conflicts such as these it is not the posession of advanced technology that resolves the conflict but rather the money and determination to accept heavy losses.

Posted on by mklang

Silence of Dissent

As early as 2002 the Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) have been considered using biometrics to beef up security. SAS state in a press release dated 2002-05-06 that they are evaluating biometrics to improve check-in and embarkation procedures. In the press release (reported here in the Swedish newspaper DI) they refer to the 9/11 attacks (naturally â?? what else?).

On 30 March 2006 the Swedish Data Inspection has given SAS permission (Swedish Press Release) to use fingerprints on domestic flights to ensure that persons handing in luggage are also on the flight. The goal is to have 1.4 million passengers voluntarily leave their fingerprints to a local database. When the passenger begins her flight the information in the database is erased.

Naturally the scheme is a violation of personal integrity. The Data Inspection legitimises its decision by pointing out that the data is only stored for a brief time and that the system is voluntary.

By waving the flag of freedom of choice the Airline company, the Data Inspection and others are practicing the art of spin to a marvellous degree. Any and all complaints against a voluntary system can be easily ignored. The critic can be derided since the system is voluntary â?? if you donâ??t like it then donâ??t do it.

This is, I believe, to miss the whole point.

We have all been taught to defend our rights but the question is then why people do not react when things like this happen in front of their eyes? The reason is that we are prepared to fight the strong foe but we have no defence against the â??Salami Tacticâ??. The Salami Tactic is the opposite of brute force it is hardly even a fight. It entails taking over something slice by slice. Each step in itself so small that it is not worth retaliation â?? Any protest against a slice being taken can again be defended by the freedom of choice argument. The critic is over-reacting. If someone was to attempt to take the whole salami at once reactions would be legitimate. Not to react would be a sign of weakness. To react when someone takes a slice is a sign of a petty mind.

This is the weakness of a strong democracy.

The voluntary nature of this scheme, and indeed others like it, undermines the present rights argument since we cannot fight. The voluntary nature of the scheme is also problematic when this scheme gradually becomes the norm. Then the person wishing to maintain the voluntary status and not participate is seen by everyone as being difficult and relatively socially inept.

There will be no protests, there will be a rush to accept this scheme. Everyone will sing its praises: frequent fliers will sing about efficiency, police about security and the airline will sing about profit. Those who will not sing will sit in embarrassed silence while another slice of our rights is lost forever.

Posted on by mklang

The Laptop Ban

Recently there has been a growing discussion online about students use of laptops during lectures. This discussion began when a law professor banned the use of laptops during her lectures. The directive seems innocent enough:

Beginning on Tuesday, March 14, the use of laptop computers and other similar devices will not be allowed during Civil Procedure class session. Please be sure to bring with you…paper and pen or pencil for taking notes.

The University made it clear that it was the professors decision (my earlier post here). In the resulting furore one student even threatened to leave (“If we continue without laptops, I’m out of here. I’m gone” USA Today). This seems a bit melodramatic for one course but it is interesting to see how the university will continue to react.
These discussions are particularly interesting as the faculty where I am based has provided laptops and wifi for all the students and there are constant discussions on the students ability to handle this technology particularly in relation to the lecture scenario but even in relation to the need to read offscreen material.

Of course this problem is not unique.

In post Collision Detection writes:

I’d argue that it [Laptops & Wifi] also provides some healthy competition for the professors; too many of them read off brittle, yellowing, decades-old lecture notes and never engage their classes. They’re losing the Darwinian battle for attention for good reasons, and it’s time to cull the herd.

and in a post entitled “The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All The Laptops” Plastic writes that “Several schools are considering giving their professors the authority to switch off wireless access.”

This is a tough one. I agree that there is a real need for university lecturers to improve their material and presentation skills – some are really terrible. But there must be a way of improving the lectures without providing more diversions? There is no way a lecturer can compete with online material. But will the cost of improving the lecturer’s skills be the students failure to complete their eductation?

My students have a choice to listen or learn in some other way. But if they use their time with their laptops rather than listening to lectures or actually reading the material is it my fault that they fail their exams? The camel has been taken to the water-hole but but refuses to drink. At the same time I still believe that I have a responsibility to teach – which involves students learning.

Posted on by mklang

Desirable Thing No. 1

New computer technology creates new desires and needs. I want to add a list of desirable things not necessarily new things but just the stuff of desire.

Desirable thing no 1. Mac Computer. I began ages ago using Mac computers at school, the first computer I bought was a Mac. Then mac died a bit and I went through a series of PCâ??s from brand names to unknowns. From Windows to Linux. But last year I bought a Mac again. Its design, functionality and all round ability to anticipate and solve problems have made me return to where I began.

Where it all began…

Posted on by mklang

Wireless

Our department has formally changed faculty from the Business School to the IT-university. The IT-university students all have laptops with wireless access which makes teaching an interesting experience. Recently a law professor at the University of Memphis banned laptops in class since he argued that the students are not paying attention to the lecture but are more concerned with their notes. Among the problems with connected laptops are that the students are not even concerned with their notes but are more focused on browsing, messaging and mailing.

This is not the point of this post. The point is the classroom of the future needs to be designed with a lot more thought as to the users need for electricity.

The unelegant current solution

Posted on by mklang