Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Jay-Z meets Metallica: Black on Black [bOing bOing] Updated Direct Link to .torrent DJ Halfred who did the remix. 8:31:48 PM    comment []

A non-intrusive use of RFID. Engadget is reporting on a novel use of RFID tags in Japanese conveyor belt sushi restaurants: With patrons sitting elbow-to-elbow, grabbing at sashimi as it sails past, it’s not uncommon to see discarded dishes stacked 20-plates high — a real hassle when each dish has a different price. About 120 sushi bars so far are now using a new speedy system called “Oaiso” (meaning check), which uses RFID tag-embedded sushi plates to tally the bill. Servers just place a scanner on the looming sushi-dish tower, which sends the total to the register, making the customer-turnover that much faster. [Smart Mobs] 8:26:43 PM    comment []

Brandom on Universities and the Pernicious Idea of Students as Customers. Interesting and apt remarks by distinguished philosopher Bob Brandom from a talk to the Board of Trustees at the University of Pittsburgh: The students are not always initially happy about being required to take these [philosophy] courses, though our exit evaluations of satisfaction are very high. This underlines what is wrong with thinking of our students as customers, whose desires ought to drive our offerings. If we just give the students what they want, half of them would do nothing but channel-surf through undemanding courses on the symbolism of the Matrix movies and what the popularity of reality TV says about contemporary culture — with lots of video-viewing time. A somewhat better model than that of commercial customer is that of professional client, in relation, for instance, to a doctor or lawyer. No one with any sense goes to their counselor and says: Prescribe this drug for me in this dosage, or file a lawsuit for me under this section of the Uniform Commercial Code. One goes instead for access to a different kind of judgment and advice, which one wants to take account of a whole range of possibilities and constraints initially visible only to the professional. The case of university-level instruction is even further out on this spectrum. What we have to offer is in no small part instruction about what sort of education the students should be pursuing, what is worth reading, learning, thinking and writing about — and what counts as doing that. The students come to us to become familiar with, and be held to standards of excellence of various sorts, as much as for our specific knowledge.  [The Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates] 8:24:27 PM    comment []

Kevin T weighs in with these headlines: U.S. NET ACCESS -- THREE OUT OF FOUR AIN'T BAD Nielsen/NetRatings now estimates that 204.3 million Americans, or 74.9% of the population above the age of two and living in households equipped with a fixed-line phone, have Internet access, up from 66% in February 2003. "In just a handful of years, online access has managed to gain the type of traction that took other mediums decades to achieve," said Kenneth Cassar, director of strategic analysis at Nielsen/NetRatings. [Editor(i.e., Kevin)'s note: measuring "households equipped with a fixed-line phone" misses at least 6% of US households.] [SOURCE: Reuters] WEB USERS THWART SITES' EFFORTS TO COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION More and more web sites are asking visitors to register their personal information like location, age, gender and occupation so the sites can sell their audience to advertisers who want to target segments of society. But web surfers are fighting back by registering false information. People are worried about their personal information being sold to potential spammers or stolen from a site's databank. [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Carl Bialik at carl.bialik@wsj.com] PUBLICATION: WHAT EVERY CITIZEN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT Public Knowledge has published a comprehensive resource that makes understandable for everyone the increasingly complex and highly technical issue of digital rights management. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the term applied to technologies that prevent you from using a copyrighted digital work beyond the degree to which the copyright owner wishes to allow you to use it. The technologies can be applied to digital movies, television programs, books or music. The 40-page primer, "What Every Citizen Should Know About DRM, a.k.a. Digital Rights Management," was written by Mike Godwin, senior technology counsel at Public Knowledge. Godwin is a veteran of Internet law, and the author of "Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age" (MIT Press, 2003). "You should care [about DRM] because you have something personal at stake in both the balances built into our copyright law, and in the technologies, such as personal computers and the Internet, that might be restricted or controlled in order to protect copyright interests," Godwin writes in the publication. The primer, produced in cooperation with the New America Foundation, has chapters on DRM and its relationship to copyright law; a technical explanation of how DRM works; a discussion whether DRM should be imposed by government; and the potential threats posed by DRM not only to copyrighted content, but to the technical design of the Internet. In a concluding essay, Godwin argues for minimal government regulation of DRM, and for a DRM policy that includes a strong commitment to promoting and preserving the public domain. [SOURCE: Public Knowledge] ON THE WEB, GEN-T AND CIVIC DUTY CLICK The Center for Social Media at American University will release a two-year study today examines the burgeoning presence of civically active young people on the Internet. Researchers looked at 300 websites that are wholly or partly geared toward encouraging Generation Y - anyone born in or after 1979 - to vote, volunteer, protest and participate in their communities. Kathryn Montgomery, the principle author of the study, said researchers were surprised at the amount of civic sites they discovered for Generation Y, especially the number created by the young people themselves. The sites they studied promote civic involvement in 10 areas, including philanthropy and volunteering, global and local activism, and tolerance and youth development. "Part of what they are doing online is expressing, communicating and, especially with blogs, creating whole new mediums, whole new vehicles for getting their voices out." [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Erin Ailworth] (requires subscription) Center for Social Media 4:35:45 PM    comment []

You may have heard about the big college basketball tournament going on . . . Check out the Salon Pool o' Experts, in which King Kaufman keeps track of the picks made by various pundits/experts, as well as the Tournament Committee in its seedings. He notes Keep all of this in mind the next time you're listening to some nationally known expert chatter away about the Tournament: His picks might not be much better than those of a 1-year-old flipping a coin. 11:34:56 AM    comment []

>From BNA News: ARCHIVES CHALLENGE "EFFECTIVELY PERPETUAL" COPYRIGHT TERM Two archives, including the Internet Archive, have launched a suit that asks a federal court to find that the Berne Convention Implementation Act (BCIA)is unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, and that the BCIA and Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) together create an "effectively perpetual" term with respect to works first published after January 1, 1964 and before January 1, 1978, in violation of the Constitution's Progress Clause. The complaint, which is supported by the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, asks the court for a declaratory judgement ruling, stating that copyright restrictions on orphaned works -- works whose copyright has not expired but which are no longer available -- violates the constitution. Case name is Kahle v. Ashcroft. Complaint here. 10:33:56 AM    comment []

"I remember the day ... ": Commentaries rejected by "All Things Considered." By Jason Roeder, in Salon. 9:33:27 AM    comment []

Privacy Maven Now Works for Feds. Lisa Dean, one of the most vocal critics of the government's privacy policies, takes a job as the Transportation Security Administration's top privacy officer. Her move raises eyebrows. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News] 7:01:17 AM    comment []

Shiny Happy Soccer Moms or Shallow and Solipsistic Feminism?. As I'll be out and about for the next few weeks with spotty Internet access it seems as though it is time to turn over the blogging to others.  Here then is a guest submission from an anonymous-for-the-moment philosopher queen hailing from the beautiful farm country just north of the Mason-Dixon Line... In October, the President’s Council on Bioethics (www.bioethics.gov) released a 400+ page report on biotechnology, entitled "Beyond Therapy." The report rings of Luddism, arguing that our unbridled pursuit of individual happiness in the form of "mood brighteners" (read: Prozac and other SSRI drugs) is turning us into a society of shallowness and solipsism. Psychiatry is transforming into "cosmetic psychopharmacology" (Peter Kramer’s phrase). If we find ourselves unable to mingle well at parties, or we tend toward melodrama thus irritating our companions, doctors now have a diagnosis for us that entitles us to a prescription for little green tablets that will remake us into more congenial and thereby socially rewarded selves. Melancholy is decidedly passé. What the report misses is that 70% of SSRI prescriptions are written for women. Moreover, most advertisements for SSRIs feature shiny happy "soccer moms," better able to juggle the demands of work and family. Prozac, it seems, is really mother’s little helper, especially in a service-economy that relies on women participating in the work force. Kramer proposed that Prozac was a "feminist" drug, making women more assertive, less sensitive to rejection, and thereby far better employees in traditionally male-dominated fields (Listening to Prozac). Prozac makes women more like men. So what’s wrong with this? After all, feminism fought to get us in the door. But, we didn’t realize we were still a bit too feminine to make it in the marketplace. Isn’t the President’s report just another case of male anxiety over women’s liberation? After all, feminism will have succeeded once women can be just as solipsistic and shallow as men, right? [Editor's note:  We were watching Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades the other night (Herman starts off the opera by talking about how he is going to kill himself because he is in love with a woman whom he's never actually spoken to and finds out that she is engaged to a prince).  One of our friends remarked "These opera characters wouldn't have done any of this stuff if they'd had Prozac back then."] [Philip Greenspun Weblog] 7:00:46 AM    comment []

Passport to nowhere?. Microsoft's grand plans for selling its online ID system to Web retailers has fizzled, analysts say. But expect Passport to be quietly resurrected in other products. [CNET News.com] 7:00:03 AM    comment []

Lifting the Shroud. Considering how risky it is to reveal awkward truths about the Bush administration, it is remarkable that so many insiders are finding the courage. By Paul Krugman. [New York Times: Opinion] 6:59:25 AM    comment []

You call it spam, they call it a living. Stay-at-home mom Laura Betterly built a million-dollar bulk e-mail business. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories] 6:58:04 AM    comment []

This is a real opportunity. I know some you have said you meant maybe to join the Well sometime. Here's a great chance to give it a spin and see for yourself how you might like it. Friends are invited to join The WELL: Sign up before April 1, 2004, and get two months to try it out for just the setup fee of $2. That's impossibly cheap, isn't it? (Check the fine print: stuff like bill to cc, have to give your real name, and so on.) And Well, for nearly nineteen years, has been one of (if not the) premier places for serious discussion on the Net. Check it out, see for yourself. Maybe you'll stay; maybe you won't. Two bucks to find out? Tell 'em bumbaugh sent you. 5:32:19 AM    comment []