Thursday, January 12, 2006

Rewards of using all your faculties: Business schools are building interdisciplinary links to improve students' chances in today's complex world. by Della Bradshaw, Financial Times. At the heart of the issue is the increasingly complex world of business, says Anthony Hopwood, dean of the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford in the UK. Twenty years ago managers did not need to know about science and technology, but now these subjects permeate every aspect of business. A modern business school has to have access to knowhow on science, regulation, politics and government, he says. “Today MBAs need seamless access in a joined-up world.” It is a view that echoes along the corridors of many of the top business schools. “You can’t have a strong business school without a strong arts and science department,” says Glen Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School in New York. He is working to increase the number of joint academic appointments with other schools in the university and encouraging his faculty to conduct joint research with other departments. “I like to see research aimed at problems, not disciplines . . . One of the reasons that I am passionate about this is that if you want a university to come closer to the outside world, you need to come closer to other departments.” = 11:18:30 AM    comment []

Europeans Say Iran Talks Reach 'Dead End', by Geir Moulson, Forbes. The British, French and German foreign ministers said Thursday that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program had reached a "dead end" and the Islamic republic should be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. The ministers called for a special session of the International Atomic Energy Agency to decide the referral. The ministers' call came two days after Iran broke U.N. seals at a uranium enrichment plant and said it was resuming nuclear research after a two-year freeze. 11:18:24 AM    comment []

The President of Indonesia and the Internet. "After inviting Indonesians to send text messages to him via their cellphones,President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono may soon be available for live discussions over the Internet,"this AsiaMedia article says."In his latest effort to foster "direct connection" with the public,Dr Yudhoyono has commissioned a team of information technology experts to set up a website dedicated to the President's office,according to one of the website's consultants.The website,which will be available in both Indonesian and English,will highlight his daily activities,disseminate information on policies and accept public complaints,IT expert Roy Suryo said.It will also contain the President's latest speeches,press releases,pictures and footage of his activities.There will also be moderated dialogues with Dr Yudhoyono,he said,adding that the website will be launched later this month." Indonesia:President to go live on the Internet [Smart Mobs] 6:22:19 AM    comment []

A Test of Wills Between Iran and the West [New York Times: International News] 6:16:06 AM    comment []

The West should change its focus regarding Iran. Dear US and EU leaders, You can't stop Iran from achieving nuclear weapons. You have not enough diplomatic options, nor military solutions. Simply because Iran has played this much smarter than you. To be honest, it's not the bombs that endangers the region. it's the undemocratic, threatening regime of Iran that makes any technology dangerous, let alone nuclear ones. So, please, instead of pouting all your energy on stopping Iran, channel all your resources to make this regime change its behaviour. It's not possible by military attack or coup. It's only possible by helping every Iranian individual understand that they... [Editor: Myself (English)] 6:15:49 AM    comment []

Teacher Ants Show Students the Way to Food [Scientific American] 6:15:09 AM    comment []

Global Suburb reports on My progress of sorts (at learning Mandarin). 6:14:38 AM    comment []

The Million TM-infringement homepage? (Wendy Seltzer). How many trademark infringements can you spot in the The Million Dollar Homepage? Among all the ads for free porn, free domain names, and free gambling (only the first click is free), I spot least eBay and Yahoo! logos that don't go to those companies' websites. I can't tell whether they're associated listing services, click-through affiliate links, or phishing expeditions, but I imagine the companies would have a decent trademark claim against someone who used the logos for unrelated commercial gain. Even those offering companion services, such as eBay listing facilitators, might not win with a TM fair use defense. See this Washington Post story for more on the site and its bubble-story. [Copyfight] 6:13:53 AM    comment []

Eyes wide open.... ...but not wide awake: "We've known about sleep inertia for many decades now," says Kenneth Wright, lead author with the University of Colorado. "But we didn't know how bad it was, especially in the morning. When we woke them up, what we found was their performance was worse than anything we saw with sleep deprivation." (New Scientist) Technorati tags: sleep cognition   [Follow Me Here...] 6:13:45 AM    comment []

Anonymity and Accountability. Last week I blogged Kevin Kelly's rant against anonymity. Today I wrote about it for Wired.com: And that's precisely where Kelly makes his mistake. The problem isn't anonymity; it's accountability. If someone isn't accountable, then knowing his name doesn't help. If you have someone who is completely anonymous, yet just as completely accountable, then -- heck, just call him Fred. History is filled with bandits and pirates who amass reputations without anyone knowing their real names. EBay's feedback system doesn't work because there's a traceable identity behind that anonymous nickname. EBay's feedback system works because each anonymous nickname comes with a record of previous transactions attached, and if someone cheats someone else then everybody knows it. Similarly, Wikipedia's veracity problems are not a result of anonymous authors adding fabrications to entries. They're an inherent property of an information system with distributed accountability. People think of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, but it's not. We all trust Britannica entries to be correct because we know the reputation of that company, and by extension its editors and writers. On the other hand, we all should know that Wikipedia will contain a small amount of false information because no particular person is accountable for accuracy -- and that would be true even if you could mouse over each sentence and see the name of the person who wrote it. Please read the whole thing before you comment. [Schneier on Security] 6:13:24 AM    comment []

Chester: Spirit of America Releases Anonymous Blogging Guides. Spirit of America Releases Anonymous Blogging Guides in English, Arabic, Chinese and Persian This is fantastic. I think Spirit of America is one of the coolest non-profts to come around in a long time. Check it out! The guides are a synthesis of all currently available information on the subject of anonymization. They have been edited for non-technical readers, translated into the languages of the target areas and posted on the wiki. Bloggers can use the wiki format to expand, edit and change the current guides to reflect a closer knowledge of the changing situation in their countries. Others may use the guides, and the other resources provided, to translate the guides into other languages or create new guides specific to their countries’ situations. Man, that is cool.  [PJM - Top Stories] 6:12:48 AM    comment []

Filtering the China filters. Studying up on the Middle Kingdom: An online avalanche. [Salon - How the World Works] 6:12:09 AM    comment []

The Self-Deluding Bogosphere. Memo to sociologists: Events like the Declan McCullagh E-annoyance are pure fodder for analytic papers. Note there's a single source, almost like a radioactive tracer, and you can track how the misconceptions propagate. Some possible questions (not phrased in a neutral manner!): How much skepticism is shown? How willing are blog A-listers to update posts to reflect possibly being taken? Is it futile to make corrections in comments, since virtually nobody reads them? Does a journalist or A-lister need to be concerned about dishonest hype, if he or she appeals to the core red-meat audience? Etc. [I think the way the "polarization" argument is framed does a great disservice - many people know the opposing arguments, they just don't care :-(] [Infothought] 6:12:01 AM    comment []

Three from Boing Boing: Kid spending a year (and $100k) at Disney World before college. Cory Doctorow: A 19-year-old entrepreneur is blowing $100,000 out of his savings on spending a year at Walt Disney World before going away to college. "Jupelo" is the alias of a young man who flies to Disney for six days every week, stays in Disney hotel, and goes to parks and resorts every day, all day. I dreamt of doing this all the time when I was younger. He's living the dream, and documenting the hell out of it, taking pictures and running a daily visit-log. Goal 1: Spend an entire year at Walt Disney World and record every second of it for you to see. Goal 2: Begin building the world's largest Disney collection (there's more to this - see below). Goal 3: Not go insane. Link Excellent music podcast from Zoe, a 15-year-old girl. Xeni Jardin: Zoe is a 15-year-old girl in Santa Monica, CA, with superb taste in music. The kid can podcast! Her current show includes One Block Radius, The Hold Steady, Okkervil River, Brendan Benson, Alaska!, The Break and Repair Method, Dios Malos, Art Brut, Fannypack, Natasha Benningfield, Kanye West, Fallout Boy, Deerhoof, Jamie Lidell, The New Pornographers, The Books, and Ted Leo. Link to zoeradio.com, here's the post on blogging.la where I heard about it, and here's the backstory from her dad. (Thanks, Sean Bonner!) HOWTO disable the crippleware in The Complete New Yorker. Cory Doctorow: Mr Jalopy has posted a compelling ruminations on the user-license that come with the DVD-based Complete New Yorker set, as well instructions for de-activating the crippling use-restrictions built into it. As Mark blogged in December, Boing Boing pal Mr Jalopy of the Hooptyrides blog posted a great review of The Complete New Yorker, a collection he'd hotly anticipated as a fan of the magazine. The problem is that the eight-disc set comes with copy-restriction technology that prevents him from loading it onto his hard drive for easy use, which means that if he tries to read the archive out of chronological order (say, through the subject index), he has to constantly swap discs, which is a gigantic pain. What's worse is the license agreement, which requires you to waive your privacy rights to allow "the collection of your viewing information during your use of the Software and/or Content. Viewing information may include, without limitation, the time spent viewing specific pages, the order in which pages are viewed, the time of day pages are accessed, IP address and user ID. This viewing information may be linked to personally identifiable information, such as name or address and shared with third parties." This is a pretty abusive term-of-service for an anthology of magazines: since when does reading a magazine require a waiver of privacy? The same terms-of-service grant you the right to make a backup copy for personal use, but the anti-copying technology prevents you from doing this, and the terms require you to promise not to remove the copy restriction. Mr Jalopy tried to get an answer to this conundrum out of the New Yorker's general counsel, but without luck. The user-agreement says that if you don't like this, you can return the set, but of course, every retailer has a policy of not accepting returns of opened software, and that includes the New Yorker. Naturally, you can't read the agreement until you open the software and put the disc in your computer. Nice one. So Mr Jalopy has taken the law into his own hands. He's posted detailed instructions for copying the issues off of the discs and onto your hard-drive, where you can avoid all this swapping shenanigans, where whatever spyware it is that requires your waiver of privacy can be de-activated, and where you can have a safe backup in case your house is robbed or burned down. 6:11:48 AM    comment []