SIVACRACY.NET

We won, mostly.

Facebook must learn to respect us, or we will leave it.

The policy could be better. But I think that with these new changes we should see this new Beacon program failing spectacularly.

BTW, how else is Facebook supposed to make money? I hope they thought of something else.

Facebook Bows to Privacy Protest - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog:

November 29, 2007, 9:28 pm
Facebook Bows to Privacy Protest

By Sarah Wheaton

We told you last week about the outcry — spearheaded by MoveOn.org — over a new feature on Facebook that broadcasts users’ purchases and other activity on some external websites to their friends and in their profiles on the social networking site.

Critics objected to what they viewed as a breach in privacy because users would have to formally decline to have the information displayed after making purchases at each participating web site. Most Facebook applications involve a pro-active “opt-in,” with users choosing to participate. MoveOn and the more than 51,500 members of its protest group wanted Facebook to make the Beacon feature “opt-in,” too, meaning that if a user took no action, their information would not be displayed.

And that’s what Facebook will do, the site announced this evening. Citing user feedback, the social-networking site will make the following changes to Beacon:

- Stories about actions users take on external websites will continue to be presented to users at the top of their News Feed the next time they return to Facebook. These stories will now always be expanded on their home page so they can see and read them clearly.

* Users must click on “O.K.” in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site. We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice.

* If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click “O.K.” to publish or click “remove” to not publish.

* Users will have clear options in notifications to either delete or publish. No stories will be published if users navigate away from their home page. If they delay in making this decision, the notification will hide and they can make a decision at a later time.

* Clicking the “Help” link next to the story will take users to a full tutorial that explains exactly how Beacon works, with screenshots showing each step in the process.

These changes are in addition to those made earlier to improve the notifications on partner sites as follows:

* Users were sometimes moving away from a page before a notification could be fully displayed. We changed the process so that we confirm the full display of the notification before any information can be sent back to a user’s Facebook account.

* The notification appears more rapidly and is more clearly displayed.

The Times’s Business section wrote about the protest today.

In anticipation of the announcement today, MoveOn posted the following questions on its Facebook group protesting Beacon:

1) Is it still possible for private transactions made on other Web sites to be displayed publicly on Facebook without the Facebook user’s explicit opted-in permission? Answer needs to be no.

2) Did Facebook add a way for users to permanently say no to Beacon, so users can have peace of mind that their private activity off Facebook will never be displayed publicly on Facebook? Answer needs to be yes.

We’re waiting to hear back from MoveOn, but it looks like while the group’s first demand has been met, the second could be a sticking point.

Update: Declaring victory, MoveOn.org Civic Action’s spokesman, Adam Green, said in a statement: “If Facebook changes their policy so that no private purchases made on other websites are displayed publicly on Facebook without a user’s explicit permission, that would be a huge step in the right direction — and would say a lot about the ability of everyday Internet users to band together to make a difference.”

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yep. That's right.

Not only did Rudy cavort with and promote a corrupt police chief with mob ties who loves evading taxes (and convinced our idiot president to appoint the guy to a cabinet-level position!).

He broke the same NY State law that forced former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi to resign last year and plead guilty to corruption charges.

Is Hevesi a criminal for making state troopers drive his wife around? Yep. He admitted as much

Is Rudy a felon for having city officers do the same thing for his mistress? You bet. But don't think for a moment he will confess. He thinks he is above the law.

This is just amazing, folks. My tax money allowed the mayor to cheat on his wife. At least Hevesi kept the corruption at home. Yeesh.

If this is not the end of the "Rudy the competent, brave, and uncorruptable" myth, I don't know what will do it. The dude is a draft-dodging ego-maniacal poser who makes up lies every chance he gets and openly humiliates his wife and children while stealing money from the city.

What does it take, people?

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cripes that made me laugh.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Everyone's favorite expired statutory monopoly:

(Expired) U.S. Patent No. 4,022,227
"Method of Concealing Partial Baldness"
Frank J. Smith and Donald J. Smith
Orlando, Florida USA

What is claimed is:

1. A method for styling hair to cover bald areas using only the individual's own
hair, comprising separating the hair on the head into several substantially equal sections, taking the hair on one section and placing it over the bald area, then taking the hair on another section and placing it over the first section, and finally taking the hair on the remaining sections and placing it over the other sections whereby the bald area will be completely covered.

2. A method as in claim 1 wherein the hair on a person's head is folded over the bald area beginning with the hair from the back of the head, and then from first one side and then the other.

3. A method as in claim 2 wherein after the hair from the back of the head is folded over the bald area, an object is placed over the hair and hair from a first of the sides is brushed over the object, and after the hair from said first side is folded into place the object is placed over the hair and the hair from the second side is folded over the object.

4. A method as in claim 3, wherein said object is a person's hand the hair spray is applied after the hair from said first side is folded into place and again after said second side being folded into place.

5. A method as in claim 3 wherein the hair from said first side and said second side is given a final styling.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi everyone. Ted Striphas here. At Siva's suggestion I'm writing to introduce myself as the newest member of the Sivacracy team. I'm delighted to join the group and to become an even more active contributor to this exciting community. Great stuff is happening here.

I'm assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Culture, Indiana University, USA. There, I teach and write about the history and philosophy of media. Much of my work right now is focused on the book publishing industry and intellectual property, so you can expect to be hearing more from me about those and other topics, right here. I also maintain a personal blog called Differences & Repetitions, which focuses on media, philosophy, and the politics of culture.

I'd like thank Siva for inviting me to join Sivacracy and look forward to beginning an engaging dialogue with all of you.

Posted by Ted Striphas at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joan Walsh has an informative "media ethics" column here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Georgia Harper's Copyright Crash Course has been an essential tool and resource for me and my students ever since I got curious about this whole copyright business many years ago. She recently moved the site to a new URL and updated it. Please check it out and refer others to it.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

if:book: the NEA's misreading of reading:

Matthew G. Kirschenbaum writes an elegant and concise critique of the National Endowment for the Arts' ominously titled new study of American reading trends, "To Read or Not to Read", which is a sequel to their 2004 opus "Reading at Risk." The basic argument is that reading, or what they rather awkwardly refer to as "voluntary reading" (that is, reading done purely for pleasure or self-improvement) is in a precipitious state of decline, especially among the young — a situation which poses a grave threat to our culture, democracy and civic fabric.

Though clearly offered with the best of intentions, the report demonstrates an astonishingly simplistic view of what reading is and where it is and isn't occurring. Overflowing with bar graphs and and charts measuring hours and minutes spent reading within various age brackets, the study tries to let statistics do the persuading, but fails at almost every turn to put these numbers in their proper social or historical context, or to measure them adequately against other widespread forms of reading taking place on computers and the net.

The NEA report is here. And Kirschenbaum's analysis is here.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a hilarious summary of how journalism is done by people like Joe Klein and David Broder. It's from the appropriately named Jon Swift blog.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Public Policy Blog: Candidates at Google: Barack Obama:

...He reaffirmed his support for network neutrality, saying:

Obama laid out a detailed package of technology policies designed to strengthen online privacy, increase government openness and transparency, put high-speed broadband within reach of all Americans, improve the delivery government services, drive America's competitiveness, reform our abuse-prone patent system, and free up wireless spectrum for new connectivity and public safety.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These two videos show Peter Krapp explaining some of his "Top Ten Reasons I Don't Blog Anymore." Although Krapp was at first reluctant to discuss his role in breaking the story about the Derrida-UCI archive scandal, he was ultimately remarkably forthcoming about the hazards of faculty blogging.

There are also videos of Scott Kaufman and me speaking at this panel.

Posted by Liz Losh at 8:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

YouTube :

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's a short excerpt from this provocative essay about the music industry.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Check out Intellectual Privilege: The Book.

Two views monopolize the ongoing debate over copyright policy. One view denigrates all restraints on copyrighted information, whether they arise from statutory law, common law, or technological tools. The other view equates copyrights to tangible property, concluding that they merit a broad panoply of legal protections. Left-wingers tend to favor the former position; right-wingers the latter.

I here offer a third view of copyright. I largely agree with my friends on the left that copyright represents not so much a form of property as it does a policy device designed to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (as the Constitution puts it). I thus call copyright a form of intellectual privilege.

Like my friends on the right, however, I hold our common law rights in very high regard. Hence my complaint against copyright: it violates the rights we would otherwise enjoy at common law to peaceably enjoy the free use our throats, pens, and presses. That is not to say that copyright is per se unjustified. We can excuse facial violations of our common law rights, such as the takings effectuated by taxation or the restraints imposed by antitrust law, as the costs of obtaining a greater good. But it does mean that copyright qualifies, at best, as a necessary evil.

You might say, in other words, that this book invokes a physiological improbability: a third hand. Traditional discussions of copyright policy don't require more than the usual allotment of appendages. On the one hand, we can disparage copyright together with all other means of protecting expressive works. On the other hand, we can exalt copyright as a form of property more powerful than any common law right to the contrary. If we limit ourselves to those two hands, however, we will have to embrace a false dichotomy. In thought, if not in body, we can best grasp copyright policy "on the third hand," recognizing that it cries out for justification because it violates our common law rights, and justifying it-if we can-only as a necessary and proper mechanism for promoting the general welfare.

This third view suggests a great deal about both how present copyright policies malfunction and how to fix them. Most significantly, it opens our eyes to the benefits of an open copyright system, one that encourages authors to rely solely on their common rights and to fully respect our own. Thus might we someday outgrow copyright, discovering that the common law does a better job of promoting the common good.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Historians for Obama:

Our country is in serious trouble. The gap between the wealthy elite and the working majority grows ever larger, tens of millions of Americans lack health insurance and others risk bankruptcy when they get seriously ill, and many public schools do a poor job of educating the next generation. Due to the arrogant, inept foreign policy of the current administration, more people abroad mistrust and fear the United States than at any time since the height of the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, global warming speeds toward an unprecedented catastrophe. Many Republicans and overwhelming numbers of Independents and Democrats believe that, under George W. Bush, the nation has badly lost its way. The 2008 election thus comes at a critical time in the history of the United States and the world.

We endorse Barack Obama for president because we think he is the candidate best able to address and start to solve these profound problems. As historians, we understand that no single individual, even a president, leads alone or outside a thick web of context. As Abraham Lincoln wrote to a friend during the Civil War, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."

However, a president can alter the mood of the nation, making changes possible that once seemed improbable. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and kept the nation united; Franklin D. Roosevelt persuaded Americans to embrace Social Security and more democratic workplaces; John F. Kennedy advanced civil rights and an anti-poverty program.

Barack Obama has the potential to be that kind of president. He has the varied background of a global citizen: his father was African, his stepfather Indonesian, his mother worked in the civil rights movement, and he spent several years of his childhood overseas. As an adult, he has been a community organizer, a law professor, and a successful politician - both at the state and national level. These experiences have given him an acute awareness of the inequalities of race and class, while also equipping him to speak beyond them.

Obama's platform is ambitious, yet sensible. He calls for negotiating the abolition of nuclear weapons, providing universal and affordable health insurance, combatting poverty by adding resources and discouraging destructive habits, investing in renewable energy sources, and engaging with unfriendly nations to ease conflicts that could otherwise lead to war. He takes more forthright stands on these issues than do his major Democratic competitors.

But it is his qualities of mind and temperament that really separate Obama from the rest of the pack. He is a gifted writer and orator who speaks forcefully but without animus. Not since John F. Kennedy has a Democrat candidate for president showed the same combination of charisma and thoughtfulness - or provided Americans with a symbolic opportunity to break with a tradition of bigotry older than the nation itself. Like Kennedy, he also inspires young people who see him as a great exception in a political world that seems mired in cynicism and corruption.

As president, Barack Obama would only begin the process of healing what ails our society and ensuring that the U.S. plays a beneficial role in the world. But we believe he is that rare politician who can stretch the meaning of democracy, who can help revive what William James called "the civic genius of the people." We invite other historians to add your name to this statement. ...

Joyce Appleby, University of California, Los Angeles*
David Blight, Yale University
Edward J. Blum, San Diego State University
Clayborne Carson, Stanford University
Dennis C. Dickerson, Vanderbilt University
W. Marvin Dulaney, College of Charleston
James Grossman, Newberry Library
Nancy A. Hewitt, Rutgers University
Jonathan Holloway, Yale University
Randal Jelks, Calvin College
Robert KC Johnson, Brooklyn College
Michael Kazin, Georgetown University
Steven Lawson, Rutgers University
James Livingston, Rutgers University
Ralph E. Luker, Cliopatria
James McPherson, Princeton University
Albert J. Raboteau, Princeton University
Edward B. Rugemer, Yale University
Nick Salvatore, Cornell University
Daniel J. Singal, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Harvard Sitkoff, University of New Hampshire
Daniel Soyer, Fordham University
Paul Spickard, University of California, Santa Barbara
Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia
Craig Steven Wilder, Dartmouth College
David W. Wills, Amherst College

*Institutional affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and, of course, do not indicate an institutional endorsement.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

That's the name of this game:

I saw one in an antique shop, but it wasn't for sale. So I just bought one off eBay, but I paid too much, and I really didn't need a vintage version. Anyone know if the game is still being made by another company, and if so, what in the world the generic name for this game is? The closest I could come was this.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From LiveScience.com

... Some researchers are worried that digitally altered photos could alter our perceptions and memories of public events.

Participants who viewed the doctored photos also said they were less inclined to take part in future protests, according to the study, detailed in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology. ...

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Beth Simone Noveck writes:

... The question now arises whether the intellectual property practices of the funding institutions are going to block or enable open scientific research?

Rick Weiss, Science Correspondent for the Washington Post speaking on the Brian Lehrer Show on NPR today, was too quick to dismiss a caller's concerns about how patents might limit access by scientific researchers. His response made it sound as if there is some loophole in patent law that automatically guarantees access by researchers. There isn't. We don't know what patents have been filed or granted. And we don't know how they plan to make their intellectual property available and under what conditions. This work is successful because lots of people are paying attention to it and working on it at different institutions. Let's hope that neither patent law nor the patent practices of the licensing institutions stand in the way of this collaboration.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts) [dive into mark]:

The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts)
Act I: The act of buying

-- Amazon, Kindle Terms of Service, 2007

There is much more here. Check it out. Then laugh at Amazon.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Details here. Below is an excerpt:

The Red Hot Chili Peppers on Monday sued Showtime Networks over the name of the television series "Californication," which is also the name of the band's 1999 album and a single on it.

The television series stars David Duchovny as a novelist suffering from writers' block and a mid-life crisis. ...

Posted by Ann Bartow at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to this site:

The New Hampshire Attorney General's office has opened a formal investigation into the anti-Mormon calls targeted at Mitt Romney's (R) religious faith. The call scripts invoked numerous references to Mormon religious beliefs. Romney said the message was "un-American." The calls were aimed at voters in both New Hampshire and Iowa. In an interesting twist, the Utah company that was apparently hired to make the calls -- Western Wats -- includes Romney contributors on its payroll. The company's CEO is also reportedly a friend of Romney. A Romney spokesman said it was "preposterous" that Romney's campaign was involved in the calls in an effort to gain backlash sympathy for the candidate. Rival campaigns suggest it would have been insane for any campaign to hire a Utah-based company to make anti-Mormon calls. Meanwhile, the company refuses to name their client, but specifically stated the rumor that the Giuliani campaign paid for the calls was false. John McCain denied any involvement and said he welcomed the AG's investigation. US Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), speaking for the Romney campaign, also praised the AG's office for opening an investigation. The other GOP campaigns also are denying any involvement. New Hampshire law requires the all political advertising -- including phone calls -- to identify who paid for it. The NH calls did not contain any disclaimer as to the funding source. Political professionals believe the calls will ultimately trace back to a "527 group" or individual without direct links to a candidate -- but that doesn't mean a campaign was not involved in planning the calls. Additionally, it would seem unlikely this matter is cleared up before the Iowa and New Hampshire contests in a few weeks.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FOX News Porn is a great site by director Robert Greenwald (of OutFoxed fame).

He compiled lots of nasty clips from Fox "news." Once it was up, Digg, YouTube and other sites blocked some of the content for being pornographic. Apparently, when all this stuff goes over cable, it's fine. But it's too dirty for the Internets.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Overly-broad copyright law has made USA a nation of infringers:

What better way could there be to create a nation of constant lawbreakers than to instill in that nation a contempt for its own laws? And what better way to instill contempt than to hand out rights so broad that most Americans simply find them absurd?

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Please note that this story lacks any information on the survey methods or sample size. Nor does it quote any critics of the study.

Americans Are Closing the Book on Reading, Study Finds - Chronicle.com:

...
Americans aren't just reading fewer books, but are reading less and less of everything, in any medium. That's the doleful conclusion of "To Read or Not to Read," a report scheduled for release today by the National Endowment for the Arts.

"This study shows that reading is endangered at the moment in the United States, especially among younger Americans," Mr. Gioia said during a telephone news conference announcing the report.
...

Americans Are Closing the Book on Reading, Study Finds

By JENNIFER HOWARD

Americans aren't just reading fewer books, but are reading less and less of everything, in any medium. That's the doleful conclusion of "To Read or Not to Read," a report scheduled for release today by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Subtitled "A Question of National Consequence," the report piles on the bad news delivered by "Reading at Risk," the NEA's 2004 warning about the nation's rapidly declining literacy (The Chronicle, July 16, 2004).

"The story the data tell is simple, consistent, and alarming," writes Dana Gioia. the NEA's chairman, in the new report's preface. Elementary-school children have posted some gains in literacy, but "there is a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans."

"Most alarming," he continues, "both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates."

Unlike the 2004 study, "To Read or Not to Read" examined not just literary reading but all kinds of reading, including online. And it tapped a far wider range of sources, notably statistics from the Department of Education and the Department of Labor, as well as academic and corporate studies.

None of it adds up to good news for the written word. Just how reading-averse have Americans become? In 2006, the study found, 15-to-24-year-olds spent just seven minutes on voluntary reading on weekdays— 10 minutes on Saturdays and Sundays. They found time to watch two to two-and-a-half hours of television daily.

Older and presumably wiser— or at least more bookish— generations didn't do much better. In 2006 people ages 35 to 44 devoted only 12 minutes a day to reading. Even the best-read group, Americans 65 and older, logged less than an hour each weekday and just over an hour on weekends.

"This study shows that reading is endangered at the moment in the United States, especially among younger Americans," Mr. Gioia said during a telephone news conference announcing the report.

Drop in Proficiency

When Americans do manage to read something, whether it's a book or a blog, more and more of us can't do it well. The proportion of 12th graders reading at or above the proficient level fell significantly from 1992 to 2005, from 40 percent— hardly a robust number to begin with— to 35 percent. Meanwhile, during roughly the same period, the share of college graduates who could reliably find their way through a piece of prose declined by 23 percent. If you think your master's or doctorate renders you immune to the national decline, think again: Even Americans who have studied at the graduate level saw their reading skills atrophy: 51 percent were rated proficient readers in 1992, but only 41 percent made that grade in 2003.

Aside from making authors, publishers, and librarians weep, what do those dismal numbers mean for the nation? "These negative trends have more than literary importance," Mr. Gioia writes in the preface. "As this report makes clear, the declines have demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications."

The report confirms that poor readers tend to make poor students, who become poorly paid workers. Twenty percent of American workers don't read at the level required by their jobs. In 2003, 58 percent of proficient readers earned at least $850 a week; only 13 percent of below-basic readers did.

That reality hasn't been lost on employers, 38 percent of whom say high-school graduates don't measure up when it comes to reading comprehension. And those employers are shelling out large amounts— an estimated $3.1-billion among corporations, for instance— for remedial training.

A 'Distracted' Society

The study does not dwell on what's to blame, but it makes ominous references to multitasking and to "the omnipresence of electronic media."

"You become distracted as a society," said Mr. Gioia in the news conference. "I don't think, in a country that publishes 100,000 books a year, the problem is that people can't find something they want to read."

Absorbing one negative statistic after another, one wonders why the NEA didn't name the report "Requiem for Reading." Mr. Gioia understands the cumulative disheartening effect. "It's easy to read the data as a negative story, and the trends are almost consistently down," he told reporters.

But he refused to give in to despair: "Is this a cultural apocalypse? No."

He made a game attempt to find a silver lining, observing that the report highlights "the crucial importance that reading has on individual lives and community lives and collectively on the national life." Reading, he said, "really seems to be a transformational behavior that changes your life's course."

The numbers show that good readers make better citizens. They volunteer more. They go to art museums more. And, defying stereotype, they even exercise and play sports more.

"'To Read or Not to Read' is not an elegy for the death of print culture but a call to action, that this nation is losing an invaluable human resource that it cannot afford to lose," Mr. Gioia said.

Like its 2004 predecessor, however, "To Read or Not to Read" calls for a national debate about the crisis but does not offer strategies or solutions.

"The conversation is more important than the dictates of a small cultural agency," Mr. Gioia responded when asked why the NEA had been reluctant to dispense advice. "I'm not a cockeyed optimist, but I do believe that if the United States believes that something is important, it can make it happen."

The chairman added, "If Oprah Winfrey can get Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina on the best-seller list, anything is possible in this country."

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm not endorsing this DIY project from Household Hacker. But this video is pretty cool. For those of you turning to how-to videos on YouTube in the absence of fresh content on television during the Writers' Strike, you might also enjoy Prisoners' Inventions and SamProof on self-publishing and zine-making.

Posted by Liz Losh at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm talking about college basketball, of course, and a match up between my USC and that other USC. The Cocks got covered by the Trojans (yeah, even I'm groaning over that one, but I'm still posting it), but it was a good game, fun to watch and well played. That other USC has a rising star with the improbable name of O.J. Mayo and he had a good night. It was the Gamecock's first loss of the season, and I'm still optimistic. Meanwhile, the "Lady Gamecocks" (oh how that moniker rankles, but the team is great) are 3-0 after beating Buffalo! And now that Siva's a Southern gent, surely he'll offer congratulations...

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday my campus hosted hacker Virgil Griffith for a talk entitled "Wikiscanner: My Summer of Dilettante Data-Mining or Making a Corporation-Sized Cannon and Letting the Internet Decide Where to Point It." A summary of Griffith's talk is here.

Highlights of his presentation about database mash-ups included his personal favorites among the embarrassing WikiScanner results, which included two CIA Wikipedia edits, one on "Light Saber Combat" styles and one that was a mini-memoir about black ops during "Black September" in Jordan. Among the work by others that he showcased, I liked the dynamic text of this diagram of a speech by Alberto Gonzales (best viewed in Safari) and Nation under Siege, which combines Google mapping information with elevation data from the USGS, to show what a mere five meters of added sea level would mean for heavily populated coastal communities.

Posted by Liz Losh at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Explanation here. Via the lovely and talented Discourse.froomkin.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chris Lydon writes:

The summer is over, and so is our hiatus.

Christopher Lydon and Mary McGrath

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ben Scott tells it like it is:

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

YouTube - Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This made me laugh. It is from the writers of the Colbert Report.

Posted by Liz Losh at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saudi Punishes Gang Rape Victim with 200 Lashes

A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Lahem, also a human rights activist, told AFP on Wednesday that the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.

Via Darren Purcell.

Posted by Liz Losh at 8:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

...by Scott Eric Kaufman.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bonus blast from the past, in which only Rudy moves his hands:

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, Inc. announced today that they will release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose." More here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dang that announcer gets excited!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks, Roy is a wonderful site honoring Roy Rosenzweig, who passed away last month.

A few years ago Roy and I did a little seminar for a NY-based center for Jewish history. We had a great time together. I had admired his work for years before. I was thrilled to discover that he was a super person in real life as well.

Roy Rosenzweig was the Mark and Barbara Fried Chair and founding director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He used those positions, and his enthusiasm for new media innovation, to build an inclusive and democratic understanding of the past that blurred the line between popular and academic history.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

His essay on the subject is very good.

In case Sivacracy readers wonder, I have not made up my mind yet. If I had to vote today, I would have a hard time choosing between Edwards and Obama.

My former Senator from New York is one of the most capable people in the country and I have great respect for her. But she is way too conservative. She is an Arkansas Democrat (and a bit of an Illinois Republican as well). If she were president I would sleep well at night, knowing the grown-ups were in charge of defending the country and giving her advice.

But I would curse her during the day because she would be unwilling to upset her Wall Street and Hollywood backers, even it that meant denying basic services to poor people or making the best possible policy decisions.

Anyway, no one should really care what I think about this. By the time Virginia gets to vote in a primary, the deal could be done.

That said, I have never been as inspired and encouraged by a Democratic field as I have this year. With the exception of that idiot Joe Biden all the candidates offer something really great to America: relief.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This prank is one of the reasons.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You can read all about them here. Via Arse Poetica, who notes: "Maybe I'll use them for dog poop or something equally fitting."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 7:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Table For One | TPMCafe:

This Week: Professor Cass Sunstein

This is great timing. My students will be reading Republic 2.0 in two weeks.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Tim Wu, Freedom Fighter," is the title. It also could have been "Tim Wu, Sivacracy friend."

Tim Wu, Freedom Fighter
His wireless-phone manifesto was the inspiration for Google's new mobile-software strategy, which includes the Open Handset Alliance

The paper spread like juicy gossip around the Googleplex. Wu's vision resonated because Google had become frustrated with phone companies that were blocking some Google applications from being used on phones attached to their networks. Like Wu, Google believes an alliance based on openness will trigger a new wave of innovation. "Tim helped us catalyze a strategy," says Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google. "He's a singular force in this space. You're just seeing the start of what he's going to accomplish." ...

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

danah boyd and Nicole Ellison edited this special issue of the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication:

1. The Rules of Beeping: Exchanging Messages Via Intentional "Missed Calls" on Mobile Phones
Jonathan Donner
Based on interviews with small business owners and university students in Rwanda, this article identifies three kinds of beeps and the norms governing their use, and assesses the significance of the practice using adaptive structuration theory.

18. Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube
Patricia Lange
Based on a one-year ethnographic project, this article analyzes how YouTube participants developed and maintained social networks by manipulating physical and interpretive access to videos. The analysis identifies varying degrees of "publicness" in video sharing, depending on the nature of the video content and how much personal information is revealed.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chronicle.com:

... And Kenneth D. Salomon, a Washington lawyer who represents many educational institutions, told a group of college lawyers today that he doesn’t see the bill passing, at least in this session of Congress. He opposes the legislation. How can colleges tell telecommunications companies that they shouldn’t manipulate Web traffic, he asked, when college technology officials themselves manipulate bandwidth?

Huh? I wish the Chronicle had written more about this.

I don't understand Salomon's analogy. We are not talking about "manipulating bandwidth" here. We are talking about anti-competitive behavior in otherwise competitive markets for services. That colleges and universities "manipulate bandwidth" is a different issue altogether.

Doesn't Salomon realize that millions of his constituents (faculty, staff, students) use off-campus Internet Service Providers for their work? And that losing Net Neutrality is a severe threat to much legitimate activity?

Someone please educate this guy!

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Ann Bartow at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One day during the 2007 Weblog Awards voting period (over now), I visited the site from three very different IP addresses (two from different states and once from a different country altogether), but using the same computer. I agree with August Pollack about the worthlessness of the Weblog Awards, especially when he says:

...They're a bunch of pointless, arbitrary annual exercises in who can get the most traffic to click a link as many times as possible. If that's the arbiter of quality on the internet I remain ecstatic I am not involved with them in any way. I have no intention to vote in them, could care less who wins, feel sorry for anyone who actually celebrates "winning" one as if it's an actual accomplishment, and continue to hope that none of my readers ever thinks I would consider it some kind of honor to be nominated for one. That several progressive blogs actually consider casting legitimacy on this project founded by some conservative bloggers by endorsing it both amazes and saddens me. ...

See also Brian Leiter's comments. Nevertheless, I have friends who had blogs nominated, so I dutifully supported them when they asked me to. The rules allow you to vote once per category per day. Since voting in the Weblog Awards was never the most important thing in my life, some days I forgot to vote, and other days I'd stupidly attempt to vote a second time. Because I use a Firefox browser with options that are supposed to clear all cookies and the cache file whenever I close it, I assumed the Weblog Awards made sure I only voted once per day per category by tracking my IP address. So one day whilst traveling I was surprised to see that the Weblog Awards effectively prevented me from multiple voting from second and third IP addresses, despite my browser privacy settings. Somehow my laptop itself was being tracked, either with a cookie placed somewhere other than the cookie file that Firefox is supposed to empty for me, or some other way I haven't thought of. After I noticed this was happening, I put a fair amount of effort into trying to figure out how they were accomplishing this, but was unsuccessful. I can understand that the Weblog Awards people want to bring as much integrity to the voting process as is feasible, but just as they don't trust me to vote only once per category per day, I don't trust them generally. I'd like to know where that cookie (or whatever) is, whether they or their advertisers are still using it to track my computer, and how to get rid of it. Anyone have any input?

Posted by Ann Bartow at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Fred Yen explains how MLB's dumb digital rights management schemes left fans who downloaded games from MLB.com without a way to actually watch those games for which they paid.

Well done, commissioner.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 6:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is a major step forward. I hope it gets a lot of attention and that other scholarly societies proceed with similar statements:

Dear SCMS Members:

Thanks, Jason! Go Yankees!

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Daily Kos: The Office is Closed

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I know I'm a weird person, but this site completely cracked me up.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eszter Hargittai has an idea:

Whose Space? Differences Among Users and Non-Users of Social Network Sites

Are there systematic differences between people who use social network sites and those who stay away, despite a familiarity with them? Based on data from a survey administered to a diverse group of young adults, this article looks at the predictors of SNS usage, with particular focus on Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, and Friendster. Findings suggest that use of such sites is not randomly distributed across a group of highly wired users. A person's gender, race and ethnicity, and parental educational background are all associated with use, but in most cases only when the aggregate concept of social network sites is disaggregated by service. Additionally, people with more experience and autonomy of use are more likely to be users of such sites. Unequal participation based on user background suggests that differential adoption of such services may be contributing to digital inequality.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday, thanks to the wonders of technology, a bona-fide Internet celebrity came to my class. My students were surprisingly willing to ask James Kotecki hardball questions about Web 2.0 hype, online gender politics, and the triumph of entertainment over journalism. A summary of the conversation is here.

Posted by Liz Losh at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I often teach about Freidrich Hayek, whom I consider one of the five or six most important thinkers about political economy (or what Adam Smith would call moral philosophy) in the last three centuries. In my course on digital media at UVa, I invoke him while discussing both Chris Anderson's The Long Tail and Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks.

Sometimes I worry that I make too much of Hayek (not that I agree with Hayek about all that much).

Now Frank Pasquale offers this bit of wisdom:

Do Libertarians Dream of a Hayekian Network?

I was recently at a conference where the issue of network neutrality/broadband discrimination was discussed. Both sides argued that Friedrich von Hayek would support their proposals. Those in favor of regulation said that Ma Bell had returned and needed to be broken up to promote innovation; deregulationists said that Schumpeterian creative destruction would eventually break up any stranglehold that carriers managed to achieve. Both claimed to be on the side of decentralization and distributed knowledge. I was reminded of Cass Sunstein’s invocation of Hayek in Infotopia (118 ff.), where he suggested that the Austrian economist’s paper “The Use of Knowledge in Society” foreshadowed the vitality of prediction markets by explicating the “marvel” of the pricing system.

Hat tip: Critiques of Libertarianism

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have been saying so for years. Now M.I.T. agrees.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are two exemplars:

View the rest here!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out Publishers See a Way to Track Their Content Across the Net from NYTimes.com.

Then ask yourself some questions that the reporter did not:

1) What about fair uses?

2) What about search engine caches?

3) What about the fact that it won't work?

4) What would be the cost to free speech and commentary?

5) How would this work better than Google to track text?

6) Does it matter that the NYTimes.com would be one of the parties affected by such acts?

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tenured Radical (of course) drops some science on us:

1. Never exceed your share of the time for more than a minute or two; indicate that you are aware when you have hit the time limit; and reassure your audience that you are wrapping it up. If you are on a panel or a conference roundtable, it is just rude: it shows a deep lack of awareness and consideration for the others with whom you are supposed to be working. It also shows a lack of planning. Importantly, it leaves less time for questions, which is often where a panel can get really fun for most of the people in the room -- your audience. It also helps you shine, Miss Graduate Student On The Market. Many people can competently present their own research, but fewer people can relate their own work to someone else's when put on the spot.

If there is any general principle that all of this falls into, I would say it is this: giving Good Paper relies on enhancing the comfort of everyone in the room, starting with yourself but not ending there; and conveying your research to people in ways they can understand and respond to. Having a good paper -- one that is intelligent and well-written, and conveys the new things about your work without couching them in a lot of unnecessary jargon or too much context that we are familiar with already -- is important. But presentation is also important, and it is a learned skill. Watch people who do it well and ask yourself why; ask those people questions about the choices they made; and, as the apocryphal New Yorker once advised about how to get Carnegie Hall, practice, practice, practice.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, I don't necessarily speak for the whole Sivacracy team. But Liz Losh is supporting the WGA strike. Explanation here.

Posted by Liz Losh at 2:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

VRA - Images, the newsletter of the VRA

Kenneth Crews Moves to New Position at Columbia University

Crews is currently Director of the Copyright Management Center at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) where he holds a chaired professorship in the IU School of Law-Indianapolis, and a joint appointment in the IU School of Library and Information Science. His latest book, Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators, is widely used as a reference at academic institutions.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Read it here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

That's right. It's your choice: privacy or DEATH!

Chronicle.com:

November 2, 2007
Campus Librarians Fight Proposed Expansion of Surveillance Powers

So far, though, the response from lawmakers has not been encouraging. "You know what happens if that gets into the bill?" asked Sen. Christopher S. Bond, a Missouri Republican who helped craft the Senate measure, of the amendment favored by the library groups. "You would have your libraries filled with al Qaeda operatives." -- Brock Read

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 6:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As though there weren't already enough Tarzan-related copyright stories, Public Radio International recently ran one last week about why the Tarzan cry allegedly can't be copyrighted.

(Many years ago, I taught the prose of the incredibly racist and sexist original 1914 novel in the critical context of a large-enrollment humanities course, and I still follow the afterlife of this famed ape-man-lord in copyright law.)

Posted by Liz Losh at 4:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ian Bogost has an interesting posting on "Chumby and the Rhetoric of Openness," which argues that some companies use the appealing labels of "hackability" and "open source" while asking developers to agree to licenses that seem to give the company grounds later to make excessive claims of proprietary ownership of third-party inventions.

It's worth reading down to the reader comments, where Chumby's own Andrew "Bunnie" Huang weighs in on the controversy. (For more on Huang's exploits -- specifically his hacking of the Xbox -- and his speaking persona go here.)

Posted by Liz Losh at 4:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, I discovered the U.S. Post Office's new "security rule" about not putting mail over 13 ounces into a mail box, when I had a fourteen-ounce Priority Mail package that I had to delay delivery of because I didn't want it destroyed as a potential security threat.

Before that, the rule was a still inconvenient but easier-to-remember one-pound limit, but apparently there was a lot of bad stuff that the evil-doers were capable of committing with those extra three ounces.

Of course, that's a common weight range for an academic writer, particularly if you include a hefty paper clip as I always do. But at least I have the satisfaction of feeling safer now that my mail is not being delivered.

Posted by Liz Losh at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Howard Knopf reports:

A dynamite study just released from Industry Canada shows that P2P file sharing is good for the music business, and even more...

It is entitled: The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada and was written by Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Schneier on Security: The War on the Unexpected

The War on the Unexpected

Of course, by then it's too late for the authorities to admit that they made a mistake and overreacted, that a sane voice of reason at some level should have prevailed. What follows is the parade of police and elected officials praising each other for doing a great job, and prosecuting the poor victim -- the person who was different in the first place -- for having the temerity to try to trick them....

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 6:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sivacracy friend Carlo Rotella won a Whiting Writers' Award!

Whiting Writers' Awards Announced

The Whiting Awards were established in 1985. Previous winners include Pulitzer Prize Winners Michael Cunningham and Jeffrey Eugenides and Denis Johnson, a current National Book Award nominee.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook | Faculty Ethics on Facebook:

Name:
Faculty Ethics on Facebook
Type:
Internet & Technology - Cyberculture
Description:
A discussion forum for Facebook participants to suggest activity guidelines for faculty.

8. Exercising appropriate discretion when using Facebook for personal communications (with friends, colleagues, other students, etc.) with the knowledge that faculty behavior on Facebook may be used as a model by our students.

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On this week's ESPN Tuesday Morning Quarterback, Gregg Easterbrook (good: Bills fan; bad: anti-Semite) writes:

"New England may have punched Washington in the nose, but on a deep post to Randy Moss, the pass was defensed by middle linebacker London Fletcher, who stayed with Moss deep stride for stride."

What's wrong with "defended?"

A few years ago football coaches started using Warren Hardingesque constructions like "defensed" and "keep contain." What gives? Why must the literate among us perpetuate such violence?

Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)