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Wednesday, October 30, 2002
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Just a reminder of a link to remember: Freenet. Proof that peer to peer technology has other uses than trading MP3s.
P2P App's Aim: Defend Free Speech. The latest version of peer-to-peer file-sharing application Freenet is easier to use -- all part of its creators' goal to reach more people interested in using P2P to promote free speech. By Xeni Jardin. [Wired News]
12:46:47 AM 
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I just finished reading The Biotech Century by Jeremy Rifkin and want to examine one of his arguments in some depth - or at least note a few of my initial reactions. By and large I thought the book was evenhanded in its approach, describing most of the recent changes in bioinformatics, gene patenting and other areas in a calm way. Rifkin says that he merely wants to raise the issues for public discussion and I take him at his work. But near the end of the final chapter about the new cosmology that sees all of life as a form of information processing and thus controllable by humans he begins to make some arguments about postmodernism that I don't necessarily disagree with but I don't feel carry the rhetorical punch he wants to convey. It is the lack of rhetorical effectiveness that I want to consider. Why do these final arguments fail with me? Am I the exception?
Genetic engineering - as an 'art form' - epitomizes the new postmodern way of thinking that has grabbed hold of the culture, effecting a broad change in the way we perceive our very being. The new postmodern world in art and architecture, film, television, popular music, and in the increasingly virtual worlds we delight in and travel through, is one of ever fewer boundaries; a place where past, present, and future twist and meld, where life is less serious and more playful and where the rules of engagement are forever changing. The new era is less constrained by fate and destiny and more open to a therapeutic frame of mind in which each person is free to creante and live out as many fantasies, experiences, and lifestyles as time permits. (The Biotech Century, Tarcher-Putnam, 224) my italics
I emphasized the portion of the argument that I find most interesting. Is postmodernism really playful? Most of the academics who espouse it seem as serious as any other person. An even more important question is whether play is good or bad? For Rifkin there is a danger in play. We lose sight of the seriousness of the issues and we lose sight of the essential human nature that is at stake.
I'm a partisan for a playful view of the world and I can't accept the equation that because something, even our deepest beliefs about the world, are held in a playful state of mind then our ideas must be called into question. To me the activity of the mind, whether exploring the genome or writing a computer program, is always and ideally a playful act. Creativity and playfulness are forever interlinked; you cannot have one without the other. And if being playful means we run the risk of altering ourselves and our environment genetically then so be it. I'd rather take my chances on the future than hold back.
Rifkin sounds a voice of caution and he deserves to be heard. We should debate and argue over how we use genetic technology. But his argument against postmodernism and play doesn't convince me.
12:23:02 AM
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There are two recent debates in the academic community which suddenly coalesced in my mind tonight. On the one side we have the reception of Arming America: the Origins of a National Gun Culture by Michael Bellesiles.
In brief Bellesiles argued that our assumptions that most Americans owned guns before the Civil War is just that - an assumption - and, moreover, there may be some evidence in probate records and other pieces of cultural history that suggest guns were not that important in early America. This idea immediately set the critics from the political right on Bellesiles trail and he hasn't been able to shake them since. They've called everything into question: his methods, his research notes, and more. So now he has resigned from his post at Emory University after a committee of scholars released a report criticizing him for shoddy work. Here are some summaries of the issues, The Nation, the Emory Wheel on his resignation, and a search at Instapundit will show numerous entries chronicling the controversy.
On the other side we have The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg's basic argument is that most of the current environmental data we have about global warming, loss of biodiversity, and other enviromental crises relies on assumptions - statistical and otherwise. Of course this idea immediately led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth among environmentalists. Scientific American even published a special article outlining all of the ways in which Lomborg was mistaken. Which drew criticism from conservatives and created quite a controversy.
I'm not trying to argue for or against Lomborg or Bellesiles. The incidents seem to parallel a common political tactic of arguing to extremes - you're either for us or you're against us. The conservatives who defend Lomborg pillory Bellesiles, and the liberals who defend Bellesiles want to give Lomborg a pie in the face. No one seems to score any points when academics tries to take on political issues. About some of these issues people seem to have a predetermined response and a reasoned argument against it never seems to get through. I haven't read either Bellesiles or Lomborg yet but I plan to purchase each book in the near future. Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with their arguments I will be supporting the courage to call political shibboleths into question - a courage we need from both sides. Long may the debates continue.
12:03:27 AM
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Thursday, June 27, 2002
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I downloaded Copernic 2001 last night. It is one of the best meta-search programs I've seen on windows. It lets you run internet queries in different subjects: books, newsgroups, addresses and then summarizes the combined results in a single pane.
I decided to search for myself in a couple of categories and came upon some old usenet posts from almost a decade ago when I was at Yale. (on ISBNs, Samuel Delany and race).
I was struck by my almost 7 year absence from the internet. From 1994-2001 there are no usenet posts or any other items I know about. Why did I leave? I wasn't afraid of the technology, heck I purchased some CDs online in 1994 before amazon.com was created. I speculate that I was waiting for two things to happen: the internet to develop more tools for finding communities (I think blogging and other items are on the cusp of making the discovery of social networks much easier than before) and my own maturity. I had to grow into wanting a public presence. My use of the internet seems to run in the exact opposite direction of those studies that have suggested increased interenet use is linked to depression and isolation.
12:13:21 AM
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Tuesday, June 25, 2002
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Through the affinity links at Amazon I found this rather intriguing book The Pragmatic Programmer. One of the sentences in the summary hit me like a ton of bricks: "They advise readers to learn one text editor, for example, and use it for everything." I looked at this and decided that I may never truly be a programmer - if you suppose the psychology behind this recommendation is true.
In my experience most programmers are people with incredible focus. Somewhere Eric Raymond described it as the ability to 'snarf up a language in a day.' I can't find the anecdote about learning TeX in a day with just a manual but here is a link to "How to Become a Hacker." It seems like this type of focus is the skill that lets someone spend 24-hours trying to debug C kernel code. And it is the same impulse that make 'holy wars' so common.
I, on the other hand, enjoy maximum diversity. On my current computer I have 4 internet browsers (ie, netscape, mozilla, opera), three email clients (pegasus, eudora, outlook express), and 4 text editors (textpad, editpad, notetab, emacs). I use each of them at least once per week, sometimes every day. Over the weekend I was researching information on statistical programs and computer algebra systems, and I wasn't satisfied by looking at just Mathematica or SPSS, I had to browse to Maple and Matlab, S and free software. I like to collect tools almost as much as I enjoy using them. My profligacy extends to books (I recently reached 60+ checked out from the library), music (300 mp3s downloaded in a week). I'm using two different blogging tools: Radio and Moveable Type.
Finally I'm not sure the psychology of the programmer behind the single text editor is correct. It may be the norm but I'm actively trying to disprove it.
10:18:54 PM
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I was listening to Charlie Rose last night and he had an interesting conversation with Floyd Kvamme,Co-Chair, PCAST, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Among the priorities of the council this year is the adoption of broadband. Over the past months I've noticed a number of pundits and reporters complaining about the failure of broadband. The CBTPA, Consumer Broadband and Television Promotion Act, proposed by Senator Hollings is just an example of the continuous compliants from Washington and the punditry that broadband is a failure. Of course most of the laws to encourage broadband seem to be worse than the actual problem, curtailing internet freedoms for the benefit of corporations.
In contrast to this broadband silliness stands the recent report of the Pew Internet and American Life Project that basically says everything in broadband is moving along at a reasonable rate.
Despite concern, particularly in technology and industry circles, that broadband deployment is occurring too slowly, our data suggest that broadband’s roll out is unfolding much like other technologies. High-speed Internet has taken four years to reach the critical mass of 10% adoption, according to the FCC. It took four years for the personal computer to attain 10% adoption, 4 and one-half years for the CD player, and 8 years for cell phones.
This doesn't seem so bad after all. The report continues by citing two of the main characteristics of broadband users.
- An open Internet is appealing to broadband users. As habitual posters of content, broadband users seem to desire the widest reach for what they share with the online world. As frequent searchers for information using their always-on connection, broadband users seek out the greatest range of sources to satisfy their thirst for information. Walling off portions of the Internet, which some regulatory proposals may permit, is anathema to how broadband users behave.
- Broadband users value fast upload speeds as well as fast download speeds. They not only show this by their predilection to create content, but also by their extensive file-sharing habits.
This report should be a wake-up call to all the telecom and content companies who keep complaining that their cash cow hasn't come home to roost.
The report also makes some interesting points about the 'broadband elite' or early adopters. These people are as interested in creating their own content as they are interested in downloading the latest movie trailer. If current broadband technologies become too restrictive I believe this elite will try to move to freer technologies, such as wireless.
8:37:01 PM
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Monday, June 24, 2002
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I read the online reprint of "Lobsters" by Charles Stross today. Stross is one of the best short story writers in science fiction today. "Lobsters" is part of the Manfred Macx series which is basically a hyperkinetic riff on a near future of ubiquitous internet access, augmented human intelligence and agalmic enterprise. Macx makes his living from giving his inventions and patents away. His profligacy has gained him a reputation that allows him to travel the world and live an always-on life.
"Lobsters" appeared in Asimov's SF, probably the best science fiction magazine being published today.
12:02:49 AM
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Sunday, June 23, 2002
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I was watching C-Span today and caught a portion of a speech by Josh Sapan, CEO of Rainbow Media Holdings. He was talking to the Washington Metropolitan Cable Club about video on demand systems and touting Rainbow's new system: MagRack.
Sapan basically argued that a new cable service needs to have a context that make consumers want to buy a service. MagRack is basically a video magazine rack. You can choose to receive video on demand from about two dozen channels on topics like vegetarian cooking, cars, and science. I was impressed with Sapan because most of what he said was reasonable and free of the recent cant that cable television representatives and others have spouted. He talked about personal video recoreders without falling into the silliness of claiming that the technology makes consumers into thieves and he acknowledged that the advertising market model might not work in the future. If cable television fragmented the audience technologies like MagRack may fragment things even further.
I browsed the web site for a little while this evening and then hopped over to Time Warner Minnesota to see if they are offering the service. They are not. Cablevision, Rainbow's parent company, is only available on the east coast. So where is the competition in the cable industry that justifies the recent actions by the FCC declaring cable modems to be an unregulated data system.
Rainbow is also the owners of Bravo, American Movie Classics, Independent Film Channel, and numerous sports channels.
11:50:17 PM
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Friday, June 21, 2002
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I guess I must be in the technical audience because I knew all 7 tricks and use them regularly. Just goes to show that the biggest danger when working on usability is making unwarranted assumptions about users.
developerWorks: Seven tricks that Web users don't know. About what developers assume non-technical web-users will know, but they really don't. [The Desktop Fishbowl]
3:28:25 AM
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I'm reading A Field Guide to Visual Thinking Tools by David Hyerle as part of my ongoing research into the Future of Creativity. (a little grand but it's my current project and likely to be my Masters thesis) Anyhow, I experimented with a couple of computer based visual thinking tools about a year ago. This book got me started thinking about using a mind map style diagram to organize my upcoming presentation. So I picked up my legal pad and began sketching. But how do I share it on the internet. Thus my search for a tool.
- The ubiquitous tool is Inspiration. I used it a bit last year and had no real complaints. For $69 its a good, inexpensive package.
- FreeMind is an open source Java visual mapper for any kind of hierarchical data. I've yet to use the product but the price is certainly right.
- Axon Idea Processor was the one new discovery I made tonight that definitely looks like it needs more investigation. I was especially impressed with the screen shots showing the detailed outlines in addition to the pretty pictures.
Here's a web site that has links to a few more tools that might be worthwhile. The ODP also has a page on mind mapping.
2:24:47 AM
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I'm getting more than a little bit ticked off by the RealOne media player that I downloaded a few days ago. It is almost as aggressive at claiming file type associations as any bad Micro$oft application. I normally use FreeAmp for listening to music and downloading mp3s. In fact FreeAmp used to be the only application that would download complete albums from emusic.com. I installed RealOne because I wanted to experiment with RealAudio streams over cable broadband.
I should've known that it would be a disaster based on the number of time the old RealPlayer used to ask me to upgrade. The sad thing is I liked the new graphic design of the new player. It's a lot easier to use than the old design and much closer to the Microsoft media player design. It appears that streaming media applications are becoming independent browsers. Now if only they would stop trying to steal my file associations. I've changed them twice now and one more time will be the end.
Real is trying to outplay Microsoft using the same bullying tactics that got MS into legal trouble. I doubt the government will ever decide to sue Real since they don't yet have a monopoly, however they sure do know how to alienate technical customers.
1:55:55 AM
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Thursday, June 20, 2002
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I added the same macro to display my subscriptions along the right. I don't care for the initial format and it renders oddly in IE (a new line after each space).
10:45:37 PM
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I'm trying to implement some of the enhanced features out there for Radio. So far I've been using the outliner to build a blogroll in combination with the blogroll macro. I've also installed Marc Paschal's Kit which has some cool enhancements to the whole thing. Next up is some work on the outline presentation tool.
I'm also going to have to smarten up some of the styling for the blogroll, and will be including a subscription list soon.
10:31:34 PM
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Kuro5shin, one of the best slashdot-like online communities, is going to become a non-profit. Maybe it's time to start the eccentric academy as an online non-profit.
Rusty at K5 pioneers the non-profit model for collaborative Websites. Not a bad way to make a salary to do something you love to do. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
7:09:26 PM
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I know why I don't listen to the radio any more and I discovered the reason after getting a cable modem and started listening to streaming radio: most of what is on the radio I don't like. Yet I'm never at a loss for new CDs to purchase or music to listen to. I find most of it at sites like emusic.com and by reading reviews in magazines and online. Of course my interests in twentieth century classical music, avant-garde jazz and punk rock were never really popular on the radio to begin with.
Hang The DJ.
Radio, Radio: Where Did All the Music Go?
"Radio listeners are listening less. In 1993, they spent an average of 23 hours per week with the radio on; last year, it was down to 20 1/2 hours, according to Arbitron numbers.
Those most likely to turn off the radio: teen-agers, long among the medium's mainstays. Among girls age 12-17, the radio is on just 16 hours a week. For boys, it's just 12 1/2 hours. That's bad news for the country's 11,047 commercial radio stations.
Why the turn-off?
Some, like musicians Prince and Little Steven Van Zandt, blame playlists so strict they make the old Top 40 format seem extravagant.
Others blame a 1996 law that opened the door for corporate ownership of hundreds of radio stations, replacing often-eccentric local owners with a legion of sound-alike voices and formats....
Today, Infinity Broadcasting -- home to Stern and Imus -- owns 180 radio stations in 22 states. Emmis Communications' three New York stations control 14 percent of the revenue in the nation's No. 1 market; in other markets, that number can quadruple.
But the big daddy of the business is San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications, which owns 1,200 stations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Clear Channel estimates that each day, it reaches 54 percent of people age 18-49 in the United States. [The Shifted Librarian]
7:06:06 PM
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© Copyright
2002
Todd Suomela.
Last update:
11/9/2002; 10:21:56 PM.
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