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Ariel Szuch

Should We Fear the Digital Economy Bill? - 0 views

publishingperspectives.com/...-fear-the-digital-economy-bill

digital economy copyright intellectual property publishing

shared by Ariel Szuch on 30 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • This indicates that no proof of copyright infringement must exist in order to block a Web site, just an assumption that a violation has occurred or will occur. Such broad language means that Web sites large and small, from YouTube to your next door neighbor’s blog, are in danger if accusations of copyright infringement are made against them.
  • Without any obligation to provide proof of wrongdoing, the bill creates the potential for abuse and…dare we say it…censorship.
  • The other side of the argument is, of course, that entertainment companies and copyright holders lose billions of dollars due to online piracy and illegal filesharing of copyrighted works.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • People and companies that make a living on content and intellectual property have a very real need to protect their investments and creative assets. Measures such as DRM and ongoing legal battles don’t seem to have slowed down online piracy.
  • But are such extreme measures like the Digital Economy Bill really necessary to fight copyright infringement? Should the British government be allowed limitless power to block Web sites and Internet users?
Gideon Burton

Video Games as Art (with tweet) · pcbills · Storify - 0 views

storify.com/...video-games-as-art

video games art born digital genre storify

shared by Gideon Burton on 02 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Gideon Burton on 02 Dec 13
     
    In addition to discussing an important topic in digital culture, Paul Bills exemplifies here a new format for the academic essay: Storify used to curate content to make and to frame claims about a topic.
Jeffrey Chen

Making Capitalism More Creative - 0 views

www.time.com/...0,8599,1828069,00.html

Bill Gates creative capitalism improvement

shared by Jeffrey Chen on 26 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Jeffrey Chen on 26 Sep 10
     
    Great article by time magazine by Bill Gates about the modern issues of capitalism and areas for improvement
Sean Watson

The FP Twitterati 100 - 1 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...the_fp_twitterati_100

shared by Sean Watson on 23 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Sean Watson on 23 Jun 11
     
    These days, everyone from the Dalai Lama to Bill Gates is on Twitter, the microblogging platform founded in 2006. During breaking news events like the death of Osama bin Laden or for following the Arab uprisings, it's become an invaluable tool for keeping up to speed. But for many, it's still just another place to promote their own work, rather than engaging in a more natural give-and-take. So how do you tell who's really worth following? FP's got you covered. Here are 100 Twitter users from around the world who will make you smarter, infuriate you, and delight you -- 140 characters at a time.
Mike Lemon

Calls for longer school years face budget reality - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/...xpc3QEc2xrA2NhbGxzZm9ybG9uZw--

shared by Mike Lemon on 28 Sep 10 - No Cached
    • Mike Lemon
      Mike Lemon on 28 Sep 10
       
      Is lengthening the school day or year the answer?
  • Education reformers have long called for U.S. kids to log more time in the classroom so they can catch up with their peers elsewhere in the world, but resistance from leisure-loving teenagers isn't the only reason there is no mass movement to keep schoolchildren in their seats. Such a change could cost cash-strapped state governments and local school districts billions of dollars, strip teachers of a time-honored perk of their profession, and irk officials in states that already bridle at federal intrusion into their traditional control over education.
  • Texas already forbids school from starting before the fourth Monday of August, a provision designed to save money on utility bills and increase business for tourist destinations and other summer attractions. "Ultimately the states, not the federal government, should have the final word on this and other public school decisions," said Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. In Kansas, sporadic efforts by local districts to extend the school year at even a few schools have been met by parental resistance, said state education commissioner Diane DeBacker.
Katherine Chipman

An introduction to the John Scopes (Monkey) Trial - 0 views

www.law.umkc.edu/...evolut.htm

evolution

shared by Katherine Chipman on 09 Nov 10 - Cached
  • By 1925, Bryan and his followers had succeeded in getting legislation introduced in fifteen states to ban the teaching of evolution. In February, Tennessee enacted a bill introduced by John Butler making it unlawful "to teach any theory that denies the story of divine creation as taught by the Bible and to teach instead that man was descended from a lower order of animals."  
  •     Opening statements pictured the trial as a titanic struggle between good and evil or truth and ignorance. Bryan claimed that "if evolution wins, Christianity goes." Darrow argued, "Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial." The prosecution, Darrow contended, was "opening the doors for a reign of bigotry equal to anything in the Middle Ages." To the gasps of spectators, Darrow said Bryan was responsible for the "foolish, mischievous and wicked act." Darrow said that the anti-evolution law made the Bible "the yardstick to measure every man's intellect, to measure every man's intelligence, to measure every man's learning." It was classic Darrow, and the press--mostly sympathetic to the defense--loved it.
  •     On the seventh day of trial, Raulston asked the defense if it had any more evidence. What followed was what the New York Times described as "the most amazing court scene on Anglo-Saxon history." Hays asked that William Jennings Bryan be called to the stand as an expert on the Bible. Bryan assented, stipulating only that he should have a chance to interrogate the defense lawyers. Bryan, dismissing the concerns of his prosecution colleagues, took a seat on the witness stand, and began fanning himself.     Darrow began his interrogation of Bryan with a quiet question: "You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?" Bryan replied, "Yes, I have. I have studied the Bible for about fifty years." Thus began a series of questions designed to undermine a literalist interpretation of the Bible. Bryan was asked about a whale swallowing Jonah, Joshua making the sun stand still, Noah and the great flood, the temptation of Adam in the garden of Eden, and the creation according to Genesis. After initially contending that "everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there," Bryan finally conceded that the words of the Bible should not always be taken literally. In response to Darrow's relentless questions as to whether the six days of creation, as described in Genesis, were twenty-four hour days, Bryan said "My impression is that they were periods."     Bryan, who began his testimony calmly, stumbled badly under Darrow's persistent prodding. At one point the exasperated Bryan said, "I do not think about things I don't think about." Darrow asked, "Do you think about the things you do think about?" Bryan responded, to the derisive laughter of spectators, "Well, sometimes." Both old warriors grew testy as the examination continued. Bryan accused Darrow of attempting to "slur at the Bible." He said that he would continue to answer Darrow's impertinent questions because "I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in God, is trying to use a court in Tennessee--." Darrow interrupted his witness by saying, "I object to your statement" and to "your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes." After that outburst, Raulston ordered the court adjourned. The next day, Raulston ruled that Bryan could not return to the stand and that his testimony the previous day should be stricken from evidence.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • A year later, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Dayton court on a technicality--not the constitutional grounds as Darrow had hoped. According to the court, the fine should have been set by the jury, not Raulston. Rather than send the case back for further action, however, the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed the case. The court commented, "Nothing is to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case."
  • The Scopes trial by no means ended the debate over the teaching of evolution, but it did represent a significant setback for the anti-evolution forces. Of the fifteen states with anti- evolution legislation pending in 1925, only two states (Arkansas and Mississippi) enacted laws restricting teaching of Darwin's theory.
  • Katherine Chipman on 09 Nov 10
     
    Overview of the John Scopes (Monkey) Trial
Jeffrey Whitlock

Cellphones - Third World and Developing Nations - Poverty - Technology - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...13anthropology-t.html

shared by Jeffrey Whitlock on 17 Nov 10 - No Cached
    • Jeffrey Whitlock
      Jeffrey Whitlock on 17 Nov 10
       
      This is a great article
  • From an unseen distance, Chipchase used his phone to pilot me through the unfamiliar chaos, allowing us to have what he calls a “just in time” moment. “Just in time” is a manufacturing concept that was popularized by the Japanese carmaker Toyota when, beginning in the late 1930s, it radically revamped its production system, virtually eliminating warehouses stocked with big loads of car parts and instead encouraging its assembly plants to order parts directly from the factory only as they were needed. The process became less centralized, more incremental. Car parts were manufactured swiftly and in small batches, which helped to cut waste, improve efficiency and more easily correct manufacturing defects. As Toyota became, in essence, lighter on its feet, the company’s productivity rose, and so did its profits. There are a growing number of economists who maintain that cellphones can restructure developing countries in a similar way. Cellphones, after all, have an economizing effect. My “just in time” meeting with Chipchase required little in the way of advance planning and was more efficient than the oft-imperfect practice of designating a specific time and a place to rendezvous. He didn’t have to leave his work until he knew I was in the vicinity. Knowing that he wasn’t waiting for me, I didn’t fret about the extra 15 minutes my taxi driver sat blaring his horn in Accra’s unpredictable traffic. And now, on foot, if I moved in the wrong direction, it could be quickly corrected. Using mobile phones, we were able to coordinate incrementally. “Do you see the footbridge?” Chipchase was saying over the phone. “No? O.K., do you see the giant green sign that says ‘Believe in God’? Yes? I’m down to the left of that.”
  • To get a sense of how rapidly cellphones are penetrating the global marketplace, you need only to look at the sales figures. According to statistics from the market database Wireless Intelligence, it took about 20 years for the first billion mobile phones to sell worldwide. The second billion sold in four years, and the third billion sold in two. Eighty percent of the world’s population now lives within range of a cellular network, which is double the level in 2000. And figures from the International Telecommunications Union show that by the end of 2006, 68 percent of the world’s mobile subscriptions were in developing countries. As more and more countries abandon government-run telecom systems, offering cellular network licenses to the highest-bidding private investors and without the burden of navigating pre-established bureaucratic chains, new towers are going up at a furious pace. Unlike fixed-line phone networks, which are expensive to build and maintain and require customers to have both a permanent address and the ability to pay a monthly bill, or personal computers, which are not just costly but demand literacy as well, the cellphone is more egalitarian, at least to a point.
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