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April 28, 2006
Flickr Plate
My next door neighbor's license plate. Seriously. I kid you not.
Posted by acarvin at 2:30 PM
April 27, 2006
The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog
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Video of my contribution to the handwriting meme over at Flickr. Yes, that's my actual handwriting. I shoulda been a doctor. Note that I made "jumps" past tense. I guess I owe everyone an S. |
Posted by acarvin at 5:38 PM
April 25, 2006
Andy's Video Blogging Equipment and Compression Techniques
Earlier today I received a comment from Bill of Wild Bill & the Pioneer Princess asking a question about my video blogging equipment and compression techniques:
Andy, as a fellow vlogger (and somewhat of a newbie vlogger) I always appreciate the visual clarity of your videos. Could you share with us what equipment and software you use and especially what your final compression settings are... how do you get such clean looking videos yet still keep the file sizes manageable? Any suggestions might be appreciated by more folks than just myself.
Good questions, Bill. Let's start with the equipment, because that's pretty straightforward.
I have two digital cameras I use for video blogging. Most of my videos are shot with a five megapixel Canon Powershot A610. It's a medium size camera designed for taking still digital photos, but also allows you to shoot video. Its video mode will capture footage in two sizes: 640x480 and 320x240. You can also select between two frame rates: 15 frames a second and 30 frames a second. The more frames you have, the smoother the image quality. But more frames also means bigger video files - I'll talk about this more in the compression section below.
My other digital camera is an eight megapixel Konica-Minolta Dimage A-200. It looks and feels like a 35mm SLR camera rather than a compact, so it's good for people used to having a sizable camera. It also lets you shoot in two different sizes and frame rates. Visually, I find the image quality better on this camera, and it lets you adjust the manual zoom while shooting, so it feels more like a real video camera. But it has two major drawbacks: its autofocus is unreliable in video mode, often going out focus. Even worse, the autofocus motor is so loud, you can hear its gears whizzing in your footage, particularly when recording in quiet situations. So generally I use the Dimage for still photography and the Canon for video.
Regarding software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro. I use version 4.5 HD, and have been a fan of FCP since I first edited with it six years ago when version 2.0 came out. Final Cut is amazing software. You could literally edit a Hollywood movie on it - and directors like Robert Rodriguez and Steven Soderbergh have done just that. Having said that, it can also be rather daunting for first-time vloggers, which is why many people use software like iMovie instead.
Another reason I like Final Cut is because it allows me to be very specific as to how I want to compress a video. Compression is simply a technique for saving the movie file so that the file size gets reduced. This is accomplished through very complex algorithms which can probably be explained a heck of a lot better by someone more technical than I. Software like iMovie will often have a limited number of compression modes - if I recall correctly - while Final Cut Pro lets you tweak your compression incrementally and experiment with different results. Similarly, you could purchase Quicktime Pro to do the same thing.
As an example, I've uploaded a video clip compressed in a variety of ways, so all of you can take a look and them and compare the results. I started with an uncompressed 10 megabyte file shot on my Canon A610, which shoots video in .avi format. It was recorded at 30 frames per second in full-size mode (640x480 pixels).
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10 megabyte avi file, no compression, 640x480 pixels, 30 FPS. |
Because the video is uncompressed, the quality is pretty good - it's very large, yet not clunky or muddy looking. But high quality comes at a cost. Even though the clip is only 5.5 seconds long, it's a 10 megabyte file, which translates to around two megabytes per second. If you posted an uncompressed avi video that's five minutes long, you're then talking about a 600 megabyte file - not exactly the kind of thing most people would be able to download. That's why you need to compress most videos before posting them online - otherwise, they're just too big to deal with.
To begin, I start by opening the file in Final Cut Pro, then finding "export" under the File dropdown menu. Here, there are two options. I can just convert it to Quicktime without specifying any type of compression, or I can select "using Quicktime conversion," which allows you to compress it in a variety of ways. Converting from avi to Quicktime in itself doesn't really change the file size, though. Take a look at this version of the video It's saved in Quicktime, 320x160 pixels in size, but without any additional compression. Even though the video is much smaller in size, this reduces the file by only a fraction - down to 9.6 megabytes, a four percent reduction.
Since this didn't change the file very much, I went ahead and compressed the video using several different techniques:
Reducing frames to 15 frames per second. Here I've exported the video using Quicktime conversion. Before saving it, Final Cut Pro lets me select a "options" button, which opens up yet another menu that lets tweak the compression settings. One of these settings is the frame rate. Normally the video plays at 30 frames a second. By changing it to 15 frames a second, it reduces the number of images saved in the video file, in this case cutting the file size nearly in half to 5.4 megabytes. The video doesn't play as smoothly as 30 frames a second, but still looks tolerably good. In contrast, here's a version of the same video at 10 frames per second. Notice how the smoothness of the video drops to an intolerable level. Even though the video is now compressed to 3.2 megabytes, the reduced frame rate really hurts the viewing experience. It almost feels like watching a film from the silent era - and not in a positive sense. So, try not to go less than 15 frames per second.
Using 3ivx compression at 15 frames per second. Whether you use FCP or Quicktime Pro, the software comes with a variety of compression algorithms, or CODECs, you can select from. You can also buy CODECs that are optimized for online downloads. I use one called 3ivx. It's easy to buy online and install, and it compresses video quite nicely. Compare the 3ivx version with the previous version, both of which are set at 15 frames per second. While the basic version is 5.4 megabytes, the 3ivx version is only 1.8 megabytes. That's more than 80% smaller than the original file.
3ivx codec, changing video size to 160x120 pixels, 15 frames per second. You can also change the size of your video. When exporting it, I clicked the option button and selected the size option, then reduced the height and width by half. This makes a much smaller video window and reduces the file size even further to 1.3 megabytes. Cutting the video screen size, of course, affects the viewing experience, as you can see by comparing these two screen sizes:
Two screen sizes: 320x240 pixels versus 160x120 pixels
3ivx codec, 15 fps, 8 bit mono. Don't forget you can also compress a video's audio to reduce file size. Once again, you can reach this menu by exporting as quicktime conversion and clicking the options button; you'll see an audio option along with the others. The default setting for audio is 48khz, 16 bits and stereo. These settings may not mean much to you, but essentially, it allows for high-quality audio. This setting makes sense when you are using professionally recorded sound or music in your video, but if you're just using the mic on a digital camera, chances are it's overkill. For example, my camera records audio only at 8 bits and mono, so not lowering the settings is a waste of bandwidth. By switching the settings to 8 bits, 16khz and mono, the file size drops to 980 bytes - less than one megabyte.
3ivx codec, 15 fps, 8 bit mono, 160x120 pixels. Last but not least, we have a video clip that's got all of these compression tricks used at once. It's using the 3ivx CODEC, at 15 frames per second, the audio quality down to 8 bit mono, and the screen size cut down to 160x120. The result is a video file that's an amazingly small 292 kilobytes - a whopping 97% smaller file size than the original. And amazingly, the final quality isn't so terrible. In fact, for people who aren't used to larger screen sizes, it's downright tolerable. Compression techniques like this allow you to upload and download video clips through a dialup connection - and this can come in very handing when working in parts of the world that have slow Internet access.
For those of you who compares all of these techniques more easily, here's a handy table I created. Hope this helps... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 4:27 PM
April 24, 2006
The Death of a Video Blogger?
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A childhood photograph of Kevin Krutz, part of a montage from the April 15 video blog allegedly capturing Kevin's death |
I did not know Kevin Krutz personally, nor was I familiar with his vlog, Questions in a World of Blue, until fellow vlogger Michael Sullivan posted it to the videoblogging list earlier today. Kevin was a 26-year-old film student in Philadelphia who used his vlog to share short videos he produced for school. Many of them are dark and disturbing. In one piece, a twisted surgeon performs unnecessary surgery on a model, ruining her looks, but creates an unexpected fashion craze. Another video uses long, unflinching shots a la Martin Scorsese to capture a man violently assaulting a women at a bar. Other videos feature bizarre, though hysterical attempts to produce stop-motion animation with ground meat instead of clay.
The final video installment, entitled The Last Hours, begins with a slate noting that the video was posted "with consent of the Krutz family." The video itself appears to come from a party; you can hear a friend narrating a home video in which he goes into a bathroom to make fun of Kevin, who appears to be throwing up in a toilet. As the video keeps rolling, the videographer and friend come to the horrifying realization that Kevin is in fact dead. There is blood on the bathroom floor, but it is not clear how he died; the implication seems to be that he passed away after massive amounts of drinking. One friend demands the videoographer to put the camera down, so the last moments we see are of Kevin at an angle, the camera resting ackwardly, as they try unsuccessfully to revive him. We then see his limp body dragged off the screen.
Dip to Black, then another slate saying the film was edited by Dom Miksit and posted by Tim Dunn, concluding with a montage of photographs of Kevin's life, as T Rex's "Cosmic Dancer" plays in the background:
I was dancing when I was eight
Is it strange to dance so late
I danced myself into the tomb
Is it strange to dnce so soon
I danced myself into the tomb....
The video is chilling on so many levels, no less so considering the quote posted on his vlog's profile: "Video is a place where all the horror and atrocities you ever dreamed of can be accomplished."
It seems this quote may have been prophetic. However, some vloggers are already speculating that the video is a hoax - a disturbing art project from an artists who relished in disturbing others. Notably, the blog doesn't offer any details of how he died, nor does it supply an address for submitting condolences or donations. I was also surprised that a search for his blog on Technorati or news of his death on Google News yielded zero results.
If the video is a hoax, undoubtedly it will be debated for some time, praised by some for its daring and vilified by others for its inappropriateness. If it isn't a hoax, perhaps with the posting of this video, his family and friends will be able to scare some young person - even just one person - into acting a little more responsibly with their life.
I honestly do not know if it is a hoax. If it is not, my sincerest condolences to Kevin's family for their loss. -andy
UPDATE:
Mystery solved. Kevin isn't dead. But hoax may be too strong a term for it either, depending on your point of view. It seems that the whole thing was a video blogging social experiment to see how the online community would react, and to explore the boundaries of what's acceptable and what's not in the world of vlogging. There's an email to the VIDEOBLOGGING yahoogroup from his video blogging teacher explaining the whole thing:
Kevin is fine and well. Probably tired and overwhelmed since it's the end of the semester, but he's otherwise perfectly fine. I just saw him this afternoon in class.I don't know if he meant the video as a "hoax" -- or a mean trick. I'd
expect it was more of an experiment to see what would happen. It's
definitely in the "vlog dangerously" theme that Stephanie started for
videoblogging week. Perhaps this is over the edge for many of you?? Did
Kevin stretch things too far? And cross some line into something
unacceptable??....Mostly I'm interested in hearing more discussion about whether or not
it was "okay" for him to post such a video. What buttons did he push?
If you are offended or upset or disturbed or frightened or disgusted...
then why? What is it exactly that caused your reaction? If you aren't
any of those things, but have other strong feelings, what is your
reaction? What do you think that's about??
As I noted on the same list before the truth came out, whether or not it was a hoax probably wouldn't change the fact that the video may well indeed lead to a media/blog debate about the cultural boundaries of Web 2.0 in terms of what's acceptable and what's not. Any takers? -andy
Posted by acarvin at 3:48 PM
April 23, 2006
The Monterey Bay Aquarium!
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Video montage featuring the many creatures of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Music by Drop Trio, courtesy of Magnatune Records in accordance with their Creative Commons license. |
Posted by acarvin at 4:11 PM
April 22, 2006
The Political Economy of Access to Knowledge
During a plenary session this afternoon at the A2K conference, Jamie Love of CPTech spoke about the political economy of the A2K movement. Some notes:
US and EU negotiators take a position that the more IP patents you have, the more money you're worth. The red states say this isn't strong enough, while greens take the position that it's too strong.Why "access to knowledge?" It's a common brand for different movements - blogging, open access, creative commons, free software, etc. Developing countries said this is the one term that resonated with them. And we felt that it represented enough of what all these groups were working on that it was a good catch-all phrase for the collection of movements. Like Richard Stallman says, language is important. How can anyone argue against "access to knowledge?" That's a good thing, right?
Stop, resist or modify the setting of bad norms. Change, regulate and resist bad business practices. Create new modes of production of knowledge goods, both commercial and noncommercial. Create new global frameworks and norms that promote access to knowledge.
Some important ideas:
- Challenge prices that harm access. Prices don't have to be zero, as long as people can afford them.
- Challenge poorly conceived or inferior models for intellectual property reform. Why shouldn't there be innovations? Don't tell me you can't improve things like the patent rules.
- Support new business models and incentives that do not enclose knowledge.
- Pay attention to livelihoods. It's a real problem for those of us who aren't tenured. You have to send a signal that it's not about destroying someone's livelihood, but trying to make it work equitably for all of us.
- The theory of local/global (he didn't elaborate on this, though)
And that's it for me... I have to catch a train back to Boston now. Now time for some other blogger to take over the reins for the rest of the conference... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 3:15 PM
Coalition to Launch "Save the Internet" Campaign for Network Neutrality
This Monday, a coalition of Internet activists from across the political spectrum will officially launch the Save the Internet Campaign to fight telecom companies that are trying to create a multi-tiered Internet, where lower-income customers have less access to content and bandwidth than higher-paying customers. Quoting their new website:
Congress is pushing a law that would abandon Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment. Network neutrality prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work the best — based on who pays them the most. Your local library shouldn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to have its Web site open quickly on your computer.Net Neutrality allows everyone to compete on a level playing field and is the reason that the Internet is a force for economic innovation, civic participation and free speech. If the public doesn't speak up now, Congress will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign by telephone and cable companies that want to decide what you do, where you go, and what you watch online.
This isn't just speculation — we've already seen what happens elsewhere when the Internet's gatekeepers get too much control. Last year, Canada's version of AT&T — Telus— blocked their Internet customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to workers with whom Telus was negotiating. And Shaw, a major Canadian cable TV company, charges an extra $10 a month to subscribers who dare to use a competing Internet telephone service.
Congress thinks they can sell out and the public will never know. The SavetheInternet.Com Coalition is proving them wrong.
Founding coalition members:
Professor Lawrence Lessig — Stanford
Professor Timothy Wu — Columbia
Free Press — Coalition Coordinator
Gun Owners of America
Craig Newmark — Craigslist.com Founder
Professor Glenn Reynolds — aka blogger Instapundit
MoveOn.org Civic Action
Consumers Union
American Library Association
Consumer Federation of America
Public Knowledge
Common Cause
U.S. PIRG
Center for Digital Democracy
Association of Research Libraries
The Service Roundtable — small business network
Afro-Netizen
Loyola University Chicago, Department of Communications
Educause
New Organizing Institute
Covenant College
Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project
Association for Community Networking
Amazing Kids
CCTV Center for Media and Democracy
Alliance for Community Media
Professor Susan Crawford
Center for Creative Voices in Media
Community Technology Centers
FreeNetworks.org
Media Access Project
Media Alliance
The Agonist
NYC Wireless
AcornActive Media Foundation
Californians Against Waste
Chicago Media Action
CUWiN
National Video Resources
Illinois Community Technology Coalition
Ohio Community Computing Network
Peacefire
Quicksilver Communications
To get involved, visit the website and let Congress know how you feel about the issue. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:26 PM
Network Neutrality: Perspectives from Developed and Developing Nations
Live from the Access to Knowledge (A2K) conference, Yale; Moderated by Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Speakers:
Susan Crawford, Cardozo Law Center
Michael Geist, University of Ottawa
Caio Pereira, FGV, Sao Paolo
Seán Ó Siochrú, Nexus/CRIS Campaign
Mike Godwin's intro:
To what extent is network neutrality a missing piece to the a2k discussion? Telecom policy often doesn't get talked about; instead it's IP discussions.
Technologies of freedom by Ithiel De Sola Pool predicted how computer networks would be central to freedom and democracy. In the US, you have freedom of speech and freedom of the press - the govt doesn't discriminate against content. There's also common carriage - the telecom carriers not discriminating against content. If Pool were still alive, I think he'd also identify a third principal - network neutrality.
Neutrality as to applications - allowing everyone, whether you're a company or an individual, to develop and run any type of application that leads to the creation and dissemination of knowledge. To do this, you need equal access to telecom infrastructure.
There's almost no distinction between the north and south regarding network neutrality - there's no settled paradigm yet. There is a debate going on, though not everyone's sure what they're debating about. The division is between those who want a simple, open, neutral network, and those who believe telecom providers need greater financial incentive to innovate, so they should be allowed to tier services and discriminate towards more profitable content.
Michael Geist:
Are all bits equal? Equal treatment of bits so that the market determines winners without limitation of access. Often called the end-to-end (e2e) principle. Non interference allows for innovation at the edges and mitigates the limited competition for consumer high speed access.
The two-tiered internet and VoIP. Shaw charging at $10 premium surcharge; videoton calls Skype a parasite; Madison River ordered by FCC to stop blocking competing VoIP services; Panama and Egypt blocking VoIP to maintain monopolies. (and others, too!)
Content blocked: Telus blocked Voices for Change website in July - it was a union site. Additional 600 sites blocked because they blocked the IP address hosting all of them; full communities lose access to sites. If you ask telco lawyers, no one new where the state of the law was, but Telus was entitled to take steps to block content. This has led to a major backlash.
Traffic shaping: Rogers Cable acknowledged that it prioritizes some content and applications over others; they get more bandwidth. Lower prioritization to file sharing, podcasting, video blogging.
Public vs. private internet: Verizon's FIOS service delivers high def tv plus web content for those people willing to pay. Everyone else gets slower public Internet. They have exclusive deals with companies like Disney and EA Sports. They're proud of these deals but they're open only to those who can afford to pay for them, creating a new digital divide.
Website premiums (access tiering). BellSouth speculates about charging sites to access their customers or prioritizing some sites over others. Verizon raises similar noise about two-tiered Internet.
Policy Questions:
- Legal protection from Internet tiering?
- Is tiering even needed for network buildout?
- Is this a north-south issue?
From a legal protection perspective, customer tiering exists today - dialup, broadband, wireless, etc. Access tiering raises serious competition and innovation issues.
Canadian telecom policy review panel:
Called for the right of Canadians to access content of their choice and online applications by means of all public telecommunications providers.
Incentives: there's lots of rhetoric, but little evidence that tiering needed for network builds. Technical costs may outweight benefits from some potential actions. Raises issue of municipal and public networks to ensure greater access and competition.
North v. South: Common issue. Developing countries may be impacted more, since VoIP offers tremendous opportunity there.
Susan Crawford:
This is almost like a religious conflict; two sides that barely even know how to communicate with each other without getting angry.
The Bellhead perspective: hardware and software are intertwined; network optimized for particular service; Internet is the last mile; carrier gets paid for the communications it carries; Internet doesn't work because there's no guarantee of service; services keep us safe - close relations with law enforcement.
The Nethead perspective: Network delivers packets; it's independent of applications. The best network is a dumb network, with endpoints doing all the work. Security becomes the responsibility of the users. The internet is all about standards and relationships.
The conflict between these philosophies is like the conflict between evolution and intelligent design. Totally different world views.
VoIP is now 3.5% of phone usage in the US, or nearly four million households, as of January 2006. The cost of phone service is going down to zero. Telcos become content providers to survive.
John Horrigan: 45 percent of Internet users say they use the Net to make major life decisions - illnesses, education, etc.
In the US, we have policy that is deeply political, deeply shortsighted, and driven by incumbents of various kinds.
BrandX - cable deregulated. DSL order - also deregulated.
Whitacre: How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them.... Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?"
Telcos say we need quality of service guarantees to fix a broken internet. We need to ID packets and monetize the last mile to recoup investment. No other network operates neutrally, so why should we? If it becomes a monopoly, deal with it then, but don't tell us in advance how to build our network. That's un-American.
What passes for broadband in the US is "the slowest, most expensive and least reliable in the developed world," says Thomas Bleha in Foreign Affairs.
A developing nations issue. What do you do with an incumbent telco? Lay your own fiber, and work around the incumbent, like India's Andhra Pradesh or Amsterdam; try a microinvestment strategy.
What to do with bandwidth issues? She was told while visiting England: "Only sending email, so quality of service controls make sense for access to other applications." What are you going to do, prevent poor people from accessing movies?
The mobile Internet: the real opportunity. That's where we're gonna see enormous use; tiny screens will be where it takes place, not desktops.
Threats: Telecom policy becoming all communications policy; choice of viewpoint becomes critical; the ability to attach devices without permission, launch apps without permission, etc.
The Bellheads are seeking new laws, new asymmetry of information.
"This is an improper use of Internet technology."
Caio Pereira:
Net Neutrality from a Brazilian perspective, a middle-income developing country.
In developing countries, demand is lower, lots of concentration.
Consequences:
In an a2k framework, net neutrality should be a goal for developing countries. Tradeoffs should be taken seriously - they're often context specific. There needs to be transparency about bandwidth management in a context of scarcity, and detailed discussions about different types of discrimination and their impact on access to knowledge.
In Brazil:
Connectivity over the wires
- stagnation of fixed switched telephony - 40 mil lines
- slow growth of wired broadband access, concentrated in dsl rather than cable
Connectivity over the airwaves
The growth of fixed lines is stagnant, while mobile phones is up to 90 million lines - a major explosion
Around 3.5 mil cable subscribes - stagnant since 2000. But 90% of households have broadcast.
Around 3.5 mil broadband connections, mostly DSL.
Key networks to expand access: mobile networks, DTV transition. One key issue is net neutrality - walled gardens in mobile networks, while DTV is still strictly controlled by broadcasters. The political economy is behind access through these networks.
Seán Ó Siochrú on lowcost bandwidth for poor communities:
The principles underlying net neutrality are important, but they bare little relevance to the realities of developing countries.
We should talk either about net neutrality in rich countries or access to low-cost bandwidth in poor countries. But not both. The south is not on the same trajectory.
ICTs in poor countries: Specific form of liberalization has failed poor communities. Problems: vertically integrated operators; gsm and cdma are too expensive; weak regulatory rules; rural bandwidth mainly from VSAT; Africa pays twice as much for data flows (coming and going); fiber, where it exists, is underused.
International bandwidth. The sorry experience of the SAT3 trunk cable in West Africa. Owners are trying to protect their own interests, so there's been little impact on bandwidth costs. Some have switched back to VSAT because it's gotten so bad. Will the EASSy trunk cable be the same in east Africa? It's also owned by incumbent operators, so it might lead to the same failed outcome. But they're making lots of promises since they're now laying the cable, and APC and Infodev are pressuring them to make the cable open access - bandwidth made available to all at transparent, affordable prices - that it's a public good. The solution might be to get the world bank, EU and ADB to pay for the lot, in trust for countries. But probably no one will do it. It'll only cost them $200 million. But it's probably not politically feasible.
National backbones with a pro-poor open access approach. Open access as a solution - a potential to leverage public assets for open access. It needs strong, capable regulators, discriminating in favor of poor areas, supporting universal access funds.
At the local level, wireless IP technologies come of age, via low-cost multimedia ICTs as an alternative to switched voice and data communications. There's a potential for empowerment: scalable, easily built and maintained, used in public areas, based on a bottom-up logic of community owned, community driven networks. See http://www.propoor-ict.net.
Posted by acarvin at 1:04 PM
Eli Noam on the MacLuhanization of the Business Firm
Eli Noam of Columbia University spoke about the evolution of the business firm, from the pre-industrial era to today's networked world.
Suppose we get access to all of this information - what then? What's the impact going to be? Access will lower the price and supply will go up, so it could lead to more information production.
Business info grows at 12 percent a year, scientific information at six percent. It used to take more than 30 years for one million scientific articles to be published; now it's more like a year and a half. One typical reader can absorb about 44 bits per second when reading. Teams of four participants have lower productivity rate than one person - the committee phenomenon.
Business firms are command and control types of organizations; they exist to reduce transaction cost. The higher the costs, the greater the realm of firms and the less likelihood of competition.
Firms are structured around their most important processing tool at a given time. The earliest stage - pre-industrial - firms were basically modeled after people - families, dynastic relationships. Industry brought a new view of the firm - the machine. Firms tasks were made like a well-oiled machine, with each part having a specific task to contribute to the whole, with limited information flow.
In the 1950s, the classic business firm model was the computer - more specifically, the mainframe. Simple, rigid, centralized information, greater monitoring from a distance, hierarchical. But they didn't endure. In the 1980s, microcomputers and networks changed everything. Firms reorganized themselves to take advantage of new tools and information flow. The networked firm.
Where will the next generation of technology take the business firm? Tools like mesh networking and ubiquitous wireless, ultra broadband, sensor networks, software agents, nanopayment systems and the like. Machine to machine communications will increase, leading to greater automation of transactions, self structured and self controlling, with low oversight.
We should expect a shrinking of the realm of the firm and the increase in the market environment in which they operate. A decomposition of large firms - and large NGOs and universities too. This reaches the fifth stage - a transactional model of organization. Smaller, self-organizing bodies, moved from the inside of a large organization to the outside.
Organizational activities not only improve from information, it gets defined by its information - very much like what Marshall MacLuhan said. The media is the message, and the information is the organization.
Posted by acarvin at 11:03 AM
How Do French Chefs Protect their Recipes?
Eric von Hippel of MIT Sloan School of Management presented this morning at the Yale A2K conference on the cultural norms of Michelin-starred French chefs in terms of how they protect ownership of their recipes.
Novel recipes are important to success. When asked about the importance placed on original recipes by their restaurant customers, the average importance ranking was 4.42 out of 5.
Chefs can copyright the graphics and text presentation of a recipe - but not the recipe itself. However, they can protect certain trade secrets, someone's famous "secret sauce."
They explored the use of social norms by chefs to protect their innovations. Social norms develop a set of accepted behaviors, and if you deviate you get punished severely by the community. Rules based on the premise of "Thou shalt not."
von Hippel and his research partner sampled 500 michelin starred chefs, conducting in-person interviews, plus 150 responses by survey.
Accomplished chefs expect other chefs will not copies their recipes exactly. If they do, "we don't talk to them anymore; we're furious; we never communicate with them again." Chefs expect others to whom they reveal info will not pass that info onward without permission. "If I give information to another chef I trust him not to pass it on. I do not have to say this." And they expect others will also acknowledge them as a source. If not, their wrath will be public:
"Sir: your presentation [of my recipe] has revealed a rare ingratitude."
Chefs frequently get requests from their peers for recipes. Around 61% said they get such requests one to five times a year
Chefs are significantly more likely to provide info to chefs they think will adhere to recipe norms. Meanwhile, copying without permission can involve both in terms of ingredients and presentation. Chef Robin in Sydney stole a NYC chef's presentation of using test tubes to serve food. (The picture looked like a custard dessert.) He defended his actions but was ostracized from the community.
"Of course people are going to imitate and evolve what they see." - said Chef Robin, who stole presentation of recipe, in his own defense on eGullet.com.
Responses were harsh : "The 'evolution' part may be where you are coming short...." "New York is watching you."
von Hippel concluded by joking, "He has since been executed." -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:51 AM
It's Hard Out Here for a Peep
Meanwhile, back home in Boston, Susanne just emailed me this photo of our 23-pound tabby Winston crushing a defenseless box of marshmallow Peeps.
And an hour later:
Posted by acarvin at 9:26 AM
A2K is a WSIS Reunion
One thing that's been quite a surprise here at the Yale A2K conference is the number of friends and colleagues from World Summit on the Information Society that are participating. I was glad to see Rik Panganiban, who's left CONGO and is now working for a new media reform initiative; also participating are Bruno LaPorte of the World Bank, Sean O'Siochru of the CRIS Campaign, Bill Drake of CPSR and Rinalia Abdul Rahim of Global Knowledge Partnership. Meanwhile, the law school hosted a wonderful dinner at the New Haven restaurant Union League Cafe. I sat at an amazing table, including Jak Stienens and Saskia Harmsen of IICD, Jen Corriero of TakingITGlobal, Amos Anyimadu of the University of Ghana (whom I met in Accra last summer), Anriette Esterhuysen of APC, Nnenna Nwakanma of African Civil Society for the Information Society and Davinia Ovett of 3D Three. And they even served creme brulee for dessert. :-) -andy
Posted by acarvin at 7:27 AM
April 21, 2006
Some Edtech Questions Left Unanswered
At the Yale A2K conference today, I led a panel on peer production of educational content. The session featured Jennifer Corriero of TakingITGlobal, Jak Stienens and Saskia Harmsen of IICD and Steve Midgely of the Stupski Foundation. The audience had a lot of questions, so I deferred to them before asking my own. But a woman in the audience asked the question, "What questions would you have asked if you'd had time to ask them?" So, before the session ended, i read out my questions and encouraged participants to come to my blog and offer their own replies. I invite you to do the same.
In no particular order, here are the questions I would have asked my panelists:
Why is peer production important? What ever happened to relying on curricula of major educational publishers?How would you describe literacy in the 21st century? What skills do you need now that you might not have needed 20, 30, 50 years ago? And do these basic skills differ whether you are in a developed or developing country?
Where does open courseware fit in all of this?
What is the role of govt, private sector, civil society in fostering peer-produced educational content? The role of public media? What's the role of telecentres and other public access centers?
What's the impact of $100 laptop and other low-cost devices. How will they change education? Will they?
Where do wikis fit into all this? They make a lot of educators nervous.
What about when education technology is controlled by technologists rather than educators? Computer labs, filtering, etc.
How does learning change when the students know more about the technology than the teacher?
Any thoughts? Feel free to cherry pick from the list. -andy
update - here's a link to a liveblog of my session, courtesy of Yale's LawMeme.
Posted by acarvin at 10:59 PM
Steve Midgely on Education, Ethnicity and Openness
Notes from the A2K conference session by Steve Midgely, Stupksi Foundation, on openness and education:
Literacy with an Attitude by Patrick Finn:3rd grade US classroom
1 state is Pakistani, no cultural context
African American student behind in reading, but good in mathBy eighth grade, Pakistani student is assimilated and proficient, eager
African American student is three grades below average reading level, disconnected educationallyFinn asks: Why?
There is nothing inherent about being one ethnicity or another.
Poor, minority students have access to learning, but are rejecting it - but don't blame the kids
Teachers resign themselves to students who don't want to learn, end up teaching around themPublic education is stuck in a cycle of negation; we try to teach using ineffective methods for many types of students; students' cultures see American culture as oppressive and unjust, making them more likely to be skeptical
Giving kids better access to knowledge isn't enough. So let's talk about open content.
Peer production of open content holds great promise, but availability or cost isn't the issue. Students are trapped in a rut where they don't feel the need to learn, and we don't engage them effectively.
Open content alone won't address the issues.
4th grade white students are competitive in math with the Netherlands. Minority students are competitive with Armenia.
Our education system is differentially broken; the achievement gap for minority students vs. white students is as high as 50 points in urban schools. They often work alone, with the door closed.
Even things as simple as electronic transfer of high school records to colleges aren't happening.
The primary barriers to organizational change are more about culture and systems than access and knowledge. It's about how they work as educators rather than the curriculum itself.
Antiquated data systems can make systemic cultural change next to impossible. It's easier to change systems than cultures, so I'm going after systems first.
Norfolk, VA and Sacramento, CA have had much success by creating better support systems for educators - and not necessarily using technology to do it. Old fashioned elbow grease. Now they're using technology to make this more efficient.
A teacher has to make as many as 400 choices a day in terms of how they deliver curriculum to all their students. Open content is only useful to them in an educational community that looks different from traditional school models.
I'm interested in how peer production and open content will change the markets within education.
Open communities of practice and support, for educators , administrators and students. Open support forums, better decisionmaking for selecting technology, vendors, curriculum, etc
Teachers aren't solely to blame for failures in achievement. They often work in isolation in a culture of failure and apathy. One almost has to be superhuman to succeed in these environments. They rely on their skills and dedication, despite the odds. These environments of learning and community don't exist in most schools, and we need these environments very badly. The dissonance between the changing culture and static systems within schools ends up holding everyone back.
Posted by acarvin at 10:57 PM
John Howkins on the Creative Economy
The Creative Economy brings together the individual, their dreams, their sense of identity, etc, says John Howkins of the Adelphia Charter, and the economic system of transactions, and the rules of what's public and private, etc. This makes it an issue of the north as much as of the south. And it's more than a digital issue - some people talk about the digital divide but I talk about the creative divide. And it's more than about knowledge. For example, my company owns some of the Monty Python films. They're jokes, not knowledge.
Contract law is probably the most important laws we have regarding the creative economy. In my business, we live off contract law, and we rely on copyright when things go wrong.
The function of IP seems to be only justifiable in the sense that they support the creative economy and help people to express themselves and get rewarded for the work they do.
The cultural minister of hong kong talks about Asian interpretations of creativity. The views of the individual's relationship to the ideas they have, are similar to the notions behind free/open source, as well as creative commons. (He says the Chinese ambassador to the UK told him this.)
The Adelphia Charter. Intellectual property shouldn't be seen as an end in itself. We often limit ourselves to discussing IP in a vacuum, without seeing how it affects society, or how it affects the public interest. And the United Nations must be involved, along with the World Bank, the IMF and the regional banks.
The year 1710 was important to copyright because it's when the English parliament passed the first copyright law. A project launched a year ago wants to hold a conference in 2010 that wants to start with a clean slate and ask what type of IP law we'd have if we were starting from scratch.
Posted by acarvin at 10:55 PM
Sisule Musungu on the A2K Movement
Notes from Sisule Musungu, South Centre
I want to focus on the origins of the international a2k movement in Geneva.Wikipedia (at the moment): a draft treaty for a WIPO development agenda to encourage the transfer of technology to developing countries. Hopefully by the end of the session we'll have a better definition.
It's true that the intl movement is centered around the 2004 WIPO proposal (the Geneva declaration) to adopt a development agenda. But its origins predate that event. The proposal is to elaborate a treaty for access to knowledge and technology to ensure knowledge transfer to developing countries. It only focused on publicly funded research, though. And there were other a2k-related proposals relating to things like impact assessment.
http://www.cptech.org/a2k - url for the Geneva declaration
The Drahos proposal: a framework treaty forming principles as opposed to legal rules, since this is a very difficult, complex subject
Access to knowledge should be seen as an organization/advocacy tool.
It should be a political tool - govt to govt relations and institutional discussions such as WIPO
It should be an analytical framework susceptible to scientific inquiry - how do you measure a2k?
Some other potential frameworks: a human rights framework, development framework, a free culture framework and an economic framework.
Posted by acarvin at 10:53 PM
Access to Knowledge as a Demand for Justice
Jack Balkin of Yale kicked of the Access to Knowledge (a2k) conference in New Haven today with a presentation about knowledge access as a demand for justice, development and liberty. Here are some notes from his session. These aren't exact quotes, as the man spoke as fast as Robin Williams on a coke binge.
note: a2k=access to knowledge; IP=intellectual property.
Access to knowledge is a demand of justice It's an access of econ development and human liberty/participation It's about more than intellectual propertyA demand for justice:
Info is not just a thing in itself; it's a set of relationships between persons and groups. Some people control it; some people don't -and law helps regulate it. But not all citizens enjoy the benefits of the info economy.
Access to knowledge includes:
Human knowledge
Information (news, data, etc)
Knowledge embedded goods (drugs, electronic hardware, software, etc)
Tools for the production of knowledge embedded goodsThe goals of a2k is to improve access to all four of these components of the knowledge economy. A2k is a question of distributional justice - within a society and between societies.
What does justice require?
If you can produce these components and spread them equitably, justice demands this.
If you can spur additional innovation in areas that current markets don't serve, justice demands this as well.The right policies for knowledge production can increase the total production of knowledge and distribute it more equitably.
It's not just a tradeoff between equity and efficiency. It's not about how to divide the pie; it's making a bigger pie - and giving people the skills to make their own pies.
It's an issue of econ development, individual participation and human liberty.
The best information policies and knowledge policies lower barriers to access to knowledge. They help distribute knowledge more broadly and more effectively. A more balanced set of IP policies would distribute wealth more fairly and more successfully than a stratified IP policy.
It's a debate over information production being centralized and proprietary, or decentralized and participatory.
It's not about doing just one thing. You could just reform IP or promote literacy - or you could do both.
Using the rhetoric of human rights can be risky, though; some people argue that intellectual property is a human right. (A later speaker , Davinia Ovett, would say that the UN Declaration on Human Rights guarantees protection for *individual* people wanting to make a living by creating original works (art, writings, etc) but it doesn't apply to publishers.) A lot of good info policy comes from freeing up the private sector to innovate.
Is there a human right that the govt spends more money on IT research or network neutrality? Perhaps so, but it may be the wrong rhetoric for arguing it. Instead, it's an issue of justice, development and human participation
No matter how restrictive IP laws are, they may not be the biggest limiter of knowledge sharing. Bad telecom policy or censorship could be contributing to it. Or limited literacy.
A functioning public sphere, free press and govt transparency may be necessary to reduce govt corruption.Universal telecom access, free computers, telecentres, libraries, etc may be some of the most important things a country can do to promote knowledge to a large portion of its population. All of these serve the goals of justice, development and human participation.
More notes from other speakers coming up... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:45 PM
The Great Mosque of Kairouan
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Video montage of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, one of the holiest sites in Islam. Music by Solace, courtesy of |
Posted by acarvin at 1:56 PM
In New Haven for the Yale Access to Knowledge Conference
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Crossing the bridge into New London, Connecticut |
Assuming they have wifi at the conference, I'll try to blog some of the sessions. It should be a lot of fun - at least I hope so, since I'm skipping a Dresden Dolls concert to be here. :-) -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:17 PM
April 20, 2006
Taking Hao Wu's Detention to a National Audience
Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices has an excellent essay in today's Washington Post on the plight of Hao Wu, the blogger and documentary maker who has been detained by the Chinese government for almost two months. Quoting Rebecca:
About a month before his abduction, Hao (his first name) also took up the part-time role of Northeast Asia editor for an international bloggers' network that I co-founded, Global Voices Online ( http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ ). He was excited about introducing the perspectives of Chinese bloggers to an English-speaking audience. He also kept an English-language blog at http://beijingorbust.blogspot.com/ . While his writings were considerably more honest and edgy than those in the China Daily, he was by no means a dissident and often defended his government against Western criticism.Hao turned 34 this week. He personifies a generation of urban Chinese who have flourished thanks to the Communist Party's embrace of market-style capitalism and greater cultural openness. He got his MBA from the University of Michigan and worked for EarthLink before returning to China to pursue his dream of becoming a documentary filmmaker. He and his sister, Nina Wu, who works in finance and lives a comfortable middle-class life in Shanghai, have enjoyed freedoms of expression, travel, lifestyle and career choice that their parents could never have dreamed of. They are proof of how U.S. economic engagement with China has been overwhelmingly good for many Chinese.
Problem is, the Chinese Dream can be shattered quickly if you step over a line that is not clearly drawn -- a line that is kept deliberately vague and that shifts frequently with the political tides. Those who were told by the Chinese media that they have constitutional and legal rights are painfully disabused of such fantasies when they seek to shed light on social and religious issues the state prefers to keep in the dark.
Rebecca, Ethan Zuckerman and other members of the Global Voices community have worked tirelessly to raise awareness of Hao's plight. I only wonder if President Bush mentioned it today while meeting with Chinese leader Hu Jintao. He certainly should have. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 4:54 PM
Creating a Samizdat Bloggers Network Using SMS Text Messaging
Given all that's been written over the last few days about education bloggers being censored unnecessarily by school Internet filters, I'm beginning to wonder if it's time for a group of us to create a samizdat bloggers network.
Samizdat? Gesundheit.
Samizdat (самиздат) is a Russian word that essentially translates to "self publishing." During the Cold War, Russian free speech advocates created a samizdat network to disseminate government -censored information secretly to the public. Using techniques as basic as carbon paper, handwritten notes and crudely copied video tapes, the samizdat network allowed advocates of free speech and democracy to share their ideas under the radar of authorities. Similar techniques have been used in countries like Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, Iran and China to spread knowledge without government interference.
Today, we're finding ourselves in a situation where professional educators are being stifled and stymied by Internet filters installed in such a way that makes it impossible for all of us to use tools like blogging to share best practices and debate controversial issues. No other profession would tolerate having such a blunt instrument quashing professional discourse. Educators shouldn't tolerate it either.
On the one hand, I think there needs to be a broader public debate about the role of schools in controlling knowledge, restricting access for both students and teachers. As Will Richardson writes,
It may mean spending less time blogging and more time writing for print beyond the usual list of publications where the ideas may find a different audience. And it may mean being subversive. But I think it's crucial that we think hard about ways of bringing these ideas to the people who exert the most control over what happens in our classrooms, and that's not always the people inside the school building.
These types of public debates rarely begin overnight. It will take a lot of hard work: writing op-eds, inspiring journalists to cover the story, generating debate at real-world gatherings of educators, perhaps even complaining to our representatives in Congress. In the mean time, too many educators are stuck without access to important online materials - which brings me back to the idea of creating a blogger samizdat network.
The first step would be to create a brand new website that aggregates a group of education blogs that are being censored. For example, you could take the RSS feed of Miguel Guhlin's blog, my site, Will Richardson's, etc, and use a free RSS digest tool like Feeddigest to display them on another website. Feeddigest blends the RSS feeds together as if they were all being produced by the same blog, then lets you post them by adding a javascript to a website. Take a look at my site WSISBlogs.org and you'll see Feeddigest in action, displaying content from over two dozen blogs from around the world.
Ideally, what you would want to do is create a new website and buy a new domain name for it, so it would be unfamiliar to a school's Web filter. This wouldn't solve the Mysp@ce dilemma, though, in which filters block websites based on keywords on a site. That might take a bit of geekery to program a word scrubber that examines the RSS feeds, replaces blocked words with innocuous versions of them, then generates a new RSS feed that goes into the digest. But that's beyond my personal skill set. As long as a website is being blocked at the URL level rather than a keyword level, setting up a new website with a digest of blogs would work - for a little while, at least.
At some point, though, the technocrats who manage the web filter might end up catching on to the new website and start blocking it. First, you'd have to move the website again, with a new IP address and a new domain name. You'd then need a system in place that could notify supporters of the website that the site had moved elsewhere. Normally, an email list could serve this purpose, but some districts block access to list management tools like Yahoogroups, making it difficult for educators to receive emails from such a list.
This is where it gets interesting. Rather than use email to receive notifications of the site moving elsewhere, I'd use mobile phone text messaging instead. The vast majority of mobile phones today allow users to send and receive SMS text messages - short bursts of information that are transmitted over the phone network. I've been thinking a lot about SMS ever since the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, when Taran Rampersad and others began experimenting with a relay system that would allow SMS messages to be sent to groups of first-responders involved in recovery efforts.
How does SMS fit into blogs and censorship? Schools may filter websites and email but as far as I know they haven't started filtering text messages. And as it turns out, it's not very difficult to set up your own SMS relay network that would distribute text messages to large groups of people. Last night, I got it to work using two free tools: Google Groups and TeleFlip.
Google Groups is one of the most popular email list hosting sites. Countless people use it to create their own discussion groups in which people subscribe their email address, sending and receiving messages to all other subscribers. Typically, subscribers receive messages the old-fashioned way - via email. But what's stopping us from using it to send messages to our mobile phones instead?
I'm not talking about mobile phones that have email capabilities. I'm taking about SMS. This is where TeleFlip comes in. TeleFlip is a cool service that lets you send emails to someone's phone via SMS using a very simple protocol. (It only works in the United States and Canada, though.) For example, let's say your mobile phone number is 555-888-2222. Teleflip acts as an email-to-SMS gateway so anyone can email you and have it appear as a text message on your phone. All you have to do is take the phone number and have that serve as the name of the email address, with teleflip.com as the domain name. So in the case of the telephone number 555-888-2222, you would send a short email to 5558882222 @ teleflip . com, and Teleflip will route your email to that phone's SMS account. Give it a try with your own mobile phone and see if it works. I was pleasantly surprised how fast it works. It probably will for you, too - though don't send anything that looks like spam because they're very sensitive about that sort of thing.
With tools like Teleflip, any mobile phone with SMS text messaging can receive short emails. In fact, it's quite possible your phone already lets you send and receive emails through SMS, even without Teleflip: for example, Cingular Wireless customers can get emails if they're sent to your phone number plus the domain "mmode.com." So if 555-888-2222 were a Cingular phone, you could send email to it by posting to 15558882222@mmode.com - just don't forget the number 1 at the beginning. Verizon, T-Mobile and other carriers have similar services. With Teleflip, though, you don't need to know which service a person subscribes to; as long as you've got their phone number, you can send an email to them as SMS.
So let's say you wanted to set up that samizdat bloggers network. First, you'd create a new group on Google Groups. Then you would invite people to subscribe to it. Users could either send you their phone numbers and you could subscribe them manually, using the Teleflip version of their phone numbers as their subscription address. Or they could go to the group's homepage and subscribe themselves. Either way, they would then get a confirmation message from Google Groups via SMS. By replying to that SMS, your subscription is then confirmed.
At this point, you'll now have an email list where the subscribers are actually mobile phones with SMS. As manager of the samizdate network, if it becomes necessary to move the blogs to a new URL, all you have to do is notify everyone by emailing the new URL to the Google Group. The message would then be sent as an SMS to all of your subscribers, bypassing the school's email system. That way, they would all get the warning that the website was moving to a new URL, without having the URL getting sent out through the school's email network.
Of course, this simple technique could be used in all sorts of other circumstances. It's sort of a crude version of the SMS relay network that Taran Rampersad and other bloggers talked about. So a group of first-responders, protesters, volunteers, etc, going into a situation where email access is impossible, a Google/Teleflip SMS relay might make a lot of sense - that is, unless Teleflip decides it's taking up too much of their bandwidth and shuts everyone down. Thankfully, though, there are lots of open source SMS tools being created, some of which might do exactly the same sort of thing, installable on your own server.
So perhaps with a little help from SMS and RSS digest tools, educators united in solidarność might be able to achieve their own form of online glasnost. Now wouldn't that be revolutionary? Da. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:59 PM
Student Free Speech Rights on the Internet and the Ghosts of Columbine
Seven years ago today, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado. On the first anniversary of the attack, I published an essay called Student Free Speech Rights on the Internet and the Ghosts of Columbine. The essay examines judicial precedent on student free speech, both offline and offline, and the balance schools must strike between appropriate action and restraint. The essay was written just as blogging was beginning to take off, before millions of students started to become online publishers. Here's a quick taste from the intro:
In the wake of the Columbine anniversary, schools administrators continue to be hypersensitive to the activities of students in cyberspace. While many schools have approached their awareness of student-generated online content as part of a greater strategy to assess their students' emotional states, others have apparently actualized their fears by cracking down on less-than-threatening student online activities that occur outside the classroom. In the year that has lapsed since the massacre, the American Civil Liberties Union has received hundreds of complaints from students who were summarily punished for producing Web site content from home that was deemed by school administrators as inappropriate or worrisome.In Brimfield, Ohio, for example, 11 students were suspended soon after the Columbine massacre for posting insensitive comments to their Goth-themed Web site. The students, who identified with the counter-culture Goth style of wearing black clothes and listening to groups like Marilyn Manson, made sarcastic online comments such as the following: "I wonder how long it'll be before we're not allowed to wear our trenchcoats anymore. You know those screwed up kids in Colorado were wearing them, so that means I will also kill someone, and so will all my friends." In light of Columbine, the school superintendent labeled the students' comments as "obscene" and immediately suspended them from school. In this case, as in the hundreds of others that have been reported across the country, the school district in question has been surprised to find itself in constitutional hot water, for the American judicial system is increasingly siding with young people when it comes students' right of expression on the Internet.
It's a long essay, but worth another look. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:18 PM
April 19, 2006
Professional Discourse? What's That?
My post yesterday about school districts blocking access to edtech blogs struck a chord with Texas librarian Lisa Rose of B.F. Terry High School. Her district, Lamar CISD, is one of the districts filtering out the edtech blogs. She received a copy of the blog entry via email, since she's unable to access it from school. Lisa writes:
I wish we could have access to any blog sites...every one I try to access at school is blocked by our filter, citing web page hosting as the reason, among other things. You mention professional discourse... what's that? I'm surprised I'm allowed to get email from the listservs. I practically have to beg the technology dept. to open sites for me and most of the time they won't. We are at the mercy of people who sometimes aren't educators and our opinions as to what is educational counts for nothing. The noneducator technology person looks at the blocked website and denies access based on their knowledge of what we need in the classroom or library. It seems a little backward to me but I'm just a librarian and have no say in the matter.When giving me permission to post her message, Lisa said I could post it using her real name, since "obviously no one at school could access it anyway," as my blog is being blocked along with the others. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:23 AM
April 18, 2006
Boston Marathon 2006
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Boston Marathon winner Robert Cheruiyot, as seen in my video montage of yesterday's race. The video features footage of the wheelchair race, the frontrunners and the crowd celebrations. |
Posted by acarvin at 3:35 PM
The Word that Will Get Your Blog Censored by Texas Schools Districts
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The word that will get your blog banned in certain school districts, displayed as an image so that the filters won't be able to read it. |
Wes writes:
Are we living in the United States here, or totalitarian China? This is something we should be really concerned about as educators and citizens. I have titled this blog post "censored for relevance" because that is what I think is taking place here. Should educators be talking about social networking sites like MySp@ce? Of course. They should be reading blogs about MySp@ce, blogging themselves about MySp@ce, and even visiting MySp@ce. I think educators (even principals) should even create and maintain their own MySp@ce websites. I have started. [Me too, Wes.] Why?Simply put, because as educators we should strive to remain relevant to students and engaged in their development of literacy skills. Social networking websites are going to continue to grow FAST in the months and years to come. We need to help students make better decisions about the information they share about themselves online, in MySpace and elswhere. In some cases, it is hard to speak intelligently about something if you have little personal experience about it yourself. I am not talking about illegal drug use here-- I am talking about blogging and use of social networking sites. And blogging is not a short term trend. This is a world-changing phenomenon.
As Miguel notes on his blog, important educational blogs like Wesley's site and the techLEARNING blog are getting censored arbitrarily because they are trying to raise awareness about sites like MySp@ce, encouraging critical examinations by educators and a greater emphasis on media literacy. To engage in a constructive debate about sites like this, you have to mention them. And preferably link to them. And these acts are getting bloggers banned by schools.
While I strongly am against any form of censorship, I am thoroughly disgusted by school districts that allow their filters to prevent educators from engaging in professional discourse. I have lost track of the number of times that I've posted a message to my WWWEDU discussion list and received a bunch of autoreplies from school districts saying that teachers there won't be reading my post because they contain "inappropriate content." Usually, these posts have to do with cases of school filtering censorship, controversial sites like MySp@ce or other media literacy-related challenges faced by the modern educator. The filtering software used to supposedly protect children is preventing educators from taking an active role in understanding and discussing the complexities of Internet use in the classroom. Schools may claim "in loco parentis" when describing filters used to protect children. But what are they trying to protect teachers from? Being better users of technology? Being responsible, informed educators?
Miguel, meanwhile, has issued a call to arms against these practices. He's asking educational bloggers to deliberately put the word MySp@ce.com in their blog (with the correct spelling) so that more blogs will be blocked arbitrarily, thus raising the stakes against the school districts that have adopted these foolish filtering practices. Miguel writes:
I encourage you to ask EVERY one you know to put the word "MySp@ce.com" on EVERY web site of importance, from educational sites to mapping sites to critical resources teachers and administrators use. I hope that by doing so, the outcry against banning words--not just URLs--will be so great as to cause education leaders to reconsider their decision to censor words, not URLs. It is important that you take up the call and spread it as widely as possible. I am asking for your help. With this post, my blog will be banned from some Texas school districts. When I'm done editing my own web pages, none of the resources I have spent years collecting will be available to the thousands of educators who have used them in the past.I urge you to advocate this in every blog posting and web page you create. Add the word "MySp@ce" and/or "MySp@ce.com" to it. Get yourselves "censored" for it is better to be censored than to support authoritarian approaches to education in schools today.
You are powerful beyond measure. Subversion is no longer sufficient, if it ever was...we must tell the truth. We are Americans, and we must stand up against this, not angrily but in such a way that those who seek to censor come to understand the error of their ways.
I'm very happy to see Miguel, Wes and others standing up against inane filtering practices. I also support a campaign by educational bloggers to raise awareness for educators unfamiliar with this controversy. The question I have, though, is how do you spread a campaign when the very act of describing the campaign gets you censored? For example, any of the affected teachers trying to access Miguel's blog would be blocked. Undoubtedly, there are many other schools in the US using similar filtering parameters; educators there would also be unable to learn about the campaign, let alone participate. So that's why I've decided to spell the word in question with an "@" in it so there's a greater chance educators working behind the virtual iron curtain of filtering software will at least be aware of what's going on. That is, assuming they can access my site at all, since I've used the M-word on previous posts.
The whole thing reminds me of Those We Don't Speak Of, the mysterious creatures in M. Night Shyamalan's film, The Village. The parents of the village were so paranoid about their children coming to harm's way that they wouldn't even say the name of the creatures that were supposedly lurking in the local forest. We seem to have reached that point in education - where politicians and administrators are so paranoid that educators can't even speak the names of things that may lurk in the virtual forest, lest their students be corrupted by mere mention of them.
Miguel concludes:
It is not enough for us to sugarcoat or protect children, we must confront inappropriateness wherever we find it, serving as an example of what it means to be "appropriate" in the world.... This is our civic space, my space, your space, our space. We must, as Margot Stern Strom, president and executive director of Facing History and Ourselves, find ways to "engage adolescents in meaningful ways of how we learn to live together."
The Internet is indeed our civic space - my space, your space. Our space. How can educators educate our children to use the Internet as responsible 21st century citizens when we can't even speak about the things that might affect them? -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:56 PM
April 17, 2006
The Boston Marathon
Spent a wonderful afternoon cheering on more than 11,000 athletes participating in the 2006 Boston Marathon. I wore out the batteries on two digital cameras, taking nearly 400 photos and tons of video. Please check out my marathon photos on Flickr; I'll try to post some video some time this week. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:31 PM
Did a Randomly Generated Blogger.com Question Add to the Hype Around Kevin Underwood?
The blogosphere is abuzz with the story of Kevin Underwood, the confessed killer of Jamie Rose Bolin. Much has been made of the fact that his blog's profile included a question and answer about cannibalism: " If you were a cannibal, what would you wear to dinner? The skin of last night's main course." (I even mentioned it yesterday on my blog.) Authorities have pointed to this quote as a piece of the criminal puzzle.
Today, though, the Wikipedia entry about Underwood mentioned that this question was actually randomly generated by Blogger when Underwood filled out his profile. I did a quick search to see if this was the case; lo and behold, many other bloggers have the same question on their profile, including Cerce, Kajun Beth and Phil, just to name a few. None of them, as far as I can tell, are indeed cannibals. Instead, they seem to be students, construction workers, stay-at-home mothers and other occupations.
A quick search of Google News shows more than 250 stories quoting this question in their stories about Underwood. So for all of you Blogger users who may ever get covered in the media for one reason or another, I'd suggest you check out your blogger profile and see what your random question is.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:45 PM
April 16, 2006
Another Murder, Another Blogger: How Will the Media React?
Ever since I woke up this morning, CNN has been recounting the grisly details behind the murder of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin of Purcell, Oklahoma. Her body was found in the apartment of 26-year-old Kevin Underwood, who resided in her apartment complex. When police came by his apartment, he quickly confessed. "At that time Mr. Underwood stated 'go ahead and arrest me. She is in there. I chopped her up,"' stated a police affidavit.
Watching the news, I immediately began to wonder if Underwood had a blog. Just last summer, murder suspect Joseph Duncan made headlines because he maintained a blog. After a minute or so of Googling, I soon found Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle K, a blog believed to have been published by Underwood since 2002.
At first blush, it is a typical personal blog, with links to other blogs ranging from John Aravosis' AMERICABlog to McSweeneys, as well as summaries of news stories from around the world. Digging a bit deeper, things get a lot darker. On the blog's profile page, Kevin describes himself as "Single, bored, and lonely, but other than that, pretty happy." He then offers a chilling quote:
If you were a cannibal, what would you wear to dinner? The skin of last night's main course.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend Easter morning reading the blog of an alleged murderer, but it was hard not to get sucked into this terribly sad story. The blog paints portrait of a very lonely person. In one lengthy post from last September, he recounts his struggle with depression and social phobia, in the context of his secret love for a woman he worked with. She and her boyfriend were in a horrible car accident; he died, while she was hospitalized.
I went to Tim's funeral, and I also went to see Genie in the hospital every day. She did make it through, but she was in the hospital until December 18, the day before my birthday. I went and saw her every day, and I would sit there for hours. Even the days she was unconscious, or so doped up on morphine she barely even knew who she was. Even when she was conscious, she'd still be so doped up I had to help her eat. Most days I was the only visitor she had, her family hardly ever even came to see her. Partly because it was about an hour's drive to even get to the hospital she was at. But I drove it every day, and sat with her every day.I felt like a horrible person. Because in the back of my mind, a voice kept telling me, "Hey, she's single now, just give her a couple of months to get over the loss of Tim, and then make your move." I'd tell that voice to shut up, and stop thinking things like that, but it kept coming back.
In the end, the woman recovered and began dating another coworker, throwing Kevin into further bouts of depression.
[O]ver the last year or so I find myself becoming more and more detached from the world. I almost never leave the apartment except to go to work or my parents' house, and when I do leave the apartment, I walk around like a zombie, with a blank expression on my face, not looking at anything or anyone. In fact, the last couple of months, I've noticed that my eyesight is going, probably because my eyes are getting weak. Whenever I'm out of the house, I never focus on anything, I stare blankly ahead, operating on a sort of fuzzy peripheral vision. The only things I ever really focus on and look at are books or computer screens for hours on end, which strains my eyes further. When I'm not safe in my apartment, I am silent and expressionless, looking at nothing. I have no personality. If someone says hi to me, I either ignore them, or grunt out a small "hi," or "ok," if they ask me how I'm doing. It gets worse every day, I withdraw farther and farther into myself with each passing week.My spirit has been totally crushed. Anyone who looks into my eyes can see this.
I wish I could be like I used to be. I wish I could be like Melissa.
I wish I could be human.
It is probably only a matter of time before the media begins talking about Kevin Underwood as the Murderer-Blogger, rather than just a murderer. The fact that it's possible for anyone with Internet access to delve into an accused killer's mind will no doubt serve as fodder for the Nancy Graces and Larry Kings of the world. I'm concerned, though, that these portrayals will link his blogging habits and obsessive Internet use with his horrific crime, somehow suggesting that blogging too much can drive any young person to pyschopathic behavior. While it's true that previous killers such as Eric Harris and Jeff Weise have been active in online publishing, this doesn't mean that other killers weren't writing things down before the birth of Web 2.0. From Westley Allan Dodd to David Berkowitz to the Unabomber, killers have kept meticulous records of their thoughts, fantasies and actions, yet no one ever makes the claim that keeping a journal somehow increases the likelihood of being a psychopath.
Unfortunately, there's a media fascination with all things Internet related. If a sexual predator hurts a child, it's local news, but if they meet each other on MySpace, it's national news. Simply adding the Internet to the criminal equation sensationalizes it even further, sometimes steering the blame to the technology rather than the criminal.
I've got to wonder, though, if blogs have ever stopped anyone from committing a horrific crime. Go back and read Kevin Underwood's blog, and it's clear that there were times when he was reaching out for help. In the case of the blog entry I quoted above, only a couple people replied initially, offering sincere, but limited emotional support. I wonder if his social network had been stronger, both online and offline, if he could have gotten the support and treatment he needed - and maybe this terrible tragedy could have been avoided. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:03 PM
April 14, 2006
Petition to Free Hao Wu
Update: Global Voices contributing editor Hao Wu is still being detained by the Chinese government. As I reported last month, he was working on a documentary about underground church groups in China when he was picked up by the authorities in February. There's now a petition demanding his immediate release. Please sign the petition and show your support. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:53 PM
Andy's Yummy Highlands Charoset
Going to two, three or even four Passover Seders this week and running out of gift ideas? Have I got a charoset recipe for you, then.
Charoset is a crunchy, somewhat alcoholic, apple mush, served with matzah and horseradish on Passover. I've added a new ingredient to the mix: Drambuie. Drambuie is a Scottish liqueur of whiskey, honey, and lots of mysterious spices. I first made this recipe while at the University of Edinburgh in 1991, and the several Scottish Jews who tried it gave it a big thumbs up.
Traditionally, charoset is supposed to represent the mortar that was used by the Israelites in Egypt to make the bricks for pharoah. Fortunately for us, charoset is much tastier than brick, though I wouldn't recommend it for drywalling...
Highlands Charoset Ingredients:
Five medium red apples
One medium yellow apple
3/4 cup walnuts or pecan pieces
cinnamon
sugar
kosher red wine
Drambuie
Begin by chopping or grating the apples in a large bowl. Some folks prefer to peel the apples, but I like them unpeeled (adds color to the final product). Incorporate the chopped nuts and half a cup of the red wine. Then mix in a teaspoon of cinnamon and a couple of teaspoons of sugar, to taste. Feel free to add more red wine. For that added bonus, toss in a shot of Drambuie. Then, add more red wine. You get the picture.
You can leave out the Drambuie, but then it's no longer Highlands Charoset...
Best when refrigerated and served the next day. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 5:03 PM
April 11, 2006
7,500 Flickr Photos and Counting
Yesterday I managed to borrow someone's Canon USB cable so I could upload to Flickr all the pics I took at the Monterey Bay Aquarium over the weekend. When I was done, I realized I'd surpassed 7,500 photos on my Flickr account. Man, that's a lot of pictures. My initial reaction was that my switch to digital photography three years ago had increased my output. Come to think of it, though, I often took 700 or more photos per trip with my old 35mm camera, which is still typical today. I guess the difference is that before, I couldn't edit my photos as I went, so while the number of photos per trip stayed stable, the selectivity of photos increased. Whether that means the quality of photos increased, though, remains to be seen, especially since digital frees you from the tyranny of 36 photos per roll, allowing you to take more risks and worry less about how much film you have left.
Anyway, here are a few picks from the Monterey Bay Aquarium:
Posted by acarvin at 1:39 PM
April 10, 2006
Podcast of My CISOA Presentation
Here's the podcast of my presentation at the CISOA conference this morning. It's about an hour long, and accompanies this Powerpoint presentation. It's somewhat similar to the speech I gave at the University of Missouri last month, but with a bit less focus on Wikipedia and more on telecentres and the digital divide. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:24 PM
Getting a College Degree and the Impact of a Seven-Month Hiatus
Cliff Adelman of the US Department of Education is giving a presentation at CISOA right now. He just threw out a fascinating statistic: the longer you wait to enroll in college after completing high school, the less likely you are to complete a college degree. Specifically, those people who wait a mere seven months to enter college are 25% less likely to complete their degree. That's less than summer vacation and one semester combined. So taking time off to work or do something else can adversely affect one's college graduation. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:11 PM
Speaking at the CISOA Conference Today
I'm going to be delivering the morning keynote at the CISOA conference in Monterey, California. You can preview it by checking out my Powerpoint presentation. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:46 AM
April 9, 2006
Earthquake Warning
We don't have signs like this in Boston.
Posted by acarvin at 6:04 PM
Carmel Brunch; the Loss of a "Son"
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Carmel street scene |
After breakfast I called for a taxi to take me to Carmel, just a few miles west of the hotel. The taxi driver was listening to the Prairie Home Companion. Garrison Keillor was singing a song about a teacher and something about "laptop blogging" - or at least that's what it sounded like he said.
The taxi dropped me of in the heart of Carmel, along Ocean Avenue, about a half mile from the Pacific. A classic art colony town, Carmel was lined with galleries and antique shops, most of which were open - a surprise for a Sunday morning. One gallery had a great collection of paintings and sculptures by Dr. Seuss, including a set of mounted "hunting trophies" featuring the smiling heads of whimsical Seuss creatures.
I strolled west, heading downhill to the Pacific. Ocean Ave was lined with numerous pine trees, their scent wafting through the morning air. In some ways I felt like I was exploring a row of shops at a Renaissance Fair, minus the knaves and wenches. Getting further away from the shops, the street sloped downhill more sharply, making me thankful that the sidewalk wasn't slick yet from the approaching rain. A middle-aged man in a jogging suit passed me with a playful yellow lab, which paused for a minute to greet me a good morning.
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Carmel's beach, at the far end of Ocean Ave |
Once I realized that the sand was scuffing the hell out of my shoes, I began making my way back uphill, meandering block by block to explore the various shops tucked away just off the main drag. There seemed to be no shortage of Asian-themed galleries. One sported a fine collection of Indonesian and Papuan art, as well as countless Lao Buddha statues. Another shop featured enormous wooden doors that had been imported from Rajasthan, with a smattering of Dogon ladders from Mali, perhaps for a bit of geographic diversity. Several stores offered headless statues instantly recognizable as Khmer, reminding me of the National Geographic Explorer film about Cambodia's losing battle against antiquities smugglers. I wondered if these pieces had been imported on the up-and-up.
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The Tuck Box, Carmel |
The Tuck Box menu offered a light lunch selection, including omelettes, salads and a few sandwiches. I ordered an omelette and iced tea, passing the time by reading my latest Patrick O'Brian book and listening to the Dresden Dolls on my iPod. The omelette was excellent, but the accompanying scones were a joy to behold. Unlike any scones I'd previously tasted, they were baked in a cast iron skillet, giving them a texture not unlike New England corn bread.
Finishing brunch, I decided to call for another taxi and return to the hotel. The light drizzle outside had matured into a steady rain. While I waited for the taxi, I wandered into a home decorating shop a couple doors beyond the Tuck Box. A man working behind the counter smiled politely.
"Hello there," he said, struggling to break a smile.
"Hi, how are you?" I replied casually.
"We just lost our son," the man answered.
"My God, I'm so sorry," I said, otherwise at a loss for words.
"It's okay... I'm sure it'll be back in a few days."
At this point I can only imagine the expression on my face, as I was thoroughly confused. It took me a moment to realize that the son he had lost was actually the sun - as in, "We had just lost our sun."
I felt like an idiot. That taxi couldn't have arrived at a better time.
Posted by acarvin at 5:09 PM
At Least It's Not A Vlog...
You know that video blogging has hit the big-time (not to mention podcasting) when it gets mentioned in a Sunday comic strip:
(And for those of you who are wondering, yes, I have permission - UClick lets you share their work for noncommercial purposes.)
Posted by acarvin at 12:40 PM
Iceland's Golden Circle
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Video montage of some of Iceland's natural wonders, including Geysir and the Gulfoss waterfall. Music by Barry Phillips, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license. tag: videobloggingweek2006 |
Posted by acarvin at 10:58 AM
April 8, 2006
Monterey GrooveCast: Airport Hell, Aquarium Fun
Here's a five-minute podcast after a very long cross-country trip to Monterey, California. Highlights include a period of aural misery at the Salt Lake City Airport; exploring Cannary Row; and shooting tons of video at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Music by Drop Trio, courtesy of Magnatune Records, used in accordance with the Creative Commons license. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:03 PM
The Stockholm Archipelago
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Video montage of the beautiful Stockholm Archipelago, as Susanne and I travel on the old steam ferry Storskär. Music by Barry Phillips, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license. tag: videobloggingweek2006 |
Posted by acarvin at 4:52 AM
April 7, 2006
Spot Jill Carroll!
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I went to Boston's Logan Airport last Sunday for former Iraq hostage Jill Carroll's return to the US. I expected a media circus; instead I got a game show. Welcome home, Jill. Music courtesy of Kevin MacLeod and Super Password. |
Posted by acarvin at 7:30 AM
April 6, 2006
Tunisia Trek: The Ruins of Douiret
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Video montage of the ruined Berber village of Douiret, in southern Tunisia. Music by Solace, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license. tag: videobloggingweek2006 |
Posted by acarvin at 9:00 AM
April 5, 2006
Talking About My New Book at the Harvard Berkman Center
On Thursday, April 6, I'm going to be giving a preview of my new book, "From the Ground Up: Evolution of the Telecentre Movement," at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Every Thursday, a group of local bloggers get together to discuss Internet issues, and I'll be talking about the book for this week's meeting.
The book, edited by me and Mark Surman of Telecentre.org, explores the diversity of public computing initiatives around the world, examining the common visions and goals that unite them. It's intended to inspire technology activists to realize that they're part of a worldwide movement to bridge the digital divide, rather than working in isolation. The book will be distributed this spring by IDRC in Canada, but for now you can review a very large PDF version (It's around 10 megabytes - a necessary evil given the hundreds of photographs in the book.)
If you happen to be in the Boston area, please feel free to join us Thursday evening at Berkman. It'll take place at 7 PM at Baker House, 1587 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, north of Harvard Square. Hope to see some of you there!
Here are some screen shots of the book:
The book cover
Opening to the Hungary chapter
Opening to the USA chapter
Photo spread from the Ghana chapter
Page from the Chile chapter
Posted by acarvin at 2:15 PM
Tallinn in Winter
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Video montage of a snowy day in Tallinn, Estonia, shot by me in Novembe 2004. Music by Dufay Collective, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license. Tag: videobloggingweek2006 |
Posted by acarvin at 9:16 AM
April 4, 2006
Hong Kong Prayers
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Video montage of the Man Mo and Pak Sing temples in Hong Kong, shot by me in May 2004. Music by Tilopa, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license. Tag: videobloggingweek2006 |
Posted by acarvin at 9:05 AM
April 3, 2006
Muscat Fish Market
It's that time of year again; Video Blogging Week 2006 runs all this week, April 3-9. The goal of this online festival is to get video bloggers from all over the world to post videos for seven days in a row. For me, I've decided to do a travel theme, since I never seem to run out of footage from all of my trips over the last few years. (I may throw in a couple of extra vlogs, far removed from the wanderlust theme, just for fun as well.) I also plan to experiment with soundtracks supplied by the amazing music label Magnatune.com, which generously makes their entire catalogue available to content producers on a noncommercial-attribute-sharealike Creative Commons license.
To kick off the week, I'm posting a video I shot at a fish market in Muscat, Oman. I visited Oman in October 2003 and did some of my earliest multimedia blogging there. I was also invited to go to Oman for a conference that started yesterday, but wasn't able to make it, so the video helps me live vicariously through the experience.
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Video of a Muscat fish market, Muscat, Oman. Music by Solace, courtesy of Magnatune.com, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license. tag: videobloggingweek2006 |
Posted by acarvin at 8:43 AM