Good prototype!

Combined with a mobile keyboard, bracket for the monitor, electronic pen and so on, I think something like this will be a standard student gadged the coming years.

http://www.slashgear.com/notion-ink-tegra-android-smartpad-uses-pixel-qi-display-1866308/

Shirky writes about how to save local bookstores

DOJ as OPEC for ink:-)))

"All of which is to say that trying to save local bookstores from otherwise predictably fatal competition by turning some customers into members, patrons, or donors is an observably crazy idea. However, if the sober-minded alternative is waiting for the Justice Department to anoint the American Booksellers Association as a kind of OPEC for ink, even crazy ideas may be worth a try."

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/11/local-bookstores-social-hubs-and-mutualization/

Open source science the future

Now the genious is out of the bottle in scientific discovery, and this article gives an good introduction to something that is going on. Here is an excerpt:

"Our project was designed so that researchers willing to conduct open research would be protected from this form of theft by their ability to maintain an openly available paper trail from the time they submit their project proposal until the time they publish their final report," Priyan Weerappuli, executive director of The Open Source Science Project, told Linux Insider. "It's worth noting that while the risk of intellectual theft is real, the ability for researchers to work off of one another is an invaluable tool for furthering any given field of study. We seek to ensure is that researchers are properly credited for any such property they produce."

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Open-Source-Science-A-Revolution-From-Within-68701.html?wlc=1258720450

IMPORTANT: http://www.copyright-watch.org/

This is a significant and important effort done by Electronic Frontier Foundation:

"Balanced and well-calibrated copyright laws are extremely important in our global information society. The smallest shift in the legal balance between the rights of copyright owners and users of copyrighted knowledge can destroy or enable business models, criminalize or liberate everyday behaviour, and transform or eradicate new technology. A law that is passed in one nation can quickly be taken up by others, through bilateral trade agreements, regional policy initiatives or international treaties. We all need to keep watch."

http://www.copyright-watch.org/home

I also heartly recommend "Intellectual Property Watch" (a lot of free articles)

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/

and Knowledge Ecology International (the people that revealed the ACTA secret treaty!)

http://www.keionline.org/

Three organizations with a bunch of smart people!

ACTA

Goog blog post in Washington Post:

"How do you spin a situation in which the government -- that is, our hired employees -- won't specify the goals of a negotiation done in our name and concerning our rights?

"Absurd" is the right word for this."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2009/11/acta.html

Department of Defence with strong open source guidelines

It is significant when the DoD, with a budget almost 4 times the Norwegian states total budget for 2008 issues such strong recommandations for open source.

http://blogs.ingres.com/debwoods/

www.whitehouse.gov are also going open source by the way, and it has now become mainstream business practice to consider open source. Things are happening.

Open standards in Learning management systems are going forward

"Learning Application Interoperability Standards Get Vendor Boost"

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2009/11/09/learning-application-interoperability-standards-get-vendor-boost.aspx

Pixel qi in E-readers From Aztak, Cool-er?

Interesting initiatives on wireless ebook readers.

"Such a dual-purpose screen will be available by year's end from Pixel Qi with whom Aztak said it has "held extensive in-person discussions," according to Barry."

http://www.twice.com/article/366162-Wireless_E_readers_Due_From_Aztak_Cool_er.php

Perhaps this screen technology will make the smartphones to serious reading devices too?

New book: The Laws of Disruption

http://www.amazon.com/Laws-Disruption-Harnessing-Business-Digital/dp/0465018645/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257194340&sr=8-1

Patens don't help drug development for poor countries

Investments in Pharmaceuticals Before and After TRIPS by Margaret Kyle, Anita McGahan - #15468 (HE ITI PR)

Abstract:

We examine the relationship between patent protection for pharmaceuticals and investment in development of new drugs. Patent protection has increased around the world as a consequence of the TRIPS Agreement, which specifies minimum levels of intellectual property protection for members of the World Trade Organization. It is generally argued that patents are critical for pharmaceutical research efforts, and so greater patent protection in developing and least-developed countries might result in greater effort by pharmaceutical firms to develop drugs that are especially needed in those countries. Since patents also have the potential to reduce access to treatments through higher prices, it is imperative to assess whether the benefits of increased incentives have materialized in research on diseases that particularly affect the poor. We find that patent protection is associated with increases in research and development (R and D) effort when adopted in high income countries. However, the introduction of patents in developing countries has not been followed by greater investment. Particularly for diseases that primarily affect the poorest countries, our results suggest that alternative mechanisms for inducing R and D may be more appropriate than patents.

http://papers.nber.org/papers/W15468

Access to medicine in developing countries

Silke Trommer, researcher for the Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research at the University of Helsinski, Finland, in a separate panel about access to medicines in developing and least-developing countries warned against provisions in free trade agreements.

In several agreements, she said, the scope of patent protection is extended by patenting the new use of an old product, for example, in what is called evergreening of existing patents.

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/10/11/wto-forum-bypassing-international-agreements-may-hamper-medicines-access/

Open Source in Biology

Interesting development here:

This kind of collaborative is needed, Friend contends, because biologists are starting to see how vast networks of genes get perturbed in complex diseases like cancer, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. All of this data is too complex for any individual, or team of scientists—even at a place as wealthy as Merck—to fully grasp.

http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/10/06/sage-bionetworks-biologys-open-source-spark-snags-major-donation-from-quintiles/

Ubuntu partnering with Intel and IBM

on moblin 2.1 and a special OS with Lotus for Africa.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10359700-92.html

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/172531/intel_ports_linux_netbook_os_to_desktops.html

Interesting statistics

The record companies or film industry SAY they can't survive in a free internet, but there is someone who can that, and that is...

http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html

Harvard about what we need to know about ICT for development.

Canada's International Development Research Center and Harvard's Berkman Center are convening a conversation today and tomorrow at Harvard on the future of information and communication technology and development (ICT4D).

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/09/24/harvard-forum-what-do-we-need-to-know/

New Irex e-readers coming

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6698624.html

Google Sidewiki

Google Sidewiki is doing the same thing that has been available in Plos journals for a while, the possibility to annotate parts or the whole webpage.

I think it can be very useful.

www.google.com/sidewiki

Zotero 2.07.1 is out, Dataverse Network 2.0 is out

www.zotero.org www.thedata.org

The case for books. Robert Darnton

Darnton has a pretty good case for books IMHO, here is som excerpt from PublicAffairsbooks

This is a book about books, an unashamed apology for the printed word, past, present, and future. It is also an argument about the place of books in the digital environment that has now become a fundamental fact of life for millions of human beings. Far from deploring electronic modes of communication, I want to explore the possibilities of aligning them with the power that Johannes Gutenberg unleashed more than five centuries ago. What common ground exists between old books and e-books? What mutual advantages link libraries with the Internet? Those questions may sound empty in the abstract, but they take concrete form in decisions made every day by players in the communication industry—webmasters, computer engineers, financiers, lawyers, publishers, librarians, and a great many ordinary readers.

Whatever the future may be, it will be digital. The present is a time of transition, when printed and digital modes of communication coexist and new technology soon becomes obsolete. Already we are witnessing the disappearance of familiar objects: the typewriter, now consigned to antique shops; the postcard, a curiosity; the handwritten letter, beyond the capacity of most young people, who cannot write in cursive script; the daily newspaper, extinct in many cities; the local bookshop, replaced by chains, which themselves are threatened by Internet distributors like Amazon. And the library? It can look like the most archaic institution of all. Yet its past bodes well for its future, because libraries were never warehouses of books. They have always been and always will be centers of learning. Their central position in the world of learning makes them ideally suited to mediate between the printed and the digital modes of communication. Books, too, can accommodate both modes. Whether printed on paper or stored in servers, they embody knowledge, and their authority derives from a great deal more than the technology that went into them.

HARDCOVER
ISBN 978-1586488260
Pub date: 10/27/09
Price: $23.95/30.50 Canada
5 1/2 x 8 1/4
240 pages
Carton Quantity: 40
History, Literature
Selling Territory: W
Rights:

Tips to "developed countries" for copyright reforms

Very good advice to the richest country in the world as well for developing countries IMHO.

Tips for Developing Countries when reviewing Copyright Laws
Denise Nicholson


International intellectual property agreements allow limitations and exceptions to be adopted in national copyright laws. Here are some tips for developing countries when reviewing their copyright laws:-

*
Adopt a maximalist approach – include as many limitations and exceptions as already in copyright regimes around the world – keep door open for new exceptions as technology changes.
*
Try to separate exceptions for entertainment from exceptions for education and libraries in your copyright law.
*
Ensure adequate exceptions for libraries, archives and museums (including provisions for accessing and providing information; digitization; preservation, digital curation (including migration to new technologies as they change).
*
Ensure adequate exceptions for people with sensory-disabilities (e.g. blind, visually-impaired, print- handicapped, blind/deaf, deaf, dyslexic, reading & learning disabilities, etc.)
*
Ensure adequate exceptions for classroom teaching, as well as distance and open learning, literacy training, adult basic education, non-commercial staff training and sharing of information amongst colleagues for research, discussion and information purposes.
*
Do not include protection for non-original databases. (It had little or no positive impact for rightsholders in the EU and created problems for users)". Original databases are protected by copyright like any original work.
*
Keep or reduce the copyright term to the lifetime of the author plus 50 years in terms of the minimum requirements of international IP agreements – Longer terms do not benefit net importers of intellectual property.
*
Do not include anti-circumvention clauses, unless there are clear, balanced exceptions to enable access to information.
*
Do not include public lending/educational lending rights (countries are not obliged to in terms of any international agreements). To date, no developing country has adopted a lending right. IFLA and eIFL do not promote public lending rights for developing countries. See IFLA Position Paper on the Public Lending Right and its Background Paper on the Public Lending Right.
*
Consult the eIFL-IP Draft Law on Copyright Including Model Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Consumers . Also see commentary on this draft law.
*
Adopt the best provisions from WIPO Studies on -

Limitations & Exceptions for the Visually-Impaired;

Limitations & Exceptions of Copyright & Related Rights in the Digital Environment

Copyright Limitations & Exceptions for Education – final report due at end of 2009

*
Promote Open Access, Open Source Software & Open Licensing (e.g. Creative Commons, etc.)
*
Create and populate Open Access Institutional Repositories/Research Archives to showcase African research.
*
Encourage authors not to sign over all their rights to publishers – encourage them to retain rights to enable them to place their works in open access institutional repositories, on personal blogs or to include in teaching materials. Encourage them to make use of an Author’s Addendum.
*
Seek expert and free assistance and advice from Access to Knowledge (A2K) organizations/projects/initiatives when reviewing copyright laws, e.g. Electronic Information for Libraries; African Copyright & Access to Knowledge Project (ACA2K); Commonwealth of Learning; IFLA Committee for Copyright and Other Legal Matters (CLM) and Consumers International.

Also consult the following publications (free to download):-

eIFL Handbook on Copyright & Related Issues

and

“Introducing Copyright – a plain language guide to copyright"
(Commonwealth of Learning).

*
Consult the resources on ACA2K website, Wits Copyright Portal and Commonwealth of Learning's Copyright Resources.
*
Lobby your Government officials who attend WIPO meetings in Geneva to call for users’ rights to be enshrined in a balanced international framework. If they are supporting the WIPO Development Agenda in Geneva, why are they not implementing better and more balanced copyright laws at home?

http://www.aca2k.org/index.php?option=com_idoblog&task=viewpost&id=229&Itemid=73&lang=en

Google target Apps.gov

Open data had their www.data.gov and now they have launched the www.apps.gov

Very impressing, and now Google want to provide 300 000 000 American citizen government service on separate servers.

This is something that I really believe in. Nobody can do it as cheap and stable as Google.

check it out on: www.apps.gov

Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI)

Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) is NSF’s bold five-year initiative to create revolutionary science and engineering research outcomes made possible by innovations and advances in computational thinking. Computational thinking is defined comprehensively to encompass computational concepts, methods, models, algorithms, and tools. Applied in challenging science and engineering research and education contexts, computational thinking promises a profound impact on the Nation’s ability to generate and apply new knowledge. Collectively, CDI research outcomes are expected to produce paradigm shifts in our understanding of a wide range of science and engineering phenomena and socio-technical innovations that create new wealth and enhance the national quality of life.

Read more about this important development here:
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503163

File sync in Zotero!

Very very good news!

Zotero File Storage is a cloud-based storage solution for PDFs, images, web snapshots, and any other files attached to your Zotero personal and group libraries. Zotero File Storage allows you to access your Zotero-attached files from any computer with a web browser, and you can synchronize these files to any computer with Zotero installed. See the storage FAQ for additional information.

Every Zotero user has been granted 100MB of free Zotero file storage for attached files. In the near future users will be able to purchase additional storage space.

http://www.zotero.org/support/file_sync

Open access alliance: Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Berkeley

Great news! The Danish DEFF report concludes with savings of 70 million Euro every year so we should work harder for open access journals in Norway too. I think it would be about the same in Norway. I am sure that we could have spent 610 million Norwegian Kroner on something better than reducing our ability to communicate scientific results. What about some new nanotech labs?

According to Thomas C. Leonard, University Librarian at UC/Berkeley, "Publishers and researchers know that it has never been easier to share the best work they produce with the world. But they also know that their traditional business model is creating new walls around discoveries. Universities can really help take down these walls and the open-access compact is a highly significant tool for the job."

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/open-access-0914.html

Economic policy and intellectual property

I have one theory (that I have just discovered that the Indian scholar Lawrence Liang has written a lot about): I think I see a pattern in IP regulation, and that it resemble how the rich countries always have told the poor countries; Do what we say, not what we do. For example, South-Korea build themselves up by NOT doing what the World Bank told them, while Africa has been practically runned by the world bank and IMF since 1960. Bill Gates build himself up in a regime WITHOUT software patents, but he insist that his followers should follow the new rules. I think free and open standards/software/culture can play the same role for Africa in the knowledge society as tariff protection, subsidies and government support played for South-Korea in the industrialized society?

Look at this article for example: " These data are used to investigate the welfare effects of widespread infringement of foreign works on American publishers, writers, and the public. The results suggest that the United States benefited from piracy and that the choice of copyright regime was endogenous to the level of economic development."
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=495776

Lawrence Liang has some very good points:
"..and the latest allegation is that pirated music and software helps fund terrorist
organizations such as the Al Qaida."
http://www.sarai.net/research/knowledge-culture/critical-public-legal-resources/copyrightculturalproductionandopencontentlicenses.pdf

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/09/11/funds-for-us-state-dept-global-ip-enforcement-training/
http://www.ifad.org/events/op/2009/wipo.htm
http://www.gov2summit.com/
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/09/01/un-climate-report-envisions-modified-trips-as-governments-seek-progress/
http://www.msfaccess.org/main/access-patents/the-global-politics-of-pharmaceutical-monopoly-power-by-ellen-t-hoen/
http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/intellectual_property_20090714/en/index.html

This blogpost by Stephen Gowan is very good:

http://maravi.blogspot.com/2009/07/stephen-gowans-obamas-africa-speech.html

Mashup of Google Knol, Plos and Rapid Research Notes

Plos Currents is the new modern era scientific journals that has peer-review and are designed for collaboration and rapid dissemination from scratch. Google is doing a great job for the scientific community and research that will benefit all, as ususal.

"The successful development of open access publishing by organizations including the Public Library of Science (PLoS) in recent years is a dramatic illustration of how the Internet is revolutionizing scientific communication. Today, after several months of work, I’m delighted to announce that PLoS is launching PLoS Currents (Beta) – a new and experimental website for the rapid communication of research results and ideas. In response to the recent worldwide H1N1 influenza outbreak, the first PLoS Currents research theme is influenza."

http://www.plos.org/cms/node/480

http://knol.google.com/k/plos/plos-currents-influenza/28qm4w0q65e4w/1%23#

Denmark to save 70 million Euro every year with Open Access

Excerpt from the announcement:

"The full report is available here:
Open Access – What are the economic benefits?

A comparison of the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Denmark



The reports of the three countries can be downloaded below:

* JISC report: Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models: Exploring the costs and benefits
* SURF report: Costs and Benefits of Research Communication: The Dutch Situation
*

DEFF report: Costs and Benefits of Alternative Publishing Models: Denmark"

http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=316

Why following the rich countries rules never makes sense

Following the intellectual property regulations from the rich world is like following "free trade" receipe in the industrialized world. It won't work.

Here is a very good blogpost on that:

http://maravi.blogspot.com/2009/07/stephen-gowans-obamas-africa-speech.html

Problems with intellectual property

Intellectual property is ready for reform in everything from food security to global health. Here are some recent links that is taboo to talk about in the rich world right now. Almost everyone hate to talk about it and if they do they deny the problems more or less completely. Most people are even willing to abondon the democracy to protect the income system that is based on unfear exploitation of the worlds poor through IP-regulation.

http://www.ifad.org/events/op/2009/wipo.htm
http://www.gov2summit.com/
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/09/01/un-climate-report-envisions-modified-trips-as-governments-seek-progress/
http://www.msfaccess.org/main/access-patents/the-global-politics-of-pharmaceutical-monopoly-power-by-ellen-t-hoen/
http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/intellectual_property_20090714/en/index.html

So far in the Norwegian election, it seems that the majority of Norwegian don't care about using the billions of dollar from the oil fund to oilsand extraction. Almost nobody cares.

They also don't care about massive surveillance of almost all digital information.

If the Norwegian politicians give a damn in climate change, forget everything they have learned about free expression, how can they travel to places like Afghanistan anThey are not interested in much else than keeping the status quo.d kill for free expression,or travel to conferences around the world and talk about the importance of reduction of CO2? Why are they spending 1 percent of GDP every year on developing countries when they earn ten times (?) through the deeply unfear international ip-regulation?

Some times I have problems to see the principal differences between the "well-functional social democracies" and corrupt regimes in the developing world. Both don't care about climate change, and both have their victims. The Norwegians build more and bigger palaces than dictators in the third world and give a damn how and where the money come from. Both give a damn about the future for anyone else than themselves.

Am I wrong?

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/09/11/funds-for-us-state-dept-global-ip-enforcement-training/

Open Hardware

When Pixel Qi and Backblaze and a few other start up the open hardware race I think we will see some interesting disruptive forces.

"What if I told you that you could build a petabyte-sized cluster for around $120,000?

Now compare that to a couple of million dollars via a storage company like EMC Corp. or a server maker such as Sun Microsystems."

http://gigaom.com/2009/09/01/open-source-hardware/

They actually sell very cheap back-up too: "Hassle free back up for $5/Month Unlimited
$5 per month per computer (or get two months free by purchasing a year for $50!)"

Immigrants economic value for Norway

I did'nt know that we can thank Farouk al-Kasim, a young Iraqi geologist in may 1968 for the oil exploration in Norway.

But al-Kasim’s most immediate problem on arriving in Oslo that morning was how to fill the day: his train to Solfrid’s home town did not depart until 6.30pm. “I thought what I am going to do in these hours?” he says. “So I decided to go to the Ministry of Industry and ask them if they knew of any oil companies coming to Norway.

“Farouk is perhaps the greatest value creator Norway has had,” says Olsen.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html

Pixel Qi

From this comparison it looks like the Pixel Qi is almost as good as E-Ink technology.

Few short links

New book: The World is Open
http://worldisopen.com/bookshelf.php

Smart Grid Standards: Road Map a Month Away; Vint Cerf Weighs in
http://www.reuters.com/article/earth2Tech/idUS295503766420090824

Barnes & Noble Lands Irex, Another Would-Be Kindle Killer
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090824/barnes-noble-lands-irex-another-would-be-kindle-killer/

Flatworld Knowledge doing very well!

"After a sort of beta earlier this year, Flat World is set to announce on Thursday that over 40,000 college students at more than 400 colleges are going to be using their digital, DRM-free textbooks in the Fall semester, up from 1,000 in 30 colleges in the Spring."

Source: Wired

The multimedial 3D web here soon?

If you combine O3D http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/ (impressing 3D!),Canvas, SVG, CSS, XML,Ajax, Native Client, WebGL, with Google On2 recent aquisition I think we will reach a the point where the browser will do almost everythin very soon.

Newspaper in war with themselves

"If ever there was an article at war with itself, this is it."
http://www.againstmonopoly.org/index.php?perm=593056000000001361

Google News four times bigger from today

The Google News Archive grows fast:

http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/extra-extra-updates-from-our-growing.html

The Gecko Edubook coming in August

http://www.norhtec.com/products/gecko/index.html

ePub format the new PDF?

"EPUB became in standard in September 2007, but the big step came in May 2008 when the Association of American Publishers (AAP) issued an open letter to IDPF announcing their support of the open standards format, said Smith. EPUB titles started hitting online bookshelves early this year."

http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/epub-next-pdf-190

Sony, Intuit, Adobe and Microsoft in the open source business

Open source is mainstream just in case someone was doubting?

http://opensource.imageworks.com/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10298333-16.html

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=4527

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Software/8948.html

600 000 USD in fine to sell a pair of blue jeans...

"Suppose back in the days of the Soviet Union a young man in Moscow was fined $600,000 for selling blue jeans on the black market. Would the news media just report the sentence and discuss whether or not the convict was repentant? Possibly, but my guess is that the article would comment on how the Soviet Union was failing in getting consumer products to its population. It might include some economic analysis mentioning the enormous losses that the economy suffers by banning simple trade. It might even treat our black market blue jean dealer as a hero.

Anyhow, why is there no discussion of economic issues when a student gets a $675,000 fine for transferring copyrighted music over the Internet? The copyright system imposes enormous waste on the economy, including the enforcement costs associated with prosecutions like this one. We know of other ways in which creative and artistic work can be financed. Is there some reason that the copyright protected media never discusses them?"

From Dean Bakers blog

Obama and the Birthers

There are many flat-earthers in the US, 58 percent in the republican party still believe that it is fake that Obama was born on Hawai 1961. Not only that, many of them also believe in a big conspiracy to make Obama to president starting in 1961 something.

"It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world’s biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything’s possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what’s reasonable has to take over."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/

Here is the story about the Flat Earth Society. Yes, they really believe that the world is flat in 2008!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7540427.stm

I need a drink.

The falling professional integrity in US and elsewhere

First you have the psychiatrics that diagnosis little children for bipolar sickness and give them up to 100 different drugs, then you have the journalists that let a stupid president as Bush tell them what to write, the scientist that keep their mouths shut because Bush has told them so, then you have the doctors that stop to care for their patiens and focus on money.

"Over the years the discussions at medical conferences began to devote less time to the science behind new innovations and more time to teaching doctors how to make money with the new innovations."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/?apage=7#comment-204835

How many Elsevier journals was just fake?
"Elsevier has an entire division dedicated to publishing fake advertorial "peer-reviewed" journals"

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/09/elsevier-has-an-enti.html

... and mathematics...
http://www.arsmathematica.net/archives/2008/11/11/elseviers-chaos-solitons-and-fractals/

and other Journals:
"Bundling is Elsevier's practice of offering steep per-journal subscription discounts if you take the lot. The numbers quoted above are from Cornell's bundled subscription deal, so one can only imagine what the per-journal subscription fees must be. Now, bundling wouldn't be so bad if Elsevier were flexible about it. But they don't seem to be. Don't have a Mathematics department? Tough, you get Applied Numerical Mathematics or you pay per-journal.

This practice is not just designed to increase Elsevier's bottom line, it is also designed to make Elsevier appear larger than it actually is. That is because Elsevier publishes many specialized journals that very few people actually want. These journals are nearly worthless to Elsevier in every respect except two. They enable Elsevier to say that it has the largest single library of peer reviewed journals, and it can advertise about how all these libraries subscribe to their journals—the Journal of Podunk Economics must be important if Harvard takes it. "

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2008/11/elsevier-beyond-the-pale-of-scientific-respectability.ars

The point is in my opinion that the Chicago school has given so much faith in greed as a deed better than everything else, even professional integrity that was the pride for doctors, reporters and scientists of all kinds.

Now the real crisis starting in US

It is typically that the US mainstream media doesn't give any useful information to the people. The journalistic professional standard is seriously corrupted. They are now talking about that the economy is stabilizing, at a time when the retail sector is on the way out of the cliff. The majority is now seriously confused. The polls shows that people demand more and better public services, less deficit, and at the same time want tax cut. They want to keep status quo in healtcare at the same time as they have voted for a president that had healtcare at the top of his agenda. They have serious crime problem and spend huge amount of money on security and police, at the same time as there is are 46 million under 65 years without health insurance in 2007! That is 18 percent of the population. There are now about 10 percent unemployed, and the retail sector is on the verge of serious collaps and the don't want to talk about it! Do the rich people in US really think that their country will become a nice place to live with 25 percent unemployed and guns in every ones pockets? If Obama dont 1get the reforms in place very very fast, US will run into some serious problems that will have negative impact on the rest of the world.

Here is a good investor comment from the Seeking Alpha blog:

"In short, the “big picture” of the U.S. economy is completely clear, it's in terrible shape and rapidly getting worse. Meanwhile, the U.S. propaganda-machine continues to fuel the U.S. fantasy-rally with nothing more than “smoke-and-mirrors”."

http://seekingalpha.com/article/152552-a-reality-check-on-u-s-economic-recovery?source=feed

If you want to laught, take a look at this video:
http://www.hoocoodanode.org/node/7494

Is the Techcrunch method a rational move for top journalists?

We already see this development in AOL and Politico, so I think many good journalists will shift from traditional news to web 2.0 in the next few years. It will just be a matter of two or three years before the journalists students wet dreams will be all about being employd in some Politico-like website ;-)

"That’s $25 million/year to have a well paid staff of the best journalists on the planet. How long before they outstrip those 16 million monthly visitors and 124 million page views? 5 years? Less?

How many private equity funds would kill to put $100 million behind the NNYT to make sure the company had plenty of money until it reached profitability?

My guess is plenty. And Marc Andreeseen, who has already backed two blogs, may be the first in line to invest. And I know a couple of hedge funds that would be right there, too. I know this because they’ve pitched me on a vision not much different than this one."

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/30/what-if-the-new-new-york-times/

High-frequency trading on Wall Street and in Europe

What a clever gambit, done with the help of the markets themselves - the Nasdaq in particular - in which information on trades is held back a fraction of a second from public view, while the data is shoveled to the computers of privileged subscribers who can execute zillions of programmed micro-trades before the rest of the herd makes a move. This allows them to vacuum up hundreds of millions of dollars by doing absolutely nothing of value.

http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=234680&t=01007146184382914537

Learn more about it here:

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/07/24/63651/high-frequency-trading-in-europe/

Firefox soon 1 Billion!!!

I have followed Firefox from the early early days, and was very happy with the 25000 download for some years ago. At that time, it was considered as impossible to challenge Internet Explorer. Today, IE face the risk of dipping under 60 percent marketshare.

Google with 500 000 new ePub titles

It can be read and downloaded on any devices (except Kindle) and of course the Sony Reader. They are happy to advertise that they can give theyr customers 1 million books formattet for the Sony Reader for free.

I am happy that Google use the ePub format. Now the consumers and academics finally can reap what the free software movement have sawed.

It is still some proprietary problems in this landscape that libraries have to think twice about:
"One major issue impeding consumer adoption of digital readers is the closed system of sharing.

In Amazon's case, titles purchased through the Kindle Store can be read on the Kindle and Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone or iPod Touch, but not on the Sony Reader. Barnes & Noble's titles, meanwhile, are accessible on Apple devices and Research in Motion Ltd's (RIM.TO) Blackberry, but not on the Kindle or Sony Reader.

Similarly, titles purchased from Sony's store can only be played on the company's reader. (Reporting by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)"
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssRetailSpecialty/idUSN2927971120090729

That means in my opinion: Buy ePub formatted books with ip-range limits, just like we subscribe on journals. That is fair, because we can download articles as we like it as long as we subscribe.

Berkeley in cooperation with Cambridge, ETH Zürich, University of Osnabrück, and University of Saskatchewan on Open Source Lectures on Itunes/Google

"Opencast Matterhorn" is the name of the software. In some years now I know that Mellon and Hewlett foundations are some of the best project-pickers in the world, no doubt. They have an extreme competence to evaluate who and what they are giving money to. The Ivy League Universities and Cambridge are also not bad. The probability that this is going to be successful is very high, and when it is open source, you can be sure a few are going to download it and use it. I see they are using "Techcrunch" and "Craiglist" techniques, selfservice. People are used to this now, and it works very well.

"The university has already spent $220,000 this year on this project, named “Opencast Matterhorn.” Now grants totaling $1.5 million from the Andrew W. Mellon and William and Flora Hewlett foundations will cover that expense and pay for further development of the system."
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/07/27/daily28.html

What would be perfect service for Universities could be:

1) Opencast Matterhorn (from Berkeley and Cambridge) specifically target Google/Itunes.
2) Zotero service for everyone (from George Mason University)
3) Dataverse Network (from MIT)
4) Open Monograph Press (from Public Knowledge Project)
5) Open Journal Systems (from Public Knowledge Project)
6) Topaz journal system (from Sourceforge)
7) Open Library Environment Project (OLE-project from many top American Universities, and Mellon Foundation! thats under development) or Koha (mature)
8) DuraSpace (an organization creating open technologies for durable digital content)
9) Google Wave, Native Client, Google OS, Google App Store are going to flood with scientific cloud computing services the next years.
10) Ubuntu and Redhat Linux looks to be the market leaders in the free software world, both on server and on mobile devices.

This is at least part of the selection from the most innovative biggest and most prestigous science foundations and best universities in the world. There is thousans of "me-too" projects for every software/service going on that I don't believe much in.

Some of the most important things in the world today...

... are happening in Geneva Switzerland right now. ECOSOC are on the good side, while they have to challenge the WTO that take most of their decisions behind closed doors. In fact most of the most important problems in the world are kept well away from democratic processes. Most people in the world has little or no influence. That is a shame, I think it demands more than one Obama to do something about it.

"The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) this week is concluding a month-long coordinating body meeting in Geneva by adopting resolutions on a range of public policy issues such as internet connectivity, science and technology, and HIV/AIDS. Intellectual Property Watch is one of the many websites I recommend to follow.

On 24 July, the Council adopted resolutions on informatics, science and technology for development, and on support to governments in addressing the spread and prevention of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/ Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS). However, the digital divide and the lack of global access to AIDS treatments seriously hinder developing countries’ prospects for development, participants say."

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/07/29/ecosoc-adopts-resolutions-on-digital-divide-hivaids-but-hurdles-remain/

Bernanke warns

This is like a doctor try to kill the patients in my opinion. Dean Baker reports:

"At a time when even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke predicts that unemployment will cross 10 percent (he has consistently underestimated the severity of the downturn) does it make sense for him to be warning the public that: "you get much better results," when the Fed operates without congressional oversight?

The Fed's failed monetary policy brought on the worst downturn since the Great Depression. It would be reasonable for the media to be pointing out the irony in Bernanke's warning. This is a bit like the old GM warning of bad results if its management was not left alone."

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=07&year=2009&base_name=lack_of_fed_oversight_by_congr

Design ideas for a new library in Oslo

I found this article today, with a nice picture that I really liked:

http://blogs.talis.com/panlibus/archives/2009/07/umbrella-2009-libraries-as-spaces.php

Jonathan Chait answer Martin Feldstein

Martin Feldstein wrote an article called Obama's Plan Isn't the Answer in Washington Post and said this:


"Obama has said that he would favor a British-style “single payer” system in which the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are salaried but that he recognizes that such a shift would be too disruptive to the health-care industry."

Single-payer, as anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to the health care debate knows, means a system like Medicare, in which the government pays the bills. It absolutely does not mean a British-style system — and Obama definitely didn’t advocate anything of the sort."

Jonathan Chait then responded with this facts:

"Obama has never said that he favors a British-style health care system. Britain does not have a single-payer system. It has a socialized system, where the government directly employs all health care providers. Indeed, if you follow the link in Feldstein's own column, it says, "A single-payer system would eliminate private insurance companies and put a Medicare-like system into place where the government pays all health-care bills with tax dollars." Does Medicare own hospitals and pay doctors government salaries? No. Professor Feldstein, please stop writing about topics you know nothing about."

Paul Krugman agree and added:
"Single-payer, as anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to the health care debate knows, means a system like Medicare, in which the government pays the bills. It absolutely does not mean a British-style system — and Obama definitely didn’t advocate anything of the sort.

One possibility is that Feldstein really is that ignorant of the health-care basics; if so, he has no business writing an op-ed on the subject, just as he had no business writing an op-ed on climate change policy. (Yes, I write about subjects on which I’m not an expert — but I do my homework first.)

The alternative possibility is that Feldstein knew that he was saying something false, but did it anyway in the hope of scaring his readers."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/irresponsible-punditry/

Interesting to see that Feldstein also desinformed about climate change:
"Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/27/AR2009072701905.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Krugmans comments:
"Um, in the absence of a cap-and-trade system, emissions would grow by quite a lot. So the right comparison is not with current emissions levels but with what they would have been in the absence of the policy — a much bigger number. That’s the sort of comparison economists always make — it’s definitely weird for Feldstein not to see this."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/feldstein-on-global-warming/

Arrow on health care

I really liked this passage :-)

And if one explanation is the professional standards, why do you think the professional standards have changed?

Sometimes I think it's because of the Chicago School. I think there has been a general drift around the country towards the idea that greed is good. Look at Wall Street. All of these industries involve a professional element in which information is flowing. You're supposed to be constrained to be honest about it. I don't really know why. But there is now more of an emphasis on popularization, which does improve efficiency but can also lead to an erosion of professional standards. There was this idea that professional standards were a mask for monopoly power--a Chicago theory, which I believe came from George Stigler. I don't know if they were that influential, but they seemed to be saying a lot of things that people were taking up in practice. I'm not totally sure why these professional standards changed, but it's more than medical reasons.

http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/conor_clarke/2009/07/an_interview_with_kenneth_arrow_part_two.php

Health reform in US and Pharma funded potiticans

I have to laugh about the circus going on in US these days. Martin Feldstein and Greg Mankiw has written articles/blogs against Obama's reform plans with arguments that are not holding water at all. For example Mankiw wrot that he don't trust the Government in Health care, but he do not mention that in the US more than 47 percent of the healthcare is paid by the government. Feldstein wrote about that he was worried about the medical innovation in the possibly proposed bill, but everyone know that the US version of medical patents combined with the administration directives just makes the medical costs many times bigger than in Canada. The big money is going to innovation of completely nonsense medicine. Both of these economists works on Harvard by the way. Unbelievable.

On top of that, Dodd seems to have build his entire carreer by money from Pharma!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/us/politics/28dodd.html?ref=us

"This should convince any sceptic that the blogosphere is an essential part of current science."

Peter Murray-Rust has a wonderful blogpost about the importance of the blogosphere in modern science:

Junk Science? The blogosphere thinks so

The Polyglot internet

Ethan Zuckerman wrot this article to the World Economic Forum, Global Agenda 2008.

"Weblog search engine Technorati sees at least as many blogposts in Japanese as in English, and some scholars speculate that there may be as much Chinese content created on sites like Sina and QQ as on all English-language blogs combined."

In August 2010 there will be a first wave of 8 Google satellites launching. I wonder about how this will impact the language diversity.
http://www.o3bnetworks.com/countdown.html

"The Polyglot Internet"
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/the-polyglot-internet/

Is it music, dance, or care for older people in Brazil?

Apparently not according to some market fundamentalists. The old industry-paradigmists pretent to believe that nothing valuable can be created outside the market, and they have critisized the new book Free from Chris Anderson on this background. I really liked how Seth Godin tackled this old-paradigm style arguments in his blogpost "Malcolm is wrong"

"The first argument that makes no sense is, "should we want free to be the future?"

Who cares if we want it? It is.

The second argument that makes no sense is, "how will this new business model support the world as we know it today?"

Who cares if it does? It is. It's happening. The world will change around it, because the world has no choice. I'm sorry if that's inconvenient, but it's true."

Both David Wiley and Peter Murray-Rust have follow up comments on Seths discussion with implications for the university in the future that is worthy reading:

"Arguing About Free and the Future"
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/950

"Universities should act while they have the chance"
http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=2171

Complement these comments with Michael Nielsen's local optimum theory and I think it is very clear what's going on:

"Is scientific publishing about to be disrupted?"
http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/is-scientific-publishing-about-to-be-disrupted/

A completely normal disruption process with all the elements that Schumpeter popularized in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

I am a strong believer in markets and money in so many ways, but it has many limits.

Healthcare and the USA

It seems to me that the majority of the American public are seriously confused about everything from international politics to healthcare. Don't they have journalism in this country at all? When I read New York Times and other of the major news sources I have noticed that they just don't get a lot of things. The discussion about generic medicine for example, the NYT journalist did not even mention the medical prize alternative. When a person like G. W. Bush jr. are able to blind all the news sources in the whole country in the Iraq war it is not so difficult to understand. Here is an exception from the rule:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/weekinreview/26leonhardt.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Update: It was interesting to read Becker and Posner's comments on the healthcare crisis, but neither of their comments was particulary interesting in my eyes. I think it is as simple as that the health care system i USA are currently on a local optimum, and going from this local optimum to a higher optimum means going through a deep uncomforable valley. Perhaps unbearable for the country. Take a look at this figure:

http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/local_optimum.jpg

Bomshell: Drive the marginal cost of education down to zero

When will we see the craiglist effect in education? I think it will happen when the general public becomes aware that many people actually can utilize the internet to educate themselves together with a community, and that they will profit on it. It is like Nigerian youths and parents have learned that if they play a lot of footbal they may one day become extremely rich. Right now it is HUGE windows of opportunities for smart but poor people around the world. More and more of these people are educating themselves right now, and we see poor Chinese and Indian having great success that would have been impossible without the internet and cheap education sources. More and more universities in the third world going from practical training to independent serious research because open access, open source and so on gives incentives to compete on a global level.

"Bing Gordon dropped a bombshell just before lunch when he proposed that we should work to drive the marginal cost of education to zero.

From an economic point of view, I would say the goal... is to figure out how to get education down to a marginal cost of zero. Somebody mentioned Oxford. I think the marginal cost for a student at Oxford is probably $250,000; at a U.S. university it's probably $90,000. That's what it costs per student. That's not what they charge. Public school, I think, they are trying to do it for $6-8000 per student. So, what if we had to get it to zero? We've seen technologies that get the marginal cost [of services] to zero, plus bandwidth.

This is not as crazy as it sounds. Knowledge is, as the economists say, a non-rival good. If I eat an apple, you cannot also eat that same apple; but if I learn something, there is no reason you cannot also learn that thing. Information goods lend themselves to being created, distributed and consumed on the web. It is not so different from music, or classified advertising, or news."

http://www.unionsquareventures.com/2009/05/hacking_education.html

USA slaves of a retarded definition of capitalism

Bill Maher put the right words on where USA is now: "The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are."

I doubt even the best of the best, Obama, can prevent the big problems this country probably will have to face the next ten years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-not-everything-i_b_244050.html

Sophism versus philosophers in eternal fight

Platon wrote Gorgias 380 B.C.E. and was a wonderful dialogue between the sophists and the philosophers. One could think that since Platon so wonderfully demonstrated the sophist's game with the weakness in people, this story could put an end to it once and for all. Not so. The sophist's are alive and more well than ever. Just take a look at this observations:

* College students prefer to be taught by profs who research, and hence ignore students more, yet students have little idea what their profs research. Students know and care a lot about their school’s general prestige, but know and care little about the research done there. There is relatively little relation between what profs teach, what profs research, and what students do after they graduate.
* Patrons of research similarly pay lots more attention the prestige of a researcher and his institution than to how much his research could plausibly benefit the world or uncover important deep truths. Prestige is set primarily by academic journals, who attend much more to whether a particular work was difficult and impressive while following standard methods than to its beneficial impact or deep insight.
* Citizens prefer to fund their nations to maintain impressive researchers, but have little idea what those researchers do. Citizens would rather that other nations did less research, so their nation can excel by comparison, and their funding preferences have little to do with the size of their nation relative to the world, or to the practical relevance of research topics. In fact, academic research contributes little to overall economic innovation and growth.
* Reporters seeking quotes care primarily about the prestige of a researcher and his institution, requiring only the loosest connection between his research specialty and the topic at hand. Engaging prestigious academics can become respected pundits on topics far from their research areas. Clients seeking consulting care a lot more about the prestige of the consultant than what he actually says. Corporation often fund basic research that gains them little other than connection with prestigious researchers.

Read the rest at the blog Overcoming Bias

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/academias-function.html#comment-430570

Hal Varian: "Google Trends/Search Insights data could be useful in short term predictions of economic variables"

Hal Varian writes: "In an earlier blog post, we suggested that Google Trends/Search Insights data could be useful in short term predictions of economic variables. Given the importance of initial claims as a macroeconomic predictor, we thought it would be useful to try to forecast this economic metric. The initial claims data is available from the Department of Labor, while the Google Trends data for relevant categories is available here."
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/07/posted-by-hal-varian-chief-economist.html

Paul Romer with new blog

It is no surprise, many mainstream economists have doing research on new intellectual property regimes and innovation for many years. Paul Romer looks to take this research further.

Subject:
"Paul Romer is building an “economics of ideas” that extends and brings new optimism to the traditional economics of scarce objects. He is best known as the lead developer of New Growth Theory, which shows how societies can speed up the discovery and implementation of new technologies—essentially, ideas about how objects interact. However, to address the big problems we’ll face this century—violence and insecurity, harm to the environment, and global poverty—new technologies will not be enough. His current focus is on mechanisms that can speed up the discovery and implementation of new rules, norms, and laws—ideas about how people interact."
http://www.stanford.edu/~promer/new_bio.html

Method:
"The format is that of a blog, but our goal is to build a community with norms like those of Wikipedia. We hope that posts have lasting value as reference material, and we strive for objectivity. Comments are welcome, and the most useful comments on a post are those that lead to an important revision or extension that can be re-posted as an update. Comments that are directed at a person rather than an idea are discouraged. We hope to build a community of contributors over time. As an alternative to commenting on a post, you also can reach us via the web form on the contact page."
http://chartercities.org/blog/19/welcome-to-the-charter-cities-blog

Americans debate the health system in Norway

When Obama try to reform the health sector in US in the direction of more efficient models like the European systems, they call it socialism. The fact is that no political party in Norway, on left or right, want to change the system in a fundamental way.

Norwegians like their system because it cuts red tape. The patient-doctor relationship isn't complicated by multiple insurances; if you need care, you get it as a matter of right. No bills to pay, no plans to juggle, no worry about your dependents, and no worry about your becoming a burden to your children.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/21-12

Gordon Brown surprise appearance at TEDGlobal 2009

I think his speech was interesting, but it is my impression that the UK has much of the same structural problems as USA, but without a strong leader as Obama. This is "talk without action". Anyway it is interesting that he at least has figured out something relevant to talk about, like this:

He said that older institutions founded after the Second World War, such as the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund, were now "out of date".

"You can't deal with environmental problems through the existing institutions," he told the conference.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8161650.stm

The Money Masters- How International Bankers Gained Control of America

The Money Masters - How International Bankers Gained Control of America
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936

Future of the library Deichmann?

Ethel Zuckerman liveblogged John Hagel on serendipity. Brilliant thoughts for urban planners in Oslo, better principle than to build tall buildings, and the librarians definetely will play an important role to organize the serendipity.

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/03/john-hagel-on-serendipity/

Very very clear thoughts from Tim O'Reilly

Ethan Zuckerman liveblogged wonderful Tim O'Reilly speech 15 july. It is just extremely clear thoughts about web 2.0 that deserves to be read. Here is a passage that I really liked:

The Unix operating system was built around the idea that we could join together independent programs with no more than a protocol that allows these programs to work together. This allows for a very different school of software development than in Windows, where 90,000 developers need to figure out how to work together. In Linux, thousands of loosely coordinated little groups build the system together.

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/03/tim-oreilly-on-government-20/

The Complete Works of Homo Sapiens, Unabridged.

Why do we need authors, academic librarians and librarians? George Dyson has a very good answer on that in his essay "The Universal Library", and he ends the essay with the following words:

"Even in the Age of Search, we still need authors to find the meaningful books!"

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dyson2.05/dyson2.05_index.html

TEDGlobal 2009 21-24 July in Oxford

Her er programmet:

http://conferences.ted.com/TEDGlobal2009/program/guide.php

Paul Romer skal delta, gledar meg til å høyre han:

"Nobody who has watched Romer in action will be quick to sell him short. He built a highly successful company and sold it for a lot of money. In the fall of 2007, he turned down the job of chief economist of the World Bank in order to enter on this project."
http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2009.07.19/571.html

Ny bok: Introducing Copyright A plain language guide to copyright in the 21st century By Julien Hofman

Frå annonseringa:

"This book was written for those who want to learn about copyright in the 21st century. It explains copyright protection and what it means for copyright holders and copyright users. It also introduces readers to contemporary topics: digital rights management, open licences, software patents and copyright protection for works of traditional knowledge. A final chapter tries to predict how technology will change the publishing and entertainment industries that depend on copyright."


http://www.col.org/resources/publications/monographs/Pages/Copyright.aspx

Future of netbooks

Pixel Qi, Google OS in combination with this design would do the job I think:

http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/home/

Spanande ny bok frå Leger utan grenser med anbefaling frå Nobelprisvinnar i medisin

I samband med ny WHO, WIPO, WTO strategi på intellektuell eigedom, som for nokre dagar sidan vart tilrådd av G8 pluss Russland har Ellen ‘t Hoen gitt ut ei veldig verdifull bok som gir informasjon om maktkampane som ikkje vert presentert serleg tydeleg i festtalene. Skulle du tilfeldigvis ha ei leseplate så kan du laste ned Creative Commons lisensiert PDF versjon her:

http://www.msfaccess.org/main/access-patents/the-global-politics-of-pharmaceutical-monopoly-power-by-ellen-t-hoen/

The global politics of pharmaceutical monopoly power
Drug patents, access, innovation and the application of the WTO Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health
Ellen F. M. ‘t Hoen, LL.M.

AMB Diemen 2009
(ISBN 97890-79700-06-6, xx + 136 pp., illustrated., paperback., € 35.-)

Den har fått veldig rosande omtale frå nobelprisvinnar i medisin 2002:

’‘Ellen ‘t Hoen is one of the greatest authorities on the role of intellectual property in access to medicines, and here she provides an insider’s account of the history and current state of the area. This invaluable source book of the facts behind the political rhetoric will be essential and inspiring reading for every student of the subject.”
Sir John Sulston, 2002 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine

Trendar i offentleg administrasjon

Flott kronikk av Gartners Andrea Di Maio om stadig fleire grenser som viskast ut:

http://www.governing.com/column/blurring-government

WHO: mesteparten av dei fattige har ikkje råd til svineinfluensavaksiner

Eg vil anbefale denne veldig gode tala halde 14. juli 2009 av direktøren i WHO, Margaret Chan:

"Manufacturing capacity for influenza vaccines is finite and woefully inadequate for a world of 6.8 billion people, nearly all of whom are susceptible to infection by this entirely new and highly contagious virus.

The lion’s share of these limited supplies will go to wealthy countries. Again we see the advantage of affluence. Again we see access denied by an inability to pay."

http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/intellectual_property_20090714/en/index.html

Suu 64 år

Leave a message to this historical person!

http://www.64forsuu.org/

Kommentar til :En generasjon med sabotører av Espen Andersen

For det første så tror jeg innlegget "En generasjon av sabotører" DagensIT.no 4 juni 2009 har blitt fortolket innenfor den gamle venstre-høyre aksen, og ikke i lys av "det 21 århundrets kunnskapsparadigme" (vet ikke helt hva jeg skal kalle det) som Andersen sansynligvis sikter til. Mange tror nok at her er det en BI professor ute med stoppeklokken for å måle effektivitet, og glemmer at det "åpne paradigmet" på IKT har tilslutning fra de rødeste røde til de mørkeste blå.

For det andre så tror jeg at innlegget kan ha blitt tolket som at det kun var de offentlige byråkratene som stod for sabotasjen. Her slår nok fordommene mot BI som markedsøkonomiske profeter i 80-talls støpning til igjen.

Når det gjelder mine egne synspunkter, så kunne jeg ha ønsket at Andersen presiserte enda sterkere det du skrev om at det er jobber nok. Slagordet redd arbeidsplassene, ikke bedriftene (eller byråkratiet) er veldig positivt. Det er bruk for mennesker, men ikke til å ta imot bompenger langs motorveiene.

Et viktig aspekt ved denne ineffektive organiseringen av samfunnet er etter mitt syn usunne symbiotiske forhold mellom det private og det offentlige. Vi har sett hvordan noen få fagforeningsledere og statsministeren har forsøkt å bygge et gigantselskap på norsk sokkel på bakrommet uten noen som helst offentlig informasjon. Vi har sett hvordan norske uhjelpspenger blir brukt strategisk sammen med Gates foundation i handelspolitikken (patenter og åndsverkslovgivning) for å gjøre en byttehandel mellom massevaksinering mot at u-landene går med på krav som gjør dem til evige kunder av vestlige farmasøytiske selskaper. Vi har sett hvordan det for Microsoft ekstremt viktige standardiseringsforsøket på OOXML gikk for seg på nærmest "uforklarlig vis" i de fleste land, inkludert Norge.

Et annet viktig aspekt er noe de fleste velgere ikke helt forstår verdien av, og det er "allmenningen" vår. Radiospektrumet, Televerkets enorme investeringer i kobber, internett. Her har politikeren gjordt noen utrolige tabber, og når de viser til hvor lønnsomme Telenor er, så underslår de for eksempel den enorme verdien av kobber og veldig romslige overtagelsesbetingelser de fikk i sin tid.

Til slutt så er enkeltindividets personvern, ideer, tanker, matematikk, algoritmer som har blitt regulert på en slik måte at det skaper treghet, men penger for de som sitter med patentene på algoritmene og forretningsideene. Det er nok at loven er så løs at det kan startes veldig kostbare rettsaker. Om man vinner til slutt er ikke så viktig.

Det ser ut til at man trodde, som i finanssystemets verden, at man kan skape verdier ved å sosialisere tapene og privatisere gevinstene. Og med politikere som ikke er så flinke til å bygge opp kompetente team med kunnskap om forretningsdrift og kunnskapsforvaltning, så har det vist seg å være en ekstremt lønnsom strategi.

Man har glemt det første man lærer i faget samfunnsøkonomi over hele verden, og det er at penger bare er mer eller mindre perfekte representativa for realverdier. Det spiller ingen rolle om Telenor eller Aker er verd 100 milliarder eller en krone. Det som er av verdi er de tjenestene og godene de frembringer. Får håpe finanskrisen kan gjøre at man lærer denne leksa denne gangen.

La opphavsretten kvile i fred

Her er ein veldig omdiskutert artikkel frå Sverige. Hundrevis av kommentarar. Anbefalast:

"Låt upphovsrätten vila i frid
Han lever på upphovsrätten. Men priset för att försvara den har blivit för högt. Det är dags att sluta slåss mot väderkvarnar och acceptera det oundvikliga, skriver läroboksförfattaren Henrik Brändén och radar upp tre skäl till varför försvaret för upphovsrätten har blivit en fara för samhället."
http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/artikel_3000369.svd

Thomson Reuters Lawsuit Dismissed

Very good news. As expected the Thompson Reuters case against Zotero was groundless and empty.

http://quintessenceofham.org/2009/06/04/thomson-reuters-lawsuit-dismissed/

OAPEN Open Access monograph publishing

Great news!

De Vries: “Our main goal is very clear. We want to build the largest Europan Open Access online library of current peer reviewed books in European languages in various fields of HSS. It’s important to stress once more that we’re focusing solely on monographies, not on articles.

Pixel Qi demo

From the pictures it looks like that this screen will work fine in sunlight. Mary Lou Jepson writes that it will be available on netbooks and ebook readers this autumn.

http://pixelqi.com/blog1/2009/05/28/first-picture-of-pixel-qi-3qi-screen/

Yttringsfridom i dag

På denne dagen om yttringsfridom så vil eg nytte høvet til å blogge om saker som eg meinar er langt meir alvorlege åtak på yttringfridomen enn karikaturteikningar. I EU så har ein innført fleire lovar som gjer at politiet har lov til å overvåke borgarane sin aktivitet på internett på lik linje med terroristar. IPRED loven er ei forkorting av Intellecutal Property Rights Enforcement Directive, og gjer at dei som meinar dei er fornærma kan drive etterforskning på eiga hand, og ikkje politiet, og bryt med eit viktig rettsstatsprinsipp i så måte. Platebransjen og forlagsbransjen har vore ein pådrivar bak denne lova. Dei gjentek gong på gong at å laste ned ei musikkfil på internett er det same som å stele ein banan i butikken. Dette er feil på minst to måtar. Stel ein bananar i butikken så vert det mindre bananar i butikken, og meir bananar i lomma til tjuven. Lastar du ned ei fil på internett så er det like mykje av fila som før ein gjorde det. For det andre så er bananar fysisk eigedom, og det vert handtert under rettsprinsippa som har med menneskerettar å gjere. Såkalla intellektuell eigedom vert sortert under rettsprinsipper som har med samfunnskontraktmodellen å gjere. Platebransjen vil ikkje snakke om denne samfunnskontrakta sidan det er openberrt at den er mogen for revisjon for lenge sidan på grunn av internett som distribusjonsform. På toppen av dette så pressar platebransjen på for å bryte ned viktige rettsprinsipper som at fornærma ikkje skal drive etterforsking. Slik ser ein at kommersielle interesser bryt ned personvernet og rettstryggleiken for borgarane fordi dei har pengar.

http://www.nrk.no/magasin/spiller/1.6499078