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

Android Demo

This demo of the Android GNU/Linux is impressing!!!

New business models

Very good Blog post from "Open Road" as usual:

You get the picture. The general principle is always the same: focus on maximizing abundance, and then sell value around minimizing the complexity inherent in abundance.

The old model was to assume that the value was in the software itself and to therefore lock it up. It turns out, however, as Tim O'Reilly notes, that data is the real value, not bits and bytes. You don't discover or, rather, uncover, that value until you have abundance.

Blogs and science journalism

Interesting

Microsoft, forlag og drivhuseffekten

Microsoft, forlaga og oljelobbyen har gått tomme for argumenter og Fear, Uncertainty og Doubt (forkorta FUD). No er det øyrebiting og slag under beltestaden som gjeld. Microsoft har tydelegvis hatt lukka med seg på fisketuren etter Oh Oh xml røyster i Kazakstan, Columbia og Congo, pluss ein del andre statar. Eg var ganske nyfiken for nokre veker sidan då eg las dette:

Interestingly, while 13 countries have publicly announced their votes, not one of the new 11 P members has thus far revealed how it has cast its vote. As I have pointed out in several recent blog entries, (the latest is here), it will be very interesting to see how these last-minute additions to the P membership cast their votes. Those new P members, once again, are Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Ecuador, Jamaica, Lebanon, Malta, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela.

9 av desse 11 røysta for utan at til dømes It-departementet i Pakistan ante noko om dette til dømes. Sjå her

Det nyttar ikkje å seie at dette er berre "business as usual". Kva skal ein med ISO viss ein berre kan kjøpe seg bananrepublikkar til å røyste. Dette er undergraving av viktige institusjonar.

No er det sjefen for antitrust kontoret i USA som klagar på EU-domstolen si avgjerd om at Microsoft er monopolist. EU bad han halde tåta :-) Liknande som den amerikanske domstolen kom fram til i 2001, men så kom Bush til makta og tilsette Microsoft advokaten som leiar for antitrust kommisjonen. Artig utvikling på børsen forresten. No er det mindre enn 100 mrd usd som skiller Google og MS.

PRISM er slakta i filler, dei endra sidene sine for nokre dagar sidan, det er litt artig. Her var David Dezenhall hyra inn som ein slags Goebbels. Veldig bra innsats frå ein gjeng tullingar som har dumma seg loddrett ut.

Bush fekk kjøpt ein gjeng liksomforskarar han også for å tvile på drivhuseffekten, akkurat som han greidde å inbille verda at det var demokrati og masseøydeleggjingsvåpen han var ute etter i Irak. Eg trudde halvvegs på denne Saddam-historia sjølv. Greenspan er tydelegvis i tvil han også.

Eg er litt liberalistisk for tida, men å blande liberalisme med Microsoft, oljelobbyen, forlagsindustrien og liknande er fullstendig på bærtur.

Her på berget så har det kome ut ei artig bok om BA-HR advokatfirma, Fleischer si bok er også utruleg interessant, her er det fleire hundre sider med skikkeleg underhaldande åtak på korrupte og halvkorrupte juristar, les den. Lawrence Lessig skal ta seg av denne type korrupsjon me har sett mykje av i desse siste åra. Har veldig tru på dette. Ein slag "lovleg korrupsjon" som undergrev det kapitalistiske systemet og demokratiet.

For å seie det slik, skilnaden på såkalte bananrepublikkar og vestlege demokratier er ofte veldig liten når det kjem til korrupsjon og "klan-tenkjing". Berre sjå på kor lett ISO-institusjonen i Sverige lot seg kjøpe. Det var niks problem, bortsett ifrå at det vart oppdaga og prøvd bortforklart med at "ein eller annan leverte to røyster istadenfor ein".

Men no visar alle trendar at det går i rett retning, SCO er så å seie i gang med krampetrekningane (verd 4 mill usd i skrivande stund), Microsoft stupar på børsen (verd 268 mrd) (alle veit at OS'a deira og Office er i ferd med å rakne), PRISM er så skamfert at dei neppe eingong går gjennom eit korrupt senat i USA eingong, open access har hatt solid vekst over fleire år og antal land og fond som sluttar seg til har nådd "kritisk masse", GNU/Linux og ODF er ustoppelege når Sun, IBM og Google legg breidsida til.

Ok, det var alt eg fekk tid til på ein lånt PC, har sagt opp breiband og brukar tida på toåringen min for tida.

Lessig from copyfight to fighting "corruption"

Lessig skiftar delvis beite, og den type korrupsjon som han går etter er like innbakt i vårt politiske demokrati som klanstilhøyrigheit er bakt inn i mange tredje verda regimer. Gjer ein opprør mot klanstilhøyrigheita i desse landa så gjer ein opprør mot sin eigen familie. Liknande er det med Lessig sin korrupsjon, her er det kanskje familie og nære vener som får svi, eller at ein ikkje har pengar til å drive valkamp.

Hugsar godt eg for nokre år sidan las at American Geophysical Association hadde, etter tredve års debatt, kome fram til konsensus om at global oppvarming var menneskeskapt og ville få store konsekvensar. Eg vart overraska over at det skulle ta fleire år før til og med dette skulle få litt gjennomslag i offentleg politikk.

I ein av kommentarane på bloggen til Lessig stod dette: ""Every political system makes the crucial but erroneous assumption that the citizens are rational and strive for social justice. “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute talk with the average voter.”—Churchill."



"This is a thought I've often had in the debates I've been a part of, especially with respect to IP. Think, for example, about term extension. From a public policy perspective, the question of extending existing copyright terms is, as Milton Friedman put it, a "no brainer." As the Gowers Commission concluded in Britain, a government should never extend an existing copyright term. No public regarding justification could justify the extraordinary deadweight loss that such extensions impose.

Yet governments continue to push ahead with this idiot idea -- both Britain and Japan for example are considering extending existing terms. Why?

The answer is a kind of corruption of the political process. Or better, a "corruption" of the political process. I don't mean corruption in the simple sense of bribery. I mean "corruption" in the sense that the system is so queered by the influence of money that it can't even get an issue as simple and clear as term extension right. Politicians are starved for the resources concentrated interests can provide. In the US, listening to money is the only way to secure reelection. And so an economy of influence bends public policy away from sense, always to dollars."

Bra kommentar:

"Every political system makes the crucial but erroneous assumption that the citizens are rational and strive for social justice. “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute talk with the average voter.”—Churchill."

http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003800.shtml

Mobile is the hottest these days

"Mobile, mobile, mobile" were the words of Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt this week when asked what technologies are most intriguing to the computer Web search leader.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131051-c,google/article.html

Sjekk denne bibliotekkatalogen!

Dette er litt rått, sjå venstre del av denne vevsida: http://www.myapl.org/aquabrowser/

Fujitsu Flepia i farge e-papir

Denne kan fåast i A4 storleik, og har eit batteri som skal vare opp mot 50 timar i vanleg bruk.

http://www.frontech.fujitsu.com/services/products/paper/flepia/

Her er detaljene på engelsk: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10480

Interessant norsk Vista diskusjon

Her er ein veldig informativ forumdiskusjon:

http://norskwebforum.no/viewtopic.php?t=31499

Schneier: "In the meantime, the only advice I can offer you is to not upgrade to Vista."

Some very intersting thoughts from Bruce Schneier on Vista:

It might not be as obvious as Microsoft using its operating system monopoly to kill Netscape and own the browser market, but it's really no different. Microsoft's entertainment market grab might further entrench its monopoly position, but it will cause serious damage to both the computer and entertainment industries.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/drm_in_windows.html

Open source and scientific development

Red Hat has partnered with University of North Carolina to collaborate in clinical research. This is the future for science, and the winners of the futures innovation contest will be the one that has realized this.

Kudos to Red Hat for thinking outside the software box. Open source is a methodology and a mentality that is exceptionally useful well beyond software. It is something that will bring integrity and value to software. Surely, it can help to do the same in other areas, like clinical research.

http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/04/red_hat_lets_op.html

Science and blogging

Carl Zimmer has posted some interesting experiences with blogging scientific papers. As he wrote:

I suspect this situation has come about because scientists as a group are only just becoming comfortable in the blogging environment.

But, I think blogging and forum discussion is getting more and more common when the scientist get hammered out the etiquette of scientific engagement as one of the comments emphasize. It also has to find the right arenas for their discussions, but this will probably happen withing a couple of years, and then we will see a much more rapid moving scientific progress.

So, I do what any science writer does. I read the new paper and looked for some comments. I email Nick Matzke, a co-author of an earlier paper on this topic. He wasn't impressed. To register his displeasure, he wasn't content just to send me a grousing email. He blogged at length on Panda's Thumb. Commenters threw in their own two cents. Meanwhile, another source-turned-blogger, Ryan Gregory (whom I wrote about in an article on dinosaur genomes), wrote about the study as well, to which Larry Moran, himself a blogger as well as University of Toronto biochemist, responded harshly in the comments, saying that the paper should never have been published. (Moran, Matzke, and others complain about the methods the ASU scientists used to identify related genes.)

http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/04/17/when_scientists_go_all_bloggy.php

Young scientists flock to networking sites.

The social network activity at Nature's website is something I think will become very common in the near future. Here is an article about it: "Young scientists flock to networking sites."

Here is the link to Nature Network:
http://network.nature.com/

Google Earth show what happens in Darfur

I would recommend to check out the last version of Google Earth, it has changed a lot, use the upper right corner button to lower the horizont. Also Google has released a map over the terror in Darfur that is very sad to see. Here is more information about that:

Reuters: Google Earth maps atrocities in Darfur

Why GNU/Linux is Better

Recommended reading for all new GNU/Linux users here:

http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/

YouTube’s Favorite Clips

Vidmeter, which tracks the online video business, determined that the clips that were removed for copyright violations — most of them copyrighted by big media companies — comprise just 9 percent of all videos on the site. Even more surprising, the videos that have been removed make up just 6 percent of the total views (vidmeter.com).

New York Times

Index of Economic Freedom and Globalization

Interactive mapping of globalization and economic freedom here.

http://www.macrofocus.com/public/products/infoscope/datasets/economicfreedom.html

Linux Media Center Edition for Ubuntu

Here is an ADDON for Ubuntu, should be MUCH easier to get a Linux Media Center up and go from now on.

LinuxMCE is a free, open source add-on to Ubuntu including a 10' UI, complete whole-house media solution with pvr + distributed media, and the most advanced smarthome solution available. It is stable, easy to use, and requires no knowledge of Linux and only basic computer skills.

LinuxMCE

Soon the UbuntuStudio will be launched as a package for video/music/graphic editors work.

Ubuntu Studio is aimed at the linux audio, video and graphic enthusiast as well as professional.

Open Course Ware and publishing on the web

I discovered on the Open Course Ware website that they use the http://www.abinitio.com and I clicked on it and found it to be interesting.

‘Microsoft sucks’, says top blogger

At a “global summit” of its most-valued software developers, Microsoft repeatedly declared that it would “win” in search and other parts of its Windows Live internet strategy.

“The words are empty,” Scoble responded. “Microsoft’s internet execution sucks (on the whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks. If that’s ‘in it to win’, then I don’t get it.”

He continued: “Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the inter-net? Come on.

From Times Online

Index Data Masterkey is out for demo

http://mkey.indexdata.com/demo/

Dataverse Network in alpha-version

This is really really big, check it out!

http://drupal-test.hmdc.harvard.edu/frontpage


"Tools for Research (A Biased Review)" (click on "brainwash" and see an interesting figure.

Commentary: Taiwan notebook players sound off on Linux

Commentary: Taiwan notebook players sound off on Linux: "OEMs, on the other hand, noted it is less costly to produce Linux-based notebooks and demand at the lower end of the market is worth developing. And while the authorization fees for Windows entry-level education OS edition in undeveloped countries are around US$40, those for Linux OS are nearly free, the OEMs noted. Therefore, the OEMs say they are optimistic about the opportunities a shift to Linux-based notebooks presents."

Open journalism

"Essentially, we're building a software platform for journalism 2.0 - open source and extensible - which we believe will bring new dimensions of creativity to news gathering."

Libraries Integrate New Tech

The operating hours of Harvard’s libraries can now be accessed by anyone with a Web-enabled mobile phone, the latest technological innovation available to patrons following the debut of a new search extension for the Firefox browser.

Read more here

British and Irish research library records usable with Zotero

Copac offers an excellent model for other data providers, self-publishers, and bloggers who wish to make their content available to Zotero. By embedding COinS tags in their library records, the Copac developers have made it possible for Zotero to automatically capture the bibliographic information contained in them.

OpenCourseWare at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

OpenCourseWare at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: "The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's OPENCOURSEWARE (OCW) project provides access to content of the School's most popular courses. As challenges to the world's health escalate daily, the School feels a moral imperative to provide equal and open access to information and knowledge about the obstacles to the public's health and their potential solutions."

Dell want your opinion on which GNU/Linux you prefer

Here is the link to the survey:
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/linux

The Impoverished Social Scientist's Guide to Free Statistical Software and Resources

Here are some good suggestions to statistical software and some good jokes:

"Doing econometrics is like trying to learn the laws of electricity by playing the radio." - Orcutt's observation

"One problem with political science is that its laboratories are unsecured, allowing real people to roam around inside them, spitting in test tubes and fiddling with computers" - Walter Kirn

"You can see a lot, just by looking." - Yogi Berra

http://www.hmdc.harvard.edu/micah_altman/socsci.shtml#SOFT

liveplasma music, movies, search engine and discovery engine

liveplasma music, movies, search engine and discovery engine

Try to type beatles in the search field.

UNEP: Atlas of Our Changing Environment

UNEP: Atlas of Our Changing Environment

Nice environmental atlas.

Mac Rumors: More Multitouch from Jeff Han

Mac Rumors: More Multitouch from Jeff Han

Amazing video of multi touch screen.

GCensus: Using Google Earth for Census Analysis

Mashup between Google Earth and Census Bureau. This is something Statistics of Norway should take a look at.

And this World Wildlife Fund mashup with Google Earth is also promising for the understanding about how we destroy the earth.

Et samfunn på dugnad - ITavisen

Et samfunn på dugnad - ITavisen: "Åpen kode, egenprodusert musikk og video, gratis programvare. Blir Microsoft, Hollywood og platebransjen overflødige?" Jøss, gjennomtenkt artikkel frå Itavisen. Bra!

Tories want more open source

Tories want more open source: "Let's save £600 million per year, says shadow chancellor"

Report: Linux, open source greener than Windows

Report:

Linux, open source greener than Windows
But the British report touches upon a simple fix that could also fix the environment: Use open source.

"One of the benefits frequently put forward for the use of open source software is the level of resources needed to support it. This means that for equivalent open source and Microsoft Windows systems, the open source will require less memory and a slower processor speed for the same functionality," the report said.

Industry observers quote a typical hardware refresh period for Microsoft Windows systems as three to four years; the U.K. government report cites a major unnamed U.K. manufacturing organization that quotes its hardware refresh period for Linux systems as six to eight years.

The New Science of Sharing

The New Science of Sharing: "But advances in storage, bandwidth, software, and computing power are pushing collaboration to the next level. Call it Science 2.0."

ConsortiumInfo.org - ICT Sandards, Accessibility and Self-Regulation

This blogpost from Andy Updegrove is very thoughtprovoking and important. I recommend to take your time to read it if you are interested in the future of the information society.


ConsortiumInfo.org - ICT Sandards, Accessibility and Self-Regulation: "As our dependency on ICT increases exponentially, it therefore makes sense to ask whether the continuation of this laissez-faire atmosphere will remain (even) on balance a good thing."

Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology: Ten Tech Trends for Librarians 2007

Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology: Ten Tech Trends for Librarians 2007: "So here's this year's list, with a new name: 'Trends' instead of 'Things.' Sure it puts a finer point on it but it also recognizes the changes in my thinking about the essential duties of librarians:

Learn to Learn
Adapt to Change
Scan the Horizon

As we carry out or essential mission of service, stewardship and access, I really want folks in libraries to be able to watch the horizon for trends -- and I told the group that in Toronto: 'We can all be trendspotters. We can all watch for trends that impact not only the profession but our specfic communities and user groups.'"

Inside Google Book Search: The Bavarian State Library becomes largest non-English library partner

Inside Google Book Search: The Bavarian State Library becomes largest non-English library partner: "The Bavarian State Library becomes largest non-English library partner"

E-book's new chapter - 05 Mar 2007 - IT Week

E-book's new chapter - 05 Mar 2007 - IT Week: "Electronic paper display undoubtedly works. Your eyes don’t get tired from reading the screen as they do with a computer, and the iLiad is perfectly comfortable to use outside and indoors under a variety of lighting."

BBC NEWS | Technology | Push for open access to research

BBC NEWS | Technology | Push for open access to research: "Cancer patients seeking information on new treatments or parents searching for the latest on childhood development issues were often denied access to the research they indirectly fund through their taxes."

Money for nothing? Open source VC funding - CBRonline.com

Money for nothing? Open source VC funding - CBRonline.com: "'The VC community is trying to predict where the market is going, the whole job is trying to predict where the [hockey] puck is going to be,' says Robin Vasan, managing director at venture capital firm Mayfield."

Amazon.com: The Economics of Open Source Software Development: Books: Jürgen Bitzer,Philipp J.H. Schröder

Amazon.com: The Economics of Open Source Software Development: Books: Jürgen Bitzer,Philipp J.H. Schröder: "The topic of open source software development is truly interesting, and very timely. There is clearly a need for a book like this on the economics of the phenomenon. This book, due to its analytical and theoretical focus, will be a great complement to the many books that have been published on the phenomenon....The editorial team is highly accomplished and well regarded in the research community. They are very well known for the contributions to the economic theory on open source software,"

Gigantene styrt av bloggen

Jøss, trudde ikkje dette nyhende skulle koma til Noreg før tidlegast i 2010.

"Store selskaper lar blogg-lesere styre viktige avgjørelser – for å vise at de følger med i tiden."
Les meir om dette i Dagensit.no

Users Who Know Too Much And The CIOs Who Fear Them - Editorial - CIO

Users Who Know Too Much And The CIOs Who Fear Them - Editorial - CIO: "A new IT department is being born. You don't control it. You may not even be aware of it. But your users are, and figuring out how to work with it will be the key to your future and your company's success."

Thomson Learning :: Thomson Learning Adopts Sakai Open Source Collaboration and Learning Environment

Thomson Learning :: Thomson Learning Adopts Sakai Open Source Collaboration and Learning Environment: "Thomson Learning Adopts Sakai Open Source Collaboration and Learning Environment"

Firefox3: Web Apps Game changer

Rod Drury > Firefox3: Web Apps Game changer: "A session with huuuuge implications first up today from Robert O’Callahan from Mozilla. He’s based in NZ but drives the rendering engine of Mozilla/FireFox. (Aside1: I think that it is completely cool that such a web significant thing is being built from a guys sun room in New Zealand - rocking!)"

Haakon Wium Lie want something else than OOXLM and ODF

I'd pick the 700-page specification (ODF) over the 6,000-page specification (OOXML). But I think there is a better way.

It is possible to build a new format on top of the universally understood HTML and CSS.

Read more at CNET.COM

Stats Show Google Dominates the International Search Landscape

Searchenginewatch.com has some interesting statistics about the overwhelming dominance of Google in the search landscape.

Worldwide readership of the Open Access News Blog

This Clustermap shows that Peter Suber's blog has got a worldwide readership.

Web 2.0 "no going back"

Today I opened up my Google Reader, found last news from the Peter Suber Blog, Then I clicked on the Open Repositories 2007 conference link and found a del.icio.us page and a Flickr photoset from the conference. After that I read the article “Latest News”: EPrints Meets Web 2.0 and then clicked on the Eprint statistics page and find out from wich country people had downloaded this article, how many abstract and full text views that had happened. I clicked on some other articles, and found the integration of Google Scholar to the citations in them by clicking on "SEEK" in the reference list. (it was not working this time). Anyway, this is a good example on how mashups and mixing is functioning. I have been using around 10 different web 2.0 services about a topic I was interested in. Bill Thompson wrote earlier today in the BBC News this:

But Yahoo! has given us a glimpse of the networked future, where the world's information is not only at our fingertips, but available to be mixed, mashed and filtered on demand, giving us what we want, when we want it - and from wherever we can get it. There will be no going back.

I agree, this services is simply so useful that "There will no going back.

Google is under legal attack by the E.U. - MarketWatch

I bet that the appeal from Google will win ultimately, because this is just to ridiculous to pass through a court. It has nothing to do with protecting the francophone languages and culture because Google has an interface in French and index French and Belgian newspapers/libraries as much as they want in French. It has nothing to do with copyright infringement as long as they don't cache (they don't). This is just about coming late to the search business and see that they have lost. This is just to fantastic, there is no lock-ins in the search engine market, still they want to use the court to harass the companies. I see nothing support from nongovernmental groups in support of the publishers, nobody except corrupted politicians and search hungry publishers.

John Dvorak second opinion is always one of the best comments to the market:

Google is under legal attack by the E.U. - MarketWatch: "This legal action is so fishy that the U.S. government should take this up with the World Trade Organization regarding unfair trade practices, and feed the E.U. some of its own medicine."

Cultural anthropology in cyberspace

Michael Wesch has a lot of interesting stuff on his webpage about digital anthropology.

Zotero and Simile

Some interesting thoughts about two of the most promising project in the academic world:

Why I Like These Two Projects

I am an omnivore for finding new, exciting projects. I have specific aims in mind, and they are (generally) different than what is motivating the specific project developers. Of the many hundreds of projects I have investigated, I think these two are among the best, but for different reasons and with different strengths.

The Zotero project, though early in the process, has all of the traits to be an exemplar in terms of documentation, professionalism, openness and active outreach to its communities. I take the criticisms from some in the community (motivated, I believe, by good will) to be a result of possible frustrations regarding pent-up needs and expectations, rather than the project’s poor execution or arrogance. I think posing the discussion as the dialectic of the cathedral v. the bazaar is silly and does the project and its sponsors a disservice. What looks to be going on is simply the real-world of the open-source sausage factory in the face of constraints.

As for Simile, we are seeing true innovation being conducted in real time in the open. And while some of these innovations have practical applications today, many are still cutting edge and not fully vetted. With the program’s stated aims of addressing emerging computer science challenges, this tension will remain and is healthy. Criticisms of the Simile efforts as “research programming”, I think, miss the boat. If you want to know what is going to be in your browser or influencing your Internet experience a few years hence, look to Simile (among others).

http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=330

Google Reader in Google Apps for Your Domain

This is unofficially news from the blogosphere: "I nearly fell out of my chair but look top right and saw I was logged in with my Google Apps for Your Domain account and not the @gmail.com login."

paulmwatson.com