Climate change and open source

THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF ‘OPEN SCIENCE’ An Essay on Patronage, Reputation and Common Agency Contracting in the Scientific Revolution Higly recommended!!
http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/workp/swp06008.pdf

Could climate science become open source?
http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/could-climate-science-become-open-source/

Mitigating “Anticommons” Harms to Research In Science and Technology New Moves in “Legal Jujitsu” against Adverse Consequences of the Exploitation of IPR on Publicly and Privately Funded Research Results (oktober 2010)
http://siepr.stanford.edu/system/files/shared/pubs/10-009_v2.pdf

Collaborative Research in e-Science and Open Access to Information
http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/papers/pdf/08-21.pdf

Preparing for the Next, Very Long Crisis: Towards a ‘Cool’ Science and Technology Policy Agenda For a Globally Warming Economy
http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2009/wp2009-031.pdf

Kjell Lars Berge sin argumentasjon mot Huitfeldt

Kjell Lars Berge og hans mange støttespelarar ser ut til å ta i bruk "målet heilagar midlet"-tankegang for tida. No er det ikkje berre barneporno og terror ein vil til livs med Datalagringsdirektiver. No skal bevaring av språket verte det som legitimerar forlaga sine ynskjemål om privilegier og økonomisk støtte, for å bevare demokratiet og yttringsfridomen.

Det er tydelegvis ikkje grenser for kor viktig det er å bevare privilegiane til det gamle kulturfinansieringssystemet. Eg er ikkje overraska over at dei same folka har null problemer med å ofre yttringsfridomen med Datalagringsdirektivet, Acta, Ipred etc.

Me har altså med ein kulturelite som jamt over har eit veldig lite gjennomtenkt praktisk og etisk nivå, syner tydeleg at dei manglar evna til å tenkje i proporsjonar og nyansert.

I artikkelen i Dagbladet 19.10 "Vil kneble Språkrådet" http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/19/kultur/debatt/debattinnlegg/sprakradet/13904103/ visar Kjell Lars Berge at han eigentleg er interessert i å vidareføre gamleg forretningsmodellar og privilegier i kulturlivet, under dekkje av at språket er grunnlaget for demokrati og yttringsfridom. Ok, språk er viktig, men det får vere måte på. Å blåse opp Språkrådet si rolle som nærmast ein garantist for kunnskap, yttringsfridom, levande språk og demokrati er heilt ute av proporsjonar.

At til dømes den norske Wikipediaen sansynlegvis er langt meir effektiv for å bevare det norske språket enn dei fleste av privilegia som Berge foreslår er nok eit døme på kor einauga og unyansert han er på norsk språkpolitikk.

Då Per Egil Hegge måtte forklare han skilnaden på å skulde folk for lygn og seie at dei tøvar, så viste han at me eigentleg har å gjere med ein person som er oppteken av å overtyde framføre å stå for det han eigentleg driv med.

I diagogen Gorgias, så avkledde Platon retorikarane (talekunstnarane) og viste at dei eigentleg ikkje kunne stå for det dei sa. Filosofane vant. I går på Aktuelt vant Per Egil Hegge over talekunstnaren Berge som måtte fossro etter å ikkje ha nytta sjansa han fekk av Hegge til å koma med ei orsaking.

Det er forøvrig deprimerande at store delar av kulturnoreg er så lotteleg prinsipplause at dei kritiserar Huitfeldt for å undergrave yttringsfridom på grunn av at ho ikkje støttar Store Norske Leksikon, medan dei sjølve går inn for totalovervaking av vanlege borgarar og ein totalfjerning av pressa sin bruk av løynde kjelder. At det går an?!

If we listened to the the anti-technologists...

We would have banned:
Hollywood, recording industry, cabel TV, copy machine, radio, VCR, MP3, Cassette player etc.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100925/12401911168/a-look-at-the-technologies-industries-senators-leahy-hatch-would-have-banned-in-the-past.shtml

See also:

More People Think about Smart Copyright Reform
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100926/23314311178/more-people-thinking-about-smart-copyright-reform.shtml

The worlds biggest research community is...

Zotero!

"Downloaded millions of times since 2006 and used by hundreds of thousands of researchers daily, Zotero has grown to the world’s largest and most diverse online research community, with nearly 50 million library items presently synced to zotero.org."

http://www.zotero.org/blog/zoteros-next-big-step/

American Economic Association swimming in money

"This is a society with a sound financial basis that could set an example for the rest of the publishers by showing that good research should not be gated. Would this be a money losing proposition? I do not think so, first because the AEA will always have good income from its meeting registrations, and second because it would not need to maintain anymore a whole infrastructure to keep outsiders away from its journals. The AEA could probably cancel membership fees altogether and still make it work."

http://economiclogic.blogspot.com/2010/08/aea-is-missing-golden-opportunity.html

Nature golden open access fees

I wonder if these estimates can be real:

"1. Estimates of $10,000 – $30,000 in author charges for one OA article? You heard it here first. That’s the entire journals budget for some small libraries. They’d be able to get one article for the year – for all the faculty. I wouldn’t call that a viable OA option."

http://scientopia.org/blogs/bookoftrogool/2010/09/20/nature-the-response/

Barnes and Nobles without a buyer

The future don't looks to bright for Barnes and Nobles at the moment. Founder and Chairman of Barnes and Nobles look at the digitization as a major challenge:

"According to Riggio: “Digital publishing and digital book-selling will soon become the most explosive development in the history of our industry and will sweep aside those who aren’t participating.”"

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article22100.html

Does the internet make experts dumb?

Most people think that the Internet makes us smarter (65 % vs. 34 percent of Wall Stret Journals readers), but Andrew Keen seems to disagree in his book "The Cult of the Amateur". Now JP Rangaswami make a wonderful analysis which he states that the internet just makes experts looks dumber :-)

http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/online-services-398/topics/internet-making-us-smarter-dumber

http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Amateur-Internet-Killing-Culture/dp/0385520808

http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2010/08/22/does-the-web-make-experts-dumb/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ConfusedOfCalcutta+%28Confused+of+Calcutta%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

New important book

Barbara van Schewick has written a book that deserve attention:

http://ammori.org/2010/08/11/vanschewic/

More than 100 cubic feet archive goes open access

The Irving Louis Horowitz-Transaction Publishers Archives, 1939-2009 are now open access documenting development of the social sciences.

http://live.psu.edu/story/47470/rss13

Bill Gates with some good predictions

Bill Gates ask this question at Techonomy 2010 conference: "Who Needs a College Education When You Have the Web?" A good question, but the paradox is that the most important forces behind this opportunity is what he himself has spent most of his life to fight :-)

For background information behind that claim, I suggest Yochai Benkler "Wealth of Networks" that you can find here:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wealth_of_networks/Table_of_Contents

This one is specifically good to explain the theory:
http://www.yale.edu/yalelj/112/BenklerWEB.pdf

http://www.dailytech.com/Bill+Gates+Who+Needs+a+College+Education+When+You+Have+the+Web/article19294.htm

Economics loosing focus on important things?

According to the blog "Economic Logic", Economics are not focusing enought on improving global welfare, but rather on academic "pissing contest".

http://economiclogic.blogspot.com/2010/08/business-research-is-as-out-of-focus-as.html

Study molecules cheap

For a while ago a read about the Nokia phone microscope that saved tens of thousand dollars. Now this open hardware is useful to study molecules and can save universities for hundreds of thousand dollars:

http://www.biophysik.physik.uni-muenchen.de/projects/plastic-afm

Why use R statistical program?

Here are some good points:

"The quants at financial services companies have taken a particular shining to R, and not just because they are cheap."

"Jeff Erhardt, who was a heavy R user when he worked at chip makers Advanced Micro Devices and Spansion and who is chief operating officer at Revolution, says that universities are not teaching SAS and SPSS any more. They are using R, just like proprietary and Unix operating systems have been displaced by Linux in computer science programs."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/06/revolution_commercial_r/

Open source scales better

Interesting point:

"Open Source Scales Better Than Proprietary, The Cloud Needs Massive Scale to Succeed, Therefore the Cloud Needs Open Source...

Think about it. Would Microsoft and Oracle or Microsoft and Sun before Oracle, both work on the same software project knowing it would help the other? Not likely to happen. So for me what is fueling the great scalability of open source software is not an inherent advantage in the process or the amount of developers working it. It is the fact that it has given companies that otherwise would not collaborate on code together the chance to do so. I think that is the secret sauce of open source."

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/60636

State-wide Google deployment i Oregon Schools

This is the future for schools in my opinion. This is an example on using the real power of technology for collaboration purposes.

"Oregon Public Schools Go Google

By moving to Google's cloud infrastructure, Oregon expects to save $1.5 million annually for e-mail alone. "

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224600691

Fundamental disruption in research and education happens now

For everyone that want to learn more about the fundamentals of change in research and education that happens right now, I will recommend the article written by Richard N. Katz. If you still want more perspectives continue with Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.

Lawrence Lessig has also written an valuable article in Educause where he says that educators has to take more responsibility for what they are doing.


My own experience is: In Norway many people think that corruption is something that only resides in developing countries and that the educators should be the last to be corrupt. The more I learn about systemic failures in our own part of the world the more I feel that corruption is the same everywhere, it is just the expression that is different. Upton Sinclair wrote one time: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

A good friend of mine Junior Maih said this to me one time: solve your own problems before you try to solve ours. He is from Cameroon and he quoted the Bible and said: "And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?" The truth in this is more than I thought.


Getting Our Values around Copyright Right
Lawrence Lessig
http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/GettingOurValuesaroundCopyrigh/202337


Scholars, Scholarship, and the Scholarly Enterprise in the Digital Age
Richard N. Katz
http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/ScholarsScholarshipandtheSchol/202341


Innovating the 21st-Century University: It’s Time!
Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/Innovatingthe21stCenturyUniver/195370

The Economist Editorial goes for 14 years copyright

A really good idea! The Economist also says that the digital revolution also has lowered the cost on production.

"Over the past 50 years, however, that balance has shifted. Largely thanks to the entertainment industry’s lawyers and lobbyists, copyright’s scope and duration have vastly increased. In America, copyright holders get 95 years’ protection as a result of an extension granted in 1998, derided by critics as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act”. They are now calling for even greater protection, and there have been efforts to introduce similar terms in Europe. Such arguments should be resisted: it is time to tip the balance back."

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15868004

iPad the Kindle killer

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/11/who-needs-catch-22-when-you-have-flight-control/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Why I don't want an iPad

Cory Doctorow explain it for me very good in his blogpost:

"Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)"

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either.html

So far it seems to me that Android and MeGoo are the best choice for my future device.