August 2009
44 posts
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When Pirates Become Copyright Cash Cows →
Copyright laws were once written to allow content creators to protect their work, but at an increasing rate copyright is used to carefully extract money from file-sharers. Some tracking companies go as far as leasing copyrights, with the sole intent of setting up a ‘honey pot’ for pirates.
This is why I’m a strong supporter of Creative Commons and an advocate of dramatic copyright reform....
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Vandaveer — ”Turpentine”
From their...
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How Edupunks Are Transforming Higher Education →
“The Internet disrupts any industry whose core product can be reduced to ones and zeros,” says Jose Ferreira, founder and CEO of education startup Knewton. Education, he says, “is the biggest virgin forest out there.”
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A Short Manifesto on the Future of Attention →
In 1971, the oft-quoted political scientist Herbert Simon predicted that in an information age, cultural producers (that’s designers, but also filmmakers, theater types, musicians, artists) would quickly face a shortage of attention. “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients,” he wrote. The more information, the less attention, and...
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“Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow...”
– “The lost art of reading,” David L. Ulin
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“Indeed it would be realistic to say that what we have in common is our...”
– On Kindness, Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor
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WatchDan Pink on the surprising science of motivation
Pink states clearly what I suspect most of us know intuitively, even if we don’t give the knowledge concious attention or, worse yet, actively supress it: that it’s internal, not external, factors that truly determine our happiness. Or as Pink puts it, intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivators; specifically autonomy, mastery and...
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Why AT&T Killed Google Voice →
Andy Kessler’s call to scrap US communications policy and start over goes right to the heart of what’s wrong with the false dichotomy of voice versus data, and why the likes of AT&T are desperate to delay the inevitable.
What this episode really uncovers is that AT&T is dying. AT&T is dragging down the rest of us by overcharging us for voice calls and stifling innovation...
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On meaningful conversation
Matt Langer has written a passionate piece on the lost art of conversation — simply knowing how to talk to a fellow human being. Here’s an excerpt:
Sometime back we all forgot how to talk to each other. We coveted that McMansion at the end of the cul-de-sac and we put a big screen TV in the living room and bought an SUV to ferry us the two miles to the pharmacy and piled up countless...
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“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”
– Henry Ford
(via bethinkr)
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Volcano Choir — “Island, IS”
The...
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Krugman and Stross Transcript →
A fascinating discussion about science, technology and the future with Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and columnist for the New York Times, and Charlie Stross, Hugo-winning science fiction author.
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Mapping the Brain's Highways →
From Seed magazine:
“Before there was the Human Genome Project, people were studying gene sequences—they were just doing it a million different ways in a million different labs,” Huerta says. “The impact of the Human Genome Project cannot be overstated, and I think the Human Connectome Project will have a similar, transformative impact on neuroscience.”
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Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions —...
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“Are we using computers to sequence, store, and more faithfully replicate our own...”
– George Dyson, “Theory of Games and Economic Misbehavior” (via ethanb)
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Biomimicry in action →
Janine Benyus has a message for inventors: When solving a design problem, look to nature first. There you’ll find inspired designs for making things waterproof, aerodynamic, solar-powered and more. Here she reveals dozens of new products that take their cue from nature with spectacular results
I’m fascinated by this relatively new field, and Benyus does a brilliant job of illustrating...
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What Children’s Minds Tell Us about Truth, Love,... →
…children construct implicit causal models of the world (theories) using the same psychological mechanisms that scientists use to construct explicit scientific theories. In other words, children are like little scientists—or, as Gopnik prefers to put it, scientists are like big children.
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“If it’s a good idea and it gets you excited, try it, and if it bursts into...”
– Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners. 13 years “without business plan” shows that it pays to take risks. (via makenosound)
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Radiohead: Harry Patch (In memory of) →
World War I veteran Harry Patch will be buried tomorrow. The former plumber, who fought at the battle of Passchendaele in 1917, gave a memorable interview to Today reporter Mike Thomson in 2005.
Thom Yorke, lead singer of the band Radiohead, was moved by the interview to write a tribute to the veteran, inspired by Harry Patch’s words.
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Building in Surveillance →
Bruce Schneier on pervasive surveillance technology:
Every year brings more Internet censorship and control — not just in countries like China and Iran, but in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and other free countries.
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It’s bad civic hygiene to build technologies that could someday be used to facilitate a police state. No matter what the eavesdroppers and...
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Department of Eagles — “Phantom...
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WatchVoluum by suprb
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Can Do →
A wonderfully illustrated chronicle of the genius of Ben Franklin by Maira Kalman, from her New York Times blog And the Pursuit of Happiness
Why People Hate Copyright →
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