November 15, 2010
Feature Article
What's Wrong With Creative Commons
Stephen Downes, November 15, 2010.
Ultimately, the effect of Creative Commons licenses is to *preserve* copyright. The trouble with Creative Commons, and with copyright in general, is that the rights are focused solely on the needs and interests of the copyright owner, and is silent regarding the situation of the user.
New York Times Budget Puzzle
Tim Bonnemann,
Intellitics, November 15, 2010.
The New York Times yesterday launched Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget, an online budget simulator that challenges participants to balance the US federal budget. It's similar to something I've proposed over the years. Here's my solution to the deficit (consisting mostly of ending the wars in Asia and restoring taxation to Clinton-era levels - I would cut back on the nuclear program too, but the simulator lumps it in with space expenditures, which I wouldn't touch (except, maybe, to increase them). Here's a bunch more solutions. The Times also sets up a debate room regarding different ways to reduce the deficit. What don't I like about this? Well, it reduces the complexities of national finances to a dozen or so one-line solutions. And it is focused on a single result - reducing the deficit - without describing the impact on other metrics (like, say, number of people starving).
Global Education Conference
Various Authors,
Website, November 15, 2010.
Starting today and running for five days is the Global Education Conference. Steve Hargadon writes, "We currently have 397 sessions from 62 countries scheduled, as well as 63 keynote speakers--an amazing lineup" (leading me to think that the organizers don't quite understand the concept of the 'keynote'). It's still a pretty impressive showing. "There is no formal registration required for the conference, as all the sessions will be open and public, broadcast live using the Elluminate platform, and available in recorded formats afterwards." For those using Twitter, the hashtag is #globaled10. See also Lucy Gray, Esther Wojcicki, Rajeev Arora.
Free and Learning in Barcelona – A Trip Report
Scott Leslie,
edtechpost, November 15, 2010.
Scott Leslie goes gonzo and offers up a randomly ordered report on the open learning conference in Barcelona. Some good observations here, from the distinction between the academic open educators up on the hill as compared to the more practical Drumbeat participants down below. And, "we consistently reify knowledge when there is only knowing. Knowing always occupies some living condition, living or dead."
How will we know when the Internet is dead?
Matthew Lasar,
Ars Technica, November 15, 2010.
A group of internet pioneers has filed a statement with the FCC under their notice of proposed rulemaking entitled Further Inquiry into Two Under-developed Issues in the Open Internet Proceeding.
"If a service provides prioritized access to a particular application or endpoint/destination, it is not an open Internet service," writes Matthew Lasar. With the rise in specialized services and the increasing practice of traffic or bandwidth shaping (aka "throttling") questions about the future of the open internet are being raised. "Will managed or specialized services increase or reduce investment in broadband network deployment and upgrades?" the FCC asked out loud. "Will network providers provide sufficient capacity for robust broadband Internet access service on shared networks used for managed or specialized services?" The answer, of course, is that investment will flow toward the promise of greater returns, and this is less and less support for the open internet.
David Reed writes: "the Open Internet is not a closed 'service platform' or a 'walled garden', but an open interchange that crosses cultures, languages, and other traditional barriers. It would be sad if ATT, Verizon, Comcast, Google, or any other corporation were deemed to have the right to 'own' your participation in the Internet, or to decide which tiny subset of content, which tiny part of the world you are paying to communicate with."
More coverage (in part courtesy Bill St. Arnauld):
- Slashdot picks up the Grant Gross/IDG story
- Rob Powell: Definitions, Dialogue, and the FCC
- Joly Macfie/ISOC-NY: Internet to FCC dont mess!
- Grant Gross: 'Net pioneers: Open Internet should be separate (ComputerWorld; reprinted on PCWorld, NetworkWorld, CIO, ITWorld)
- Robin Chase: The Internet is not Triple Play
- Jon Lebkowsky: Advocating for the Open Internet:
- Kenneth Carter: Defining the Open Internet
- David Isenberg: Towards an Open Internet
- Paul Jones: Identifying the Internet (for the FCC)
- Gene Gaines posted the Press Release
- Brough Turner/Netblazr: Seeking Federal Recognition for the Open Internet
- David Weinberger: Identifying the Internet
- Joint Statement - On Advancing the Open Internet by Distinguishing it from Specialized Services
- Exclusive: Big Name Industry Pioneers & Experts Push FCC for Open Internet
- David Reed: A Statement from Various Advocates for an Open Internet Why I Signed On
- Jean-Jacques Sahel, EU laws already protect the open Internet
With a 50 Friends Limit, Path Is the Opposite of Twitter
Ben Parr,
Mashable, November 15, 2010.
If you could follow only 50 people, who would you follow? That's the question you face with Path, a Twitter-like photo sharing application that limits your contacts to 50 people. "Because your personal network is limited to your 50 closest friends and family, you can always trust that you can post any moment, no matter how personal," the company said in its announcement blog post. "Path is a place where you can be yourself." Note that Path will insist that you provide a phone number when you register, and that you cannot input data via the web - only through your iPhone.
An Open Letter to Wired Magazine
Cindy Royal,
Cindy's Take on Tech, November 14, 2010.
More on the Wired cover. A commenter provides the best summary of the issue, to my mind: "Cindy wasn't saying the female form should not be celebrated, but rather that it's misogynistic to only celebrate the female FORM. A one-off cover about women being sexy is probably to be expected from the publishing industry, it becomes a problem when the only time you see a female on a cover is when she's being sexy."
Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2011
Larry Dignan,
Gartner, November 14, 2010.
The term "cloudwashing" refers to "the practice of slapping the term 'cloud' on any technology you have." The term "fabric washing" is not defined but I think we can infer to its meaning given that fabric computing is "a consolidated high-performance computing system consisting of loosely coupled storage, networking and parallel processing functions linked by high bandwidth interconnects. Via Larry Dignan's summary (which with content like "the fabric thing sounds way futuristic" reads like it's written for ten-year-olds).
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