Posts from — January 2004

Backlash against OA models?. Stephen Downes, 2004: The Turning Point, Ubiquity v.4,no.46 (January 20-26, 2004). Downes offers an assessment of “issues that will change the way we use the internet.” One section, headlined “Attacking Open Content,” says that media industries will attempt a backlash against freely-available alternatives to their products. Alongside open courseware and open source, Downes mentions “Open access journals are forcing publishers to retrench.” He sees the attack happening on both “legislative” – through intellectual property and legal channels – and “promotional” – or negative advertising on the stability of open content. Finally, Downes calls such attacks “a last desperate gasp before the bottom falls out of the content industry completely… Content is well on its way to being a value-add, something that you might attach to a product, but not something that is the product. Apple uses music to sell iPods, not iPods to sell music.” (Source: The ((sci-tech) library question) [Open Access News]

IS HE . . . NORMAL?. Peggy Noonan has a point: Let me assert something that I cannot prove with a poll but that is based on serious conversations the past… [OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY]

create your own visited country map
or

well i assume it is this new virus going around causing my email to be slowed by, it looks like an hour now, and i would expect two. i wish peopel would start actually maintaining their machines to prevent worms and virus's from spreading, even though i know that it is virtually impossible to do in windows… they could at least diversify their mail clients to prevent alot of this crap from happening.

from www.m-w.com

Main Entry: folály
Pronunciation: 'fŠ-lE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural follies
Etymology: Middle English folie, from Old French, from folfool
1 : lack of good sense or normal prudence and foresight
2 a : criminally or tragically foolish actions or conduct b obsolete : EVIL, WICKEDNESS; especially : lewd behavior
3 : a foolish act or idea
4 : an excessively costly or unprofitable undertaking
5 : an often extravagant picturesque building erected to suit a fanciful taste

just felt like reminding people about the nature of folly.

this was bound to happen, let's not talk about the money involved though, that would make things seem wasteful, no? vt is replacing its big mac cluster already.
here's slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/27/1257256&mode=thread&tid=107&tid=187

You are the Low-Fidelity All-Star. You were born
with your cool, and it's totally natural. You
run the gamut from Hipster Supreme (only they
can ingest as much coffee as you) to the geeky
hipster (Mario Kart, anyone?).

What Kind of Hipster Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

create your own visited states map

Buying of the President 2004. The Buying of the President. A look at the special interests who are bankrolling Bush and his Democratic rivals. [MetaFilter]

And where were you educated?.

Last week in class I asked my students where we had all learned that it is illegal to kill people. (Let’s set aside for the moment why this question would come up in a grad seminar on the Social Implications of Info and Communication Technologies.. the question seemed to make sense at the time.:) When I posed the question I wasn’t sure about my own answer to it so I was especially surprised when I saw that most students (of the eight in this class) had an immediate response: church.

[Crooked Timber]