Category — other research

Largest archive of free culture to be built in the Netherlands:
From the Netherlands, the “Images for the Future” project is building a large-scale conservation and digitization project to make available 285,000 hours of film, television, and radio recordings, as well as more than 2.9 million photos from the Netherlands’ film and television archives. A basic collection drawn from the archive will be made available on the Internet either under CC licenses, or in some cases, in the public domain. The Government of the Netherlands, a long time supporter of the local Dutch CC project, will invest a total of 173 million Euros over a seven-year period. Their aim is to spur innovative applications with new media, while providing valuable services to the public.
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this will be great… free content is the backbone of innovation and production.

Miles away, ‘I’ll have a burger’ – The Boston Globe:

NASHUA — When Jairo Moncada pulled up to the drive-through at Wendy’s in Burbank, Calif., for his usual cheeseburger, fries, and soda, he knew things looked different. There was an extra lane.

But the 25-year-old could not see the biggest change: The woman taking his lunch order was sitting 3,000 miles away at a computer terminal in Nashua, and fielding calls from Wendy’s customers at drive-throughs as far away as Florida and Washington, D.C.

“I had absolutely no idea I was talking to someone in New Hampshire,” Moncada said in a phone interview later that day. “Our order was ready at the window. It was really quick.”

It took a total of 66 seconds.

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wow…. this changes…. something…. not sure what, but something.

How many calories are in Coke Zero?:
If you answered zero, go to Question 2: how many calories are in Pepsi One? If you answer one, you are wrong. Nancy, a friend and colleague of mine, told me her son did a college project to find out how many calories are actually in soda. Pepsi One, it turns out, has something like 28 calories. Pepsi One pays a little fine every year to the Food & Drug Administration for lying about its calorie count, because it is much more profitable to pay the fine every year than change the calories.

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ahhh trüth in advertising is great…. government complicity is better.

In Search Of Scientific Excellence: L’Oréal USA Announces Call for Applications for 2007 Fellowships for Women In Science Program:
NEW YORK, NY, August 14,
2006 – L’Oréal USA announced today the start of the application period for its esteemed L’Oréal
USA Fellowships for Women in Science program. Now in its fourth year, this national program
aims to annually recognize, reward and support five women post-doctoral researchers in the U.S. who
are pursuing careers in the life and physical/material sciences, as well as mathematics,
engineering and computer science. As part of its commitment to further help exceptional women
scientists reach their goals, L’Oréal USA has doubled the value of its fellowship grants from a
current $20,000 to $40,000 for the 2007 program.

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this looks like a great program, I think we need more programs like this. science starts with having a plurality of scientists with a plurality of life experiences and modes of understanding the world. intellectual diversity is the backbone of science, because it rounds out the ways people can understand and use scientific knowledge. With a heavily male oriented scientific practice, you end up cutting off many of the possible insights about the world, this programs that support increasing the number of women and minorities in science are, in my mind, important.

“The Fundamental Role of Science and Technology in International Development: An Imperative for the U.S. Agency for International Development”:
The Fundamental Role of Science and Technology in International Development: An Imperative for the U.S. Agency for International Development

The paper copy of this book has just been published. The online version has been available for some time. I suspect the report is must reading for those in the United States interested in science and technology for international development. The book does not deal with UNESCO explicitly, but UNESCO is the lead agency in the UN system for basic science and engineering, as well as social science and some fields of applied science.
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This looks like it will be a somewhat informative read.

far too many groups in the fields that i work with accept the singular account of economics…. so i’m distributing this.
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“Economic Pluralism for the 21st Century”
June 1-3, 2007
University of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)

In the second half of the 20th century, neoclassical economics and its derivatives came to dominate economic thinking, teaching and policymaking. Humanity is increasingly feeling the consequences of this blinkered vision: the ever-widening gap between the very rich and all the rest; growing divergences in economic performance across nations and regions; globalization without global coordination for the common good; and economically induced climate change, with the mid-century prospect of an Earth unable to support even current levels of human population. Meta-externalities from economic systems are draining the resources on which they depend, from families and other institutions that educate and socialize human beings, to water, air, soil, and the diversity of species.

In a positive vein, economics in the 21st century has already taken a decidedly pluralist turn, spurred in part by the struggles of economists – mainstream and heterodox – to increase the relevance of economic theory, policy, and education in a changing and challenged world where no single theoretical tradition or institutional structure can reasonably claim to hold “the key” to human betterment.

ICAPE and the organizers of “Economic Pluralism for the 21st Century” invite proposals for papers that discuss or demonstrate the value of economic pluralism in any of its domains: economic theory and philosophy, economic institutions and policies, or economic education.

Panels will be organized around thematic topics, with an eye to encouraging dialogue among authors whose papers address similar issues from different points of view. In this fashion, we hope to promote critical engagement and mutual learning among conference participants.

Submission of Proposals

All paper and panel proposals should be submitted to Rob Garnett at r.garnett@tcu.edu, or by post to:

Rob Garnett
Department of Economics
Box 298510
Texas Christian University
Fort Worth, TX 76129

Proposal deadline: January 15, 2007
Notification deadline: February 15, 2007

For individual paper proposals, please include the following:

Paper title
Brief abstract (200-250 words)
Your name and contact addresses (including institutional affiliation)

For panel proposals (3-4 papers), please include:

Panel title
Brief description of the panel’s focus
Brief abstract (200-250 words) for each paper
Each panelist’s name and contact addresses (including institutional affiliations)

When submitting a panel proposal, you are encouraged (but not required) to designate a session chair. Also, you are encouraged to propose a format for your session, including non-traditional formats such as roundtables, workshops, or presenter/audience dialogues.

Conference Fees and Registration

The conference will be held over three days, beginning on Friday morning, June 1, 2007, and ending midday on Sunday, June 3.

The conference fee covers Friday and Saturday lunches, a conference dinner Friday evening, tea/coffee breaks throughout the conference, and all printed conference materials.

Between now and April 1, 2007, the fee structure will be:

Regular rate: $150
Low-income rate (for graduate students, underemployed Ph.D.s, and others): $75

After April 1, 2007, the fee structure will be:

Regular rate: $175
Low-income rate: $75

To register for the conference, please fill out the registration and payment form (available at www.icape.org) and send it to:

Ed McNertney
Department of Economics
Box 298510
Texas Christian University
Fort Worth, TX 76129

Busch Macht Frei:
A sign on the front of the US prison in Guantanamo Bay reads “Honor Bound to Defend Freedom.”

A sign over the gate of the Fort Dix stockade, where war protesters were jailed during the Vietnam days: “Obedience to the law is freedom.”

A sign I saw in 1979 on the Grady County courthouse in Chickasha, Oklahoma: “The Safety of the State is the Highest Law.”

A sign I saw on a billboard in Franco’s Spain in 1958: “Sin orden, no hay libertad.” (Without Order, There is No Liberty.)

A sign beside the gate at Auschwitz: “Arbeit Macht Frei.” (Work Makes You Free.)

And so it goes.

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the slip and slide of doublespeak transforms the meanings of freedom into the meaning of slavery and horror. i always try to confront my students with what it could really mean to be free and equal in society and why they might not be free or equal now. if we don’t take an active stance against the reconstruction of freedom, freedom of body, freedom of conscious, freedom of community, we will never have the benefits of our world. i should say that the market does not equate with freedom, nor does laboring, nor does subservience to the state or other forms of obedience. consenting to the state is one thing, obedience is entirely different.

DAC 2007: Perth:

The call for papers for perthDAC 2007 is out. The theme of the 2007 Digital Arts and Culture Conference will be “The Future of Digital Media Culture” which, I presume, leaves plenty of room for electronic literature and other GTxA type interests. The conference will be held from 15 – 18th September 2007, during the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth. There will be a double blind peer review process for papers. The deadline for 500 word abstracts is 14th August 2006, and the deadline for full papers is 4th December 2006. Although it’s a long, expensive way to go from just about anywhere else, Perth is a great city in a fantastic part of Western Australia, with great culture, food, wine, beaches, parrots, and Aussies. I was there for a couple of weeks last winter/summer and I’m looking forward to going back.

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I’ll probably submit something, they’ll probably reject it. but who knows, it really depends on what i submit. i suspect that i’ll submit something along the lines of my archives and situationism discussion, but … i might go for something more art oriented.

Just published: “What UNESCO for the Future”, UNESCO, 2006: UNESCO SHS:

‘What UNESCO for the future?’ proceeds from a reflexion on current and future trends and potential gaps that must be filled, on future scenarios and on ‘What UNESCO?’ in terms of its role today as a participant that could influence the processes of global transformation.

‘What UNESCO for the future?’ reflects on UNESCO’s possible responses to the rising global challenges it faces today. In other words, what role could our Organization have within the United Nations system, and what contribution could it make towards resolving the main challenges and threats of the twenty-first century?

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i wonder what unesco we’ll have. i look forward to working with more people from unesco…. we’ll see.

YouTube – The Death of The Internet?:
The Death of The Internet?

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worth watching…

now is the time to become involved.