Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
3 comments:
- Lorraine said...
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I'm not particularly anti-IP. The current gold rush mentality surrounding IP absolutely disgusts me, but I suppose it was baked into the cake once computing capability trickled down to the consumer market. I'm fiercely anti-DRM. I could live with consumer electronics being an industry organized along entirely separate lines from the computer industry, in which products of the former come with tamper-evident seals and other we-don't-trust-you anti-features (sort of like Soviet radios lol) while the latter sells general purpose computers that can literally be programmed by their owners (imagine that). I'm a little worried that the equity-in-diversity crowd is increasingly baring its teeth toward hacker culture. One can see why if Julian Assange is the currently most visible exemplar of the latter. But I hope no one is out to throw the baby out with the bathwater. A few years ago it was "open source has a misogyny problem so let's use closed source." (Facepalm) There's the whole "intellectual property supports personal incomes" thing, which is true, but which is also something of a pyramid scheme...a creator doesn't make a little money without a syndicator making a lot of money, up the food chain to some kind of IP portfolio manager (probably a hedge fund manager or something).
Under "ideal market conditions" no intellectual property probably means no intellectual job descriptions, but public support for arts, sciences and even journalism seems a better way to go. Being a Detroiter, I get Canadian TV: News broadcasts on the government-supported CBC insult my intelligence for about 5 minutes of a typical hour; compare this with 60 minutes of a typical hour for ABC, CBS, NBC and even Boeing (PBS).
The principle of "that which cannot be monetized cannot be accomplished" is killing the blogosphere too, with the role formerly occupied by blogs going to slick and professional looking websites like medium.com which literally celebrate the degree to which they're dumbed down by including estimated reading times. - 5:00 PM
- Dale Carrico said...
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A+
- 5:31 PM
- Chad Lott said...
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It's pretty cool to have books and the Kindle (at least the app). Even though it's super clunky, you get access to library e-books and a lot of classics are free.
I love that you can simply tap the screen to define a word you don't know, and making notes is, from my perspective, way better on the Kindle than scribbling in the margins (though I enjoy that).
Whispersync (or whatever it's called) is neat, too. I can put the book down, turn the audiobook on where I left off, and then attend to whatever dreary chore needs doing. Then I can just pick the "book" back up when I'm done.
But yeah, when the ads come, I'll be happy to still have my dumb books.
- 5:45 PM
"Lorraine" commented on my throwing shade at kindles yesterday:
Might I ask what is relatively inappropriate about Kindle technology? For me it's Digital Restrictions Mechanisms (DRM). You Clinton supporters tend to be pro-IP so I assume for you it's something else? I too have a large collection of bound volumes, but I've been exposing myself to classic (as in old enough to be out of copyright) works via the open source FB Reader app for Android.
I have lots of reasons for preferring bound volumes to e-books, but you'll forgive me if I don't know whether they are reasons shared by the "You Clinton supporters" tribe or gang or species to which I now apparently belong to my misfortune. I missed the meeting in which kindles were discussed and so cannot say if I share the "tendencies" you so kindly ascribe to me on the subject because I preferred Clinton to the ill-prepared and rather vapid (in my view) Bernie Sanders in the primary and now prefer her to the authoritarian bigot idiot (in my view) Donald Trump in the general. I assign open source texts in my classes and have read many as well to my delight and edification -- do try not to think too terribly harshly of me as I serve my monstrous queen.
I also found Sen. Sanders a bit vapid, at least on foreign policy. Much of the labor movement seems to have gone on a pro-IP bender (especially the Hollywood unions of course) if paid placements in Fecebook are any barometer. Probably unfair of me to ascribe such a tendency to Clintonistas in general. Clinton is, after all, nominally anti-TPP at this point history.
An enjoyable and wide-ranging conversation, of a kind that became harder and rarer during and since the primary contest I find, I do hope there are more to come...