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Latest Updates: society RSS

  • erik 6:28 pm on June 16, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , society

    Finished reading “Little Brother”

    I took my copy of Cory Doctrow’s “Little Brother“ with me on a recent business trip, and thanks to severe weather delays, I managed to spend over 8 hours waiting in airports and was able to finish the book in one day.

    While it’s no fun being stuck in an airport, it turned out to be the perfect environment to read this book. The story follows a high school hacker as he fights the “Department of Homeland Security” to reclaim American civil liberties after anti-terror tactics are taken to a new level. Having the real DHS making announcements in the background about threat levels and unattended baggage, only makes the story more real.

    The book targets a younger audience than myself, but it’s still enjoyable. Doctrow does a wonderful job keeping the story believable, and explaining the security implications of the technology we use on a daily basis. Given the theme of the book, I do hope he’s successful in reaching a wide audience and sparking a healthy debate about “national security”, privacy, and civil liberties.

     

  • erik 9:52 am on August 10, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , society

    “How to Win Friends and Influence People” in bullet-points

    This week I finished How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It’s a classic, often referenced title, so I’m glad I read it. The book is organized in four main sections, with chapters that tell stories as examples for each of the books “principles.” While the lessons of the book are good, by the end, the stories start to feel a little repetitive, and at some point, I lost interest in whether they were real or made up. The overall take-away of the book is positive though, with a strong message of being friendly and considerate toward other people as a means to accomplish your own goals.

    Below are the book’s sections and principles in bullet-points. I’ve spelled them out here for my own future reference (or for anyone who’s read the book and would like a quick reminder):

    Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

    1. Don’t Criticize, condemn or complain
    2. Give honest and sincere appreciation
    3. Arouse in the other person an eager want

    Six Ways to Make People Like You

    1. Be genuinely interested in other people
    2. Smile
    3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
    4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
    5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
    6. Make the other person feel important — and do it sincerely

    How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

    1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it
    2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
    3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically
    4. Begin in a friendly way
    5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately
    6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking
    7. Let the other person feel that the idea if his or hers
    8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view
    9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires
    10. Appeal to the nobler motives
    11. Dramatize your ideas
    12. Throw down a challenge

    Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

    1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation
    2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly
    3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person
    4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders
    5. Let the other person save face
    6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvements. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
    7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to
    8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct
    9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest
     

  • erik 12:31 am on July 13, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , society

    Congress pushes more Internet business off-shore

    Details are still coming in, but it looks like the U.S. Government is hoping to make it more attractive for Internet Radio businesses to be run off-shore then in the States. The decision (like much Internet-related policy) creates a market condition that potentially pushes revenue and innovation to other countries.

    “The new rules issued by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board earlier this year prescribe rate hikes of 0.08 cent per song per listener retroactive to 2006. They would also climb to 0.19 cent per song by 2010.” [cnet]

    The fees are high enough that many small players (where small==independent) will be forced to shut down. The irony, of course, is that broadcast radio continues to pay no fees at all (and to not play the songs I want to hear, which might be why they get the free ride.)

    For more on the issue, see:

    And of course, the blog post that almost saved the day:

     

  • erik 1:24 pm on July 3, 2007 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , society

    Local Search patent wars: another reason software patents suck

    Found this today on TechCrunch, “Patent Wars: Local.com Nabs Local Search Patent“.

    From the post:

    “Local.com saw its stock price rise 52% today after it was awarded patent number 7,200,413 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. According to the text of the patent, it covers what they term “Enhanced Directory Assistance”, which will deliver keyword specific ad referrals based on user input via operator, SMS, WAP, or voice.

    This is in addition to their recently granted patent number 7,231,405, which covers crawling the web and geocoding location based content.”

    That second bit is even more troubling, since it could impact anyone crawling web pages for addresses. The unfortunate thing is that we’re just starting to see sites doing interesting things with scraping and geocoding — and many of the possibilities are actually quite helpful. For example, sites like Zillow already scrape property addresses from local tax records and plot real estate prices on an interactive map… Chicago Crime plots scraped crime reports… Heck, anything that scrapes content with an address for use in plotting on a map would conflict with this patent.

    If the idea of locking down automated crawling and geocoding isn’t enough to raise concern, check of these listings of mapping-related concepts that may also end up off-limits if the patent race continues:

     

  • erik 2:47 pm on June 8, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , society,

    We are the robot invaders

    It’s ironic how much sci-fi involves saving Earth from robot space invaders, yet we’re the one’s sending laser-packing robots to Mars:

    (Via:

    )

     

  • erik 10:10 am on May 14, 2007 | Comments Off Permalink
    Tags: , , , society,

    Today is Wiretap the Internet Day!

    Starting today, your intertubes are tapped. You weren’t using those civil liberties anyway, right?

    For more, see:

     

  • erik 1:49 pm on October 23, 2006 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , society

    “Scientists say video games can reshape education”

    Having just recently picked up a copy of Big Brain Academy for the DS Lite, this article comes as no surprise: “Not playing around: Scientists say video games can reshape education.”

    “The theory is that games teach skills that employers want: analytical thinking, team building, multitasking and problem-solving under duress.”

    What is a surprise though, is to hear that there are still people who are skeptical about using games for education. I mean, where would my mad dance floor skillz be without Dance Dance Revolution? Ok, bad example.

    Looking back though, I fondly remember going to my elementary school library to play typing tutors and Oregon Trail (which taught us the value of 4×4 vehicles.) But past elementary school, educational games went away. At home, I was slingin’ LOGO and playing Zork, but my in-school computer use evolved into using spreadsheets and, eventually, programming Pascal.

    The article does mention one important fact though:

    “The gaming industry has already figured out that educational games don’t make money in the consumer marketplace. The new approach would instead market them directly to schools.”

    This is key. You definitely don’t want some “education council” designing the games — they’re going to suck. You need professional game designers. And if you can organize enough of our tax dollars into funding such development, then you give the gaming industry a reason to take the educational market more seriously.

     

  • erik 11:29 am on August 25, 2006 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: society,

    Search volume as an economic indicator

    I’ve used Google Trends to do a few trend charts of various technologies, but this article, “Unexpected Decline in Existing Home Sales? Not Exactly” shows a wonderful example of online search usage as a precursor to real-world activity (in this case, searching on “homes for sale” before buying a house.) The chart below summarizes it, but you might want to click through at take a look at the full post (it’s short but interesting):

    It makes me wonder what other real-world behavior (particularly economic activity) can be predicted by watching net usage. For example, it might be interesting to see a mapping between Google Music Trends data (which scans Google Talk conversations) and real music sales. Even better might be predicting stock market activity using search behavior…

     

  • erik 10:53 am on June 16, 2006 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , society, , ,

    3D modeling the Earth

    Google SketchUp for OS X finally released to the public this week (as did Google Earth Beta 4 for OS X, Linux, and Windows, in case you missed it.) If you’re not familiar with SketchUp, but are at least remotely interested in 3D modeling, I suggest hoping over to the Google SketchUp Tutorials and having a peek. The first few tutorials elicit a jaw-dropping “it can’t be that easy” reaction.

    On first glance, Google offering a 3D modeling program seems a bit strange. I mean, what could this possibly have to do with search, right? But the key is to look at it differently. If you’ve used Google Earth, odds are high that you’ve also tried looking a major city with the “3D Buildings” option enabled for that all too futuristic, flying-through-the-world experience. But what you notice when you do this is that there aren’t enough 3D models, and they tend to lack detail. So how do we get from flat, satellite photographs to rich 3D models of every building in the world? Well, you start by giving away a free, easy to use 3D modeling program that can import/export into Google Earth… And then you let your customers (happily) do the work for you. (Co-creation at it’s best.)

    For more, see:

    Below: an example SketchUp model (of the University of Texas tower) geo-positioned over a Google Earth map tile

     

  • erik 8:35 am on March 30, 2006 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , society

    Looking across the pond for new media innovation

    I just watched the BBC demo from mix06. Stunning. But while watching it, it occurred to me that the BBC’s unique position of being publicly funded is a huge advantage for adopting new media technology, and that advertising-funded media in the States seems to be battling against these same advancements.

    Since UK citizens fund the BBC (at least, that’s my simplified interpretation), it is in the BBC’s interest to make their content easily available to all (paying) citizens. In other words, DVR’s, IPTV, and video iPod’s can be embraced rather then feared. Additionally, since their funding is somewhat fixed and consistent (ie., no spiky ad revenue), it is also in the BBC’s interest to reduce content distribution costs where possible to free up money for new content creation (ie., P2P file sharing amongst their customers is a good thing since it cuts the BBC’s direct bandwidth costs.)

    Where it gets particularly interesting though, is that the BBC should be in no way threatened by the idea that their viewers will be copying, re-mixing, fast-forwarding, place-shifting, and sharing the content. With no need to track ad impressions, there’s no dreaded “30-second-skip” attacking legacy business models. Surly they still need to track customer interest to know which shows to fund, but that seems a lot easier then developing content based on how lucrative a viewing audience is for advertisers.

    What’s great about this situation is how well it demonstrates the connection between business models and the ability to embrace change and adopt to consumer needs. In the States, we are at risk of legislation making it illegal to watch movies on one’s computer and even more illegal to share a video with a friend. In the UK, IPTV and P2P networks might just save the country money.

     

  • erik 8:47 am on August 31, 2005 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , society

    citizen reporters

    I have a couple friends in town who were evacuated from New Orleans. After hearing the stories of the levee breaking and flooding the city, I decided to pull up some pictures to get a better sense of the situation. Being a major news event, I’m guessing that there are pictures all over the net, but for some instinctual reason, the first thing I did was tagsurf “katrina” on Flickr. Searching by most interesting, I came across user John Hay’s images… incredible.

    It wasn’t until later that it occurred to me how using Flickr for news represents a significant shift in media consumption. The images on Flickr are raw — sure, some of them are taken by professional photographers, but most are taken by regular people with digital cameras or camera phones. The images tell first-hand stories of being in a situation without the sensationalism that comes with traditional media channels. Something about it seems more pure and trustworthy.

     

  • erik 4:09 pm on July 5, 2005 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: society

    “Man arrested after he rescues swimmer”

    Saw this in the paper this morning and had to pass it along:

    “When Dave Newman waded out of the San Marcos River on Sunday afternoon, he was exhausted. He had just pulled Abed Duamni of Houston out of the swirling waters below Joe’s Crab Shack and deposited him, safe and sound, on the far shoreline.”

    “Then Newman, of San Marcos, was handcuffed, put in a Texas State University police squad car and taken to jail, where he was charged with interfering with public duties.”

    Apparently, the part of the river he saved Duamni from was marked as a “No Swimming” zone, and clearly, entering the water to rescue someone violated that restriction. Newman posted a $2000 bail to avoid staying the night in jail.

    (Via statesman.com.)

     

  • erik 4:23 pm on May 31, 2005 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , society

    “Texas Wireless Ban Has Failed”

    “The effort to ban municipal networks in Texas has failed.” Woo hoo! This is good news.

    (via slashdot)

     

  • erik 10:59 am on April 8, 2005 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: society

    A vote against changing clocks

    I’ve always thought the practice of changing our clocks for Daylight Saving Time (DST) was silly, actually, I tend to think that time-zones aren’t needed either, so I’m a bit of a odd one, but whenever I complain about the practice, I’m always confronted with the counter-argument that “it’s for the farmers.” Well, I’m not a farmer, nor is anyone I know, nor can anyone I know explain why a farmer would actually want to change their clocks, so I’ve always wondered what “the farmers” actually think about it.

    The internet could have answered this question for me long ago, but it wasn’t until this CNN article, “Congress may extend daylight-saving time“, that I decided to look into it more. As it turns out, farmers don’t actually like DST. The trouble is, cows and plants tend to ignore what time the clock reads.

    For once, the post on slashdot about the news actually had some pretty smart conversation in it. And from that, I found a link to this article, “Daylight Savings Time on national Review Online“, which is filled with wonderful quotes like these:

    “When the first DST law was making its way through Congress, farmers actually lobbied against it.”

    “Urban businessmen were a major force behind the adoption of DST in the United States. They thought daylight would encourage workers to go shopping on their way home.”

    Ahhh… an urban businessmen conspiracy. I like the sound of that!

    Of course, The Man presents a different argument, which is based on saving energy. The claim is that if worker bees get home while the sun’s still out, they’re less likely to turn on the lights in their homes, which conserves energy. The Wikipedia Daylight Savings Time page has this to say about it:

    “United States Department of Transportation studies showed that DST reduces the country’s electricity usage by one percent during each day DST is in effect.”

    Well that’s good — we’ll need that extra electricity to run the air-conditioning an hour earlier.

    –
    [update: 2005-04-08]
    After reading this, someone emailed me this link for more history about DST: http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/index.html. The first few pages are pretty good, but it doesn’t give a good reason for changing the clocks in the winter. I’m all for extra sunlight in the evening — I just think we should stay on “summer-time” year round. Of course, after reading more about it, my opinion may be based on me living close to the equator. Apparently people who have dark, cold winter’s like to shift the clock to maximize sunshine during lunch; whereas sunlight isn’t really a problem for us.

     

  • erik 5:19 pm on March 8, 2005 | Comments Off Permalink
    Tags: society

    no tax-paid public wi-fi?

    I’m not sure what to make of this yet: According to the Houston Chronicle article, “Wireless networks don’t click with some“, “Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, has filed a massive telecommunications bill in Austin this session that, in part, bans Texas cities from participating in wireless information networks.” Apparently there’s a concern coming from the large ISP’s that if city governments use Tax money to provide citizens with free Internet access, they will create an unfair business environment for companies hoping to sell wireless Internet services.

    There are a number of ways to look at this, but the angle that bothers me most is in business interests creating laws that limit what citizens can have done with their Tax money. If citizens vote to decide how their money should be used, and a particular region decides that public Internet access is the best thing for them, why not let them better their community in such a way? This is like saying that FedEx should be allowed to pass a law making the USPS illegal! People still use FedEx though…

    (via slashdot)

     

  • erik 11:22 am on November 11, 2004 | Comments Off Permalink
    Tags: , society

    – Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked
    “While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios largely matched the Kerry/Bush vote, in Florida’s counties using results from optically scanned paper ballots – fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking – the results seem to contain substantial anomalies.”

    – Touchscreen voting troubles reported
    “Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.”

    – U.S. Inspires World With Attempt At Democratic Election
    I don’t normally read The Onion, but this is priceless.

    – Autoweek: Under the Hood with Big Brother
    I’m a sucker for techno paranoia, and this article about vehicle tracking systems is a good introduction for those unfamiliar with the level of vehicular data tracking being sought after by governments, insurance companies, and manufacturers — all in an effort to avoid litigation.

     

  • erik 9:15 am on November 3, 2004 | Comments Off Permalink
    Tags: society

    election

    I wish I had some profound critique of the 2004 U.S. Election, but sadly, all I have is disappointment. Sure, I voted for Kerry, and there’s a natural disappointment when you don’t pick the winning team. But it’s more then that. I’m disappointed that so many Americans are buying into the media spin about Terrorism, “Jobs in the 21st Century”, and “No child left behind.” That’s all I’ve heard Bush say lately, and people are blindly eating it up without putting any thought into what Bush’s politics have done to us as a Country and how they affect the world. Disappointment.

     

  • erik 11:08 am on October 31, 2004 | Comments Off Permalink
    Tags: society

    Early voting on electronic voting machines

    I went to early voting last week, and as I expected, my county is using electronic voting machines now. They went with the iVotronic prodcut, which is essentially a large, tablet device with a touch screen interface.

    I complain a lot about electronic voting machines but I gather that my complaints are a bit different then what I typically see in the press. The switch from punch-cards to computers doesn’t bother me at all — I think it’s perfectly feasible to design a robust electronic voting system. If designed well, a networked system should enable rapid and secure vote counting. What I don’t like is that the systems are being designed behind closed doors. On the iVotronic product page they claim it as a feature to be a “Proprietary Personal Electronic Ballot device.” WTF!?? I don’t want a “proprietary” voting device. I want a voting device that is open to review by the thousands of software, hardware, and security experts in this country! The FUD wielders will preach that an open system will enable Crackers to attack it’s weaknesses; and when you hear this argument you should turn it around and mention that obscuring weaknesses by not disclosing them ensures that such weaknesses remain in the system!

    At a Halloween party over the weekend the topic of Voting and the electronic machines came up when someone mentioned that they had a problem with the system when trying to vote Democratic. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but have you noticed that all the jokes about voting machines manipulating votes revolve around making Democratic votes difficult? Does that seem odd to you? I mean, people are out-right joking about Republican corruption influencing votes, yet no one really takes it seriously.

    To compound the issue, Slashdot posted a link to a research paper titled, “Small vote manipulations can swing elections” which takes a mathematical view at the minimal amount of errors required in vote counting to skew an election.

     

  • erik 8:04 am on October 14, 2004 | Comments Off Permalink
    Tags: society

    RFID implants for Humans

    The FDA approval of RFID implants made headlines yesterday, but so far, my favorite post about it belongs to Phil Libin with his post: FDA approves giant pennies. As expected, slashdot has a post about it as well: FDA Approves Implantable RFID for Patients.

    Something to keep in mind when reading headlines about tagging patients, is that the RFID chips themselves have nothing to do with hospitals and doctors: It is nothing more then implanting a broadcast-able ID into humans — which is just slightly more invasive then a bar-code tattoo. At least it makes it easier for The GAP to identify you then using retinal scans!

     

  • erik 4:26 pm on October 8, 2004 | Comments Off Permalink
    Tags: society

    Online music store selling music they have no rights to!

    A friend of mine found some of his independent music being sold on jetgroove without his permission, the labels permission, or any royalties being paid back. Apparently a few independent labels have sent cease-and-desist letters, but haven’t heard anything back. In all counts this company is selling music they do not have the rights to, which is very bad for the online music business model.

     

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