meta-roj

this reuters report describes a bit of trouble that the bush administration and blair government are having with the concept of free speech in democratic nations.

the bbc is soliciting comments on the visit.

this is the example we set for the world….

in a recent piece in wired by professor lessig, i found an echo of something i’ve been commenting on occasionally….

After a short stint at Progeny Linux Systems, Trippi recognized, he told me, “you will absolutely suffocate anything that you’re trying to do on the Internet by trying to command and control it.”

i think this point is bigger than the internet, but then again, i’m crazy. everyone knows there’s nothing bigger than the internet 🙂

every day.

sure, it’s the cool, must-have gadget of the year (years?), but… not quite perfect. cnet explores. they make five points (and suggest alternatives, depending on your personal priorities)

1. Six-plus hours of battery life is not always enough.
2. Jogging with a hard drive-based player is not cool.
3. The iPod is expensive.
4. You want to make high-quality digital recordings.
5. You want a choice in online music stores.

of course, maybe that last one isn’t such a big deal…

the nice people at ehomeupgrade.com have put together a concise comparison of the online music offerings. i’m going even more concise:

in other words, it’s the same deal everywhere. there’s about as much variety here as there is in the retail cd packages from different labels. i don’t see a lot of innovation going on, plenty of room to do new things…

in an expected move, and something kevin marks will no doubt appreciate, sony (wedding bmg) has released the new naturally seven cd in germany with it’s second-session copy protection widget, called ConnecteD. (i say expected, because bmg is now infamous here at meta-roj for their adventures with with sunncomm).

this reuters story contains an interesting quote…

all copy-protections can be hacked,” [sony music chief technology officer phil] wiser said. “but if give people what they are asking for in terms of value, they won’t go out and steal it. it’s called trusting the consumer.

well, trusting them… this much, anyway.

key developments: they are labeling the disc indiciating they have “copy protected” it, and sony’s trying to make up for the drm-value reduction by adding value.

just another wrinkle in the road….

this story from reuters [full text below, when the link breaks] is the first hint i’ve had that the third branch of our american government will actually participate in the political evolution of our new endless war.

two years of justice delayed is justice denied. it’s about time.

will we stop compromising our principles in an ill-advised frenzy to make ourselves secure? if we don’t, what have we secured?
(more…)

i’ve joined the grand thinkers of the carnival of the capitalists. this week’s edition, found here includes a link to back to “plan g”, part of my continuing adventures in this business of music.

salut to my fellow carnies, and welcome to all the interesting new people who wander in my direction… comments and dissent are encouraged, always.

this chicago sun-times headline from sunday might serve as some sort of call to arms…. and the article quotes al gore:

al gore

They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, ‘big brother’-style government — toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book 1984 — than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America

but al… i wasn’t using my civil rights anyway!

joi ito is someone with whom i’ve had an evolving interaction (and the great pleasure of sharing dinner a couple times – putting me in some rather illustrious company, if a bit crowded 🙂 – joi will have dinner with anybody 🙂 )

today, joi ponders his inner cranky old man, which apparently escaped recently.

I think this issue of having difficulty engaging in a discussion with someone on a topic you understand well where you have a strong opinion is an issue that many academics face. This forces them to climb their ivory towers and engage in esoteric debates in an esoteric language with their peers and not reach down to the average person. This is also why many academics avoid publishing in popular media.

… and then asks about solutions, and gives the blog a quick nod.

this is something i’ve been occasionally brushing up against here. sometimes i even notice i’ve been given a clue.

anyway, since it’s one of the major threads i seem to have woven here, i thought i’d dig deep into my past (all the way back to 1986 or so), and bring in some deep thoughts on the subject from someone else. i present umberto eco, the blogger.

umberto eco, travels in hyper reality, preface to the american edition, 1986.

an american interviewer once asked me how i managed to reconcile my work as a scholar and university professor, author of books published by university presses, with my other work as what would be called in the united states a “columnist” – not to mention the fact that, once in my life, i even wrote a novel (a negligible incident and, in any case, an activity allowed by the constitution of every democratic nation). it is true that along with my academic job, i also write regularly for newspapers and magazines, where, in terms less technical than in my books on semiotics, i discuss various aspects of daily life, ranging from sport to politics and culture.
my answer was that this habit is common to all european intellectuals, in germany, france, spain and, naturally, italy: all countries where a scholar or scientist often feels required to speak out in the papers, to comment, if only from the point of view of his own interests and special field, on the events that concern all citizens. and i added, somewhat maliciously, that if there was any problem with this it was not my problem as a european intellectual; it was more a problem of american intellectuals, who live in a country where the division of labor between university professors and militant intellectuals is much more strict than in our countries.
it is true that many american university professors write for cultural reviews or for the book page of the daily papers. but many italian scholars and literary critics also write columns where they take a stand on political questions, and they do this not only as a natural part of their work, but also as a duty. there is, then, a difference in “patterns of culture.” cultural anthropologists accept cultures in which people eat dogs, monkeys, frogs, and snakes, and even cultures where adults chew gum, so it should be all right for countries to exist where university professors contribute to the newspapers.

update: fixed the first-paragraph misaligned quotations so the paragraph is visible, and fixed some spelling errors.