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Moving on, part II

2010-09-02T10:14:00.002+02:00

I recently mentioned that I would concentrate my blogging efforts together with a team of bloggers at the 3TU.Centre of Ethics and Technology (www.ethicsandtechnology.eu). However, as this team grew to a size where each contributor would post only 1-2 times per year, I've decided to continue my personal blog. However, in a fit of vanity I ended up purchasing soraker.com,which will be my main online dwelling from now on. I'll also slowly start moving some of the posts worth keeping over there, so please just disregard this url (I'll probably shut it down as soon as I have moved what's worth keeping)

Moving on...

2009-09-26T13:23:00.003+02:00

This blog has been dormant for a while. Part of the reason is probably, as with many other bloggers, that Twitter has absorbed much of the blogging activity. A more substantial reason is that I have joined a team of bloggers at the 3TU.Centre of Ethics and Technology (www.ethicsandtechnology.eu), where I plan to start blogging in the near future. It currently contains entries by David Koepsell on patenting genes, Ilse Oosterlaken on the capability approach as applied to technology and design, as well as Claudia Bastia on Ulrich Beck's notion of the risk society. Please subscribe and stay tuned.

A series of furtunate events: The beauty of Internet creativity and hybrid economy

2009-01-31T14:14:00.004+01:00

I've written before about creativity online and the failure of companies trying to stifle this creativity, but felt encouraged to do so again after having looked into the elegant events in the wake of a Stephen Colbert interview with well-known blogger and Stanford professor of law Lawrence Lessig.
First, a brief background. On his January 8, 2009 show, Stephen Colbert interviewed Lawrence Lessig on the occasion of his recent book, Remix. This is the clip in question:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Lawrence Lessig

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Paul McCartney Appearance

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One of the main lessons to be drawn from the book is how virtual communities can augment the value of something, how it can take a simple events and make it spiral into a phenomenon that shows both depth and creativity. During the interview, Colbert warned, tounge in cheek, against anyone remixing that interview by adding, say, a funky beat. Needless to say, remixes started showing up on Youtube within hours. Some of them amazingly good. Here's one example (gets better towards the end):

and another:

Stephen Colbert was of course "outraged" by all of this, and made a comeback on his January 21 show. The second remix above was featured as one of the examples, and Colbert countered with creating his own remix:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Stephen's Remix Challenge

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Paul McCartney Appearance

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Colbert added fuel to the fire, however, by adding some rhytmic remarks prone for further remixing, and of course the results followed shortly:

The fascinating thing about this series of fortunate events is that the point I'm trying to make is the same point that Lessig tried to make in the initial interview -- and Colbert made the point for Lessig better than any words could've done. True creativity in new media arise by allowing millions of creative users to legally shape your work into new products, to stand on eachothers' shoulders, to take a simple concept and see how far it can be pushed. It allows users to shine and it allows the original creator to shine. This is the very basis of hybrid economy. It is the basis for all sorts of communities that take original work and go further with it. It might, legally speaking, be copyright infringment, but any company willing to stubbornly hold on to this paradigm will inevatibaly alienate their users -- and even more so as the old-paradigm users slowly become outnumbered by coming generations of inforgs. Colbert has understood it, and if anything, he is making more money and becoming more popular in the process. It's a win-win situation, and a lose-lose for the Lars Ulrichs and Microsofts of the future (yes, I have become a Microsoft basher).

I'm now a Micro$oft basher!

2009-01-22T11:54:00.005+01:00

I'm not one of those Microsoft bashers, and I'm generally happy with my Vista, Outlook, Windows Mobile setup. Part of the reason why I've been happy with it is because of a splendid initiative called xda-developers. In short, xda-developers is a forum where bright minds spend their creative energy on optimizing Windows Mobile for HTC in its different versions. In particular, HTC has not provided updates from Windows Mobile 6.0 to Windows Mobile 6.1 for many of its devices, and xda-developers have proudly and aptly taken on the challenge of helping out those stuck with older versions. What this entails for many of us is that these devices work as they should. In my case, it meant that I've thrusted myself into the hands of Micrsoft after years of using Open Source alternatives.

And how do Microsoft respond? By threatening with legal action unless all unofficial versions are removed, citing copyright issues. Sure, there are copyright issues and their legal basis is probably solid. But where is the pragmatism? Where is the bright mind that stops and thinks for a moment, realizing that the creative energy of all these unpaid individuals actually work to Microsoft's advantage? There is no loss of revenue whatsoever because those who use these modified Windows Mobile version, a small group given that it requires some tech savvy, have already paid our licensing fees through purchasing the phone itself. Furthermore,Windows Mobile updates cannot be bought in any way -- it's all up to the developers' whether they decide to provide updates or not, which in HTC's case only happened with very few models.

I'm outraged at Microsoft right now and will abandon everything that smells of Microsoft. No, I haven't been a Microsoft basher before but I am becoming one -- a completely blind one who will bash all things M$. Now excuse me while I go get a Symbian, Android or Apple phone, re-install Ubuntu, uninstall live messenger, export calendar, email and contacts from Outlook to Google -- and wait for the next opportunity to bash Microsoft some more.

PS! There's a petition against Microsoft's stupidity here.

Music tagging -- or, voluntary involuntary auditory memories

2008-10-31T11:06:00.007+01:00

No, not that kind of music tagging, the kind where you add tags/labels to your mp3 collection. What I want to discuss is a phenomenon that I've tried to be conscious about for quite some time: the act of deliberately forming strong associations between certain pieces of music and a particular place. You're all familiar with what is known as olfactory memory, smells that suddenly take you on a journey down memory lane - in particular childhood/adolescent memories of certain perfumes and foods. The same holds for certain tastes, as described in the now famous Madeleine cake episode in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time:

No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place

The same also holds for music, be it particular sounds or particular sound tracks. These phenomena are sometimes referred to as involuntary memories. What I've been doing on occasion is to try to make these voluntary.

The phenomenon first occured to me when I read Stephen King's Pet Sematary as a child. This must have been back in 1991-92, because every time I picked up the book, I would listen to Metallica's then recent Black album (you know, the last good one before it all went downhill). After having finished the novel, I noticed that every time I listened to that particular album (in particular, the "Sad but true" song, for some reason), I would be instantly transported to that path leading to the pet cemetary (misspelled Sematary) -- or to the gruesome scene of Zelda.

Interlude: In writing this I went to search for the Zelda scene and found it on Youtube. I don't know why, but it still sends shivers down my spine and I just very reluctantly finished watching it. Incidentally, Zelda is played by a man, which just makes it even creepier. I still think this is one of the most haunting horror characters invented. Please watch at your own discretion.

Anyway, after having experienced the tagging of Metallica's Black album onto the Pet Sematary novel, I got curious. Could this phenomenon of involuntary memory be made voluntary? And of course it can. Since then, I've tried to consistently listen to one particular album whenever I travel to somewhere new. Last week I went to Copenhagen, and I consistently listened to Klaus Schulze's Mirage album (a true masterpiece) every day when I walked from my hotel to the conference venue. The result: Now, whenever I listen to Klaus Schulze, memories from Copenhagen will come up. To be fair, it doesn't really bring up explicit memories, but it brings up this undescribable je ne se qua feeling of there-ness (wow, sorry about the collapse into obscurism there). This has become my way of taking photos; my own harmless means of tagging a city. Sadly the snapshot cannot be conveyed, but in some sense, that just adds to the value of it.

I would really like to come up with a name for this phenomenon. I guess the most precise would be 'voluntary involuntary auditory memory', but I think I'll just refer to it as 'music tagging' for now. 'Music tagging' nicely catches the way in which a city can become tagged by music (although invisible to others), but also that the music itself becomes tagged (labelled) according to its associations. Recommendations for other neologisms (or, indeed, already existing terms) are very much welcome. Until then, happy music tagging.

Internet killed the video star

2008-08-28T11:36:00.003+02:00

Well, some headlines just lie there dormant, waiting for the right opportunity to become overused. That opportunity is here.

The phenomenon that prompted the headline is called "Take-Away shows" and is being done to perfection at La Blogotheque. The concept is easy; pick up a camera and a cheap microphone, convince a band that this is the new cool, and shoot an improvised, raw, dogma-like music video on the fly. As the web site states, "what makes the beauty of it is all the little incidents, hesitations, and crazy stuff happening unexpectingly". The results are mixed, as can be expected, but it can be pretty awesome.
I think the best examples are the sessions with REM -- five videos shot on one night in Athens, GA. Perhaps the main reason why they are supreme to the others is that Michael Stipe is simply not capable of producing sounds that are out of tune. In fact, I was wondering whether it was playback or not on occasion, but it's really not. I particularly recommend "Living well is the best revenge". There is something so refreshing, pure and this-is-what-its-all-about in this video, where the REM guys are crammed into a car, guitars and all, while playing the song to perfection.
The final song is "Sing for the submarine", where Stipe's haunting voice is augmented by the acoustics inside a silo, while banging his elbow into the silo wall (which looks pretty painful at times). The drummer spontaneously try to break some twigs to produce the necessary rhythm. Not entirely succcesful, but just shows the spontaneity of it all. Incredible stuff!

The headline is not just an empty play on the title of the famous music video from the launch of MTV. In an era where "live" award shows are delayed to avoid any surprises (such as, god forbid, any wardrobe malfunctions), where music videos are endlessly produced on the same stale format ("all we need is a corridor and some [insert degrading nouns for females]"). Although YouTube is ridiculously over-hyped (and, technologically speaking, services like dailymotion, guba and megavideo are superior), it has brought back spontaneity, instanteneousness, and the importance of conveying a sense of being-there. Although this tends to produce many annoying Internet memes, the upshot might indeed be that it brings back spontaneity. If so, it's all worth it!

Best comedy sketches

2008-08-11T12:33:00.007+02:00

So, I came across this listing the other day (can't find the link right now) about the top ten comedy sketches of all time. It covered pretty much only US comedy (a lof of Saturday Night Live), and missed some of the best sketches ever -- the ones that literally made me roll on the floor laughing. So here it is, my collection of the best comedy sketches, from the five best comedy shows of all time:

5. Arrested Development; The Chicken dances

Arrested development must be the best sitcom ever, yet for some idiotic reason got canned. Although I loved it for its intelligent humour and intricate plots, those are difficult to present as a clip. Luckily, good olf fashioned slapstick and body humour was also a major part of it, and nothing made me laugh harder than the Bluth family's somehwat original takes on the chicken dance, nicely captured in the montage below.

4. The Fast Show: Arse and coughing

Although I simply love The Fast Show and can't get enough of the recurring characters, it rarely gives me tears in my eyes. This little bit featuring some unfortunatte tourette-like characters did the trick.

3. Monty Python: Tinny words
Well, I could've mentioned so many by Monty Python (the fish slapping dance is another one of my favourites), but this one is relatively unknown, yet so darn funny. Graham Chapman at his very best!

2. Saturday Night Live: Chris Rock as rapper with toe fetish
Ok, let's admit it. SNL is 95% crap, which might be the reason why the 5% times they get it right, it makes it into comedy history. Again, I could've mentioned many of the familiar ones (I think "more cow bell" was one the top 10 list I mentioned above), but this is also a rarely seen one, featuring Chris Rock as the most puny rapper ever. When he hits the chorus towards the end, I literally fell of my chair.

Hmm, I just couldn't find this vid anywhere, except for hulu.com which is only available within the United states (I guess the SNL copyright hunters are pretty good). If you come across it, be sure to watch it, laugh, then let me know where.

1. Reeves and Mortimer: Mulligan and O'Hare
Weird is the only word for British duo Jim Reeves and Vic Mortimer. Often it becomes so surreal that you're left with a smile, albeit a confused and slightly disturbed one (you can see some of this in the intro to Mulligan and O'hare below). Sometimes, they just hit the nail on the head, and there's just no beating their amazing and surreal portrayel of singers Mulligan and O'Hare. Enjoy!

Please let me know if any of the videoes have been removed.

The strangest conference

2008-08-10T10:23:00.003+02:00

I went to a conference the other day, about intellectual property in cyberspace and all that. The experience turned out to be quite surreal.
When I entered the building, there were only three people standing around. One of them were shouting commands, seemingly to a technician that I couldn't see; as with all conferences, Murphy's law was upon them. This went on for a while. I was quietly sitting at one end of the auditorium. I didn't really know anyone there and wasn't in the mood to network, so I decided to just wait for the show. On stage, nothing was happening, though.

Half an hour had gone by, and there was still not much happening on stage. Some people, who looked like technicians, would show up now and again, but disappear just as quickly. While waiting, I almost dosed off. My head was slowly sinking towards my chest when, with a jerk, I woke up again -- looked around as if nothing had happened. By this time, there were more people in the auditorium, many of them complaining loudly about what seemed to be shoddy organizing. Then, presto, as if out of nowhere, the keynote speaker suddenly appeared on stage. Apparently, enough time had been wasted so he went straight into his talk.
Although the talk was interesting, I found myself drifting. There were so many weird characters at this conference, so I couldn't help look around. Sure, we don't need to wear suits at conferences these days but this is ridiculous, I thought to myself upon noticing an older gentleman with short shorts. Behind me, there was a woman wigh a huge bloody hat on -- flowers and all. As if the presence of all these characters weren't enough, a number of the participants were half asleep and many were discussing things loudly that had nothing to do with the lecture. I felt like I was back in primary school.

While trying to understand what kind of weird conference I was attending, a friend of mine messaged me and asked where I was. "I'm at this crzy cnfrnce. Lots of weeeird ppl. It's free, so come by if u want". Sure enough, my friend showed up a few minutes later. In general, I must admit I'm not completely used to Dutch manners, yet (I'm originally from Norway, but work in the Netherlands now). Still, I was quite suprised when my Dutch friend came through the doors and strolled down the aisle mid-lecture with clogs on!!! That's right, huge bloody wooden shoes. He sat down next to me, and I couldn't help but feel slightly embarrased by the spectacle he was making. He shouted, so the whole auditorium could hear, "what's all this then?". I don't know if it was to prove a point or not, but at the other end of the auditorium, a woman shouted back "a lecture about intellectual property". Weird, I thought, but this was when things started becoming even weirder. Suddenly, I felt like I was having problems seeing the stage. My vision was getting blurry! What the heck is happening? As this happened, I heard people around my make the same complaints. One man shouted "I can't hear anything", the woman with the flowery hat behind me shouted "Even worse, I can't see anything". People started getting out of their seats, run out for a moment, and come back in again. The guy who had been shouting to the invisible technician started shouting again. My friend said "This sucks. I'm outta here". I was sitting there trying to figure out what the heck was going on. It was at this point the shout-to-invisible-technician-man got up on stage and shouted to all of us. "If you want to see the lecture again, you have to press stop and then start on your quicktime players". Second Life conferences are weird.

Why open access publishing is troublesome

2008-03-31T12:21:00.004+02:00

In various email lists etc. there have been a lot of discussion about the future of paper journals and the superiority of open access on-line journals. Although I agree that information should be widely accessible and that many (especially independent) researchers are left out of the loop due to the cost of subscribing to journals, the solution is not to just move access-restricted journals into the public domain, nor to abolish paper journals. Sometimes there's made a connection between the seemingly inevitable demise of other physical media (e.g. cd's and similar will be entirely replaced by digital downloads) but this is a very misleading analogy. The most important thing about scholarly research and academic journals is that they have to be subject to a quality control, usually in the form of a peer review. Although there's nothing difficult about doing this with open access journals, the main problem is that it is difficult for the reader to know the extent and quality of peer review. The reason is that with open access journals, there is often no discernable body that puts its reputation at stake. If a journal is rumoured to not take the peer review process seriously, then no respectable publisher would let that continue. Blackwell, Springer etc. have a reputation at stake. With online journals, there is often no such stakes involved. I'm not saying that this is foolproof (there are probably many instances of shoddy journals hiding behind a respectable publisher), but at the very least it is a more reliable indicator than anything found on the Web. Thus, the alternative to the current system cannot bypass the important role of the publishers. The alternative, in other words, is not to start up a host of independent, ad hoc journals, but rather to sway the publishers to find alternative and more accessible means of publishing their journals. The reason why the analogy with record companies does not hold, is that there is no such requirement for peer review and quality control in music. Research is not a matter of the taste of the consumers, but the quality of the research; and currently the best way we have of controlling the latter seems to be peer-review and to have it done through a publisher with a reputation at stake. In more constructive terms, I think the sustainable road to more open access journals is to sway the publishers, not to simply set up alternatives whose scientific quality is difficult to assess.

Men, computer games and methodological flaws.

2008-02-12T11:17:00.001+01:00

Researchers have appearantly found that reward regions in the brain are more active in men than women when playing computer games and, the researchers conclude that this is why men are more prone to be hooked on computer games. The video game they used in the experiment was "a vertical line (the "wall") in the middle of a computer screen. When the game begins, 10 balls appear to the right of the wall and travel left toward the wall. Each time a ball is clicked, it disappears from the screen. If the balls are kept a certain distance from the wall, the wall moves to the right and the player gains territory" (see picture) and the researchers state that "This is a fairly representative, generic computer game" *sigh*

This actually reminds of a story I saw on CNN yesterday about the lack of proper defense for the alleged 9/11 terrorists in their upcoming trial. A political scientist claimed that this is the worst thing the US could do if they want "revenge" on the terrorists, because if they are convicted without having a proper defense, this just removes all credibility from the process. I think there's a similar thing going on with these video game experiments. I do not really doubt that there's a grain of truth in the result, but when making such elementary methodological mistakes and mind-numbing generalization, they really are doing themselves a disservice -- it just removes all credibility from the process. I'm not just picking on this experiment in particular, but I've seen a lot of the same problems with the most cited experiments on violence in computer games, including the interesting but far from conclusive research by Craig Anderson. What's worse it that the media, when picking up these stories, usually omit any caveats and methodological footnotes, which results in the kinds of headlines that ultimately might sway the public opinion.

I think the sensible thing to do is to not jump to conlusion on either side. Allow me to make a sweeping generalization on my own: On the one hand, gamers and hackers too often claim that all kinds of so-called piracy is good and that virtual violence has nothing at all to do with real violence, whereas policy makers and media all too often claim that piracy is just ultimately a form of selfishness and that every murderer out there has been playing violent video games (which, even when true, could by at any end of the causal chain). Neither is true, and in championing either extreme it just makes it more difficult for the sound and carefully weighed considerations to come to the front.

In the words of Jascha Heifetz (which just happened to be the quote of the day on my Google home portal): "No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other."

Searle's rational beer drinking in action

2008-02-09T15:05:00.000+01:00

One of the modern works of philosophy that has influenced me the most is John Searle's Rationality in Action -- but probably not for the right reasons. I do not agree with all of Searle's hypotheses (if they can even be referred to as such), but I do find the book incredibly thought-provoking. One of the reasons is that it reads like a novel. It's a heck of a roller coaster where you find yourself nodding when reading one page, and vehemently shaking your head (or banging it into a wall) when reading the next.

When I first read the book almost 10 years ago, I used to make fun of it. One of Searle's central theses is that there can be such a thing as desire-independent reasons for action, in contrast with what he terms the classical model. Take the following example. A man orders a beer, drinks the beer, and the bartender asks the customer to pay. According to Searle, I have no desire right there and then to pay for the beer; there is nothing in my motivational set that would give me a reason to pay for the beer. According to Searle, the reason for paying for the beer is not a desire to pay that I have right there and then, but a desire-independent reason that I created at the time of ordering the beer. I think the gut reaction to this argument for most readers, including myself, is that I do have a number of desire-dependent reasons to pay for the beer: I desire not to get punched by the bartender, forced to do the dishes, lose face in front of my drinking buds, be denied another beer and so forth. I feel really slow for not really realizing it until about the third time I read the book, but this is the wrong way to see it. Searle's claim becomes more understandable if we look at it in terms of rational justification. Let's say I order a beer, drinks it, and then the opportunity arise that I can get away with not paying for the beer at all. Surely, many would take the opportunity and not pay for the beer, but let us say that I decide to actually pay for the beer. After having settled the bill (and reminded the bartender that I owed him money), my drinking bud might ask me: "What the heck did you do that for?". In that situation, it would be a perfectly rational thing to claim that "Well, because I ordered it and thereby promised to pay for it". Searle's point is not whether this is the reason why we usually pay (often we only pay because we don't want to face the consequences of not paying), but that the desire-independent reason is a reason for action. It is perfectly rational (and incidentally, ethical) to act upon the reason that I created in the past even though I do not have any desire whatsoever to do so. In other words, if I had no desire to pay for the beer, no general moral desire to keep my promises or any other desire that could possibly motivate paying for the beer, it is still a perfectly rational thing for me to do if I decide to pay for the beer. Once I realized this subtlety, Searle's book made a whole lot more sense and I highly recommend it -- at least for its terminology and ability to provoke thoughts. To continue the novel analogy, Searle is both hero and anti-hero in this book. At some points you will think of him as a cranky, arrogant geezer, but at some points he's the little child that points out the emperor's lack of clothes.

Starry night -- The Magic of Second Life

2007-11-25T10:26:00.000+01:00

There's a misconception in the department where I work that I spend all my time "playing" Second Life and that my PhD is dedicated to SL alone. This is far from the truth, and Second Life is but one instance of how virtuality might have a profound effect on the quality of our lives, which is the subject of my thesis. I tend to especially emphasize this point whenever talking to someone who know very little about what Second Life is and its possibilities and limitations. Second Life has unfortunately gotten the stigma that it's either just another computer game, or that its primarily inhabited to perverts and leaches; verificationist researchers and sensationalist journalists (not sure which one of those is worst). What people tend to overlook - or never allow themselves to discover -- is that Second Life is ultimately about creativity. Those who stay in SL do it because of the creativity, those who make money do it because of creativity -- good researchers and journalists look for the creativity! This tends to drown in all the negative headlines. Just as you are about to give up and let Second Life become a sleazy hobby you don't tell anyone about, along comes the true geniuses of Second Life; those who make it a fantastic place; those who understand what it's all about; those who remind you that it's not about the age play, camping chairs or meatspace opportunism after all. Along come the true SL'ers like Robbie Dingo. Robbie has recreated Vincent van Gogh's masterpiece "Starry night" in Second Life. As if this testament to the creativity of SL wasn't enough, the marvellous feat has been documented in a machinima that left me speechless. If you go to Robbie's blog, you can watch the video. I highly recommend the high-resolution version, but in this virtual age of instant click-satisfaction, the youtube version does some justice to the masterpiece as well:

OpenOffice ups and downs

2007-10-19T20:00:00.003+02:00

In starting my PhD dissertation I had to make a difficult choice on what word processor to use. I've heard bad things about Microsoft Word's ability to handle large documents, and I have always disliked it because of the limited ways in which you can format paragraphs. The importance of tweaking different paragraph parameters and using consistent styles is something I really learned in Adobe Framemaker, which still remains my favorite program. I decided against it, however, in part because of problems with portability (converting to/from Word is a nightmare and some times you need to submit documents in .doc), but the thing that tipped the scale was something as simple as not being able to do multiple undos in the framemaker version I've got, and my current university not having a license for newer versions. So, I decided to go with Openoffice. I was extremely happy to find out that Openoffice offered many of the same formatting options that Framemaker does, and also heard good things about the way it handles large documents. Some months later, I'm starting to regret the choice, however. As with Framemaker's achilles heal, the devil is in the details:

Openoffice does not allow you to view two pages side by side while editing. This is frustrating as hell.
Openoffice does not allow you to cross-reference autonumbered paragraphs. This works like a charm in Framemaker, but in Openoffice you have to manually 'set reference' everywhere you want to point a cross-reference to.
An imported image was suddenly lost from my document. Might be just a case of "shit happens"but trust is everything in this business, and I thereby lost a big chunk of it.

So, now I'm dreading that I some time in the future have to give up on openoffice and spend a lot of time transferring my document, formatting and all, to whatever I end up with. Oh well. As we say in Norway" "That time, that sorrow". If anyone have experience with pros and cons of differen word processor when it comes to large documents, I'd be happy to hear about them.

Update, February 21, 2008:
I'm back with Microsoft Word. What did it for me was that I, after so many years of doing manual referencing, finally discovered that Endnote actually is a great program. I think I used to perceive Endnote in the same way that I perceived user manuals from IKEA, but I'm over that now. What makes Endnote great, however, is the seamless integration with Word and that's what won me over. Strange how it somehow feels bad to "give in" to Microsoft.

Update, April 23, 2008
I somehow knew this was an ongoing process. I'm still with Word, but recently upgraded to Word 2007 and finally I'm starting to feel confident. I've seen reviews that its ability to handle large documents is vastly improved, the layout is much better, endnote integration (see above) even more seamless, and, at the end of the day, it just gives provides the reliability I need. Apperently, Microsoft isn't all bad. Still, as a computer ethicist I somehow feel bad bad about relying on Microsoft (I'm also an avid user of Outlook [!]) -- and for thinking that Google is the best thing that has happened to the Web.

Radiohead makes piracy unethical

2007-10-16T08:26:00.001+02:00

I recently wrote about Radiohead's release of their new album in digital form, downloadable from their Website with a price-tag that you decide yourself -- ingenious. One of the interesting consequences of this way of releasing their album is that it make piracy unethical -- beyond reasonabe doubt. One of the common arguments pro piracy (or, more politically correct, file sharing) is that sharing an mp3 file is radically different from stealing a album. The latter involves depriving someone (e.g. the record store) of their property, whereas file sharing does not. This argument has some credibility, since the claim is that we cannot simply transfer our moral judgment regarding traditional forms of stealing and apply them straightforwardly to file sharing. Importantly, however, we cannot deduce from this that that piracy is justifiable. This would be, in fact, a logical fallacy of the following form:

If you deprive someone of their property, you are committing an act of theft
I do not deprive someone of their property [I'm just making a copy]
Ergo, I am not committing an act of theft (or any other moral wrong-doing)

Obviously, the argument is invalid. Arguing in this form would be the same as claiming that killing someone with a knife is murder, but since I used a gun I did not commit murder. In order for the argument to work, the first premise would have to be a bi-conditional, or what is known as if-and-only-if (iff). If the first premise goes "If and only if you deprive someone of their property, then you are commiting an act of theft", then the argument is valid, but you would have a hard time proving the first premise. And even if that works out, you might "prove" that file sharing is not tantamount to stealing, but still there's a long way to go before showing that it is not unethical in some other way.

Anyway, what I wanted to point out is that Radiohead has turned this around. Traditionally, many arguments pro and con file sharing have been carried out by comparison with "real life" crimes. This comparison does not hold in this case. Instead, you have to make a comparison between paying at least a symbolic sum for the album (the minimum price is 0.45GBP), or to download it for free somewhere else. The deprivement-argument does not hold anymore (if it ever did). Another argument is that "I wouldn't have bought the CD anyway, so nobody's left worse off". This argument also becomes more difficult to pull off, when you have in fact downloaded the album. Thus, downloading the Radiohead album without even a symbolic sum becomes, at least in my mind, a more clear-cut example of unethical behaviour than downloading an album released only on CD.

Radiohead release their new album -- pay what you think it's worth

2007-10-01T10:49:00.000+02:00

Radiohead has always been one of my favourite bands. What I find fascinating is that every single album has been great, ranging from their mainstream, slightly juvenile Pablo Honey to their innovative experimentation on Amnesiac and Kid A. Their upcoming album, entitled In Rainbows, is only available through their Website. What is interesting is that you can pay what you think it's worth. This is an ingenious idea, and I for one will certainly support it. The reason is that I believe this might be the only solution to piracy. Think about it for a minute. If you could pay, say, 1 USD for an entire album, would you ever go through the hazzle of trying to download it on e-mule, piratebay or any other pirate way? I certainly would not. Moreover, I would hardly bother burning it to a cd and transfer it to my other computers. I would simply buy and download it on every computer I have. 4 USD for having the album ready-to-play on any computer, without the hazzle of downloading a possibly corrupted pirated version and (if applicable) without any feeling of guilt sounds great to me. It's about time the record companies realize that a digital copy just cannot be priced and treated like a physical copy. Thus, slapping a real-life price tag on a virtual product doesn't work. Instead, they should focus on exploiting the peculiar characteristics of digital media in the way that Radiohead does. I'm pretty sure the record companies are following this closely, so I urge you to support Radiohead's vision -- even if you're only paying 1 USD for the album (this still means 1 USD more in revenue with hardly any costs). If we show that this model works, perhaps the rest of the industry will catch up.

Virtual Reality is a big pool

2007-09-26T11:12:00.001+02:00

As some of my (very few) readers might know, I'm doing research on the Philosophy of virtual reality. In crawling the Web for others who are trying to define the term, I came across a Chinese posting which looked interesting. I do not know any Chinese, so I tried Google's translate function. As expected, the result was rather incomrehensible, but it was still an interesting read in a postmodern way:

"The main text of the definition of virtual reality, the first of a number of examples of virtual reality system and the right people previously definition of the concept of virtual reality, a pair of virtual reality that the original meaning of a word in Translation easily lead to misunderstanding. Then the author of virtual reality to the definition of three attributes: the simulation, interactive and imaginary. and that virtual reality system is the real world and the inherent nature of the things the simulation and emulation; Virtual reality system is a result of people moving, depicts a virtual reality system and human relations; Virtual Reality System operators can provide a reasonable room for imagination to operate staff can live virtual environment for effective operation. for more puzzling imagination of a footnote. Finally, virtual reality is a big pool, it is entirely possible as a subject."

Perhaps most interesting, the finishing statement that VR is a big pool, and that it is entirely possible as a subject. In linguistic terms, I guess the latter could mean that we are legitimate in saying that "Virtual reality is...". More radical, and not a position I'm willing to adopt, is the statement "virtual reality system is the real world" and it is, in fact, the inherent nature of thing that is a simulation. I guess this underlines the puzzling imagination of a footnote (sic).

PS! The illustration is for illustrative purposes only. I just found it using Google's image search, and for some very odd reason it is signed with my real life initials O_o

Mediadefender and miivii.com -- Blatant entrapment

2007-09-25T13:40:00.001+02:00

I'm not going to say much about this, since it has already been covered in great detail elsewhere. However, in case you haven't come across it yet, I'd like to bring to your attention a somewhat shocking insight into the workings of anti-piracy companies. The company in question is Mediadefender, a company which offers services designed to prevent and stop people who engage in alleged copyright infringements. Recently, 700mb of mediadefender's emails have been retrieved and posted online (see 'elsewhere' link above). Among the many disconcerting strategies revealed in the email, the most shocking one is that they launched a Youtube-like Website called mivii.com, which was designed to lure hackers into uploading illegal content and then take action accordingly. One of the most clear-cut examples of entrapment I have ever seen. I am not one who unconditionally support large-scale piracy, but the use of entrapment is a serious violation of fundamental rule of law.

I crashed into my building today... with an F-16

2007-09-02T14:23:00.001+02:00

I think that one of the reasons why many newspapers love reporting from virtual environments etc. is that it allows them to come up with fantastic headlines. Disappointment often follows, though. So, allow me to offer my apologies for not really having crashed an F-16 into my building... only virtually. I hope I can make it up, however, by pointing out a fantastic easter egg in Google's newest version of Google Earth. Google Earth, as you probably know, is an excellent program that allows you to see the entire world (and even parts of the universe) in astonishing detail. The easter egg I'm talking about can be seen by opening google earth and pressing ctrl-alt-a. This starts up a flight simulator (!). Yes, you can actually take off, from a selection of airports, and fly around the actual earth. I cannot really describe how good it is, but as soon as you get used to the flight controls (which takes some time) you can experience what it feels like to fly 10 feet above the ground in Los Angeles, dive into the grand canyon... you name it. To my big suprise, one of the airports offered is the small airport of my old home town Trondheim. Imagine my joy when lifting off, just to look down on my house (which lies just next to the airport). Taking off from Hamburg, I also managed to fly my F-16 to the University of Twente Campus (where I'm currently living) and, although having lost complete control over the plane, managed to kamikaze myself into my building. In other (more complicated) words, I was sitting at home, flying a virtual airplane that crashed into the virtual building I was sitting in. If you click on the picture above, you can see my building to the right (where there's a transparent pin) seconds before impact... I highly recommend you to find your own building and smash into it. Some pointers for doing so:

You have to press ctrl-alt-a to toggle the flight simulator the first time. This didn't work for me the first time, but try searching for and zooming into San Francisco Airport first. This did the trick for me.
The slow plane is much easier to handle than the F-16. Unless you have to travel a long time in order to reach your destination, stick to the slow one.
If you're lost, you can toggle back to the earth view (exit simulator) by pressing ctrl-alt-a. There you can orient yourself, and when toggling back to the flight simulator simply choose the option to continue where you left off.
City names, landmarks etc. do not show up in the simulator, but pins do. Thus, if you want to head for a specific destination simple place a pin there. However, the pin doesn't appear until you're relativele close, so if your destination is far away you have to travel blindly in roughly the right direction before being able to navigate towards the pin. This can be done by looking at the compass in top of the screen and/or by toggling as explained above.

Happy flying!

UPDATE (April 4, 2008): I am pretty sure the keyboard combination was ctrl-alt-a back then, but this does not work anymore. Try ctrl-a instead.

Violent computer games and decline in crime

2007-08-23T11:09:00.001+02:00

I just came across this graph today, showing a correlation between crime victims per 1000 citizens and the release of some of the most criticized computer games (numbers taken from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics). I have been an avid critic of dubious correlations myself, but I thought this graph illustrates a nice point nonetheless (please note, however, that the graph is skewed since it starts at 20 instead of 0, thereby exaggerating the effect -- a strategy too often seen in media and politics).

As usual, XKCD puts it nicely:

My Sorry Second Life

2007-08-21T11:55:00.000+02:00

I've had a sorry Second Life since the beginning. My days usually consisted in sitting in a chair or dancing around a pole for money. The pole dancing didn't seem very popular with the surrounding people given that I look like a 70-year old geezer with grey hear, grey beard and wrinkly tattoos. As long as I got my money (which didn't always happen) I was happy though. Still, I didn't really earn more than, at best, 500 L$ per day which doesn't really amount to a hill of beans, or anything else. So, I did what every sucker would do, earn a little cash then head of to the casinos to play Blackjack. Using simple blackjack strategy I managed on occasion to rack up 6-figure sums, but always ended up loosing it all in the end. So, back on the streets, earning money, then wasting it on Blackjack again. It sounds pathetic, but it was my life and I kind of liked it. Then, Linden Lab banned gambling and destroyed my second life. I don't really know what to do now. Perhaps it's a good thing since it forces me to find new things to do (I considered joining an army, but their recruitment policy was to strict). Sadly, however, I've resorted to just scrambling the world for places to earn money by doing nothing and since the gambling obverlords do not provide camping chairs anymore it's not easy to come by. Right now, I am earning money by being impaled on a stick. Honestly, somebody is paying me for being impaled and thereby providing a spectacle for bystanders. What a sorry, sorry life.

The fate of a blog

2007-08-21T11:42:00.000+02:00

What is it about starting blogs from scratch? I've done a dozen of them now, and I have always done the same thing. First, say a little something about what I intend to do and second, make an empty promise that I will keep it updated. Then, after checking the statistics for a couple of weeks and realizing that no one (0) have stumbled over your blog, just leave it for dead. Then, a couple of months later I'm having a look at the statistics again -- still no visitors -- and then delete the entire blog. What massive waste of time. Still, here I go again... probably my 13th blog from scratch, and probably heading towards the same fate. Oh well, what do I care. I bet there will be no visitors anyway.