Friends

Slashdot | Google’s Knol, Expert Wiki, Goes Live say “Knol’s distinctions from Wikipedia are that authors are identified by their real names (and verified), and that they can share in ad revenue if they choose to.” Knol: a unit of knowledge looks a bit funny to me. Nice to have a site like this, but of course it is pretty empty. I tried a dozen terms such as: child, education, constructivism… even anne of green gables and vampire. No content yet. So, I guess everyone’s now flocking to Knol: a unit of knowledge to write the content, become known, and share revenue. I personally don’t see that as a path to validity.

What is typical, is that only americans get a voice. That’s right. You have to be an american to participate. Of course someone can claim that this is ‘beta’, because of the name verification procedure. I would call this alpha. If Google doesn’t know how to deal with countries outside of america, what does it say for it’s validity as a global player. In some contexts this wouldn’t matter, but what it is doing is giving americans an unfair cultural advantage in the construction of knowledge. They will have all the key terms and ideas, and also will have the most hits. An example of cyber-hegemony at it’s best. Do no evil? Of course not. “We’re your big friend!”

Iain Banks » Iain Banks email Q&A July 2008

A few weeks ago, we invited readers of this website and www.orbitbooks.net to submit questions to be put to Iain Banks by email. Once the three-week submission period was over, we sifted through the submissions and picked half a dozen. Iain then mused, pondered, cogitated and has sent back the following responses:

Everyone should know Iain Banks.

So, I left my laptop on the TTC streetcar last week. It was an old one that I planned on setting up for one of my classes in the fall. I went in to the lost and found today, and there it was. Gotta love it when nice things happen. Thanks to the people who noticed it and took care of it.

I was reading School of Shock: Inside the taxpayer-funded program that treats American kids like enemy combatants on the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center - Wikipedia. I had heard something about their use of shock treatment on children. I sort of ‘assumed’ that it would immediately be shut down, based on the logic that you can’t do to children in a treatment facility what you’re not allowed to do to adults in prison. Now I find out that though the program is under review, it is still running.

[Electroshock Therapy Used On Mentally Handicapped Children - DigitalJournal.com talks about how this aspect of the program is getting phased out, and how the state has tried to shut it down, and this link's only a month old.]

Slashdot | Canadian ISP Hijacking DNS Lookup Errors points us to
Digital Home Canada - Rogers violates net neutrality by hijacking failed DNS lookups which reminds me how far behind governments are in protecting us:

In what appears to be a violation of Net Neutrality by Rogers Cable, Digital Home readers are reporting that Rogers High Speed Internet service has begun redirecting customers “Server not found pages” to webpages laden with Rogers advertising.

The hijacking of the webpage appears to be attempt by Rogers to use its Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology to cash in on the mistakes of its users.
 
The “Cannot Find Server” web page is typically shown to a user when they type in a web address that does not exist. The purpose of the page is to inform the user that the web site does not exist or a lookup error has occurred so a correction can be made.

Using DPI technology, Rogers inspects the web address request and if it determines that a web surfer has mistakenly entered an invalid web address, Rogers redirects the request and serves up an ad laden webpage selling Rogers products and services rather than allowing the informative “Cannot find server” web page to be displayed.

Family group outdoors, George Eastman House.

Early 20th c. George Eastman House photos now on Flickr - Boing Boing points us to a pile of amazing photos

Jeremy sent me the Baby Animal Alphabet

Comparing prices: Mac vs. Windows laptops is another article comparing Macs vs PCs. This time it is laptops. Of course they compare similarly configured machines from real companies, not gray market. The answer’s the same as always. Macs laptops cost the same or less than PCs for the same features and function, and the illusory cheaper price is at a cost.

Scenes from the raid at The Bicycle Clinic - Posted Toronto

Slashdot | Logged In or Out, Facebook Is Watching You

“Researchers at software vendor CA have discovered that social networking site Facebook is able to track the buying habits of its users on affiliated third-party sites even when they are logged out of their account or have opted out of its controversial ‘Beacon’ tracking service. Responding to privacy concerns, Facebook has since moved to reassure users that it only tracks and publishes data about their purchases if they are both logged in to Facebook and have opted-in to having this information listed on their profile. But in ‘extremely disconcerting’ findings that directly contradict these assurances, researchers at CA’s Security Advisory service have found that data about these transactions are sent to Facebook regardless of a user’s actions.”

There’s more on this in the Zdnet article.

I remember when I noticed what Skype was doing to my computer when I’d disconnected Skype, and everyone says… “oh, no. it doesn’t do that. they said so…” hee hee.

I’m so naive. I keep thinking that people want to accommodate differences, but usually don’t understand or otherwise ‘get it’ for some reason. Nothing a little blunt force enlightenment won’t clear up… that is, a learning opportunity that just hasn’t come by before. When it happens at the level of implementation of corporate policy I just have to wonder what people are thinking.
Neb. woman with hearing disability sues McDonald’s — chicagotribune.com

A hearing-impaired woman has filed a federal lawsuit against a local McDonald’s, saying workers there refused to let her order food at the drive-thru window.

Karen Tumeh of Lincoln says they insisted she either order at the electronic speaker along the drive-thru lane or come inside to order.

Tumeh wears a hearing aid but still cannot hear while using the drive-thru ordering box at fast-food restaurants, according to the lawsuit.

At least three times since September 2007 workers at a Lincoln McDonald’s refused to let her place her order at the drive-thru window, Tumeh said. In denying her service, McDonald’s violated the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, she said.

Lisa Nakamura just sent me a copy of her newest book Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (amazon.ca link). It looks like an excellent resource for my course Children, Technology and Play, and is hopefully a great opportunity for educators and scholars to understand how issues of race are played out online in our visual culture. My fun summer reading. More news at 11.

Green Gadgets Shown To Be Eco-Hazards | EcoGeek: “two MP3 players, one that looks like it has sustainability on the brain, but in actually can’t be recycled, can’t be upgraded, and toxic substances are used in its manufacturing. The other MP3 player looks sleek in a non-sustainable way, but is more durable, can be upgraded, and recycled.”

Good article and links.

World’s Oldest Blogger has passed away. I wonder who will be the world’s longest living blogger… buridan don’t count.

Jeremy just posted a link to the Internet Literacy Handbook by the council of europe. Fun summer reading.

Two of my students in CS8932: Children, Technology and Play made up a game as part of their presentation scenario, and it included a Jasonnoladon. I wish I got a tail.

Slashdot | Louisiana Passes Intelligent Design Law: “The US state of Louisiana has passed the ‘Science Education Act,’ a piece of legislation that could allow Intelligent design to be taught in schools. From the article: ‘The act is designed to slip ID in “through the back door.” More at

According to Slashdot | Dell Colludes With RIAA, Disables Stereo Mix

“Details of Dell’s surreptitious collusion with RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) have emerged. Apparently, the computer manufacturer disabled the Stereo Mix/Mono Mix/Wave Out sound recording function on certain notebooks to assuage RIAA. The hardware functionality is being disabled without any prior notice and one blogger has even alleged that he was asked by Dell’s customer support staff to [shell] out $99 if he desired the stereo mix option. Gateway and Pac Bell are the other two manufacturers to have bowed to RIAA at the expense of their customers’ satisfaction and disabled stereo mix without warning.”

And there’s more at Dell Allegedly Colludes with RIAA, Stereo Mix Disabled without Forewarning | Maximum PC

It is interesting as this also means that it appears that there’s an effort to stop people creating their own music, not merely doing things with other people’s music. More forms of expression under threat by technology.