Category: freedom
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Making Donations Easy
Each year, in late December, I make a charity donation. Over the years I’ve chosen a charity in many different ways, but one thing has always been constant: I always choose projects that aim to improve science education. However, one thing has been constantly improving: the ease of actually choosing, and this year it couldn’t…
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Keith Olbermann on Proposition 8: A Chance at Permanence
Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on the passage of Proposition 8; eloquent and persuasive using nothing but common sense and good judgement. Some quotes I particularly enjoyed: If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this…
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UK Digital Rights Landscape
Suw Charman-Anderson, founder and first Executive Director of the wonderful UK-based digital rights organisation, Open Rights Group, has produced an informative ‘mind map’ of the UK digital rights ‘landscape’. As this was created over three years ago, an up-to-date and completed version would be of great interest.
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Freedoms Lost and Gained
Intelligent Life asks what freedoms have we gained and lost that matter? Freedom is central to democracy. That fact doesn’t change, but the amount and type of freedom that we have does. And it feels as if it has changed dramatically in the past few years. With the Universal Declaration of Human Rights approaching its…
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Earth’s Last Uncontacted Tribe?
When photographs of an uncontacted and unknown Brazilian tribe were released in May 2008, the world went a bit nutty with the photographs making front pages everywhere. Now, however, it seems the story was quite different to what was reported. The photos of grass-roofed shelters and hostile, body-painted Indians brandishing bows and arrows spread like…
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The Convenience of File Sharing
Following on from Wired’s revelation that less than 24 hours after the season première of Prison Break its torrent was downloaded almost one million times, Lifehacker asks its readers, is file sharing just more convenient? Prison Break fans didn’t have to download the show illegally. The show is readily available to stream legitimately on both…
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Doctoring Photographs with Captions
The documentary filmmaker, Errol Morris, interviews Hany Farid, a Dartmouth professor and an expert on digital photography, on using photography as a weapon. Of course, we all know that doctoring (photoshopping) photographs to make them dramatic, misleading, or politically controversial is a widespread issue (problem?), but what about using captions to influence? The photographs presented…
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First Song Downloads. Now Organic Chemistry
The rise of university textbook piracy: the scourge of the textbook publisher, a blessing for students. All forms of print publishing must contend with the digital transition, but college textbook publishing has a particularly nasty problem on its hands. College students may be the angriest group of captive customers to be found anywhere. Compared with…
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The Shutdown of MathWorld and the Fall of Publishing
MathWorld—a division of Wolfram Research, the creators of Mathematica—was temporarily shutdown in late 2000 due to a copyright dispute over a book based on the website. Eric Weisstein’s commentary on the shutdown reveals a lot not just about being on the receiving side of an unfounded lawsuit, but also about publishing and its apparent change…
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Is it Protected by Copyright?
Trying to discover whether a work of art (book, movie, song, etc.) is currently in the public domain? The American Library Association’s copyright slide rule, should help. [This] simple tool tells you whether or not you need to hunt down a rights owner to use a book, movie, song, or other work in a project.…