Games and Lawsuits

Courtesy of Slashdot, an article, Trials and Tribulations by Nadia Oxford (Dec. 14, 2005) on the history of video game lawsuits. The history concludes,

As long as there is money to make, personal morals to uphold (however noble or whacked) and profits to defend, courts will never lack for activity. Gamers and non-gamers alike have reason to shake their heads as the strong foundation of Democracy is smothered by frivilous and petty lawsuits launched by weasels looking to get rich quick. But it’s undeniably important–as well as interesting–to review those historic copyright lawsuits that formed the prosperous industry of today.

A bit facile .. but true. The law is a form of commerce; another game for some.

More on the Wikipedia

More on the Wikipedia fuss. watching wikipedia watch is a blog entry on how Daniel Brandt of Wikipedia Watch outted the author of the false Wikipedia entry on Seigenthaler.

In an earlier story if:book, a group blog, comments on a Nature article comparing Wikipedia to the Encyclopedia Brittanica – they found them equivalent in terms of accuracy, though Brittanica articles were generally better written.

Wikipedia: Game or Reference?

What is it with Wikipedia? by Bill Thompson of the BBC summarizes the recent fuss about the accuracy of the Wikipedia. For example John Seigenthaler wrote an opinion in USA Today titled USATODAY.com – A false Wikipedia ‘biography’ about the prank biography in the Wikipedia which suggested he was tied to the Kennedy assassinations. In his opinion piece he wirtes about his attempts to track down the joker who defamed him.

Today Google News had as a top story a joke news story in The Register by critic Andrew Orlowski that Wikipedia founder ‘shot by friend of Siegenthaler’. Orlowski references the Wikipedia on the shooting, though I can’t find the reference now. Working my way back through the Wikipedia history for the Jimmy Wales entry shows that today (Dec. 18) there have been an unuasual number of edits on the page including spurious ones with graphic pictures. His entry has become a site for contest and Orlowski is mocking it/Jimmy for and with this. Orlowski compares the Wikipedia to a roleplaying game for wannabe encyclopedia writers, but there is another game afoot which is more serious, and that is the game of the hack.

Is this the end of the open Wikipedia? Will it be hacked into forcing people to register to edit? Is it the nature of open systems that if sucessful they get vandalized?

iPods and Hearing Loss

iPod’s Popular Earbuds: Hip Or Harmful? is one of a number of articles on hearng loss and iPods. The problem is the length of time people listen to iPods (they last longer than earlier devices like the Walkman), the lack of distortion at the high range (analogue devices would distort at the high end), and the bud-type earphones that further raise the volume. In Europe the iPods are sold with the a lower maximum volume for these reasons. See also Macworld UK – Experts warn of iPod hearing loss.

I’ve found myself listending at almost full volume, especially in noisy situations where I want drown out sound. Hmmm …. What did you say? Speak up.

Passerini: Autobiography of a Generation

I have just finished Luisa Passerini‘s Autobiography of a Generation: Italy 1968, an extraordinary history of the half generation before me. Born in 59 I, like others who grew up in the late 70s, inherited, but didn’t participate in the political and cultural events of the 60s. We were the (half) generation after the movement of the counter culture. Reading Passerini has me thinking about what it was like following – how I benefited from the freedoms moved without experiencing what it was to be part of a movement. She follows those involved in 68 in Italy and the “diaspora” of directions they took from joining mainstream unions to the violence of terrorism. It seems the only real movements (as opposed to factions) to follow 68 were the feminist movement (and the US the gay/lesbian movement) – both movements that men could only support not move within.

Is it surprising that many of my generation of me would turn to computing? Computing had … still has, the transcendent rhetoric of a liberation movement along with the occaisional indulgence of drug culture. Computing offered a movement – a being part of something unique in history (or out of history). In addition it offered a certainty – things work or not, code runs or not – that the critical and ironic politics after 68 could not. Passerini comments on how many of the movers in 68 ended up in media criticism – their training in resisting traditional media and pamphleting prepared them to be critical and creative. I think a similar phenomenon happended over here – the experience of being pilloried in the press led many to become aware of mediation and to then become interested in the possibilities of computer mediation.
Continue reading Passerini: Autobiography of a Generation

CHASS: NCSA and Illinois

CHASS – The Center for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. This Center is an interesting partnership between the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications – the folks that brought you Mosaic) and the University of Illinois. It has the potential, given the partners, to do some interesting stuff with HPC and digital humanities. I am of the belief that we have the most complex data sets and problems for HPC, but need to collaborate with the supercomputing folks to imagine how to tackle the problems.

Public Relations and Blogs

On Wednesday (November 30th) I participated in a panel organized by the Canadian Public Relations Society, Toronto titled “Wake Up and Smell the Blogs!”. I was the token academic on the panel chaired by Michael O’Connor Clarke whose personal blog is Uninstalled.

The focus was mostly on how to use blogs in public relations and how to get attention from journalists. Jack Kapica of the Globe and Mark Evans of the National Post, both have good blogs on the tech industry. Kapika’s is hosted by the Globe, Evans’ is not hosted by the Post. What does that say? John Oxley from Microsoft (see Canadian IT Managers) talked about Microsoft supporting bloggin by employees. There is a lot of anxiety about letting personal blogs loose and not being able to control the message of an organization, and he explained how Microsoft is trying to use blogs to provide a more personal and transparent face. Rick Segale (who used to work for Microsoft and is now a venture capitalist) spoke forcefully about the virtues of blogging and the need for passion.

I realized by the end that I am a very different blogger than the other panel members. I have a freedom to say what I want that most in industry (and yes, the media is an industry) do not. I also don’t have justify what I write in terms of attention – this blog doesn’t need to be read widely to be worth it. Finally, I realized, again, how blogging is not about the technology, it is about voice and engagement. It is a sign that web technologies are maturing when things like RSS and XML are not really the issue, it what you do with them and how they are hidden.
Continue reading Public Relations and Blogs

Historical Visualizations

Matt Jensen of NewsBlip has pointed me to work he and others are doing on historical visualization. See, for example, the technical report on Semantic Timelines that he wrote. Historical Visualizations, by David Staley in the JAHC: Journal of the Association for History and Computing (vol. III, no. 3, Nov. 2000) surveys the ways visualization is used in history from concepts to timelines.
Another similar project is the Temporal Modelling project led by Johanna Drucker. She and Bethany Nowviskie have been working on visual forms of knowledge production. See their Prototype Designs for a temporal vocabulary which I blogged earlier at 3D Timelines.