“Can anyone in the world reach anyone else through a chain of only 6 friends?
“With your help, we intend to find out.”
I registered.
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“You’re sitting in one place when you use those things.”
“Same as writing a novel. You don’t write your books standing up, moving around.”
He’s backing away, looking to speak with some of the other folks congregated around him, “it sounds sort of like ham radio, people use that to talk all over the world.” And he’s absorbed elsewhere. I write in my notebook, underlined, “He’s old school.”
Nice piece by Justin Hall.
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“Cyberspace as Place, and the Tragedy of the Digital Anticommons
The conception of “cyberspace as place” leads to the implication that there is property online, and that this property should be privately owned, parceled out, and exploited. Though private ownership of resources of itself is not problematic, it can lead to the opposite of the tragedy of the commons: the tragedy of the anti-commons. Anti-commons property occurs when multiple parties have an effective right to preclude others from using a given resource, and as a result no-one has an effective right of use. Part IV argues that this is precisely where the “cyberspace as place” metaphor leads. We are moving to a digital anti-commons, where no-one will be allowed to access competitors’ cyberspace “assets” without some licensing, or other transactionally-expensive (or impossible), permission mechanism. The Article shows how the “cyberspace as place” metaphor leads to undesirable private control of the previously commons-like Internet, and the emergence of the digital anti-commons. As we all come to stake out our little claim in cyberspace, then the commons which is cyberspace is being destroyed.”
I still need to read this long paper but it looks interesting.
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“Cultivating a New Creative Commons: Creative Commons is a non-profit organization founded on the notion that some people would prefer to share their creative works (and the power to copy, modify, and distribute their works) instead of exercising all of the restrictions of copyright law.”
This could be good: somehow taylor making licences to suit. That will bring out the range more clearly & we will see a range from open to free – and learn the difference.
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Mediamatic: Tofts, McKeich: Memory Trade. A Prehistory of Cyberculture
“In his book Memory Trade Tofts tries to show that in cyberdiscourse – the discussion of computer technology’s influence on communication and culture – there is nothing new under the sun. According to him, the technologisation of the word was not brought into being just by the arrival of the computer (as is sometimes short-sightedly claimed in cyberdiscourse); the word was always already technologised. The subjects Tofts handles in Memory Trade make this clear: alphabet, writing and language as technology; the origins of cyberthought in mnemonics; Finnegans Wake as the original media theory book. These form Tofts’ (pre)history of cyberdiscourse.”
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“Theology in a Digital World is a collection of essays and lectures dating from 1984 to 1987. It was published by the United Church Publishing House and can be obtained through that source. Published here as Web documents are subsequent reflections on technology from a theological perspective. All of these are copyright © David Lochhead, 1995.”
For example:
“A hermenutic of digital technology is likely to resist that direction and to stress in its place a more playful interpretation of what the meaning of the text might become. In the process, our understanding of the authority of the text will undergo a profound shift. Authority will not disappear. But in place of a heteronomous authority of the original context, the authority will one that emerges out of the covenant of our play. ”
from the Footnote to McLuhan item.
Oldies but interesting.
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Nice to have this online!
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Just upgraded my old Agent as i am back in XP as I am having a few problems in Linux right now. Thhis is a nice story. I can get by in Windows with the likes of Agent and Mozilla – which is a great browser.
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“Do the demands of the GPL cause as much harm as closed-source code?”
Interesting discussion on going into the use of dual licences etc. following what is a flawed opening article. I have a great respect for that GPL! That people cheat and close it off is a sad thing though. Apparently it is easy enough to do a string search to see if that has happened.
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“Linux will always be more than the sum of its egos”
This is a rejoinder to the Metcalf thing. I know these are old articles… but I like that about the web – it persists (when it does not rot).