We’ve heard that those who work for small higher education institutions live by a certain mantra: “Recruit. Retain. Solicit.” Sound familiar? Sounds easy enough — but not when it’s a task that needs to be completed for each of your hundreds or even thousands of students.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Blackbaud's Total Campus Solution: Student Information System
Blackbaud's Total Campus Solution: Student Information System:
Like books? Google will sell you a subscription
Google settles copyright lawsuits with publishers, authors - Business - Macworld UK:
why don't i like subscriptions? because that means we're talking planned obsolescence -- you don't own the book, you only have the right to view it for a limited amount of time.
google can only sell subscriptions because they're the only game in town when it comes to scanned, in-copyright books. who else would have the cohones to scan in and display so many protected texts? who else has large enough pockets to play ball when the authors' guild comes calling? that is to say, this is not a market that provides easy and fair access. microsoft, google, and amazon are about all i can think of that have the means and interest to put hard to find, out of print, yet copyrighted books online.
but here's the issue for me -- generally i like access to books. but by putting in a subscription service for out of print books -- that is, google has essentially become a publisher of out of print b00k5 -- books -- the copyright on these books is less likely to lapse. now they have clear value. they are being used.
Take this from curmudgeongamer to see where I'm going.
Online subscription service is bad for a public domain that's already quickly becoming a dinosaur. As Michael Palm and Monika Krause say, you really can't wait on the law to make things right.
The wide-ranging agreement calls for Google to pay $125 million and in exchange gives the search giant rights to display chunks of these in-copyright books, not just snippets. This will result in broader exposure for out-of-print books that are, by definition, hard to find.
In addition, Google will make it possible for people to buy online access to these books. The agreement will also allow institutions to buy subcriptions [sic] to books and make them available to their constituents
why don't i like subscriptions? because that means we're talking planned obsolescence -- you don't own the book, you only have the right to view it for a limited amount of time.
google can only sell subscriptions because they're the only game in town when it comes to scanned, in-copyright books. who else would have the cohones to scan in and display so many protected texts? who else has large enough pockets to play ball when the authors' guild comes calling? that is to say, this is not a market that provides easy and fair access. microsoft, google, and amazon are about all i can think of that have the means and interest to put hard to find, out of print, yet copyrighted books online.
but here's the issue for me -- generally i like access to books. but by putting in a subscription service for out of print books -- that is, google has essentially become a publisher of out of print b00k5 -- books -- the copyright on these books is less likely to lapse. now they have clear value. they are being used.
Take this from curmudgeongamer to see where I'm going.
Online subscription service is bad for a public domain that's already quickly becoming a dinosaur. As Michael Palm and Monika Krause say, you really can't wait on the law to make things right.
Aural literacy
Have fun. (<<< must install to read easily, give or take.)
(Cvpgher ba yrsg vf bs n ovxr ybire -- uggc://jjj.otfh.rqh/ppbayvar/pbzfgbpx_ubpxf/Ovxrf.zct)
Rira jvgu gur erarjrq rzcunfvf ba ivfhny naq qvtvgny eurgbevp, ubjrire, jr nf jevgvat grnpuref ner fgvyy irel grkg-pragrerq va bhe pynffebbzf. Crqntbtvrf gung ner grkg-pragrerq hfhnyyl vtaber gur nheny cbffvovyvgvrf bs qvtvgny zrqvn pbzcbfvgvbaf naq yvgrenpl cenpgvprf.
Bxnl, fher, ohg gura jr'er abg rknpgyl grnpuvat Onegurf-vna (Ybfg va gur Shaubhfr) fglyr zrgnyrcfvf be vnzovp cragnzrgre -- obgu cbgragvnyyl hfrshy gebcrf sbe pbzcbfvgvba; vg jbhyq frrz obgu unir orra chg gb hfr va cerggl fhpprffshy pbzcbfvgvbaf -- rvgure.&aofc; Jung fubhyq thvqr gur qrpvfvba bs jung uvgf gur flyynohf fubhyq fgneg jvgu gubfr guvatf gung ner zbfg havirefnyyl cenpgvpny.&aofc; Grnpuvat nheny genqvgvba vf hfrshy (fcrrpu?), ohg abg fb pehpvny sbe n pbzcbfvgvba pynff.&aofc; Naq fhccbegvat guvf ol fnlvat "gurl yvir va n zhfvp ivqrb" qbrfa'g znxr zr zber yvxryl gb grnpu nheny qrivprf va serfuzna pbzc.&aofc; Crefbanyyl, V'q yvxr gb chyy gurz bhg.&aofc; ;^)
Jr nterr jvgu guvf rzoenpr bs gur beny genqvgvba, ohg jr nethr shegure gung fbavp yvgrenpl punatrf naq genafsbezf ubj jr ivrj grkg naq vzntrf.
Jr nterr lbh pbhyq pbzcner qvtvgny jbexf gb beny barf fhpprffshyyl, ohg jr'er tbvat gb gerng gurz nf grkgf.&aofc;&aofc; Ubarfgyl, jvgu gur ibvpr biref, gurl'er nethvat sbe fghqragf gb gnyx fcrrpu be svyz pynff.&aofc; Abe qbrf vg nccrne yngre gung gurer'f zhpu gb qvfgvathvfu gur qvtvgny pbaarpgvba bs nffvtazragf bssrerq bgure guna "Pbzchgref znxr rqvgvat zhygvzrqvn znf rnfvre."&aofc; Bgure guna na vapernfrq snzvyvnevgl sbe znal fghqragf jvgu qvtvgny rqvgvat, gurer'f abg zhpu cenpgvpny ernfba bssrerq gb erpbzzraq guvf cenpgvpr va pbzcbfvgvbaf pynffebbzf.
Nf znal Jrfgrea cuvybfbcuref sebz Cyngb gb Wnpdhrf Qreevqn unir abgrq, Jrfgrearef graq gb or cubabpragevp, dhvpx gb nfpevor cerfrapr naq vzzrqvnpl gb fcrrpu, rira erpbeqrq fcrrpu.
YbirZrFbzrAvgcpxvat: Gung'f shaal.&aofc; Arvgure ner va gur jbexf pvgrq.&aofc; uggc://jjj.otfh.rqh/ppbayvar/pbzfgbpx_ubpxf/jbexfpvgrq.ugz&aofc; Naq V'z cerggl fher gur svefg fnvq abguvat nobhg [nhenyyl] erpbeqrq fcrrpu.&aofc; Naq V'q nethr jvgu n oevpx jnyy Bat naq fnl gung fzryy vf zhpu zber vzzrqvngr naq cerfrag guna fbhaq.&aofc; Favss gur pbybtar lbhe sngure jber be fbzrguvat nf zhaqnar nf gur pyrnavat cebqhpg hfrq va lbhe ryrzragnel fpubby naq gryy zr V'z jebat.Rira gur cntrf' pbqr vf oynaq.
.fglyr6 {sbag-snzvyl: "Tvyy Fnaf"; sbag-jrvtug: obyq; }
.fglyr8 {
sbag-snzvyl: "Tvyy Fnaf";
sbag-fvmr: 16ck;
sbag-jrvtug: obyq;
}
.fglyr10 {pbybe: #SSSSSS; sbag-snzvyl: "Yhpvqn Fnaf"; sbag-fvmr: 24ck; sbag-jrvtug: obyq; }
n:yvax { &yg;!-- ... --&tg;&yg;oybpxdhbgr&tg;Lrf, V jrag gurer.&aofc; V'z pevgvdhvat gur fglyr bs gur ugzy pbqr-oruvaq.
&yg;c pynff="fglyr6"&tg;3. Grpuabybtvpny Yvgrenpvrf bs Fbhaq &yg;/c&tg;
&yg;c pynff="fglyr1"&tg;Vagrteny gb fbavp yvgrenpl vf n snzvyvnevgl jvgu vgf arj gbbyf naq grpuabybtvrf...
pynff="flagnk17"&tg;&yg;/c&tg;
&yg;c pynff="fglyr1"&tg;Nf jvgu nal qvtvgny zrqvn, gur nqinaprq grpuabybtvrf bs fbhaq uryc gb perngr na vyyhfvba bs ernyvfz...
pynff="flagnk17"&tg;&yg;/c&tg;
Va Zvpuryyr'f bja rkcrevrapr, jevgvat sbe ibvpr-bire aneengvbaf unf urycrq ure jevgr sbe cevag. Fur'f zber vagvzngryl njner bs gur ivpvffvghqrf bs cnpvat naq gbar, bs jura gb fybj qbja naq frg hc n fprar naq jura gb sebagybnq gur xrl pbasyvpg va n cvrpr. Fghqragf fnl gur fnzr guvat nobhg gurve bja jevgvat naq erpbeqvat cebprffrf va gurve cbfg-cebwrpg ersyrpgvbaf.
Yrg zr pevgvdhr guvf sebz n fyvtugyl qvssrerag natyr.&aofc; Cyrnfr urniraf, nyjnlf or irel pnershy jura lbh hfr fghqrag erfcbafr gung nterrf jvgu gurve pynff vafgehpgbe'f cbvag bs ivrj gb fhccbeg vagebqhpvat n cenpgvpr vagb gur pynffebbz.&aofc; Jung, fghqragf jvyy vagreanyvmr jung lbh grnpu gurz?!&aofc; Abj vs lbh unir fghqragf gung pna, jvgubhg rkprcgvba, vagreanyvmr jung lbh'ir tvira gurz nsgre univat tvivat gur gbcvp gehr pevgvpny gubhtug, V'z vzcerffrq.&aofc; Gung vf gb fnl, vg fvzcyl qbrfa'g unccra.
Sbe "nqinapr pbzcbfvgvba fghqragf" guvf qbrfa'g fbhaq yvxr n cnegvphyneyl cbbe nffvtazrag, lrg V'q fgvyy yvxr gb xabj zber nobhg gur tbnyf bs gur pynff nf Zvpuryyr vf pbaprvivat vg.&aofc; Vg fbhaqf yvxr vgf tbnyf zvtug or glcvpnyyl npnqrzvp (tbbq!), jvgu rzcnufvf ba vqragvgl naq phygheny fghqvrf, rafhevat gung jura fghqragf pbzcbfr npnqrzvpnyyl (be va gubfr sbehzf jurer gur jevgvat nccebnpurf npnqrzvp -- obbx erivrjf, rqvgbevnyf, cbyvgvpny genpgf, rgp) gung gurl guvax pevgvpnyyl naq vapyhfviryl.&aofc; Jung qb/qvq gur genqvgvbany nffvtazragf ybbx/rq yvxr?&aofc; Jung qvq jr tvir hc gb chg svyz vagb gur pbzcbfvgvba pynffebbz?&aofc; Jul vf vg zber vzcbegnag gb yrnea gb hfr vZbivr naq ZbivrZnxre guna BcraBssvpr be NovJbeq?&aofc; Ubj vf guvf "orggre" guna grnpuvat gur fbeg bs perngvir jevgvat jr pna svaq va fbzrguvat yvxr Tynmvre'f Qvtvgny Cbrgvpf gung jbhyq unir fghqragf rkcrevzrag va fvzvyne pbaihygrq jnlf jvgu grkg?&aofc; Juvpu vf zber genaterffvir (nffhzvat genaterffvba tvirf gur cbffvovyvgl sbe oebnqravat vagryyrpghny ubevmbaf)?&aofc; rgp&aofc; V'z abg n ovt sna bs, "Guvf vf pbby.&aofc; V guvax lbh fubhyq grnpu vg."&aofc; Jr'er zvffvat n fgrc be gjb.&aofc; "Guvf vf pbby.&aofc; Gurfr ner gur bcgvbaf.&aofc; [Qvfphff, vapyhqvat vqragvslvat jung'f ybfg ol sbyybjvat gur fhttrfgvba.]&aofc; Gung'f jul lbh fubhyq pbafvqre grnpuvat jung V cebcbfr."
"Jung ner lbh vagrerfgrq va Arj Zrqvn?&aofc; V unir ab pubvpr."&aofc; Avpr.&aofc; UBJ BYQ VF SVYZ?!!!!&aofc; Ogj, bzt, er:OREGUN, V YBIR Furely Pebj.&aofc; Fur'f tbg n serr ivqrb qbjaybnq ba vGharf evtug abj.&aofc; Naq Fgneohpxf?&aofc; V ybir zr fbzr Fgneohpxf.&aofc; V'z fgbccvat abj.
"Pragmatically, because I don't own a car." ;^)
Monday, October 27, 2008
IRBs and the [unjustifiable] limits of academic freedom?
From Clay Spinuzzi's blog:
Let's first admit that I'm taking this quote out of context. Spinuzzi is considering using a "clouded system" (my quote) for aggregating qualitative data -- essentially storing data in a space like Google Docs. We had some discussion about this sort of ethical issue when we thought about putting grades in a Google Doc spreadsheet. Can you really ensure its protection? As I pointed out with Google's inability to protect anonymous blogs on Blogger, the answer is clearly no, both in theory and practice.
Though I wrote the blog post too quickly, without editing carefully enough (which is to say I've a misprint in the part he quotes *sigh*), B.r.e.n.d.a.n. R.i.l.e.y. (for whom Google Alerts provided the digital version of burning ears; I'm fudging his name here so he won't feel compelled to check this out until I'm done editing this time!) commented on my earlier blog on intellectual ownership. He and Laurie Taylor wrote the article I linked to earlier that does a very good job explaining open source from an academic context.
Here's an overly liberal quote from his blog.
My contention with B.r.e.n.d.a.n. and now the powers that be as I've selectively quoted them from Spinuzzi's blog comes from the quote, "stored on a machine or server that is not owned and properly secured by the university". Why is that -- university ownership -- an issue? Why should IRBs force us to keep our information within the university? Whose research is it?
Look, my issue here is the corporate university, right? There's not much I'm trying to hide. I'm actually all for Open Source and giving away scholarship. I think that's the daggum point, after all. What I'd hoped to point out in that earlier blog was that Open Sourcing something doesn't provide some idealistically pure level of protection, and that we should be awfully careful that we understand how Open works before adopting it ourselves. Even though we make an end run around copyright, your academic labor can still be exploited in ways that make Corporation U proud.
What I dislike is the way the university continues to place itself between scholarship and the public paying for it. I'm not working in "any other industry". I've worked in a few of those, and I'd prefer to work in a protected space outside of that system, a space that performs as a check and balance on the system that'd rather own my work and run it through a profit maximization machine than share it unconditionally. Working at the government, the amount of pork redistribution -- and the degree that such redistribution of public funds to the private sector was used as a register of success -- drove me crazy in a similar fashion. Strangely enough, working at a mid-sized corporation was the most honest work environment I've yet seen. At least they admitted they were just trying to make [every] buck, bless their hearts.
That the university might be using the discourse of ethics to position themselves between the scholar and his patrons (the public, thank you very much, at least at NC State and, I believe, Spinuzzi's UT Austin) bothers me like you wouldn't believe. Blackbaud? For them (a corp), this would be a smart move, an understandable move, a justifiable move.
Only in Corporate U wouldethics economics coming before scholarship not be found scandalous at all. Isn't it strange that the only sites that seem safe from this sort of influence, the ones in the humanities most ready to give to the public without serious compulsion, are the ones funded by private endowments or, surprisingly, Microsoft once the possibility for long-term profit is gone?
Alas, no. Because any self-respecting institutional research board would balk at raw qualitative data being stored on a machine or server that is not owned and properly secured by the university. My IRB, for instance, specifies that data must be password-protected and stored on a hard drive that is encrypted at rest.
Let's first admit that I'm taking this quote out of context. Spinuzzi is considering using a "clouded system" (my quote) for aggregating qualitative data -- essentially storing data in a space like Google Docs. We had some discussion about this sort of ethical issue when we thought about putting grades in a Google Doc spreadsheet. Can you really ensure its protection? As I pointed out with Google's inability to protect anonymous blogs on Blogger, the answer is clearly no, both in theory and practice.
Though I wrote the blog post too quickly, without editing carefully enough (which is to say I've a misprint in the part he quotes *sigh*), B.r.e.n.d.a.n. R.i.l.e.y. (for whom Google Alerts provided the digital version of burning ears; I'm fudging his name here so he won't feel compelled to check this out until I'm done editing this time!) commented on my earlier blog on intellectual ownership. He and Laurie Taylor wrote the article I linked to earlier that does a very good job explaining open source from an academic context.
Here's an overly liberal quote from his blog.
This attitude does depend, as ruffin seems to acknowledge, on an idea that one must give up one’s claims on “intellectual property,” at least to some degree. He writes:Others can still use your content to teach for pay. Your dean could still throw fifteen sections of the class on the books using your open content without asking, and now he could do it even if your university doesn’t claim to own the materials by virtue of some esoteric server ownership pact with the devil.Yep, they can! (Only in Higher Ed would we find this scandalous at all. If you work in any other industry and produce something as part of your work, the company is expected to take that thing and do stuff with it. The folks who came up with the Nike swoosh got paid for doing so, but they don’t maintain rights over it. My cousin who works in biomedical engineering certainly doesn’t expect to keep her research or control it. Only teachers argue that their teaching materials are anything other than “work for hire.”)
I could see feeling a little chagrined if someone started making bucketloads of money from them, but ultimately my teaching materials are another form of my scholarship–they’re what I’m contributing back to the commons. And our culture is so wedded to the idea that we own our ideas that the idea of losing control of those ideas makes us revolt.
My contention with B.r.e.n.d.a.n. and now the powers that be as I've selectively quoted them from Spinuzzi's blog comes from the quote, "stored on a machine or server that is not owned and properly secured by the university". Why is that -- university ownership -- an issue? Why should IRBs force us to keep our information within the university? Whose research is it?
Look, my issue here is the corporate university, right? There's not much I'm trying to hide. I'm actually all for Open Source and giving away scholarship. I think that's the daggum point, after all. What I'd hoped to point out in that earlier blog was that Open Sourcing something doesn't provide some idealistically pure level of protection, and that we should be awfully careful that we understand how Open works before adopting it ourselves. Even though we make an end run around copyright, your academic labor can still be exploited in ways that make Corporation U proud.
What I dislike is the way the university continues to place itself between scholarship and the public paying for it. I'm not working in "any other industry". I've worked in a few of those, and I'd prefer to work in a protected space outside of that system, a space that performs as a check and balance on the system that'd rather own my work and run it through a profit maximization machine than share it unconditionally. Working at the government, the amount of pork redistribution -- and the degree that such redistribution of public funds to the private sector was used as a register of success -- drove me crazy in a similar fashion. Strangely enough, working at a mid-sized corporation was the most honest work environment I've yet seen. At least they admitted they were just trying to make [every] buck, bless their hearts.
That the university might be using the discourse of ethics to position themselves between the scholar and his patrons (the public, thank you very much, at least at NC State and, I believe, Spinuzzi's UT Austin) bothers me like you would
Only in Corporate U would
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The loophole of the Creative Commons
Image from here, and image is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Credits for image: Cartoon concept and design by Neeru Paharia. Original illustrations by Ryan Junell, Photos by Matt Haughey. Let's continue.
Because we all know Mr. Ezra would never let commercial influence breech the walls of his sacred classroom. NEVER. Nor would we.
When do we get those free sandwiches again?
Because we all know Mr. Ezra would never let commercial influence breech the walls of his sacred classroom. NEVER. Nor would we.
When do we get those free sandwiches again?
As 704 continues to try to push us away from phat clients
Critiquing the Cyber Minimalist:
Only using Gmail is a pretty clear mistake for anyone whose work depends on their email. There are times (for me, on the train or waiting in the car or when our DSL modem goes out, again) where having local copies is A Good Thing, both to search through and to draft replies in what would otherwise be dead time. Perhaps this author is better at compartmentalizing than me, but I would be pretty geographically limited if I could only use my laptop when I had a net connection, and the dependence you cede by counting on having not only a connection but working, accessible online applications has deeper political ramifications than the Minimalist seems to let on. There's a reason Microsoft's attempt to move Office to an online subscription model didn't take hold (yet).
I can think of two good reasons not to trust online storage services.
The first is the most obvious: What happens when the system loses, oh, I don't know, just a few (maybe 3000?) users' emails? Lots of egg, and they're really sorry, but you're the one that's stuck. Or, more likely, what happens if Google loses, oh, I don't know, just a few of your emails? You may not have noticed it already having happened, but once you try to get that [insert need along the lines of your last picture taken with your grandmother] back and it's gone ("Did I delete that on accident?"), you'll only have yourself to blame.
Perhaps it's the database admin in me, but I always say that if you don't have a digital file in at least three places, you don't have it at all.
The second is the way that services like Gmail and iTunes Genius use aggregated data about you and others to make those companies cash. Your privacy is likely ensured, but that's because on some level neither company cares about you as an individual. You're part of a revenue stream. And your data, aggregated with others, allows them to predict your interests and use your own work to target you with more effective ads.
Let me emphasize that a bit: Online services that the Cyber Minimalist mentions use your own work (content and time) to sell you more things you don't need. They use your own work against you and others, without obvious compensation. It's hard to imagine ourselves as potential rubes because of the sort of negative connotations it brings; only idiots buy snake oil, right? I don't know about youse guys, but I'm guilty of buying NFL season tickets for three years, have a Playstation 2, buy a new Mac about every two or three years, and for a long time was a DirecTV subscriber -- and those are simply the most obvious transgressions. Don't know that I need any of that oil, and probably wouldn't've gotten them without effective pitches of some sort. I'd rather not contribute to consumerist capitalism's effective pitchmaking. Yet I still use Gmail and iTunes Genius. Fn Rube.
Try encrypting your Gmail email. Think its content is still encrypted when you read it through Firefox? You don't think Firefox is decrypting it, do you? (Edit: Maybe it is.)
And more to the point, the Minimalist misses it here. They don't want to read your email, dangit. They want to create automated ways to data mine your content to help them sell to you and people like you. Gmail is reading your email. Not an employee but a database. Why do you think I keep getting Gmail adverts for stories on ESPN and not Ladies' Home Journal? (or is it the other way round; I can't remember...) We're being mined, put to work without representation (or even middle management!) for the companies whose systems we're consuming. BOOM!! HEADSHOT!!
Update edit: So I emailed a Thoreau scholar to see if I'd misrepresented Thoreauvian simplicity. Here's my Gmail ad post-email.
It's enough to move a lesser man to tears. (And when I say lesser, I mean, you know, like under 200 lbs.)
I've since been freed to use Gmail, and I'll never go back.
Only using Gmail is a pretty clear mistake for anyone whose work depends on their email. There are times (for me, on the train or waiting in the car or when our DSL modem goes out, again) where having local copies is A Good Thing, both to search through and to draft replies in what would otherwise be dead time. Perhaps this author is better at compartmentalizing than me, but I would be pretty geographically limited if I could only use my laptop when I had a net connection, and the dependence you cede by counting on having not only a connection but working, accessible online applications has deeper political ramifications than the Minimalist seems to let on. There's a reason Microsoft's attempt to move Office to an online subscription model didn't take hold (yet).
Yes, I’m a Google freak, and others have problems trusting a company like Google, but I don’t.
...
I don’t actually do backups for the most part. All the companies I use to store my information online backup the information themselves.
...
I don’t actually do backups for the most part. All the companies I use to store my information online backup the information themselves.
I can think of two good reasons not to trust online storage services.
The first is the most obvious: What happens when the system loses, oh, I don't know, just a few (maybe 3000?) users' emails? Lots of egg, and they're really sorry, but you're the one that's stuck. Or, more likely, what happens if Google loses, oh, I don't know, just a few of your emails? You may not have noticed it already having happened, but once you try to get that [insert need along the lines of your last picture taken with your grandmother] back and it's gone ("Did I delete that on accident?"), you'll only have yourself to blame.
Perhaps it's the database admin in me, but I always say that if you don't have a digital file in at least three places, you don't have it at all.
The second is the way that services like Gmail and iTunes Genius use aggregated data about you and others to make those companies cash. Your privacy is likely ensured, but that's because on some level neither company cares about you as an individual. You're part of a revenue stream. And your data, aggregated with others, allows them to predict your interests and use your own work to target you with more effective ads.
Let me emphasize that a bit: Online services that the Cyber Minimalist mentions use your own work (content and time) to sell you more things you don't need. They use your own work against you and others, without obvious compensation. It's hard to imagine ourselves as potential rubes because of the sort of negative connotations it brings; only idiots buy snake oil, right? I don't know about youse guys, but I'm guilty of buying NFL season tickets for three years, have a Playstation 2, buy a new Mac about every two or three years, and for a long time was a DirecTV subscriber -- and those are simply the most obvious transgressions. Don't know that I need any of that oil, and probably wouldn't've gotten them without effective pitches of some sort. I'd rather not contribute to consumerist capitalism's effective pitchmaking. Yet I still use Gmail and iTunes Genius. Fn Rube.
[Privacy] is a real issue for some people, and I won’t deny it. However, I don’t really think Google employees (or whatever company I’m using) have time to read through everyone’s files, and even if they read mine, I don’t have anything secret in my documents. If that’s an issue for you, for whatever reason, online work would be more difficult. You could encrypt files — maybe only those that you really want to protect.
Try encrypting your Gmail email. Think its content is still encrypted when you read it through Firefox? You don't think Firefox is decrypting it, do you? (Edit: Maybe it is.)
And more to the point, the Minimalist misses it here. They don't want to read your email, dangit. They want to create automated ways to data mine your content to help them sell to you and people like you. Gmail is reading your email. Not an employee but a database. Why do you think I keep getting Gmail adverts for stories on ESPN and not Ladies' Home Journal? (or is it the other way round; I can't remember...) We're being mined, put to work without representation (or even middle management!) for the companies whose systems we're consuming. BOOM!! HEADSHOT!!
Having your own private data used against you and others for corporate profit is fearsome, no?
I'll end with this...
Yeah, I get it. There's some proverbial American Intellectual Independence style intertextuality here, isn't there?
I really don't see Henry David lighting out for the woods saying we should cyborg ourselves inextricably to the corporate and consumerist grid as an exercise in simplicity. I believe, in the end, the Minimalist may be confusing simplicity with willful, un-self-critical shortsightedness.
I'll end with this...
I should have had this in the original article, but here’s the key issue: if working online would be more complicated for you, don’t do it. For me, it has mean a simplification and minimalization of my computing life, and I really enjoy that minimalism. Others have more complicated needs, or have issues with privacy, backups, security or the quality of their connections. Those people shouldn’t use an online solution, as I do, because it would be more complicated for them. And that’s the final test — what is simpler and makes more sense for your situation?
Yeah, I get it. There's some proverbial American Intellectual Independence style intertextuality here, isn't there?
Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.
I really don't see Henry David lighting out for the woods saying we should cyborg ourselves inextricably to the corporate and consumerist grid as an exercise in simplicity. I believe, in the end, the Minimalist may be confusing simplicity with willful, un-self-critical shortsightedness.
Update edit: So I emailed a Thoreau scholar to see if I'd misrepresented Thoreauvian simplicity. Here's my Gmail ad post-email.
It's enough to move a lesser man to tears. (And when I say lesser, I mean, you know, like under 200 lbs.)
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Alexander, revisited more productively
For me, the most effective critique of Alexander’s chat room experiment (beyond simply saying that there really wasn’t much digital in the chapter) was Shane’s, who, in class, if I’m remembering and attributing correctly, said the activity was something akin to identity tourism. Seems to work for me; there’s simply no way that students who can put down their state of oppression at will can truly inhabit that marginalized position, online or no. The critique got me thinking, and by briefly substituting labor for identity, I think I've found a better way to productively approach Alexander, both on the level of his politics and his engagement with digital media.
So while I’m back, workin' at the house-based sweat equity I'd mentioned a week ago (this time filling Boss Keane’s ditch rather than digging it), I wondered to what degree the sorry six hours I spend on my lot every weekend or so measured on Shane's ladder of the laboring tourist. Is my labor false because I’m paying the guy who told me this was a job I could do for him? That is, if I wanted to mail it in, I’d just pay him a few hundred more bucks to find a trencher and tell [ie, "pay"] one of his employees to follow it. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a crudload of dough, right? And I'd just be rolling those few hundred into the construction loan; it's not like I had to earn the money. Ah, vive le privilège.
It seemed to me like there are give or take two ways to approach my labor (and this house jive seems to be heavy on my mind largely because it's several hours that I don't have much to do with my mind but think). On the one hand, I am a tourist. The few hours I put in are nothing like someone putting in fifty hour weeks. I'm working once or twice a week, and even then when something more important comes up I have an easy out if I want to use it (for the record, I haven't, yet).
On the other hand, the point of unalienating labor is to point out (in an oversimplified sense) what's wrong with the way labor is marshaled now. I'm being more productive than I would be if I spent the time like I'd normally do -- running -- and perhaps there's an argument in here somewhere that those who do this sort of labor for their fifty hour weeks aren't being fairly compensated (meaning both salary and socially in a larger sense). What the exercise, pun intended, does is expose the ways our (well, at least "my") relationship with labor can be improved. (Yes, I realize I'm lazily leaving those lessons unnecessarily vague. I'm not sure I understand all of them yet, thus the dimestore Marxist label.)
Extend to Alexander's experiment with his chat room class exercise. If he'd twist the goal a bit (and, from our class' point of view, move from the emphasis on two specific sexualities to a broader social consideration), the chat room suddenly becomes much more interesting. Instead of saying, "Hey, let's flip social dominance and see what it's like to be different... [cue music]", he instead can ask how the ability to negotiate identity in virtual space changes the way that identity can be enacted and controlled. And here with Alexander's chat room, I'd, like Ruffin-digging, see two very different possibilities crop up. Either the virtual identity eternally delays the requirement of "coming out" (what I'd call "owning") an identity by restricting its performance to a safe space (and here I'd include both primary sexual social performances and secondary, like those students that find they are suddenly comfortable with flaming) or it provides an alternative conception to retroactively apply to conventional space. That is, outside of the "computer classroom," a couple of uses or lessons of the chat room present themselves. One is for those with oppressed identity politics to limit the performance of their [natural/true/etc] identity for virtual tourist spots themselves. The way the 'net enables such confrontation-avoidance/virtual closet space is an unavoidable lesson, much to Alexander's chagrin.
The second, more accepting lesson is to allow the exercise to not to flip positions and create a new hierarchy of privilege (Alexander's intended but potentially short-sighted goal), but to see what's wrong with the way identity is marshaled now. Online, there does seem to be the possibility of conceiving identity differently, thanks to 1.) a perception of anonymity, which provides a previously unexperienced degree of identity control and 2.) Alexander's until now unrelated point of how easy it is in cyberspace to find information about what was conventionally easily suppressed, which provides a previously unexperienced potential for [shared] identity formation (I think Nick's reference proves this point fairly well). In practice, the lesson is perhaps essentially libertarian, and doesn't completely fulfill Alexander's politics of liberation. Regardless, this is a more productive reading of his experiment, and I believe it does a better job of moving towards the sort of [digital-dependent] lesson his chapter was attempting to display and provides better, more productive guidance for those who might want to use the exercise for their own classrooms.
So while I’m back, workin' at the house-based sweat equity I'd mentioned a week ago (this time filling Boss Keane’s ditch rather than digging it), I wondered to what degree the sorry six hours I spend on my lot every weekend or so measured on Shane's ladder of the laboring tourist. Is my labor false because I’m paying the guy who told me this was a job I could do for him? That is, if I wanted to mail it in, I’d just pay him a few hundred more bucks to find a trencher and tell [ie, "pay"] one of his employees to follow it. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a crudload of dough, right? And I'd just be rolling those few hundred into the construction loan; it's not like I had to earn the money. Ah, vive le privilège.
It seemed to me like there are give or take two ways to approach my labor (and this house jive seems to be heavy on my mind largely because it's several hours that I don't have much to do with my mind but think). On the one hand, I am a tourist. The few hours I put in are nothing like someone putting in fifty hour weeks. I'm working once or twice a week, and even then when something more important comes up I have an easy out if I want to use it (for the record, I haven't, yet).
On the other hand, the point of unalienating labor is to point out (in an oversimplified sense) what's wrong with the way labor is marshaled now. I'm being more productive than I would be if I spent the time like I'd normally do -- running -- and perhaps there's an argument in here somewhere that those who do this sort of labor for their fifty hour weeks aren't being fairly compensated (meaning both salary and socially in a larger sense). What the exercise, pun intended, does is expose the ways our (well, at least "my") relationship with labor can be improved. (Yes, I realize I'm lazily leaving those lessons unnecessarily vague. I'm not sure I understand all of them yet, thus the dimestore Marxist label.)
Extend to Alexander's experiment with his chat room class exercise. If he'd twist the goal a bit (and, from our class' point of view, move from the emphasis on two specific sexualities to a broader social consideration), the chat room suddenly becomes much more interesting. Instead of saying, "Hey, let's flip social dominance and see what it's like to be different... [cue music]", he instead can ask how the ability to negotiate identity in virtual space changes the way that identity can be enacted and controlled. And here with Alexander's chat room, I'd, like Ruffin-digging, see two very different possibilities crop up. Either the virtual identity eternally delays the requirement of "coming out" (what I'd call "owning") an identity by restricting its performance to a safe space (and here I'd include both primary sexual social performances and secondary, like those students that find they are suddenly comfortable with flaming) or it provides an alternative conception to retroactively apply to conventional space. That is, outside of the "computer classroom," a couple of uses or lessons of the chat room present themselves. One is for those with oppressed identity politics to limit the performance of their [natural/true/etc] identity for virtual tourist spots themselves. The way the 'net enables such confrontation-avoidance/virtual closet space is an unavoidable lesson, much to Alexander's chagrin.
The second, more accepting lesson is to allow the exercise to not to flip positions and create a new hierarchy of privilege (Alexander's intended but potentially short-sighted goal), but to see what's wrong with the way identity is marshaled now. Online, there does seem to be the possibility of conceiving identity differently, thanks to 1.) a perception of anonymity, which provides a previously unexperienced degree of identity control and 2.) Alexander's until now unrelated point of how easy it is in cyberspace to find information about what was conventionally easily suppressed, which provides a previously unexperienced potential for [shared] identity formation (I think Nick's reference proves this point fairly well). In practice, the lesson is perhaps essentially libertarian, and doesn't completely fulfill Alexander's politics of liberation. Regardless, this is a more productive reading of his experiment, and I believe it does a better job of moving towards the sort of [digital-dependent] lesson his chapter was attempting to display and provides better, more productive guidance for those who might want to use the exercise for their own classrooms.
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