Funny , Scarry

Gav sent me this. I checked the quote and it all checks out.

Clickworkers in Politics

One of the often lauded/ lamented aspects of the Internet is it's so called "democratizing effect". Basically, everyone can say whatever they want i.e. "democratic" followed by the lament but then everyone can say whatever offensive rubbish they want.

But the internet does more than simply change the volume of political discourse (humor me) it actually changes how we process information. ..... Ok, I better give an example (here ) . The EFF ( Electronic Freedom Foundation) recently obtained a whole lot of documents (1138) from the FBI using the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). This information needs to be "processed" which really means scoured for relevance i.e. given a particular agenda you look at the information in relation to other technical, legal and political information. So they did the sensible thing, published the information and asked everyone (anyone interested enough) to have a look and report back on what they find. They got 8000 people to do just that.

This all seems very run of the mill until you compare it to the status quo. Which might go something like this: journalist obtains documents; hires a lawyer, techi, and political researcher; given limited knowledge they scour the documents; the result doesn't match the editors idea of a story (or doesn't support his politics) and it's filed away. Yea, I'm a cynic.

The new approach is different because the "positive" effects of the amateurs add but the "negative" effects don't. i.e. the agenda is the sum of the individual goals , the knowledge base is the sum of all their knowledge (i.e. lots of amateurs beats a few professionals) and because their is no organisation (as in institution) in control no one can veto an idea (or story) i.e there is no gatekeeper. Yes, they make more mistakes but the group self corrects (at least on matters of fact), like if you play Chinese whispers but talk openly to everyone.

This kind of approach isn't new to the Internet. It's the basis of open source programming and NASA has even used it to analyse map data, using thousands of "clickworkers". But I guess my point is that this is a radical departure from the present.

Exams over

Well as of last Friday exams are over. Think they went ok but really it all seems a lot more uncertain coming back into the education system. So, I'm off down to Dunedin for the weekend! yah

In other news.... Bush is letting his mates out of jail now?? What's that impeachment thingee can't they kick him out?

Good academics keep their opinions to themselves

Well a hero of mine , Norman Finkelstein just got fired (well denied tenure but soon to be fired). An academic at De Paul University in the U.S. He had the brave stupidity to criticise Israel and the scholarship of a Zionist lawyer (Alan Dershowitz also noted for representing OJ Simpson).

Predictably he got labeled an Anti-Semite and recently denied tenure despite the recommendation of his faculty. Apparently, you can still be an Anti-Semite even if both your parents are holocaust survivors. (I know that was a bit cheap ah).

The story is still unfolding however, and as far as political drama goes this ones got plenty of it, so we'll see what happens next.

They loved him Soooo... much they stole his watch!!

Watch the Albanians steal (sorry, accidentally slip off) Georgie boy's watch!

According to the White house it slipped off. Why even bother lying, is it just a habit?

The easy way to understand Palestine

People are always trying to say Palestine is a complicated issue .... it's not really but the arguments tend to go round in circles, so I won't bore you. Instead here's a map the UN has recently produced of the West Bank, which reflect the "facts on the ground".


Now imagine trying to get anything done in that place, run a business, run a government, a hospital, see your family in a neighbouring town. Every time you or something you need (like water, electricity or anything you want to buy or sell) crosses a piece of orange space a bureaucrat can just say "no" end of story. You can't even vote them out, your only allowed to vote for people who don't have any power over the orange space (i.e. the Palestinian Authority).

Kids and fox hunting (repeal of S59)

Firstly, I'm generally a big fan of the current government but after some thought the current move to repeal S59 is wrong. Wrong, because it's a waste of time, it's divisive but most of all because it doesn't address any practical need.

In this situation we're talking about 6 cases where S59 has been successfully applied over the last 14 years. It's not overwhelming and has no practical significance (in relation to other child abuse issues) because in reality it's not practical but idealogical.

This is really about ending debate on a complex issue by taking a reactionary stance and saying "there it's illegal therefore it's wrong and I'm right!!". I sympathise, I mean after all everyone wants to be right. It scores a point for a political movement but it doesn't do anything constructive. That is why it's wrong because it's a political indulgence.

The last time I saw anything like this was UK ban on fox hunting. The foxes aren't any better off but at least everyone felt better about themselves and they got to show those toffs who was boss!!