Fair Use Lab

• Misha Glenny: Hire the hackers! | Video on TED.com
  Despite multibillion-dollar investments in cybersecurity, one of its root problems has been largely ignored: who are the people who write malicious code? Underworld investigator Misha Glenny profiles several convicted coders from around the world and reaches a startling conclusion.
• ‘DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You’ – Exploring the World of Cybercrime | PRI’s The World 101011
  Anchor Marco Werman talks about the borderless world of international cyber crime with Misha Glenny, whose new book is called “DarkMarker: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You.”
• Ayesha Khanna on smart cities and the Hybrid Age | Spark
  According to Ayesha Khanna, the end of the so-called “Information Age” is nigh. Ayesha is the the director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, and she says we’re starting to enter a new age — the “Hybrid Age” — which is characterized by pervasive computing, biotechnology and nanotechnology, and “the emergence of technologies as a social actor.” That is, a time defined by our social interactions with the machines around us. This week, Nora interviewed Ayesha Khanna about the hybrid age, and about another of Ayesha’s areas of expertise: smart cities. You can hear the full, uncut interview or download the MP3. [runs 32:15]
• Spark 157 – October 2 & 5, 2011 | Spark
  Psychology professor Jennifer Steeves of York University explains how human beings recognize one another compared to facial recognition software. And Alessandro Acquisti from Carnegie Mellon University reveals some surprising research into how regular recognition tech can identify “anonymous” people. | Jure Leskovec is an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford, and he analyses past human behaviour online to predict future outcomes. And he’s discovered he can correctly predict who your next friends on Facebook will be. | What happens when cities can monitor and respond to the people who live in them? There is no end to the Spark obsession with this question. Ayesha Khanna, director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, talks to Nora Young about the potential, and the challenges of smart cities, and what becomes possible when sensors are embedded everywhere.
• Steve Jobs and Apple’s Innovative Advertising – On The Media 100711
  Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs died this week at the age of 56. Bob remembers the tech giant, and discusses Apple’s iconic “1984″ Super Bowl commercial, which he says is one of the best advertisements ever made.
• The Loss of a Valuable Journalistic Tool – On The Media 100711
  For years, health care reporters have employed a government database called the National Practitioner Data Bank, containing information on malpractice payouts. The public version of the database hides the names of physicians, but after a reporter was able to identify an anonymous doctor, the public database was taken offline. Bob talks to Charles Ornstein of the Association of Health Care Journalists about why the database is important, and attempts by journalists to regain access to it.
• Digital Public Library of America
  The DPLA Steering Committee is leading the first concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all. The vision of a national digital library has been circulating among librarians, scholars, educators, and private industry representatives since the early 1990s, but it has not yet materialized. Efforts led by a range of organizations, including the Library of Congress, HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive, have successfully built resources that provide books, images, historical records, and audiovisual materials to anyone with Internet access. Many universities, public libraries, and other public-spirited organizations have digitized materials that could be brought together under the frame of the DPLA, but these digital collections often exist in silos.
• MediaBerkman » Blog Archive » RB 185: The Next Generation Library 101711
  What would a digital version of your public library look like? There’s more to it than e-books and digital reading devices. Librarians, scholars, innovators, and techno-wizards are collaborating under the mantle of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to build a next generation public library. Such a thing could incorporate one or more of many different elements: a set of physical buildings; a purely digital archive with an open API layer for coders to play around with; a full fledged digital lending library. And when the DPLA converge on the National Archives in Washington, DC this Friday (you can check out the agenda and tune in to a livestream here) they’ll get to work out just a few of those ideas.
• MediaBerkman » Blog Archive » RB 184: Intellectual Property — Not Just For Lawyers Anymore 101211
  It’s time to stop thinking about intellectual property as something purely for your legal counsel to deal with. That’s the driving idea behind John Palfrey’s aptly titled new book Intellectual Property Strategy. Companies and institutions that have to worry about creative works, trademarks, or brands would be well-suited, Palfrey says, to seize the sword and shield from the attorneys (who tend to be aggressive and/or defensive about IP) and exercise a little more flexibility and creativity with intellectual property on their own. Palfrey sat down with David Weinberger for this week’s Radio Berkman to talk about why.
• Spark 159 – October 23 & 26, 2011 | Spark
  There’s been a sharp decline in the number of young people studying Computer Science. Mark Allemang is a professor at Sault College in Sault Ste Marie Ontario who has seen this decline first hand, as more and more courses are canceled in community college. But why do so-called digital natives lack interest in pursuing careers in tech fields? David Ticoll is the executive director of the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow’s ICT Skills, and he thinks the key is in not limiting education in computers to a hard category of ‘computer science’, but in thinking of educating young people in hybrid skills. (Runs 10:00)
• Full Interview: Douglas Rushkoff on Program or Be Programmed | Spark 101211
  Nora Young: “Today I interviewed Douglas Rushkoff, an author and keen observer of new media and digital culture. I wanted to talk to him about his most recent book, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. He argues that in learning to code, or at least learning a little about coding, we can better understand the biases of digital technology, and the design decisions that go into our digital technologies. In short, we don’t need to be passive consumers of new technology.”
• Full Interview: Rob Spence on Cyborgs, Eyeborgs, and Human Augmentation | Spark 100511
  Rob Spence is a documentary filmmaker. He’s also a self-described cyborg. His latest project, Deus Ex: The Eyeborg Documentary launched in conjunction with the launch of a video game called Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In it, Rob looks at the current state of cybernetics, and asks how far off a Deus Ex-like future might be.
• CFP 2012 ADA: Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion, and Disability
  April 24-25, 2012 | Proposals are due December 5th, 2011 | The theme for the Twelfth Annual Multiple Perspectives, “Experience Understood in Image, Poetry, Narrative and Research” reaches across disciplines, professions and modes of knowing for a fuller understanding of disability. The theme facilitates our twelve year exploration of disability as a reflection of the human condition as seen through the lenses of environmental, theoretical and social constructs as well as personal experience. Preference will be given to presentations that encourage conversations across the typical divisions (medical and social, education and employment, research and practice, business and government, rights and charity …) or focus on the parallels, distinctions and intersections with race, gender and ethnicity.
• The ‘Worm’ That Could Bring Down The Internet : NPR 092711
  As many as 12 million computers worldwide have been infected with a highly encrypted computer worm called Conficker. Writer Mark Bowden details how Conficker was discovered, how it works, and the ongoing programming battle to bring down Conficker in his book Worm: The First Digital World War.
• delicious beta status
  Welcome to the Delicious Beta Status blog. During the beta period, this page will serve as the primary source for engineering team updates on migration issues, bugs we’re fixing, and feedback we’re receiving from the community.

• The Hacker Toolkit: Social Engineering – On The Media 092311
  Alex Goldman: “There’s an air of alchemy and mystery that surrounds the world of hacking, because it’s perceived as being so technical. That’s part of what makes hacking seem so illicit to non-hackers. But some of the most well known hackers have obtained information using an incredibly low-tech method. That method is called “social engineering.” Put simply, social engineering is the process of fooling people into divulging sensitive information. In a lot of ways, it’s not too far off from calling your high school pretending to be your parents in order to excuse an absence. If you can convince people that you are entitled to access certain information, or even trick them into creating situations where you can get access to it, you’re a successful social engineer.”
• Word Watch: Hacker – On The Media 092311
  This year we’ve heard stories about hacking, from The News of the World scandal to the exploits of groups like Anonymous and Lulzsec. But the way the media uses the word hack diverges sharply from the way it’s used by actual hackers. On the Media Producer Alex Goldman explores the history of the word and how its meaning has shifted over time.
• The Hacker Law – On The Media 092311
  Passed in 1986, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was specifically meant to target hacking. But in recent years it’s been used to prosecute a much wider swath of behavior, some of which has nothing to do with hacking. Marcia Hofmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation talks to Brooke about the perils of having such a vague law on the books.
• Death for Blogging – On The Media 092311
  Last week the mutilated bodies of a man and a woman were found dangling from a pedestrian overpass in the Mexican boarder town of Nuevo Laredo, with notes explicitly warning that those posting the wrong things on the internet will share the same fate. As Drug cartels in Mexico turn their sights on blogs and twitter feeds, the mostly-anonymous social media may have an advantage that eludes mainstream journalism. Louis Nevaer of New America Media discusses the drug wars and the possibility of a newly empowered Mexican social body.
• Mexican Drug Cartels Now Menace Social Media : NPR 092311
  In areas where they are powerful, the Mexican drug cartels silenced the mainstream media by threatening and killing journalists. Now they seem to be extending the practice to social media. Many Mexicans have had to rely on social media to find out what’s going on in their cities after newspapers, TV and radio stations stopped reporting on drug-related violence. But last week, the mangled bodies of a young man and woman were hung from a highway bridge in Nuevo Laredo along with a sign that read: “This is what happens to people who post funny things on the Internet. Pay attention.”
• Neurotic Physiology blog at Scientopia.org
  Scicurious has a PhD in Physiology from a Southern institution. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher at a celebrated institution that is very fancy and somewhere else. Her professional interests are in neurophysiology, specifically the interactions of neurotransmitter systems. Having obtained her PhD, she wishes to further her career in science writing, education, and research. She often blogs in the third person.
• Spark 155 – September 18 & 21, 2011 | Spark
  Do you know anyone who staunchly refuses to carry a cell phone? Or simply won’t sign up for a Facebook account? Turns out, there’s a name for that: “technology refusal.” Nora interviewed Alice Marwick, who studies social software at Microsoft Research and recently wrote a blog post titled “If you don’t like it, don’t use it. It’s that simple.”
• Freakonomics: Where have all the hitchhikers gone? | Marketplace From American Public Media 092111
  Besides the fear of an axe murderer, there are valid reasons why hitchhiking has died off. Freakonomics Radio’s Stephen Dubner discusses those reasons and tells us why you should care. “If you care even a little bit about transportation, about cost and congestion and accident risk, carbon emissions, all of that, you’ve got to be depressed to learn the following thing — about 80 percent of all passenger-vehicle capacity in this country goes unused.”
• Bioethicist HPV Bet Ends Without Bachmann Acknowledgement – Bloomberg 092211
  Bioethicist Art Caplan said his challenge to Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann for evidence that a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer caused mental retardation ended without Bachmann acknowledging it. Caplan, director of the center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, offered to pay $10,000 to a charity of Bachmann’s choice if she could find such a patient by noon today. Bachman claimed in television interviews on Sept. 13 that a woman told her that the shot, usually given at age 12, triggered mental retardation in the woman’s daughter.
• The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 1920-1925

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The story of Rose, a deaf girl in Brian Selznick’s Wonderstruck, is told primarily in pictures. “We experience [Rose's] story in a way that perhaps might echo the way she experiences her own life,” Selznick explains.[Source: NPR]

• ‘Wonderstruck’: A Novel Approach To Picture Books : NPR 091311
  “Wonderstruck” is the story of Rose and Ben, a young boy and girl who live years and worlds apart. By the end of the book, the reader learns they have a special connection. But from early on, they have one thing in common: She is deaf and he loses his hearing when he is struck by lightening. [Author/illustrator Brian] Selznick says the idea for the book began forming when he saw a documentary about deafness and deaf culture. One of the deaf educators emphasized how hyper-attuned deaf people are to the visual world. So Selznick set out to tell the story of a deaf character in pictures. “We experience [Rose's] story in a way that perhaps might echo the way she experiences her own life,” he explains.
• How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages? (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox) 091211
  If the Web page survives this first — extremely harsh — 10-second judgment, users will look around a bit. However, they’re still highly likely to leave during the subsequent 20 seconds of their visit. Only after people have stayed on a page for about 30 seconds does the curve become relatively flat. People continue to leave every second, but at a much slower rate than during the first 30 seconds. So, if you can convince users to stay on your page for half a minute, there’s a fair chance that they’ll say much longer — often 2 minutes or more, which is an eternity on the Web. [What's a Weibull distribution? Weibull is a reliability-engineering concept that's used to analyze the time-to-failure for components. The model's hazard function indicates the probability that a component will fail at time t, given that it has worked fine up until time t... when analyzing Web visits, we simply replace "component failure" with "user leaving the page." ]
• Roger Ebert Talks Friendship, Food (And Missing It), And Living ‘Life Itself’ : NPR 091311
  Melissa Block interview with Roger Ebert, whose new memoir is “Life Itself”: “Ebert still churns out half a dozen reviews every week, and typing has become his means of speech. “This is ‘Alex,’” he explains, “a voice that came built into my computer.” Alex is part of a text-to-speech program; Ebert types, Alex speaks the words. The words flow at a remarkable rate, given that he laboriously hunts and pecks with just two fingers across the keyboard. | I came to talk with Roger Ebert about his life as a film critic and his life with illness. Because typing is a long and exhausting process for him, we agreed that I’d send some questions in advance.”
• Khan Academy | Learn almost anything for free
  With a library of over 2,400 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and 150 practice exercises, we’re on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace.
• Learn to code | Codecademy
  Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code. It’s interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends.
• ERIAL Project | Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries
  The Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) Project is a two-year study of the student research process. The project is funded by an LSTA grant awarded to Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) by the Illinois State Library. The goal of the project is to understand how students do research, and how relationships between students, teaching faculty and librarians shape that process. ERIAL is also an applied study—that is, research pursued with the purpose of uncovering, understanding and addressing social problems. As such, its goal is to use the results to develop more user-centered library services.
• Full Interview: Cathy N. Davidson on Evolving Education | Spark 090211
  [re attention blindness; William James on attention] Duke University professor Cathy N. Davidson is author of the new book “Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn.” She believes that how we learn is a relic of 19th century values, and if it has any chance at relevancy, must embrace aspects of our digital lives that are normally shunned by scholars – technology, collaboration, and yes, even distraction.
• Spark 154 – September 11 & 14, 2011 | Spark
  On this episode of Spark: The Future of Education, The Myth of the Digital Native, and Designing Memorials for 9/11. | The Myth of the Digital Native: It’s easy to assume that anyone under the age of 25 is “tech savvy”, but it turns out that’s not entirely true. A new study of undergrads suggests that these so-called “digital natives” are not so digitally minded after all. Nora speaks with Andrew Asher, the lead anthropologist on the project, as well as Eszter Hargittai who has researched differentials in how much young people know about tech. (Runs: 12:28)

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Visitors at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum can touch the names of those who perished in the attacks. The names are cast in bronze parapets ringing the reflection pools that now fill the footprints of the Twin Towers. It is a worthy example of a universal design element that also provides tactile accessibility to blind visitors. [Source: C-Span live stream]

• 9/11 Memorial Webcam | National September 11 Memorial & Museum
  EarthCam’s live webcam brings into view the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Use the navigation tools to direct the camera. You can also save the high definition image on your computer, print it or share it with friends.
• National September 11 Memorial & Museum | World Trade Center Memorial
• All The Names: Algorithmic Design and the 9/11 Memorial | blprnt.blg 061011
  Jer Thorpe: “The project was to design an algorithm for placement of names on the 9/11 memorial in New York City. In architect Michael Arad‘s vision for the memorial, the names were to be laid according to where people were and who they were with when they died – not alphabetical, nor placed in a grid. Inscribed in bronze parapets, almost three thousand names would stream seamlessly around the memorial pools. Underneath this river of names, though, an arrangement would provide a meaningful framework; one which allows the names of family and friends to exist together. Victims would be linked through what Arad terms ‘meaningful adjacencies’ – connections that would reflect friendships, family bonds, and acts of heroism. through these connections, the memorial becomes a permanent embodiment of not only the many individual victims, but also of the relationships that were part of their lives before those tragic events.”
• Jer Thorp on Algorithmic Design and the 9/11 Memorial | Spark
  On the newly opened 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York City, the names are laid according to where people were and who they were with when they died. Jer Thorp had the difficult task of designing an algorithm for placement of the names, and he talks to Nora about the challenges of using math and computer science to tackle a very, very sensitive problem. (Runs: 13:44)
• Remembering the Twin Towers Using Augmented Reality | Spark 082911
  Brian August has created an app that uses augmented reality to add a silhouette of the World Trade Center to images of New York City’s skyline. He calls the project 110 Stories, and he tells Nora why he thinks this app is about more than the destruction of the twin towers. (Runs: 8:47)
• The criminalization of speech since 9/11 – War Room – Salon.com 091011
  The case is an example of prosecutors’ aggressive use, in the decade after Sept. 11, of the preexisting law that bars providing “material support” to officially designated terrorist groups. In a landmark case last year, the Supreme Court endorsed the government’s broad interpretation of the material-support law in a way that critics say criminalizes speech. The expanded use of the material-support law is an important part of the legacy of 9/11 and the legal regime erected in response to the attacks.
• The Talk Online – Web Offers Both News and Comfort – NYTimes.com 091201
  [Dave Winerlinks to this] NYT writeup, the day following 9/11/01, on the role bloggers played in getting the first information about the attacks.
• Scripting News: My 9/11 | 091011
  Dave Winer: “I realize I am a strange duck from the standpoint of 9/11. I experienced it from California, and blogged it, as my NY counterparts couldn’t. I received their emails and pointed to their pictures and stories. I acted as an online anchor, and learned a lot that day, and grew a lot, all while being scared out of my mind and depressed. The blogging helped me get through it.”
• Scripting News: 9/11/2001
  Dave Winer’s historic blog post from 9/11 — still linked on the net.
• Newly Released 9/11 Audio – On The Media
  This week, Rutgers Law Review published an archive of conversations between air traffic controllers on the morning of September 11, 2001. Jim Dwyer of The New York Times wrote about the newly released audio, and talks to Bob about what we can learn from them.
• Arbitrary Restrictions on Photographers – On The Media 090911
  At times during the last decade, authorities have arbitrarily stopped photographers from taking pictures in the name of national security. For example, University of Maryland student Reza Farhoodi was removed from his seat at a Washington Redskins game because he was using a ‘professional camera’ – even though there is no prohibition against using ‘professional’ cameras at football games. Brooke spoke with attorney Morgan Manning about being forbidden to photograph.
• [webdev] Web Design Update: September 9, 2011
  via Laura Carlson; Volume 10, Issue 11, September 9, 2011. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development.
• Hugh Herr – ‘The Double-Amputee Who Designs Better Limbs’ : NPR 081711
  Nearly 30 years ago, Hugh Herr lost both of his legs in a climbing accident at age 17. Today, he runs the Biomechatronics group at the MIT Media Lab and designs better prosthetic limbs for other amputees.
• Masked Anonymous Protesters Aid Time Warner’s Profits – NYTimes.com
  When members of Anonymous, the hacker group, appear in public to protest censorship and what they view as corruption, they don a plastic mask of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century Englishman who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. What few people seem to know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask.
• Remix Breakdown: Turning Adele’s ‘Rolling In The Deep’ Into A Summer Jam :  NPR 090511
  “When you’re in the remixing game you look for certain things in a song. Certain songs have a lot going on in them that are really hard to eliminate when all you want is the vocal sample or basic idea,” Dirlam says. “Every single DJ that has remixed ‘Rolling In The Deep’ owes Rick Rubin a huge kiss on the lips. Rubin strips down songs and exposes them for what they are. Here you have claps, guitars, bass, piano, her voice, and that’s it.”