by Harry on March 11, 2007
Randy Cohen has caught up with CT, and is looking at the issue of whether it is ok to use online information to make judgments about applicants to college (not grad school, as we did). He says it is not. Not to be mean, but his judgement includes an extraordinarily bad analogy:
You would not read someone’s old-fashioned pen-and-paper diary without consent; you should regard a blog similarly.
Here I am, writing on a blog, using my own name, hoping that somebody might be stimulated or entertained, or best of all influenced, by what I write, and Randy Cohen thinks that nobody should be reading. The analogy is, in fact, with a diary that I publish and give away for free. I can see there might be a problem with selective reading of blogs (trying to find dirt on someone one wants to reject anyway) and certainly admissions officials should have some sort of protocol for this, but people who make embarrassing comments on their own blog under their own name in public should expect that other people might read and be influenced by them. Writing a diary which one keeps under lock and key seems sufficiently different that anyone who gave a moment’s thought would get it.
by John Holbo on March 11, 2007
Crooks & Liars links to that fine old Smashing Pumpkins video, “Tonight, Tonight”: the George Méliès, “Le Voyage Dans La Lune” homage.
Anyway, if you’ve never seen the Méliès original, you should be aware YouTube has got it, too (part 1; part 2) – the 14 minute epic; the first science fiction film.
Purists take note. What we’ve got here is a hybrid version: round about minute 11, when the the first selenite appears, the voice-over indicates that “the fantastical being rushes at the astronomer, who defends himself”. Obviously this is from the digitally remastered Lucas edition of 1904. In the film itself – unremastered, 1902 material – it is clear the astronomer strikes first, aggressively exploding the alien with his umbrella.
Oh, hey! The Internet Archive has a free, downloadable, higher quality version. If you’ve never seen this landmark of cinema, check it out.
by Scott McLemee on March 9, 2007
Via Shakespeare’s Sister, word of what sounds like an urban legend, though evidently it’s for real. But like many urban legends, it’s also a cautionary tale. An Atlanta TV station, doing a hard-hitting story on the new whole-wheat donut from Krispy Kreme, used an image someone in the art department probably grabbed online shortly before going on the air:
(You can watch the video at ShakeSis.)
Ordinarily I would expect this to have been discussed at Romenesko by now, but so far don’t see anything. All the more surprising given the nonstop debates there in 2003 over nuances of the journalistic ethics involved in covering the opening of Krispy Kreme stores as news.
Suggestion to the Poynter Institute, which not only hosts the Romenesko news blog but sponsors workshops and seminars for editors and reporters: Devote a course to the perils of Google Images, and soon.
by Henry Farrell on March 9, 2007
Tyler Cowen has a “new post”: which clarifies “why he objects”:http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/03/agreeing_on_uni.html to pro-union legislation.
Labor-run firms are common in law, book agency, real estate, landscaping, and many other sectors; we even see them in airlines. When labor in charge creates more value, labor starts its own firms or buys out the capitalist or buys greater control rights. Growing capital markets make these evolutions easier all the time. Cooperatives, which are governed by consumers, also are found. Mutuals, non-profits, and yes unionized firms are common too. I heart all of these organizational forms. Keep in mind that if both workers and customers will be better off, yes it probably can happen; it is naive to think that liquidity problems are the major issues preventing workers from enjoying greater control rights. In the short run, the mental model of the left-wing bloggers is a bunch of janitors trying to get better working conditions but opposed by employers. In the longer run what is striking is the competition across different organizational forms. It doesn’t always make sense to give labor residual control rights over capital goods, or the right to halt production.
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by Daniel on March 9, 2007
The Times has published a really quite bad piece of science journalism on the subject of the Lancet study. When the topic is sampling theory, your heart really does sink when you see something like this:
Several academics have tried to find out how the Lancet study was conducted; none regards their queries as having been addressed satisfactorily. Researchers contacted by The Times talk of unreturned e-mails or phone calls, or of being sent information that raises fresh doubts.
Yes indeed, out of the population of people with outstanding questions, none of them have had their questions resolved.
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by Henry Farrell on March 8, 2007
It’s probably getting on towards bedtime in the Netherlands, so Ingrid may not have seen that Michael Brintnall, executive director of APSA, has “responded in comments”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/03/07/papers-for-sale/#comment-189268
The annual meeting papers are not meant to be sold, and All Academic is taking them down. It was a mistake that caused them to be up for sale at that site, and we regret it. … The papers are on-line at www.politicalscience.org as part of the PROl initiative. This is an open-access site, operated as a collaboration of APSA and a large number of other political science associations. It’s an extension of APSA’s PROceedings site, where papers are posted for each annual meeting, and it brings together scholarship from a host of other annual meetings too. It’s a good place to search for early scholarship, and I encourage you to use it. All-Academic is the contractor that we use to set up the site. There was some recent confusion about their including our papers in their own for-sale data base. None of the papers from the politicalscience.org project is meant to be at the All Academic site for sale and they are removing them. … I hope this hiccup with All Academic doesn’t fuel any cynicism about making early scholarship like this available on an open access basis – it’s the purpose of the politicalscience.org project, and it’s what academic discourse is about.
This seems to me to be a perfectly gracious response and explanation. As noted in comments, I would like to see APSA consider a different technology – politicalscience.org’s current system has session specific links, which means that e.g. bloggers can’t easily link to interesting political science papers. A system with permalinks like arXiv would allow for much better circulation of political science papers in the general public conversation. But that’s a topic for a different day.
by Kieran Healy on March 8, 2007
Via “Jim Henley”:http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/07/6058 I see there’s a “challenge”:http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/archives/002515.html from Brian Flemming:
bq. If you are a blogger who was active in March 2003, link to that month’s archive and write an entry called ‘What I was wrong about in March 2003.’
“Gene Healy”:http://www.affbrainwash.com/genehealy/archives/021991.php comes out looking pretty good. “Glenn Reynolds”:http://instapundit.com/archives2/003000.php maybe not so much. Amongst other things in March 2003, I turned thirty and got married. I was on my honeymoon in San Francisco when the war began. Here are “all my posts”:http://www.kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2003/03/ from March 2003 (in pages of ten). I was wrong about how long it would take Saddam’s regime to collapse. And I was wrong in thinking that the option of bailing out fast was perhaps more likely than that of the U.S. taking on the role of occupying colonial power. But, not to put too fine a point on it, I was pretty much fucking right about everything else. Below the fold, some representative selections. All emphases in the original, as we say in the ivory tower.
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by Henry Farrell on March 7, 2007
Julian Sanchez “is right”:http://juliansanchez.com/notes/archives/2007/03/foley_room.php. That is all.
by Ingrid Robeyns on March 7, 2007
Tomorrow is international women’s day, and in the past days the Iranian regime has, once again, shown its oppressive face towards grassroots women’s organisations who were peacefully demonstrating for their rights. On Sunday at least 31 women were “illegally”:http://www.meydaan.com/English/showarticle.aspx?arid=175&cid=52 arrested during a peaceful gathering in front of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran. They were demonstrating in solidarity with women’s rights activists who had organised a peaceful demonstration on June 12, 2006, which was “brutally ended by the police”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5073328.stm, and who had to appear before court last Sunday. They were also protesting the increasing oppression and criminalisation of the non-violent Iranian women’s movement, who has launched the “one million signatures campaign”:http://en.we4change.com/spip.php?article18 to educate citizens about gender-discriminatory laws, and who are collecting signatures to demand an end to such discriminatory legislation. “The correspondent for a Dutch newspaper”:http://onzemaninteheran.com/?p=60 was also arrested, but quickly released. Yesterday some women were “released”:http://www.meydaan.com/English/news.aspx?nid=211, but there are also “reports”:http://www.meydaan.com/English/news.aspx?nid=221 that others were beaten and are in a bad condition. The 24 remaining women have started “a hunger strike”:http://www.meydaan.com/English/showarticle.aspx?arid=181&cid=52 to protest their illegal confinement.
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by Chris Bertram on March 7, 2007
So I’m contemplating buying a digital SLR, and, after much huffing, puffing and reading of reviews I’m hesitating between a Nikon D40 and Canon EOS 400D (or Digital Rebel XTi as they call it in the US). The Nikon has a six megapixel sensor and the Canon has ten, and the Canon has some patented dust-removal system. But the Canon costs £100 more. I figure the extra isn’t worth it, and, ten days ago, I buy the Nikon. A couple of days ago Nikon announce a new camera, the D40x. Same as the D40 (more or less) but with a 10MP sensor and an expected price-tag that matches or exceeds the Canon. The comment boards go nuts with discontented D40 buyers, and I think — for a moment — “I should have bought the Canon.” Reminds me of the Sidney Morgenbesser joke:
bq. After finishing dinner, Sidney Morgenbesser decides to order dessert. The waitress tells him he has two choices: apple pie and blueberry pie. Sidney orders the apple pie. After a few minutes the waitress returns and says that they also have cherry pie at which point Morgenbesser says “In that case I’ll have the blueberry pie.”
by Ingrid Robeyns on March 7, 2007
Ever heard of “AllAcademic Inc.”:http://www.allacademic.com/? This company describes itself as “an application service provider specializing in online solutions for abstract submissions, session submissions and conference management for annual meetings, conventions, and other types of events”. They are selling a range of papers that have been presented at previous APSA conferences (and annual meetings by many other academic associations). For example, there are papers for sale written by Jonathan Quong on “luck multiculturalism”:http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p63637_index.html?type=info, David Wasserman on “disabilities and the capability approach”:http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p59051_index.html?type=info, Simon Caney on “the global basic structure”:http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p58933_index.html?type=info, Richard Arneson on “sufficientarian conceptions of justice”:http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p59049_index.html?type=info, John Christman on “cultural recognition”:http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p63723_index.html?type=info, and two papers by Henry, “one”:http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p64378_index.html?type=info on E-commerce, and “one”:http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p64305_index.html?type=info on regulatory trajectories in the information age. There are also two by myself, “one”:http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p63603_index.html on the gendered division of labour, and “one”:http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p59129_index.html on Rawls and Sen. Most papers were presented a couple of years ago. They are for sale for USD 7 per piece. So, should we be happy with this commercial service?
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by Henry Farrell on March 7, 2007
I’ve a new “bloggingheads”:http://bloggingheads.tv/video.php?id=215 with Will Wilkinson up. The first topic (and unsurprisingly the one we disagree about most vigorously) is unions and card check (Will is skeptical that employers either have asymmetrical bargaining power vis-a-vis workers, or are likely to abuse their position). I’d wanted to refer in our debate to a story that provides strongly suggestive evidence regarding the real reason why employers and their political allies are opposed to card check but couldn’t find it on the interwebs in time; Kris Raab (who, unlike me, has access to the _Daily Labor Report_ ) was able to find it for me later.
A legislative proposal that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers through a union authorization card process would allow them to bypass a formal election process and could prevent employers from making a case for why workers should not join a union, former Labor Department [deputy secretary] Steven Law told a wholesalers and distributors industry group Feb. 1. … Speaking at an executive summit of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) in Washington, Law advised the group’s members to focus their lobbying efforts against the labor-friendly Republicans who co-sponsored previous versions of the legislation. … Law told the NAW meeting that unions view the card-check process as key to building their membership. He said the bill would make it more economical for unions to organize smaller companies. “This is a holy grail solution to build themselves up and become a fighting force once more.” … At least one person in the audience did not seem have a problem with the legislation and complained during a question-and-answer period that Law’s comments portrayed union organizing as “heinous.” Law replied, “If you think that unionizing is a great thing, then this (legislation) is a great thing.” He later told BNA that his comments were not meant to portray unions as good or bad, but to emphasize that the card-check legislation could bypass the secret ballot process [HF-you can almost hear the reporter’s incredulity leaking through]. Also during the question-and-answer period, another audience member spoke out against EFCA, voicing disapproval of the legislation, and saying the bill is “very, very dangerous.” According to that audience member, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters sought to organize 30 of his company’s drivers in 2003, but obtained only 11 signed union authorization cards. Unless an employer learns of the organizing drive, “You have no chance to retaliate–I shouldn’t say retaliate,” he said to peals of nervous laughter from the audience. Rather, he corrected himself, “You have no chance to say [as an employer] what’s going on.”
Opposition to card check is all about stopping unionization, and providing opportunities for employers to retaliate against pro-union employees. Not that this is exactly news to anyone who follows this stuff (the National Association of Manufacturers have never been the most credible-sounding converts to the cause of democracy in the workplace), but it’s unusual to see it stated as bluntly as it’s stated here.
by Belle Waring on March 6, 2007
I should note here that this post contains strong language, and thus probably makes the Baby David Broder cry. Consider yourselves warned.
Some time back a reader chastised me for making fun of Ross Douthat. (Hmm, that makes her sound completely insane, but she was actually rather polite in the thread. I promised I would address her points in another post “soon”, but I did not do so because I am fundamentally an indolent, unreliable person.) The complaint Douthat was making is one that is heard a lot in anti-feminist circles, and often in a doubly irritating concern-troll fashion. It boils down to this: sexual liberation has paradoxically furthered mens’ interests at the expense of the hapless women it purported to be liberating. This is because all men want lots of commitment-free, anonymous sex with lots of different women, while all women want to be taken to the State Fair and have their special man win them a giant, plush, pink teddy bear which will fill the car with the etiolated scent of frying fat while she gives the guy a hand job. I believe it all goes back to life on the veldt, when our proto-human female ancestors needed to eat the pink, heart-shaped fruit of whitmansampler africensis in order to have the energy they needed to bear young. [click to continue…]
by Maria on March 6, 2007
Last night I was talking with fellow Blueshirts about Irish politicians’ reluctance to think about energy policy in a strategic way, or to look further ahead than the next election at issues that have a 20-30 year horizon. Ireland’s not even on the end of a pipeline, and any deal Germany makes with Russia isn’t going to concern itself with us. We are still opening peat burning stations with relatively high CO2 emissions, and our gas supply is running out. To diversify, we’ve got interconnectors with the UK – current and planned – and in the next decade or so, we’ll have an interconnector direct into the French national grid. Which is striking, given how sniffy Irish people are about nuclear power. [click to continue…]
by Chris Bertram on March 6, 2007
Jo Wolff’s “Guardian column today”:http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,2027064,00.html is all about the limitations and dangers of using Powerpoint (a subject “I’ve discussed before”:https://crookedtimber.org/2003/12/21/powerpoint/ ). In a spasm of anti-Microsoftness, I used “S5”:http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/ in my lectures this year but eventually gave up because of the sheer hassle of doing anything other than bullet points with it – Powerpoint just worked better (as does Impress, btw). Jo’s key complaint, though, is about what PP does for spontaneity:
bq. For those who prefer to project the idea that a talk is a unique event, a voyage of discovery that could go in any one of a number of directions, and may well go in all of them, PowerPoint gives the game away. As someone once said: “The art is hiding the art.” With PowerPoint, everything is on display. Elegantly effortless performance is hard enough as it is. PowerPoint makes it impossible.
I don’t know how Jo does his lectures, but one thing it is pretty hard to get away without (given student expectations and all that) is the _handout_ . And once you’ve given them a handout then they either know where you’re going or you’ll confuse the hell out of them if you go somewhere else. How does Powerpoint make things any worse in this respect?