Colmcille and the Battle of the Book: Technology, Law and Access to Knowledge in 6th Century Ireland

Many hundreds of years before the GPL was even a twinkle in Richard Stallman's eye, an Irish monk proved to be an unlikely champion of the geeky A2K notion of access to knowledge. The short version of the story of Colmcille and the battle of the book goes something like this - One monk copied another monk's manuscript. The second monk objected and they settled things the way they did in those days, with 3000 people getting killed in the resulting battle. The interesting thing from the A2K (access to knowledge) perspective is that there was an attempt, prior to the battle, to settle the dispute in the Irish High Court at the time; and remarkably, the arguments invoked in that hearing could have come straight out of one of the modern digital copyright disputes. Have attitudes to law and technology really changed a whole lot in 1400 years

Comment: The coming tornado?

An extended review of John S. Daniel's Mega‐Universities and the Knowledge Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education (London: Kogan Page, 1996; 212 pages, ISBN: 0–7494–2119–3)

Ecology, intellectual property and a five point plan for a sustainable public domain?

At the turn of the century, Harvard evolutionary biologist and all round science polymath Edward O. Wilson wrote that more that 99% of the world's biodiversity was unknown and that we should rectify that state of affairs, since our ignorance was contributing to the destruction of the environment. He outlined a five point plan for doing this. 1. Comprehensively survey the world's flora and fauna. This will need a large but finite team of professionals. 2. Create biological wealth e.g. through pharmaceutical prospecting of indigenous plants. Assigning economic value to biodiversity (e.g. as a source of material wealth as food or medicines or leisure amenities) is a key way to encourage its preservation. 3. Promote sustainable development i.e. 'development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. 4. Save what remains i.e. being realistic we are not going to halt environmental degradation overnight. 5. Restore the wild lands e.g. through designating large areas of land as natural reserves like Costa Rica's 50,000-hectare Guanacaste National Park. Could we conceive of a parallel five point plan for protecting the global information store that is the public domain, the diversity of which is potentially endangered by what James Boyle so eloquently argues is a second enclosure movement

Hello, Brain, It\u27s Me

Hello, 90% of my brain which is totally, or at least mostly, inaccessible to consciousness, this is the part of us that thinks of itself as “Ray Vukcevich” although sometimes we suspect that part is really “Henry.” Would people have called him “Hank” if things had developed a little differently? What I’m wondering about today is Time. It\u27s a subject that seems so simple at first but is not at all simple and probably has a lot to do with Everything. I’d like to run it by you. I hope you will have ideas. I hope you will tell me your ideas. If you do tell me the ideas you have, I’ll write them down. I’ll do my best not to misrepresent you. I promise. Please, please, talk to me.https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/onearth/1053/thumbnail.jp

Cultural justice, ethics and teaching

Te Tiriti o Waitangi provides both a basis for cultural justice in this society and an explication of the term; each of the articles identifying a significant aspect of cultural justice. First, there is the guarantee to the Maori signatories that the Crown would protect their independence - tino rangatiratanga, (also read as authority, autonomy or self-determination) [Article II]. In Article III Maori are promised that they will also have the “Rights and Privileges of British subjects”. Finally, in Article I, Maori cede to the Crown the right to govern, to make laws to protect all peoples from the evil consequences of lawlessness. The 1835 Declaration of Independence located legislative authority in the Wakaminenga (the gathered rangatira meeting in Congress); and in 1840, in the context of the Crown promises, Maori authorised the Crown to exercise that authority. For Maori Te Tiriti specifies cultural justice for interactions between Maori and settlers in the new society. Maori are guaranteed the right to self-determination (and the economic and social resources to make that practical) in their relations with New Zealand society. They are also entitled to the same opportunities as other citizens. The latter rights, embodied in local legislation and international covenants to which we are signatory, are not alternatives to the prior right of Maori people to their (cultural) autonomy. The exercise of legislative and organisational authority must be exercised in a manner consistent with the promises which clearly requires consultation and negotiation with Maori

In praise of negation

Der Autor entwickelt eine kulturanthropologische und soziolinguistische Würdigung der Negation. Neinsagen gehört zu jeder aktiven Auseinandersetzung mit sozialen und sprachlichen Ordnungsmustern, die hierdurch für neue Erfahrungsmöglichkeiten geöffnet werden können. An Beispielen aus der Eheberatung, der Hausaufgabenbetreuung sowie der Lehrerbildung wird gezeigt, dass Affirmation und Negation, Lob und Tadel sprachlichen Äußerungen nicht unmittelbar abzulesen sind, sondern erst in einem komplexen sozialen Zusammenhang identifizierbar werden, auf den sprachliche Äußerungen reagieren und den sie zugleich mitkonstituieren. Eine solche Sichtweise ermöglicht auch einen veränderten Blick auf Schulleistungen und die Instrumente zu ihrer immer engmaschigeren Erfassung. Bessere und schlechtere Leistungen sind stets auch als diagnostische Zuschreibungen in einem komplexen Handlungszusammenhang anzusehen, der Erfolg und Versagen sowie ihre statistische Verteilung laufend mitproduziert. Eine Bildungspolitik, die einseitig auf die Fortschritte pädagogischer Leistungsdiagnostik setzt, könnte vergessen machen, dass Erziehung nicht allein ein Prozess der Einführung in kulturelle Ordnungen ist, sondern eben dabei auch den Sinn dafür öffnen muss, was wir nicht sind oder was wir - auch jenseits etablierter Ordnungen - sein könnten. (DIPF/Orig.