The Specter of Disruptive Technology

Congress held hearings to discuss the new technology. Even though it has been available for a number of years, it is a serious threat to large copyright holders. The Motion Picture Industry's chief lobbyist has given stark reality to the situation by saying this new technology "is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."

The year is 1982 and the technology is the VCR. Eventually, the media lobby is defeated and the supreme court decides Sony should not be held responsible for individuals who record things with their VCRs. However, over time, all the precedent set by main points of the case has been overturned. The media industry successfully lengthened copyrights to ridiculously long periods. Ironically, Sony now makes movies and so has switched sides in the debate.

Here we go again. Currently Congress is debating the most scary set of changes to copyright laws in my lifetime. Under the guise of "protecting jobs," the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act of 2011 would give big media businesses the right to shut down any website they deemed likely to have documents that infringe on their copyrights. And they make incidental copyright infringement via streaming a felony. So if you sing a pop song on YouTube you could be convicted of a felony and receive 5 years in prison.

One of the overturned precedents from the Sony case was that a copyright holder must prove a reasonable likelihood of harm from non-commercial private use of their material. That's right, precedent has been overturned and now big media can take away your websites and the burden of proof is on you, not them. (It looks like "Guilty unless you can afford better lawyers than them," to me.)

But don't worry. If this law passes, you won't be able to sing a pop song on YouTube because it would likely be blocked, as could blogger, search engines, twitter, facebook, and loads of other sites that facilitate possible piracy. You'd have to leave the country to visit such sites (but don't bother going to China or Iran, as they already have these restrictions).

The greatest irony is that because the media industries lost their fight against the VCR, video recordings have become their greatest source of profit. However, they still treat the threat of disruptive technology as if it will rob them of all their money. It is as if they think they have the right to prevent any change in the market because their current revenue streams would be altered in some way.

Where is the great watchdog of America -- the free press -- that is supposed to keep an eye on too much centralization of power? Oh yeah. They're owned by the media industry. In the original hearings on the VCR, there was a powerful testimony given by Fred Rogers (of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood) on behalf of the value of the VCR. I remember watching it. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find it any more. It has been whisked away off of YouTube, Google, and the public conscience.

Do you want to do something? Visit AmericanCensorship to join a lobbying campaign with your local congressional delegation.

How do you define success?

If we want to assign a responsibility to an entity like the free market or the government, we have to know how that responsibility will be viewed through the definition of success to the entity. For example, what makes a successful congressman? Success is getting elected and reelected. So if we give the government responsibility over medical care, the cost of the care is secondary. An efficient hospital is nice, but success is not defined by efficiency, it's defined by getting reelected. So efficiency cannot be the top priority. Similarly, businesses in the free market are successful if they make money and failures if they lose money. No matter how nice or conscientious a business is, if it looses money it's a failure. So if you put education in the hands of the free market, success will not be defined as "educated graduates" but "in the black." It's something we have to understand when we assign out these types of responsibility.

These definitions of success are, I think, generally understood -- even though individual companies or politicians may have very different sets of values.

So, in politics, success is defined by getting reelected.
In business, success is making a profit.
For a middle class family with children, success is getting the children graduated from high school (and college).
For young adults, success is being entertained. (Even when young adults want to find themselves and do service, it can't be something mundane around home, but they have to join the Peace Corps and go to Africa -- something more entertaining -- to be truly successful.)
For a senior citizen, success is to be able to retire and be comfortable.
Athletes are successful when they win their games or events.
A successful soldier returns home honorably.

So it's something to think about. In your various capacities, how do you define success? And when you are interacting with someone else, understanding what they would consider a success can be very helpful.

With that in mind, what makes a successful school system? If we want to make schools more effective at education, we need to make "educated students" the definition of success. Currently, I wonder if success is defined as "all students feel good about themselves" or "no children are left behind." Schools try to define success with vacuous terms like "making lifelong learners" and "empowering students" when the obvious definition of a successful school is "students achieve graduation."

What makes a successful teacher? What makes a successful student? Students are also young adults, so how can a teenager be both successful as a student and be entertained as well? Is it possible?

"Yay!" for higher gas prices?

For billions of years, plants have been absorbing the light of the sun and dying with that energy trapped inside them. That energy is still there after they have been pressed and formed into coal, oil, and other fossil fuels. That's a potent, concentrated energy source that we can't really duplicate now.

Most alternative energy sources are not practical for large scale energy production. For example, it takes 3300 wind generators to replace one gigawatt coal generator, or 100 square kilometers of photovoltaic panels, or over 16 thousand square kilometers of corn made into bioalcohol (see Transactions of Fusion Science and Technology, vol. 49, Feb. 2006). I don't have the numbers for geothermal, but unless it turns out to be absurdly potent, it won't be able to replace fossil fuel powered generators, either.

In the long term, only nuclear fission has shown the potential to produce the kind of power we demand. Fusion has the potential to be much cleaner and far more efficient than fission, but it is, in my opinion, at least 20 or 30 years away from viability if it's viable at all. I really hope it is.

Luckily, we do have enough fossil fuels to last many decades, though they will become more and more expensive to extract. Currently, the only two ways we have of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is to build a large number of nuclear power plants or reducing energy demands through large scale coordinated effort (carpooling, reducing AC usage, etc.). The rising prices for gasoline and electricity will naturally "encourage" people to conserve more. I guess that's good, right?

(Image from the U.S. Department of Energy)

A woman is a woman and a man ain't nothin' but a male!

My favorite pop vocal group just came out with a music video. Check it out - Jump Jive an' Wail!

Aliens

Animator Ryan Woodword took a story and picture by his child and animated it. Enjoy!

Aliens from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

This is the same animator that did that cool dancing video called "Thought of You". If you haven't seen it yet, you should definitely click here and watch it. The site also contains a "making of" video.