What We’re Reading

Math You Can’t Use

by Tim Lee on May 14, 2008 · 8 comments

I’ve finally had the chance to read Math You Can’t Use, Ben Klemens’s excellent book on software patents. It’s the clearest brief for the repeal of software patents that I’ve read, and Ben does a great job of pulling together law, economics, and computer science to make his argument. I agreed with almost everything he says, and much of it covers ground I’ve talked about here on TLF. But let me highlight a few of the things I thought were unique.

Probably the most ambitious part of the book is Chapter 3, which is a brief overview of computer science. In less than 20 pages, Ben covers circuits, boolean logic, source code and assembly language, algorithms and data structures, functions, libraries, and the Church-Turing thesis. The goal was to provide a crash course on concepts he uses later in the book. Since these concepts were already familiar to me I’m probably not a good judge of whether he succeeded in making them understandable to the layman, but it seemed pretty clear to me. On the other hand, I suspect that some of the implications of these concepts aren’t obvious until you’ve rolled them around in your mind for a while. It’s not hard to explain what the Church-Turing thesis says, for example, but until you’ve written some actual programs I’m not sure you can really appreciate its importance or its relevance to the patent debate.

One of the most interesting points Ben makes is how quickly and totally the Federal Circuit abandoned the legal framework the Supreme Court established in its software patent cases. In its landmark 1981 decision of Diamond v. Diehr, the Supreme Court held:

Insignificant post-solution activity will not transform an unpatentable principle [i.e. a mathematical algorithm, law of nature, or abstract ideas] into a patentable process. To hold otherwise would allow a competent draftsman to evade the recognized limitations on the type of subject matter eligible for patent protection.

Thirteen years later, in In Re Alappat, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit not only allowed applicants to evade the recognized limitations on the type of subject matter eligible through clever draftsmanship, it actually held that if an applicant failed to do so, the Patent Office had an obligation to re-draft it for them, by re-writing the claims in a form that would meet the letter of the “no software patents” rule while flouting its spirit. It was an amazing bit of chutzpah.

In addition to talking about software patents, Ben also devotes a chapter to the DMCA. Ben has a funny section where, on the same page, he has a figure showing the source code for DeCSS and a figure showing the recipe for a fertilizer bomb. He notes that the latter is protected speech under the First Amendment, while printing the former is a felony. This state of affairs is awfully hard to square with either the constitution or common sense.

It’s a great book, and I encourage you to check it out.

8 comments

From Indep Women’s Forum–Update on Rights

by Solveig Singleton on May 14, 2008 · 11 comments

From Independent Women’s Forum, “Despite praise of a Constitution that protects the rights of Afghan Women, Afghan women continue to suffer abuse from men and society in general. Halima Karzai, Associate Director of International Policy for the Independent Women’s Forum, has written a powerful piece on the continuing problem of oppression and violence against Afghan women before and after the Taliban.”

Such reports are disturbing at so many levels, one hardly knows where to begin. First there is the comparative lack of attention to this issue by the public, the press, and in the political sphere; this appalling abuse has become background noise to which we are almost accustomed. Second there is the puzzle of how such practices begin and spread and are so hard to root out. One would think that the abuses would be instantly recognizable as morally unthinkable. One would think that they run so counter to ordinary primate biology, in which males and females have somewhat different roles and scuffle but nonetheless remain part of a whole cooperative group, that there would be some natural resistance to them. One would think that local observers would recognize the value of a more inclusive society in which their children would be more quickly lifted out of poverty in an economy enriched by the education and intellectual capital of the whole population. As in apartheid South Africa, exclusion is not only wrong, but it denies the economy entrepreneurs, managers, technologists, teachers, and other seeds of growth.

Something here has gone sadly wrong. It rather puts concerns about the exact scope of the rights of makers of mashups in a new perspective.

11 comments

my debate with Zittrain on NPR-Boston

by Adam Thierer on May 13, 2008 · 3 comments

Well, I actually didn’t exactly get a chance to say quite enough for this to qualify as much of a “debate,” but I was brought in roughly a half hour into this WBUR (Boston NPR affiliate) radio show featuring Jonathan Zittrain, author of the recently released: The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It. Jonathan was kind enough to suggest to the producers that I might make a good respondent to push back a bit in opposition to the thesis set forth in his new book.

Jonathan starts about 6 minutes into the show and they bring me in around 29 minutes in. Although I only got about 10 minutes to push back, I thought the show’s host Tom Ashbrook did an excellent job raising many of the same questions I do in my 3-part review (Part 1, 2, 3) of Jonathan’s provocative book.

In the show, I stress the same basic points I made in those reviews: (1) he seems to be over-stating things quite a bit in saying that the old “generative” Internet is “dying”; and in doing so, (2) he creates a false choice of possible futures from which we must choose. What I mean by false choice is that Jonathan doesn’t seem to believe a hybrid future is possible or desirable. I see no reason why we can’t have the best of both worlds–-a world full of plenty of tethered appliances, but also plenty of generativity and openness.

If you’re interested, listen in.

3 comments

Fair Trade: Does it Work

by Solveig Singleton on May 5, 2008 · 6 comments

This analysis from IPA in Australia suggests not.

http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/publisting_detail.asp?pubid=822

This analysis draws on two recent studies of fair trade to conclude that is it just not what it is cracked up to be. One example of the studies findings:

from the US-based Transfair, fair trade advocates conceded that fair trade producers provided lower grade coffee for sale through the fair trade system. Fair trade producers sell their best coffee on the free market when it commands a higher speciality price than fair trade. Producers then keep their lower-grade quality through the fair trade system where they receive a guaranteed price. They do this because there is an oversupply of fair trade coffee and an undersupply of buyers for fair trade coffee.

The IPA analysis concludes, that “new studies demonstrate that the evidence supporting fair trade’s contribution to development for the world’s poor is dubious, at best. The studies also show that fair trade creates a number of problems for fair trade and non-fair trade producers.”

6 comments

review: Dr. Kourosh Dini’s “Video Game Play & Addiction”

by Adam Thierer on April 23, 2008 · 19 comments

Dr. Kourosh Dini is a Chicago-based adolescent and adult psychiatrist who has just published a new book entitled, Video Game Play and Addiction: A Guide for Parents. [You can learn more about him and his many talents and interests at his blog, “Mind, Music and Technology.“] Dini’s book arrives fresh on the heels of the fine book, “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do,” by Drs. Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson. [See my review of that book here.]

Like Kutner & Olson’s book, Dini’s provides a refreshingly balanced and open-minded look at the impact of video games on our kids. One of the things I liked about it is how Dr. Dini tells us right up front that he has been a gamer his entire life and explains how that has helped him frame the issues he discusses in his book. “I have played games both online and off since I was about six years of age, and I have also been involved in child psychiatry, so I felt that I would be in a good position to discuss some inherent positives and negatives associated with playing games,” he says. Dini goes into greater detail about his gaming habits later in the book and it makes it clear that he still enjoys games very much.

Some may find Dini’s gaming background less relevant than his academic credentials, but I think it is important if for no other reason than it shows how we are seeing more and more life-long gamers attain positions of prominence in various professions and writing about these issues using a sensible frame of reference that begins with their own personal experiences. For far too long now, nearly every book and article I have read about video games and their impact on society at some point includes a line like, “I’ve never really played many games” or even “I don’t much care for video games,” but then–without missing a breath–the author or analyst goes on to tell us how imminently qualified they are to be discussing the impact of video games on kids or culture. Whenever I read or hear things like that, I’m reminded of the famous line from an old TV commercial: “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.” Seriously, why is it that we should continue to listen to those critics who denounce video games but who have never picked up a controller in their lives? It’s really quite insulting. Would you take automotive advice from someone who’s never tinkered with cars in their lives but instead based their opinions merely upon watching them pass by on the road? I think not.
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19 comments

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

by Solveig Singleton on April 22, 2008 · 11 comments

I’ve been rereading Lady Chatterley’s Lover lately, and also reviewing some of the literature about it. The central theme of this book, the rootedness of mankind in his physical body and in “animal” pursuits, is still very fresh today and well worth thinking about (but one notices this only if one is not distracted, as I was when much younger, with looking for the naughty bits, which are a) not very naught b) include not-so-bad descriptions of female orgasms… how does DHL DO that?)(there is a consensus among critics that Clifford’s paralysis is a flaw in the book that makes Lady Chatterley’s departure “vulgar;” I cautiously disagree–that is, if it does make if vulgar, that is part of the point). And I’d not realized before that the book set such important free speech precedents. The litigation surrounding the publication of the book in England and in the United States marked a significant shift by the judiciary of the lower courts towards considering the actual community of readers in conceiving of “community standards.”

If one considers recent history, one might get the impression that the movement of tolerance for offensive speech was steadily growing greater. That is, if one considers only the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it looks as though tolerance grows continuously, perhaps due in part towards a market mechanism. Producers and publishers continually push the bounds of the scandalous outwards, hoping to gain attention for their works. The public becomes continuously more jaded. If this process continues indefinitely and courts actually pay attention to community standards, this means that the content of what could be considered “obscene” or otherwise offensive steadily shrinks.

Whether this perspective can be maintained, though, depends very much on what period of history one chooses to start with. Starting in the nineteenth century with the Victorians biases the outcome considerably. This was a world in which young wives were permitted to die of veneral disease contracted from their husbands without anyone ever explaining to them how it could be prevented, or even what was wrong with them. Naturally taking this as a starting point of comparison, the category of what is taboo to speak of is likely to seem to shrink, it could hardly grow much larger.

Starting with the ancient Greeks, though, who were forever painting artistic images of couples frolicking about in various positions on their lamps and other household goods, what is taboo seems sometimes to shrink, and sometimes to grow, within certain parameters. One starts to wonder if certain visceral responses to sexual content are not only learned or cultural, but to some extent hardwired, which would be natural for mammals, which we are, after all (back to Lawrence’s thesis). If this is true, does this justify censorship, or make it inevitable? I think not. That we may react to certain imagery as mammals does not dictate that we must react as censors, by empowering the government to control those things. The risks of delegating that sort of control are too great.

But it does explain, in part, why the battle for free speech is so difficult.

[update: Thinking about this issue further, I realized my discussion of the free speech rights of children could be misinterpreted to cast me as an advocate for eight-year-olds reading some really appalling stuff. No, no, that’s not the point! (Don’t forget, the parents are still in charge). There is a larger issue, whether the government has more expansive powers to control the speech or religion of children than it does of adults, and an interesting question of constitutional interpretation… how some things that people just seem to assume about reading the constitution turn out to be problematic…]

11 comments

Crovitz’s Information Age

by Adam Thierer on April 21, 2008 · 3 comments

L. Gordon Crovitz, the former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, has started what has the potential to be a terrific new column for the Journal called “Information Age.” In it, he says, he will focus on how the Information Age “affects us as consumers, businesspeople and citizens” and “the accelerating impact of new technology.” In particular, he plans on dealing with the public policy issues surrounding this space.

His first column, entitled “Optimism and the Digital World,” is excellent. In it, he argues that:

[T]echnologists are optimists, for good reason…. as information becomes more accessible, individuals gain choice, control and freedom. Established institutions – governments, large companies and special-interest groups – need to work harder to justify their authority. As information and knowledge spread, financial and human capital become more global and more competitive. The uncertainties and dislocations from new technology can be wrenching, but genies don’t go back into bottles.

The First Law of Technology says that “with every change in technology that affects consumer behavior, we always overestimate the impact in the short term, but then underestimate the full impact over the long term.” The original dot-com era a decade ago was overhyped, but by now the Web has become a utility, increasingly available anywhere for any purpose. This is the Information Age, yet we’re just beginning to gather the information and understanding to know how it changes our lives.

This sounds very much in line with our thinking and coverage here at the TLF. [In fact, I would be remiss if I did not point to some of my own work on “The Media Cornucopia” and my ongoing “Media Metrics” series of essays, which I am about to tie it all together into a big PFF special report.] Anyway, I for one will be eagerly awaiting Mr. Crovitz’s future columns.

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review: Kutner & Olson’s “Grand Theft Childhood”

by Adam Thierer on April 14, 2008 · 23 comments

Don’t judge a book by its cover (or its title, for that matter). I’m usually faithful to that maxim, but I must admit that when I first saw the title and cover of “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do,” I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, “here we go again.” I figured that I was in for another tedious anti-gaming screed full of myths and hysteria about games and gamers. Boy, was I wrong. Massively wrong.

Lawrence Kutner, PhD, and Cheryl K. Olson, ScD, cofounders and directors of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media, have written the most thoroughly balanced and refreshingly open-minded book about video games ever penned. They cut through the stereotypes and fear-mongering that have thus far pervaded the debate over the impact of video games and offer parents and policymakers common-sense advice about how to approach these issues in a more level-headed fashion. They argue that:

Today, an amalgam of politicians, health professionals, religious leaders and children’s advocates are voicing concerns about video games that are identical to the concerns raised one, two and three generations ago with the introduction of other new media. Most of these people have the best of intentions. They really want to protect children from evil influences. As in the past, a few have different agendas and are using the issue manipulatively. Unfortunately, many of their claims are based on scanty evidence, inaccurate assumptions, and pseudoscience. Much of the current research on violent video games is both simplistic and agenda driven. (p. 55)

They note that these groups, “probably worry too much about the wrong things and too little about more subtle issues and complex effects that are much more likely to affect our children.” They continue:

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23 comments

another problem for the Zittrain thesis — old people!

by Adam Thierer on April 12, 2008 · 59 comments

I swear I’m not trying to pick on Jonathan Zittrain, but I continue to find examples that create problems for his thesis from The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It that the whole world is going to hell because of the rise of what he contemptuously calls “sterile, tethered devices.” Again, in his provocative book, Zittrain argues that, for a variety of reasons, the glorious days of the generative, open Internet and general-purpose PCs are supposedly giving way to closed networks and closed devices. In my lengthy review of his book, I argued that Zittrain was over-stating things and creating a false choice of possible futures from which we must choose. I see no reason why we can’t have the best of both worlds–a world full of plenty of tethered appliances, but also plenty of generativity and openness. In a follow-up essay, I pointed out how Apple’s products create a particular problem for Zittrain’s thesis because even though they are “sterile and tethered,” there is no doubt that the company’s approach has produced some wonderful results. As I said..

Personally… I prefer all those “general purpose” devices that Zittrain lionizes. But, again, we can have both. Let Steve Jobs be a control freak and keep those walls around Apple’s digital garden high and tight if he wants. There are plenty of other wide open gardens for the rest of us to play in.

In my original review, I briefly mentioned another problem for the Zittrain thesis: old people! I was reminded about this when I was reading this New York Times article today entitled, “At a Certain Age, Simplicity Sells in High-Tech Gadgets,” by Alina Tugend. Tugend argues:
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59 comments

Sunstein’s “libertarian paternalism” is really just paternalism

by Adam Thierer on April 7, 2008 · 617 comments

Cass Sunstein has another new book out. The University of Chicago law school professor is so insanely prolific that it seems every time I finish reading one of his new books, a new title by him lands in my inbox. Seriously, either this man does not sleep or he is a robot. Anyway, his latest book is entitled, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, and it was co-authored with Richard Thaler, an economist also residing at Univ. of Chicago.

Their thesis is that people sometimes make bad choices (no duh, right?), but that with a little helpful prodding (i.e., “the nudge”) we mere mortals might make better decisions. The way we get there is through what they call “libertarian paternalism.” Here’s how their official book page describes it: Continue reading →

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