[R]ecent findings from a longitudinal study of high school age students [suggests] that youth who pursue their Interests online are more likely to be engaged in civic issues. via readwriteweb.com Note that I have significantly changed the headline that accompanied this RRW story. The original (emphasis added): Study Finds the Internet Makes Youth More Engaged […]
Tag Archives: Society
FCC Broadband Plan Shrivels Compared To New Hampshire
Last March, the FCC announced a national broadband plan with the goal of connecting ~85 percent of the US population to 100 Mbps high speed broadband by 2020. I just learned that New Hampshire is requiring that North Carolina-based FairPoint* (which paid $2.3 billion for Verizon’s New England land lines and internet service) is required […]
US Broadband: The FCC and Network Neutrality
Part 1 of a series (How US Broadband and Cellular Telecomm Got So Messed Up) on U.S. telecommunication infrastructure Back in December, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 along partisan lines to approve network neutrality rules, rules which had not yet been made public. The proposed rules (pdf) were released on 23 December. The proposal […]
Moral Ambiguity? Claim Of Sexual Assault Versus Copyright Infringement
On Thursday, the Facebook section of the Internet demonstrated pitchfork mentality towards one Judith Griggs, who had allegedly asserted that content on the Web is public domain. On Friday, Google tech writer Noirin Shirley accused Google engineer Florian Leibert of sexual assult at an after-hours party during ApacheCon in Atlanta. Guess where the pitchforks were […]
On Internet Censorship: ACTA and COICA
Here’s the money quote: For much of the 20th century, oligarchs have made bucket-loads of money by being able to monetize culture through increasingly-generous copyright protections (every time Mickey Mouse was about to lose his, critics contend). They will not give up those cash cows quietly, even as digital technologies render their opposition moot, in […]
William Gibson On Reading
In response to a question from the audience at the first public reading from Zero History, William Gibson (@greatdismal) riffed on the importance of reading: Q: Tomorrow is the first day of high school around here, and I’ll be teaching 14-and 15-year olds language arts. I was just wondering [what] you would say to young […]