Malinowski and Hats Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology The alternate title for this post was going to be “Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Boas walk into a bar…”. This is a little autobiographical passage from pages 46-48 of History, Evolution, and the Concept of Culture: Selected Papers by Alexander Lesser. In it, Lesser (a vastly under-read and under-appreciated … Read more
‘The Correspondent’ is winning crowdfunded journalism with 40,000 paid subscribers The Next Web by Bryan Clark Today, Dutch journalism platform The Correspondent announced it just reached 40,000 paying members. The feat is nothing short of amazing considering it started without a website — or any content for that matter — crowdfunded $1.7 million dollars, and continued to leverage this early … Read more
Google News abandons Spain in paid content row Spain’s government Thursday defied Google’s vow to shut down its Spanish online news service in protest at being made to pay for content, in its latest legal clash in Europe. Google News to shut down in Spain following new copyright law The Next Web by Owen Williams A new … Read more
Aaron Swartz was no criminal Boing Boing by Dan Purcell Dan Purcell, one of Swartz’ lawyers, writes about the spiteful and unreasonable charges that led to his suicide—and MIT’s gutless support of his prosecutors. Read the rest Porn stars use their assets to discuss net neutrality Mashable! by Adario Strange The debate over net neutrality and the fight … Read more
“The Internet’s Own Boy”: How the government destroyed Aaron Swartz A film tells the story of the coder-activist who fought corporate power and corruption — and paid a cruel price NSA Fallout: Germany Ends Contract With Verizon Mashable! by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai The German government has decided not to renew a contract with Verizon out of fear … Read more
A Year After Aaron Swartz’s Death, Lawmakers Still Demand Answers On the eve of the anniversary of Aaron Swartz‘s tragic death, a group of eight lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are still looking for answers regarding the criminal investigation he was the subject of Remembering Aaron One year ago, we lost Aaron Swartz, a dear friend … Read more
Remembering Aaron: activism and the effective citizen This morning, I gave a speech to a gathering of public media executives from around the world, Public Broadcasters International. This evening, I will open a hackathon at the MIT Media Lab in memory of Aaron Swartz. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to talk … Read more
Pew: One in three Americans owns a tablet, one in four owns an e-reader, and 43% have one or the other One in three Americans now owns a tablet, or 35 percent of the population aged 16 and older. At the same time, one in four US citizens at least 16-years-old now owns an e-reader. Mixing … Read more
A code of conduct for young hackers r00tz is the amazing kid-track of programming at DEFCON, the giant hacker conference held annually in Las Vegas. The organizers have created a “code of conduct” for young hackers that is good advice for anyone doing infosec work, or exploring computers and systems: MIT and Aaron Swartz’s Secret … Read more