This is a website kick started by artists who are collecting performance pieces critical of (and perhaps also commenting on) this pretty famous site, who is unhappy that the art project incorporates their name into their webpage. Here is some more official commentary from the EFF who is supporting the artists.

There are two topics that seem to receive a steady stream of comments on this blog. My entry on Edmonton garners a smattering of comments every few months, usually giving E-town a huge thumbs down. The other entry concerns my tribulations with BCBS and here I receive a steady stream of sad stories all of which point to the horrors caused by some branch of BCBS such as my least favorite one Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ.

Along with the comment posted above, I got this one asking me to reveal the email address of the PR director of BCBS NJ. In the past I advised folks to google it to find it. But I just tried and it is actually a bit harder to find and I wonder if I should post to one of the many press releases that exist on the web with this information?

I hope thats some with some sort of time and lots of anger (toward BCBS) to start a website specifically geared toward and against BCBS. Call it Blue Cross No Shield (I think I actually own that and am pretty proud of the name) or something of that nature and throw up some blog and post horror stories in the style of the consumerist. There will be no shortage of them, especially if the blog is national in scope.

Get a mailing list going and start a fax campaign among many others. Share contact information about public relations directors and Other People in Power, tips and advice on fighting them, and perhaps even move to the next level of organizing.

I am not sure writing this here will do anything to inspire other and I would love to do this sort of rabble rousing as I get immense pleasure from doing so. But I simply am in the red when it comes to time. But I hope that some of the folks that have posted comments on this blog take the initiative to start a larger campaign (or someone can point me to an exisitng one).

update: Now that I think of it, The Consumerist should really take up this cause and devote a section JUST to health insurance. They are already a brand name of sorts with lots of eyeballs on the site, everyday.

A little over a month ago, I went to Amsterdam to participate in Wintercamp, an event that brought together various networked groups, from free software projects to human rights groups. We spent a chunk of time interviewing participants from these groups about the nature of organizing (and unorganizing ) and the high quality videos are now up. If you are interested in either learning about the groups there or in more meta issues (about the growth, life, rebirth, and at times death of networked organizations), these videos may be an interesting watch.

A few weeks ago, I jotted down some thoughts about (false) expectations made on FLOSS/F/OSS, something that I wish I had more time to write about (teaching and other things seem to take most of my time these days). But before this year turned into the next one, I wanted to pass on a few additional (and similar though they enter into different territory) thoughts by O’Reilly editor, Andy Oram: From Open Source Software to Open Culture: Three Misunderstandings

Great research opportunity for PhD Students out there.

Peer to Patent Summer Research Fellowship
New York Law School
Summer 2009

Background
Peer to Patent is the groundbreaking program developed by New York Law School and run in cooperation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office, along with the assistance of a number of private stakeholders. It harnesses the power of citizen-experts to assist patent examiners by searching for, identifying, and annotating prior art relevant to pending patent applications. A first Peer to Patent pilot was launched in June 2007. During the first year the project participants (peer reviewers) assisted in the prior art searches on 40 patent applications, generating 173 items of prior art. These items of prior art were the basis of rejection in over ten of the patent applications considered. In June 2008 the pilot was continued for a second year, and was recently extended to encompass a pilot program in the United Kingdom.

Research Issue
Although Peer to Patent has attracted over 350 active peer reviewers, the project team has little or no idea as to the motivations that cause these individuals voluntarily to contribute their substantial time to the project. The average reviewer spent approximately six hours searching and annotating individual patent applications. The project team also does not fully understand the best means for attracting additional peer reviewers to the project. In order for the project to scale to larger volumes of applications, both of these points need to be understood and addressed. More generally and theoretically, the motivations of citizens in producing material for governmental use are not well-understood. This fellowship seeks to provide an account of this sort of activity, as well as generate a design for a controlled study of incentive mechanisms for these sorts of activities.

Research Activity
The selected fellow will conduct interviews among a meaningful number of currently active peer reviewers to elicit their motivations for participating in the project and contributing their time. The fellow will review the non-profit motivation literature to provide a number of alternative methods of reward to determine whether any or all of them would induce the participants to continue their participation, increase their participation, encourage others to participate, or cease their participation altogether. Potential rewards may include: (a) basic recognition; (b) monetary interest; (c) cash awards; (d) prominent public recognition; (e) some other form of reward; or (f) no reward whatsoever. The fellow will develop a survey to be conducted among a wider segment of active and potential peer reviewers to test for validation of the data gathered in the initial sampling. From the results of the initial sampling, literature review, and survey, the fellow will develop findings on which to base an incentive program to attract and retain peer reviewers. The fellow will develop an experimental design to test the efficacy of each of these incentive possibilities.

Term
The fellowship will commence on or about June 1, 2009 and will continue until on or about August 31, 2009. The fellowship is a full time position for the three months stipulated; but this is open to negotiation for an exceptional candidate.

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Expand your perspectives in IP (if you are in NYC at least)

FLOSS Manuals is proud to announce a three day book sprint for the Pure
Data FLOSS Manual. This sprint will take place simultaneously in New
York City and Berlin from Saturday 4 April to Monday 6 April.

The Pure Data FLOSS Manual:

http://en.flossmanuals.net/puredata

There are possibilities to participate in person by coming to one of the
locations below, or remotely via the IRC interface built into the FLOSS
Manuals editing interface. Video conferencing may take place between the
venues as well.

To participate, create a login at the PD FLOSS Manuals page:

http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/login/TWiki/WebHome?origurl=/bin/view/PureData/Introduction&skin=floss2

Discussion may also take place in the Pure Data mailing list:

http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list

If you are in New York or Berlin, please join us at these locations!

—NEW YORK CITY

* Contact:

Hans-Christoph Steiner: hans@eds.org 718 360 4872

* Location (bring ID, you’ll need to sign in):

ITP/NYU Conference Room
721 Broadway, 4th Floor
NY, NY, USA
email me or call in case you can get past security: 718 360 4872

* Schedule:
Saturday: noon-midnight
Sunday: 10am-midnight
Monday: 9am-5:30pm (if we go later, we’ll be in a different room)

—BERLIN

* Contacts

Derek Holzer: derek@umatic.nl +49 176 2812 5845
Adam Hyde: adam@flossmanuals.net +49 15 2230 54563

NK
ElsenStr. 52 (2.Hof)
Berlin, Germany
+49 176 20626386

http://www.myspace.com/enka52

* Schedule:
Saturday: noon-late
Sunday: noon-late
Monday: noon-late

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So, one of th raging debates in medical science over the last two decades concerns the importance of genetics vs environmental factors for diseases: Are diseases genetically based or due to environmental factors, such as pesticides and toxins? This debate is one that might soon change its course (and collapse) due to the fascinating field of epigenetics, which blows this binary to pieces, by examining how lifestyle and environment can alter the expression of genes. Nova has a fascinating video about epigenetics, which is definitely worth watching.

I recently got to spend some time hanging with part of the FLOSS manual crew and they basically are as busy as ever holding sprints across the US and Europe to write documentation and manuals for Free Software. They are holding a mini sprint in Cambridge, MA and along with the FSF will be writing a manual on the command line in about two days. If the idea of writing documentation makes you feel warm and happy inside, then this is the even for you. They are always looking for volunteers and I assure you, the experience will be well worth your time, effort, and participation.

Expectations:

A little over a week ago I participated in a camp/event/conference/ that threw together 12 different networked based-groups/phenomenon/organizations. They got to do what many often can’t do: spend some time working face-to-face as well as thinking about about questions of un(organizational) growth/ungrowth. Some of us spent some time learning about the nature of networked coordinations and organizations from these groups. There is a lot I could write about but, in part because I was in Amsterdam for a week, I am now playing serious catch up, but there are a few things that really struck me both of which relate to expectations, which I thought worth jotting down.

Generally present were the following types of groups: open source projects (such as Blender), tech-oriented activist projects (Dyne), non-tech oriented projects (such as Free Dimensional), artistic-tech projects (such as GOTO10), artistic projects (Upgrade), academic-activist (Edu Factory) and others which are harder to classify (such as Gender Changes, and FLOSS Manuals).

One thing that came out during the plenary sessions, which is when we got together as a large group to debate and discuss, is that technically oriented open source projects are at times singled out for not being “inclusive.” That is, people pointed out that most projects expect you to contribute technically in order to participate (and don’t necessarily offer people the training/capacity so you can participate). I have heard a version of this many many and many times before and find it to be a curious (and generally unproductive) accusation, though I understand why the confusions arises.

I say confusion because most of these projects are not overtly set up to be inclusive/technically pedagogical, and this is perhaps the key point —they don’t purport to be though many folks think this is part of their overall message/mission. Because these free software projects are open source, this, for some, somehow automatically translates into the political projects of inclusivity (that is, training folks so that they can become part of this world). And yet some other projects, such as Edu Factory and GoTo10, which are run as tight-knit of collectives, are rarely accused of not being inclusive. Why should this be?

I raise this mostly because I find it interesting, pointing to the way certain terms or phrases (Freedom, Openness) combined with the visibility of FLOSS projects, automatically generate other expectations and meanings even if they don’t actually exist. I also raise it because I think it is an unfair expectation to have of these communities only in so far as most of them are full of folks busy hacking up technology and this in and of itself, as I have written about before is worthwhile politically. And yet If one wants to make them more inclusive, then one can go ahead and bring into being such a project for most of them are quite open to various initiatives to enlarge the scope of participation. These projects can be internal to projects or external to them. That is, self-initiative goes a long way in this world, and has helped changed the terrain of participation and inclusivity and I am sure will continue to do so.

Which brings me to my second point about expectations. Many people complain that open source is not easy to use. While this was entirely, 1000% true prior to 1998, every passing day makes this statement harder to stand by. I imagine in another 10 years, there will be many many programs that are as usable for the novice user as proprietary software. They had to play serious catch-up and I think have done a decent job. In some regards, all that was and is needed is time because time has already shown that usability has improved leaps and bounds. And yet there is still something odd about the accusations, which my friend tulpje but in the following way “One would never accuse the Zapatistas for not having their military might/shit together like the US army, so why accuse open source for not being the mightiest software our there?) While I actually think that free software has already and will continue to give proprietary firms a run for their money in a way that a rag-tag guerrilla army can’t do with a national army, it is nonetheless important to couch one’s responses and accusations in terms of the constraints and realities of these projects.

That said, I still think such expectations reflect important hopes and desires. They show us just how profoundly free software/open source has, simply by virtue of its existence, inspired many to follow suite politically, turning to FLOSS as a beacon of possibility.