One of the most interesting debates concerning new technologies is whether human enhancement technologies have any resemblance to the older practice of eugenics. One of my favorite articles on this subject is by The Case against Perfection, which simply stunned my students (and they are pretty hard to stun).

Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a couple of articles on the topic, and I wrote a response to one of them, (which as you will see, irked me some) here. While I agree with the author that medical genetics is not eugenics, it is still worth our while thinking through today’s genetic and reproductive technologies through the eyes of historical instance of eugenics.

Tonight at the Halfking is a reading by the author of American Nerd, a book that will be high on my reading list (and who knows, maybe I will assign in my course on hackers, as you know, hacking is related to nerd culture too

I am going to University of Haifa next week to participate in this conference on the commodification of community on the web. I will have a few free days on the 31s of May and June 1, and 2 to explore. I also know I am going to Jerusalem for a day and will explore Haifa for a day too. Any recommendations of what to check out would be appreciated.

You can contact me at the email provided on my contact page

So one of the amazing things about the net is not so much how it makes lots of data available (actually that can be the nightmare of the net) but how it makes it available. And one of the more powerful forms of availability is in the form of visual mapping. So this new tool theNNDB Mapper is just one such visualization tool that I have to say, is pretty niftfy, though still a little green and beta at least in terms of its data.

Take for example, the hacker map, which is pretty sparse right now but the great thing about it is 1) one can add data 2) and it generates useful data and links, for example, to profiles, such as this this one of Kevin Mitnick.

Apparently, he is not linked to anyone, which is ironic (and just wrong) because he it is more correct to say was linked like to an entire generation of hackers, especially those who participated in the Free Kevin movement (and that could perhaps be another field?)..

For those interested in the politics of science, or to be more specific, how science is flagrantly twisted to keep important facts and findings about our public health from public view, this book Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health by David Micahels looks like a must read. For those wanting a little here is a review of the book.. In short, the author shows how occlusion comes from the need to secure and protect profits, and is achieved with what he calls the “alchemy” of twisting numbers and facts:

“It’s quite easy to take a positive result [showing harmful effects] and turn it falsely negative. This epidemiological alchemy is used widely.”

The problem runs deep as this other article from Slate magazine also indicates. But there are some good sources to get and evaluate your science and health news and health news review seems like one important place to go.

I am affiliated with a project whose origin is the northern parts of Canada, although whose members span the globe called What Sort of People Should There Be?. The idea behind this nifty and catchy title is to get a bunch of researchers in various fields, from disability studies to philosophy and everything that comes in between to start asking a series of questions about the role of human enhancement today and eugenics in the past, all within the context of thinking about the experience and politics of disability. I am super excited about the project because it spans the past and present to confront what it means to be human, how we value variation, how we seek to support or erase difference, and lastly something close to my academic heart, the role of technology in facilitating and dampening the politics of possibility and hope when it comes to disability.

The project has recently launched an multi-author blog and I will be posting there from time to time. If you are interested in this topic, do come by for a visit. I am sure you won’t be disappointed. My most recent post is here and it covers an interesting article in the New York Times on Mad Pride, which oddly enough is in the Fashion & Style section.

Miro helps you Mira (watch) Videos in a snazzy and easy to use way. Software like Miro and Zotero is why I free software.

And speaking of videos, one of my readers has provided information about a wonderful documentary on Monsanto and here is a video with Michael Pollan ( an amazing journalist writing on the politics and technology of food) who recently spoke at Google.

Surveillance, massive patent litigation, and toxic trails are just a few of the atrocities that are part and parcel of the global giant Monsanto. They do not just produce a lot of the worlds GE crops but some MAJOR FUD with real muscle as this disturbing in-depth article demonstrates . Whether it is their shadowy, relentless fight against American farmers to “protect” their patents or their fight to scare dairy farmers from labeling their milk BST free, they deploy an astonishing range of legal and extra-legal tactics to make sure they stay on top.

Below is a smattering of some of their creepiest tactics, which kinda make the RIAA look angelic in comparison.

“To gather leads, the company maintains an 800 number and encourages farmers to inform on other farmers they think may be engaging in “seed piracy. Once Pilot Grove had been targeted, Monsanto sent private investigators into the area. Over a period of months, Monsanto’s investigators surreptitiously followed the co-op’s employees and customers and videotaped them in fields and going about other activities. At least 17 such surveillance videos were made, according to court records”

“Studies by health authorities consistently found elevated levels of PCBs in houses, yards, streams, fields, fish, and other wildlife—and in people. In 2003, Monsanto and Solutia entered into a consent decree with the E.P.A. to clean up Anniston. Scores of houses and small businesses were to be razed, tons of contaminated soil dug up and carted off, and streambeds scooped of toxic residue. The cleanup is under way, and it will take years, but some doubt it will ever be completed—the job is massive. To settle residents’ claims, Monsanto has also paid $550 million to 21,000 Anniston residents exposed to PCBs, but many of them continue to live with PCBs in their bodies. Once PCB is absorbed into human tissue, there it forever remains.”

The company contends that advertising by Kleinpeter and other dairies touting their “no rBGH” milk reflects adversely on Monsanto’s product. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in February 2007, Monsanto said that, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence that there is no difference in the milk from cows treated with its product, “milk processors persist in claiming on their labels and in advertisements that the use of rBST is somehow harmful, either to cows or to the people who consume milk from rBST-supplemented cows.”

Monsanto called on the commission to investigate what it called the “deceptive advertising and labeling practices” of milk processors such as Kleinpeter, accusing them of misleading consumers “by falsely claiming that there are health and safety risks associated with milk from rBST-supplemented cows.

It is the end of the semester as well as the end of my first year of full time teaching. It has been quite a handful, mouthful, and especially mindful but I am happy to say that I like a lot more than I dislike it, which bodes well for the future. I would like to spend some time writing about teaching and what I enjoyed to teach (and what the students like) but for now I want to note what was my favorite book of the academic year, which unsurprisingly, was fiction (and thus nothing I taught). The book is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by MIT professor, Junot Díaz and I read it over my winter break. It is a heart breaking but deeply humorous story that I could barely put down and I can’t wait till his next novel and will gladly wait the 10 years it took him to write this one after his amazing book Drown.

It is about the life, trials, and tribulations of an unlikely character, a Dominican SUPER NERD by the name of Oscar Wao who has more than a lot of trouble scoring with the ladies (a “lovesick ghetto nerd” in the words of the author. Or to put in Dominican speak, he is no “tigre”). In the process of his many failures and attempt at love and lust, you learn about the experiences of Dominican immigrants in the tri-state area, the brutal history of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic as well as a good dose of odd culture folklore (both geek and Dominican, if you can believe it!) and all of this is told in a style that manages to combine the rhythm and passion of a poetry slam with classic issues of tragedy common in Greek literature. It is books like these which make me a little down on purely academic ones which tend to lack the style, pizazz, rhythm, flow, narrative, and heart needed to make you fall in love with words on a page.

I recently found out about a pretty funny site, passive aggressive notes and submitted one of my photos from japan. I loved the note because there was very little English signage in Japan but anything having to do with slackers, well, that must be in English, no?