Smithsonian Institution

I’m VERY excited about this one…

http://ischool.syr.edu/newsroom/news.aspx?recid=1130

After reading the Is Sugar Toxic? article in today’s New York Times, I was inspired to watch this influential video by Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology. Good stuff and definitely worth the watch.

The Bicycle City. Trailer from Greg Sucharew on Vimeo.

What happens to an impoverished developing nation town when you flood it with 20,000 bicycles? You lift three times that number of people out of poverty. Pedals for Progress and founder David Schweidenback have been shipping used American bicycles to Rivas, Nicaragua for the last two decades and the transformation has been incredible.

Help Fund Our Film:
http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Bicycle-City-Film

http://thebicyclecityfilm.com/

Last living US World War I veteran dies in West Virginia at age 110

Wow. Frank Buckles – thanks for your sacrifice and RIP. Amazing.

Connective Corridor Lumber-jacking

Tree love is a hereditary trait in my family or, at least, it was nurtured in me. As living beings, it actually might be a part of everyone’s DNA. At any rate, I have pretty vivid memories of my parents getting angry when they heard of some development going up at the sake of acre of timber. They also weren’t too pleased when they saw some homeowner unjustifiably chopping down a tree.

That thinking stuck with me, and made me stop and look and ponder the sign to the left.

I always question these types of signs. They strike that all important emotional chord in us (heck, a soon to be executed tree apparently wrote the language on the sign) with promises of a better tomorrow. They also seem to be too good to be true, misguided and inaccurate. This is a marketing program on some level and I am suspect of it.

I wanted to do a little more digging.

Find out the details.

Paint a clearer picture of what’s really going on.

Good thing there’s an email address to contact someone about all the questions swirling around upstairs.

In coming up with the list of questions, I erred at first. I made it too personal, as if the person reading the email was directly responsible for the project and tree execution. They were laden with  ‘Do you…’ and ‘What will you…’ clauses and sounded a little too adversarial so I rewrote them in a more neutral manner. I also rewrote negative questions like ‘Are there any plans for use of the cut down trees or will they just be brought to the city dump?’ to read: ‘Are there any plans for use of the cut down trees?’. I just want some answers and tried to be skillful in acquiring them.

My final list of questions looked like this:

1. Is there a map of where all the trees being cut down are?
2. What types (species) of trees will be cut down?
3. When were these trees originally planted?
4. Are there any plans for use of the cut down trees?
5. When will the new trees be planted?
6. How big will the newly planted trees be?
7. What types (species) of trees will be planted?
8. Is there a map of where the new trees will go?
9. Whose responsibility will it be to care for the new trees?
10. When will this project be finished?

The email was sent off and we’ll see where it goes. This entry/post really grew so after some thought and high-level approval, I reworked the piece and will be posting part two next week (if not before).

In completely unrelated news, I think the City of Syracuse logo needs some updating (top left of sign).

INTERNET By Stuart Caie

Below is a short paper Julia Allis and I developed for IST 618 – Survey of Telecommunications and Internet Policy taught by Professor Milton Mueller. It takes a look at the Open Internet Coalition. Enjoy!

About/Policy Agenda

For our lobbying organization, we chose the Open Internet Coalition. Founded originally as “ItsOurNet Coalition” in 2006, the Open Internet Coalition rebranded with its current name in 2007 (Crum, 2007).  The Coalition is a group of corporations dedicated to keeping the Internet open to all producers of Internet content, affordable and available to everyone, and maintaining a high quality of service through a competitive marketplace (Open Internet Coalition). The organization’s policy agenda commonly refers to what it calls the ‘Four Opens’ – open devices, open applications, open services, and open networks (Paczkowski, 2007). Part of their policy, ‘network neutrality’, is an agenda item that the organization and its members have vacillated on throughout the years.

Despite their noble-sounding mission, the organization has been criticized of clubby, behind-the-scenes operations when pushing their policy agenda to the FCC (Lasar, 2010). Despite actions like these, the organization has a well-oiled public relations machine capable of balancing the bad press they receive for their back-room dealings with very visible end-user oriented campaigns such as their ‘Protect the Net’ campaign.  This initiative was launched at last year’s Computer Electronics Show and targeted consumers and entrepreneurs (Crum, 2010) (Hart, 2010).

Net neutrality is a hot item on the Open Internet Coalition’s policy agenda. In tracking the organization’s lobbying and its members’ actions independently on that topic, some interesting patterns emerged, namely member companies acting counter to the organization’s interests on the same issue. This is discussed in greater detail later in the paper under the How Its Policy Agenda Relates to the Self-Interest of the Members section.

Despite a seemingly limitless supply of resources and influence, Josh tried unsuccessfully for two weeks to get any official documentation from the Open Internet Coalition. We thought that with world-class organizations like Google and Amazon on their roster, we’d get world-class service and a world-class document or two clearly defining and articulating the organization’s agenda. Despite repeated attempts, we received nothing. This brought up questions surrounding the cohesiveness of the organization as well as its dedication to its mission. It certainly brings into question the organization’s transparency, something they try to create the illusion of. If they’re going to ignore the innocent information-gathering request of a student, what will they divulge to the press or other bodies making inquiries?

Membership/Supporters

The Open Internet Coalition is a who’s who of Internet titans and membership organizations – Amazon, American Library Association, eBay, Facebook, Google, Match.com, PayPal, Skype and Twitter to name a few.  Its membership also counts non-profit organizations with an interest in freedom of communication, such as the ACLU, Free Press, Educause and Internet2, and library organizations including the ALA and ARL.

From Comments Of The Open Internet Coalition (January, 2010):

“The Open Internet Coalition (“OIC”) represents consumers, grassroots organizations, and technology and Internet companies working in pursuit of a shared goal: keeping the Internet fast, open and accessible to all Americans. We support a process that results in common sense baseline rules to ensure that the Internet remains a key engine of economic growth, innovation, speech, and global competitiveness. The Coalition spans the political spectrum, standing together to protect an open Internet.”

How Its Policy Agenda Relates to the Self-Interest of the Members

All the organizations which comprise the core of the Open Internet Coalition’s membership have a vested interest in maintaining net neutrality.  Fundamentally, they all benefit from an open architecture that “allows worldwide users to make decisions about what businesses and which voices succeed and fail in the Internet ecosystem” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010).

However, due to the diversity of the membership, the particular benefit they derive from net neutrality varies.  These can be broken down by type of organization.

Entrepreneurs and startups rely on net neutrality to “develop new online products and services with the guarantee of neutral, nondiscriminatory delivery to users.“ (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Existing businesses “leverage the power of the Internet to develop innovative product lines, reach new consumers across the globe, and create business models.“ (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Small businesses “…rely on the open Internet to grow and to increase their sales.” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Social networking sites exist for the purpose of online communication.  Their profits typically rely on ad revenue, which is severely affected by any practice that drives away membership. Furthermore, they are vulnerable to public response to the content their users put on the site.  Data transmission regulation could function as a form of discrimination against undesired content.

Online video providers such as Amazon.com, Netflix, and Blockbuster.com “provide high quality video content that competes with traditional video offerings from the network operator” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010) and could tempt network operators to discriminate for competitive advantage.

Non-profit and NGO organizations are concerned with safeguarding First Amendment values.  “These values are at risk because of potentially discriminatory policies implemented by a handful of companies that provide access to and from the Internet.” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Because of the large number of organizations making up the OIC’s roster, conflicts of interest sometimes arise. After internal disagreements, the OIC opted to abstain from a stance regarding net neutrality legislation developed in 2010 by Rep. Henry Waxman, because certain parts of the legislation supported the interests of some member organizations but not others (Jerome 2010).

In fact, the member organizations sometimes find themselves working unilaterally against the interests of the group as a whole. In August 2010, the a lawyer named Lazarus attempted to broker “closed-door” talks between Verizon, AT&T, Google, Skype, and the OIC, in hopes that internet service providers and internet-supported companies could come to terms outside legislative avenues.  These talks went poorly, and ended when Verizon and Google revealed that they had been negotiating their own arrangement.  Notably, Google is itself a major member of the OIC, but in this case represented its own interests rather than the coalition. (Gustin, 2010)

Works Referenced

Coalition, O. I. (n.d.). Open Internet Coalition Facebook. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/openinternetcoalition?v=app_4949752878

Crum, C. (2010, January 7). Open Internet Heavily Promoted at CES: Open Internet Coalition Encourages Petition Signing. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from WebProNews: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/01/07/open-internet-heavily-promoted-at-ces

eBay. (2010, May 24). eBay Sends Letter Supporting Genachowski with Open Internet Coalition. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from eBay: http://www.ebaymainstreet.com/news-events/ebay-sends-letter-supporting-genachowski-open-internet-coalition

Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition. (2010, January 14). Comments Of The Open Internet Coalition. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from The Open Internet Coalition: http://www.openinternetcoalition.com/files/OIC_NN_Comments_FINAL.pdf

Gustin, S. (2010, December 1). Google, Facebook, Twitter to Feds: Man Up on Net Neutrality. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from WIRED: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/tag/open-internet-coalition/

Gustin, S. (2010, August 9). Google, Verizon, and the FCC: inside the war over the Internet’s future. Retrieved February 14, 2011, from DailyFinance.com: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/google-verizon-fcc-war-over-internets-future/19605776/

Haselton, T. (2007, July 11). Open Internet Coalition wants unlocked iPhones for everybody. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from ars technica: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2007/07/open-internet-coalition-wants-unlocked-iphones-for-everybody.ars

Jerome, S. (2010, September 28). Sources: OIC not supporting Waxman net-neutrality bill. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/121493-sources-oic-will-not-support-waxman-net-neutrality-bill

Krigman, E. (2010, August 13). Open Internet Coalition to FCC: Don’t Wait for Congress. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from National Journal: http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2010/08/open-internet-coalition-to-fcc.php

Open Internet Coalition. (n.d.). Open Internet Coalition. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Open Internet Coalition: http://www.openinternetcoalition.org/

Ou, G. (2010, January 19). Improving on Amazon’s Net Neutrality proposal. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Digital Society: http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/01/improving-on-amazons-net-neutrality-proposal/

Ou, G. (2010, April 19). Open Internet Coalition opposes Open Access. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Digital Society: http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/04/open-internet-coalition-not-your-fathers-title-ii/

Paczkowski, J. (2007, July 31). Of Course We Could Just Blame the FCC for Our Refusal to Bid and Still Come Out Looking Like Heroes. Retrieved February 14, 2011, from All Things Digital, Digital Daily: http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20070731/spectrum-auction-google/

Schelmetic, T. E. (2010, November 8). Policy Management – Open Internet Coalition Issues Statement to the FCC. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from TMCnet: http://policy-management.tmcnet.com/topics/policy-management/articles/115108-open-internet-coalition-issues-statement-the-fcc.htm

Silver, J. (2010, August 5). Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/google-verizon-deal-the-e_b_671617.html

The Open Internet Coalition. (n.d.). Collection of Comments to the FCC on Net Neutrality. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from The Open Internet Coalition: http://www.openinternetcoalition.com/index.cfm?objectid=3A9109DE-89F9-11DF-A6BC000C296BA163

My sister Heidi runs the Development Department at Hudson River Sloop Clearwater (Americaís flagship environmental organization). Clearwater’s mission is to preserve and protect the Hudson River. Clearwater believes its innovative environmental programs, advocacy and celebrations will continue to inspire and energize the next generation of environmental leaders.

A recent project of theirs, Power of Song, involved students writing new lyrics to ‘This Land is Your Land’ and they created this video using clips from the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative Listening Session which was organized by the Department of the Interior and was held in August. It’s modern and powerful. The students are really inspiring and have some pretty evolved ideas about environmental impacts and how to mitigate them.

Much more can be found HERE.

So before this falls into the ‘I should have written that’ category, I wanted to get some pen on the iSchool introductory class -IST601 – Information and Information Environments.

In short – awesome. Really awesome.

The content delivered and the delivery methods were as world class as I expected but the energy. WOW. Totally infectious and not just from one or two lecturers, but each and every one of them and ALL of the staff there to support them and us (SU’s incoming iSchool Master’s students).  Total faculty and staff that presented over the weekend numbered, by my count, 15, but there could have been more. A high level of passion exuded from each and every one of them and it left an amazing mark. They’ve set the bar very high in terms of our academic, creative and innovative pursuits, but also in service and ethics.

That really stuck. Time and again we were reminded to bring anything – questions, concerns, problems, etc.  It’s a level of service and support that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in an  organization. The iSchool at SU is really committed to turning out radical, game-changing information professionals and they’ll do whatever they can to foster the creativity and innovation required to bring about real change.

Not that I needed it, but the class confirmed that I’m doing the right thing and am in the right (best!) place.

This is the first time I’ve seen ‘Irradiated beef’ advertised.

Michael Pollan has an easy to digest definition of irradiated beef in this excerpt of an article he wrote for The New York Times Magazine (March 31, 2002):

Rather than try to alter that diet or keep the animals from living in their waste or slow the line speed—all changes regarded as impractical—the industry focuses on disinfecting the manure that will inevitably find its way into the meat. This is the purpose of irradiation (which the industry prefers to call “cold pasteurization”). It is also the reason that carcasses pass through a hot steam cabinet and get sprayed with an antimicrobial solution before being hung in the cooler at the National Beef plant.

Delicious!