On this episode of Spark: Digital forgetting, email salutations, and food pills
- Andrew Feldmar is barred from entering the US after a border guard Googled his name and found his article, “Entheogens and Psychotherapy“
- Viktor Mayer-Schönberger believes that digital technology should forget. Viktor is the author of Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age (full interview and transcript)
- James Martin receives a vexing Facebook friend request
- Mignon Fogarty (AKA Grammar Girl) talks about email salutations and parentheses (or are they brackets?)
- Nora mentions her interview with Anil Dash and Gina Trapani about Last Year’s Model
- Lynn Glazier explores the culture of sexual harassment among teens in “It’s a Teen’s World: Wired for Sex, Lies and Power Trips.” You can hear Lynn’s 3-part radio series on Ideas starting Wednesday September 30. You can watch the one-hour TV documentary on Monday, October 5 on CBC Newsworld’s The Passionate Eye at 10 PM. Eastern and Pacific time.
- Hannah Classen discovers what ever happened to the food pill
- Nora follows up last week’s item on augmented reality by mentioning Canadian AR project Discover Anywhere Mobile
- Dan Misener looks at the “new old” way to be a pirate: Usenet
- Peter Nowak of cbc.ca/technology drops by for a Net Neutrality update
This episode features Creative Commons music and sound effects:
- “Baby” by cdk
- “Wadidyusay?” by Zap Mama
- “elevenpithyminutes” by _i (not CC, used with permission)
- “Unforgettable” by Nat ”King” Cole Feat. Nelson Riddle’s Orchestra (1952)
- “A Peek Inside” by General Fuzz
- “Dropping Out of School” by Brad Sucks
- “Second Thoughts” by General Fuzz
- “Scary Yachts for Hire” by Tyler Walker
- “Morning Mist” by Chad Crouch
- “Monkeyball” by Tyler Walker
Play audio:
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[Original image by Dano]
Hi Spark,
I'm just listening to this week's show, and I thought it was interesting about Andrew Feldmar and his problem at the US border. I think the whole experience just shows how dumb people are becoming. Clearly the border guard had zero ability to think critically, had no empathy, nor any ability to see a bigger picture. I don't know what technology's roll is in all this, but there's obviously something not happening in education in our age. THAT I think is far more important that the fact that our lives will be digitized forever.
On another note, the story about the guy getting the facebook invite and having no idea who it was, while cute, wasn't really meaningful. Okay, so you go through a list of all the possible people it could ever have been ever in a person's life, but at the end of the day, so what? Who cares if the person isn't going to be your friend because you don't remember them? I don't even care about the people I DO remember and don't want to friend on Facebook…LOL. They are never going to know. Are we so paranoid about our reputations and what people think about us? Did, «Free to Be You and Me» teach us nothing? Somehow, the sun is still going to rise in the morning.
The situation with Andrew Feldmar really makes me sick. What purpose does it serve to bar someone who did LSD 35 years ago from entering the United States? By that kind of logic, every American who has done LSD within the last three decades should either be deported or incarcerated — since they pose such a clear danger.
I am a medical marijuana patient/activist, and the only thing that lets me cross the US border unhindered (in addition to my US citizenship) is the fact that I have a very common name…one much more common than Feldmar. That, and my Facebook page is set to friends only.
Alas, seems that the only way to get away from your digital footprint may be to use alternate identities. I already have in my other employment, where I use my middle name.
I feel for those who have been fingerprinted or had a DNA sample taken.
John, Why do you feel for those who have been fingerprinted or dnaed? What is the difference between that and a passport?
Great to see activists in the States. Thanks. Art
Regarding your shows comments on piracy and calling it illegal. If you want to be relevant to the issue you should drop the rhetoric; downloading is not “illegal” in Canada and is fair use, however distributing other peoples copyright material is illegal and could result in fines. By straying from the facts and being glib about such an important issue (human rights and freedom) gives the impression your a propaganda machine. I would recommend you give such an important subject the serious treatment it deserves. This issue is about our culture and whether it should be (has been?) completely commercialized.
Keareset, thank you for your comment.
First off, I'm not a lawyer, but in Canada, the laws around downloading copyrighted materials in Canada are, to say the least, unclear. As I understand it, unauthorized copying or distribution of any copyrighted material is illegal under Canada's Copyright Act. And yes, there are exceptions for fair dealing, but the limits of those exceptions are a little fuzzy.
There also seems to be confusion about the distinction between copyright infringement when it comes to music versus movies, TV shows, software, etc. because of the media levy system in Canada.
There's a very informative article about this over at Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/p…
I enjoyed reading it, and recommend it to anyone interested in the different interpretations of legal/illegal downloading.
Thanks again for your comment.
Glad to read your comment as I feel the same way. I resent being called a pirate by industry that wants us to pay twice (or more) for content. I subscribe to cable (about $60 a month worth of it) yet get most of my shows off the Net. Why? It is a convenient time shifter. Morally I don't feel this is wrong and I doubt it is legally.
The problem lies with industry not paying attention to customers because the customers are rejecting the current business model. We want our content when and how we want it and as the customer we are always right. That's not to say we don't want to pay for it. But it has to be in a format that we can use how we want (in terms of device playback) and must be comparably priced to what we are paying now for cable.
Take tv shows in iTunes for example, for my $60 I can get 1 tv show a day. Whereas with cable I can get hundreds of channels 24/7. Anyway, I'm starting to rant so I'll "cool off" but close with thought. I don't know the stats, and I doubt anyone really does, but I suspect that the vast majority of people in Canada who download tv shows off the Net also subscribe to cable and hence are not pirates.
They are brackets(). I thought you were talking about quotation marks until you mentioned the name brackets at the end of the show!
Just Googled and read the whole article and i must have to say that me and my husband loved reading your post. We bookmarked and will regularly check more updates to come from your website. Thanks for making us one step more enlightened with your blog.
Terrific! Finally we found what we were looking for. Thanks!
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I will immediately grab your rss as I can’t find your email subscription link or e-newsletter service. Do you have any? Kindly let me know so that I could subscribe. Thanks.
"downloading is not "illegal" in Canada and is fair use, however distributing other peoples copyright material is illegal and could result in fines"
Let's not forget that sharing should not be illegal .. There are allot of people witch can not afford to buy an album or a book … they also need to read and listen music …How alse the people can educate?
Great to see activists in Europe fighting this new so called laws ACTA …