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Lex Orwell: When is a Surveillance Society OK?

The current Swedish debate about a bill to
allow military intelligence to intercept phone and Internet
communications has produced something most unSwedish: a grassroots
"blogquake" that has upset the staid logic of traditional politics. Given the threat that the bill may fall because of MPs disobeying their party whips
(normally unheard of in Swedish politics) there is a real chance the bill is even
withdrawn at the last minute. But even if it is, this is
an issue that will return again and again: exactly how much
information should the government be allowed to gather and for what purposes?

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The stresses of 24 hour creative work: How much would Aristotle blog?

New York Times writes about the stressful
lifestyle of for-pay bloggers. The bloggers get rewarded for being
prolific and quick to comment, but since the Internet never sleeps they feel a
pressure not to sleep either. The result is physical and emotional stress that
never lets up – especially since often the home is also their workplace. This
is just one example of the high stresses of many new creative class occupations. Is there any way out of knowledge-economy workaholism?

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PatientsLikeMe.com

The New York Times recently published a feature article on a website called PatientsLikeMe. This is an online community like facebook or MySpace, but with a medical twist. The members have serious medical conditions, like Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, or HIV, and they use site to post quantitative information about their treatment and symptoms. The site then presents this information for all to see. For example, users can search the website for a drug and then view bar graphs illustrating reasons that members take the drug, the distribution of dosages, length of treatment, reasons for stopping treatment, and patient ratings of the treatment. Individual profiles also show line graphs plotting disease progression and showing major treatment events. The aim is to offer patients the information required to better tailor their own treatment.

It’s easy to think of both risks and benefits of this sort of website.

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Are artists, writers, sportsmen, academics, scientists, politicians, and businessmen addicts?

Various news sources
this week, including Fox News and The Guardian, are reporting on an editorial published in this month’s American Journal of Psychiatry. In it, the author, Jerald J. Block, argues
that internet addiction is a real psychological disorder, and that it ought to
be recognised as such in DSM-V, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is
currently being compiled by the American Psychiatric
Association.

Read More »Are artists, writers, sportsmen, academics, scientists, politicians, and businessmen addicts?

Who is your hard drive working for?

Western Digital, a producer of networked
hard drives that enable users to access their files across the net, has blocked customers
from sharing media files from their drives. Needless to say, users are not
amused and hard at work at finding workarounds. The move is possibly a
pre-emptive way for the company to avoid being sued by the content industry for
providing a means for piracy. The block covers most popular media formats,
regardless of who owns the copyright of the contents. This makes it impossible
for users to share e.g. home videos or their own creations. Who really owns the
hard drive – the customer or Western Digital?

Read More »Who is your hard drive working for?