It has been a long road to this decision, and I would like to take a moment to look back at it…

The Radio Station

I remember when I once went on a local radio station. Despite being young at the time, the one thing which intrigued me was how the show snapped together amid the hectic mess. Papers were flying everywhere and everyone went a mile-a-minute, but there sat the host: munching on donuts, with a clear and steady voice broadcasting out over the airwaves. Hearing his voice, one would think the world was a safe place–even when he was talking about yet another car bomb in a place I could not pronounce. When I first started blogging, that was what I wanted. I wanted to be the one who people listened to, steady but also static. I wanted to be powerful, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do with that power. I saw commenters as adoring fans rather than opportunities for conversation.

Eventually, I encountered the problem with being on a radio station: it always seemed the same. I didn’t listen to new voices, but just kept “on message.” I played the same hit songs, instead of new Indie albums. A steady voice became a monotone voice. I wrote about what would bring me traffic instead of what deserved traffic. Tired of the quest for one more listener, I left the station.

The Barber Shop

One of my favorite comic strips is Curtis, where an African-American boy walks into a barber shop and is greeted by a name which is always a little different from his own. The barber never gets his name right, but always engages Curtis in conversations about what is going on in the world. Nothing revolutionary is ever said, but the same ideas (often heard on the radio) are rehashed. Despite calling Curtis by the wrong name, the barber is always willing to invite Curtis into the community. I have found many people in the blogosphere equally inviting: despite not knowing my real name, I have been invited to share my ideas and become a part of the community. I was given a voice, which is something for which I am very thankful. Unfortunately, what I eventually came to realize was that I rarely talked about new ideas: in an effort to be accepted, I settled into groupthink. I continued to rehash the same thoughts over and over, because that is the best way to build community. Though I loved the community, my haircut was done and I eventually had to step out of that homogeneous group.

The Pet Store

As a child, a pet store was a wonderful place: it was filled with animals waiting to be loved. In my early months of blogging, this is what I saw the blogosphere as: many diverse faces just waiting to be met. I wanted to make a difference for these people, just as I wanted to give a young dog a home. Over time, I grew more cynical of the potential for change. I became the adult in a pet store: instead of seeing loving faces, I saw the potential problems. I saw the shedding, the walks which would be needed, the expenses of caring. Yet, just as a parent lets their young son bring home that dog, I resigned myself to it and stepped out of the pet store ready to continue down the road.

The Gas Station

In my small town, we still have a local gas station where a man comes out to wipe your windshield. I hear people complain about the price of gas (and rightly so), yet our country is still not ready to give up this unsustainable resource – it is the demon we love to hate. In many ways, I have treated the blogosphere in a similarly unsustainable way. I continued to pump feed after feed into my RSS reader, knowing full well that there is a limit to how much I can consume before the well of my attention runs dry. Yet, I continued to pump feeds in because I loved what everyone was writing or felt some obligation to them. I knew this could not be sustained, but I didn’t wish to toss out the old even as I explored the new. My blogging habits were unsustainable, because the demands on my attention were limitless but my attention is not. I reached peak demand, after which I simply had so much information coming at me that I couldn’t really focus on the important thoughts. Thus, I decided to leave my car behind and bike down to the harbor.

The Harbor

I have decided to leave this shore and set sail for the unknown. Like the parting scene in The Lord of the Rings, I am filled with both sorrow and joy. I am sorrowful that I must make this difficult decision and leave my friends and peers behind. Furthermore, I am very thankful for the support I have received from all members of the community.   In my heart, I know this is the right decision. Some day, our paths may cross again – on another shore, when I’m an older, wiser person. Until that day, I sail for foreign shores.

Goodbye, and good luck.

The problem with our society is that ageism has been institutionalized. It is what makes personal assaults like this on students socially acceptable, since we aren’t really full people, are we? It limits out freedom of speech, since we can’t be expected to say anything intelligent. It lets us get away with ‘murder’ because we can’t be considered fully responsible for our actions. I think it is reasonable for certain restrictions to be placed upon people based upon their scientifically proven development and maturity. Unfortunately, the law and society draws a hard line in the sand, universally, which is based upon fear instead of fact.

Most neurologists agree: the brain is not fully developed during adolescent years. Adolescents, and to a greater extent children, lack full intelligence and emotional maturity. However, most research puts the brain peak at sometime in an individual’s 20s–not at 18. I do not disagree with this, but the problem is that this science is not reflected in society and the law. This research yields two conclusions:

1. The brain does not develop at an equal speed for everyone. Some people achieve intellectual or emotional maturity well before their 18th birthday. Others never do.
2. The age of 18 is not a critical milestone in the average individual’s brain development.

Unfortunately, these points are not taken into account within the frameworks of the law and society. In the eyes of the law (and thus society), everyone is an adult when they reach the age of 18 (though they can lose that status if proven to be severely deficient). If the age of majority isn’t based upon science, then it must be based on tradition, right? Wrong. Before the 26th amendment, the age was at 21 (which is still reflected in drinking laws). In other societies, it has been lower (around 13 or 14). Therefore, tradition doesn’t play a large role in why the line should be drawn at 18.

Put simply, the line is drawn at 18 because of fear. Society is always afraid of the next generation. Some day, we will be taking your jobs and stealing the upper hand. Naturally, those with the power (read: voters and politicians), would like to keep that age as high as possible so as to delay their eventual loss of power. The problem with this approach is that it ignores the merits of an individual in favor of a simple rule. (On another note, the powers are perfectly happy to use labor lower than 18 both domestically and in the military.)

Obviously, I am not going to change society with a blog post. However, that’s not my goal: my goal is to get you to stop standing behind the paltry defense of irrational laws which legislate the value of vast swaths of people. Instead, I ask you to judge people based upon their individual merits, intelligence, and maturity.

Of course, a natural argument against that is that you as a teacher are entrusted with the well-being of your students. While that is true, it does not apply online since almost none of your students are online.

To me, I think the contract between a teacher and student is a sacred one. (By association, the parents as well) In exchange for the teacher’s time and expertise, the student offers himself to be open to learning from that pool of knowledge, and trusts the teacher. Coming with this, the student (and his parents), expect that the teacher will always have the best interests of the student at heart. Where the teacher loses sight of that, even if he thinks he is doing the “right” think, for whatever reason, that contract has been breached and the teacher is at fault. Keating broke this pact, and dire consequences ensued.

Most importantly, this contract supersedes age: even if your student is 52, it still applies. However, when not engaged in a student/teacher relationship, simply asses an individual based upon their personal merits. No matter how hard it may be, try to put assumptions based upon age aside and see a person for who they are.

Naturally, this brings up some moral and legal conflicts which Christian summarizes quite well:

Intellect aside, our ability to engage in serious/sincere conversations inside our classrooms and inside the blogosphere demands that we accept the roles of a) legal and b) moral implications. With regards to a “student” that is under the age of 18, the courts and society both demand that adults must play by different roles than children (using the legal sense of the word, not a pejorative sense of it). Arthus — intelligence, computer/coding/digital knowledge and blogging ‘personality’ aside — you desire for ‘peer’ status with legally adult bloggers (etc) holds ground in terms of common decency, respect, and our collective interest in ‘learning’. On the other hand, once you get into moral and legal realms, it begins to fade in terms of legitimacy (not because you or someone else lacks ability, but because society and the courts deem it as such). Because of that, any adult who acts in a formal or informal way in the blogosphere must still behave in a way that a child is not required to. Consider your ability to make mistakes when it comes to blogger discourse/debate to be more protected than that of an adult who is working beside you or in opposition to you.

As discussed, society and the law do create higher standards for “adults” than for teens. The way that society and the law can be completely avoided is simple: ignore them. Rather, act in such a manner that society and the law would never have reason to question you. To do so, treat everyone (online) as though they were morally and legally a child. What that means:

1. No cyber-bullying.
2. No creepy stuff. You know that guy. Don’t be him.
3. Respect people’s boundaries. If someone chooses to remain anonymous, leave it at that, whether they are an adult or a teen.

If you hold yourself and others (including youth) to a high standard, then society has no reason to question you and your motives. Achieve equality through raising the standards for everyone. (To be clear, the student/teacher relationship will always supersede this when someone is actually your student.)

Just as I expect adults to follow these guidelines, I hold myself to them as well. If students want to be treated equally, we must accept equal responsibility.

1. Photo by Elephi Pelephi on Flickr
2. Photo by Mikey G Ottawa on Flickr
3. Photo by Thorne Enterprises on Flickr

When questioned on his use of computers, McCain has confessed that he does not know how to use the web and relies entirely on his staff and wife to use the computer:

They go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need - including going to my daughter’s blog first, before anything else.

I find it quite alarming that a man who hopes to become the next President of the United States doesn’t even know have a basic understanding of the Internet. For those of you who don’t think this matters, it does: the next President will be making key decisions which will affect the future of the web. I project that privacy, wiretapping, and net neutrality will all be critical issues in the next term. Not to mention issues of educational technology funding and filtering schools. I don’t expect our President to be a code jedi, but at the very least he should be able to go online by himself. Even Bush uses ‘the Google.’ And honestly, how hard is it? Plug in a wire and click the little fox:

“It’s just amazing,” Jamal Simmons, a strategist with the Obama campaign, told The Daily Telegraph. “It’s very hard to even think about someone who doesn’t know how to use the internet. It’s like, ‘Really?’ My five-year-old niece can use the internet. She knows how to go to nickelodeon.com and play her games.”

Of course, there are those who exploit comedy gold where they find it: this time with a candidate so out of touch with the average American that he doesn’t even understand the most popular form of communication among young Americans:

No matter how much people want to emphasize McCain’s long experience, that only make this issue worse. When looking for a web-savvy candidate I don’t look for a candidate who still thinks about media en masse, I want a candidate who gets it (like Obama, who carries a Blackberry). Frankly, I don’t care if he is aware of the net, if he can’t even use it himself:

“You don’t necessarily have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country. John McCain is aware of the Internet. This is a man who has a very long history of understanding on a range of issues.” ~Mark Soohoo, deputy director of Mr McCain’s e-campaign

I leave you with this parting thought: what if a major candidate admitted he was (literally) illiterate and depended upon his staff to read for him simply because he has never bothered to learn how?

There is a reason Twitter asks “What are you doing?” instead of “What are you thinking?” and I learned it today. Twitter is good for many things and I find it to be an invaluable part of my day, but its greatest flaw is also its greatest strength: Twitter is simple. By being so incredibly simple, great innovations and conversations can be built on top of it. Unfortunately, its simplicity can also mask the nuances of language and humanity. I discovered this the hard way: through trial and error.

Yesterday, I made the regrettable mistake of reading far too much into an innocent tweet:

@arthus Play with Group and Search. Then read about how the program works technically.

Upon the excellent suggestion of ijohnpederson, I had downloaded TweetDeck, an excellent app built on top of the AIR platform, and informed my followers of the fact. Upon reading the above tweet, I saw it as a lesson plan in 140 characters.

Summer is a time when I like to avoid being taught. (Though I do love learning during the summer.) Almost every twit I follow is an excellent teacher, with ijohnpederson being no exception. In my opinion, a hallmark of a great teacher is seizing upon teachable moments, until it becomes a subconscious process. Unfortunately, this is in direct conflict with the desires of a student during the summer. This was one lesson which came at the wrong time, with the wrong content. Considering the informal attitude of Twitter, I think both students and teachers need to adapt by seeing each-other as fellow learners. In this enviroment, passive learning should be encouraged, but I believe actionable teaching should be avoided—both teachers and students and teachers benefit from having time away from the classroom, whether it is virtual or physical.

Regardless of percieved and undesired lessons, I over-reacted. I could say I was being a whiny teenager, a influenced by hormones, or a little boy in a grown-up’s word, but the fact is that I simply misjudged the situation and reacted in an unacceptable way. By continually digging myself deeper into a pit of miscommunication, I irrationally exacerbated the problem. What should have been a quick conversation spiraled into an embarrassing and, frankly, pathetic display of my own immaturity. For that, I apologize to all involved.

Of course, this situation is not new: for ages, teenagers and adults have miscommunicated and been in conflict. The difference is that the entire conversation, every mistake and every response, is indexed and searchable for all of eternity. As Ryan Bretag rightly points out, this entire incedent (and the oh-so-mature responses of my elders) has become a part of my digital footprint:

Is this fair that this will forever be part of his virtual footprint? I understand he chose to be part of this so my point is a bit different than I’m describing here. My point is what about all the things teachers have students doing online where it isn’t a choice but the teacher’s mandate that some, most, a little, whatever of their learning, risk-taking, mistakes, failures, and success are public by way of the Web 2.0 tools we hold so close.

Honestly, I’m not here to attack participatory media. I’m simply expressing something that I’ve been pondering of late and it is something that I would say needs to be discussed. Are we doing our students a disservice by wanting so much of their learning to be shared through the tools provided by today’s Internet? Should this be a choice made by each student? Do they truly understand the gravity of such a decision? Will anything in their future be impacted, positively or negatively, because of this public display of their learning?

In response, I believe that it is valuable to have this conversation as a part of my digital footprint. Learning done in a vacuum is not nearly as valuable as participatory learning. Just as I would pay more for a meal that I can see being cooked in front of me, I believe people will grow to value knowledge and wisdom which has a backstory. Who people are now and how they got to this place is becoming intermingled: the past is no longer shrouded in mystery. I believe this is a good thing, because it has always been so: a person is made of the sum of his past, his present, and his plans for the future. The crucial difference now is that someone from the outside looking in can now see the past as well as the present, while before they could only see parts of the present. Plus, I think it’ll be fun to laugh at my own immaturity in 40 years as I bounce around the galaxy.

Actually, it is somewhat heartening that such a simple exchange between a student and an adult has generated so much controversy and discussion: now, more than ever, students are being listened to and, yes, rebuked when they deserve rebuking. I certainly don’t think this should reflect upon the other members of Students 2.0, as I am certainly the craziest (read: immature) one of them.

I apologize to all invovled for my immature communication and behavior.

1. Photo by Gaetan Lee on Flickr
2. Photo by Joachim S. Müller on Flickr

1. The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
2. The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
3. Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain
6. The Illiad by Homer
7. 271 RSS feeds by you

1. I have never been to an amusement park in my life. My family is not the type which goes to touristy places, and I never had the desire to go. I’ve gone to 1 or 2 county fairs, but certainly no Disneyland, Legoland or Six Flags. I think I dodged a bullet on that one, simply because I almost never enjoy something which is supposed to be fun. (Hence why I am writing this blog instead of being outside.)
2. I am a Mac (user). I love my MacBook Pro, and would never switch back to Doors.
3. I enjoy watching crappy romantic comedies. Actually, I enjoy watching any form of comedy—no matter the quality.
4. I have Pantophobia. That is, I am afraid of everything. You name it, and 9 times out of 10 I am afraid of it. I’m not cripplingly afraid of everything, I just mildly cringe whenever I encounter most things I fear slightly.
5. I am an Independent. Usually, I support Democrats, but when a strong Republican candidate comes along I will support him. I supported both Ron Paul and Barack Obama.
6. I hardly ever read books. I used to read a lot, but I almost never have time anymore. This is something I want to fix, but in the meantime I read classics via DailyLit.
7. I am an active contributor to the Habari Project. This is the first time I have extensively worked on an open source project, and I am really excited about the directions we are headed in.

Hopefully, this didn’t bore you too much. It was tough to think of new, interesting facts that I hadn’t already mentioned. Following the spirit of the meme, here are 7 people I would like to tag (if I can catch them):

• Josh
• Clay
• Ethan Bodnar
• Lindsea
• Travis
• Stacy
• Skippy

Once again, thanks to Gnorb for tagging me. I look forward to reading the responses of the people who I tagged, all of whom are much more interesting than me.

For inquisitive minds, the PHP script I used for the title of this post would print 7 random numbers.

Absolutely not. Nobody is bringing up the fact that this would eliminate every vestige of free time a student has. First, let’s tackle the fact that this would essentially eliminate summer vacation. Since schools are required to have at least 175 days a year, this would mean summer vacation would be dipped into by many weeks. Depending upon implementation, a best-case scenario would be 2 to 3 weeks for summer vacation. This is certainly not enough time for students to do enough of the best kind of learning which comes with summer: volunteering, getting a job, or taking summer courses. Fortunately, the legislator could always wave a magic wand and eliminate the 175 day requirement. Unfortunately, I expect the eventual “solution” would involve less summer vacation.

Assuming the summer issue could be settled, it is worth considering that there simply is not enough time in a day for 10 hours of school. The typical high school student has approximately 3 hours of homework per night (this is being conservative). In my school, bus transportation takes 45 minutes in the afternoon and 1 hour, 45 minutes in the morning. Let’s also assume 1 hour for showering, eating breakfast, eating dinner, and doing chores (combined). Finally, the American Sleep Disorders Association recommends 9.5 hours of sleep per night for a teen. Adding this up, we get an impossible sum: 10+3+2.5+1+9.5=26. In order to do all homework and get a healthy amount of sleep, even without any free time, there would need to be 26 hours in a day for the 10-hour school day to work. Contrary to what Senator Illuzzi may think, there are only 24 hours in a day. So, even if a student never gamed, played sports, had fun or did anything normal, they would only be able to get 7.5 hours of sleep. (See Figure 2)

Obviously, that doesn’t seem too unreasonable. 7.5 hours of sleep is less than recommended, but is still reasonable—until you remember the average student does far more than sleeping, homework, and learning. In a more typical situation, a student might spend 1 hour doing any number of clubs or after-school commitments in a day (volunteering, etc.): the sort of stuff young people are encouraged to do. In addition, they are on the varsity soccer team and have 1 hour of practice every day. In order to do everything, they would only have 5.5 hours of sleep per night. (10+3+2.5+1+1+1+5.5=24) That is going into the realm of stressful and unhealthy. This student still has no free time and isn’t able to do much outside of school (certainly no part-time job), yet only gets 5.5 hours of sleep per night. (See figure 4)

As you can plainly see, this proposed plan would wreak havoc upon already stressed teens. It would eliminate summer vacations and would force the average teen to only get 5.5 hours of sleep per night (or less). In the scramble to cut costs, there should be other places to look besides taxpayers’ right-less students’ time. I have another idea for you, Senator Illuzzi: try carpooling. Or, if you really hate schools this much, eliminate required schooling.

The Associated Press has decided to join the MPAA and RIAA by jumping on the bandwagon of blatantly ignoring existing copyright law. Over the weekend, the AP sent 7 DMCA takedown notices to the Drudge Retort (a parody of the Drudge Report) for short snippets posted on the site. (Update: This isn’t the first time the AP has misinterpreted fair use) For those of you who are unaware, the AP has a long history of trying to squash all competition. By essentially having a monopoly on the news, the AP is able to keep new outlets from springing up where a member paper already is. Then, along came the Internet, where it is impossible to have a monopoly on the news. Of course, the AP has had some trouble with this new market. Their response? Sue everyone in site.

Obviously, these postings are clear instances of fair use. Only 1 of the stories used the original headline and all six were under 79 words. Clearly, these could not replace the original article. In fact, these stories would help the AP by sending traffic their way. For those of you on the edge, here is a quote of a story in question:

Clinton Expects Race to End Next Week

Hillary Rodham Clinton says she expects her marathon Democratic race against Barack Obama [sic] to be resolved next week, as superdelegates decide who is the stronger candidate in the fall. “I think that after the final primaries, people are going to start making up their minds,” she said. “I think that is the natural progression that one would expect.”

This story only uses 18 words from the original story, along with a 32 word quote of Hillary Clinton. It also includes a link back to the original article. Despite falling clearly under fair use, the stories had to be taken down due to the ridiculousness of the DMCA. Once again, the flaws of the DMCA are abundantly clear: it favors huge companies and organizations who are then able to trample over all forms of public debate and opinion. Yet, the associated press claims it is not fair use:

The use is not fair use simply because the work copied happened to be a news article and that the use is of the headline and the first few sentences only. This is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of “fair use.” AP considers taking the headline and lead of a story without a proper license to be an infringement of its copyrights, and additionally constitutes “hot news” misappropriation.

Ummm, what? It is not fair use because it happened to be a news article. Since when did news articles not have to follow standard copyright law? According to the AP, using the headline and the first few sentences only is not what fair use intends. In fact, that is the essence of fair use: quoting a small piece of a copyrighted material to provide commentary or clarification. What would they rather have us do, quote the entire article? No, I think they want bloggers to buy licenses:

The Associated Press encourages the engagement of bloggers — large and small — in the news conversation of the day. Some of the largest blogs are licensed to display AP stories in full on a regular basis. We genuinely value and encourage referring links to our coverage, and even offer RSS feeds from www.ap.org, as do many of our licensed customers.

According to the New York Times, the AP has apparently backed down from the original heavy-handed stance. Looking between the lines, it actually looks like the AP might be gearing up to launch a further onslaught against bloggers. By developing a set of guidelines (stricter than the law allows), the AP will be prepared to send out wide-spread DMCA notices. Unfortunately, most bloggers will have to comply and will not be able to challenge in court, even though they would win there. Interestingly, the AP has still not withdrawn the takedown notice for the 7 original stories. In a rather observant remark, the vice president of the AP draws the clear connection with the RIAA:

“We are not trying to sue bloggers,” Mr. Kennedy said. “That would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do.”

And no other organizations have ever tried that? Looks like the AP has decided to follow in the footsteps of the MPAA and RIAA. Fortunately, TechCrunch has a response: ignore all AP stories. Henceforth, we bury AP stories and don’t quote them. I am more than happy to sign onto this and will no longer link to or quote an AP story on this blog. Let’s see how long this copyright strategy lasts if their traffic drops like a stone.

You can find the original stories summarized on this page.

Simon Owens has extensive information upon the AP’s record and interviewed Rogers Cadenhead about the story.

exams = busy ≠ posting

I’ll be back on:

SATURDAY

My favorite thing of all is to do nothing at all. I do nothing all the time: I walk nowhere, I think about nothing, I work on nothing. No, I have not turned into a nihilist. I simply chose to live my life for the unexpected, not the expected.

In set theory and other branches of math, nothing is often very similar or equal to everything. That’s the sort of nothing I like to do. Doing nothing is the same as doing anything that strikes your fancy, or not. Doing nothing is getting a crazy idea, then forgetting it. Ne rien faire est en train de parler en français pour aucune raison. Doing nothing is writing letters to yourself in the future. Doing nothing is pulling a random book off the shelf and reading 3½ paragraphs on page 27. Most of all, doing nothing is listening to all things you can’t hear:

“I like that too,” said Christopher Robin, “but what I like doing best is Nothing.”
“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.
“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it ‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and you say ‘Oh, nothing,’ and then you go and do it.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh.
“This is a nothing sort of thing that we’re doing now.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh again.
“It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
“Oh!” said Pooh.

White is all colors and no color. Nothing is complicated and simple. “I’m doing nothing” is what you say when you really don’t want to say what you’re doing. Or, it’s what you say when you don’t know what you’re doing. Nothing is the easiest thing to do and the hardest thing to teach.

The web is great for doing nothing. Rainy days and dirt roads likewise. The greatest things happen when we’re doing nothing. I started my blog when I was doing nothing.

In our fast-paced society, we do a bit too much of everything. As the long days of summer approach, now is the best time to do nothing. Forget about exams (speaking of which, my favorite way to study is to do nothing) and college and graduation and do nothing. Maybe lazy people are just really, really smart.

We should all do a little more of nothing.

1. Photo #1, or lack thereof, by author
2. Photo #2, or lack thereof, by author