The Filter^

IMPROBABLE RESEARCH - Klutz Testing

Q:how do you ensure an object's foolproofness?
A:Test it on fools, suggests Marc Abrahams:

Ultra testing is almost entirely an art, virtually not at all a science. There are no government specs for how to do ultra testing. There are no schools that grant degrees or certificates of, er, merit in this field.

One firm, UltraBang, has virtually cornered the market on mechanical ineptitude. UltraBang's testers have the hard-to-define, impossible-to-measure talent of being accidents waiting to happen. Filing cabinets topple onto them. Ceilings fall on their heads. Steering wheels fall off. Seats shatter. Watches run backwards. Cookies crumble. Steel-reinforced concrete is putty in their hands.

These uniquely blessed individuals are now being beckoned, courted and enriched by designers on every continent. Their special skills, their god-sent gifts of destruction, are much celebrated.

A job for Ian Jamieson perhaps?

67% CHANCE THAT GOD EXISTS

Dr Steve Unwin, a graduate of The University of Mancester and risk assessor in Ohio has calculated the probability of the existence of God according to Bayes Theory, a theory used to determine the likelyhood of events such as nuclear power failure and earthquakes. The theory begins by assuming that an event has a 50/50 chance of occuring, then builds in as many factors as possible, both positive and negative, before calculating the statistical probability of the outcome.

According to Dr. Unwin's book 'The Probability of God: A simple calculation that proves the ultimate truth' the question of God's existence is merely a matter of statistics, and the result of the application of Bayes Theory to the question produces a result of 67% in favour of the existence of a supreme being.

More on Dr. Steve Unwin

PLAN B

After the sad demise of carelesstalkcostslives, a new publication is set to rise, phoenix-like, from the pulp. Again this is the work of the prolific Everett True, who was largely responsible for the growth and Popularisation of alternative rock music in the early 90's. He is generally regarded as the man who introduced Nirvana to the UK. Whether this was a good or bad thing, there is no doubting that he has increased the flow of passionate, intelligent musical expression to the same extent that MTV has staunched it, and this is a good thing. His last venture, with photographer Steve Gullick, was a publication rich in vibrant images and provocative prose. Which was a good thing. I read about a few bands and musicians in there that i have since bought and enjoyed the music of, what more should a magazine about music do? Anyway, the point is...

Plan B is the new music and culture magazine from the pen of Careless Talk Costs Lives. There's a one-off special planned for mid-June featuring Chicks On Speed, Lightning Bolt, Kaito, Von Bondies, Gravy Train!!!, Erase Errata, Baby Dayliner, cLOUDDEAD, Spektrum, plus an extended media section covering comics, film, books, games, online media... but in the meantime you can look for regular updates at our brand new website, http://www.planbmag.com.

Have a look, have a read, get into some new music, something twisted and odd. That's what i'm going to do.

Creative Commons...a reply.

Whilst largely in agreement, in our recent posts on the Creative Commons (Steve,Steve,Anthony ) it seems that Steve and I disagree as to which of our incumbant beliefs best houses Lawrence Lessig's intellectual genre.

I shall try to keep this post as brief and to the point as I can, by raising two fallacies I believe Steve is making.

1. Equating commons with communism.
My recent post on Disney World as a communist utopia was intended to underline that economists should not object to the principal of organisation that is based on governance, and not the market. Libertarians might, but that would be for philosophical or moral issues, and not economic ones. The efficiency exists because it is based on choice, and volunteerism.
I view the commons as a potentially efficient economic outcome, and hence favourable, since it rests on a foundation of choice. (Steve accepts this point, but I want him to realise the importance).
Communism is inherently linked to a lack of choice, and a restriction on freedom. Hence I think the Cheung passage is misleading and erroneous.

2. Defining property as a spectrum.
Lessig continually points out that this issue is NOT about more or less property. Its about the restructuring of the copyright law. In fact, a commons license extends property rights by permitting the copyright of derivitave works, and increases property by bringing lapsed artifacts back into the public realm. So a commons will increase some property rights, and decrease others, but I think it's naive to use the debate as to whether the pivate/ public concentration is increasing or reducing.

The Creative Commons promises to have a far more important effect that simply moving the line as to what counts as private. I do not attribute anything at all to "kindness", rather the changing market structure (led by falling transaction costs) which allows voluntary exchanges at a commons level to be economically efficient. Perhaps this is indeed unenlightening, but the issue is not whether people are becoming "kinder" or more altruistic, rather how the institutional structure of the internet is making commons solutions efficient.

I urge Steve to dispense with the communist imagery, to throw off the shackles of the property spectrum, and to embrace the groups who see the Creative Commons as an exciting market-led extension of property based capitalism and choice.

Emin, Children, No More

If all the talks about Free Culture and Commons have confused you, the real world confuses me. Today's Guardian tells a sad tale involving a North London primary school, Tracey Emin and creativity:

[In 2000, Tracey Emin] worked with children from two year 4 classes to create a blanket. The children were asked to bring into school old, colourful clothes to cut up to make the big and bold patchwork. Emin chose as her theme the title "Tell me something beautiful" and invited the children to tell her things they thought were beautiful...But in 2001, Chris Mooney, at Ecclesbourne, decided to investigate whether the blanket could be auctioned. She feared it might be lost or damaged as time passed and framing companies were asking £1,000 to £3,000 for placing it in an acrylic box for display. The teaching staff, governors and a cross-section of parents were consulted and there was broad agreement that the blanket should be sold. Sotheby's said it could raise up to £35,000 if Emin authenticated that the work was hers.

Contacts were made, and the school later received a letter from Emin's Gallery, White Cube, which states:

"The proposal was to create a quilt entitled 'Tell Me Something Beautiful' with the pupils of year 4, which resulted in not an artwork by Tracey Emin, but a collaborative work produced mostly through the input of the children. Neither Tracey or White Cube recognise the quilt as an artwork by Tracey Emin or can value it as such."

The report ends by saying that the blanket is now stored in a cupboard in the school and Emin no longer accepts invitations to work with schools and children. This, sadly, is a classic case of the tragedy of the commons.

a Twelfthly.........

As an interlude to our recent obsession with the Creative Commons, here's a Twelfhtly I recently had the pleasure to experience:

"my theory is that anyone, can do anything. As long as they have enough time, and money.
(as an afterthought)
Of course that doesn't apply to disabled people."

George Mason University

A Twelfthly is an amusing snippet of an overheard conversation.
For more, click here.

A Commons is not Private

In a comment to Anthony's "Property Rights", I linked an article by Cheung called "Common Property Rights". With all the intellectual excitements generated by Lessig and his Free Culture, and after being called a "Coasean Lessigian", I feel obliged to quote a passage from Cheung:

[T]he key distinction between a private property system and a communist state: the former delineates rights in terms of certain dimensions of the productive resources themselves; the latter delineates rights in terms of a characteristic (rank) of people deprived of productive human capital. In the communist state, the competition for and protection of rank will draw on the use of valuable and productive resources (another form of rent dissipation). Moreover, the lack of market prices increases the cost of information, and the lack of contractual choices increase the cost of enforcing performance. What is saved in return are the cost of delineating and enforcing rights in properties.

I am working backwards here - the existence of a Creative Commons can be explained by the observation of the broadly-defined transaction costs:

i. Enforcing rights in properties have become costly - people are copying and deriving works, like music and computer programs, frequently and easily. This is the main problem. Lessig, quoting a Japanese lawyer on the topic of doujinshi comic (an "illegal" format that derives characters and storylines from mainstream, commercial comics): "We don’t have enough lawyers,” he told me one afternoon. There “just aren’t enough resources to prosecute cases like this.”

ii. There are contractual choices outside the commons - people have the choice to leave the commons and join the market;

iii. Information costs introduced by the lack of prices in a commons are reduced by Information technology;

iv. The competition for and protection of rank is non-existence at the moment because a. the commons is still relatively small - the costs of negotiation remind low; b. the quality of work can be easily quantified, especially in computer programming, giving fairly clear indication of ranks.

The Creative Commons, simply interpreted as "kindness" through voluntary exchanges rested on privately established rights seems economically unenlightening. On the spectrum of property rights, the CC definitely leans more towards a commonly owned property rather than private.

Release the GIMP

The GNU Image Manipulation Program reached version 2.0 last week. Affectionately known as the GIMP, it was first developed by Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis in 1996 as part of their Computer Science project at Berkeley. From their "official" press release (in PDF):

This release is a major event, marking the end of a three year development cycle by a group of volunteers and enthusiasts who have made this the most professional release of the GIMP ever. It is the first stable release that is officially supported not only on Unix-based operating systems, but also on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh OS X.

Open source software like the GIMP creates competition for mainstream commercial software companies. For example, Adobe now has Photoshop Elements which contains most features casual users need for a friction of the price of Photoshop 7.0. The GIMP is the most successful Open source/Free software, apart from various flavours of Linux, and there is a lot we can learn from its development model. See here for a brief history of the GIMP, and here for a few GIMP-related money-making tie-ins.

Romzomcom

Shaun is quite content to meander along like a zombie - until an attack by real zombies on his cosy corner of north London jolts him into taking his responsibilities more seriously. He finds unexpectedly heroic qualities inside himself as he urges his friends to take up the cudgels and fight back against this invasion of the undead. Rallying the troops, Shaun gets all philosophical: "As Bertrand Russell said, 'The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.'"

"Was that on a beer mat?" Liz enquires. "Yeah... A Guinness Extra Cold," replies Shaun.

Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg gave us Spaced, the most brilliant late-20-something sitcom ever (it kicks the lazy arse of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. I mean, a sitcom set in Runcorn?) and now they are introducing to us a completely new genre, the Romzomcom or Romantic Zombie Comedy! Starring Pegg as the slacker hero, it also features the ever-delightful Lucy Davis (Dawn in the Office) and Jessica Stevenson (Daisy in Spaced).

An interview with Simon Pegg can be found here. Shuan of the Dead is on general release on 9 April.

Type Slowly

The EU has critised Microsoft for abusing their "monopoly" power and stifles competition in the server and streaming media markets and fined them an enormous sum of €497m, which is no more than a parking fine for a company with a US$20 billion turnover. There are many other intangible ways that the public is influenced by Microsoft.

Take typography, for example. Most people know Arial but have not heard or used Helvetica before. Why? Because one is bundled with Windows and the other is not:

An icon of the Swiss school of typography, Helvetica swept through the design world in the '60s and became synonymous with modern, progressive, cosmopolitan attitudes. With its friendly, cheerful appearance and clean lines, it was universally embraced for a time by both the corporate and design worlds as a nearly perfect typeface to be used for anything and everything. "When in doubt, use Helvetica" was a common rule.

[...]

The situation today is that Arial has displaced Helvetica as the standard font in practically everything done by nonprofessionals in print, on television, and on the Web, where it's become a standard font, mostly because of Microsoft bundling it with everything—even for Macs, which already come with Helvetica. This is not such a big deal since at the low resolution of a computer screen, it might as well be Helvetica. In any case, for fonts on the Web, Arial is one of the few choices available.

Can you distinguish the two? Take a test here.

On the other hand, a once costly activity like typesetting can now be done cheaply, through standardised and bundled fonts by Microsoft. Costly not in the sense of consumers having to buy fonts from different vendors, but that there are "too many" fonts with too many "meanings". By limiting choice, Microsoft has actually done a great job in establishing a set of norms in casual/non-professional typography.