Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: education

  • Bloggers, mind control and the death of newspapers (the Internet imagined in 1965)

    Bloggers, mind control and the death of newspapers (the Internet imagined in 1965)

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Calder invites us to have a giggle, but really it’s not a bad list at all, and compared with the (cough) ‘futurists’ who have come and gone since, Calder and the participants did a good job. Alvin Toffler was repackaging these ideas, particularly mass amateurisation, many years later. As are thousands of Web 2.0 consultants today.

    Read more at The Register

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  • ‘Thousands’ sign up for legal P2P

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Tens of thousands of students have signed up to pay for a legal P2P music program in US universities, set to start later this year in experimental form. It’s Choruss, the incubator hatched by Jim Griffin – a long-time advocate of licensing P2P sharing on networks.

    Choruss won’t ultimately be in the retail or service business, Griffin told us in Washington DC today – but it may provide an “umbrella” for managed service companies such as Playlouder MSP, the technology … Read More

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  • Charlie Nesson’s trip

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    L.S.and D.

    Has Charlie Nesson been at the magic mushrooms again? The hippy head of the Berkman Center, the influential New Age techno-utopian think tank that’s attached to Harvard Law School, wants to enlist Radiohead in his fight against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

    Nesson, a long-time opponent of creator’s digital rights, is contesting the statutory damages in infringement cases. A Boston graduate student called Joel Tenenbaum was ordered to reach a settlement with the record companies after being sued … Read More

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  • Jim Griffin’s Choruss

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    The plan to provide US students with compulsory flat-fee music finally has a name, it emerged this week. Choruss LLC will provide participating universities with a replacement for their current subscription services such as Rhapsody, and has the backing of the the EFF and the tacit support of the RIAA. That alone indicates the magnitude of the initiative. When have those two lobbying groups ever agreed on music policy?… Read More

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  • Junk science and booze tax – a study in spin

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Let's find out what everybody is doing, and stop them doing it - A P Herbert
    “Let’s find out what everybody is doing, and stop them doing it” – A P Herbert

    Putting the price of alcohol up to a minimum of 40p a unit would keep 41,000 people a year out of hospital, save the NHS £116m a year, and avoid 12,400 cases of unemployment, a report from Sheffield University claimed last week. These appear to be remarkably precise predictions. The government used the report – widely quoted in the press – to justify higher … Read More

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  • The hitman, the Pirate Bay and the Freetard professor

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    REG: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?!
    FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression!
    REG: It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality
    – Monty Python’s Life of Brian

    Everyone’s a prankster these days – it’s all in the name of art.

    On Monday a former Irish loyalist hitman was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the attempted murder of senior Sinn Fein leaders. Michael Stone had burst … Read More

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