I believe you can middle click the application icon to open another instance.

Canonical already does usability testing and according to Shuttleworth they have the most usability/design testing of any free software project.

Check http://design.canonical.com/category/usability/ for details.

You need to be more savvy than that.

You can start with "Am I being charged with something officer?"

But when he says, "I'll charge you for jaywalking." Or some other obviously false but your-word-versus-his charge, then you have the next level of problem to deal with.

I don't have any good advice for that one, but I do know at that point I'd feel extremely unsafe.

Does being pro-freedom make you a good guy? Does believing that everyone should have free access make you a good guy? Does helping your others make you a good guy?

Free software ideology isn't about the end product, it isn't chocolate versus vanilla, it is about process and access: how do we choose what gets made, how do we make it, who gets to make it and who gets access to what has been made?

No funding or business model changes this basic resistance to change. Corporate marketing seeks to control what is acceptable for it's own gain, but I'd guess that much of previous work that was banned or "offensive" ran into similar problems (under different guises of power): people who wield influence and power using it against others. Distributed patronage would be a huge win for the freedom for people choose what things get made.

Neither do any other investors, but still they invest in the very products you use every day. Strange but true.

Your arguments only make sense if you accept the mythology of the corporate culture. If free software culture has shown us anything, it has demonstrated that we can build digital goods that are competitive to every other known form of production, with the benefit of real freedom for everyone, not just those currently free/wealthy enough to make it and/or own what has been made.

We've essentially solved the distribution problem (for digital goods). Now we can apply similar solutions to figuring out who decides what gets made and who gets to make it.

Hrm. Suppose that the amount of useful information presented on Fox News was less than other news shows or presented in a way that fewer people could understand. Signal to noise and all that. It doesn't technically "make" you less informed, but you receive less information per time spent. That makes me curious about the amount of commercial breaks in news shows.

Which is why we need not worry about Linus because he certainly doesn't fit the psychopathic CEO mold. One of the beautiful properties about free software is that it allows people to do the work they really enjoy while attaining more power through the trust and reputation they generate for doing good work, without moving "up" into positions with assumed trust and reputation (CEO, etc) that are the goals of the untrustworthy psychopaths.

Oh, and Greenwald's article on Manning, Lamo and Poulson is detailed and fantastic:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/18/wikileaks/index.html

For the lazy, the comment in question:

Posted by: mpineiro | 07/1/10 | 9:21 am |

ADDITIONAL INFO REQUIRED TO FULLY UNDERSTAND THIS ARTICLE:
Below are some additional bits of information that may change your understanding of why this heavily-editorialized piece is appearing in Wired at this time.

1. The editor of the Threat Level blog at Wired, Kevin Poulsen, has recently been questioned by journalists and privacy activists for his strange role in the recent Wikileaks / Bradley Manning story. A number of questions have been asked of Poulsen in order to clear up any suspicions of impropriety or violation of journalistic ethics by Poulsen but he hasn’t been able to answer those questions, resulting in stronger suspicions and newly-revealed information that strengthens the suspicions further still. This entire matter could be cleared up and resolved except for Poulsen’s on-going non-cooperation.

2. Kevin Poulsen apparently did not like even being *asked* about conflicts of interest (something that all journalists are questioned on all the time as part of the job). To make matters worse, Poulsen is resorting to retaliation, as if this was a BBS war between pre-teens and not an important discussion about law enforcement abuses in the US, abuses committed by occupation soldier abuses in Iraq, a co-ordinated campaign to discredit Wikileaks and the unethical, allegedly illegal manner in which PFC Bradley Manning was interrogated by someone who Poulsen has known and worked with for years and years.

If you look at Poulsen’s Twitter feed (@kpoulsen), it is sparsely updated. It appears that Poulsen only posts on Twitter when he is announcing a new Threat Level blog post or he is openly attacking Wikileaks. It seems safe to say that the “editorial line” over in Poulsen’s corner of Wired is sharply opposed to Wikileaks.

Any journalist should be prepared to respond, without getting emotional or defensive, if legitimate questions about conflict-of-interest or ethics are asked of them. That’s part of the job.

3. In the If-It-Wasn’t-So-Serious-It’d-Be-Funny Department, both Poulsen and known police informant Adrian Lamo are WELL AWARE of the SERIOUS implications of Poulsen being involved with law enforcement in any way. As a result, they both say the exact same thing when anyone asks about the nature of the relationship: “It’s a reporter-source relationship,” they’ll both recite. Lamo, who has much less to lose than Poulsen and possibly has reason to feel resentful that he has to take all the heat for something that benefited both of them, recites that line with a hint of sarcasm. But, maybe I’m reading something in the tone that isn’t actually there. Could be.

4. Poulsen was asked (you might even say “challenged”) by Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald to release the unedited, un-redacted portions of the chat transcripts between Poulsen’s long-time source/friend (Lamo) and PFC Bradley Manning also, releasing the logs would help clear up any perceived impropriety by Poulsen or Wired.

Poulsen refused to do so then and continues to refuse the many requests by Greenwald and others to release the logs. Even worse, the reason Poulsen gave about why he wouldn’t release them was shown to be untrue, as documented by Greenwald. Poulsen has never said ANYTHING MORE AT ALL about THAT maybe under the advice of his attorney?

The logs that Poulsen won’t release would have enormous value in the public domain — they would help individuals & government/law enforcement watchdog groups deal with the increasing erosion of our civil liberties. They also show an unfortunately side effect of California’s progressive Shield Law for journalists: it creates a false sense of safety for whistle-blowers like PFC Manning, who was told by Lamo that he was a journalist and offered Manning legally-protected, confidential communication while, at the same time, Lamo was really working directly with the feds and telling them everything Manning said.

This puts Lamo in danger of violating California’s Shield Law, a progressive piece of legislation designed to increase the effectiveness of investigative journalism and protect whistleblowers at huge multinationals, the military, law enforcement agencies, etc. Lamo could be in danger of being charged with violating this law. If Poulsen had any involvement, he’s REALLY in danger because he’s a known professional journalist (whereas Lamo is a know, professional slacker).

It is hard to understand why Poulsen would be mis-leading (in other words, lie) about the logs, refuse to release them to the public, and then use his position at Wired to retaliate against those who bring up these oddities.

5. Wired had originally published the chat transcripts where Lamo tells Manning that he is a journalist and that, under California’s Shield Law, anything Manning told him would be protected and confidential. Manning responds by saying he doesn’t even care about confidentiality but that doesn’t change a thing under the Shield Law. The law stipulates that source confidentiality MUST be protected whether it is offered by the journalist or not and whether or not the source has an expectation of confidentiality. Still, Glenn Greenwald points out that whatever Manning said in response to Lamo telling him that he’ll keep his secrets confidential, Manning probably felt safe and protected by law in revealing info to Lamo.

Apparently, Poulsen was surprised to see that Wired readers are so astute when it comes to issues of privacy and freedom of the press. They began asking the tough questions I’m referring to here. The response by whomever at Wired’s Threat Level blog? Highlight, delete, save! That’s right — the part of the transcript where Lamo says that they’ll conversation will be confidential was removed/deleted from the chat transcripts on Wired’s website. All questions about this better-late-than-never redaction by Wired have gone unanswered.

6. Poulsen’s story about the whens and the hows of his involvement in source/friend Lamo’s highly unethical co-operation with federal law enforcement and US Army CID has changed several times and still contains unresolved, internal contradictions. The changes aren’t minor details — they are central to understanding how involved Poulsen was when Lamo and the feds were working together to get Manning to say what was needed for his arrest. Again, Salon’s Greenwald has this documented.

7. As an added bonus, the author of this story, Ryan Singel, before knowing or understanding all the facts (which we know because he didn’t bother to ask for them), came rushing to the defense of his direct supervisor on the boingboing message boards. Someone had merely *raised* these issues and even wrote over and over again that no conclusions could be formed but that Wired and Poulsen should be forthcoming and disclose what they know. First, Poulsen responded angrily to the post and then Ryan Singel came onto the forum and ranted against all the commenters who agreed that Wired should provide full disclosure of any possible conflicts of interest.

It takes true courage to blindly support the person who will be giving your next performance review!

NOTE: This comment is not meant to make any conclusions at the moment this intent is to provide some context to this hit piece against Wikileaks. Those of us concerned about this situation want to make sure people understand the ambiguities that exist, especially if anyone out there is going to be getting a visit by law enforcement OR journalists . it’s helpful to know how they work.

Excellent points both parent and grandparent. I'm actually quite disappointed that people as well known as Pinker and Carr don't seem to be thinking very deeply about the terms "deep" and "shallow" thinking and information processing techniques.

Perhaps I'm completely abnormal, but when I think (deeply?) about a subject it tends to be in dialogue with either myself in my notebook or with others knowledgeable about the subject. The exploration and testing of ideas for me has little to do with the material on which I read, the length of the format, or even how distracted I am or how many interruptions I have. If I'm interested in subject I'll come back to it, even if it is years later.

They also both seem to have weird views of the plasticity of the brain. Likely a pattern of multitasking, interruptions, etc will cause certain behaviour and habits, but those effects are likely as temporary/permanent as every other environmental stimuli that we are constantly perceiving each moment. They seem to be caught up on the wrong thing. Carr seems to be arguing whether one particular (cast as "normal" by the media articles, but what I consider extreme) lifestyle is harmful.

Obviously are are some negatives to certain actions/lifestyles for at least for some period of time, but I have much more faith (perhaps misguided) that average people will be able to tell that their choices are having a negative impact on their lives and will change their behaviour to be more successful. I.E. if they feel too interrupted and distracted they will take steps to reduce that feeling. An entire culture that feels unsuccessful and unhealthy and yet does nothing about it is fairly rare and these days generally requires millions if not billions of dollars in marketing and the support of many vested interests.

I never understood this argument. Why would someone who has worked so hard to get into a position of power throw it all away? The only case I see is if they are on their deathbed and want to be known in history as the person who attacked the US with nukes, but you can be damn sure their potential successors will actively block any attempts to ruin the wealth and power they stand to inherit. These "crazy" leaders are supported by enough people that they get into these positions of power, and I'd guess that much of this support is negotiated for by promises of wealth and power. No one is going to support someone who might turn their estates and fortune into a smoking ruin. "Crazy" leaders use your sort of paranoia to sow fear in foreign countries or otherwise improve their bargaining position. For example, the best actor amongst the recent US presidents, "crazy" Ronny Reagan.

Assuming a good education that teaches people about their nature to form packs and be suspicious and the benefits of being aware of that nature and using democracy and other positive forms of social disagreement I think you could reasonably expect large scale violence to basically disappear. I'm no expert historian but I'd wager that in every case of mass violence there were a small number of people manipulating a large number of mostly uneducated and/or ignorant people. It is easy to underestimate the level of ignorance in this world (and especially in our past) brought about by lack of access to education and the effects of malnutrition/hunger making people more aggressive and anti-social. In "developed" democratic countries it is basically impossible for a country to wage an aggressive war without many years of very expensive and pervasive propaganda designed to make people ignorant.

This assumes that reverse engineering the drug is of sufficient complexity that it would lock out most/all competitors. I know nothing of the pharmaceutical industry so I can't comment. Your worse assumption is that without patents the industry would somehow still (badly) function the way it does today. Rather, without patents things would be very different. One possible future might be more like script writers and the movie industry. Researchers would be sending how to make particular drugs to the manufacturers of them, trying to convince the manufacturers that retooling for their particular drug is a good investment. Perhaps drugs become highly personalized such that many researchers spend most of their time personalizing drugs for particular individuals who then contract out to a local drug manufacturer for the prescription. In any case, the industry certainly won't look like a non-functional version of the patent-system based one we have today.

There are already a number services that provide a "RSS feed for each artist that I already like" in a sense.

• LastFM
• Songkick
• tourfilter

I see the development of these services and other recommendation services as far more important and useful than marketing, so the recording industry really has few places to go. What I'd like to see them evolve into is a focus on artist support and development services, where the artists are their customers and they help them prosper artistically and financially. Theoretically this is already part of the service the recording industry provides, and perhaps this side of it will improve when the corrupting influences of distribution control and marketing fade. Many artists need someone to help them deal with finances, the stress of the job, set up collaborations and inspiring life experiences, etc. It is very valuable for everyone (fans, artists, etc) to let artists focus on what they do best. The real trick is to protect artists so that when they let someone manage the finances the accountants don't take all the money for themselves (i.e. the current situation).

I think it is an interesting approach, sort of a fun play on words. An artist whose medium is the scam? It isn't like the patrons of his work are unknowingly duped, they know the work is "built with scam", purposely investigating just how scammy the work feels to different people. At the same time he is investigating alternate forms of funding for artists, which is an incredibly contemporary and important issue in a digital world. Until you literally buy into one of the works and participate, you only have an outsiders feeling/experience whether the new funding model just seems like a scam because it is so foreign.

I have no plans on being one of his patrons. :)