School of Life Monday: The Art of Diplomacy

The art of diplomacy is vital if we are to get better at managing our relationships, our friendships and our working lives. None of us are born knowing how to be diplomatic, but the skill can be learnt - and should be to make life more gracious and efficient.
widely practiced.

Do trees really talk to each other?

from Boing Boing:

There's a good, long piece in this issue of Smithsonian about the scientific debate over whether trees talk to one another.

Trees certainly communicate. In forests, they're connected to each other through underground fungal networks (sometimes jokingly referred to as the "wood wide web"), and they'll send carbon back and forth as needed, as ecologist Suzanne Simard explained in her wildly viral TED Talk on tree-to-tree networks.

But while scientists agree that trees pick up on each other's signals, there's a question of intent. Are the trees intentionally trying to send messages to other trees? Or are they just broadcasting messages ambiently -- in the matter of course of, y'know, being trees -- that other trees just happen to pick up? Are some tree scientists overly anthropomorphizing trees, with talk of tree "mothers" that warn their child-trees of danger, or younger trees that actively try to keep alive elder, progenitor trees?

It's a damn cool area of science, either way. Here's a taste of the Smithsonian piece, which is really worth reading in full:

Once, he came across a gigantic beech stump in this forest, four or five feet across. The tree was felled 400 or 500 years ago, but scraping away the surface with his penknife, Wohlleben found something astonishing: the stump was still green with chlorophyll. There was only one explanation. The surrounding beeches were keeping it alive, by pumping sugar to it through the network. “When beeches do this, they remind me of elephants,” he says. “They are reluctant to abandon their dead, especially when it’s a big, old, revered matriarch.”
To communicate through the network, trees send chemical, hormonal and slow-pulsing electrical signals, which scientists are just beginning to decipher. Edward Farmer at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland has been studying the electrical pulses, and he has identified a voltage-based signaling system that appears strikingly similar to animal nervous systems (although he does not suggest that plants have neurons or brains). Alarm and distress appear to be the main topics of tree conversation, although Wohlleben wonders if that’s all they talk about. “What do trees say when there is no danger and they feel content? This I would love to know.” Monica Gagliano at the University of Western Australia has gathered evidence that some plants may also emit and detect sounds, and in particular, a crackling noise in the roots at a frequency of 220 hertz, inaudible to humans.

Trees also communicate through the air, using pheromones and other scent signals. Wohlleben’s favorite example occurs on the hot, dusty savannas of sub-Saharan Africa, where the wide-crowned umbrella thorn acacia is the emblematic tree. When a giraffe starts chewing acacia leaves, the tree notices the injury and emits a distress signal in the form of ethylene gas. Upon detecting this gas, neighboring acacias start pumping tannins into their leaves. In large enough quantities these compounds can sicken or even kill large herbivores.

Giraffes are aware of this, however, having evolved with acacias, and this is why they browse into the wind, so the warning gas doesn’t reach the trees ahead of them. If there’s no wind, a giraffe will typically walk 100 yards— farther than ethylene gas can travel in still air—before feeding on the next acacia. Giraffes, you might say, know that the trees are talking to one another.

above photograph © GEF

Why swearing can be a good fucking way to sound convincing

from Boing Boing:

Emma Byrne, a science writer and artificial intelligence researcher, has just published a new book called Swearing is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language and it sounds fucking great. "If you ask people what they think about swearing, they tend to insist that it diminishes the speaker’s credibility and persuasiveness—-especially if the speaker is a woman," Byrne writes. But actually, a presenter's swears can sometimes make them damn more convincing. From Smithsonian:

In the book, Byrne cites one study that examined the rhetorical effects of swearing on an audience that was already sympathetic to the speaker’s message. For the study, psychologists Cory Scherer of Penn State University and Brad Sagarin from Northern Illinois University showed videotaped speeches to 88 undergraduate students. Participants listened to one of three different versions of a speech about lowering tuition rates at a university—one with no swearing, one that had a “damn” thrown in the middle, and one that opened with a “damn.” The rest of the speech was unchanged.

“The students who saw the video with the swearing at the beginning or in the middle rated the speaker as more intense, but no less credible, than the ones who saw the speech with no swearing,” Byrne summarizes in her book. “What’s more, the students who saw the videos with the swearing were significantly more in favor of lowering tuition fees after seeing the video than the students who didn’t hear the swear word.”

Byrne delineates between what she calls propositional swearing, which is deliberate and planned, and non-propositional swearing, which can happen when we’re surprised, or among friends or confidants. Trump’s most recent swear, she suspects, is of the latter category. Among his supporters,President Trump’s profanity is often considered a sign of honesty – e.g. “he tells it like it is.” A leader’s coarse choice of words can be an instance of deliberate use of profanity as a rhetorical device, says Byrne. “As with rehearsed gestures and well-orchestrated photo opportunities, swearing can be used instrumentally to give an impression of passion or authenticity,” she says.

Swearing is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language (Amazon)

Jay Z (w/ MOLLY CRABAPPLE, JIM BATT, KIM BOEKBINDER and DREAM HAMPTON): 'The War on Drugs Is an Epic Fail'

Watch this: "I Forgot My Phone"

#RealTalk




- Happily I do not own a "smart" phone - nor do I have a text plan on my modest cell phone. I talk to people, that's how I communicate with people I actually know.

Raise Every Voice

from BoingBoing

The phone system doesn't allow us to hear people at a distance in the same way they quite literally sound to us when up close. Alexander Graham Bell's accidental dehumanization has been redeemed in part by a technologically related godchild. And it only took about 150 years. Bell helped teach the deaf to speak aloud, and had a passionate interest in the reproduction and transmission of spoken words. Yet he ushered in a long era in which POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) provided a scratchy, low-fidelity, cold rendition of how we sound. Mobile phones didn't do much better. Using early encoding techniques designed for slow mobile processors, cell phones were often far worse than POTS in carrying the nuance of our speech.

While today's public switched telephone network (PSTN) is digital at its core, the last bit (known as the final mile) between phone exchanges and homes or businesses is analog, just like it was in early phone networks. We speak into a modern phone that almost certainly no longer uses the compression properties of carbon granules to create directly the electrical signal that goes over the wire, but nonetheless uses a digital facsimile of same. (Business may use digital exchanges, but the outcome is fed into the same digital meatgrinder as analog voice connections.)

The analog system uses filters to capture a range of sound from about 300 hertz (Hz) to 3300 Hz. The lower number, measured in cycles per second, represents deeper sounds (a slower cycling) and the higher, high-pitched ones. Most of the primary sound and amplitude of human speech is at the lower end of that spectrum, whether the voice is male or female. (Wherever analog voice terminates in the PSTN at a digital gateway, it's converted into a standard form that's the equivalent of about 12 to 13 bits per sample at 8,000 samples per second. Modern cell phones capture approximately the same frequencies and digital sampling rates. Sprint may have trumpeted the "pin drop" in ads in the mid-1980s, noting the lack of noise in its fiber-connected network, but it didn't improve the frequency range.)

You have to look to the harmonics of a voice to understand why the cut off at the lower and upper ends make it both difficult to understand what people say over a phone, and why they don't sound really present to you. Harmonics are an artifact of vibrations; almost anything that oscillates has harmonics. Take a piece of string, stretch it, and thrum it, and you might even see the fundamental frequency, the main or base oscillation on which most of the energy is present. But the overall vibration carries with it multiples of that fundamental one. We hear a single sound composed of all the overlaid harmonics at once, although we can train our ear to pick among them. (Encyclopedia Britannica provides a nice explanation.)

With speech, the fundamental frequency can be centered below 300 Hz, while overtones can reach over 10 kHz. Harmonics from normal speech are quieter (and physiologically sound quieter to us) the higher they go. Trained singers can control some of their overtones, while harmony singers can produce marvelous new sounds at higher pitches from the intersection of harmonics. Polyphonic singers, like Tuvan throat singers, can module fundamental tones and harmonics simultaneously. (You can find a marvelously clear explanation with illustrations of frequency limits in voice communications from a 2006 white paper of a firm that was at the time promoting broader frequency support for VoIP in its products.)

The frequencies captured also define the dynamic range: not just which frequencies, but the difference in expressiveness by tone. In photography, dynamic range is the gradation of all the grays captured from lightest to darkest. The greater the dynamic range, and the more real (or even hyperreal, with high-dynamic range imaging) that pictures appear. Further, the gap between each step in capturing dynamic range (from one tone to the next adjacent one) defines how smooth the audio sounds. In a photo, it's the difference between images with gray banding and ones that appear to have a continuous tone. Beyond dynamic range lies the difference between louds and softs. Phone calls compress amplitude, missing the softest sounds and turning everything largely into a muddle in the middle.

This is why you when you listen to broadcast FM radio, even with any scratchiness that eats into the signal, you feel like you are physically co-located with the sound. FM radio doesn't have a sample frequency as such, because it's continuous and analog, but it has a frequency response of 30 Hz to 15 kHz, which covers most spoken, sung, and musical tones.

But here's the thing. If the PSTN is all digital in its core, why can't we just stick digital filters on both ends that let us capture a greater range of audible frequencies with greater accuracy and greater clarity? The PSTN allots 64 Kbps in its circuit-switched (dedicated capacity) approach to each voice call, but modern compression is much better. GSM cell networks use a standard that can stream at from about 5 Kbps to 12 Kbps.

An AAC file at nearly the same quality as an uncompressed audio CD recording can encode roughly 20 Hz to 22 kHz (to get the highs and lows of music) with 16-bit stereo samples to provide nice differentiation in that range at a rate of 44.1 kHz for clarity in about 128 Kbps. But that's for music. Spoken voice can be compressed even further, down to 48 to 96 Kbps, while maintaining excellent quality.

Given that a DSL line using the same two wires that carry analog voice can handle 24 Mbps and even more these days, what gives with voice? Possibly one day, we'll see the end of analog phones and analog lines when nearly everyone has Internet-based VoIP or a mobile phone, and the remaining holdouts (the stubborn, the elderly, and the poor, typically) are forced to attach adapters. (That's how the U.S. managed the digital television switchover.)

But for now, the PSTN is the PSTN and the Internet is the Internet, and the two kinds of switching networks don't meet except at gateways. VoIP-to-VoIP over the Internet provides a workaround. Even the earliest successful VoIP calls I can remember making between two computers sounded better to me than any traditional voice call. The problem was always latency (the time it takes for data to transit from one end to the other) and jitter (the consistent delivery in order of necessary packets). Latency is down, jitter reduced, and quality has improved dramatically since the late 1990s, as better compression techniques, more processing power, and the greater availability of bandwidth allows a richer representation of voice.

Skype wasn't the first system to allow end-to-end VoIP calls by a long shot, although it is surely the most popular at present. It has stepped through a few codecs (the algorithms that convert uncompressed digital representations of media into more compact ones and back again) since its 2003 introduction, and developed its own, SILK, in 2009. SILK captures 70 Hz to 12 kHz at sample rates that vary from 8 to 24 kHz and result in throughput of 6 to 40 Kbps. It varies depending on conditions, with the best results with the highest consistent available throughput.

I've done a fair amount of radio guesting in the last several years, and I remember that lovely feel the first time of putting on a set of headphones in the studio, talking into a nice mic, and hearing myself and the host sound as rich through my ears as when I listen to actual broadcasts and podcasts. When I started using Skype routinely around the same time, I had the same reaction: this has the warmth, fullness, and clarity of radio broadcasts. (In a bit of irony, I am often interviewed by radio shows from home via Skype. The program records both ends of the call on its side, and I use Audio Hijack Pro to record my end using a Blue Yeti mic. I send them my audio file, but they have theirs in case of a problem with my recording.)

Make a Skype call using earbuds or with a USB headset, close your eyes, and you find yourself transported next to the party you're calling. The sense of presence comes through. When I set up interviews for articles, I try to get the other party on Skype. A phone call, and too often a cell call, is scratchy and flat. You can't get to know someone in a short time with that flat of a call, as you sound dead and distant to the other party. Skype and other VoIP programs with good codecs bring you as close as you can come without being there.

My friends Lex Friedman (a Macworld magazine editor) and Marco Tabini (an open-source development advocate) recently released an iOS game called Let's Sing. When Lex told me about the game, I thought it a terrific idea, but couldn't articulate why, even after he let me help test it. The game is a bit like Draw Something but for singing, humming, or whistling a tune without using the lyrics to get a partner to guess the title.

After playing a number of rounds, I realized what Lex and Marco had hit upon, and why I'd soured on Draw Something (besides some game mechanic issues). Drawing can require time, deliberation, and skill, even for silly purposes, and I'm not great at drawing on an iPhone. Watching a drawing unfold in sped-up time can be tedious. There is a human connection there, watching someone's finger or stylus at work. But it never felt like a real bond.

What my friends hit upon is voice. They record at high-enough fidelity that every round for me is a beautiful connection with friends and family. I discovered Lex's wife, Lauren, has a lovely voice, and I already knew my pal Ren can belt a tune. That connection makes the game work: I like to hear the voices of people I know and love.

We've seen a rebirth via the Internet in the full expressive representation of the sounds we emit, and, I believe, made greater connections among each other as a result. Skype and other Internet telephony programs provide free computer-to-computer connections, and the free part absolutely certainly drove usage for a long time. (Skype is now a double-digit percentage of all international calls.)

But I'd argue that what drives me and others to Skype isn't just cost. I have effectively free long-distance calling for my purposes with my mobile phone, and services have long existed to let you dial around international long distance for cheap per-minute rates. Rather, I go to Skype to hear the way people sound, and have real conversations.

Bell gave up his work creating discrete multi-tone communications, leaving that for John Cioffi to make use of 100 years later (and win a Bell award), in order to crush the human voice. He didn't intend that, but it happened nonetheless. It's a bit of neat closure to see that Bell's initial interest, applied to data communications, has brought back the clarity of voice.

By Glenn Fleishman

PROTEST OF SOPA & PIPA - NO SCHEDULED BLOG POST TODAY IN SUPPORT OF THE ACTION

Call your elected officials.
Tell them you are their constituent, and you oppose SOPA and PIPA.

Why?
SOPA and PIPA cripple the free and open internet. They put the onus on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the blocking of entire sites, even if the links are not to infringing material. Small sites will not have the sufficient resources to mount a legal challenge. Without opposition, large media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for small competing foreign sites, even if big media are wrong. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines.

In a post SOPA/PIPA world, Wikipedia --and many other useful informational sites-- cannot survive in a world where politicians regulate the Internet based on the influence of big money in Washington. It represents a framework for future restrictions and suppression. Congress says it's trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the "cure" that SOPA and PIPA represent is much more destructive than the disease they are trying to fix.

If you'd like to learn even more about SOPA/PIPA, click here.

and click here for even more info!

Talk with a dolphin via underwater translation machine

from New Scientist:

A DIVER carrying a computer that tries to recognise dolphin sounds and generate responses in real time will soon attempt to communicate with wild dolphins off the coast of Florida. If the bid is successful, it will be a big step towards two-way communication between humans and dolphins.

Since the 1960s, captive dolphins have been communicating via pictures and sounds. In the 1990s, Louis Herman of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory in Honolulu, Hawaii, found that bottlenose dolphins can keep track of over 100 different words. They can also respond appropriately to commands in which the same words appear in a different order, understanding the difference between "bring the surfboard to the man" and "bring the man to the surfboard", for example.

But communication in most of these early experiments was one-way, says Denise Herzing, founder of the Wild Dolphin Project in Jupiter, Florida. "They create a system and expect the dolphins to learn it, and they do, but the dolphins are not empowered to use the system to request things from the humans," she says.

Since 1998, Herzing and colleagues have been attempting two-way communication with dolphins, first using rudimentary artificial sounds, then by getting them to associate the sounds with four large icons on an underwater "keyboard".

By pointing their bodies at the different symbols, the dolphins could make requests - to play with a piece of seaweed or ride the bow wave of the divers' boat, for example. The system managed to get the dolphins' attention, Herzing says, but wasn't "dolphin-friendly" enough to be successful.

Herzing is now collaborating with Thad Starner, an artificial intelligence researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, on a project named Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT). They want to work with dolphins to "co-create" a language that uses features of sounds that wild dolphins communicate with naturally.

Knowing what to listen for is a huge challenge. Dolphins can produce sound at frequencies up to 200 kilohertz - around 10 times as high as the highest pitch we can hear - and can also shift a signal's pitch or stretch it out over a long period of time.

The animals can also project sound in different directions without turning their heads, making it difficult to use visual cues alone to identify which dolphin in a pod "said" what and to guess what a sound might mean.

To record, interpret and respond to dolphin sounds, Starner and his students are building a prototype device featuring a smartphone-sized computer and two hydrophones capable of detecting the full range of dolphin sounds.

A diver will carry the computer in a waterproof case worn across the chest, and LEDs embedded around the diver's mask will light up to show where a sound picked up by the hydrophones originates from. The diver will also have a Twiddler - a handheld device that acts as a combination of mouse and keyboard - for selecting what kind of sound to make in response.

Herzing and Starner will start testing the system on wild Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) in the middle of this year. At first, divers will play back one of eight "words" coined by the team to mean "seaweed" or "bow wave ride", for example. The software will listen to see if the dolphins mimic them. Once the system can recognise these mimicked words, the idea is to use it to crack a much harder problem: listening to natural dolphin sounds and pulling out salient features that may be the "fundamental units" of dolphin communication.

The researchers don't know what these units might be. But the algorithms they are using are designed to sift through any unfamiliar data set and pick out interesting features (see "Pattern detector"). The software does this by assuming an average state for the data and labelling features that deviate from it. It then groups similar types of deviations - distinct sets of clicks or whistles, say - and continues to do so until it has extracted all potentially interesting patterns.

Once these units are identified, Herzing hopes to combine them to make dolphin-like signals that the animals find more interesting than human-coined "words". By associating behaviours and objects with these sounds, she may be the first to decode the rudiments of dolphins' natural language.

Justin Gregg of the Dolphin Communication Project, a non-profit organisation in Old Mystic, Connecticut, thinks that getting wild dolphins to adopt and use artificial "words" could work, but is sceptical that the team will find "fundamental units" of natural dolphin communication.

Even if they do, deciphering their meanings and using them in the correct context poses a daunting challenge. "Imagine if an alien species landed on Earth wearing elaborate spacesuits and walked through Manhattan speaking random lines from The Godfather to passers-by," he says.

"We don't even know if dolphins have words," Herzing admits. But she adds, "We could use their signals, if we knew them. We just don't."

Editorial: "The implications of interspecies communication"

Noam Chomsky Shares his thoughtson the meaning of Love

from Big Think via Dangerous Minds

Big Think is a website devoted to giving some big brains a platform to spout off on topics meaningful to them, and hopefully to other citizens of this planet we call Earth. With a cadre of boldface names like Ricky Gervais, Robert Wright, Stephen Fry and Ray Kurzweil, Big Think aims to put its readers in touch with… well, big thinkers on topics like sustainability, religion, alternate energy sources, artificial intelligence, history, justice, cultural identity, politics and much more. It is what tends to be called a “heady brew”!

Perusing the site this morning, I watched this sincere short video with M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky—probably America’s single most important intellectual—discussing the concept of what love is. He admits at the outset that he really doesn’t know, but he takes a good stab at it anyway. Big Think does a great job at fulfilling its mission statement with articles and videos quite akin to TED conference speeches. If you like TED talks (and who doesn’t?) then Big Think is probably a site you’ll want to bookmark, pronto.

Al Franken reads the Fourth Amendment to DoJ official at PATRIOT Act hearings

Al Franken's Senate career just keeps on getting better: this week he read the Fourth Amendment ("no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.") aloud to a high-ranking Department of Justice official who was making the case for renewing the PATRIOT Act's provision for roving wiretaps.

"That's pretty explicit language," noted Franken, asking Kris how the "roving wiretap" provision of the Patriot Act can meet that requirement if it doesn't require the government to name its target.
Kris looked flustered and mumbled that "this is surreal," apparently referring to having to respond to Franken's question. "I would defer to the other branch of government," he said, referring to the courts, prompting Franken to interject: "I know what that is."

Kris explained that the courts have held that the law's requirements that the person be described, though not named, is sufficient to meet the demands of the Constitution. That did not appear to completely satisfy Franken's concerns.

Al Franken Reads the 4th Amendment to Justice Department Official.

(via Greg Laden, via BoingBoing, thank you.)

Just in case you missed this one...

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

(Thanks, EM)

Seven Reasons: Why We Need Net Neutrality Now!

from freepress.net

By Tim Karr, August 3, 2009

On Friday, Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) marched across Independence Avenue and up the steps of the Capitol Building to introduce a bill that could stand as the First Amendment of the Internet age.

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 establishes the basic rules of the road for an open Internet. And its arrival couldn’t be more timely.

We are amid the greatest technological transition in our media since the invention of the printing press. An open Internet is driving this change. It’s a communications tool that, while still in its infancy, is already storming the gates of media’s old guard. But they’re not letting us in without a fight.

Traditional media fear a system that is more decentralized, participatory and personal. While their outlets still dominate, mainstream media are threatened by a generation of users who have embraced the Internet to control their information experience.

These users no longer passively consume the news; we actively participate in it. We no longer limit our civic involvement to watching television ads and reading editorial pages. We Google candidates to learn more, create our own political networks on Facebook, and use Twitter to stay on top of the issues we care about most.

As the Internet breaks down old political, economic and social barriers, it raises new concerns about free speech, control, privacy and equality.

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act will safeguard the basic rights of our emerging media democracy. It makes Net Neutrality the standard, locking in the network’s greatest strength: its ability to give everyone a chance to be heard – whether a little-known blogger, local environmental group or giant multinational corporation.

Without Net Neutrality, this democratic Internet could fall prey to the companies that deliver Internet services. For them our new found media freedom is a threat that needs to be controlled for commercial gain.

We must act now to pass this bill. Here are seven reasons why:

1. Economic Recovery and Prosperity

"The Internet has thrived and revolutionized business and the economy precisely because it started as an open technology," Eshoo said in a statement on Friday. The Internet is so closely tied to U.S. economic recovery that President Obama and Congress earmarked more than $7 billion to help build out more high-speed connections at a time when our economy needs it most.

Obama and Congress also recognized that the economy cannot benefit by building a closed Internet. The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act requires that all federally funded networks be services that meet "nondiscrimination and network interconnection obligations" – that abide by Net Neutrality.

"The Internet is an essential infrastructure," declares Markey and Eshoo’s bill. "The national economy would be severely harmed if the ability of Internet content, service, and application providers to reach consumers was frustrated by interference from broadband telecommunications network operators."

2. Free Speech

Freedom of the press extends only to those who own one -- or so the saying goes. It once rang true in a world ruled by newspaper chains, radio and television broadcasters, and cable networks. But the Internet has changed all that, delivering the press -- and in theory its freedoms -- to any person with a good idea and a connection to the Web.

This extraordinary twist to "mass media" has catapulted many an everyday YouTube auteur to celebrity-status, while turning ideas born in a garage or dorm room into Fortune 500 companies. It is the reason so many Americans are now passionate about protecting their free speech rights on the Internet.

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act would stop would-be gatekeepers from re-routing the free-flowing Web. “To meet other national priorities, and to our right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States,” the bill says, “the United States should adopt a clear policy preserving the open nature of Internet communications.”

3. Civic Participation

New media are more participatory and personal than ever before and have opened up new avenues for people to become involved with local, state and national politics. We saw it during the 2008 presidential election when tens of millions expressed their support for Obama and McCain via interactive Facebook, Twitter and e-mail forums. We are seeing it in 2009 from the streets of Tehran to the work of organizations like the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics, which use the Internet as the means to open governments to public scrutiny and accountability.

This wave of digital empowerment is the gathering force for a healthier democracy, and it all depends upon a more open, affordable and accessible Internet for everyone. Expanding Internet access alone doesn’t erase concerns over what kind of information people will find when they get online. Net Neutrality guarantees that we all have an equal opportunity to play a part.

4. The Marketplace of Ideas

The Internet was the great surprise of the 20th century. Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the standard that opened the World Wide Web to everyone with an idea and a connection. At that time, few could imagine that this open architecture would fuel such a powerful eruption of economic, social and political creativity.

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act "will protect consumers and content providers because it will restore the guarantee that one does not have to ask permission to innovate," Rep. Markey said when he introduced the bill.

This is true regardless of your age, social status or location. Net Neutrality safeguards everyone’s fundamental right to an open Internet, making it possible for one person’s good idea to blossom into the next big business or, even, a movement of millions.

5. Social Justice

Broadband in America today is not equally accessible: Users are predominantly middle- or upper-class and live in urban or suburban areas. Poorer communities and communities of color, as well as communities in rural areas, have been largely left off the grid.

Imagine what it would mean, then, to provide a connection to disadvantaged areas without also extending to them Net Neutrality’s guarantee of openness. Dominant ISPs have argued for this exception, saying Net Neutrality prevents them from connecting more people. But it’s a false choice and far too high a cost to give network owners the power to shunt ideas percolating up from these communities to a digital backwater.

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act guarantees equal and unbridled access to the Internet’s engine of opportunity, leveling the playing field so that we all have a chance to be heard.

6. The Rise of the Gatekeepers

A high-speed connection is useful only if you can connect to everyone else online. Net Neutrality leaves control over your Internet experience with you, the user. Yet network operators are considering charging extra money depending on where you want to go and what you want to do online. Some are deploying technology that would sift through and filter the content that you share with others online. Such discrimination endangers the open and level playing field that has made the Internet so democratic.

As more of us rely upon a high-speed connection to do all things media – watch and make video, follow the news, listen to music, Tweet, email and call our friends – legacy media are too tempted to get in our way, steering us back via old channels where they make all decisions for us. But there’s no going back to the analog oligarchy. The Internet Freedom Preservation Act keeps the gatekeepers at bay.

7. The Obama Opportunity

Forces are coming into alignment for Net Neutrality. We have a president who is an outspoken supporter, congressional leadership willing to fight for an open Internet, and a pro-Neutrality chairman newly ensconced at the Federal Communications Commission.

Since the fight for Net Neutrality began more than three years ago, 1.6 million Americans have picked up the phone, signed petitions, spoken out publicly and written letters to urge their members of Congress to get behind Net Neutrality.

The tides have shifted. Still, giant phone and cable companies aren’t going away. They think they can squash our movement -- and over the past six months alone, they have hired 500 lobbyists in Washington to try to stop this bill.

This is our best chance to beat them back once and for all.

Paul Krassner: "Who's to say what's obscene?" (video)

The latest episode of Richard Metzger's new online talk show (and blog)"Dangerous Minds" features...

...satirist, counter culture icon and all around iconoclast, Paul Krassner, author of the new collection, Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today. Topics include the definition of obscenity in today's America, the Obama presidency and what it means for political satire, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show's influence on younger people, the state of the "underground press" today and a lot more.

Dangerous Minds: Paul Krassner
(Thanks, Xeni, BoingBoing)

You get better results asking for stuff when you talk to the right ear

Researchers at University "Gabriele d'Annunzio" in Chieti, Italy have published the results of three cleverly designed studies that indicate that humans are more apt to act on information heard through their right ears than through their left.

Tommasi and Marzoli's three studies specifically observed ear preference during social interactions in noisy night club environments. In the first study, 286 clubbers were observed while they were talking, with loud music in the background. In total, 72 percent of interactions occurred on the right side of the listener. These results are consistent with the right ear preference found in both laboratory studies and questionnaires and they demonstrate that the side bias is spontaneously displayed outside the laboratory.

In the second study, the researchers approached 160 clubbers and mumbled an inaudible, meaningless utterance and waited for the subjects to turn their head and offer either their left of their right ear. They then asked them for a cigarette. Overall, 58 percent offered their right ear for listening and 42 percent their left. Only women showed a consistent right-ear preference. In this study, there was no link between the number of cigarettes obtained and the ear receiving the request.

In the third study, the researchers intentionally addressed 176 clubbers in either their right or their left ear when asking for a cigarette. They obtained significantly more cigarettes when they spoke to the clubbers' right ear compared with their left.

Need Something? Talk To My Right Ear

(Thanks, BoingBoing)